personality was a little bubbly to be a CEO in a tough business. But, hey, what do I know about the corrugated box biz?
She, I, and three of her potential clients met in the cocktail lounge of a midtown restaurant and, as we led them into the dining room, Missy whispered in my ear, ‘Please call me Melissa tonight.’
‘Of course,’ I winked back, ‘not many company presidents are called Missy!’ Soon after the maitre d’ seated us, I began noticing Melissa was a very different woman from the giggling girl I’d known in college. She was just as charming. She smiled as much as ever. Yet something was different. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
Although she was still effervescent, I had the distinct impression everything Melissa said was more insightful and sincere. She was responding with genuine warmth to her prospective clients, and I could tell they liked her, too. I was thrilled because my friend was scoring a knockout that night. By the end of the evening, Melissa had three big new clients.
Afterward, alone with her in the cab, I said, ‘Missy, you’ve really come a long way since you took over the company. Your whole personality has developed, well, a really cool, sharp corporate edge.’
‘Uh uh, only one thing has changed,’ she said.
‘What’s that?’
‘My smile,’ she said.
‘Your what?’ I asked incredulously.
‘My smile,’ she repeated as though I hadn’t heard her. ‘You see,’ she said, with a distant look coming into her eyes, ‘when Dad got sick and knew in a few years I’d have to take over the business, he sat me down and had a life-changing conversation with me. I’ll never forget his words. Dad said, “Missy, Honey, remember that old song, ‘I Loves Ya, Honey, But Yer Feet’s Too Big?’” Well, if you’re going to make it big in the box business, let me say, “I loves ya, Honey, but your smile’s too quick.”
‘He then brought out a yellowed newspaper article quoting a study he’d been saving to show me when the time was right. It concerned women in business. The study showed women who were slower to smile in corporate life were perceived as more credible.’
As Missy talked, I began to think about women like Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Madeleine Albright, and other powerful women of their ilk. True, they were not known for their quick smiles.
Missy continued, ‘The study went on to say a big, warm smile is an asset. But only when it comes a little slower, because then it has more credibility.’ From that moment on, Missy explained, she gave clients and business associates her big smile. However, she trained her lips to erupt more slowly. Thus her smile appeared more sincere and personalized for the recipient.
That was it! Missy’s slower smile gave her personality a richer, deeper, more sincere cachet. Though the delay was less than a second, the recipients of her beautiful big smile felt it was special, and just for them.
I decided to do more research on the smile. When you’re in the market for shoes, you begin to look at everyone’s feet. When you decide to change your hairstyle, you look at everyone’s haircut. Well, for several months, I became a steady smile watcher. I watched smiles on the street. I watched smiles on TV. I watched the smiles of politicians, the clergy, corporate giants, and world leaders. My findings? Amidst the sea of flashing teeth and parting lips, I discovered the people perceived to have the most credibility and integrity were just ever so slower to smile. Then, when they did, their smiles seemed to seep into every crevice of their faces and envelop them like a slow flood. Thus I call the following technique The Flooding Smile.
Technique 1:
The flooding smile
Don’t flash an immediate smile when you greet someone, as though anyone who walked into your line of sight would be the beneficiary. Instead, look at the other person’s face for a second. Pause. Soak in their persona. Then let a big, warm, responsive smile flood over your face and overflow into your eyes. It will engulf the recipient like a warm wave. The split-second delay convinces people your flooding smile is genuine and only for them.
Let us now travel but a few inches north to two of the most powerful communications tools you possess, your eyes.
How to detonate those grenades resting on your nose
It’s only a slight exaggeration to say Helen of Troy could sink ships with her eyes and Davy Crockett could stare down a bear. Your eyes are personal grenades that have the power to detonate people’s emotions. Just as martial arts masters register their fists as lethal weapons, you can register your eyes as psychological lethal weapons when you master the following eye-contact techniques.
Big Players in the game of life look beyond the conventional wisdom that teaches ‘Keep good eye contact.’ For one, they understand that to certain suspicious or insecure people, intense eye contact can be a virulent intrusion.
When I was growing up, my family had a Haitian housekeeper whose fantasies were filled with witches, warlocks and black magic. Zola refused to be left alone in a room with Louie, my Siamese cat. ‘Louie looks right through me – sees my soul,’ she’d whisper to me fearfully.
In some cultures, intense eye contact is sorcery. In others, staring at someone can be threatening or disrespectful. Realizing this, Big Players in the international scene prefer to pack a book on cultural body-language differences in their carry-on rather than a Berlitz phrase book. In our culture, however, Big Winners know exaggerated eye contact can be extremely advantageous, especially between the sexes. In business, even when romance is not in the picture, strong eye contact packs a powerful wallop between men and women.
A Boston centre conducted a study to learn the precise effect.5 The researchers asked opposite-sex individuals to have a two-minute casual conversation. They tricked half their subjects into maintaining intense eye contact by directing them to count the number of times their partner blinked. They gave the other half of the subjects no special eye-contact directions for the chat.
When they questioned the subjects afterward, the unsuspecting blinkers reported significantly higher feelings of respect and fondness for their colleagues who, unbeknown to them, had simply been counting their blinks.
I’ve experienced the closeness intense eye contact engenders with a stranger firsthand. Once, when giving a seminar to several hundred people, one woman’s face in the crowd caught my attention. The participant’s appearance was not particularly unique. Yet she became the focus of my attention throughout my talk. Why? Because not for one moment did she take her eyes off my face. Even when I finished making a point and was silent, her eyes stayed hungrily on my face. I sensed she couldn’t wait to savour the next insight to spout from my lips. I loved it! Her concentration and obvious fascination inspired me to remember stories and make important points I’d long forgotten.
Right after my talk, I resolved to seek out this new friend who was so enthralled by my speech. As people were leaving the hall, I quickly sidled up behind my big fan. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. My fan kept walking. ‘Excuse me,’ I repeated a tad louder. My admirer didn’t vary her pace as she continued out the door. I followed her into the corridor and tapped her shoulder gently. This
