Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:21: Defining presence

00:02:39: Presence principles…

00:02:46: …1: no such thing as perfect presence

00:03:24: …2: it's not about pretending

00:04:28: Presence signals and skills to learn…

00:05:14: …1: what you say and how you say it

00:09:56: The importance of pausing

00:14:43: Pitch and pace

00:17:23: Breathing techniques

00:21:23: …2: how you present yourself

00:23:48: Position and posture

00:26:15: Eye contact and seating location

00:29:01: …3: how to use power

00:33:19: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where each week we share ideas for action and tools for you to try out that we hope will help you, and it always does help us, navigate your Squiggly Career with more confidence, clarity and control. 

And this week, we're taking on the topic of presence at work.

Sarah Ellis: And presence is one of those, I think, tricky words, because people struggle to define it and be specific about what good looks like.  I feel like we sort of know it when we see it, but it's hard to break down into something that we can develop, and that's absolutely what we are now going to attempt to do today.  And I do think it is particularly frustrating if you receive feedback on this area.  So, I don't think I've ever had these exact words, but I've definitely talked to people who have feedback, "You need to improve your presence if you want to progress", but then with no clarity about going, "Well, what does that look like; how will I know when I've got there; how do I think about what this means for me?" I feel like it's often one of those vague and abstract things that most of us feel is important, we sort of recognise it's important, we've probably worked with or for people who we would describe as having presence, but it almost falls into that risk of maybe feeling like a personality trait, or maybe something you either have or you don't have. So, we've read quite a few different articles; I've read a really good book, which is an HBR small, mini book, called Leadership Presence, which is one of the ones that they have in their Emotional Intelligence series. 

And one of the things that is really consistent is I am yet to find a very clear definition of, "This is what we mean by presence".  What most of these articles seem to say is, "There's not a brilliant definition"; great!  But then who doesn't then think to write, "But this is my version"? We've had a go, and I'm not sure this is perfect either, but I don't think that you can say, "It's something that we struggle to define", and then not at least try to give it a bit of a shape or a bit of a sense of what is this thing, presence, that we're talking about?  So, my best attempt, and you all listening can see what you think and let me know if you've got something better, because we will definitely borrow that brilliance from you; but my attempt is, "Presence is showing up in a way that has positive impact, particularly in high-pressure moments".  What do we think, Helen; are we onboard with that?

Helen Tupper: Well, I am onboard with it, but I would just like to pick up on the "positive impact" point, because I think you can have presence and it can be negative; but I think in this podcast, we're always trying to help people to be at their best at work.  So, I think our framing of presence is, we're trying to help you to develop it and demonstrate it in a positive way.  So, I think that's our angle in terms of what we're trying to support you with. There are some presence principles that we also think are important as you listen to some of the ideas for action that we've got. The first is that there's no such thing as perfect presence, there's no brilliant blueprint for this; it's very individual and it's worth almost thinking about three people that you think have got this positive presence.  I was at an event last night and if I think even on the table that I was at last night, if I think about some of the people that I was sitting with that have brilliant presence, there was a guy called Dave McQueen, his wife, Madeleine, and they have brilliant presence, but in a very different way. 

And it's almost thinking about maybe what's similar about the people that you can see that have presence, and also what's different and distinct, because I think that's a really good thing to see, that there's no one-size-fits-all version of what good presence looks like. Principle number two is that presence is not about pretending.  So, I don't have to be David, I don't have to be Madeleine McQueen, I have to find my own presence, something that feels personal to me.  Really, that starts from your strengths, the things that you show up with really naturally, the things that make you distinct and different, and that's a very good starting place when you're thinking about, "What does presence look like for me?" Even though there isn't really this blueprint, there are some skills and there are some signals that will support you with the presence that you have at work, and that's really where we're going to focus on today.

Sarah Ellis: Two quick references for you before we get into the ideas for action and these skills and signals; if you haven't listened to Viv Groskop, she was on episode 105 of the podcast, she wrote a brilliant book, she has a great podcast, called How to Own the Room, and I think that's a really good place to start.  Viv is brilliant to listen to, so that's just a great episode, but also the book that she's written has lots of practical advice and the podcast is great too.  So if you, after today, want to dive a bit deeper, that's absolutely where I would go first. So, there are three signals that we're going to talk about and within each of these signals, there are skills that are very learnable and things that we can practice.  So, the three signals, the way we've decided this up is, what you say and how you say it; the way you present yourself; and how you use power.  So, I think this is almost from everything that we've been reading, watching and listening to, kind of immersing ourselves in this world of presence, often you find that people go in one of these directions but perhaps don't connect the dots.

