Kris Safarova  00:45

Welcome to the Strategy Skills podcast. I’m your host, Kris Safarova. And our podcast sponsor today is StrategyTraining.com if you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies. It’s a free download, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach. And you can also get McKinsey and BCG-winning resume, which is a resume that got offers from both of those firms. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumePDF. And the last gift for today from me is a copy of a book we co-authored with some of our amazing clients. It is called Nine Leaders in Action. It went to become number one best seller on Amazon, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/gift. Today we have with us, Chris Lipp who is a social psychologist and author of The Science of Personal Power, and he currently teaches at Tulane Freeman School of Business. Chris Lipp, welcome.

Chris Lipp  01:53

Thank you. Happy to be here.

Kris Safarova  01:55

Maybe we can start with how you became so interested in the topic of personal power.

Chris Lipp  02:00

I think a lot of leaders, you know, we in my own story, you know, we as we, as we get into the professional environment, even just starting back that far, there’s it’s difficult sometimes when the our evaluation, our the quality of our work, is really based on the evaluation of others, right? It’s really obvious how to see that when you’re in a lower position. You know, the manager, the supervisor, they evaluate you. And it’s kind of, it’s no matter how good you do, if that evaluation is not good, it will lead to poor results. So that’s when I really got into persuasion, for example, and really understanding this power dynamic. But it also, you know, it funnels up, even as we go up the the hierarchy, we really never escape that there’s always, always being evaluated, whether that’s internally, externally, from below, from above, from our colleagues, and when we look at personal power, this is really the vehicle for for maximizing the impressions that we make on everyone, so that we stand out.

Kris Safarova  02:58

Were there any personal struggles that led you to study personal power and influence deeply?

Chris Lipp  03:04

There have been a few instances where I remember when I was pitching a $2.1 million product in my first job in semiconductor manufacturers, first company, I should say. And you know, at the time, there was a lot of I remember the whole room was kind of against what the customer wanted, because obviously the customer wanted to do something that would reduce the the overall profit margin of our, of our, of our sales. But at the same time, it was a good for a competitive advantage. It really locked the competitor out of a certain product line at the customer site. And so I remember feeling actually initially, because I understood this from the customer side. And customer side, and the engineering team and the product team and whatnot, didn’t really understand the customer situation, and when I tried to convince them, I really failed at it. And so their choices that I knew were not good for the customer were being made. Eventually, I actually was able to change to a little bit influence that from persuasion, but I think that helplessness of seeing really what would be right for the business and for the customer, but not being able to communicate, that initially led me into understand, seeking to understand communication at a much deeper level.

Kris Safarova  04:16

Chris and what do you think is the most counter intuitive truth about power that people resist or don’t understand.

Chris Lipp  04:22

You know, one of the fascinating things, okay, so this kind of now just takes us into the general domain of personal power, is a lot of times we’re told we should associate ourselves with successes and distance ourselves from failures, and there’s a certain nugget of truth to that. But there’s also a huge area where this is completely the worst advice you can get. And in fact, they did a bunch of research on managers. They took mid level managers, directors and things, and they asked him to explain a salary freeze. And the managers, the group of managers, they had real managers, you know, either blamed it this hypothetical. Salary free freeze on things like the economy, or, you know, it came from executive management, or they took the hit. They said, Well, you know, I didn’t really promote our team’s efforts strong enough, and that’s why we didn’t get it. So either they they dodged the bullet, or they took the hit, then they the this experiment. They took a second group of managers from other organizations, and they had them rate the responses of the first and by and large, those managers who had said, who had blamed themselves, who took the hit and said, You know, I’m responsible for this, and the reason you guys didn’t get a salary raise, were seen as more likable, more managerial, more powerful, whereas those who dodged the bullet said it was had something to do with, you know, the economy, for example, something external, not in the manager’s control, they were seen as weaker. And you really see this now in the return to Office trend going on, which is you seeing executive leaders make these big, bold statements everybody needs to be on in the office five days a week. And now let’s say that you’re a manager, and your employees are really grumbling about this, and they’re really upset. And if you’re saying, Well, I’m sorry, that’s, you know, it’s executive management decision. There’s nothing I can do, you are really looking ineffective in your team eyes. So you’re losing your leadership capability in their eyes. You’re losing their respect. So, you know, I invite managers who are in this position to really think, well, what are ways that I can really communicate this as something that’s within my power, my responsibility, whatever the case. And there are different ways we can do that. I could give you one right now, which is just to reframe this discussion, not on the constraints being imposed, but on the vision and the goals that one has for the team, that you have for the team.

Kris Safarova  06:47

Could we go a little bit deep on this? So for someone who’s currently communicating guys, we need to be back at the office, what specifically they could say?

