The brands we wear, the foods we eat, the people we associate with, the way we act in public… These are all ways we consciously (and often subconsciously) control others’ perception of us.
But we don’t have just one “authentic self” to portray. We are like actors playing many roles, in a constant state of flux depending on our context.
Awareness of this outward expression, or as we like to say, impression management, can help us understand how our public image is tied to our ability to reach desired goals.
On today’s episode we’ll discuss:
- The reasons for our curated self-presentation
- The 6 types we exhibit most and why they work
- How to refine our current impression management strategies
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TRANSCRIPTION
Brett Bartholomew 0:11
Welcome to the Art of coaching Podcast. I’m Brett Bartholomew, and at a young age poor communication nearly cost me my life. Now, I help others navigate the gray area of social interaction, power dynamics and communication so they can become more adaptable leaders regardless of their profession, age or situation. This podcast is for everybody who is fascinated with solving people problems. So if you’re in the no nonsense type who appreciates frank conversations, advice you can put to use immediately and learning how others navigate the messy realities of leadership. You’re in the right place. I’m glad that you’re joining us. Let’s dive in.
You know, a lot of people talked about wanting to be better coaches and leaders or wanting to have teams that perform better or more collaborative, and overall, just less conflict avoidant, yet they skimp on learning more about the fundamentals of human behavior, why people act the way they do, the very thing we need to understand if we want to coach and influence others. And this creates a conundrum. It’s also why this episode has been one of our most shared and is getting a reshare, today.
Impression management is all about the myriad ways that we try to influence the perceptions others have of us and man, do we do that a lot. We do it by wearing masks, changing our tone of voice, altering our behavior, and even adopting personas. Also, we can increase the chances of being liked, feeling valued by others, and really just achieving our goals. Now this sounds bad. And like any tool, if used incorrectly it is. But what if I told you that it’s actually not antithetical to being authentic, that it’s part of it. And it’s something that we do subconsciously.
And that not doing it would actually be maladaptive and hurt your chances of individual and yes, organizational success, and probably even personal happiness. Now why? Well, that’s going to be discussed in the episode. And after this episode, you will have a deeper understanding of not only the concept of impression management, but also those around you, and why they wear the masks they do. So dive in and enjoy.
Oh, wait. Also a quick reminder, if you enjoy getting tips and strategies for how to be a better leader, human and communicator, be sure to go to artofcoaching.com/begin. I send out a newsletter, and I don’t pepper you with Bs, only things that actually make you think and that you can apply. It’s for all individuals across all industries. The only commonality you need to have is just being somebody that wants to be better, being somebody that wants to check for your blind spots, being somebody that wants to be more adaptable. Again, that’s artofcoaching.com/begin .
Thanks for coming back for another episode of The Art of coaching podcast. You know, I want to start this solo episode off with a little bit of a story. And then we’re gonna get into impression management and the main topic. But this is something that I want you guys to get to know more about me as I continue to get to know more about you. Many of you are very active in our Facebook communities, our coalition program, our art of coaching alumni group, and even just in the podcast reviews and what have you.
And I know that sometimes it can feel like you only get to know certain sides of me. So just enjoy this quick story for a moment. And it’s kind of a weird thing that I think you’ll get a laugh at. But some of you may be able to relate. So I’m a knight Walker. And no, that’s not like a white walker or anything Game of Thrones-y and it’s not from a science fiction novel. It’s just I like to walk at night. In my neighborhood, I don’t just meander the streets, right. So. And one reason is I’m really an introvert at heart. And I’m sure many of you think, No way like you do a podcast, you have this, you speak, you coach and you’ve done this, you can’t be introverted, but I really am.
And there’s always been something about the silence and the stillness of night that has kind of quieted and focused my mind. And it’s ironic, because I know there’s so many people that are morning people and they talked about the early bird gets the worm and I’m always quick to remind them yeah, if the night owl leaves any for them. Dad Joke aside, but the thing is, when it’s morning, at least my mornings, I’m already usually bombarded with texts and emails and requests. And even if I turn my phone off, running a small business out of our house, there’s my wife’s our project manager, if you haven’t listened to Episode 100 yet, go back and do that.
But she’ll usually have something for me and there’s always a lot of things to be done. But at night, especially around seven or 8pm things go still and I’ve instituted something new where I don’t even answer texts or anything like that unless it absolutely urgent, beyond 8:30, because I tried to just protect that at night is when I’m focused, I didn’t get a lot done. And there’s just always been something about it, especially on nights when it starts to turn into fall weather and the winter. And that silence and stillness is joined by a little bit of a crisp chill in the there’s nothing better. Well, on one of my walks the other day, I saw my neighbor, because I do have one other, weirdo in the neighborhood that appreciates the night. And I was asking him how his family was doing, with a pandemic, and then homeschooling and everything like that.
And he said, You know, it’s good, as long as I get my kids outside and get them active. And we were chatting a little bit about, just different things in school that don’t get taught and what they’re prioritizing. And for him, he’s teaching his kids a lot about finance, and physical activity, and even sex education, which I’m sure that can be awkward for some parents, and even communication, because that’s a part of his job. And we just talked about probably an old man on the porch kind of way, how funny it is that those things are ignored, largely by society. I mean, sex education is getting removed from school, and is removed for many schools.
Most kids don’t even learn just basic finance other than an addition and subtraction of pennies, or whatever they may do. And none of us really learn a ton about communication unless you took a specialized course in college or what have you, or you were exposed to something else. But we all know that recess has been getting taken out of schools for a very long time. That’s not new. That’s its own kind of pandemic. And I think another thing maybe some of you didn’t know about me is for three years, I’ve been a board member, I sit on the board for a nonprofit called movement to be. And that’s a nonprofit organization that specifically serves to really empower youth and underserved communities, through teaching them via high quality physical literacy programs.
It’s getting them involved in sport, teaching them how to move, we’re like just teaching these kids how to get up and play again, because that’s not a part of our society really anymore. And, as this nonprofit continues to grow, we try to find new ways to support it, especially at art of coaching. And so before we get in today’s episode, I just wanted to kind of reach out to you guys and let you know, when you look at the statistics, youth are really being programmed to sit at a computer around 70% of the day, and most schools have canceled sports and extracurriculars for all fall 2020. That’s not news, to many of you, many of you are parents, and almost all of them are doing online school in some form.
