WEBVTT

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Ok.

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Take a look at this guy.

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And by show of hands,

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and everyone please participate,

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who thinks he wanted to be
an economist when he grew up?

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A lawyer?

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Ok. One or two.

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A heavy metal bassist?

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Ok. Yeah!

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We think a face tells a lot.
Does it?

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It's not Bon Jovi in the picture.

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I am.

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(Laughter)

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A misguided, indiscreet, 17 year old

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who initially wanted to be

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an economist.

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But now I study psychology.

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I also study faces,
you'll see why in a minute,

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and, charisma.

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I grew up in South Africa

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which cultivated my interest in charisma.

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I saw my dad as a community leader

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running for about a dozen elections

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and winning most of them.

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I saw my mum managing her shop

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and getting the most out of her staff.

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I saw South Africa transition peacefully

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from aparteid to democracy

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mostly because of one great leader.

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Nelson Mandela.

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So, I have often wondered,
what is charisma?

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Can it be measured?

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Can it be developed?

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I became a professor in the Faculty

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of Business and Economics

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at the university of Lausanne.

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But at times,
I felt like a particle physicist

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studying the Higgs field.

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Charisma is hard to define,

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hard to measure,

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but its effects are evident to see.

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Like the Higgs field charisma gives mass,

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gravitas,

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not to particles, but to social movements.

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Just when I thought I was beginning
to make a bit of progress,

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in 2005 my world was turned upside down.

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A study published in the journal Science

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by Alex Todorov's lab
at Princeton University,

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showed that naive subjects
were able to predict

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the results of congressional elections

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merely by rating the faces

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of the winner and runner up.

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What? I thought when I heard it.

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Impossible!

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Only in America!

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(Laughter)

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Would this work in Europe?

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So you can better understand what they did

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take a look at these two guys.

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By show of hands, who of the two

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seems more competent?

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More intelligent?

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More leader-like?

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Who thinks the guy on the right?

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Ok. A couple of hands there.

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The guy on the left?

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Ok. Evident majority

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and the majority got it right!

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Now, you don't know them.

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These two guys
ran for the Wisconsin senate seat.

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On the right, is Timothy Michels,

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a Republican.

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On the left is Russell Feingold,

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a Democrat.

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Who actually went on to win.

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Whether a pro- or anti- whatever,

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pro-gun, anti-gun, pro-God, anti-God,

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pro-gay, anti-gay -

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in a couple of seconds,
a room of a couple of hundred people

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predicted the voting outcomes
of a couple of million

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who had a lot more information
than you did.

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Is there something in politician's faces

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that signals their competence,

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or do we carry some evolutionary baggage

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that biases our judgement
towards more beautiful, more symmetric

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and healthy looking faces?

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I repeated the experiments here.

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Suprisingly, Swiss subjects

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were able to predict the results

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of French parliamentary run off elections.

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(Laughter)

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To entertain the evolutionary argument

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I re-ran the experiments with young,

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very young children from 5 to 13 years.

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Now, such young children don't know

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competence, intelligence or leadership,

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but they do know what a boat captain is.

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So we asked them to play a boat game

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and they had to select the boat captain

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from among the pairs of faces
of the French elections.

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(Laughter)

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The kids were as accurate as the adults.

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A 71% hit rate at the individual level,

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and 85% hit rate
when we averaged the results.

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A kid of 5 or 65 "voted" in the same way.

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Come, let's try it here

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with some election races
from my experiments.

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Who thinks the guy on the right

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would make a better boat captain?

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Evident majority.

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I don't even need to go to the left.

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Let's try the next one.

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Who says the guy on the right?

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Ok, 2 or 3 hands.

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The guy on the left?

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Ok you guys are doing amazing!

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Two more to go.

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This is a test to see how normal you are.

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Ok, don't laugh!

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(Laughter)

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They haven't chosen their faces, ok.

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Who says the guy on the right?

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Ok, hardly anyone.

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The guy on the left?

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Alright, evident majority.

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Last pair.

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Who says the lady on the right?

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Ok, majority already.

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Fantastic! Well done.

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You guys did excellent. 5 out of 5.

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You are normal,
just like the 5 five year olds!

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Give yourselves a round of applause.

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Come on. Yeah, yeah you passed the test.

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(Applause)

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Ok.

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That's how I felt when I actually
published these results

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in the journal Science.

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I was rocking. I was the man.