Chris Lipp  06:55

Well, you know, so the worst thing right is, oh, I’m sorry, it’s just what executive management is saying, right? Oh, okay, okay. So basically, you’re saying to your teammates that you have no power. Okay, great. Or the better decision, right? Is like, well, you know, we have this, you know, this mandate taken out. And here’s a vision of the organization. Here’s why this is happening. And so, you know, we think about it from the team level. What this is really going to allow us to do is this and this and this. So you’re really using in, in other words, you’re using the the opportunity of this, return to Office mandate to further the team’s goals, which ultimately serves the whole team. So the reframe into service for the team, I think, is very, very important. And in that you can, you can offer not just like this is a constraint, all right, you really want to demonstrate this as an opportunity and still to maintain autonomy, right? And that’s where your empowerment of employees can happen to giving them tips to maintain their autonomy as they return to work.

Kris Safarova  07:52

Have you observed anything that truly powerful people do differently, working with different people on this topic and researching this topic in depth and based on information available out there. Have you observed any patterns that specifically truly powerful people? What are they doing differently, especially when no one sees them? So behind closed doors, at home, how do they manage themselves?

Chris Lipp  08:16

That’s a great question, you know. So we think about it, your personal power is our belief in our own capability to create impact. So it’s a subconscious self assessment we have about ourselves that is informed by the way we speak and the way we behave, and that’s just a cycle that then, you know, increases or decreases this our own belief in our own capability and blaming, for example, is a decreases our capability. So it disempower it makes us lose respect in the eyes of others, but also we lose a little bit of respect in ourselves. Now, what I’ve seen with very powerful people is, even on their own, for example, they’ll have goals. I remember the president of a of a beverage company. He had just come back from overseas business, and he got home and he wanted to do, he knew he had to do bike riding, but he was super tired from jet lag and everything, but he still knew that, you know, he had his bi weekly bike ride to do, you know, cycling, and he’s like, I just don’t like excuses. I remember talking to him about, he’s like, I just don’t like excuses. I got up on my bike and I was out there. I was tired and when we really think about this, if you were to contrast a high power person versus a low power person, high power people are ultimately oriented in service to their own goals. Ultimately, if we were to simplify a high power person, we would say that their goal focused, whereas a low power person is really focused on opinions of others, being liked, for example, being approved of, which is, of course, why we dodge responsibility. You know, if things go wrong because we want to be liked, we don’t want to look bad. But of course, that’s low power, and we’re communicating that low power to ourselves and others, whereas in private, if we’re really focused on our own goals, and we don’t need that external motivation. Other people watching us. We’re just dead set. That’s, that’s high power.

Kris Safarova  10:04

I like this. I just don’t like excuses about this executive. If you have any more information, I think he’s a very interesting, oh, she’s a very interesting person.

Chris Lipp  10:13

You know, I don’t have permission to share much of the story. You know who it is, but, but really, a really, really successful human being, and I just it’s so clear when I was talking to him, that, you know, he doesn’t have excuses in his life. It’s just you do or you don’t, and that’s your choice, right? And choice also is, you know, personal power. We have influence over a situation, whereas things like blame, not taking responsibility, you’re essentially communicating. You don’t have a choice, right? Somebody else’s fault, somebody else did it, somebody else’s responsibility. Which you can see how that really limits your own awareness of your your personal power.

Kris Safarova  10:50

Chris and in working with people on this topic, have you observed many people struggling with self blame? So very high achieving people, they often have very high standards for themselves, and then there’s a lot of self blame that goes with it. Have you observed it? And how can people deal with it?

Chris Lipp  11:08

You know, it depends where you take this. So I wouldn’t use the word self blame. I would use the word accountability. You know, people who are in their personal power have a lot of personal accountability in their life, and they also, one way we see this reflected outward is in teams. They hold others accountable. So because they have this perspective that they have power, they just project that on others, and they assume others have power. And so they don’t allow others to get blame or things. They hold them accountable for their their you know, failures as well as successes. And this is important, because I think people who are out of their power, they blame they might not even realize they have control. And so actually holding others accountable and empowers others very because it forces them to break the illusion that they don’t have control, even if it’s uncomfortable. You know, to be held accountable. You know it, it’s important. And this is a problem. I think, you know, people don’t want to be micromanagers, for example, right? Micromanagement is all about control, control, control, control, and we want to have let our teams have autonomy, but part of that autonomy is holding them accountable for the responsibilities they have, and that’s not micromanagement. That’s actually a form of empowerment and not the desire to be liked by holding others accountable. But not, you know, but I think we mistake being liked with effective leadership and being liked in this holding not holding other people accountable is weak leadership, because it’s focused externally, which is low power, and it’s also allowing others to be under the illusion that they are powerless.

Kris Safarova  12:41

And you mentioned they have personal accountability versus self blame. So the difference there would be that they are not wasting time worrying about what happened in the past, but they’re focusing on the km accountable, how they move things forward.