So even before all this many of the youth in underserved communities had an inactivity crisis, so movement to be is all about that. And we’ve always urge you guys, if you want to get involved, there’s so many ways to that. But they’re also trying to just really grow what they’re doing in and get in different states and be able to grow their online platform. So if you’re looking for any cause to support or donate to, I strongly just would urge you guys to check out movement2be.com. And that two, is the number two. So it literally is movement, the number two b e.com. And you can just go forward slash donate, but just reach out and see how you can get involved because I know so many people are struggling.
We’re a small business, we’re family home, too. We’ve taken out SBA loans and all that we everybody’s in the thick of this, right? But it’s important that we continue to invest in youth especially in those underserved communities. So if that’s interesting to you, and you support nonprofits, and you like that stuff and you feel passionately about activity, that’s a way you can get involved. All right, on with the episode now. Now, I want you to recap your day, or forecast your routine tomorrow.
What are you going to wear? What’s your routine like? Who’s one of the first people you talk to every morning? Is it your significant other? If you don’t have a significant other are you jumping onto a company call? How do you come to the decisions of what that routine is like and how you’re gonna groom yourself and all these things that you may not think about and have become somewhat subconscious for you. Well, a lot of that has to do with today’s topic is about impression management or self presentation, the words are often used synonymously in the research. And simply put, impression management is all about the process of influencing how others perceive you.
So believe it or not you making the decision to wear deodorant or cologne or perfume or do your hair or brush your teeth. That is all a form of not just daily hygiene and thoughtfulness but impression management because you don’t want to be it’s like Big Daddy Right? Or you’re the stinky kid at school. Nobody wants to be the stinky kid in quotes or nobody wants to come off as non professional or just lazy and I’m not talking about your lazy Sundays. I mean I’m recording this right now in basically workout attire but everything we do is some form of impression management. And we really owe that term and a lot of the founding research to Erving Goffman, he was a sociologist and he’s the granddaddy of all things self presentation or impression management, all US impression management the rest of the episode but just know they’re aligned.
And what you need to know this what’s in it for you, regardless of the field that you’re in, whether it’s finance, tech, sport performance, anything like that is a huge part of understanding how communication works. And the order of interaction and how to just basically understand and enhance social skills comes down to knowing about impression management, and man, it’s a meaty topic. We cover it in some of our online courses, I have like a whole 90 minute talk on it. And so it’s a struggle to be able to get this out in a podcast. But today, we’re just going to give you a primer. So don’t get intimidated, don’t worry. And there’s going to be our usual podcast reflection sheets that our own Ali Kershner does for you all the time. And they’re free. So just enjoy and take it in, right.
So when we’re talking about this more formally, impression management can be defined as any behavior that is intended to create, modify or maintain an impression of ourselves in the minds of other people. I mean, people will use impression management to achieve social goals, organizational goals, whether that’s just being liked in general, or valued by friends or their colleagues or co workers and supervisors or what have you. And this is research that’s gone on, you’ll really prior to the 1950s. When we look at interpersonal skills in general, this stuff has been researched since the late 1800s, early 1900s. So there’s a rich reservoir of these things. And, whether you’re talking about Robert Cialdini, Erving Goffman, even Shakespeare, and we’ll talk about a quote here later, there are so many different avenues that this applies in organizational leadership and overall leadership.
So, Robert Cialdini, and I had the chance to meet him at a clinic about a year and a half ago, maybe it’s two years don’t quote me on it doesn’t matter. And I’ve always been fascinated by his research, especially since a lot of what we do at art of coaching deals with persuasion and influence and communication and the role it plays in leadership. But, he mentioned that this has been widely studied for really more than 30 40 50 years, especially on its effects and career outcomes. And Giacalone. And Rosenfeld that wrote a great book and a lot of research in 1989, and previous research address a lot of the influence that impression management has on job interviews, you’ll use it in job interviews, and we’ll give specific examples on performance ratings, when people are rating other colleagues and what have you, and the role that perception plays, and even assessments of promote ability.
So believe it or not, your likelihood of getting the job you want. Your likelihood of getting the pay raise you want. Your likelihood of being successful in any endeavor, in many ways, comes down to understanding and enacting successful forms of impression management. So, the theory from Goffman originally, really posits that we’re all actors on a stage and that coincides with an old Shakespearean quote, All the world is a stage. And all the men and women merely players, they have their exits, they have their entrances, and one man, and we’re using the term man collectively here, no matter how you identify, in his time plays many parts.
You can almost think of these guys as masks, or role identities. So for example, I’m a father. I’m a son, I’m a business owner. I’m a coach. I’m a speaker. I’m a podcaster. Right? I’m associated with each of these identities. I’ve talked about it in a previous episode, when I first started crossing over from just being in strength and conditioning and human performance, into really working more on the psychology and leadership and communication side, I was doing a lot more speaking, and I had somebody in my community, not the art of coaching community, but just in strength and conditioning. Say, Well, what are you now a strength coach or a speaker? And I talked about this often, I said, Well, I’m both like, why do I need to be singularly defined?
And that’s a mistake people make is we like to think that there’s this authentic self. If I say, hey, let’s play an association game with the word leadership, what comes to mind? We hear a lot of things and I’ve done this on my Instagram before and we hear servant guide, teacher authenticity, what have you but Goffman and many researchers in this space would actually say, we do not have a singular, authentic identity. All of us are an amalgamation of the things that we’ve perceived and observed over time, right? The whole nature and nurture, like we may all be original in our own way, but nobody’s a true original.
We’re a collection of all these other traits and attributes that we observed from successful others and people we don’t want to be like or what have you. So we don’t have a singular authentic identity. And as a matter of fact, it’s not something And you were I should ever get defensive about. Because if you had a singular identity authentically, or authentic identity, it would be maladaptive. Because that identity wouldn’t transfer well into every social situation or interaction, you would essentially be the same kind of person come across the same way. And even those guiding principles, we know that we can all have principles, but those principles have to flex in times.
And we’re not talking about, like, we could get granular we could talk about honesty and faith and all these kinds of societally approved principles, or even what we hear in terms of different forms of religion and what have you. But we look and there’s so many different interpretations of what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s black, what’s white, and the gray area in between. And the point is, and we’re not getting into morals, or what have you. The point is, is we have many authentic identities, there’s not a senator, we have to love the gray area. It’s what I call guys, dirty leadership. We don’t have to be perfect leaders, we don’t have to play a role perfectly all the time. Many of you are loved by certain people in your life, because you’re imperfect. That’s what makes you unique in many of those capacities.