So, you read one article and it will be very much about body language; or, you'll read another article and it will be about the words that you say.  But I think what we're trying to do here is bring together almost the full picture of what contributes to you improving your presence.  So, we broke it down in that way, so hopefully that feels helpful. So, that first signal is, "What you say and how you say it".  And it's so fascinating; one of the articles that I read that I loved, it was probably my favourite article and I was like, "This is almost a podcast in its own right", was learning a bit about linguistic style.  So, this is your characteristic speaking pattern, and we will link to this article, because it is so interesting why we speak in the way that we do and where that comes from.  But in summary, people have a style that tends to be more either direct or indirect; everybody has different pacing and pauses; the choice of the words that you use, and whether you use things like jokes, figures of speech, stories, questions, apologies. I think it's useful to start, when you're thinking about what you say and how you say it, is what is your natural speaking pattern at the moment; what is your style?  I was asking myself this question as I was reading this article and I was definitely going down this rabbit hole of linguistic styles.  And actually, we're not going to talk about it today, but if you're interested, linguistic styles between genders is particularly interesting. 

So, you can get into a whole area round there, if you want to read it and learn a bit more about that. But I got to describing my own speaking style as, "Enthusiastic, smiley, thoughtful, humorous and questions", they were the keywords if I was almost doing a Google search, or a keyword search on, "What do I think describes my speaking style?" they were the words that I got to.  Where would you be, Helen?

Helen Tupper: I think I might be fast, friendly, I'm always friendly and upbeat and open, and fun.  Obviously I have to have three Fs, because that's just the way that I talk, but yeah, fast, friendly and fun were probably mine.

Sarah Ellis: Well actually, that's a good point by Helen.  One of Helen's speaking characteristics would be alliteration, so that's something that shows up frequently in the way that she communicates, and alliteration can increase our presence, because it helps what we say to be memorable and it helps people to connect with it.  So, I think just as a starting point, just think about with your speaking style, what supports your presence, so what's giving you presence; so we might say about Helen's alliteration that gives her presence.  But also what might take it away? I do actually remember once having some feedback where, because I'm naturally smiley, you can almost sometimes hear my smiles in how I'm talking, someone once said, "Just be careful not to smile when it's serious", and actually it sounds like potentially a flippant point, but actually it's a really important one, because some conversations, you shouldn't be smiling, it's something that's challenging or confronting or it's a serious topic where you're making series decisions.  And I think sometimes I cope with that seriousness by smiling.  I think I find it reassuring and I want other people to smile at me, and probably just because it makes me feel better.  So, it's sort of a need that I have. So, I think it's starting to think about, "When might you adapt your natural speaking pattern to improve your presence?"  Helen, I know that sometimes you very intentionally try to slow down, for example.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, so I had some coaching from a speech and drama coach to help me be to a bit more intentional about the words that I say and how I say them, and this is particularly in the context of the work that Sarah and I do, we do a lot of workshops and sessions, and I'm happy with my presence in those sessions and my pace and lots of the ways that I talk, I'm okay with that.  But sometimes, we'll be in a very different medium, like talking on radio was a particular point. So, I feel like with my presence, when my words and my physical identity are aligned, ie you can see me on a screen and you can see my hands, I feel it all works quite well; so my fast, friendly, fun thing, there's quite a lot of consistency in the words that I say and how I show up on a screen, for example.  But on a radio, all you hear is the words, and so I haven't got that body language to support what I'm saying and the way I'm saying it. 