Chris Lipp  12:55

Yes, yes. And I think you know, the way you asked that question, though, made me think that there are times where people have a lot of self blame, that like self criticism, that’s a little different than accountability. Accountability is about personal responsibility and making choices and taking action, but self criticism is really a judgment about one’s worth, for example, in an experience. And what’s very interesting is when we tend to be self critical, we tend to have these, what I call should right. I should be doing this more. I should have I should. And should is very interesting word in the language, because it really when we say we should do something, it often implies. It’s often an implication that the message was an external message that we’ve internalized, and in that case, it’s still an extrinsic motivation which is weak, whereas, and that’s why it makes us feel bad and actually disempowered, and we’re self judgment, self judging, whereas an empowered judgment might be, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t stand up to my values, right? So we would feel a very different feeling than than critical, like I’m a bad person. It’s completely different judgment, because one’s coming from inside out who we are, and the others coming from a message that we’ve adopted from society.

Kris Safarova  14:16

I think I didn’t stand up for my values. Can still be extremely self critical, though it depends on how hard the person is on themselves.

Chris Lipp  14:25

Well, you know, what’s fascinating in the research on personal power is people who are personally powerful tend to reflect more on their mistakes, whereas powerless people do not. Powerless people, when they make a mistake there, they usually blame because they’re not taking responsibility, right? They don’t assume they have power in the world. So they just naturally blame it. They don’t see that they could have done something. They think somebody else does. So boom, they’re done right, which just reinforces their sense of disempowerment. Whereas a powerful person would be like, well, you know, that didn’t go right. Where could I have leveraged my action to really have created a different output? And. That way, being a learner, they continue to develop themselves, which I think ties very much into then, their own sense of capability within the world. Hey, they’ve learned to manage things so they can and they have that stronger belief in themselves.

Kris Safarova  15:15

Just to make sure it’s clear in everyone’s mind, everyone who’s listening to us right now, how would you define personal power?

Chris Lipp  15:22

So to define personal powers, personal power is our belief in our own capability to create impact, or another way to say it is personal power is our ability to act on our own values. Different way to say it.

Kris Safarova  15:37

You mentioned that people who truly have power, they have goals. And you expand on that.

Chris Lipp  15:43

Yes, personal power is if we really look at the psychology of personal power, rests on three fundamental pillars. Number one, if you look at the research and the science, number one is personal responsibility, because people who have power have a sense of control over the world. Voters, more powerful voters, people have more personal power. Who are vote. They believe their vote counts, whereas powerless people believe their don’t vote doesn’t count. It’s this belief, you know, that we have control over the world. So like, if you give a coin to somebody who’s in their personal power, they believe that they flip it, that they can kind of semi control the output, like they they want to flip it, they want to roll the dime, because they believe they have some impact over it, even though it’s completely random, it’s, you know, reality is not true, but you know, powerless person will say it doesn’t matter, and powerless person just doesn’t see that they have impact, whether it’s in real cases like a flip of a diary of voting, they actually do have, you know, the same impact as a voter who has personal power, but they just say they don’t see their sense of control. That’s pillar one. Pillar two is they’re internally oriented. So that means they’re focused on their own values, rather than focus on what other people are thinking and the opinions of others. And number three is they focus on action. They take action. And this all comes out in language, which I really explain in the book, how leaders need to speak in order to be seen as strong leaders. And so when we think about goals, really, a goal is what it’s an it’s I have an ability to do something in the world, right, a sense of control, that I can create an internal align, an internally aligned goal, and then I take action on that goal. So that’s why, if we really simplify personal power, personal power is just, you know, there people who are in their power are more focused on their goals.

Kris Safarova  17:23

I think in psychology, it is called internal locus of control. Let’s talk about language, how leaders need to speak in order to be seen as strong leaders.

Chris Lipp  17:36

There are a few ways to to be seen. Number one is, of course, taking responsibility. And I think that’s pretty straightforward, but here’s a there’s a fascinating study they did at Stanford University, where they took these two groups of of students, and they had students read to to vignettes of of a person either deliberating a decision or implementing a decision. So it’s like, you know, I’m debating whether I should go overseas. Here’s the pluses, here’s the minuses. Versus another person who say, Well, I’ve decided I’m going to go overseas. Here’s what I need to do. I need to get my passport, etc, etc. And, you know, we have to deliberate in business. It’s important to understand, it’s a whole purpose of meetings, right? Trying to figure out what’s the best decision we can take in order to execute. And it’s what the researchers found at Stanford, was that the people who deliberate and the people who focus on implementation plans are seen as equally competent, meaning they have, you know, the same capability assessment by audiences, but the people who focused on implementation versus deliberation were seen as more powerful. The, you know, the person who’s saying, I’m gonna, we’re gonna do this, this and this, they lay out an action plan, it’s perceived significantly more powerful. So you think, for example, if you’re a politician or CEO, or you’re, you know, how often are if your message is deliberative, like, well, we’re going to evaluate the situation. We’re going to see whether we want to do this or that. That evaluative message does not signal leadership. Leadership would be here’s what we’re going to do first, here’s what we’re going to do next. Here’s what we’re going to do next.

Kris Safarova  19:08

Why do you think some people, well, I guess all of us, at some point unconsciously give away our power, and how can we stop doing it?