So everything we do is a performance. And that’s because people want to present themselves in a light most favorable to them, and how they or we, because I’m included in this as well, do this change upon the environment in the situation. So I’m talking to you in a certain tone of voice right now. This is my tonality. This is my tempo. I don’t talk to my son like this, I don’t talk to everybody like this, if I’m at a party with friends, or what have you, well, pre COVID I may not always use this tone, I may use a quieter voice, we may talk about goofy things, we’re not always going to talk about educational stuff, orwhat have you we reflect and we have a mirror of the people that we’re interacting with.
And that’s what Goffman would say, hey, well, there’s front stage behaviors. And there’s backstage behaviors. And those are usually separated by a boundary. And you could think of front stage behaviors, as what people see on Instagram, or if they’re presenting or, if they’re going home for Thanksgiving or a holiday, and what have you they’ll tend to play one role when they’re around others, especially groups, but then these backstage behaviors is indicative of what we might send a friend on instant message, or it’s that informal talk, if we’re having a drink, or a meal with somebody that we really trust, that can be kind of gossip.
And I mean, I’ve seen this a lot, there’s plenty of times, especially when I was coming up in my field, where certain people in front of an audience, or even backstage, when they weren’t in front of an audience were really nice to me, they supported me, my work, my book, but then when we’d get around other people, there was none of that, they did sometimes they actually go out of their way to denigrate an idea or what have you. And it happens all the time. Because people may not want others to see that they support something based on how somebody else feels. And we’re going to talk about that later.
But that’s an interesting piece there. Now, we also used to see this and the way certain houses were developed. For example, if you went to a restaurant, you usually don’t see or you used to not see what went on in the kitchen. The kitchen was considered a backstage scene, not because they were doing anything devious. But just because, right? It’s noisy back there, the chef or the cooks, or what have you are going to the chatter and they’re going to chide each other and they’re going to tell jokes and, salt shaker might fall on the floor or what have you. They don’t want you to see that. And the front stage would be, the maitre d or the waiter or waitress with a clean press apron in a professional attire, and they’re going to speak to you a certain way.
And then they may go back into the kitchen and say, Hey, Jerry, where’s the soup for table 82? That’s my jersey accent. Right? So I’m just trying to give you guys a lot of examples here. You also used to see this in traditional homes, we didn’t used to have open floor plans. If somebody was entertaining, they wouldn’t want their guests to see all the work they were putting in into the kitchen, right? They might have flour all over, it might be hot, there might be noise and smoke. So they wanted that barrier to separate, when they came out with the food in the living room, or the dining room, which was beautiful, and there’s music and everything like that. And the kitchen.
Well, we do the same thing in our social lives, we have front stage, and backstage behaviors. So when we think about this, and why we do it, it’s not just to be liked and what have you. A lot of it is centered around trying to build a shared identity. People want to be a part of groups. We follow social norms. Social norms, is one of the most powerful drivers of human behavior, we tend to go with the flow.
Few things are more frustrating than when you feel like you’re overwhelmed in over your head or not sure what to do in a particular situation. Furthermore, many of you do not I need me to tell you this, there are certain things in life that reading a book, or even listening to a podcast aren’t going to help with because what you are contemplating or what you’re dealing with, is really complex and requires another human being to bounce ideas off of. This is why the art of coaching mentoring and strategy program exists. Now, I want to be really clear, if you haven’t heard about this.
This is something that we haven’t marketed much. But it’s always been a pet project of mine, especially because I never had a formal mentor to work with when I was navigating a lot of things in my life, and really even now, but what we do is we provide you guys with direct advice and applied strategies that you can use to better navigate relationship issues, work issues, big life decisions, or even just small stuff that you’ve wanted to get off your chest for a while. Yes, there is a common misconception that our company just because we talk a lot about communication and behavior, only deals with communication, or maybe entrepreneurial type stuff.
Our mission here at art of coaching is to help all of you with the messy realities of leadership and life. So it’s very broad. And we have people on this program that come to us with a wide range of issues or just things that they want to chat about and get advice on. And like I said, we can do this because all of our coaches have experienced these things as well. The fact is, and you know this to be true, coaches need coaches, leaders need someone to listen, and the messy realities of real life require real solutions from people who will shoot you straight. I’m biased, but I don’t think anybody does that better than our organization.
So all you need to do, there’s no travel involved, there’s no complexity, this is all done virtually, is go to artofcoaching.com/mentoring. I’ll repeat that, again, artofcoaching.com/mentoring, fill out the form, and a member of our team is going to get back to you. And I want to be clear, once again, our network of coaches have worked in a variety of industries, they work across multiple time zones. And none of this requires any travel or managing of logistics. on your end, it could not be simpler. It’s like Uber for advice, or lift for advice or choose whatever is available in your country for advice with qualified coaches.
It’s literally the most accessible way that you can get the help with what you need right now. And I’ll close it off like this. Nothing is more expensive than bad advice. Nothing is less productive than being prideful or not seeking a second opinion. And nothing is more valuable than getting a coach for yourself, someone who will listen and help you create a strategy tailored to you to help you get out of your own head and moving forward once again, go to artofcoaching.com/mentoring right now.
We follow social norms, social norms is one of the most powerful drivers of human behavior, we tend to go with the flow, and we want to have this shared identity. And that’s what we mean by everybody plays a role. Everybody’s got some different identities. And then, everybody typically switches these around their audience. I mean, think about it, guys, you don’t act the same around your in laws– and again, guys collective term, we don’t act the same around our in laws as we do our college buddies, and we don’t talk to our college buddies the way we do to our pet. And we don’t talk to our pet the way that we do our boss or superior always manipulating these things. So that’s not bad.
Impression management and self presentation isn’t a bad thing. It just is. Now it can be used for bad like anything can. And we’ll talk about that in a moment. But I’m just trying to give you a lot of background here. So if you want to consolidate it, you can think about, why people engage in it in three primary reasons. One to facilitate social interaction, we all play a role if you say, Hey, how are you doing? How are you holding up during the pandemic? What’s the weather like? Right? That’s kind of that banal, small talk, right? When we kind of hit that superficial layer of communication, oh, it’s been a long time. How are you what’s new, it’s been a year, all those kinds of things. And then there’s deeper forms of interaction, of course, but we always try to get through that initial barrier. And that’s a big reason impression management is done.
