Pete Mockaitis
Alison, welcome.
Alison Fragale
Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.
Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited to be chatting with you because you’re going to teach us how to become likable badasses. That sounds like something I think that we want. What’s the scoop here?
Alison Fragale
I think we should. You know, I will say when I put Likable Badass on the cover of my book, I get the same reaction from everybody. It’s, “Yes, that’s what I’m going for.” And people want it, and there’s a good reason that they want it, because there’s a lot of science behind how it actually helps us.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, lay it on us. So, what is the benefit associated with, well, first of all, just define a picture of what that means, and then share with us the research on how that’s beneficial for us.
Alison Fragale
I’m going to take one step backward, and I’m going to introduce something that I care a lot about and I think everyone should care a lot about, and that is the idea of status. And status is how much we’re respected and regarded by other people. So, if we have high status, that would mean our audiences have high respect and regard for us.
And I know from my work and others, it’s what we call a fundamental human need. It’s something all human beings seek, and life is so much better with it, without it. Work is better. Life is better. Our physical and mental health, our ability to gain power at our job, to use the power we have, all these things. So, status is really important for us to understand and understand how we can influence ours.
Where does Likable Badass come in? Because when people look at another person and decide, “Do I respect that person?” when you do that to other people, those decisions that you make, that we all make, those aren’t random. They follow a pattern. There’s two things we look for when we’re evaluating another person to decide how much do we value them. And one thing we look for is how capable they are.
I often talk about that as our assertiveness. Not just, “Can we assert ourselves?” but a whole of skills that if I give you a task, can you get it done? Can you do it well? Are you competent? Are you organized? Are you efficient? Are you persistent? And so, if you have those qualities, I know if I put something in your hands, it’s going to get executed well and I value that. So, I’m going to respect you because of that. So, capability, assertiveness, that’s important.
And then the other one, is our warmth, or do we care about people other than ourselves? And that’s really important too, because I’m going to value people who aren’t just out for themselves, who are going to use their talents to benefit me. And so, if we see somebody who’s very caring and other-oriented, we value that too. We respect it.
So, those two dimensions in psychology are really critical. In fact, we call them when we create a little XY axis out of them, we call them the interpersonal circle of person perception. And “Likable Badass” is my catchy term for the space in the circle we all want to be, which is we all want people to see us as very capable and very caring.
Because when we do that, that’s how we gain status, that we respect people who are good at getting stuff done and who care about other people.
Pete Mockaitis
Understood. And I suppose that, so is it fair to say these are the two dominant things that make us perceive a person as being respect-worthy, these are the two?
Alison Fragale
Correct.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, I suppose there might be some third elements that are idiosyncratic to individuals. I was watching this comedy movie, where this guy was shocked and appalled that his best friend was a Republican, for example. So, I’m thinking, like, there might be certain dimensions of division or stereotyping that can cut across this for people. It’s like, “Okay, you’re very capable and you are very warm, but I still don’t like you for…” insert fill-in-the-blank personal bugaboo. Is that fair to say?
Alison Fragale
Yes, although I think you can actually probably shoehorn most of these judgments into capability and warmth somehow. So, I kind of question how good of a human you are. Or maybe I question your intelligence, because, “How could you possibly believe this is true or that is true?”
So, under capability, for example, is also competence and intelligence. So, it’s a circumflex, and there’s characteristics all the way around it. But a lot of times, we can take most of the judgments we have and say, “They do reflect on either how good I think you are at what you do, how smart you are, or how nice and caring you are.”
Again, I’m sure if we played the game long enough, you could find something, but even a political affiliation that people could say, “I don’t really respect that person,” you think, “Well, why don’t I respect that?” And it could come to something about, “Well, you can’t be that smart if you believe that’s true,” or, “You can’t care about other people if you’re willing to let A, B, and C happen.”
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s good. So, our deeply held beliefs about a political affiliation, or any sort of an issue, then colors the extent to which we think that they are likable and capable. And so, I guess the opposite of a likable badass would be a jerk-idiot. We’ll hyphenate it. Yeah, I sure don’t want to be one of those, or either of those.
Okay, so there we have it. Status is a fundamental human need, and if we are in the likable badass zone, then good things come to us. I guess we feel we have status, and that feels good, that human need is being met. We feel respected, which is cool and enjoyable. And so, what does it do for us in terms of our career, our progression, our being awesome at our jobs?