So, I think the way that you speak becomes even more important, when people just hear your words. I think other people listening, you might think, "Well, I don't talk on radio, why is this relevant?" but you probably do talk on Teams at work or on Zoom with your camera off sometimes, and I think that's the same thing; people are just hearing your voice.  I think when that's all they've got, that's all they're taking in is the words that you're saying and the way that you're saying them, I think being intentional about it is really important.  So, that particular speech coach taught me loads of things to help with pitch and pausing when I was talking to increase my presence when people can't see me, there's nothing else there for people, other than the words you speak and the way you say them. So, a couple of the things I think are important are pausing.  So, it's really hard to say "pause" and then not pause, but then not feel bad at yourself for not pausing!  Anyway, I'll just move on, everyone.  So, pausing is really important.  What she taught me was she gave me a poem to read and pressed voice record.  So, I said the poem just the way you would normally, like you're at school, being like, "And on --" whatever, I can't even remember what the poem was. 

But we just recorded it, she was like, "Just do it, don't try too hard, just read the poem", so I read the poem. Then she said, "And now, at the end of every full stop or line or comma, take a pause".  She was like, "Focus on the full stops, the end of the line, the commas and pause there".  She said, "It will feel really weird, but don't really focus on the words, focus on that moment to pause", and then she recorded me saying it again.  And then we listened back, and the poem with the pauses was so much more impactful, and I wasn't actually even thinking about the words, because I was almost just looking for the full stops and commas and ends of lines so I could put a pause in; and the words had so much more weight, and that is the point with pausing. If you're like me, I am not a natural pauser, because I am fast and friendly, so I have to work quite hard at this and there are different types of pauses that you can use, which I don't know if this really matters to be honest, because pauses are pauses, but you can use them in different ways.  So for example, a transition pause is where you're making one point and then moving on to another one. 

So it's almost like you don't want all those things to run together.  So, if I was talking to Sarah about my week and I wanted to make two points about how effective I thought the team were working and how maybe I wanted to do something different next week, they're two different points, and so I need a pause so Sarah can breathe and know that I'm making two distinct points. There's a sense pause, which I think is almost like a breath in.  Think of it as pausing where a comma might be, and it just helps people to process because if you say too much too fast, it's hard for people to take in, so that's the thing you're doing there.  Dramatic pauses, so if you've got a question or a big stat, some data from the business and you really want it to sink in, dramatic pauses are great for that.  And then one that I think Sarah is amazing at is the reflective pause.  You're brilliant at this, Sarah.  So, Sarah will ask a coach-yourself question and then just sit in silence.  But you're so good at it and the silence is the space for people to reflect and it's a really confident thing to do and you do do it really naturally. But whether you use pauses, that's a very nuanced way of pausing, but I think the main thing to think about is, pauses are powerful and it gives your words weight.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, one of the things that I do consciously do in terms of dramatic pauses, which does sound very theatrical, so I do use dramatic pauses, particularly where I want to make an important point.  So, sometimes when I'm running a workshop, you're finding your flow, I might say something like, "And there's one thing that often gets missed about this", and then I'll pause and it's almost like you've done slightly the transition, but you've signalled to somebody, "This is important".  So I might say, "Something that often gets missed", or I'll say, "The most important thing to remember is… that we need to…"  That's often where I'm trying to summarise or really make sure I've given clarity of, "Just in case you've missed anything in the last couple of minutes", where you've probably been going a bit quicker, I just slow myself down and add a pause in. I think unfortunately, the only way to know how often you pause is to record yourself and I know this usually feels really uncomfortable.  But if you're doing a meeting, for example, that normally gets recorded, or if you're having a conversation that you feel it would be okay to say, "Could I just record this, because actually I'm doing some work on my presence; I'd love to just watch it back? 

Don't worry, I'm just going to use it for my own purposes", watching and listening to yourself in a meeting or in a moment, which I think is probably a bit easier now giving how much we're doing on Zoom or Teams, you will just start to realise, "Oh crikey, I never pause", or just how quickly you speak.  Or that actually, do you know what, maybe you're not giving yourself credit for how effectively you already use pauses. But it's not an area where we tend to have naturally high self-awareness about.  I think often, you have got to almost neutrally listen to yourself, a bit like Helen describes as reading out a poem; or, you could just do a voice note to yourself and then listen back to it and then think, "How much presence did I have in that voice note?  What improved my presence and what took it away?"

Helen Tupper: And alongside pausing, the other thing you might want to listen out for is your pitch.  So, do you naturally talk at quite a high pitch, so that tends to indicate energy and enthusiasm, so I have quite a high pitch, for example; or maybe a low pitch, which tends to be often associated more with gravitas when you've got that lower pitch.  But I think sometimes you don't want to do that too much, because -- what is the lady that had that company that --

Sarah Ellis: Elizabeth…?