We also want to gain material and social rewards. And keep in mind, this isn’t just what you say it’s how you enact whether it’s on social media. There’s a lot of people that love their credentials, or they’re very adamant about, the title they have for themselves and the light they cast themselves in, they’re very meticulous. And you’ll notice or something that I noticed is people that maybe don’t have a quote unquote, brand. And we talked about this in the sin of self promotion podcast episode that we did. But there’s certain people especially in scientific fields, that they don’t believe in having a brand yet they don’t realize being the anti brand person or the witch hunting person, or the person that calls others out and does all this that, that is a form of impression management. And we’ll define that a little bit more which form of impression management that it is later.
And then there’s also self construction, a lot of us are trying on different masks because we’re trying to figure out who we want to be. And that’s, again, that’s not bad, you have your core values, you have your principles, but think of teenagers, right? We think of they, for a while they act this way, then they act like that. And then they’re too cool for school, then later in life, they may love mom and dad, but like, we’re all trying different things. You do that in coaching and leadership every day, you might try one approach with a certain colleague, and then another one, and you might run a meeting one way, I mean, I even tried to change up the flow of these podcasts between solo episodes, and interview style episodes.
So you want to facilitate interaction. You want to gain rewards, either material or social, right, just being liked. And then self construction, you’re trying to figure out, you know, as you go through life, what is really the best fit? Who really are you? How do you behave in certain situations? And how can you improve? And since the vast majority of our lives are spent in the company of other people, this is really pervasive. And even when you’re not around people, you’re your own audience, right? We’re our own harshest critic, you might rehearse a presentation in front of a mirror, you might lambaste yourself if you flubbed a word on a webinar or anything like that. But you’re calming shoot, even if you you know sing along in the car is your jam. And that’s a form of that you’re your own audience.
You’re always performing. And I always think of that man, what is that movie? I can’t believe this is escaping me. I think it’s I love you man. Right? Like slap and debase. Like he’s performing as he’s trying to show his wife how excited he is to be a part of this kind of band with his friend Sydney, if you haven’t seen it, it’s a comedy. And it’s pretty funny. It’s with Paul Rudd. But the point is, is we all perform in some way. And, to give you some more examples, if you’re still not convinced, if you dress up when meeting with friends for dinner, teenager, or anybody really only sharing only good things about their boyfriend or girlfriend, so their parents have a positive perception of them. If you’re introduced to somebody else, if you’re interviewing for jobs dating, if you’re giving an award speech, if you’re speaking to your team, we rehearse these things.
Alright, so we’ve talked about how they can be social, let’s talk about how they can be nonsocial. A strength coach that lifts weights, and somebody that appears strong or big or fit or what have you. Even that is a form of impression management. You’re signaling something you’re signaling a belief and a set of principles, and a hobby or a value system. And conversely, what are you wearing? How expensive are the clothes are inexpensive? Like I said, even if you’re the person that’s like, I don’t care about clothes, or material goods and and what have you, you’re still using impression management.
I think you guys get it, everything from how you toast somebody at a wedding to people that lay out to get a tan. That’s a form of impression management. So when we think about these things, we want to get a little bit more intricate about how we can use them more effectively. We talked about why people do it. And we talked about how these roles really create a structure of interactions. If you think about a pilot, I know not many people are traveling. But you know, pilots, when you get on a plane are supposed to be poised and in control.
So imagine getting onto a plane and hearing a pilot who sounds frenetic rush and discourteous, right, so instead of Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, if you look out the left side window, you’ll see the Grand Canyon. And by the way, we’ll be playing the Lion King in tonight’s cinema and the food will be– right? That’s a calm, pilot, or, ladies and gentlemen, please sit down and buckle your seatbelts. we’re encountering a little bit of turbulence, nothing to worry about. Our crew is going to take a seat and we will reestablish cabin service here in a minute.
What if they said, ladies and gentlemen, these bumps were there was a likelihood but they’re a little worse than we thought hey buckled in, it could get a little hairy up here chips getting real. That would be different. You might have people panicking a little. And so even they use forms of impression management. And I know I shouldn’t laugh at my own joke, but really, there was an internal dialogue. Should I drop that word or not? Because believe it or not, some people are like, Hey, should use that language on the podcast. I’m not for everybody.
So, other examples are white lie ceremonious platitudes. So a lot of people will use it to avoid social conflict. Right. So let’s talk about when we’re trying to gain material and social rewards. A lot of social rewards depend on our ability to convince others that we really possess a particular quality . Like being a leader entails convincing others that we’re capable of leading, we’re capable and if you’re hireable, you want to convince others that you’re deserving of, of being hired. So to be an accountant in the truest sense of the word, requires you to not only be a licensed CPA, but also other people acknowledging your expertise and actually employing you.
And we see this a lot, we see a lot of people that get certifications or licensures, or what have you, but they don’t actually really do the job. Or they try to make people believe that they can do the job and they don’t have licenses. And it’s all messy, right. And that’s why it’s such a loud, annoying world. When we are recognized by others, these identities that we play, possess relevant symbols to us. Job titles, name on a building, verified accounts on social media, that can give people a sense of self completion, or a lack of being on social media, we see that with guys like Cal Newport, right? There’s social rewards there, because he says, I’m into digital minimalism. And then he has people Yeah, we are too. And that creates its own in groups.
So you can see how people use this to get the approval of others. Now, you’ve heard me talk about self construction a lot, and the previous point really talking about gaining material and social rewards. That’s all about convincing others that we possess certain qualities. Self construction is more so about convincing ourselves. And if you recall, just a little bit ago, I talked about how teenagers will use this, they’ll dress different ways they’ll act different ways you use this, I use this, what have you, young coaches will try to mimic their mentors or coach they perceived to be at the top of their field. That’s a key issue I bring up in our episode about finding your leadership voice. And also some of our online courses where I talked about leadership development is really hampered by people emulating too much and not being self aware.
We need self awareness. So whether you’re a wealthy business person driving a certain car, or a Patrick Bateman in American Psycho having a certain business card, we always study people’s reactions to these things, because we’re trying to create an internal identity. Many of you know me personally know that I listened to everything from Frank Sinatra, to Eminem, right? And I always look at Eminem as a humorous example. He’s got three personas, Eminem, Marshall Mathers and Slim Shady. A lot of the songs that people find very distasteful by Eminem are really his quote, unquote, slim, shady persona.
Marshall Mathers is another persona. He’s more of the artist, and then or I’m sorry, he’s more of like the father and sentimental voice. And then Eminem is more of the shrewd talent. So you have that as well. Right? So if somebody says, hey, well, the real Slim Shady, please stand up, you have to ask yourself, how many identities do you have? There’s great research that kind of talks about this idea of a Batman persona. And my friend Zack sent me this, it’s funny. And they talked about how many times if you whether you have to fire somebody, or whether you have to do something else, it can be, again, in a positive way, adaptive, to have this alter ego, this gray area, and this black and white trade off that we have to be able to give ourselves the confidence we need to do these things or get through hard times.