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On top of the world!

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But, in private, faced, yeah, faced

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with this result, I wondered,

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what am I suppose to teach?

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(Laughter)

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What am I supposed to teach

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if one's ability to succeed as a leader

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depends on one's face?

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How could I justify my professorship?

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Should I change career

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and become a plastic surgeon?

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(Laughter)

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I have found similar "face effects"

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in a variety of situations.

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In politics, in academia

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and the business world.

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Some expert I was on leadership.

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I knew nothing!

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But one thing I knew for sure,

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is that we have a tag around our necks.

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People size us up on how we look;

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our face, height, whatever

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and put a price on the tag.

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If we look like a million dollars,

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they fill in the blanks

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and assume we have
lots of positive characteristics.

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If we don't look like a million dollars,

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well, then we have a problem.

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(Laughter)

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So I set out on a mission.

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How can we change the price
people put on our tag?

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The answer - with charisma.

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Charisma is symbolic influence

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rooted in values and emotions.

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By symbolic I mean, represents something.

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Stands for something.

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Something that can be seen,

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touched and smelled.

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Let me show you the results of six studies

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my co-authors and I have undertaken

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all focusing on that alchemic ability
to connect.

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We narrowed charisma down to several

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charismatic leadership tactics,

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which I will describe in a bit.

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In the first study we filmed EMBA students

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giving a speech.

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Then we trained them to use the tactics

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and filmed them again.

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Independent judges rated the speeches.

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We found that the EMBA students were able

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to double their use
of the charismatic leadership tactics.

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Charisma could be taught

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and the more charismatic
leadership tactics were in the talk,

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the more the students were seen
as leader-like by others.

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This study is important

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because we controlled
for communication skills

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and for the constant effects
due to the target person,

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which includes their face,
what they look like.

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The EMBA students were able to change

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the price people put on their tags.

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We found the same results

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in a field experiment with managers.

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We replicated this
using only women leaders.

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The use of these tactics
is not the province of men.

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With these tactics we can predict

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who will become the President

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of the United States of America

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and this, controlling for incumbency

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and for macro-economic effects.

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Recently we've been interested to see
the impact of charisma

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on worker performance.

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We recruited 106 temporary workers,

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to prepare postal mail
for a fundraising campaign

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on behalf of a charity.

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Unbeknown to the workers,

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we randomised them

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into one of three conditions.

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In the first group, the baseline,

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the workers had no bonuses and received

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a standard motivational speech
given by an actor.

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A rather normal looking kind of guy.

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I guess you would agree.

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We motivated the second group with bonuses

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for good performance and they received

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the same standard speech too.

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The third group, had no bonuses

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but received a charismatic
motivational speech.

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(Laughter)

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Relative to the baseline, both bonuses

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and charisma, significantly increased
worker performance,

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and their effects
were statistically indistinguishable.

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This charisma result is crazy

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because it's not well explained
by current economic theory.

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We got increased performance,

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basically for free.

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(Laughter)

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And, charisma significantly decreased

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production costs.

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We got increased performance

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without paying economic incentives!

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Finally, we know that charisma works

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in the micro-blogosphere, Twitter,

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where text is limited to 140 characters.

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We tracked 30 politicians and 30 CEOs
for three months

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and coded all their tweets,
about 3000 of them.

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The more charismatic tactics tweets had,

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the more they were retweeted
by the followers.

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Going from zero to four tactics

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increased retweets by over 450%.

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I know you're wondering,

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"What are these charismatic tactics?"

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I'll let you in on a secret.

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It's quite simple, really.

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To connect, a leader must do three things.

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First, frame to give the vision.

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Paint a picture and focus attention

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by using methaphor, stories

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and other techniques.

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I'll give you examples of these in a bit.

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Second, provide substance
for the justification,

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express the sentiments of the collective,

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and give confidence in goals.

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Third, deliver in an animated

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and passionate way, using voice,

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gestures and other tactics.

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So let me show you an example

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of how not to do it.

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Cognitive psychology theory suggests

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that when a target is described
on a configuration of traits,

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whether clustered under an implicit
or explicit prototype,

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perceivers speciously impute the target

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with other traits that correlate
with the original traits

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or with the prototype,

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but which are not used
to describe the target.

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What did I just say?

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(Laughter)

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Ok. Now maybe this kind of communication

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is useful when speaking
to a cognitive psychologist,

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or to Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory.

