Episode #17 – Science of Perception – PART I – Introduction To Impressions Management

[00:00:00] INTRODUCTION

[00:00:00] ​

[00:00:00] INTRODUCTION: Hello and welcome to the Leadership Nest Podcast. The podcast that nests stories, knowledge, and science to soar the leadership in you. I’m your host, Taty Fittipaldi.

[00:00:15] INTRODUCTION: This program is brought to you by by Coaching Expatriates.

[00:00:22] Taty Fittipaldi: Many of my clients come with a chief complaint, that people don’t get them right. For example, I had a client who was often seen as a brute and rude, but they were actually very empathetic and concerned about how their actions impacted the other.

[00:00:40] Taty Fittipaldi: But they often behaved very assertively and would transparently convey their reasoning in a culture where half-lies to soothe people’s feelings and situations were common. Because they were so straightforward, they were quickly perceived as rude.

[00:00:58] Taty Fittipaldi: Another [00:01:00] client was seen as an anxious manager. When all he wanted was to get prepared and meticulously plan his actions, so he could be more effective during his execution.

[00:01:12] Taty Fittipaldi: Like these two clients, millions of people get frustrated at work every day because people around them don’t get them right.

[00:01:21] Taty Fittipaldi: Today, I want to start talking about the science of perception and help you learn a bit more about perception and impressions management.

[00:01:30] Taty Fittipaldi: For that, we will listen together to an episode about the science of perception from the Harvard business review podcast, IdeaCast, with Sarah Green and Heidi Grant Halvorson, author of the book, no one understands you and what to do about it.

[00:01:46] Taty Fittipaldi: Then I will share my main takeaways with you. Next week in the second part of this series, I will share with you some scientific facts and topics about the science of perception from [00:02:00] curated research and behavioral psychology.

[00:02:02] IDEACAST

[00:02:02] HBR IDEACAST:

[00:02:02] HBR IDEACAST: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Sarah Green. I’m talking today with Heidi Grant Halverson, psychologist, associate director of Columbia Business School’s Motivation Science Center, and author of No One Understands You and What to Do About It. Heidi, thank you so much for talking with us.

[00:02:25] HBR IDEACAST: Thank you, Sarah. So I think probably most of us have at some point wondered how other people see us, and it’s often kind of an uncomfortable feeling. I’m just wondering, do other people see us as we really are? Do they see us as we see ourselves? Is that even the same thing? Um, so that’s a really good question.

[00:02:44] HBR IDEACAST: And the short answer is, no. They don’t see us as we see ourselves. And really, that comes down to a couple of basic reasons why that’s true. The first is that we are a lot harder to read than we imagine we are. If you think [00:03:00] about all the things that you have access to when you’re kind of understanding your own behavior, right?

[00:03:04] HBR IDEACAST: You know what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, what your intentions are. Other people don’t have access to any of those things. Right. So what they have at best is kind of looking at your behavior, listening to what you’re saying, and then, of course, interpreting that in some way and really guessing at what you’re thinking and feeling and what you’re intending.

[00:03:24] HBR IDEACAST: And sometimes they guess right. But a lot of the time, they guess wrong. And part of the problem is, we often really don’t understand how our behavior reads. You know, what it is that other people see. The mistakes other people make about us, I mean, I think that the good news is that when people don’t see you as you intend to be seen.

[00:03:44] HBR IDEACAST: They don’t really get you. Um, it’s not random. Usually the mistakes are, are really pretty reliable. People tend to associate certain kinds of behavior with being warm, for example, or certain kinds of behavior with being, uh, competent. And [00:04:00] so once you learn what those behaviors are, it gets a lot easier to telegraph the right things.

[00:04:04] HBR IDEACAST: But for most of us, we just kind of assume that people see us objectively and that they see us the way we see ourselves. And, and really neither of those things are true. Well, and then in the book, you talk about how there’s two phases to perception, which is kind of interesting because we’re sitting across from each other here.

[00:04:20] HBR IDEACAST: I’m receiving you like, isn’t that just one phase? Yeah, I mean, the truth is that again, part of the problem is that we all tend to believe that we see things as they are, that there’s sort of a one to one relationship between what you’re doing and what I’m seeing. The reality is, actually, there’s what you’re doing, and then there’s a whole bunch of other stuff that gets put into the mix in your brain, very much unconsciously, to lend meaning to what you’re doing.