So I think you’ve had enough of that. Let’s talk about the five common styles. Because I know it can be great to have all the information, the research, the why. But when we want to be able to pinpoint these things in ourselves or others, what’s going to help us do that. Now you’ll see everything I’m about to talk about in various degrees of TV and film, social media face to face interaction. And I’m going to ask you, as I go through these to really be self critical and think about which ones you use the most, because you’re going to use them all. Alright, you ready? Here we go. And remember, these will be written down in our free podcast reflection sheet. So if you’re if you’re new to the podcast, just go to artofcoaching.com/podcastreflections. They’re all free, super easy written down for you.
All right. So the first one we have is ingratiation and this is one of the most studied forms of impression management. This is simply put, we strive to get other people to like us. I saw a humorous video once that kind of used movies to explain this. And the example was elf. And there’s a scene in elf with Will Ferrell where he’s going to work with his dad, and his dad James Caan still doesn’t really want to accept that he’s his dad. And so he said, Listen, if you’re gonna come to work with me, you better dress up professionally. So he does. And he starts complimenting his dad’s assistant, you know, oh, thank you, Deborah, you have such a pretty face, you should be on a Christmas card.
Now it’s a humorous example, we use ingratiation all the time just giving a colleague positive feedback and saying hey Cory, really nice job on that initiative, Ali great work being able to lock this podcast reflection down last minute, Nate excellent job editing out my baby crying in the background, what have you right you have your own variations of positive feedback. So that can be a form of ingratiation. Just telling somebody that it’s been a while and you followed their work and that it’s really made an impact on you, that’s ingratiation. It’s not a bad thing. So it can be used poorly. It can be indelicate it can be that guy that used car salesman. It’s like, oh, you’ve been working out a bunch. I haven’t. Yeah.
All these things have a dual sided nature. That’s life. We’re not gonna go through that again because we talk about that on a lot of other podcasts. So, all these can be used for good or bad. ingratiation is anything you do to get others to view you as warm or likeable? Even holding the door for somebody and saying Merry Christmas or Happy holidays or something like that is a form of ingratiation. It’s not just being polite. Being polite is a form of ingratiation, you see how that fits. We’ve just never had words for these things before. The next part would be self promotion, right? This is number two. And there are no particular order, guys, so don’t worry about that.
This is where we attempt to convince other people of our competence. Now I always think about this as Uncle Rico and Napoleon Dynamite. Where he says back in 82, I used to throw a pig’s skin a quarter mile, for those of you not on the imperial system there that you know is point four Oh, kilometers, give or take. But ` he just sits here he talks about if coach would have put me in, we would have won state, I would have gone pro, right? There’s this form of boasting. But it doesn’t have to be that obvious. It self promotion is very subtle, we talked about it earlier, it can be you going to decide to get your Masters or PhD or you not doing those things and espousing the virtues of not doing that.
And going another route, which is totally cool, right? Like, it could be you going for a job promotion, and trying to put together a document that shows you’re ready to lead a team, it can be you making sure that well, I’ll give you an example. I have water, on this podcast right here, on my table right here, because if my voice starts getting dry, start coughing and what have you. And the quality of the audio is a form of self promotion, I’m trying to show Hey, I’m competent here, I care about you guys as listeners. And I don’t want this to be crappy audio. So things that subtle can be self promotion, you choosing really nice clothes to wear at work and wanting to look professional, when honoring a speaking event. I mean, believe it or not, there’s times where I get crap for wearing nice jeans and a button down.
And again, a lot of this comes from, my original base of strength coaches who it used to be the biggest thing to wear the logo or the stuff of whatever company or team you work for, I mean, used to go to strengthing conditioning conferences, and you would see strength coaches and like warm up or gear of their school, you would think it was like West Side Story, right? Because this school didn’t like that school on the staffs were competitive. Business people in the corporate world used to look at who has a nice suit or attire, it’s all goat show, right. And the bottom line is, I think the pandemics change a lot of that. But I’m just trying to give you as many examples as you guys can have. So it becomes clear.
Moving on, intimidation, we try to lead others by or we try to make others believe that we’re tough. Now, Steve Jobs is well known for this, a big issue with hearing about a lot of leaders like Steve Jobs, or Jack Welch, or all these other people that you tend to read about, and I’m sure they’re all, obviously revolutionary in many ways, and lovely people in many ways as well. But people usually don’t tell the other side of the story. Now with Jobs, there is a little bit more of a balanced narrative, right? He is really the one that is given credit for pioneering apple in many ways. And a story he talks about how he used intimidation as a management style.
It’s well known that he ruled by intimidation, yelling and screaming. And this was a direct quote from somebody that was involved at Apple from a 1989 article. They say he ruled by intimidation, yelling, and screaming at people, right? This type of impression management may be why Jobs managed to retain so much power, despite the fact he in some people’s opinion, was not as knowledgeable as some and more disliked than most. We often see Steven Jobs as somebody who really appeared strategically to be able to select identities that he wants to manage, before he became who he was at Apple, he really wanted to kind of be seen as this kind of rebel, he’d walk around barefoot, and he do this.
And speaking of that reminds me we ran a seminar recently with a bunch of physical therapists. And I think like four of them were walking around barefoot and I get that that’s a thing in some circles, but that would not be a thing like a corporate event, or if I go work with firefighters, we don’t see them walking around barefoot. So that’s another example of impression management there. And then we saw jobs eventually turn into the guy that wore just the black turtleneck. Everything is kind of very sterile and clean. So he’s a great example of impression management. And there was a recent video that came out with Bill Gates, where Bill Gates kind of said I envied Steve because, you know, and Bill Gates is pretty smart guys pretty talented in his own right
But he talked about how he wish he had the social skills. And just the communication prowess that Steve Jobs had. He said he was just like a wizard. He could mesmerize people, and he could unite them with their vision. And Bill Gates was talking about this because, he still feels so frustrated that nobody really listened to what he talked about in 2015, about us not being ready for a pandemic, and that highlights something guys something that we believe in strongly at art of coaching. Your information goes nowhere, if you cannot engage an audience. And that is a lot of what impression management is about, you’ve got to engage an audience, you’ve got to speak to them not just verbally, but non verbally and in the ways that you behave, every single thing you do, has to be strategic.