Helen Tupper: Yeah, but everyone listening will know that lady, but she had a very, very low pitch, and then actually people thought it was put on quite a lot.  I think these things, where they are too high or too low, you do want to be distinctive and different, but I don't think you want it to be so odd that suddenly that detracts from the words that you are saying.  This needs to support how you want to come across and the content of what you're actually saying about.  You don't even want any of this to be a distraction. For example, I think sometimes because my pitch and my pace, so the speed that you speak at, is sometimes quite high and quite fast, I do actually think that can sometimes be too distracting, so I have to work hard because I don't want to be known for someone who talks really high and speaks really fast.  I want to be known for someone who says stuff that makes sense.  And if the way that you say your words gets in the way of what you're trying to say and communicate, then it's not working well for you, and I think that's the point we're trying to get to.

Sarah Ellis: I guess the risk there for Helen is that she could feel a bit frantic and you kind of go, "Is that the impact you're trying to make?"  I think it's very difficult to, as we said at the start, you're not trying them to be someone you're not, so you're not going to suddenly change your tone, or pitch and pace, dramatically.  I think when I've done work on this with people and Helen and I have both spent time with experts who are amazing at this, it's often small things that you can do that just make almost incremental adjustments.  I always think about dialling it up or dialling it down. So, if I do want to slow myself down, if I'm thinking, "This is less about smiliness and energy, this is more about I want my words to have weight", actually just taking a few deep breaths before I talk, intentionally slowing myself down, even thinking about how I sit, sort of sitting with your feet flat on the floor, sitting up straight, making sure that you can project; all of those things slow me down. Whereas then there's my norm, where I might sit more casually when I'm less conscious of it.  So, I think this is just about, know those small actions that can just make alterations that actually can have quite a big impact in terms of your presence.

Helen Tupper: Did I tell you about the speech coach and touching my toes; did I tell you about that?

Sarah Ellis: No!

Helen Tupper: So, if you want a small action, everybody, try this one out, probably not in the office!  So, the point was, when she was coaching me, when you get nervous, so you've got a presentation coming up, or my example was speaking on the radio, because they basically go, "Just sit here for two minutes and Jane will be here shortly" and it's very, very tense!  But what happens when you get nervous is your whole body tenses, and so your vocal cords actually tense as well; you get really tense, all those muscles.  So, the pitch becomes higher unintentionally because everything's tightened. So for me, for someone's who's trying to lower my pitch, my nerves actually create a problem, because my body's working against me; it's getting really tense and it's making it higher.  And so, what you're supposed to do is, like say before a presentation, or whatever, you're nervous about something where you're going to be speaking and this could potentially happen, you bend over and touch your toes, or as close as you can get to it depending on how flexible you are, and you take some really, really deep breaths in.  You're basically trying to fill your lungs with air, you're trying to make that bit of you bigger. Then, what you've got to do is roll your body up, but don't go too fast because you're trying to keep the air in your lungs.  And then when you speak, your voice is so much lower because your lungs are bigger, everything's softened; it's like the opposite of the helium balloon thing!  It's like the opposite of that.  Suddenly I did it and I was like, "Oh my gosh, what is this voice?" just because you've got more air in there!

Sarah Ellis: Four-box breathing is my equivalent of that.  This is what I mean, I do think you need small hacks that work for you, and I knew that and I was also aware that when you get nervous, you essentially get worse.  But they're the moments often where you want the most presence, so you've sort of got this contradiction that you're trying to overcome.  Four-box breathing is where you breathe in for four, you hold it for four, you exhale for four and then you rest for four.  And then you might actually increase that to six, six, six, six; eight, eight, eight, eight. 

But by really slowing down your breathing, you sort of reduce the adrenalin that's coursing around, and you're just focusing on your breathing.  It also makes you present and makes you feel calm and collected. So, if that is how you're trying to come across, and yet you're really nervous and you're likely to be maybe feeling a bit tense, perhaps your body starts to close in on itself; all of those things are then really unhelpful for what you're trying to achieve.  So, I would say just try out, and I would also say, I always feel a bit stupid, because you're doing something slightly weird in your own company.  You're like, "I'm literally sitting here breathing to myself".