[00:04:45] HBR IDEACAST: So, so yes, I see your behavior and I, and I hear your words, but also in that mix are, are things like assumptions that I make about you. Some of them may be based on my past experience with you, but some of them based on things like your gender, [00:05:00] your age, you know, what you look like, the kind of clothes you wear.

[00:05:03] HBR IDEACAST: And, and those expectations, again, totally unconsciously really shape the way we see other people. And that’s what happens in what we call phase one of perception. Phase one of perception is entirely automatic. Very rapid and completely below your awareness. You have no idea as a perceiver that all of this machinery is going on in your brain, but in fact, what you’re doing is really rapidly making a judgment about somebody again based partially on what they’re doing and saying, and partially based on a whole bunch of other things.

[00:05:32] HBR IDEACAST: Your past experience, your expectations of them. And then there’s a second phase of perception that we sometimes go into, uh, not always, and the second phase of perception is not automatic. It’s much more of a controlled and effortful phase where we, where we take a look at And again, sometimes this is unconscious, but we take a look at those early assumptions, those quick judgments we made about someone, and really kind of examine them and say, was that right?

[00:05:59] HBR IDEACAST: So, for [00:06:00] example, just to give you a sense of how this goes, you see someone crying. In phase one of perception, what you would tend to do is think, what is it about that person that’s making them cry? So the phase one answer is, well, that must be a very sensitive person. But in phase two, you would take the context into account.

[00:06:16] HBR IDEACAST: So is that person just sitting on a park bench crying, or are they at a funeral? Now, if they’re at a funeral, it’s actually very normal to cry, and it doesn’t actually suggest at all that you’re particularly sensitive. But phase two is that correction phase, taking context into account, taking into account that maybe there’s another interpretation for that person’s behavior.

[00:06:35] HBR IDEACAST: That’s something that doesn’t happen automatically. It only happens really when we’re trying very deliberately to be accurate about someone else. And the truth is, a lot of times it doesn’t happen at all. And so what ends up happening is you’re crying and someone thinks you’re sensitive, regardless of the situation, not taking any of that other stuff into account.

[00:06:53] HBR IDEACAST: Unfortunately, we’re all, you know, because phase two takes, uh, time and energy and attention, [00:07:00] it’s something that’s sort of cognitively expensive to do. And, and a lot of the times we’re just so busy. Thinking about lots of other things, we don’t have the mental resources to engage in that sort of deeper look.

[00:07:11] HBR IDEACAST: So the reality is a lot of people, much of the time, we’re just giving each other a very superficial glance and understanding each other in a very, you know, thin slice kind of way. And thin slices can be accurate, but very often they’re not. So I want to go back to. Sort of one of the types of biases you mentioned and ask you about others because you mentioned, you know, people kind of might stereotype you according to, you know, things they see like you’re a woman or, you know, whatever those sort of stereotypes are.

[00:07:40] HBR IDEACAST: But are there other kind of biases at play that affect all of us? Regardless. Yeah. There are, there are assumptions that are really remarkably universal that people make when they look at other people. So, um, one kind of assumption is something that’s called false consensus, which is our tendency to believe that other people [00:08:00] share our beliefs and preferences much more than they actually do.

[00:08:04] HBR IDEACAST: If you’ve ever noticed on TV, you know, saw someone who belongs to a relatively. French political group suddenly saying, well, the American people want X and the American people want Y. And you think like, this person is insane. They don’t speak for the American people, but, but we tend to actually think that our beliefs are much more popular.

[00:08:20] HBR IDEACAST: So if you’re a Democrat, you think more Democrats, there are more Democrats than there actually are. If you’re a Republican, you think there are more Republicans than there actually are. If you like chocolate ice cream. You think that more people like chocolate ice cream than they actually do. We have a tendency to feel that our beliefs and opinions are right, and so therefore, lots of other people must share them.

[00:08:39] HBR IDEACAST: And so that’s something we project onto other people often, this assumption that they will agree with us and share our beliefs. We also tend to, we have other assumptions like the halo effect, which is, again, this is entirely unconscious that the tendency to believe that just because someone has one good quality, that they probably have lots of other ones, even though they’re totally unrelated.