Chris Lipp  19:17

There are a few ways. One way is, of course, of blame that we just naturally do unconsciously. I think a lot of people struggle with valuing their internal signals. So you’re in an environment where you want to speak up, you want to share your opinion, but you know, there are people who are you? Know, you very big people saying the opposite, or you feel intimidated. And what the research shows is if you would hold your opinion and things go wrong, you’ll feel more regret than if you shared your opinion and things go wrong. So regret is tied to not sharing, but personal power is also tied to sharing. Is to authenticity, to. So sharing more solutions to problems, and I think that, you know, a lot of times we withhold our voice because we’re scared of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing, so we don’t act. But action is power. When we take action, we are seen as more powerful. When we speak up, we are seen as more powerful regardless of whether that action is turns out to be right or wrong, regardless of whether our ideas turn out to be right or wrong. So this is very important. So those those people who worry about being judged negatively because they’re doing something wrong or saying something wrong, just to recognize the motivation there is focused externally on what other people think of you, which is fundamentally low power, and that when you speak up, you’re not only tapping into your own power by saying, Okay, I value what I have to say or what I think or what I want to do, but people who witnessed you taking action or speaking up, regardless of whether it’s right or wrong, will see you as having more power, and Thus will defer more to you in the future.

Kris Safarova  21:02

If we think about the highly stressful situation, high pressure situation, what do you think is the best way to regain power in the crisis?

Chris Lipp  21:12

One of the things they did research on this, and if we’re in a low power position, and we go into in a low power position, doesn’t mean a formal position, just means we feel low power going into an environment, for example, if you’re going to an interview, and you know you’re about to be interviewed, traditionally, we see the interviewer as high power and the interview is low power. If you’re a VC, you feel high power. If you’re a startup going to pitch a product, you feel low power because you’re under evaluation. And this evaluative stress that we put on ourselves actually disempowers us. And research has found if you can tap into your personal power before going into these stressful situations, you’re significantly more likely to succeed. For example, research on interviews suggests you’re 81% more likely to succeed if you tap your personal power prior to going into the interview, and you’re just going to show up differently when you do that. You know there are different ways you don’t have to think about it, because these are automatic. You might be asking more questions, you might be sharing more value with the audience. Might be speaking up more. But what’s waiting? Way to do this, researchers have found that then 20 minutes before you go into a high stakes situation, a negotiation, an interview, a speech, public speech, sit down, find a list of values online, I don’t know anything that’s like 2020 values, and then find the top three values of those. Just pick what are your top three values of this list of say, 20 values, 10 or 20. And then of that, pick one value that you’re like. This is the most important value to me, not necessarily for the situation, but just it’s really an important value in my life. And spend four to five minutes writing why this value is so important to you. You see what’s going on there in the writing process, you’re tapping into your internal orientation. You’re tapping into that the your values, that stuff from which the personal power comes from, doing nothing else. For example, an interview, you’re 81% more likely to succeed. Like almost you double the chances of success, and there’s a psychological reason for this. I mean, I’m kind of saying, you know, you tap into the personal power area of your brain, but that’s called the behavioral approach system. And so what happens is, when you tap into your values and your goals and these things, you tap into the behavioral approach system, which makes you much more less risk adverse. So you’re more likely to speak up, you’re more likely to assert yourself, and you’re more likely to be seen as more confident, whereas if you’re you’re concerned about what other people think about you, which is the nature of of some of these situations, right? Our concern of whether we’re going to do a good job or not, whether our performance is going to be evaluated well or not, that’s the behavioral inhibition systems, different part of your brain, different different motivational mechanism, and it’s going to keep you low power. So that’s why it’s important. You really want to jump out of that. And the way we do that is one way, of the many that I write in my book, is we tap into our personal values, and we have to really spend four or five minutes writing about it, because it’s in that four minutes that we’re rewiring the brain or sending the signals into a different part of the brain that then gets alerted and gets alerted and activated, so we’re ready when we step into that situation.

Kris Safarova  24:06

Thank you for sharing this. This is something everyone can use, and they can see how it can be very powerful. What do you generally think about journaling? What role should it? Could it play in someone’s life to be a stronger leader and come across as more influential?

Chris Lipp  24:21

You know, journaling has so many great advantages. And you know, I started journaling when I was in my early 20s because I read like Oprah Winfrey journal. I was like, All right, I need some idea of how to manage my mental health, but journaling does a few good things. It helps us reflect and learn on past experiences, right? Which is personal power. It helps us become more emotionally aware. And you know, there’s some recent research out in psychology that a lot of stress we have, for example, you know, depression, let’s say they found that depression has a negative physical effect on your body, negative impact on your physical body, with inflammation, but not if you’re emotionally aware. So if you know, if you’re depressed, but then you are very you. You understand what emotions are going on, and you not just kind of this blanket. I don’t know what I feel, then your body doesn’t get inflamed. So there’s a lot of physical benefits as well as psychological benefits to being emotionally aware, and journaling is one way to do that. And then once we’re emotionally aware, we really tapping into who ourselves, right? Which keeps that internal orientation. We’re aware of what’s going on inside, and as long as we’re aware of what’s going on inside, rather than focused on what’s going on outside, we are in a process of tapping into our personal power.