Alison Fragale
One thing it does is it opens up all of the things that we tend to want at work. It makes all those things easier to achieve. So if you want to climb a career ladder, if you wanted to have more responsibility, if you wanted to be paid more, all of those things are forms of power, which is related to status, and I spend a lot of time helping people understand the distinction.
Power is controlling resources that people value. So, if I get to spend my budget without having to ask for permission, if I get to make a decision about a work product without having to ask for permission, if I get to review your performance, if I get to hire and fire, all these kinds of things are resources that we value and we control. If I get to come and go as I wish at work, have autonomy, work from wherever, that’s a resource.
So power is also another fundamental human need. People want to be in control. The lack of control of your environment also damages our life satisfaction and our physical and mental health. But status, being respected, is a gateway to getting all of these other good things. Not only is it good to possess in and of itself and it feels good, it also is how we get the power and the resource control that we want. And not everybody wants power in the same way, but everybody wants control over their environment. Again, even if it’s just power over self, “I want the autonomy to be able to work when and where I want or how I want.”
So, we focus a lot on power when we try to help people navigate their careers. A lot of on “How do you advance?” But the piece of the conversation that I don’t think we’re having as explicitly as we should is, “Well, how do you get those things?”
And the way I started was teaching people negotiation skills, which are important. You think, “If I can negotiate really well, I can negotiate myself into the career that I want.,” and that’s helpful. But also, it helps if your audience really values what you’re bringing to the table, that if you’re trying to get something from somebody and that person who’s looking at you, rightly or wrongly says, “I don’t really value you, and I don’t really respect you very much.”
You’re kind of sunk at that point, there’s very little you could say or do from a strategy standpoint that’s going to get you a good outcome, because we don’t give rewards to people that we don’t respect. So, it opens doors for us to being able to control our environment at work in whatever way we want to do it, and that is also really valuable.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, Alison, conceptually, that seems to add up and check out like, “Yep, sure, that follows.” Could you point to any particular studies or data that show perhaps just how eye-popping-ly powerful this status stuff is?
Alison Fragale
One of my favorites, looked at interruptions in a work group. and looking at gender and interruptions in the work group. So, this is a group, they had three men, six women, intact group, worked together for years, and the researchers studied the group, and they looked at who got interrupted and who spoke. And they found that everybody spoke at a proportional rate, and so everyone had about equal airtime.
But not surprisingly, the women were getting interrupted disproportionately, much more so. And an interruption is a marker of low status. So, when someone interrupts you, they literally silence you. And so, when you are cut off from even speaking, you can’t have influence. And so, who gets to talk and who gets cut off is a subtle way that we communicate whose ideas are worth hearing and whose aren’t, whose do we respect. So, an interruption is a status, a marker of status.
So, they find the women are cut off, and that is not necessarily surprising, given what you know that gender affects status. But what might be surprising is when I tell you the group, and the group in question is the United States Supreme Court. So, they found, this was the court at the time when Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were three justices. Those were the three out of the nine. They were interrupted disproportionately more than their male colleagues.
And so, this idea of, “Do they all have power and equal power?” Yes. “Do some of them might have more status than others, in this case, coming from gender as a determinant of status?” Yes. And so, what we see is that even when people have a lot of power, if they do not have the status, that power doesn’t necessarily raise their status, and it doesn’t necessarily protect them from being treated in these lower-status ways.
And so, I always say, if the power of being a Supreme Court justice is not enough to guarantee that everybody would respect you and listen to what you have to say, then we can’t expect that any of us are going to have it. So, we’d like to think that power, being in charge of stuff, is going to make everyone respect us, but what you see in that study is it doesn’t, that direction doesn’t work. The other direction of, “I respect you and, therefore, I give you power,” we see a lot more evidence of that.
Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. But I guess a follow-up is, is it the fellow justices interrupting the female Supreme Court justices, or is it attorneys?
Alison Fragale
Both. Both.
Pete Mockaitis
I mean, I would be, “Whew!”
Alison Fragale
Yeah, it’s transcripts of these cases that appear before the Supreme Court. So, it’s both the justices and the people who appear before them. Yes, both.
Pete Mockaitis
I would not dream of interrupting a Supreme Court justice, male or female, which is maybe a whole other dynamic about personality in the mix there. So, yeah, I could chew on that one for a while. So then, point made, that there’s quite the distinction between power and status. And it’s interesting how much I really, really don’t like being interrupted.
And so I like that you’re pointing out that, okay, well, yeah, that’s really kind of like a fundamental human dimension is going on, as opposed to I’m just a cranky jerk. So, thank you for that. So then now unpack for us how having status results in great things unfolding for us from a data-driven perspective?
