646: Emma Camp's A-list Charisma Uses THIS Common Sense Secret to Influence at Scale

What if the reason your brilliant ideas are not getting the attention they deserve is that you are trying too hard to sound smart. Welcome back to speak up the number one right business communication podcast for high performing introvert leaders and yes you social introverts that includes you too. Here we help you turn your brilliant ideas into influence and influence into better business outcomes because being super smart does not automatically make you influential. I am your host, Laura Camacho, executive presence strategist, career accelerator and when the occasion calls for it your professional fairy godmother. By the end of this short episode you will know how to grab attention immediately by opening with a question but not just any question what kind of question does that need to be. While leading with your conclusion instead of endless qualifications is the best option and how to turn everyday observations into memorable powerful statements that shift conversations and strengthen your executive presence. So what if one of the best ways to sound smarter at work is to stop trying so hard to sound smart? I know. After all those degrees, certifications, years of experience, we can sacrifice to PowerPoint. Now I'm telling you to make things simpler and my inspiration is from newcomer to the charisma a list and that is Emma Camp. Now she's not a Hollywood celebrity or any kind of fashion icon. She's a very young journalist from the state of Alabama and she's now the Wall Street Journal and she's got these short videos out that explain economic issues and she challenges popular assumptions and they've been getting so much attention. So if you haven't seen her yet, please look her up. You will enjoy. You don't have to agree with all her opinions but how she communicates brill yet. She takes something that people are talking about or they want to talk about. She identifies the central assumption and then explains that puts it into normal ordinary language. Very conversational, direct and then she has a point of view. She's not dilly dallying. She doesn't even seem to be worried about sounding impressive and she's even soft spoken. So all of this makes her pretty impressive and I want you to compare that with what tends to happen in corporate America. We have senior leaders who can manage hundreds of people oversee multimillion dollar budgets, navigate regulatory complexity and make these decisions with enormous consequences. But then you can ask them a straightforward question and suddenly they sound like they swallowed an entire management consulting firm. You know, well, we're evaluating a comprehensive range of strategic opportunities designed to optimize our operational capabilities. What? Like are we doing the thing or not? I say this with a lot of affection because I work with people who talk like that every single day and have a theory about why this happens. The more you know about something, the more exceptions you see, right? I think that's true. If you're an engineer, you know, all the way something can go wrong. If you are an attorney, you've been trained to go to the worst possible scenario. If you're in finance, you know that every number comes with assumptions and health care, you know that the answer is never as simple as people want it to be like all of that knowledge is so valuable. And that's why you're in the room. But then when you see all these possibilities, you feel obligated to explain them. And that is what causes you to tell people more than what they want to know or more than what they're able to absorb. When you give people too much information, they don't remember anything. And that's where in my camp gives us a useful lesson. She doesn't try to explain every possible dimension of the issue, but she gets to the central question and gives you a clear explanation. And I know some of you are saying, "Oh, Laura, but she's probably over simplifying things and people can do that." But I think that you people listening are smart enough and not trying to manipulate like nobody here is running for political office, right? So we're not trying to manipulate. We're trying to get our organizations to have better decisions. You can communicate central ideas about things without having to drag your audience through every step of your research. All right. So here's an important distinction for you. Your complexity belongs in your thinking, but your clarity belongs in your communication. They're two different things. I'm not saying that you have to lobotomize yourself so you don't see everything that you normally see. It's just that you need to filter. Your audience doesn't need to experience every intellectual detour that you took to drive at a certain conclusion, right? So let's look at three things that you can borrow from Emma Camp's communication style. Number one, start with the question that people actually care about. Now, here's something interesting that Emma Camp recently said in an interview about her videos. She said that she has to make her point quickly and as she put it, "If you don't get the hook right, people just keep scrolling." End of quote. So the hook, I just explained to several of you of you have coached with me like that's the attention grabber. That is where you need to spend significant time is developing your hook when you have a significant message. Now, it's not that your CEO is scrolling through TikTok during your presentation, at least I hope not, but mentally could be. Senior leaders are making decisions all day about what deserves their attention. And if you start with seven minutes of background information to give them context, then you're asking them to do the work of figuring out why they should care. And that is actually your job. You've got to start with the question that matters to them, give them a reason to listen. For example, let's say you're, what if your opening is, well, today I'll be providing an overview of our Q3 operational performance, including several key work streams and associated deliverables. I mean, that is accurate and people will understand what you're talking about, but will they be engaged, right? What if you said instead, I'm going to explain why our costs are going up while we're serving fewer customers. Bam, now that's intriguing. Here's another example. Instead of, today we're discussing the challenges associated with our cross-functional transformation initiative. How about, why is this project that everyone supports still six months behind schedule? Bam, see what happened. It's not dumbing it down. It's just trimming away and getting to the problem that's most