Kris Safarova  25:31

For someone who never journaled and they wanted to start the day, what should they focus on? How should they do it?

Chris Lipp  25:37

I’ll give you my personal advice rather than the science advice, I think gratitude journaling is amazing. Stay focused on the positives and keep your mind focused there, because that also will activate the part of your brain that is reward driven, as opposed to fear driven, so it decreases stress, puts us in a personal power, no reason not to be grateful. I once, I’m going to share a little other thing. This is so little bit off topic, but, you know, there’s a very, there’s a very spiritual teacher in India who, you know, she does these things on Facebook and whatnot. And remember listening to her, and she said, her name is savig, and she’s like, you know, if she was asked, if you had to, here’s a, she’s a yogi, man Hindi, hindi spiritualist. She was asked if, if you had to give up all your spiritual practices, but one, you know, what would you be? He’s a woman who does yoga every day, who does meditation, who does chanting and prayer and the whole, the whole gamut. And she thought about, and she’s like, you know, if I could only choose one path of one practice in my entire domain of spirituality, it would be the practice of gratitude.

Kris Safarova  26:51

It is incredibly powerful practice. Do you have any other habits or practices that you personally use to stay powerful under pressure, and just generally, in day to day life. So we discuss journaling, anything else.

Chris Lipp  27:05

Well, you know, when we’re in our power, we really have much more perspective. We can see the bigger picture of things. So we see we crave, and we can see purpose. We can see meaning. We create goals. And whereas today, I think a lot of people are just so focused on KPIs, and you know, you’re like, what is the what are the numbers? And that’s really, actually, if you’re just focused on that exclusively, that’s low power. One way to say this is this concrete thinking versus abstract thinking, and abstract thinking is associated with more personal power. It’s also associated with gaining more respect when we speak more abstractly. So speaking, in this big pictures, visions, these things, we gain more respect. So one of the things you can do is you can really focus on, you know, journaling or anything. But one thing I do is I really try to always remember, why am I doing what I’m doing? You know, I go to the I go to give a workshop, you know, or I go teach in the business classrooms. And, you know, rather than just always losing myself in the grind, I’m trying to remember remind myself continuously, what’s the bigger picture? How is this a piece of the bigger picture and not just another to do?

Kris Safarova  28:17

So important. Do you think that powerful people think differently about failure?

Chris Lipp  28:22

I really like Carol Dweck work on the growth mindset, you might know, right? Whereas like failure to somebody who’s in a fixed mindset is it’s indication of who I am and my identity. Failure to a growth mindset is just a path to becoming better. Means I need to work harder. And I really think that this growth mind, the growth mindset literature, is coincides with personal power, because personal power is our belief in our own capability to create impact. And so if you recognize that you can learn and you can develop and you can grow, that that has such a huge, you know, you see failure, not as an indicator of identity, but as an indicator of of of an area to learn. You’re signaling to yourself that, hey, this is I can expand my influence and impact, whereas somebody who is out of their power either they’re going to blame so they’re not going to reflect on it, or they’re going to ruminate on it in a way that’s like so self critical. It’s basically pigeon holing their identity as a bad person, which is also not powerful.

Kris Safarova  29:27

Definitely. Power dynamics, of course, exist in every room, and we see it from kindergarten, from the very early age all the way to the end of our life. What do you think is an easy way to shift the balance of power in your favor if you feel that you are in a situation where you don’t have enough power.