[00:08:58] HBR IDEACAST: So we tend to believe that attractive [00:09:00] people are also more likely to be warm and honest and intelligent, even though logically that’s not true at all. And then there’s beliefs like false uniqueness. So just like I said before, when we tend to believe that other people share our beliefs more than they actually do, we tend to think our goodness, though, is relatively unique, right?

[00:09:19] HBR IDEACAST: So if you, if you ask someone, and this is partly why You have that Lake Wobegon effect, right? That everybody’s better than average, right? Everyone thinks that that they are smarter than the average person. They’re better drivers than the average person. We do tend to think that the things we do well are actually more rare than they actually are.

[00:09:38] HBR IDEACAST: So if all of these biases are unconscious, then how do we go about getting around them? It’s a really good question. I mean, I think that that it is actually quite difficult to Access a lot of these things because much of it is unconscious and certainly from the point of view, you know, the book is really about trying to help people to to be seen [00:10:00] the way they intend to be seen.

[00:10:01] HBR IDEACAST: And there’s really nothing that you can do to change your perceiver’s brain. Right? It is what it is. So, it’s better to sort of be armed with some knowledge about how your perceiver’s brain works. And once you have that, there are some steps you can take to make sure you do come across the way you intend to.

[00:10:17] HBR IDEACAST: One of the very simplest is just to just be a lot more explicit about what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, and what you’re intending. There’s an illusion, uh, there’s a bias we call the transparency illusion, which is, again, almost entirely universal. And it’s that we all tend to think that our intentions and thoughts are much more clear to other people than they actually are.

[00:10:38] HBR IDEACAST: Um, there are studies that show really when, when other people try to guess what our intentions are, that their performance is slightly better than chance. It’s often much more confusing to other people what it is you’re trying to do. So a simple fix is just to say it. Like, say more, be more explicit. If you think to yourself, well, I, I bet he knows what I meant.

[00:10:57] HBR IDEACAST: No, he didn’t. Go back and say it. Say it [00:11:00] explicitly. That can be very helpful. The other thing is to really kind of look for some behaviors that we know are very reliably related to certain kinds of perceptions. So in the book, I talk about, for example, how to convey warmth, which is basically the idea that you’re a friend, that you have someone’s best interest at heart.

[00:11:19] HBR IDEACAST: And it turns out this is really fundamental for establishing trust. You know, if you are a salesperson, you want clients to think of you as a trusted advisor. If you have colleagues, you know, you’re working with new people and you want them to feel like you’re someone that they can trust and they can count on.

[00:11:34] HBR IDEACAST: It’s absolutely essential to project warmth. The thing is that people don’t actually know how to do that. And many people think they project warmth and in fact don’t. There are some very simple things you can do. One of them is eye contact, maintaining eye contact, particularly when other people are talking.

[00:11:51] HBR IDEACAST: That’s a really critical one. A lot of us know that eye contact is important for looking confident, but it’s actually when other people are talking, it’s so [00:12:00] critical that you look at them when they’re talking because that’s a clear signal of interest. I know lots of people who make this mistake and even though they are totally listening, they’ll let their eyes wander around the room and that gives a very clear signal that you’re not in fact listening.

[00:12:13] HBR IDEACAST: Another thing which actually Sarah, you’re doing right now is nodding when someone is talking. That’s another, uh, subtle way to. Indicate that you’re paying attention and that you’re understanding what I’m saying, it’s really weird when you get in a conversation with someone who doesn’t do that, you immediately feel that weird frostiness and tension and a lot of times you can’t put your finger on what it is, but it’s that lack of affirmation, that lack of signals that say, Hey, Hey, I’m paying attention to you.

[00:12:37] HBR IDEACAST: I’m listening to you and I understand. Affirmations in general are very important. And I know that’s a word that people sort of associate with, you know, Stuart Smalley and saying, I like myself, but affirmations really are just simple expressions that we use that say things like, well, that must have been difficult for you.

[00:12:52] HBR IDEACAST: Oh, I understand asking questions about, um, other people, asking them to talk about themselves. All of those things are indicators of [00:13:00] warmth. And, uh, it’s really important to not only try to do more of those things, but to ask. People who you trust to tell you whether or not you do them, because one thing I’ve found, um, again and again is that often people will, I’ll talk about these things and then they’ll say, Oh, yeah, I do that.