And I get it, it’s kind of scary and intimidating, because it’s not as simple as what we always thought of like, just look somebody in the eye and engage in nonverbals. This is a real thing. And that’s why companies pay, more than $300 billion a year in some form of this kind of training. So it’s tough. Alright, I think of another example of intimidation. I’m a Dexter fan. I don’t know if many of you are, but when he gets somebody on the table, right, he would try to intimidate them, they’d wake up, they’re Saran wrapped, there’s pictures, I won’t go into all the gory details. But that’s an example of an intimidation tactic. All right, two more,
We have what’s called an exemplification tactic. Now this one is used by leaders in nonprofits, and coaching, in teaching in a lot of what we consider servant based leadership, professions, right? This is where people aim to create the impression that they’re morally virtuous, or even righteous. And there’s a lot of tension with this, this is again, if you are somebody that, oh, I do this for the right reasons, oh, I don’t do it for the money. Oh, I do this for free. I love it so much. Oh, I just take pride in the work, I’m the hardest person in the– anytime you’re trying to convey a message of that’s along those lines is moral virtue, we’re righteous, we’re very committed more committed than most, and what have you, that is exemplification.
So when you see people, let’s say, you’re around somebody that’s like, personally, I don’t really care for social media, and podcasting, and this and that I focus on the work I, I care about my work and my family and my country. And that’s it. That is an example of exemplification. If you hear somebody kind of denigrate somebody else that is either non active in a certain way, or active in a certain way, in terms of, promoting something, or working on something that can be a form of exemplification. Guys, even within parenting. Alright, let’s look at it this way. You tried to provide a good example for your children, that is exemplification.
So again, it’s not all negative. It’s not bad, you act a certain way, I act a certain way in front of my son, I wouldn’t always act that way around other people, that doesn’t mean like, it just means like, whether I’m telling a joke, or I’m using a certain kind of language or what have you. I love it. I feel like I’m being judged. That’s a great example of impression management. We all do it, guys, we all do it. If you’re judging anything I say or how I say it, you’re using some form of exemplification, I’d never do that. If I had a podcast, if I had somebody on social media say, I can’t believe that you’re focusing more on communication and leadership. You’re a well known strength coach, why not just stick with that? Right. And I thought that was interesting.
But, we even think about like, the point was, he said, I’d love to have your platform, and I do something different with it. Now, it’s nice of them to say, but guys, like who says that? Don’t worry about what other people are doing, do what you do. So a great use of exemplification is, again, just day to day, be a decent person, be somebody that sets an example in certain ways, but you don’t need to rub it in somebody’s face. You don’t need to make your ideal somebody else’s. If you agree, cool, what have you but it’s not that big of a thing that you need to kind of, you know, tried to tell other people how they should behave or what’s the right way to do it.
Ultimately, you don’t know anything about what that person’s doing or their goal. So when we talk about impression management as a process, where others really try to seek or control the image others have of them exemplification is used a lot, a lot. All right, then we have supplication. supplication is where we seek to convince others that we’re weak or helpless. We intentionally downplay our ability, it can kind of be thought of as a self handicapping behavior. And I think of the movie The breakup, and again, this came up in this video that I’d watched once where Vince Vaughn is in it and Jennifer Aniston and she wants his help creating a 12 Lemon centerpiece. And after he argues with her a little He’s like, listen, I don’t know how to do that, like you do.
You can do that better, you wouldn’t ask me to paint and he calls it the 16th Chapel instead of the Sistine Chapel. But he’s trying to he’s using ingratiation by complimenting his wife and telling her she’s or I think it’s girlfriend at that point, that she’s so much more competent than him. But he’s also leveraging supplication, which again, shows you use these things congruently. And at the same time, often, Edie saying you do this. Parents can do this, if they don’t want to change if you’re a new father, and what have you. You don’t want to change the diaper. Maybe like, I don’t know, I’m scared of making him or her cry. I don’t want to do this no, that’s not me projecting. I don’t mind changing diapers of our little eight month old, he’s awesome.
But there’s so many ways, I hate I’m not a handyman. And so if somebody wants me to come, help them build something. I’m always happy to lend a hand with the physical labor if you need something carried or what have you. But like, you don’t want me helping with handyman projects now is that supplication like, Yeah, but it’s honest supplication. I’m not good at that stuff. Because I don’t have an interest in it. I don’t have the patience. And I’m good at some other things, but not that, right. And it’s because like, my wife is like Bob Vila, she loves that stuff. So if we look at a 2007 article by Megan to put her she, interviewed 19 leaders, and these were at 11 different nonprofits in Canada and some in Egypt.
And they interviewed him for about approximately one hour, each using face to face semi structured interviews. And a lot of these participants commonly self identified as benevolent and humble servant leaders. That’s an exact quote, by attempting to appear as a mentor. And man, I’m going to be honest with you guys. And it says nothing about how I feel about you if you use this term. It’s just I don’t like the term– I hate when people do the whole humble servant leader thing. Some people hate the word moist. I don’t know why. I mean, I do, there’s a connotation, apparently, in their own mind. I don’t think voice is a weird word at all. I know, there’s some of you that are like, Oh, I hate that word. Don’t do that.
But I feel the same way. If that is you about when people are on just a humble servant leader, I’m the dumbest guy or gal in the room. Oh, my God. It’s just like, we all know what you’re trying to do. Right? When you downplay your authority. And this is what they found in that research. A lot of people downplay their authority, and claimed integrate a lot of feedback. And they claim to employ benevolent forms of discipline that’s all learning based. And, they always claim to respond in an ideal way by Hey, you know, I’ll be the first to apologize. I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t know X, Y, and Zed. And there’s some times where that’s good.
Yeah. And I openly talk about how my work is not perfect. And that’s the reality. I mean, I have people that will leave really nice reviews for what we do on the podcast or the book. And I have people that tell me, like, I’m the worst person in the world. And, you know, so when I say, Hey, I’m not perfect, but I’m just trying to add something interesting to chat about here. Or, I’m trying to kind of broaden the scope of certain things, but I’m going to make mistakes that supplication. So again, it’s not good or bad just is hopefully you can identify kind of what you’re doing. But if you are really consciously changing your behavior, and your language or your appearances in situations in order to build trust, or buy in with stakeholders, right, so that at times you appear professional, and another time yourself humbling, right, so that you can have a shared identity with others. That’s supplication.