Alison Fragale
We see the status power link, which is, if I have status, so if we look at the groups, there’s been studies done in all kinds of work groups, groups in the military, civilian groups, and they measure at time one who are the really respected people in the group, and that’s a status measure.
And then at time two, they’re measuring who ends up, ultimately, getting the power at some point, like who gets to be the leader, who gets to be in charge. And in all those studies, what you see is that strong status power link, that the people who are the most respected at time one and time two end up being the people who get to be in charge. And I think, I really want to point this out, because not everybody necessarily wants a promotion, not everybody necessarily wants more money or more work. But, one, people do like autonomy over their lives and control, and that power and status are both resources.
Those resources do not just need to be used to benefit you. Those resources can be used to do all kinds of good things for the world. So, if I have power, I could use my power to hire the people who I think deserve to be hired but often get overlooked. I could use my power to elevate somebody in the organization who does great work but may not necessarily get the recognition. And so, power is a resource that we can do a lot of things with. So, that science goes that way.
And then the other piece is that if somehow you had managed to be one of the, you’d think, lucky few who didn’t navigate status very well, but managed to kind of get ahead in your career to the point where you were a person who had a lot of power, you were kind of a Supreme Court justice of your domain, you might think, “Oh, okay, well, I’ve made it, right? I’ve arrived,” but actually, and this is what I’ve spent a lot of my own research doing, we find things get worse for people.
And what we find is that when a person is in that situation, it’s a miserable existence.
Pete Mockaitis
It sounds like it.
Alison Fragale
Yeah. Well, you look at research on incivility, so that’s going to be the mistreatment that kind of goes below the radar. You’re not officially harassing somebody, but you’re doing something that makes them feel terrible. You roll your eyes, you cut them out of the information flow, you make some kind of snide comments about them, that kind of stuff. That stuff is disproportionately directed toward people who have power but don’t have status. And we see at work data that people, when they’re treated that way, they exit if they can.
So, I’m really struck by a lot that’s been reported lately about the exodus of senior women from organizations at greater rates than junior women. Because gender affects status, the idea of being a senior woman raises the idea that some of those people are in these low-status power holder positions. They control a lot of stuff and people don’t respect them.
And then we see they’re treated uncivilly and no one likes that, and so if they have an option, they eject, and we see people, senior women leaving at greater rates than they’re actually being promoted. So, it’s both the good things that can happen to you with it, and the bad things that could befall you without it.
Pete Mockaitis
All right. Understood. So, lay it on us, Allison, status, how do we get it at work?
Alison Fragale
Some of the things that affect our status are things that are outside of our control and some things that we just might inherit, if you will.
So, it could be gender, race, an accent, an ethnicity, a religion, all these kinds of things, and they don’t have any bearing on our competence or our caring, but people think they do. We give them meaning and, therefore, some people get more automatic respect than others just because of how they look or show they up. So that’s part of it, and that’s why, so some people getting status is actually a little more work, and I want to acknowledge that because status comes from these two places.
But the part that’s very positive is that a huge amount of our status is very controllable. It comes from how we show up when we interact with human beings. And the part that we can control has been shown to have a bigger impact on how respected we are than the parts we can’t control.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s good news.
Alison Fragale
Yes, it’s very good news, but what it means is that if we have some of these things that we can’t control that aren’t working for us, we want to be really sophisticated about controlling the controllables. So, here’s the deal. Status exists only in somebody else’s head. It’s their belief about you. So, what do we need to do to influence our status? We need to influence what they believe about us. Feels daunting, but psychology, this is what we study. We say, “Look, you can have a lot of effect on your audience.” It’s controlling the messaging that your audience gets.
So, everything that everyone in the world knows about you at this point in time has come from one of two communication channels. One is information you have put out in the world. Someone sat next to you on an airplane, they listen to your podcast, they know you from being your neighbor, whatever it is, they read about you online, social media, whatever. Those are things that you have originated, put them in the world and people see them.
So, one is we have to control that channel. And what I mean by that is making sure that we are putting information out there that says to individuals and the world at large, “I’m very capable and I’m very caring.” Sometimes that is being willing to self-promote to talk about positive things in a way that feels authentic and comfortable, and we can explore that piece of it. Sometimes it means not doing dumb stuff. So, there’s some stuff that we do that there’s a logic to it. We think, “This is going to be really good for my brand,” and it’s not.