[00:13:16] HBR IDEACAST: And then often, if it’s a friend of mine, I can say, No, you actually don’t do that. That’s sort of why I’m telling you that this is something you need to do more of. Ask people who you trust to tell you the truth. You know, do I give off signals that indicate that I’m not listening? Do I give off signals sometimes that indicate that, you know, and you’ll, and often people will say, you know, yeah, if I didn’t know you better, I would think that you were kind of a jerk because, you know, they’ve come to know over time that you actually are warmer than you appear, but you really want to make sure you, you are appearing as warm as you are.

[00:13:46] HBR IDEACAST: And that is actually why it’s so key to kind of focus on some, on particular behaviors that, that we know actually send those right signals. Well, I’m glad that you mentioned that aspect of it. Cause I think when you sort of say this stuff, it sounds like, yeah, sure. And then, but I [00:14:00] think all of us have had that experience with someone, whether it’s a boss or a spouse, when they’re staring down at their phone instead of looking you in the eye, you know, and it’s just amazing how often it seems like people, you know, totally unconsciously just don’t give those signals.

[00:14:14] HBR IDEACAST: Absolutely. Because we. You know, when I was talking before about all the things you have access to about yourself that other people don’t, well, the one thing they have access to is, you know, Your body language, your facial expressions, they have very clear access to whether or not you’re looking at them.

[00:14:29] HBR IDEACAST: Often, we’re not actually paying attention to that, but they are, and it’s often unconscious. You know, it’s not uncommon for someone to walk away from a situation and say, you know, I just really didn’t like that person. I can’t put my finger on it. Well, chances are it had a lot to do with their body language.

[00:14:44] HBR IDEACAST: Were they looking at you? Were they affirming you? Or were they giving you the impression that they’re kind of cold? And we immediately distrust people who who give off the impression that they’re cold and it can take a long time to get past that so and to overcome that impression if you ever do so it is [00:15:00] something I think it’s really important to get some feedback from people who you feel would tell you the truth.

[00:15:05] HBR IDEACAST: And one way to phrase it is just, you know, if you didn’t know me better, what would you think of me? Like, what do you think, you know, when people first meet me, what do you think their impression is? And how do you think it differs from the way I really am? And you’ll get some really interesting answers.

[00:15:18] HBR IDEACAST: And once you have those answers, you can start to, to break down, okay, what is it that I’m doing that’s giving off an impression that’s very different from me. And I think that’s, that’s really the key thing here. It’s not about making a good impression. It’s really about making me. The impression you intend to make, and I think in general, people are often warmer than they appear on.

[00:15:37] HBR IDEACAST: They are often more trustworthy than they seem. And so I think for many of us, it is really just about figuring out what we’re doing wrong. And in the book, what I’ve tried to do is look at the research on perception and say, Look, here are some of the things that very reliably will send the wrong impression if you do them well.

[00:15:54] HBR IDEACAST: And then the other thing I just sort of wanted to Ask you about is so when you [00:16:00] know, okay, these are the things that work. And these are the kind of biases people have that I have to overcome. I mean, I just want to do a little bit of a reality check here. How long does it take to change someone’s impression of you?

[00:16:11] HBR IDEACAST: Well, if you’re, right. Impressions happen very, very rapidly. Um, you know, I hate to put more pressure on people every, you know, there’s an article every five minutes that says, you know, how important it is to make a good first impression. And I really wish that I could sit here and say, Oh, no, no, that’s all wrong, you know, but it’s actually totally right.

[00:16:29] HBR IDEACAST: First impressions are important in particular because they’re so stubborn. It’s very, very difficult to change an impression. It’s totally possible. Um, but there is no easy way to do it. What we know from the research is that there’s basically two approaches that you can take. One is the approach that requires the most patience and effort on your part.

[00:16:50] HBR IDEACAST: And that is to simply overwhelm the person over time with abundant evidence that you are not who they think you are. So, for example, [00:17:00] If you have given off the impression, let’s say you were a little bit aloof, someone has got the impression that you’re, you’re, you’re kind of a distant and cold person, um, simply, you know, buying them a cup of coffee and smiling a little bit more is really not going to change that impression because one of the things we know about the brain is that it’s very, very good at either ignoring Or reinterpreting things in order to be consistent with what it already thinks is true.

[00:17:25] HBR IDEACAST: So what happens is, I would think that, you know, oh, you bought me that coffee because you were probably trying to get a favor out of me or something, but that’s not real. That’s not who you really are. What you need to do is be really, really friendly. And I mean, attention gettingly friendly for, like, two months, consistently.