If you don’t want to be the center of attention, you supplications are really good way to kind of bring yourself down. You know, I always hated it. I love my dad, I love him. But when I go back home and visit, you know, I’ll go eat at his restaurant, him and my brother’s restaurant. And my dad would be like, Tiffany, and it’s a woman that works there. There’s no woman that is named Tiffany, to my knowledge, but I’m just making up a name. Have you met my other son? Let me tell you about him. And he just goes into it. I’m like, Dad, I just want to eat eggs. Please don’t I don’t want to talk. No, please like, and that can be embarrassing, right? So I’m like, the old man just out of his mind. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Nice to meet you. And we move on.
Now. There is another one and I’ll admit, guys, I thought it was clever. I’ve gone through this research a lot. Obviously, not enough. But I’d gone through it a lot over the past three, four, probably even five years. And I said, there appears to be an impression management tactic that’s omitted. What about and I thought about this the other day because I was in target. Relaxed. I had a mask on. And I overheard somebody in the technology department, technology department I want to say to one of his friends. Well, hey, my friend. I have a friend that goes to UGA and He says is and he started kind of leveraging the suppose it expertise of this friend as a way for like why people should listen to what he was about to say? And I said, Well, what about Association?
Again, I thought I was clever. And I’m like people will use, they’ll do that people will draw attention to themselves based on their connections with other people, especially those that are like, popular or successful, right? Like, oh, yeah, I went to high school with, with Barry Sanders, you know, or Yeah, me and Elon Musk, share a third cousins, brothers Mother, and stuff like that. And then I found out that there was actually research on that. And I don’t really ever really know if that’s inspiring, because maybe like, I’m onto something when I think of this stuff. Or if it’s like, disappointing, it’s probably a little bit of both, because it just reminds me I’m not, none of us are original, because you know, no matter what you think you thought of somebody who’s already been there.
But what really matters is what you do with that, right? That’s the creative faculty. That’s, I mean, music and film, and all these things are made and remade, and mathematical theories are built upon, you don’t always need to come up with it, you just need to bring something new to the table sometimes. And so I was looking through some literature and done in 1980. And they were talking about just like that impression management by association really refers to the behaviors people use at work, or in their daily life and managing their associations with other people to create that favorable impression.
So Robert Cialdini and a gentleman by the name of Richardson, his last name, discuss two forms, they call it basking, like you’re basking in the sun, and blasting right blasting. And they suggested that people either bask in their reflective glory go back to that Uncle Rico example. And of others, though, right? They’ll bask in the reflective glory of others. And let’s say you even like drive a Ford or a certain kind of car, and they come out with something new, or they did something humanitarian in nature, you even just am a proud Ford owner or whatever, a Tesla owner, like we have a Tesla Model three, and we got really tired of cars are breaking down and, and buying used cars. And we had one that was a lemon. And it was when my child was first born. And I then I lost a business deal one time because I was out of service shop for four hours that got no service. And it was just a nightmare.
So one day and like a fit of rage, I’m like, we’re doing this and I figured out it was about the same amount as a Honda Accord I owned and how we could leverage our money. And I’m like, This is what we’re doing. I can’t control gas prices. I can’t control this. But I’m getting a test. And then I get super pumped. Whenever Elon Musk is like, oh, yeah, now he’s using reusable rockets to do this with the space station or now he’s using Starlink and shooting out, all these satellites into space so that the world that you know, in places that previously never had high speed internet is going to have that, that does make me proud to drive a Tesla and support that I’m not a car guy. Tesla’s are pretty boring. If you get into like a model three, I mean, there’s just a screen there.
And we got to because we’re anti-car people, my wife and I just don’t,. If I was a billionaire, I would never want like a Mazda Rottie or a Lamborghini. Or if it’s just not me. You know, my dad grew up dirt poor dirt poor. His father died at 13. And, my dad ended up getting a Corvette one day. Well, that was something that was like special with him and his brother when they were kids. I mean, they grew up without a father, in this place in Iowa, that just there wasn’t a lot of hope, there and my dad’s mother could work but she wasn’t going to make enough so my dad’s working at 13. So I get that, right. But like, if you’re just somebody that’s like, Oh, I’m rich now buying a jet. Right? That’s not why we bought a Tesla.
But that’s an example of basking if that company does something or Elon Musk says something well, because I get a lot of grief for that, oh, Tesla, is that the money from your book and so I’m gonna I’m gonna bask in the alternative. Now, when we think about this, we have to talk about blasting. And that’s when people get after the opposition or suppose it opposition in order to enhance their prestige. So pause for a moment. And let’s think about this in a different way in their later work. Cialdini expanded basking this idea of basking in the reflected glory of others, right you could almost Burg we’ll call it BRG. He put it into four other categories see we got categories on categories on categories for you guys.
And he said there’s boasting burying blaring and blurring it sounds like the name of like kids. You know, my my kids names Bronson Bartholomew, you know, those families that every single name in the family starts with a certain letter. It’s like alliteration, but in human form, well, so you think about this and again, guys write this stuff down or use the podcast reflections because you want to be aware of these things. So boasting is kind of, if you’re going to boast about your positive connections with favorable others, so we talked about, did you go to high school with a football star or rugby star, this and that bearing, just as people have connections with what they call favorable others, they also have connections with unfavorable others.
So if you want to bury this, somebody may bury a relationship by failing to mention his or her past association with a convicted criminal, right? Like, Oh, didn’t you go to high school with George? That guy that had like 48 heads in his trunk? You’re like, yeah, with your eyes go with him. But I never sat at the same table. I don’t really know what he was all about. I gotta go. Alright, that’s burying, you don’t want to be associated with Georgia, the 48 head guy. Sounds like something Peyton Manning could yell from a huddle, 48 head. When at work, members of departments that have performed poorly, you may try to distance yourself from that. And we see this a lot in performance. I mean, we’re having issues here, but it’s the medical, they don’t understand the value of strength and conditioning or medical might be like, well, we get a bunch of meatheads, and they’re not understanding return to play protocols with these guys. And they don’t communicate well, because they think they’re the best in the world because they get, whatever.
And so we see this in a lot of different fields. It’s the blame game, then there’s blaring. Now these are connections with unfavorable others that you want to publicly minimize very much like burying, right? So you may mention that you’re in no way associated with this person. Right? There’s a weak link. And I think personally, that was pretty similar to burying for me. Right. So like, I think they’re just kind of making a point of how loud Are you? Are you getting out in front of it maybe is blaring we’re bearing is if you’re like asked about it, but I just you know, why make this more complicated, right? I just say that you are boasting. Yeah, I’m upping the connection. I have this person and I have this prestige by default and basking in their glory here.