Chris Lipp  29:47

But the whole book that I write is this, right? How do you how do you really demonstrate and show up with power? I can think of a few ways right away. I mean, I was talking to a colleague at the business school, a Tulane business school where I’m teaching right now. And. Uh, sometimes, you know, students, very successful, ambitious, aggressive students, they can start to really question why faculty do certain, a certain way. And, you know, there’s a certain level where it’s, it’s, it’s important to really help students understand situations. It’s important there’s certain where you really want to help your team understand, you know, situation. But at the same time, if you’re under evaluation and you have to prove yourself, that’s a low power position, because it gives the person under evaluation all the authority of making, you know, decisions. Basically, if you’re proving yourself, you care about their opinion, right? So that’s low power you care about being the way you’re being the way you’re being evaluated, rather than your own values and goals and and they’re the ones who are seeking information, so they’re the ones evaluating their own goals. That’s why they’re questioning you. So a way to turn this around, if you really feel disempowered, is stop focusing on yourself and being self conscious and instead turn it around and start to be curious about the other person. That doesn’t mean like, you have to, you know, be like, judgmental. That’s not at all. It just means, like, start to get curious about why the other person’s maybe asking questions, or what is the other person’s perspective. And the more you ask questions, the more you’re curious about them, and the more power you get. Think about it like, for example, a, if a V, if a startup is pitching to a VC, generally, the VCs asking questions the startups trying to prove themselves right. We so associate the startup with a low power position, but the startup can flip that by really trying to understand what value the VC can bring in that process too. And so that balances out the power dynamic. Both sides get questions. I think maybe a more relatable one, I talk about startups a lot because I wrote a book on startup pitching. I do a lot of startup coaching and helping, helping startups fundraise. But perhaps a more relatable one for the business world is, you know, you go to an interview, it’s the interviewer we associate with the kind of traditional, powerful role, and it’s obviously the interviewer asking all the questions. Now you think about it, a lot of advice that interviewees get is come in with questions yourself, right? And it’s funny, well, why is that important? Well, you, you know, some people will say, well, it’s important to ask questions because it shows you’re you’re excited about the opportunity, interested. Okay, that’s true, but you know, if that were the only reason there are other ways to show excitement and interest in the position without asking questions, and yet, if you don’t ask questions, you don’t get the job right? Well, then, okay, asking questions helps you evaluate the job for yourself to see whether it’ll be good fit for you. Okay, that’s great, but that’s very self focused, like for the interviewee. So why should your evaluation whether it’s a good evaluation for you or not, you or not you know the job matter at all to the interviewer, right? But it does, because if you don’t ask questions again, you don’t get hired. And the reason is, if you are in a position, you’re an interviewee, and you start to ask questions, you balance out this power dynamic, because now you are expressing curiosity, evaluating whether the company will be a good fit for you, not just whether you’ll be a good fit for the company, and implicitly, what that signals to the interviewer is like this person is in their own personal power, so the interviewer now gives you more value. They perceive you to have more value because you have more personal power. And also you know you implicitly when you’re asking questions to debate whether it’ll be good fit for you, you’re implicitly showing that you have options again. So you’re just raising the perceived value that you have. So that’s why it’s important don’t sit there in a position where you’re always proving yourself or answering questions. Really, if you start to feel disempowered, turn it around. Ask, ask questions the other way around. If you’re in a leadership meeting with senior executive, really start to question them on their vision and really question in ways, to really get curious, to understand the details of their vision, which helps you, you know, align with what they need. But now, when they’re thinking about their vision, they’re you’re not, you’re not in a low power position anymore. You’re in a you’re in a complimentary position.

Kris Safarova  33:56

And of course, power dynamics exist in personal relationship. This will be good advice as well. For that. Do you have any other advice that our listeners can apply if they have some challenges in their personal relationships?

Chris Lipp  34:10

When it comes to our dynamics? One of the challenges, I think, in a dynamic of relationships, like romantic relationships, for example, is we might do something wrong, or we might feel like our partner is angry at us, or they’re losing attraction for us, or there’s a lot of different things. And the of course, because we’re so focused on our partners opinion of us, we can’t to really degrees, really, that’s just a fact of relationships, right? That we really do care about what they think of us. And I think that that goes beyond just personal power, but, but what happens is we start to capitulate our own boundaries and voice in relationships, so our partners angry at us, or our partners losing attraction for us, and so we capitulate more. We try to appease them more. They want to do something. We do what they want. We don’t say. We don’t stand up for ourselves as much, but in the very act of not standing up for. Selves and giving more capitulation. We’re giving away our power. We’re becoming less attractive. We’re becoming less capable of, you know, managing their anger and taking more responsibility so they’re not taking control of themselves. And so, you know, in some if you want to have a healthy relationship, it’s important that you always stay anchored in your values and if you do something wrong, Okay, I admit you did something wrong, apologize. There’s nothing weak about apologizing when you do something wrong, but don’t capitulate your self respect by ignoring your own values, inner signals and voice in that process.

Kris Safarova  35:40

That is very important point, because what happens to some people is they just follow what the other person wants. So there’s no conflict.

Chris Lipp  35:49

Yeah, exactly, conflict. There’s nothing. There’s nothing that says conflict is unhealthy to relationships. In fact, the research suggests there’s opposite. There’s certain level of health conflict and relationships. We are just afraid of conflict, and it’s our fear which is fear is a low power emotion. So if you’re reacting to fear, is low power behavior, fear is just an emotion, I should say, but reacting to fear is a low power behavior. And if you’re reacting to fear by avoiding conflict, you’re actually diminishing the quality of that relationship and the connection of that relationship. Well, what does a conflict, healthy conflict look like, right? It doesn’t look like character assassinations and attacking them back, but maybe you did something wrong in a dynamic and you got your partner really upset, or something has been going on now you apologize, of course, take responsibility. Responsibility is powerful at the same time. Don’t ignore the fact that a lot of conflicts are mutually created, right? Maybe there are certain things that are just not going well for you in in the context of the situation that your partner was triggering you. And so really bring out what’s bothering you. Share your voice, and it allows them to take responsibility for what’s going on there too, which empowers them right now, instead of you getting blamed and you, they’re, you know, and allowing them to feel kind of low power in that process, right? Blame is also low power. So if your partner is completely focused on blaming you, they’re kind of losing a little bit of their own power. So they’re feeling not so strong in themselves. They’re just taking it out on you make it mutual, and that’s the thing. Make it mutual own what you own and speak what’s your truth?

Kris Safarova  37:28

When you work with people on this, are there main challenges in the personal life or professional life? It’s likely that people initially come with professional issues, but if you dig a little bit, but they really struggling with personal issues.

