Harrison Monarth, author of Executive Presence, was my expert guest for episode 29. He shared strategies of how to influence people, identify and strengthen your personal brand, and use the media to augment your reputation. Below is a summary of what Harrison provided.

How Others Perceive You and How to Manage Their Perceptions

We all perceive information and reality in our own unique ways. We take in information with our five senses: smell, touch, sight, hearing, and taste. Then this information gets filtered, distorted, or deleted through five different filter systems; according to the way we see the world, the way we were raised, our belief systems, memories, past decisions, and so on. The end results are perceptions which could be different from person to person.

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Knowing how someone perceives you, perceive things, or view the world; can help you determine how to come across to create the most favorable perception with that individual. You need to manage the way you come across from the first contact. Likewise, you need to know how people view you or what they expect in order to manage their perceptions.

How to Influence Individuals

You can influence people if you know what is important to them, their belief systems, or values. You can acquire this information by conducting research online to see what professional associations they belong to, volunteer activities they participate in, intellectual capital they have published, and so on. From their publications you could determine their point of views and attitudes.

What often happens is that people try to impose their own beliefs, views, and/or values on others and are surprised when they clash. By knowing what is dear and important to individuals, you can align your thoughts with theirs to see where there is overlap. Likewise, you will have a greater chance to covey what is important to you and get it across to these individuals.

Social intelligence: is the way we interact with others and how successful we are in our relationships with people. It is also our ability to get along with others and manage their perceptions. Social intelligence consists of five dimensions.

• Presence or everything people perceived of us such as confidence, our voice, our outer appearance, the words we use, and the way we come across (cold, warm, arrogant, likeable). The more we are aware of our presence and how it impacts others, contributes to our social intelligence.
• Clarity is the way we express ourselves. If we express ourselves clearly in our messages and are clear in what we want; others can deal with and understand us more.
• Awareness is the ability to read people, think on our feet, and respond with behaviors that fit the situation.
• Authenticity is being ourselves, real, genuine, honest with people, and respectful. It also includes being perceived this way.
• Empathy means putting ourselves in someone else shoes and recognizing the feelings of others. This will help you bond intelligently with people, be perceived as socially intelligent, and be someone people like to interact with.

Reading people: There is no super bullet to reading individuals and predicting their behavior because we cannot read minds. We can read or predict individuals’ behaviors once we know they are in a normal or non-stressful state. Likewise, we can observe their baseline behavior or how they are normally. Once we get to something that is important to that person, you can see how that person’s behavior changes. For example, does this person get tense or defensive?

You have to become a very keen observer of people to read them. If you never interacted with these individuals before; it will be very difficult to know what (in terms of their behaviors) is normal and what is deviating from the norm. Likewise it will be hard to read these individuals.

Gaining Buy-In and Compliance: Compliance is much easier to achieve if you are in any position of power. Buy-in is a lot more effective since our followers’ beliefs and thoughts are aligned with ours. You can gain it by acquiring trust, demonstrating shared values, and including others in the decision making process. It is easier to gain buy-in when others feel they are contributing value and you know what is important to them.

Storytelling: is important because we learn, teach, and experience reality through stories. Stories provide context that is easily remembered than facts and figures. We have told stories since childhood. The key to successful story telling is when your listeners or audience can easily follow along. You can achieve this by letting your audience know who and what you are talking about and the point you are trying to convey.

Alter attitudes and behavior: To change individuals’ behaviors you must understand why they are behaving the way they are and why you want or why they should change their behavior. Attitudes are evaluations. When we tell a person we do not like his or her attitude, it means we are evaluating something negatively. To change this individual’s attitude is to help this person look at things in a more positive manner; by talking to this individual, taking him or her seriously, and/or getting into this individual’s head to understand why he or she is behaving this way.

Improve Personal Brand and Marketability

A brand is a promise and the sum of all experiences people have with us. The emotions, feelings, and images associated with and created by a brand. Likewise, you first need to know how you want to come across and how you can influence people in a positive manner. Next you should develop your ideal brand and be consistent with it. From the way you speak and dress, the consistency you operate with, what you want to be known for, and the products and services you create or offer. Branding tells people who you are before you show up. When they hear of you the emotions, feelings, and concepts that spring up are what people perceive and what makes up your brand.

To determine what your personal brand currently says about you, conduct a formal 360 evaluation using the people who are around or deal with you. If this is not feasible, ask people close to you how you come across, for the top three things that come to mind when they think of you, and the feelings you generate. By asking enough key people who know and deal with you on a regular basis, you will have an idea of what your brand is and how you come across. You may be surprised by any blind spots that you may not have taken seriously, were not aware of, or did not think were a big deal. Perhaps someone sees you in a negative light. Likewise, these evaluations will help you uncover some of those blind spots and correct any behaviors that are not compatible with how you want to come across.

It’s important to know what is stated or placed on the Internet about you since many hiring authorities will conduct online research to make sure they make the right decision; since nowadays people post pictures of themselves, comment on blogs, and are members of certain associations. You should set up Google alerts for your name so you can get an alert each time your name is mention online. Likewise, you can monitor what is stated about you. There are ways to minimize damage if something negative has been uncovered or if you placed something online that is not ideal.

Utilize the Media to Boost Your Reputation

The media can be a friend or foe. You should take advantage of the media as much as possible by accepting invitations. The higher you are in an organization the more opportunities you will have to give speeches, to participate in conversations, and to share your opinions. If you can, fashion yourself as a thought leader in your industry or niche. Try to become a recognized expert and find out what you can possibly learn and what value you can provide that is new and different. Along with thought leadership comes visibility especially for someone who stimulates new ways of thinking or brings new ideas to the table.

However, be careful with what you say. Everything you say is out there and can and will be held against you. Also be careful with microphones left on, posts placed on the Internet, inflammatory emails, and video cell phones; since nowadays people record everything.

The media is looking for new stories and angles. The more compelling your story, the greater chance the media will pick it up or be interested. Likewise, write something worthwhile, new, and fresh such as a book or white paper and/or create a study by conducting research or hiring researchers to do so.

Preserve Your Reputation

You need to know what your reputation is or what’s stated about you. Check online to see if there is anything out there that can harm your reputation. To manage your good name, you should decide who you want to be, how you want to come across, and the behaviors you want to display. Keep in mind how these decisions affect your brand and reputation and consistently illustrate the appropriate behaviors.

Be proactive by seeking feedback from friends and colleagues and phrasing questions so that it’s easy for them to be honest. In other words, responding without the fear of repercussions of losing friendship, goodwill, or affection from you. Everyone should seek feedback to see how they come across.

If something goes wrong and it is not genuinely your fault, then an apology may be in order. If you made a mistake own up to it, tell people how you intend to behave in the future, and/or correct your error by making things better for the people you hurt or let down.

Remember the wisdom of many is richer than the knowledge of a few. Thus, participate in the online career community and persuade others to do the same.