So, one example would be hiding our successes. This is why self-promotion is effective. Hiding our success. Something good has happened to you. You’ve gotten an award, or you’ve hit a milestone on your podcast, or something like this, and you think, “I’m proud of that. That’s good. But I’m not going to go and tell people about that because I don’t want to be seen as a bragger. I want to be humble. And if I’m humble, you’ll like me more.” That’s how I convey the whole likable piece.
But if we’re chatting, and you have some good news and you don’t share it and then you leave, and I hear later, because the grapevine is efficient, that you didn’t tell me, is my first thought, “Oh, my God, Pete is so humble”? No. People think, “Why didn’t Pete tell me? Are we not that close? Or does Pete think I’m so petty I couldn’t be happy for him?”
And so, what happens is when we hide our successes, we actually do it because we think it’s going to get us at least the likable part, not the badass part, but it’s going to get us the likable part. But the research shows it isn’t actually true. It’s not what people infer when they hear that you had something good and you didn’t tell them. You actually end up being seen as capable when the news is released, but it damages the relationship.
So, a better strategy is, why is sharing our success actually a good thing for all that we’ve been told about telling our stories and self-promoting? It’s because you are seen as warmer when you are forthcoming with people and you’re seen as more capable because you’ve told them about the good things. So, that would be an example of starting to control your channel, to not do something that you think is helping your reputation or your brand, but the science shows that it’s not.
Pete Mockaitis
If being forthcoming is a desirable attribute, we probably also want to share sort of major happenings in general, otherwise we’re not forthcoming, whether maybe something sad has occurred in your life, and then they find out about that through the grapevine and they say, “Oh, I was just talking to him. How come he didn’t bring that up?” I guess that same phenomenon could occur there.
Alison Fragale
That’s right. So, again, self-disclosure, you want to be authentic about it and decide where you want to draw the line. Some forms of self-disclosure help build our status. Other forms might not. You might share something personal to build the rapport and the warmth. But then you might say, “I’m going to tell you some things I’m not really good at,” and that’s self-deprecation.
But that is a behavior that is not status-building. Because when we cut ourselves down, we’re basically saying, “I’m not as capable as you think I am,” and we are the experts on ourselves. So, when people cut themselves down, they are seen as less capable as a result, on whatever dimension they just deprecated. But we often do it because it’s socially cohesive.
Cutting yourself down is a form of humor, and many comedians, that’s they’re bread and butter, right? They make fun of themselves, and we laugh, and it is a form of humor. So, being funny is actually cohesive, it builds warmth, but humor at your own expense doesn’t. And so, I think it raises the idea of when I talk about controlling a channel of communication, the balance between being authentic and being strategic.
Because you might say, “I had a really bad day today and I really messed something up. And I didn’t do a good job and I got really bad feedback at work.” And the question is, like, “Do I share it? Do I cut it? Or do I keep it to myself?” And I think everybody gets to make their own decision about what they want to put out there and what they don’t.
But what I’ve had to coach myself on is a lot of the self-deprecating I was doing was done solely for the purpose of trying to be funny. I mean, I believed it to be true, but I was like, “Oh, this is my way of being funny.” Not fully appreciating that that form of humor wasn’t having the effect that I was hoping it would have, which is people would respect me more because of it. And so, now I’m more thoughtful that, if I’m seeking advice or support from somebody, and I say something has gone really wrong, I will tell them because I want their advice or their support in the moment.
But there might be other moments where my goal in the interaction is to show up in a way that’s going to get people to respect me, and I might say, “I’m going to tell a different truth, maybe something that is also equally true, but showcases my capabilities and my concern for others a little bit more.” So, controlling our channel is going to be a big one. And then thinking about easy ways that we can show up to other people and showcase how capable and caring we are.
And what I always tell people is, “Look for opportunities to solve other people’s problems using your unique skills and talents, things you are naturally good at, you really enjoy, and doesn’t take you very long to solve their problems. If you do that in life, and that’s all you do, you will build your status because as soon as you solve their problem, you’re capable, and you’ve spent your effort to solve something that matters to them, so you’re caring.”
But those things can sometimes be done in seconds. So, introducing two people, for example, is a form of solving somebody’s problem, “Hey, let me connect you with somebody who can do the thing that you’re looking for.” And I’m showing that my network is really valuable and it’s really robust, and I’m using my network for your benefit.
