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Instant Impressions
By: Lynne Key
Issue: 2009dec
Expertise is essential but it must be genuine, mile-deep and sweat-earned.
Our brains are wired to make instant impressions of nearly everything we encounter, and thousands of these impressions speed through our cerebral cortex daily. Many have asked, “What instant impressions occur?” yet the more practical question is, “Which instant impressions matter?” Which thoughts impact our actions and the actions of our customers?
I conducted an unscientific survey which, quite by accident, illustrates the difference in these two questions. Ten randomly selected individuals answered this question, “What flashes through your mind when you hear the term ‘instant impressions?’” Five individuals, a full 50 percent, indicated their first thought was a blue business suit. (Proving most of us have seen the professional dress research from the ’70s. However, remembering that the other signature ’70s fad was the lime-green leisure suit, is it any wonder navy blue suits ranked on top?) Two survey respondents said eye contact was their first thought. Participant 8, a twenty-something female, groaned, “I should never have gotten this tattoo.” Participant 9 said he thought of a handshake. Participant 10 sneered that he couldn’t respond to the term ‘instant impressions’ because he was “so distracted by the term ‘flashes’ and its more colorful meanings.”
Fleeting Impressions vs. Power Instant Impressions
This last response, though certainly an outlier, demonstrates the difference between the countless and typical instant impressions we form, which are both fleeting and devoid of any real impact, and Power Instant Impressions (PII), which have the potency to change another individual’s course of action. Participant 10’s answer, for example, evoked a PII in me with sufficient strength to change my behavior. While I had intended to survey 25 people, I promptly determined that 10 responses would be quite adequate.
A Look At The Weighty Factors
What do the following pairs have in common?
1. Herbert Stempel and Charles Van Doren
2. Ben Johnson and Marion Jones
3. Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus
Each of these individuals enjoyed success and fame that turned to failure and infamy in an instant. They are prime examples of the weighty factors that drive Powerful Instant Impressions.
Factor 1: Get Real
Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus may be known to you as Milli Vanilli. This ’80s band skyrocketed onto the music scene, winning the 1989 Grammy for Best New Artist. Milli Vanilli thrilled audiences with their edgy good looks and heart-stopping dance moves. One problem: Morvan and Pilatus couldn’t sing. Solution: Milli Vanilli lip-synched to the vocal tracks of two unknown larks. All was well until a fateful live performance in Connecticut. The vocal track jammed and began repeating the same line over and over again. The pair realized their secret was out and fled the stage in humiliation. The hoax received worldwide attention. The pair’s Grammy was withdrawn; their careers shattered.
Connecting To Your World
Why did the world care about this scandal? The answer is revealed in dozens of research studies investigating all types of relationships. Put simply, human beings demand authenticity of one another.
Authenticity is the quality of actually being who you present yourself to be. One part of authenticity is honest self-awareness: knowing your own strengths and weaknesses. A second key part is presenting yourself honestly to others. If you present yourself as X, then act as Y, this is a violation of authenticity. For example, Sara is a sales consultant who presents discretion as a key differentiator. While trying to close a deal with Harold Foods, Sara displayed a sample reflecting propriety information of Jenna’s Foods. Harold instantly registered the violation of authenticity and formed a negative PII. Sara’s competitor, Jessie, who was a bit more expensive, secured Harold’s trust and his business.
The Message: Because of the significance we instinctually attach to authenticity, any confirmation or contradiction of authenticity will create a PII and this impression is highly likely to impact the relationship.
Factor 2: Get Smart
Herbert Stempel and Charles Van Doren were contestants on NBC’s 1950s primetime game show, Twenty-One. For weeks, the two men battled and ratings soared. In the end, Van Doren, the audience favorite, was victorious. Later, the public learned that this match-up had been staged by the network. Contestants were not only given the questions and answers, the actual play-by-play had been orchestrated. The scandal resulted in congressional investigations and brought down the primetime game show genre. Overnight, Stempel and Van Doren became national objects of ridicule.