[00:17:40] HBR IDEACAST: And at some point. You know, it’ll vary from person to person, but at some point you’ll reach that tipping point where that person’s brain can no longer dismiss or explain away the abundant evidence that they have the wrong impression of you, and then they’ll switch. And then they’ll flip over to having the right impression.

[00:17:56] HBR IDEACAST: So, you know, uh, hanging in there for a long time, [00:18:00] working very hard, eventually it will happen. A slightly shorter version of that is if you can find a way to create what psychologists call outcome interdependence, which is basically the idea is that that person depends on you for something. The easiest way to accomplish that is, is to actually work together, let’s say on a project.

[00:18:18] HBR IDEACAST: You have to work with someone. And once your outcomes really depend on them, We naturally become again unconsciously naturally become much more invested in getting the other person right really understanding them accurately and so we find that people are much more willing to revise an initial impression during that phase of having to work together with someone I mean it’s the reason why.

[00:18:40] HBR IDEACAST: I think everybody in the world has a story where they, they say, you know, I thought so and so was a jerk or I thought so and so was nice and then I worked with them and I realized I was wrong. And it can go either way, frankly, um, but what you’re finding out is, is that what’s happening is that your brain is open to the possibility it was wrong and it’s really examining the evidence to make the [00:19:00] most accurate impression of you possible.

[00:19:02] HBR IDEACAST: So if you can find a way to create that interdependence with someone, again, by, by working with them in some way or having them need you for something. That’s a, a good way to jumpstart the process of them taking another look at you and maybe seeing you with new eyes. Well, so it’s interesting because you’ve basically, you talked earlier about the two phases of perception.

[00:19:22] HBR IDEACAST: You’re basically forcing the person to go into phase two or trying. Exactly. It’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re forcing them into phase two. And in the, in the case of the second case where you have outcome dependency, I mean, really, honestly, also motivating them to. Really want to see you in a nicer way.

[00:19:37] HBR IDEACAST: I mean, but life is better when we like the people we have to work with and so there is a little bit of that, you know, Dan Gilbert calls it the psychological immune system kicking in where in general we try to see things in a way that makes life less painful for us. And if you know that you’re going to have to work with someone, there’s a lot of motivation to maybe think they’re not such a bad guy.

[00:19:56] HBR IDEACAST: And so if you think someone has a bad impression of you, usually the last [00:20:00] thing you want to do is work with them. But it’s actually the best thing to do if you really want to repair that relationship, because the chances are very good. The person will leave with a much more fair and accurate and positive view of you.

[00:20:12] HBR IDEACAST: So you really should keep your enemies closer. You really should keep your enemies closer. Just not for the reason they say.

[00:20:19] HBR IDEACAST: So I’m wondering, you talked about sort of what’s more patience requiring method and a sort of quicker method. And then I’m wondering, is there ever such a thing as like a Hail Mary pass where you basically just, to go back to the very first thing you said, you’re really explicit. You just basically say like, we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.

[00:20:36] HBR IDEACAST: These are my intentions. You know, can you actually do that? You can, it’s not necessarily going to work. I mean, it’s, it’s not a bad thing to do at all. I think certainly acknowledging. What happened and how it might have been misconstrued is not at all a bad thing to do. Chances are the person will still be suspicious a bit because they won’t immediately say, oh, [00:21:00] okay, you know, I thought you were a jerk, but now that you’ve said that you aren’t a jerk, I believe you.

[00:21:04] HBR IDEACAST: So you’re gonna have to, you know, that can open the door to taking a second look, but then you’re still gonna have to provide them with a lot of consistent evidence that That you are the person, you know, that, that there really was an initial misunderstanding, so that’s not going to do it by itself now.

[00:21:18] HBR IDEACAST: That said, I think there are sometimes every once in a while, an extreme case of someone doing something so remarkably and amazing that it forces you to really look again at something. You know, and it happens occasionally when you hear someone in the news who I mean, it happens, unfortunately, often where someone who you thought was really great.

[00:21:37] HBR IDEACAST: All of a sudden, you found out they did this horrible thing. And if it’s a truly horrible thing in that moment, you know, people will absolutely change their minds about someone. So, so there can be extreme cases of pivots. But for most of us, that’s not the kind of thing we’re dealing with. We’re really just dealing with well, as you said, I got off on the wrong foot with someone.