central and making it easy for everybody to see that, okay? And now you're dealing with complexity all day long. So is everybody else in the room? They want your point of view about the complexity. So number one is to get to the central question and kick off with a strong hook. Number two, stop compusing your qualifications with intelligence, okay? Here's something else in my cap said that I love. She explained that writing allows her to explore ideas and depth, but video requires a different discipline. And if you're thinking Laura, I don't make videos. The video communication is very similar to an engaging in person presentation or conversation. And a lot of you know because you've told me, oh, I'm fine with emails because I'm able to sit down and think about it and organize. It's when I'm speaking that it's complicated. So that's what I'm talking about. Her challenge is how could I make my point as simply as possible? That's what I want you to ask. Because I know you've spent maybe 20 years more or less becoming an expert. You know all the qualifications, exceptions and fascinating details that you could share. But your audience simply can't follow all of that. They need to know what is relevant to them. That's why I talk about curation a lot. And here's the part that is especially difficult for high performing introverts is that we do a lot of preparation, right? And we know a lot as a result of that. And then I'm telling you, guess what? Leave that out. Here's the thing. Your preparation has earned you the right to be brief because you can always answer things and questions. That's not dumbing it down. It's demonstrating command of your subject. Remember Einstein said, if you can't explain it simply, then you don't know your topic well enough. So here's a little experiment for you to do. The next time someone asks for your opinion, give them the conclusion first, not the caveat, not the methodology. Just I recommend that we delayed the launch by two weeks. And the reason is the current defect rate creates too much customer risk. And then if necessary, if people want to know you can go into your assumptions, exceptions, and other possibilities. Now, I'm not telling you to abandon accuracy. I want you to change the order of the information. It's the headline first, the supporting reasons, and then any details, data points, things that I want you to start putting in the appendix. This is especially important when you're communicating with senior executives. They need to know where you're going. They can ask you how you got there. No intellectual autobiography. So this is one reason why Emma Camp's delivery works so well. You know what she's thinking. You don't have to spend the video trying to figure out anything. It comes across as confidence. And not because she's necessarily right about everything, but she's communicating a coherent idea. And you can do that too. And remember, I've said that even when you communicate something extremely well, it doesn't mean that everybody's going to accept it. It just increases your chances. But you all want to be ready to defend your point of view, but also to adapt when necessary or when it's the best thing. All right. Number three, make it memorable. And a recent interview with business insider Emma Camp describes what she enjoys most about her work. She says I like being a debunker, right? She likes challenging, accepted ideas. So I don't want you marching into your next executive meeting looking to debunk your CEO or CFO. That will not. That's probably not a good idea. But you can question assumptions. And because sometimes the most valuable contribution you can make is to identify something that everybody else has accepted without examining. Such as, you know, when people ask me about time management, never time management is a priorities issue. Or even with staffing, it could be the problem is not staffing its prioritization. Our customers don't need another feature. They need the existing ones to work better. Or we keep discussing how to accelerate this project. Maybe we should discuss whether we even need it. These are not complicated ideas, but they can completely change the conversation. And that's what makes common sense so powerful when it's expressed clearly. Because there's a misconception out there that people think that to be influential, you have to say something that no one has ever thought of before, you know, to be that groundbreaking visionary with completely original insight. And if you've got that, well, that's fine. But sometimes leadership influence comes from articulating something that people sense, but they haven't expressed. And that's when people go, oh my gosh, yes, that's it is what I want you to do. Be memorable. This is using your already strong sense of observation. This is not requiring Nobel Prize research. It's being memorable, giving people language they can repeat, which is one of the secrets of charisma, by the way. People will remember how you help them to see something differently. And the good news for you, my thoughtful, introvert friend, is that you probably have these observations all the time because you were paying attention. You noticed patterns and inconsistencies and things that are not making sense. So here's your assignment. Find one straightforward observation you've been making privately about something in your business. Maybe it's something that everybody knows, but nobody mentions, you know, like the emperor with no clothes on. Maybe it's a problem that has become unnecessarily complicated. Maybe it's a assumption that needs to be questioned and see if you can express that in one sentence. For example, we're not losing customers because of price. We're losing them because we're difficult to work with, right? That sentence can change meaning value. We want to add value, clear thinking, clearly express ads value. So the MECAMP lesson for today is that she is getting attention for communicating ideas in a way that feels straightforward, conversational, and easy to understand. And I think that's so refreshing where people tend to make things unnecessarily complicated, partially because we have so much data. Remember, your preparation has earned you the right to be brief or to be concise. I think these tips can really give you the confidence to simplify your messaging. And if you would like a snapshot of what your executive presence looks like, overall, I have a link to an executive presence scorecard, which is a self-assessment that you can take in about five minutes and get a really clear idea of how you're doing with executive presence. In any case, have a fantastic and glorious day, and I will catch everyone on the next episode.