Speaking Tips

In this archive of past tips-of-the-month, you'll find answers to client questions, unique practice ideas, book recommendations, and links to some of our favorite outside resources. Feel free to browse!

The Jerry Maguire Effect or "You had me at hello"

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In a recent study, 64 men and women read a paragraph that contained the word "hello." Phil McAleer, of the University of Glasgow, extracted the hellos and asked 320 participants to listen to the voices and rate them on trustworthiness, aggressiveness, confidence, dominance and warmth. When listening to the voices, "what we find is that they all seem to perceive that one voice is the most trustworthy and another voice is the least trustworthy," he says, "and the same is true of all the other personality traits that were tested."

Understanding what behaviors send what messages is fundamental to effective communication. Read the NPR article to learn about the study, and read The Credibility Code to learn about the non-verbal behaviors that are under our control.

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