[00:21:55] HBR IDEACAST: And they don’t think I’m as competent as I am, or they don’t think I’m as warm as I am, or [00:22:00] trustworthy, or they don’t, you know, take me seriously. And I want to just change that a bit. And that, unfortunately, is just going to take, uh, there’s no like magic bullet for making that happen. I mean, the good news is it can be done.

[00:22:11] HBR IDEACAST: It’s sort of like weight loss. You know, there’s no magic bullet for that. I know. Right. You know, the good news is you can do it. The bad news is that there’s no way to do it really without doing the work, but I think it’s important for people to know that it can be done. And that if there are relationships that really matter to you that they’re making your life difficult because someone has the wrong impression of you, there is absolutely something you can do about it.

[00:22:34] HBR IDEACAST: Well, but the weight loss comparison kind of makes me wonder what if your perceivers are not wrong, you know, when some of the stuff you’re talking about is like actually being more warm, not just appearing more warm. Yeah, and you know, and I’m always really careful when I talk about this stuff to say, because how I like to.

[00:22:53] HBR IDEACAST: Think about it is really that you want to come across the way you authentically are, um, and that you’re just not doing [00:23:00] a good job of that, which is very, very common. Of course, it’s possible that other people are right about you and you just really are a cold person. I think that’s rare. I mean, the reality is, I think that often miscommunication and misunderstandings Stem very, very often from a genuine error on the, on the part of the, of the person sending the signals.

[00:23:20] HBR IDEACAST: They just sent the wrong ones. I think in general, people are kinder and warmer and more trustworthy than we often seem. So that said, you know, if everybody has the same idea about you, you know, if you think everyone’s wrong about you, but they all agree that you are X, it’s worth thinking about that. You know, it’s definitely worth thinking.

[00:23:39] HBR IDEACAST: Okay. I think that I’m a warm person, but literally everyone else thinks I’m cold. What does that mean? Well, maybe it means you’re not actually as warm as you thought you were. But maybe it also means that you’re not very good at showing it. So maybe it’s a little bit of both. And I think that it is true, you know, I talk about that a bit at the end of the book, um, it is true that we aren’t [00:24:00] perfect perceivers of ourselves.

[00:24:02] HBR IDEACAST: For a lot of reasons, uh, not simply because we want to think. We’re better than we actually are. There’s some of that. It’s also true that we’re complicated. You know, there isn’t just one you. For most of us, there’s the you that you are in certain situations, which is a little bit different than the you you are in other contexts.

[00:24:19] HBR IDEACAST: And they’re all you, you know, we just, We’re just complicated people. And so really knowing yourself is even a little bit of a challenge. Um, and certainly it’s something that, you know, people, as they get older, they feel they know themselves a little bit better, but it’s like, it takes a lifetime to really know yourself.

[00:24:36] HBR IDEACAST: So yeah, it’s possible that you’re wrong about you and they’re right. I think the much bigger problem on average is that you’re more right about you, and they’re pretty wrong, but it’s not really their fault. Once you understand how perception works, you can understand why people conclude the things they do about you, what you’re, you may be inadvertently doing, um, that’s sending a certain signal, and then you can correct that.

[00:24:59] HBR IDEACAST: [00:25:00] Again, I think it’s about whether or not it’s in your interest to correct it and whether or not you feel your life would be better if people understood you a bit better, and I think for a lot of us that’s true. There’s a lot of a lot of evidence actually research that that being someone who people can get.

[00:25:15] HBR IDEACAST: Pretty easily who is even more easy to read that relates to sort of overall better life satisfaction and well being. So it’s really like, okay, how do I, if I feel like people don’t get me, how do I get them to get me? And the good news is it’s really a lot more up to you than it is up to them. You don’t have to just sit back and be misunderstood.

[00:25:34] HBR IDEACAST: There’s things you can do about it. Well, Heidi, thank you so much. I know the research in the book is really fascinating and there’s a lot of practical stuff in there as well. So thank you for coming in today to talk with us. Thank you so much, Sarah.

[00:25:45] KEY TAKEAWAYS

[00:25:45] KEY TAKEAWAYS: Key Takeaways

[00:25:54] Taty Fittipaldi: What’s your main takeaway from this episode, here are mine.