Helen Tupper: "I'm touching my toes and breathing in and rolling up.  This is very strange!"

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, "Because I am a bit nervous about this thing".  So, I think almost recognising that firstly, the emotions around nerves and actually being excited are the same, so how they feel in our body are the same, and I remember somebody telling me that and thinking, "That's really helpful".  So, tell myself first of all, "This is because I am excited, this is because I care, this is because I want to do a really good job"; not, "This is because I'm nervous and I'm not going to do a good job", so that's quite a useful reframe in those moments. Then just think, "What is going to help me?"  Is it the touching your toes; is it the four-box breathing; is it literally just, I have my shoulders come in, if that makes sense, when I'm either cold or a bit nervous, I sort of close down. 

So, mine is literally a shoulder-roll backwards, because naturally I have quite good posture, which is useful for communicating.  But sometimes I have a tendency to come in on myself, so literally two shoulder-rolls going backwards, I sit up straighter, my back gets straighter.  Again, you're opening up your chest, you can communicate a bit better. So, these things feel slightly strange, but I think they do really help you just in those moments, particularly the high-pressure moments.  So, back to our definition of, "Positive impact in a high-pressure moment", high-pressure moments, I think we could just do with some things that almost help to distract us maybe from the nerves, but also at the same time help with our presence.

Helen Tupper: So, Sarah talking about shoulder-rolls then and when you're nervous, she kind of closes in on herself, or just cold for example, gets us onto the second area that we wanted to focus on, which is the way that you present yourself.  And part of it, I think, is about that awareness.  So, Sarah, for example, knows that about herself; if she's nervous or cold, that's going to happen, that's going to make her body smaller, and it might make her come across to other people in a way that isn't her intention.  So, I think the starting point for all of this is, "How do you want to come across?" If you're going to be conscious about your posture, you're going to create an impression with your body basically, I think think about what is the impression that you want?  Do you want to come across as serious; do you want to come across as open or curious, because if you want to come across as curious, you're more likely to lean in; if you want to come across as open, you might use your hands more; if you want to come across as authoritative, you might make sure you're standing up.  Not all of those things are right for all of the different ways you might want to work.  So you've got to start with, "How do I want to come across?" Some of the things that I've learnt in this area are, I'm a gesticulator, which feels like a funny word to say, but basically I use my hands a lot when I'm talking and again, that might be a bit distracting.  I really realised this when Sarah and I were doing events and people would take photos of you at events, like a photographer, not just random people, but a photographer, and then they'd send you the pictures afterwards.  I'd be like, "Why is there no picture of me just standing still and smiling?"

Sarah Ellis: You're always waving, aren't you, in some ways?!

Helen Tupper: I feel like every picture could have a caption where someone could be like, "What is Helen doing with her hands?"

Sarah Ellis: A mime of some description, yeah!

Helen Tupper: It's awful!  But I look at them and go, that's because that brilliant photographer could not get a picture of me when my hands weren't flapping around, and that's not great!  And what I was taught, but this is still a work in progress, everybody, is use your hands to support your words.  So for example, if I'm saying, "I've got three points to make", I should put three fingers up and be like, "Here are the points".  Or, if I was talking about, "We're going to move forward", I might use my hand in a way to indicate moving forward.  Or if I'm saying, "And now we've come to a close", I might bring my hands together to close them. That obviously takes practice, because you would need to think about the words before you said them in order to align it with the way that you're using your hands. 

But I did think that was interesting, so that your hands aren't distracting.  I have not mastered this, but I think it's potentially a good skill to master. Then one other thing, and then, Sarah, I'll hand over for your top tips on position and posture, but one other thing I also learnt, from making a mistake, was I did this course years ago, and they had this negotiation exercise.  So, they put us in a room and there were eight of us, and we were all given a bit of paper with a role on it, so we were supposed to be like a fake business; and someone worked in operations, someone worked in marketing, all that kind of thing.  I can't remember what job I had, but you basically had to negotiate for what was on your piece of paper.  Everyone wanted things that wouldn't be possible, so it was that skill of negotiation. Anyway, it was recorded and afterwards, we had to watch the recording back and give feedback on influence, presence, impact, all that kind of stuff.  And I realised, and they'd done this intentionally, that one of the chairs was deliberately pumped down low; you know the hydraulics on a chair?