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(Laughter)

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Isn't it more engaging to hear -

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and I'm going to say the same thing
I just said a few seconds ago -

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We all have a tag around our necks.

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People size us up on how we look,

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our face, height, whatever

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and put a price on the tag.

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If we look like a million dollars,

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they fill in the blanks

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and assume we have
lots of positive characteristics.

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Now that was an example of using metaphor.

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Metaphors simplify, aid in recall
and provide a visual.

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In fact, charisma is all about

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being able to get a vision across,
that sticks.

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There are a variety of ways to do this.

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Let me give you another example.

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So you may be wondering,

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"Can I learn charisma?"

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"If I use the tactics,

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will people notice
that I am using them?"

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"Would using them
make my team more effective?"

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I used the following combination:

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Rhetorical questions,

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which create a puzzle,

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an intrigue to be solved.

00:11:41.895 --> 00:11:44.139
A list of three. Why three?

00:11:44.354 --> 00:11:46.553
Well, three is indicative of a pattern,

00:11:47.248 --> 00:11:50.134
suggests completeness and sounds nice.

00:11:50.262 --> 00:11:51.745
Did you notice?

00:11:51.745 --> 00:11:53.195
Three reasons!

00:11:53.789 --> 00:11:55.892
I also expressed the sentiments

00:11:55.892 --> 00:11:57.067
of the collective,

00:11:57.067 --> 00:12:00.187
to close the psychological gap between us.

00:12:01.881 --> 00:12:04.068
How about the following combination?

00:12:04.068 --> 00:12:07.337
We're not here to talk about
academic mumbo jumbo.

00:12:08.294 --> 00:12:09.704
We're here to talk about

00:12:09.704 --> 00:12:11.714
the practical realities of leadership

00:12:11.714 --> 00:12:13.414
and it is your duty to exercise it

00:12:13.414 --> 00:12:16.174
in a morally responsible
and effective way. Is it not?

00:12:17.466 --> 00:12:19.935
I focused your attention using a contrast,

00:12:19.935 --> 00:12:22.804
"We're not here to do this, but that,"

00:12:22.804 --> 00:12:26.185
capturing the sentiments
of the collective too.

00:12:26.185 --> 00:12:28.418
Hands up, who here wants to listen

00:12:28.418 --> 00:12:30.579
to academic mumbo jumbo?

00:12:31.109 --> 00:12:33.139
Ok. No one. I thought so!

00:12:33.752 --> 00:12:36.375
Sometimes we have one or two
Sheldons in the room.

00:12:36.375 --> 00:12:37.835
(Laughter)

00:12:37.835 --> 00:12:41.173
I turned the contrast
into a three-part list

00:12:41.173 --> 00:12:45.257
and I finished it off
with a rhetorical question.

00:12:46.807 --> 00:12:49.296
I also used moral conviction,

00:12:50.047 --> 00:12:51.457
one of the key tactics,

00:12:51.457 --> 00:12:54.185
which signals one's values

00:12:54.185 --> 00:12:55.467
and makes a contract

00:12:55.467 --> 00:12:57.437
on which one is to be judged.

00:12:57.658 --> 00:12:59.496
Now there are other tactics,

00:12:59.610 --> 00:13:02.290
like telling captivating stories

00:13:02.461 --> 00:13:05.450
which creates identification
with the protagonists,

00:13:05.450 --> 00:13:07.785
aids in seeing the vision

00:13:07.785 --> 00:13:10.691
and really recounting the moral message.

00:13:10.911 --> 00:13:13.630
Of course, delivery is very important too.

00:13:14.781 --> 00:13:18.091
Now, there might be some of you
in the audience still thinking,

00:13:18.091 --> 00:13:20.581
"Yeah right, are you kidding me?"

00:13:20.581 --> 00:13:23.263
"Are you telling me
that metaphors and stories

00:13:23.263 --> 00:13:24.800
will make a difference?"

00:13:25.582 --> 00:13:27.013
Yes they can.

00:13:28.186 --> 00:13:30.592
Remember the experiment I showed you

00:13:30.691 --> 00:13:32.051
with the actor?

00:13:34.474 --> 00:13:37.537
Where we found
that charisma and bonuses

00:13:37.537 --> 00:13:40.436
got the same
increase in performance?