[00:25:58] Taty Fittipaldi: Number one. [00:26:00] People don’t see us as we see ourselves. We are a lot harder to read then we think we are. We have access to what we think, feel, and our intentions. While, other people don’t. What they have at best is guessing what you were thinking, feeling and intending. They also have access to our body language and overall none verbal communication. We might not pay attention to those, but people do. And they are making interpretations and assumptions, based on what they observe and perceive.

[00:26:37] Taty Fittipaldi: Number two, there are two phases of perception. One phase is seeing things and collecting information about the other person and making assumptions based on that. And then a second phase, which does not always happen where people validate their perception by trying to get you right. When we work closer with other [00:27:00] people, we sort of force and expedite phase too, because they confront their assumptions and review them to make new considerations about you.

[00:27:11] Taty Fittipaldi: Number three. People create assumptions about us using their unconscious biases. Shared consensus, the halo effect and false uniqueness are some of the biases that our brains use to make judgments and filter our perceptions about other people.

[00:27:30] Taty Fittipaldi: Number four. There is nothing you can do to change your perceiver’s brain. But there are things you can do to be perceived closer to the reality. One thing is to be more explicit and intentional about your actions and behaviors. In other words, don’t wait for people to interpret your actions. Tell them or how I like to say- thelegraph – what they mean. If you are buying them [00:28:00] coffee, tell them why you are buying them coffee, for example, so that they can understand your intentions instead of assuming.

[00:28:08] Taty Fittipaldi: Number five. Projecting warmth in a way to establish trust from the get go. And a few things we can do are: look into people’s eyes when they are talking. Nod when they are talking and affirm or validate people to help convey warmth.

[00:28:28] Taty Fittipaldi: Number six. Impressions happen rapidly. And first impressions are important because changing first impressions is extremely difficult. One approach is to consistently overwhelm people with abundant evidence of their opposite impression over a long period of time. A second approach, that is faster, is working closely with someone when they depend on you and your results. This is called outcome [00:29:00] interdependence. This will force them to go into phase two of perception re-evaluation, which will give you greater room to change their perception of you.

[00:29:11] Taty Fittipaldi: Number seven. When everyone agrees on something about you, it’s worth investigating the topic and learning what are the signals you are sending that make people consistently think that way about you!

[00:29:24] Taty Fittipaldi: Number eight. Research shows that people who learn to send the right signals about themselves and become easier to read, have greater life satisfaction and wellbeing. So it’s very worth learning how we want people to perceive us and learning how to send the right signals to translate that well to people, so that they can read us right from the get go.

[00:29:49] HIGHLIGHTS

[00:29:49] Taty Fittipaldi: This brings us to the end of this Leadership Nest episode. I hope you have enjoyed my curated sharing of these Harvard business review episode [00:30:00] introducing the science of perception. Tune into our episode next week, when we will continue to chat about the Science of perception and I will break down some facts, research, and strategy for you, so you can help people get you right.

[00:30:15] Taty Fittipaldi: Wherever you are in the globe, this is Taty Fittipaldi wishing you a beautiful day.

[00:30:21] Taty Fittipaldi: If you have any questions, you’d like us to answer in a future episode of this show, just go to speakpipe.com/tatyfittipaldi or click the link in the show notes, to leave us a brief audio message.

[00:30:38] Taty Fittipaldi: Make sure to visit us on our website www.theleadershipnest.com, where you can subscribe to our show anywhere podcasts are streamed, so you never miss the fun.

[00:30:52] Taty Fittipaldi: While there, if you find value in our show, you can also subscribe to our global leadership weekly newsletter from Coaching [00:31:00] Expatriates®, where we deliver bite-sized lessons on global leadership, decision-making, and cultural competence to help you learn how to think, relate and strategize in a whole different way as a global leader.

[00:31:13] Taty Fittipaldi: If you liked our show, you might want to check her online global executive leadership program. A nine week leadership development and learning system, that will help you lead internationally while making financially conscious and impactful business decisions.

[00:31:29] Taty Fittipaldi: Taty Fittipaldi is also available for private coaching. See the websites for more details at www.coachingexpatriates.com/executive-coaching.

[00:31:41] Taty Fittipaldi: Thanks for joining us this week on The Leadership Nest podcast. Be sure to tune in next week for our next episode. Until the next time, keep nesting.

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