Smiling Makes You Happier

It’s easy to acknowledge that our own body language impacts how other people view us.  Did you know posture and posing can impact how we feel about ourselves?

I watched a fascinating TED talk video today by Amy Cuddy, a researcher and professor at Harvard Business School, about the surprising impact of body language on our own psyche.  In brief, certain open body language is associated with power and confidence, while closed postures are linked with insecurity and powerlessness. In open body language, one takes up more space and spreads out, rather than crouching, slouching, or crossing legs or arms. By standing in a position of power (feet apart, shoulders spread, hands on hips) for just 2 minutes in private ahead of a key meeting or job interview, you can influence your own hormones, feel more positive, and thus modify your own demeanor in that important interaction.

In the talk, Professor Cuddy goes on to say that her recommendation is not “Fake it ‘til you make it”, but rather, “fake it ‘til you become it” because eventually, the new body language will become routine and your behavior will change.

Open posture sends a message of approach-ability and confidence, whether sitting or standing. Here’s how to maintain it.

• Keep your arms and hands unfolded.  
• Open your leg stance to avoid crossing your angles or legs.  
• Try to take up more space rather than less space.  
• Lean forward slightly. 
• Keep your palms visible (never clasped together).

I’m going to challenge myself to be more aware of my own posture, how I pose myself in team meetings, and my body language in client meetings.

How to Think Like a Consultant - part 1

I hope to make this a theme rather than a singular blog post, especially since many of my friends and readers are not in consulting and seem curious about what it is and what we do.

There are a several types or flavors of consulting and clients hire consultants for a host of reasons, but in general they have a core question and want an outside firm to give them an answer or recommendation.  Consulting has been defined as "renting brains" whereby a client hires a consulting team to think through a challenge or question.


Strategy consulting firms, like my health care-focused company, address questions like this:

• Should we buy this company?
• We have x dollars and have two products we could build.  We cannot build both now; which should we prioritize?
• How much will x market or y field grow in the next 10 years?
• To move into a new market or industry, should we develop tools and products internally, or acquire a company that already plays in that space?

Our tasks are to (a) understand what our client wants to know – it’s not always clear, then (b) go away and do a bunch of research and think really hard, and (c)  provide the client with an answer to their question.

Here's an odd-ball example to illustrate how a consultant approaches a question.

Question:  How much money does the San Francisco Bay Municipal Ferry make per year?

Here are some of the questions you'd consider:

• How many ferry routes are there in the Bay? -- This defines the universe of research.
• How many scheduled departures are there per route per day? -- The number of trips.
• How many passengers ride an average ferry?
• How many ferry boat companies exist? – What we call the 'competitive landscape'.
• Of all passengers riding ferries in the Bay Area, what percentage of passengers ride on a SF Bay Municipal Ferry?
• How much does a ferry boat ride cost?  In reality, its $5 for locals and $9.50 for tourists, so knowing the split between local vs. tourist riders is relevant.

To arrive at the answer, we might do a calculation like this:

Step 1: Number of ferry boat passengers per day =  (# ferry routes) x (# trips per route per day) x (# passengers per trip)

Step 2:  Number of passengers per day on our ferry boats.  There are multiple companies that provide ferry service; we’re only interested in one of them. = (Number of ferry boat passengers) x (% of ferry passengers riding SF Bay Municipal Ferry)

Step 3:  Daily revenue = (Number of passengers per day on our ferry boats) x (% passengers who are tourist) x (tourist price) + (Number of passengers per day on our ferry boats) x (% passengers who are locals) x (local price)

From here, we could easily extrapolate from daily earnings to annual annual revenue.  To be more detailed, you could figure out how the # of passengers varies throughout the year and how the distribution of tourist-vs.-local changes over the course of the year and many other layers.  Some of this data could be found in secondary research (published statistics or market research reports) and some could be obtained through surveys or interviews or first-hand experience.

Being "Just" Friends

Can men and women be "just" friends?  A NPR show delved into the topic earlier this month.  


The gist of the story is this:  a study at Utah State asked male and female students this very question and overall, women said yes, while men said no.  Additionally, men and women in cross-gender (I’m assuming heterosexuality for the remainder of this post) friendships show an interesting trend: the men report more unexpressed feelings of attraction to the woman and also assume the friend is more interested in them than woman in cross-gender friendships do.  The story goes on to suggest that it's all evolution; that platonic co-ed relationships are an evolutionary novelty, and that men who received vague or subtle sexual signals were at a disadvantage if they did not follow through, so evolution encourages men who may be getting mixed messages to err on the side of assuming the potential for mating.


Setting aside the biology, which does make sense, do you think guys and gals can be friends to the same level of depth and honesty that same sex friends can?  In what circumstances can this be the case?  


Is it based on age?  Clearly, college age men are at the peak of sexual appetites, so there are a host of reasons why a study of college-age co-ed friends might not be representative of all cross-gender friendships.  It seems like toddlers and young children can be equally good friends with boys and girls, aside from that whole cooties thing.  What about middle age and elderly?  Do we stop trying to have strong co-ed relationships after getting burned as youths?  Is it easier as we get older? 


Does it depend on relationship status, agnostic of age?  If both the guy and gal are in serious committed relationship with other people, is their friendship unencumbered by this "it's all evolution" argument?  From personal experience, I can say I had and have very honest friendships with the male college roommates of my fiancé.  I was never "available" and I think that allowed us to be friends on a level that we might not have achieved had I been single.  I don't think there are many topics, personal, academic, or embarrassing, that we didn't discuss.  


Are there other factors?  Physically proximity, perhaps?  


On the other hand, despite the close friendships with T’s roommates, I also embody the quintessential anecdote for those who say that men and women cannot be friends.  T and I were best friends throughout late middle school and high school.  I remember multiple dinner table discussions with my family and older brother suggesting that teenage boys and girls cannot be friends, that one of us must secretly have a crush on the other.  At the time, I defiantly stood up for our friendship and assumed my older brother was just teasing as brothers do.  Fast forward to late high school and our relationship became romantic and now we’re engaged to be married in a few months.  I vividly remember how conflicted I was about our first kiss, though.  I was very aware of the fact that we were bridging the gap from platonic to romantic and after being “just” friends for so long, we wouldn’t be able to – easily – go back to that.  


Overall, I suggest that single men and woman – at least in the teens and early adulthood and quite possibly at all ages – cannot really be “just” friends.  If one or both are in visible, serious romantic relationships, I think it becomes possible for the party in a relationship to engage in a deep, honest friendship and perhaps the other person can, too.  I speculate that men and women who are both in committed relationships with others can successfully manage a serious platonic relationship, but that it might create its own set of challenges (jealousy?) for those romantic pairs.


Hattip to EX for sharing the article.  What do you think - weigh in in the comments.