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Can we really tell who will succeed in a business competition before we even hear their ideas? The answer may surprise you.
As it turns out, what counts most may not be what you say, but rather how you say it. There is a certain style of social interaction - one that our research group has identified quantitatively - that is highly predictive of success in a variety of situations.
One recent study in our research group focused on executives attending a 1-week intensive executive education class, where the final project in the class was pitching a business plan. We outfitted these executives with sociometers - specially designed digital badges to measure social signals such as tone of voice, proximity to others, energy level, and more. When the executives wore these sociometers at a mixer on the first evening of the week-long course, their social styles at the mixer were predictive of how well their teams' business plans would be perceived one week later at the end of the course.
What we found was that people with a certain social style - a kind of energetic but focused listener - acted as "charismatic connectors." The more charismatic connectors a given team had among its members, the better the team performance was judged during the business plan pitch. One important point to remember here is that it was not simply one charismatic individual, but rather a charismatic team, that pushed them toward success.
One reason these teams performed better may be simply that the members worked together better. We found very similar results in a separate study focused on brainstorming: the more of these energetic, focused listeners that were on a team, the better the quality of their brainstorming. In brainstorming sessions with teams whose social style was similar to these "charismatic connectors," the resulting quality of the talking was characterized by high levels of listening, more even-handed turn-taking, and high levels of engagement, trust, and cooperation.
These "charismatic connectors" are the ultimate team players - and the key to making a team successful. Their style is marked by a kind of energetic listening - but they are not the normal "extravert" or "life of the party" type. Rather, they appear to be interested and focused on everyone in the group and what they have to say. While this may all appear utterly obvious, the truth is that social science has had, up until now, very few ways to measure such behavior objectively and quantitatively and in real time. With new tools such as the sociometer, management science has the possibility of really becoming a science.
