Recording and playing you…

Yesterday, during practice with a CEO in training, we watched a nine minute video clip of three leaders sharing their thoughts on the habits of high performers. I asked him to watch the faces and tell me who he believed. I primed him to focus on the face and ignore the content.

After nine minutes of watching he wrote his observations. He believed one. He did not believe the first because of his “prejudice” against slicked back hair. Funny, huh. He did not believe the last because his face said he was thinking too much. “If he’s thinking so hard,” my client commented, “he must be making it up.” The middleman was believable because his eyes, mouth, and message were in sync. You see, even though my client had been primed to ignore the content, the brain can’t help but take it in if it’s authentic.

Remember, everyday your team is watching you. They are comparing you, your face, and your message to the reams and reams of tape they’ve stored of you in their head. They are scanning their globe and looking for inconsistencies. You see, their brain believes that consistency counts. You can be wrong and they will forgive you. You cannot come across as unclear. Your lack of clarity rings the bullshit alarm in their brain. They sense an inconsistency and slow down to decide if you can be trusted. They rewind tapes and ruminate.

Your team has a running tape of you playing in their head. Everyday you are being recorded. You are never NOT on.

Remember this and get really good at simply playing you. Your teams performance just might be hanging on some tape you don’t even remember. Your team, however, never forgets..