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.

Helen Tupper: They had deliberately put one chair on the very lowest setting.  And what happened, you go into a room, you sit on a chair; most people don't think much more than that.  But when you watched the video back, what it looked like was that my position in that room and my posture was affected by the height of my chair.  I looked like a little girl.  If I'm honest, I looked back, I was really low at the table, I had to really move in physically a lot to make a point, because I wasn't as physically present as much as other people, because my chair was lower. They basically said, "When you go into a room, always make sure you pump your chair up".  But again, particularly if you're trying to work on presence, you might not do this in every meeting, but I thought it was that I was like, "I would never really be conscious of that".  And my last point is, I think it's the same on a screen.  So, I think we often come on screen and we don't really think about where we're positioned on that screen.  So, if you're on Zoom and you're bottom left or bottom right and your head's not really -- you want to have presence on screen.  So, you might just want to think about, "Am I central to the screen?" particularly if you're presenting.  I think this would take too much energy to do all the time.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it would be exhausting, wouldn't it?

Helen Tupper: Wouldn't it?  God, I know, it would be tiring.  But if there's a particular meeting where you really want to be intentional about how you're coming across, you want to have that positive impact in that high-pressure moment that Sarah talked about, I do think, if you're doing it virtually, camera on if you can, because then your words and the way your body's communicating will help you, but think about your positioning in the screen; I think it makes quite a big difference. Sarah Ellis: Well, somebody told me quite early in lockdown was what they did was, you know where the camera is on your laptop?  They literally put a Post-it Note above it and it had a smiley face, but it said, "Look here", because so often people don't make eye contact in the right place.  And in lots of ways it's difficult, because you're also looking around your screen, because that's where people are on your screen.

So, as Helen said, I don't think this is all the time, I'm just thinking about, you've got that presentation where you're really trying to get something signed off, or you're spending time with some senior people that you do want to impress and have presence with, you probably don't want your eyes to be bottom left of that screen, or you don't want your eyes to be wandering; that looks a bit confusing.  And again, the only thing you've got to do here is just test.  Just record yourself looking at the screen. I've done it before when I've been recording things for Instagram or LinkedIn.  I record it and I look back and I'm like, "What am I looking at?" and I thought I was looking at my phone, but I'm just not quite looking in the right place.  So, I think for those moments, I think it is quite helpful. 

And back to the chair thing, we're talking about chairs a weird amount, I think when you go into a physical room, if you are trying to have presence, just think about where you sit in that room.  That was some advice that I was given, where I used to sometimes come into rooms and sit at the edge of rooms, especially as introvert, I quite like being at the edge; it suits my personality.  But somehow also, you're not quite as in it. So, if you're really trying to have presence, you want to have impact, sit in the centre of that room, or really think about, for this conversation, "Where is the best point to place myself so that people can see me and they can look at me?"  And actually I am really quite conscious of that now.  Even last night, I went to quite a small dinner with a few people who also run companies, and I just know that I am more present -- I didn't need to have presence in that, but I know I'm more present and I'm more involved in those conversations if I sit more in it versus if I almost opt out a little bit and go to the edges, which is very much in my comfort zone.  Then I just know I won't learn as much, I won't contribute as much. These are small things and just experiment with them, is what I would say.  I remember someone telling me that, about where you sit in a meeting, and I was very dismissive.  I was like, "No, that's not --"

Helen Tupper: "It's a tactic, it's not that important".

Sarah Ellis: "It's a tactic, it doesn't work, it's not that important", and I got a very nice nudge and she was like, "Just try it".  It was so funny, I did and I was like, "Do you know what, I did feel differently".  It's all about how you feel.  I felt differently in that meeting, and therefore I showed up in a more positive way.  This is not about me trying to do anything to be someone I'm not, it's just about there are certain moments where I will think, "Right, I'm going to very consciously just consider here how can presence work for me, because I want to have a positive impact because I care about this work?"

