Posts tagged ‘confidence’
considering overconfidence
I’ve encountered a few people recently for whom Confidence is so much not a problem…that it actually is.
pic from here
I think overconfidence is a trait we don’t consider enough. Because it can lead to all kinds of problems. It’s the ‘how hard can it be?’ attitude that leads people to have accidents. Or just embarrass themselves. You only have to watch ten minutes of The Apprentice to see just what a pickle overconfidence can get you into.
click here for some classic quotes from The Apprentice class of 2012
Brands can be just as guilty. Like Moleskine, who couldn’t understand why the design community wouldn’t want to participate in a spec design competition. Or Nestle. Or Quantas. These are all Social Media Epic Fails, caused partly, I suspect, by a ‘how hard can it be?’ approach to social engagement.
But the consumers/public/users/rest-of-the-world have got rather confident too. After all, you can become a writer by setting up a blog, a designer with your own copy of photoshop and a lobbyist with facebook and an online petition. Thanks to social media you can contact brands or business to publically thank, criticise or humiliate them – and expect a response. Everyone’s a writer, broadcaster, journalist and consumer rights campaigner now.
It’s just that as I said earlier, some people are so confident in their limited abilities that they’re a blumin liability to themselves and others. But how can brands tell incompetents to push off?
It’s tricky. In becoming more communicative Pandora’s Box may have been opened on both sides.
confidence is contagious
I was having lunch with a junior planner yesterday and she was telling me how thoroughly she prepares for client meetings and presentations, just for the extra bit of reassurance that she has every possible angle covered.
Which made me offer her the thought that the most important thing I’ve learned about meetings and presenting is that whatever you say, you have to say it with Confidence.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re sharing something you read in last week’s paper, quoting a percentage of prompted consumer awareness or simply offering your opinion – say it with confidence and people are more likely to believe you.
Albert Mehrabian’s research suggests that communication around feelings and attitudes are made up of 7% what you say, 38% how you say it and 55% from your facial expression and body language. Emitting verbal and non verbal confidence makes your message more likely to cut through.
This research doesn’t even take into account what you look like. It’s not just the whole shoulders back, smile, eye contact thing – you have to look and dress the part. The PSFK Rockstar Planner series of videos show just how many takes there are on what a Planner can look like (there isn’t a website called cool planner hair, dude for nothing) but they all use their appearance to make a confident statement about who they are.
I suppose it goes back to the slightly cheesy idea of Personal Branding. If you are confident about who you are and what you stand for – and you communicate that via your appearance – then other people might be more likely to buy in to what you are saying.
its apparently Positive Mental Attitude week – and its catching
A couple of weeks ago, one of the Account Directors who sits near me at work merrily declared that for the foreseeable future, all weeks would be now be designated Positive Mental Attitude Week.
Since then, she’s won two pitches.
I’m not suggesting that the two are completely related, but spending every day alternating between worry, stress and full on panic isn’t necessarily the best mindset in which to motivate your team, identify unique insights and turn them into solutions that strategically and creatively delight clients.
Yes, the economy is in a mess (and I think we’re in for a W shaped recession so its going to get worse again before it gets better), client budgets are tighter than ever and job security is a thing of the past. But maybe we need to accentuate whatever positives we can find and try to discover the upsides and silver linings.
After all, confidence is catching.
created by moleitau, CC applies
update: I told Positive Account Director Lady that I’d blogged about her and she says the poster should read:
GET
EXCITED
and
MAKE
THINGS
BETTER
