Posts Tagged ‘likeability’

While reading an advance copy of Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions, it struck me that what Guy is providing is a “finishing school for 21st Century entrepreneurs.”

According to Wikipedia, finishing school originally referred to “a private school for girls that emphasizes training in cultural and social activities.” Intended to follow ordinary schooling, finishing school is “intended to complete the educational experience, with classes primarily on etiquette.”

Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment is much more than shallow etiquette, as it references many of the most important and influential current books on marketing, psychology, and social behavior, such as Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Power of Persuasion.

Yet, at heart, Enchantment is an etiquette book; its a 21st century behavior book, a guide to the subtleties and nuances of daily business life that determine whether or not others—bosses, co-workers, customers, employees, prospects, and website visitors—will like us and trust us…or simply tune-us out.

Image versus reality

Enchantment fascinates me because—on the surface–it looks, and reads, like a “simple” book. It’s a fast read because sentences, paragraphs, and chapters, are short. Topics inside chapters are short and to the point, broken up with frequent subheads, lists, and quotations that keep readers engaged and moving forward.

There are also enough graphics to reinforce important points.

Look behind the apparent simplicity and easy reading, however, and you’ll find a wealth of carefully organized, up-to-date information. Enchantment’s bibliography may only include 20 titles, but they’re the right 20 titles, and Guy Kawasaki obviously carefully read each of the contemporary business classics before skillfully weaving them into the narrative.

You’ll definitely want to read Enchantment with pen in hand, so you can underline the many ideas you’ll want to revisit.

Importance of balance

Most business books fall into the trap of either being too abstract or too practical.

• Abstract books, often the ground-breaking books that introduce new ideas and perspectives, are often too research-oriented to be useful. They may define a new way of approaching a problem, but they don’t provide the daily nuts-and-bolts, “do and don’t” advice, that readers need to efficiently implement and profit from the new perspective.
• Practical books, on the other hand, are often so distilled down to the “how to’s” that readers don’t understand the background, or the context, of the recommended advice.

Enchantment is one of the rare exceptions. It defines a “code of behavior” that will encourage others to like, respect, and trust you (and your ideas) and also provides the specific advice and recommendations you need to create the daily habits that will enchantment those whose approval you need to achieve your goals.

Is Enchantment for you?

Basically, Enchantment is for you, if :

• You’d rather read 1 book, instead of 20 other books.
• You’re interested in stories, rather than ideas. Enchantment is filled with examples from Guy Kawasaki’s own experiences plus personal stories contributed by a variety of successful entrepreneurs.
• You’re part of the personal computing and Internet age. As a well-known Silicon Valley participant and investor, Guy Kawasaki writes from a privileged “insider” perspective about the past. This also makes him the perfect guide to introduce you to ways to achieve your enchantment using the latest online and social media technology.

Enchantment contains additional subtleties that enhance its value as a “finish school” for entrepreneurs. The table of contents, for example, provides topic lists with check-boxes for you to track your progress as you read. In addition, the Conclusion contains a self-scoring quiz you can take to test your mastery of Enchantment powers. There’s also a fascinating story, (that word, again!), describing the origins of the book cover and how it was crowd-sourced and market-tested before committing to it. (Guy practices what he preaches.) All in all, Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment is a book that deserves your attention. To learn more, view Guy’s Enchantment slides and speech, take an online quiz, read online excerpts, or view (or embed) the Enchantment infographic.

—

Tagged as: abstract, active garage, Alltop, balance, book review, Communication, Enchantment, entrepreurship, guy kawasaki, Leadership, learning, likeability, practical, published and profitable, pursuation, roger parker, school, Trust

I’m sure you’ve heard this many times: “The first impression is the last impression”. The good news is this is not entirely true; the bad news is its not entirely false, either. Though first impressions may not be the last impressions… they do matter and what really matters is what the other person is thinking after they just associated with you – Are they thinking “I didn’t like him” or “Hmmm…. I really liked him”? The difference in these two might seem trivial but it’s not. The difference is that one side of the coin opens possibilities for you and the other side does not… Perhaps even shuts them down in some cases… and the tricky part is that all this happens “Silently“. People usually do not make this assessment loudly in public. They usually show up in conversations where you are not present.

Here’s a little example of how this once worked for me. A friend of mine arranged for me to meet up with a friend of his, who was a powerful person, and I was going there to talk to him about enrolling him in my vision of what I was doing. The meeting went fine (though I was, admittedly, a little critical of myself at the end of it) and I did not hear back from the person I met for a while. Then, one day, my friend called me and asked me “Did you see the email from the person you met?” I said “No” and checked my mailbox. It was very much there and he had accepted my offer… so, then I asked my friend that it did not appear to me that the meeting went all that well – so how come he accepted? My friend’s response was “Well! He thought the meeting was alright but the reason he accepted to work with you is because he said he liked you!”

That got me thinking and a question came to my mind: How do you assess someone as likeable… or not?

What I have found is what’s important is how people leave me … that is, to say, if someone leaves me in a better mood that I was in, when I met them, I make the assessment that they are likable!

… and then I came up with a more powerful question, for myself: What thoughts and feelings do I leave people in; after my interactions with them?

I’ll leave you with a term, a few resources on how you can show up as more likable and a couple of questions on likability.

1. What do you think is your likability factor?

2. If you do not think its high enough, what are you going to do about it?

Tagged as: business, entrepreneurs, feelings, likability, Likable, likeability, Likeable, mood, possibilities