Helen Tupper: And so the last thing that we're going to talk about is power, and I just want to make a quick point on power, not because I think it's not important, but it's probably a podcast in itself.  I mean, let us know if you want a podcast on power at work.  But in the context of your presence, power does play a role. So traditionally, power used to be quite hard.  Power was something that people who were more senior had.  It's like rules and authority, command-and-control-type power.  Now in the workplace, we have this thing which is more about soft power.  So, it's less about coercing people to do things, and it's more about co-opting them, influencing them, to a different type of power.  And soft power is really about how people are attracted to do what you would like them to do.  So, it's convincing them, bringing them along; they want to do what you want them to do. 

So, hard power is, "I told you what I want you to do", and soft power is, "There's something that I'm doing, a belief that I'm creating, an attraction that I have that makes you want to do what I would want you to do". Now obviously, this is a really big topic, it really is, but power is important.  With your presence and your communicating, you're trying to potentially convince people about something, maybe there's a project that you want to get started or a budget, or whatever it is, a particular point you're trying to get across. 

So, it's worth thinking about what have you got that could create that power at work? Sometimes it's content, so some people have an expertise in an area and that's quite powerful because people are like, "I want to do what Helen's saying, because I know that she's the expert here", so maybe that's where your power is based, in content and expertise.  Sometimes it's context, more your experience than your expertise. 

It's more like, "She's done this for a long time, she knows how, she's done this before, she's been through redundancies and restructures", or whatever it is, "She's started up businesses", so it's more the experience that gives you power, and people believe in you and want to do what you're saying because that's what you're bringing to them. Sometimes, there's this thing around connection power, which I think is interesting.  So, you've got power because you know people; that's what connection power is.  And that's why you have presence, because you can talk about other people and other relationships and you bring these people into conversations, and that creates an impact in people's minds, that you are a person that knows people and therefore, that's why I believe in what you're saying. So, it's just worth thinking about power plays a role in presence definitely.  Is your power grounded in your content, so your expertise; your context, so more of experience; or connection, is it more about people, are you that people person and does that create power?  So, just something to reflect on because it does play a bit of a role.

Sarah Ellis: And just on that context one, you don't need to be experienced to bring useful experiences.  So, you might be one year into your career listening to this and you've got a really good insight into what that feels like.  Your context is, you're really close to what it's like to be new into the workplace; or, you've got fresh-eyes feedback in terms of the work that you're doing for your customers.

So, this doesn't mean that, "I need to be really --" I think this could feel a bit intimidating if you're a bit earlier in your career, because you might think, "I'm not an expert yet and I'm not really experienced", and maybe you've not quite got the connections.  But remember, we all have some sort of power.  And I think often if you're earlier in your career, you've got that context of, you are in your audience, so you understand the people you are trying to sell to better than anyone else in that room. I was thinking back to, if this had been me 15 years ago and you're desperately trying to have presence early in your career because maybe you've not got the seniority, you're the least senior person in the room, and I was probably never the expert, I'm more the expert now than I've ever been, I wouldn't have had the connections, but I was good at the context. 

And I think that was because I was curious.  I think I was bringing curiosity, I was curious and I understood who we were trying to talk to and what we trying to do.  I was the closest of anyone in that room. I think it was having the confidence to say, "I've spoken to our customers [or] I've spoken to some of our other colleagues and I'm really trying to give you that sense of I understand what they need or why we should do that" because otherwise, I think this idea of power could feel a bit hard if you're in those earlier stages of your career.

Helen Tupper: I agree, and if you would like us to dive more deeply into power on the podcast, email us, let us know.  It's helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.  But hopefully you have found that useful.  I think it's a really interesting topic, because I feel like everyone's got some sort of work to do here.  We're always work in progress, but on this particular point I think there's lots of things that you can experiment with.  It's almost, be playful with presence a little bit.  Maybe choose some of the low-pressure moments to experiment with your presence, so that you've got the skills that you need in the high-pressure moments.  And I think it is quite fun, whether you're touching your toes or sitting on chairs in different rooms.  This is stuff you can experiment with, it's fun! But we'll summarise all of this in the PodSheet, and you can get that on amazingif.com.  It's also what we send out every week in PodMail.  So, we'll put the links so that you can sign up for that on the show notes.  So, if you're on Apple, just click on the description and you'll find the links there.  But email us if you ever can't find anything and we'll get you what you need.

Sarah Ellis: So, thank you all so much for listening.  We always really appreciate you giving us your time.  We hope we've been helpful and we're back with you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye everybody.