Taking something you like. I was very struck recently by a woman that I saw in an event, and she was the unofficial-official Instagram documentarian of this event, and she was taking videos and everything, but she said, “You know, I love being on Instagram, but I think a lot of my older senior colleagues don’t value this. They think it’s, like, personal and silly and it doesn’t really matter. And so, so how do I balance, like, that I really care about that with the fact that that they don’t?”
And I said, “You know, I would love someone who knew better than I did, to say, ‘Hey Allison, I know you’re on social. I have some ideas about how I could make your social more fun for you or more effective or better and, like, increase the impact of your messaging. Could I help?’” Well, all of a sudden, “Oh, sure.” Now it’s not just this silly thing you do. It’s you using your natural talent to help me.
And a lot of those things are fun for people and they’re easy.I always joke, you can buy someone’s coffee if you meet for coffee, but it’s a pretty forgettable act. It doesn’t showcase your capability. But if you make an intro or you give someone feedback on their Instagram, it’s not that much more effort than buying the coffee, but it’s allowing you to showcase yourself in a way that is more unique while still helping them.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so these fundamental principles make good sense. We can control the channel, make sure the good stuff gets out there and we don’t hold it back, as well as being helpful. We’re helping people, thus being warm, and we’re helping them using our unique skills, thus being capable at the same time. So, I think those are great things to get our radar up and being on the lookout for such opportunities. You mentioned introductions are great. Do you have any other super favorite things that anyone can do that are great?
Alison Fragale
A hundred percent. So, first, always have good answers to what I call throwaway questions. When people say to you, “What’s new? How is it going? How’s work?” A lot of times we just throw those questions away, “It’s fine. I’m busy. It’s good. How are you?” And at that moment, someone’s giving you a chance to tell your story. Now, do they want a 30-minute answer to that question? They do not.
But something that is better than “fine” or “busy” but gets them interested, like, “I had a great win at work today.” Something that sparks a little curiosity and gets them to actually pause and ask you a little bit about your story. That can be a really good one is, don’t throw those questions away.
The second one is to use the updating that you’re naturally doing as a course of your job to build your status. So, we often have to give people status updates. Use those kinds of things as storytelling opportunities. And one effective way to do that is, in psychology it’s called dual promotion, I call it brag and thank. Anytime you have an update, you’re going to talk about a success or a win that you’ve had, and you’re also going to talk about the great work of other people who helped that win be possible. I’m telling you something great about me and I’m also telling you something great about other people.
That turns out to be a really winning strategy because when we promote ourselves, we’re seen as more capable, and when we shine the spotlight on somebody else, we’re seen as more caring. So anytime we can put those two things together in a message, whether it’s an email, or stopping somebody in the hall, that’s going to be a really easy one for us to be able to do.
And then the other, I’m going to kind of go over into this second channel, because if you remember, I told you there were two channels of communication. One is us and the other is things other people have said about us. So, everything that’s known about Pete is things Pete has put out into the world or things that people have heard or known about you and they’ve repeated. And so, a lot of our status is not built by us. It’s built by other people talking about us in positive ways or they could tear our status down if they’re talking about us in negative ways.
But if someone else is talking about your status in a positive way, they’re doing a lot of your work for you, and they can brag about how capable you are all day long, and there’s no risk to you.
So, one simple thing is finding ways to meet more people. I always say people cannot sing your praises if they do not know you exist. And so, this whole idea that we’ve always been told to network and to meet more people, put yourself in situations to meet more people. There’s a million ways to do it and I’ll tell you the stories if you’re curious, but I’ll just start with this.
Some of the people who have been the most helpful in my career, I met them in airports, like strangers that you have a random conversation with, and next thing you know, within five minutes, something gets uncovered and you’re like, “Huh, okay, maybe we should stay in touch,” and you stay in touch and then the relationship forms.
The other one that I want to offer because it’s just the right way to be, and it’s also very valuable, is the easiest way for you to get someone else to go build your status for you is for you to build theirs first because human behavior is reciprocated. So, a simple daily practice that we can have, to be awesome at our job and build these relationships, is every time you observe someone and you think, “Wow, that was great,” whatever it was, tell somebody, put it out into the world, promote them, and say, “This person is amazing.”
It feels great to do it, but also because the grapevine is efficient, they will eventually find out that you were saying nice things about them, and human behavior is reciprocated. So, one of the easiest ways to build other promoters is for us to just cultivate a daily practice of promoting other people first. So, I have a rule and I always say, if I have a nice thought about somebody in my head, I do not let the thought die there. I put it out into the world somewhere. And that alone, as a simple practice, if that was all a person ever did, would garner them a lot of reciprocal other promotion in spades.
