The research behind Hold the Room

People shown a face for a tenth of a second made much the same judgements about trustworthiness and competence as people given as long as they liked.

Willis, J., & Todorov, A. (2006). First impressions: Making up your mind after a 100-ms exposure to a face. Psychological Science, 17(7), 592–598.

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People who watched 30-second silent clips of teachers predicted the ratings their students gave them at the end of term.

Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R. (1993). Half a minute: Predicting teacher evaluations from thin slices of nonverbal behavior and physical attractiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(3), 431–441.

Across cultures, people assess warmth and competence first, and warmth is judged first and weighs more.

Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., & Glick, P. (2007). Universal dimensions of social cognition: Warmth and competence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(2), 77–83.

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People who ask more questions, especially follow-up questions, are liked more (the study used speed-dating and online conversations).

Huang, K., Yeomans, M., Brooks, A. W., Minson, J., & Gino, F. (2017). It doesn’t hurt to ask: Question-asking increases liking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(3), 430–452.

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People were most comfortable with direct gaze that lasted about three seconds (3.3 seconds on average).

Binetti, N., Harrison, C., Coutrot, A., Johnston, A., & Mareschal, I. (2016). Pupil dilation as an index of preferred mutual gaze duration. Royal Society Open Science, 3(7), 160086.

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Listeners look at the speaker more than speakers look at the listener, because speakers glance away to think.

Kendon, A. (1967). Some functions of gaze-direction in social interaction. Acta Psychologica, 26, 22–63. See also Argyle, M., & Cook, M. (1976). Gaze and Mutual Gaze. Cambridge University Press.

Neck rubbing, face touching, and collar pulling are “pacifying” behaviours we use to calm ourselves, and others tend to read them that way.

Navarro, J., with Karlins, M. (2008). What Every Body Is Saying. HarperCollins.

A 2010 study claimed open, expansive postures changed hormone levels; later studies could not repeat that. What held up is that an expansive posture makes people feel more powerful than slumping does.

Carney, D. R., Cuddy, A. J. C., & Yap, A. J. (2010). Power posing. Psychological Science, 21(10), 1363–1368. Ranehill, E., et al. (2015). Assessing the robustness of power posing. Psychological Science, 26(5), 653–656. Cuddy, A. J. C., Schultz, S. J., & Fosse, N. E. (2018). P-curving a more comprehensive body of research on postural feedback. Psychological Science, 29(4), 656–666.

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In an analysis of popular online talks, the most-watched speakers used far more hand gestures than the least-watched.

Van Edwards, V. (Science of People). 5 secrets of a successful TED talk: an analysis of hundreds of TED talks.

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The voice has a toolbox you can control: register, timbre, prosody, pace, pitch, volume, and silence.

Treasure, J. (2013). How to speak so that people want to listen. TED Global.

In a hiring study, vocal fry made speakers sound less competent and less hireable.

Anderson, R. C., Klofstad, C. A., Mayew, W. J., & Venkatachalam, M. (2014). Vocal fry may undermine the success of young women in the labor market. PLOS ONE, 9(5), e97506.

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Confidence comes from action, not from thinking your way there; the strongest source of self-belief is “mastery experience”.

Kay, K., & Shipman, C. (2014). The Confidence Code. HarperBusiness. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215.

Telling people to calm down before a performance does not work; saying “I’m excited” improved performance in singing, public speaking, and maths.

Brooks, A. W. (2014). Get excited: Reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(3), 1144–1158.

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In a 2023 comparison of breathing techniques, five minutes a day of the physiological sigh (two inhales through the nose, one long exhale) stood out for easing anxiety and lifting mood; box breathing also helped.

Balban, M. Y., Neri, E., Kogon, M. M., Weed, L., Nouriani, B., Jo, B., Holl, G., Zeitzer, J. M., Spiegel, D., & Huberman, A. D. (2023). Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Reports Medicine, 4(1), 100895.

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Charisma can be thought of as three dials: presence, power, and warmth.

Fox Cabane, O. (2012). The Charisma Myth. Portfolio.

People asking to jump a photocopier queue were let through far more often when they gave a reason, even a meaningless one, for a small request.

Langer, E. J., Blank, A., & Chanowitz, B. (1978). The mindlessness of ostensibly thoughtful action: The role of “placebic” information in interpersonal interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(6), 635–642.

Give the answer, then the reasons, then the detail (the pyramid).

Minto, B. (1987). The Pyramid Principle. Pearson.

When senior executives were surveyed about what “executive presence” is made of, gravitas came first by far, then communication, then appearance.

Hewlett, S. A. (2014). Executive Presence. HarperBusiness; based on the Center for Talent Innovation survey of senior executives (gravitas 67%, communication 28%, appearance 5%).

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The ideas that stick are simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and told as stories.

Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2007). Made to Stick. Random House.

The story spine: once upon a time, every day, but one day, because of that, until finally, and ever since then.

Adams, K. (1991). The story spine, from improvisational theatre; widely taught in storytelling courses.

Great speeches move back and forth between “what is” and “what could be”.

Duarte, N. (2010). Resonate. Wiley; and the TED talk “The secret structure of great talks” (2011).

Active listening: reflecting back what someone said and how they feel, so they know they were heard.

Rogers, C. R., & Farson, R. E. (1957). Active Listening. University of Chicago, Industrial Relations Center.

Mirroring (repeat their last one to three words, then wait) and labelling (“It sounds like…”) are tools from hostage negotiation.

Voss, C., with Raz, T. (2016). Never Split the Difference. HarperBusiness.

People say yes for predictable reasons: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, scarcity, and unity.

Cialdini, R. B. (1984, new edition 2021). Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Harper Business. Unity is added in Cialdini, R. B. (2016). Pre-Suasion. Simon & Schuster.

The claim that “93% of communication is non-verbal” comes from 1960s experiments on single words with mismatched tone and expression, and applies only to feelings when words and delivery conflict; the researcher himself warned against generalising it.

Mehrabian, A. (1971). Silent Messages. Wadsworth. Mehrabian, A., & Ferris, S. R. (1967). Inference of attitudes from nonverbal communication in two channels. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 31(3), 248–252.

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Set a baseline first, then watch for change; feet and torso often point where someone wants to be.

Navarro, J., with Karlins, M. (2008). What Every Body Is Saying. HarperCollins.

Some facial expressions are recognised across many cultures; contempt shows as a tightening of one corner of the mouth.

Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1986). A new pan-cultural facial expression of emotion. Motivation and Emotion, 10(2), 159–168. The universality of expressions is debated: see Barrett, L. F., et al. (2019), Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 20(1), 1–68.

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What? So what? Now what? as a structure for speaking on the spot.

Abrahams, M. (2023). Think Faster, Talk Smarter. Simon & Schuster; and the Stanford GSB podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart.

Every difficult conversation is really three: what happened, how we feel, and what it says about who we are.

Stone, D., Patton, B., & Heen, S. (1999). Difficult Conversations. Viking; from the Harvard Negotiation Project.

Observation, feeling, need, request.

Rosenberg, M. B. (2003). Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. PuddleDancer Press.

Become interested in other people, smile, remember names, be a good listener, talk in terms of the other person’s interests, make people feel important.

Carnegie, D. (1936). How to Win Friends and Influence People. Simon & Schuster.

What sticks is what gets practised deliberately, with feedback, over months.

Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363–406. Revisited in Ericsson, K. A., & Harwell, K. W. (2019). Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2396.

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