Connecting To Your World
Long before we learn to ride our tricyles, human beings realize that knowledge is power and experts can help us tap into that power. Tikes, aware of the need to tie their shoelaces, identify “experts,” watching and learning from those who have mastered the skill and disregarding those who have not. Some say our instinct to survive fuels our high regard for experts.
Fast forward into adulthood and this instinct remains intact. In this complex, fast-paced world, astute professionals seek expert resources to help them optimize their decision-making and the strategy execution.
For those who aspire to be true consultants rather than mere vendors, expertise is essential with one caveat: It must be genuine, mile-deep, sweat-earned expertise, not razor-thin, non-practical facts lifted from a swift perusal of a website or the pages of the latest bubblegum business book. Research shows genuine expertise is a consistent, robust cornerstone of both leadership and influence. (And we know that effective consultants are in fact leaders and influencers.) By contrast, counterfeit expertise erodes trust, influence, authenticity and achievement.
The Message: Your customers require expertise and they will form a PII. Whether the impression is positive or negative depends entirely upon you and the work you’ve invested. If you are hoping to slide by with counterfeit expertise, chances are you’ve underestimated your customers and their ability to spot the difference.
Factor 3: Get The Basics Right
Ben Johnson and Marion Jones were both Olympic track stars. Johnson was dubbed the “Fastest Man Alive” following his gold-medal performance at the Seoul Summer Games. Jones, called the “Fastest Woman Alive,” stole our hearts and took home the gold at the Sydney Games. The two also share these life experiences: illegal steroid use, being stripped of their gold medals and injuring the success of their teammates.
Connecting To Your World
At DiamondWinds, we say that trust is the lifeblood of every relationship. If anything, that’s an understatement of its importance. No relationship works without trust, and functional relationships have reached a minimum trust level which we call Predictability. Here, the players know and abide by the rules; they get the Basics right.
Basics exist in every situation and we expect everyone to get them right 100 percent of the time. No excuses. No exceptions. For example, we expect restaurants to have clean tableware. We expect our accountants to get the addition right. We expect our doctors to wash their hands. No exceptions. A violation of the Basics is always a negative PII.
This impact multiples if your Basic violation impacts me. In the case of Jones and Johnson, their teammates came under suspicion and Jones’s relay partners had their Olympic medals taken away—because of her drug use.
In a very real sense, we are relay partners with our customers and they depend on us to get the Basics right. If they set up a meeting with their colleagues, they need us to arrive fully prepared, organized and able to provide meaningful expertise. How well we meet these Basics creates a PII within the internal stakeholders. And yes, they evaluate us, but they also form an impression— sometimes a career-changing impression—of our internal contact.
The Message: Basics matter because people evaluate: 1) what they know, 2) what they can assign a “grade” to and 3) what they can describe through language. Because our customers can’t effectively evaluate higher level competency, they evaluate what they can—the Basics—and use it as a gauge to judge everything else.
Lynne Key is president of DiamondWinds, Inc., a Brandon, Florida-based company that helps organizations and individuals maximize their possibilities by building productive, trust-based relationships with their customers and their people.
813-684-7922
LKey@DiamondWinds.com
www.diamondwinds.com
What You See May Not Be What You Get
If you hoped to learn how appearance in first impressions impacts success, please know that appearance expectations vary by generation, gender, culture, geographic location, work setting, rank and more. Look for principles rather than specific guidelines. In addition, research demonstrates that individuals are unaware of their own appearance factors. Most adults cannot identify their own facial or body profile from a collection of samples; they cannot even identify features they see all of the time, like their own hands. Therefore, do not rely on self-evaluation. Enlist others generally seen as experts, and heed their insights. Appearance matters because our brains assume appearance is a reflection of weightier factors. It’s that lazy cerebral cortex taking a short cut rather than conducting a careful evaluation of all available facts. In the long run, however, those weighty factors trump appearance many times over.
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