Pete Mockaitis
So, let’s say I have a nice thought like, “Oh, my buddy, Dave, is so funny.” I mean, I’m not sure where I would park that. I could just text Dave, say, “Hey, I really appreciate you. You’re funny.” Or, I mean, I could put a glowing message on a post on LinkedIn, he might be like, “Pete, what’s going on here, dude?” I don’t know. Where would I park that?
Alison Fragale
Yeah, so I think it depends on the context. One, sometimes I can just go back to the person to say, like, “I was thinking about this today, and it, you know, what your humor is just always like such a joy and cracked me up I was thinking about that.” So that could be appropriate. It doesn’t necessarily have to be, “I do it the moment I think of it.” Like, if I have a thought right now, I’m not going to hop off the podcast and go do something else, but I keep it there and I think about where it has an opportunity.
One of the things I often do is I’ll think about a mutually beneficial introduction that I could make, and when I make that introduction and I think, like, “Dave is hilarious. And what would advance Dave’s interests? And how would him being a funny guy actually be value-added to somebody else?” Even if it’s just two people who have a shared personal connection, I think they would really, really like to be friends.
So, I could introduce Dave to my other funny friend and that could be it, right? And so now, even if that intro goes nowhere, at least you’ve put to the other person in the world, “Hey, Dave is this funny guy.”
And I think when we do those kinds of things, a lot of them don’t go anywhere at the time. If it’s somebody you work with, then you have a lot of opportunities to think about this in terms of hallway conversation and things like that. The next time you’re in a meeting and let’s say you work with Dave, and Dave’s in the meeting, you could think about amplifying something Dave said, or to think about, “Dave is really good at doing X because Dave’s always the person who can put somebody else at ease. And so, I think we should be thinking about letting Dave lead this because he has great skills.”
So, it doesn’t have to be instantaneous. It could be just back to that person. But to think about, “If I think positively about this, who else would benefit from that person’s skills in a way?”
So, again, most people have a lot of positive thoughts about people and they aren’t using those positive thoughts to build that person’s status, and that’s an oversight that we should correct as much as we can.
Pete Mockaitis
That’s super. And when you talk about introductions, I’m also thinking about just when you happen to be at in-person events. I remember I was at a funeral banquet, and someone was just introducing me and others to each other, and it didn’t take long. It’s like, “Hey, this is Pete. He has a tremendous podcast which helps people do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He’s a thought leader, this and that.” I was like, “Oh, well, thank you.” It was like, “Oh, I like you more!”
Alison Fragale
Exactly.
Pete Mockaitis
And then vice versa, the person who introduced me, “This person has a tremendous Star Wars memorabilia collection.” It’s just kind of fun and interesting. I mean, I’m not super into Star Wars memorabilia, so I don’t necessarily think that that person with a Star Wars memorabilia is extra amazing. But I’m more interested, like, “Oh, wow, huh, a collector. Okay. How did you get into that?” And so, it just seems like everybody wins when we just give a little bit more positive, good detail about who is this person when we introduce each other.
Alison Fragale
Exactly right. You’ve got it. It doesn’t take much. And even with something like Star Wars memorabilia, you might say, “This is the person who knows more about the Star Wars, like, canon and all the memorabilia than any person I’ve ever met.” And so, you would at least then respect some capability. It’s not a capability you would need to have yourself, but you’re like, “Huh, someone had to probably dedicate some actual effort, right? And so, now I see them as a more capable person, even if their skillset is not what I need.”
And you’re right, that we can do that quickly, we can do it authentically, and we can do it in person, we can do it over email, and just thinking about those positive things that we can say when we have our moment can be a great start to being able to build other people’s status for us. And then to your point, you said, “Oh, I had that moment where I thought more positively of them.”
I just had an email when my one of my oldest kids went to a Sleepaway Camp. He got an injury. I was emailing with the camp director to make sure the injury wasn’t going to keep him from being able to participate in camp, and it wasn’t. But when the camp director wrote back, he basically said, “By the way, I just got to tell you, like, how much I have really loved getting to know your son this year. What a leader he is among his peers. What a huge asset he is to camp.” It’s like two sentences.
But I observed, I was like, “Oh, I really like this guy now.” And so, I thought if the email had come the next day saying, “Our camp needs money,” I guarantee you I would have written a check and probably a bigger check than I would have written without that email. And so, I thought, “Oh, he complimented my kid. Oh, okay.” That makes me think he’s really smart because everyone thinks our kids are brilliant and “Oh, how nice.”