Chris Lipp  37:44

You could always argue that at some level, personal power is a personal issue, very much like self esteem ideal professional and you know, the book The Science of Personal power is completely contextualized in a professional environment. It deals with the science that’s universal. And at the end, I start to give examples of personal situations, but it really has a framework of how it operates within the professional world. And that’s actually perhaps one of my only regrets in writing the book, is I afterwards, I started realizing, you know, but people were sending me photos of the book. They’re reading it on the beach, you know, after divorces and things and and I was just like, you know, the it’s a science that’s universal, and I wish that I had made the book more universal and not just professional, so that people could resonate with their specific situations that are also not professional. Now, as you read it, you just have to take, it’s all the same, the information, the science is the same. You just have to take the extra step to now apply it. Like, okay, how am I taking responsibility in a relationship versus not taking responsibility? How am I being authentic in a relationship versus not being authentic?

Kris Safarova  38:50

And as you were learning more about personal power, was there something that really surprised you that you did not expect?

Chris Lipp  38:57

So many things, you know, and but it’s we’ve already talked about them, right? Like, you know, we’re told to, you know, dodge the bullet, right? Associate yourself with wind, distance yourself from failures, terrible advice. We’re, you know, in communication, you know, I’ve taught management communication for over a decade, and in the field at the business schools, you know, if you look at all these the business schools, how we teach it today. It’s one of the things we always taught us to teach concrete communication, because concrete communication is more memorable, but but actually, research suggests that abstract communication seems more powerful. So it’s very fascinating to see that the very thing that we’ve been educated to teach in business schools is fundamentally incorrect at a certain level, at the influence level, it’s only correct at this sort of memorable level. So there are a lot of these little things like this. For example, recent research, this is not in the book, but it’s fascinating. We tend to associate deeper voice like if I speak deeply, I have more power. Research has shown the opposite, that audiences per. Receive slightly higher voices to be more powerful, and they associate slightly higher voices with having a higher position in formal hierarchies, like senior management, for example. And it’s fascinating, actually, like, if you look at it just like this makes sense, like Bill Gates does not have a high voice. The President does not have a deep voice. Steve Jobs didn’t have a deep voice. It’s because the truth is, personal power is tied to authenticity, so it’s our authentic voice, and that’s not some fake dominance voice, like I’m gonna talk really deep. So I was really surprised when I saw that, because we tend to think that deep voices are more powerful and, in fact, very robust research suggests that’s simply not true.

Kris Safarova  40:45

Thank you so much for sharing this. This is very interesting in working with people, where do they struggle the most? On average, when they’re applying what you teach them?

Chris Lipp  40:56

A lot of people struggle with speaking up, right? And I think it has to do with our relationship with fear. Just like avoiding conflict, fear is a signal that we are moving into a domain that’s unfamiliar, or we’re expanding in a direction of the unknown, fear is really tied to the unknown, and what that means is we tend to if we’re going to be more assertive than we normally are, it’s going to feel uncomfortable. It’s going to be we’re going to be a little afraid what’s going to happen, right, if we step out of what we’ve been doing. Right? You’ve always heard, don’t rock the boat. That’s actually a very low power thing. Don’t rock the boat. Step out and but it’s, it’s fear inducing, right? Anxiety. I’ve got to step on stage and give a speech. It’s anxiety. And so fear is this, this, it it holds us back. And if our relationship to fear is that feeling safe is good and feeling fear is bad, we can never be in our power, because safety is the domain of of, ultimately, low power, right, trying to be safe from fear. So we have to shift the mindset to fear as a fear as a fear as a gateway. Fear is a gateway to change into expansion. We’re expanding into the unknown. And if we see fear as like, oh wow, there’s this boundary. I didn’t realize I had it, I’m going to step out and expand myself. This is an opportunity, if we reframe fear into opportunity. Our relationship turns to one that’s very powerful, and so we embrace these, these opportunities, even when they’re uncomfortable, because we recognize, at a deeper level the value they bring us that’s that’s so important.

Kris Safarova  42:36

Tell us more about how do you reframe fear into an opportunity?