Burying nope, nope. Nope, don’t want that. And then there’s blurring. So this is where workers blur their links with others by way of strategic omissions and make them look better. So I could do that if I didn’t want to admit that I learned more about this topic, in particular from the likes of Erving Goffman and Robert Cialdini, and I could not mention any of these research articles, right? Now, I could do that and make myself seem super smart, like this is great. But eventually you’re gonna get found out and it’s just not the right thing to do. So why would you do that?
And besides, it’s one thing if I’m sitting here reading off all of their work, right, but if I’m extemporaneously coming up with these examples, which I do, if I’m talking about how you can apply them, which I do, if I’m teaching them actively to people in different domains in unique ways, which I do, that’s different, right? That’s unique work built off the shoulders of others, and we should want to do that. You just want to honor them with that. So there’s different ways you can look at that within the association category.
So to recap, five common styles of self presentation strategies, ingratiation, self promotion, intimidation, exemplification, supplication, association, I know it’s a lot. Learn it. So, when we think about this, again, is it good or bad? It’s neither it’s being human. You do it you wear masks you do you have different identities, I promise you if you don’t, you’re socially inept. And because it’s not good to know it’s actually polite to behave in different ways in different times. It is nearly impossible to go through life without witnessing or partaking in this guy’s you know, how I know you’re wearing a mask? Are you covering your mouth when you sneeze? Do you take off your shoes indoors, when you go to a friend’s house?
All forms of self presentation or impression management. It’s ubiquitous. Right? So successful self presentation always involves this balance between beneficiality and believability, right, you want to put on a certain mask, but it should also be beneficial to the other person, you’re doing it for their gain, not just yours, right? You want to present the most utilitarian image for the situation so that everybody has an easier time navigating it. And then you also want to make sure it’s believed by others because that’s otherwise you come off as inauthentic. Isn’t that funny? You can come off as inauthentic by choosing to just act as authentic, because there is no just one authentic self.
So if you think you’re acting authentically and not adapting to others, you’re being inauthentic and really kind of ass bottom line. So, it is also influenced by situational variables. That’s the Hawthorne effect. And I’m sure that was on the tip of many of your tongues, because it’s something we hear about fairly often. And the Hawthorne effect for anybody not that hasn’t heard about it is just kind of the idea that individuals modify some part of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed. And we do this we add our workshops and things or even, at previous jobs, we’d record ourselves or we record others going through an activity or improv thing or role playing or a coaching session. I mean, if you guys set up a tripod, and literally watched yourself coach or lead a meeting or what have you, you’re going to modify some things, whether that’s your word choice, whether that’s how you come across, anything like that you’re going to modify, that’s the Hawthorne effect.
So when we want to manage this effectively, what does it require? Knowing your audience of course, right? Social acuity. That’s the ability to know what we need to do to create the desired impression in a good way. Again, beneficiality and believability, you have to be able to enact or embody audience centric behaviors, you got to know what’s appropriate in the moment, how are you going to act in certain countries or places or situations? And, how should you act? I mean, I’ve told this story before, I used to come home from coaching all day. And I would still be at like a 10. And I tried catching up with my wife, and this was like, years ago, and she’d be like, hey, like, can you turn coach mode off?
And I’m like, oh, yeah, sorry. I’m like, that’s what happens when you listen to like 50 cent and Metallica, every day on blast, and then you come home and you’re trying to assimilate back into the home environment. So you’ve got to be able to self monitor high self monitors are chameleons, right? You’re pragmatic, you’re flexible, low self monitors kind of just crave congruence and consistency. They don’t really like the idea that they got to adapt. They want others to adapt to them. And unfortunate, that’s just not how the world works. It’s that George Bernard Shaw. Right, the Unreasonable Man is what all progress depends upon.
So in closing, why does it all matter? Guys, solving a problem of any kind, in any field requires understanding the psychology of those involved, the problem itself, and the behaviors that really contribute to contamination of the situation socially, or otherwise. And you’ve got to be able to have a grasp on impression management to lock that in. Everything we have said in this episode has less to do with being like, an inauthentic disingenuous person or anything like that. It has to do with being cognizant of how your behavior, attitudes and actions, communicate the value of really what you do, or even just who you are to other people, whether that stakeholders, power brokers, family members, what have you, that’s your audience.
That’s your audience every day. So ultimately, impression management is about self awareness, and communication, which are the two most important factors, any leader in any field at any age, at any point in time, must possess. Yet both are often taken for granted. So now, what are you going to do with this information? Well, you should be reflecting on how you see this unfold. This being impression management, and yourself and others day after day. You should be able to list at least three roles you play, I give you an example. I’m a podcaster, a business owner, a coach, a speaker, you know, what have you. And three ways you use impression management within those rules. How do you vary, why do you vary? How could you do it better? What’s the insecurity that’s guiding some of the ways you behave? And what is the level of competence that guides other ways you behave? Right in terms of heightened level of competence.
You should also be able to spot examples of impression management in social media posts, emails, the tone that people send to you, you should be able to spot it in your own household. Look at what your children are doing. Look at what your dog does. I did they appear? Did they give you the doggy eyes and do something when they want to treat? Do they a trick all that like animals use impression management, it’s an evolutionary behavior. And you should think about how you can refine how you come across within yourself presentational strategies. And for that we’re here for you. Right? We have things that can help you with this because we never had helped with this.
If you want to continue to dive down this rabbit hole, we offer online training for enhancing your communication both professionally and personally. Just go to artofcoaching.com/communication. Again, that’s artofcoaching.com/communication. And we do this with fields ranging from oncology to strengthen conditioning. Orthodontists to military, what have you. Guess what the world wants to learn how to communicate at a higher level now and that for that we should all be grateful because we need that. All this information we have in the information age does a lick a good if people don’t know how to work together.
Better communication means less stress, more work getting done and getting done efficiently, better relationships, more trust, more buy in. And as I said in my book, the quality of your communication is directly tied to the quality of your relationships with others, and ultimately the quality of our lives. So let’s work on it together because none of us are perfect guys. And none of us are as good as we think we are. Again, that’s artofcoaching.com/communication. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I know it’s meaty. Listen to it again. Let us know what you think about it. You like these in depth episodes? Are you getting a lot out of them? Do you prefer the interview episodes? You continue to want a mix of both? We’re listening. Until next time, guys, Brett Bartholomew and the rest of the Art of coaching team, signing off.
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