So, when I have these moments, like you had at the funeral luncheon or whatever, I unpack them to think, “Why did I feel so positively?” And the same, if I feel negative towards someone, “I like you as I think you’re an idiot.” What did they do? Because I don’t want to unintentionally be doing that thing. So that’s the armchair psychology that we all have in us, is unpack it when you experience it, because everyone else, we’re all like everyone, everyone else is just like us. So, if we felt that way, other people will too.
Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious, when we talk about doing self-promotion, what’s the right and the wrong way to do it? So, if someone says something like, “Oh, hey, how have you been?” It’s like, “Oh, I’m just absolutely crushing it. I’m going to have record-breaking income, maybe three or four mil this year.” It’s like, “Okay, good for you, dude, but this is kind of off-putting.”
So, I mean, one, based on your cultural context in the U.S. and some other places, sharing how much money you have, good or bad, is often kind of frowned upon and makes people uncomfortable. But in other cultural contexts, that’s sort of normative. How do we know some of the do’s and don’ts? We want to put the good stuff out there, but we don’t want to do it in an off-putting way.
Alison Fragale
So, look, this is where the art comes in of understanding your audience and thinking about what feels authentic for you. If it feels icky and you’re doing it as a strategy, I guarantee you it’s going to come across poorly. But if it feels natural, or it can start to feel more natural if you practice it a little bit, it’s better. First is, again, always think about, “Is there a way to do both? Say something good about myself and something good about another person.”
So, if I say, now the tone of voice, whatever that was, don’t do that thing again because that wasn’t going to work. But just the content of it, you know, the, “I’m on track to break three million, etc.” or, “I might have my best year ever, and I lead, as far as I can tell, the world’s best team. Like, this team is showing up in so many amazing ways, and I am just so excited about the success that I’m going to have and they’re going to have, and I don’t know how I got so fortunate.” Something like that where you can shine a spotlight on another person. That can be one way to do it.
The other is to say just a little bit and tease it and let someone else draw you out. Because if they’re asking you questions and you’re answering them, then it’s much more normative. Like, “How is this year compared to last year? Are you doing better?” And you say, “Yeah, I am doing better.” Then that doesn’t feel weird because you asked, but they have to make you curious about it. Like, “I just feel like things are really coming together at work in a great way that is making me really excited.” And you might be like, “Oh, well, what way?”
So, something that could pique a little bit of conversation, and then it’s not a dialogue. But another, you know, this is specific, but I’ll say the idea is to think about how to get that information out there under other purposes, like under the guise of other purposes. So, one example that I share with a lot of people is turning on your out-of-office message, which I’ve seen some people do really brilliantly, and it’s not a strategy I ever used, I still don’t use it as much or as brilliantly, but I’ve seen people, where whenever you’re out of the office, you turn on your message, “I’m gone. Please reach out to so-and-so. I’m back on this date.”
But other people have more flair in their out-of-office messages, and they communicate that the response will be delayed, but they say, “Here’s the exciting thing I’m doing.” Like, if you’re traveling to a conference, if you’re speaking at an event, if you’re, whatever it is, if you’re off talking to three clients, you can say, “Here’s what I’m doing,” and then add in some warmth, add in humor, add in some, “Here’s how I’m actually, like, the work that we’re doing is going to enable us to, like, grow in these markets is going to enable us to serve even more people who really rely on our product to be able to live their best lives,” or something like that.
And that’s an example of how you can start to use all your channels of communication. If you’re on social media, you can use your social media to talk about what you’re doing in a way that doesn’t feel as self-promoting as running around the office telling everybody, “Guess what I got to do?” or, “Here’s something,” you can just celebrate it.
Thinking about all those different ways to do it, but 100%, you have to know you and you have to know your audience because there’s not a script that’s going to say, “Oh, talk about it exactly in this way.” But the idea is if you don’t say anything about your capabilities, how will anyone ever actually know what they are?
Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Well, before we hear about your favorite things, I want to quickly get your hot take on what about things like clothing, the fit of the clothes, the brands, or the up-dress, dress up, dress down-ness of them, and/or height, or vocal intonation, body language, posture, like these kinds of presentation things? How much of a status impact do they make?
Alison Fragale
They have a lot. They’re all channels. People are drawing conclusions from everything you put out into the world – your eye contact, your gestures, your tone of voice, your clothes, etc. Now, does that mean you can only speak in one way, that you should only gesture one way, you should only wear one outfit? Absolutely not. Authentic and strategic can coexist. But you should be aware, and this is one of the things I help people do, is understand all the different behaviors that are linked to status.