00:13:40.436 --> 00:13:42.549
Well, when I first proposed

00:13:42.549 --> 00:13:44.755
that we use metaphors and stories

00:13:44.755 --> 00:13:47.376
to motivate the workers
in the charismatic condition,

00:13:47.376 --> 00:13:49.526
my co-authors, who are economists,

00:13:49.526 --> 00:13:51.886
were very skeptical
that metaphors and stories

00:13:51.886 --> 00:13:53.576
would make workers work harder.

00:13:53.576 --> 00:13:55.534
So, they tried their best to convince me

00:13:55.534 --> 00:13:58.646
to take the stuff out,
but I held firm and we kept it in,

00:13:58.646 --> 00:14:00.976
because I truly believed
in the power of words.

00:14:00.976 --> 00:14:03.054
Let me tell you what finally happened.

00:14:03.054 --> 00:14:04.867
In one part of the actor's speech,

00:14:04.867 --> 00:14:06.924
he was urging the workers to prepare

00:14:06.924 --> 00:14:08.394
as many letters as possible

00:14:08.394 --> 00:14:09.894
for the fundraising drive.

00:14:09.894 --> 00:14:11.534
In the standard speech condition,

00:14:11.534 --> 00:14:14.114
whether without bonuses or with bonuses,

00:14:14.114 --> 00:14:17.064
we asked him to say something like this
to the workers,

00:14:17.064 --> 00:14:19.287
and I'm very briefly summarising.

00:14:19.845 --> 00:14:21.450
He told the workers to see

00:14:21.450 --> 00:14:23.020
how many people were in the room.

00:14:23.020 --> 00:14:25.737
And all the other people
we had hired to do this task.

00:14:25.737 --> 00:14:28.239
That every extra letter they prepared

00:14:28.239 --> 00:14:31.813
could potentially make
a life changing change

00:14:31.813 --> 00:14:34.489
to a child who had cancer or whatever.

00:14:35.723 --> 00:14:37.333
But in the charisma condition,

00:14:37.333 --> 00:14:39.408
we told him to say the following:

00:14:40.665 --> 00:14:42.265
So you might think,

00:14:42.265 --> 00:14:44.916
"Well, I'll just do what I have to.

00:14:44.916 --> 00:14:47.100
Will my extra effort help?"

00:14:47.720 --> 00:14:48.970
Yes it will!

00:14:49.185 --> 00:14:51.395
This reminds me of a story of an old man

00:14:51.395 --> 00:14:53.385
who, while walking along the seashore,

00:14:53.385 --> 00:14:55.454
saw a young girl picking up starfish

00:14:55.454 --> 00:14:57.148
and throwing them into the sea.

00:14:57.148 --> 00:14:59.231
The old man approached her saying,

00:14:59.231 --> 00:15:00.851
"What are you doing?"

00:15:00.851 --> 00:15:03.051
She replied, "I'm picking up starfish

00:15:03.051 --> 00:15:04.784
and throwing them into the sea,

00:15:04.784 --> 00:15:07.614
because the sun's coming up
and the starfish will die."

00:15:07.829 --> 00:15:09.358
"But," said the man,

00:15:09.358 --> 00:15:11.678
"there are thousands of starfish

00:15:11.678 --> 00:15:14.115
the sun's already high
and the tide is going out.

00:15:14.115 --> 00:15:17.095
How can you possibly make a difference?"

00:15:17.625 --> 00:15:19.905
The girl bent down, picked up a starfish

00:15:19.905 --> 00:15:21.506
threw it into the sea and said,

00:15:21.506 --> 00:15:23.856
"Well, I made a difference to that one."

00:15:25.374 --> 00:15:26.605
Now when you have time,

00:15:26.605 --> 00:15:30.442
go back and see what tactics
I used throughout my presentation.

00:15:30.442 --> 00:15:32.344
I'm sure you'll have fun

00:15:32.344 --> 00:15:34.634
trying out these tactics
in your everyday lives.

00:15:34.634 --> 00:15:37.471
Put the price you want, on your tags.

00:15:39.454 --> 00:15:42.407
Then, go out there and make a difference!

00:15:43.974 --> 00:15:46.516
So, what are you going to do?

00:15:48.464 --> 00:15:49.840
Thank you,

00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:52.444
and a big thanks to my co-authors
and to my family too,

00:15:52.444 --> 00:15:54.704
who have taught me
so much about leadership.

00:15:54.704 --> 00:15:56.534
Thanks. Thank you!
(Applause)