Chris Lipp  42:39

Just recognize, for example, if, if you’re used to being quiet, assertiveness, feels uncomfortable and so but until you’d be like, well, I’m just going to keep being my who I am. No, just recognize the discomfort itself is a good signal, not a bad signal, right? It’s just, you’re going to put a subjective, you know, assessment of the signal. Just recognize, okay, this I’m stepping out. So here’s an opportunity, right? Just you have to just tell yourself, it’s an opportunity to learn. That’s how personal, powerful, personal. Think about it. It’s opportunity to learn, to grow, to further my goals. Ultimately, that’s what this is doing. I’m furthering my goals. So I’m going to focus on my goal. And here’s what’s really fascinating, if we consistently come from a place of low power, for example, not sharing our voice in meetings, our understanding, our perspective of the environment, is one in which we’ve continuously had low power, and people are responding to us as if we have low power. And so we’re afraid if we speak up, well, we know people don’t respect us, so if I speak up, they’re going, I’m going, nobody’s going nobody’s going to like me, and I’m going to get really in trouble, right, because I don’t respect us. Well, no, that’s actually not true. Here’s the interesting thing, if you step through your fear and assert yourself, you can no longer predict accurately how people respond to you, because in stepping through your fear and asserting yourself, you have now stepped into your power, and you are now showing up differently in the world, and that’s going to change the way people evaluate you. When you’re in your power, you’re beginning to rewrite your place in this situation, in the environment, and because you’re rewriting it, no longer do your models of prediction. Can they predict how people respond to you? And this is what generally research shows on courageous behavior in the office place is, they found that when people stepped out of their low power roles and spoke up, for example, a junior engineer, you know, whistle blowing, some bad behavior of the supervisor, you know, all these things, what they found, by and large, is, at first, of course, there’s little pushback, right? Like people were upset, like, why, you know, because you’re starting to go against the grain. That’s why there’s courage there, because you’re having to go against some potential external, mild threat. But over time, and by over time, I mean very quickly, not like immediately, but maybe like, a few days later, people will begin to treat you differently, with more respect, and they will honor you. Some people get promotions when they. Hand up to their managers. At first the manager is upset, and then the next day, the managers like that was freaking. Thank you so much. Sometimes it happens right in the meeting. After the meeting, the manager will thank you. You know, I’ve seen these stories, so that’s I think the biggest thing is, if you’re going to step through your fear and be assertive, your prediction model how people will respond will no longer work, because you’re used to your model says they’re going to respond to you as if you have low power, which means they’re generally going to respond to respond to you, not so you know positively, but then when you step into your power, research is quite clear, they’re going to start to respond to you in a way that holds more respect, and it’s going to surprise you.

Kris Safarova  45:32

To wrap up, I wanted to ask you my favorite question over the last few years, or any amount of time, whatever comes to mind, what were two, three aha moments, realizations that really changed the way you look at life or the way you look at business.

Chris Lipp  45:48

You know, for the biggest shift I’ve had with my life is recognizing that people are the most important thing in my life, right? And that that really taps into, you know, what is my biggest goals? And then, uh, for work, I remember when I realized that communication wasn’t about communicating information, it was about communicating value. If you want to be persuasive, nobody cares about your ideas. They only care about the value of your ideas. So when I realized this, it just changed the way I communicated. I started communicating instead of trying to aim for more clarity, which is fine, but it’s just a very low bar that’s not influential. I started aiming for demonstrating the value of what I’m doing. So important, particularly if you’re like in an office space and you want to get promoted, don’t just say what you’re doing. Say why what you’re doing is important. And then number three is, I think, really the discovery of personal power, really understanding this vehicle dynamic between people, this invisible dynamic, why do some people show up big? Why are some people small? Why do we walk in the room? We know who’s got power. We know who’s sort of like the runt of the group in that moment. What is this? And I think when I began to see it through the science, I was just like, Oh, wow. Because then you realize your worth in a group is much more a function of your behaviors than it is a function of your some fundamental aspect about you, fact, has nothing to do with your your your who, who you are and your identity. It has to do with how you show up. And I think a lot of times, because people sometimes struggle with self worth. They don’t. They withhold their voice, and by it’s the act of withholding their voice because they don’t value themselves, that then other people get the signal this person’s low status because they’re not having a voice in the group. And so we just create this kind of self fulfilling prophecy that our we project our low self worth through our behaviors in ways that then reinforce other people treating us in a way that gives us evidence that we don’t value we’re not worthy. But it’s just all bullshit, because it’s like, Excuse me, my language. It’s just we recreated that scenario. And so once you really see, oh, here are the behaviors of high power and low power doesn’t matter what you think about yourself, if you just act in the behaviors of high power, you’ll begin to respect yourself more, which is nice, but then people will just respect you, because it has nothing to do with yourself.

Kris Safarova  47:58

Powerful way though session today. Thank you so much. I really appreciate everything you shared. Where can our listeners learn more about you? Buy your book? Anything you want to share right now?

Chris Lipp  48:09

My website, speakvalue.com, exactly how it sounds. There’s resources there that you can download for free. I also have my book on Amazon, the science, personal power probably good at Barnes and Noble as well the local Barnes and Noble. But I really, I if this resonates with you and you really want to step into your power, you know, I did this research to empower, empower us in our lives, and I hope that you pick it up. I hope that it serves you well.

Kris Safarova  48:34

Our guest today, again, has been Chris Lipp. Check out his book. It is called The Science of Personal Power. And our podcast sponsor today is StrategyTraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies. It’s a free download, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach. You can also get McKinsey and BCG-winning resume. This is the actual resume that got offers from McKinsey and BCG, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf, and you can take a look at it, compare it to your resume, see what you can improve. And the last gift from me today is a copy of a book we co-authored with some of our amazing clients. It went to be number one bestseller on Amazon, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/gift. Thank you everyone for tuning in, and I’m looking forward to connect with you all next time.