So, a common one is, “Why is it that the person who comes in the meeting and just yammers on about nothing all the time, always is considered so smart? It’s so annoying.” It is annoying. But it’s also from science, it’s true, that we associate quantity of communication, speed of responding, speed of speech as markers that somebody is more capable. And so, you don’t have to do those things, but you should understand the relationship.
And so, what I always say to people is, first is just do an audit of, “What signals am I putting out into the world?” And say, “Some of these signals are helping me show up as capable, some are helping me show up as caring, and some are actually doing neither, they’re taking me backwards.” Then the question is, “What do I do about these things, if any?”
I say you need to signal something in every as many interactions as possible that says, “I know what I’m doing,” and you need to signal something that says, “I care about other people.” But it doesn’t need to be all the signals, and you can have a couple that are counterproductive and still overcome them as long as you’re thinking about what else you would do to compensate.
So, I’m a really big apologizer. I say I’m sorry all the time for all kinds of things and just use the word. And I try to coach myself out of it. It was requiring way too much conscious effort and I was just getting annoyed, and every email was taking 36 minutes to write, because I’m like, “Oh, there’s an apology there. Oh, no, then what should I do with these exclamation points? They seem kind of, you know, not so strong either.” And like, then I got smiley faces. So, I said, “Forget it. And I’m going to do the apologizing. I don’t worry about it anymore.”
It’s a more submissive behavior, the opposite of assertiveness, but that’s okay because I have other things that signal capability. I happen to have some credentials that are good signals of credibility. I’m a professor, I have a PhD, things like this. And so, what I concluded was I have enough signals of assertiveness in the environments that I need to function, that I can have a couple of things that work against me that feel natural and authentic, and I can let them go.
So, that’s my general answer is. Those things do affect status. Yes, you should be aware of what the effects are. And then it’s for each individual to decide, “Do I want to change that or do I not?”
Pete Mockaitis
All right. Now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?
Alison Fragale
One that I will offer you here that relates to this is from Julia Child. “Never apologize for the food you serve. No one knows how it was supposed to turn out but you.”
Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?
Alison Fragale
Deep Work by Cal Newport. I think his work really speaks to women and anybody else who is marginalized because we know that people who lack status are basically given the worst work. They’re given the non-promotable to do.
And so, I think the idea, the challenge of working deeply, and being able to work on things that matter, things that bring you joy, things that have high impact in the organization is harder for some people than others because they’re saddled with all the office housework. So, I really love Cal’s, all of his stuff, but Deep Work for that reason, because I think it has an important message for status, even though that’s not how he talks about it.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that people really seem to resonate with and connect with, an Allison original gem of wisdom?
Alison Fragale
Strategic and authentic are not opposites, that you can and should be both.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?
Alison Fragale
My website is a good place, AlisonFragale.com. When you’re on it, I have a free newsletter that I put out on Substack. It’s called “The Upper Hand” and it is behavioral science directed toward helping women advance. But as we talked about today, none of the things that I talk about are ever really only applicable to women. I talk about behavioral science that is tools people can use. So, if people are curious, it’s free. It’s on Substack. I write as often as I can, and I love sharing those kinds of ideas with people.
Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?
Alison Fragale
Ten, 10, 10. All right. Meet 10 new people. Make 10 small deposits, which is going to be an easy little thing you can do to show up as capable and caring, so, like, an introduction or solve their problems, something you could do that’s easy. Ten people, 10 small deposits, and promote 10 people to other people. So that was that tell them to say the good things that you think, and/or ask 10 people to promote you. Ask them to go build your status. That’s a scarier one that we haven’t talked about yet, but it’s really, really effective.
If you say to somebody, “Hey, person B really respects you. Will you go talk to person B and introduce me, talk me up, etc.?” So, 10, 10, 10. Meet 10 people, show up as capable and caring 10 times, same people, different, doesn’t matter, and promote 10 people, ask 10 people to promote you.
Pete Mockaitis
All right. Alison, thank you for your wisdom. You are a super ultra mega baller. See what I did there?
Alison Fragale
I did. I love it. I’ll take it. Hey, there’s another thing. One of my favorite studies in social psychology, self-serving interpretations of flattery. It’s why flattery always works, is because people think, “Done to another person that might be considered flattery but to me it’s just accurate.” So, self-serving interpretation, so you can flatter people all day long. They never get tired of it. I love it. You’re amazing.
