You can increase your status

How my kids did it, and how can you do it

Sep 26, 2024

👋 Hey, it’s Andrés. Welcome to my weekly newsletter on growing your influence at work. I do have a weak spot for Latinos in the US.

Today: how to grow your status… and your power as a consequence

Read time: 8 minutes

A huge percentage of your success rate at work —promotions, having impact, getting things done— has to do with ~~communication~~ status.

Obviously, it also has to do with communication, but maybe not necessarily in the way you think about it.

Most of the communication advice out there has to do with pitching ideas, sharing information and yes, telling your stories.

Now, while you do have to get better at all of this, it could also be the case that you’re missing a big chunk of what communication can help you achieve.

A missing piece of the puzzle

Until recently, most of our work at Astrolab, the professional training company I co-founded in 2012, focused on helping our workshop attendees be able to share an idea in a clear, memorable, even inspiring way.

Then, we started to come across several references that made us think about what we were leaving out.

I’m going to name just one: Aristotle’s Rhetoric. This book published by him —or most likely, his students— synthesizes twenty years of reflections around persuasion, or what made a leader able to convince others.

Here’s the main idea.

Aristotle distinguished between things that were necessarily true and those that were false. However, much of human decision-making exists in the realm of the probable—the space where persuasion plays a role in shaping what could become real.

His Rhetoric addresses how to influence this realm by understanding three essential levers: the speaker's credibility and character (ethos), the logical structure of their argument (logos), and the emotional appeal to the audience (pathos). Together, these elements form the foundation of effective persuasion.

Here’s an image that synthesizes not just Aristotle’s Rhetoric, but ten years of experience and research:

Note: You’ll see that I prefer the word influence over persuasion, but Aristotle never used influence because that word didn’t exist in his time. I think persuasion is more about pushing your ideas; influence is more about putting them out there, and letting others decide to accept or adopt them

So, while at Astrolab we were focusing mostly on logos and maybe some pathos, we were leaving ethos out of the equation, and with that, liking and trust, foundations of good relationships.

Just think about this for a moment. Try to remember a couple of your last meetings. Yes, somethings were said, and your brain worked with those words, sentences and ideas. But who said those things also mattered:

Someone angry
Someone in an extremely good mood
Your boss
A prospect
Someone you find attractive
Someone that speaks very slow
A friend
A friend that yesterday pissed you off
A frenemy

And here’s where status comes to the picture: the status of the speaker will change how her/his words are interpreted and valued.

Status and Power

What is status, by the way?

According to Alison Fragale and Likable Badass, her new book, status is the way others see you, which boils down to how much a person is respected and regarded… and taken seriously during a conversation, meeting or presentation.

Now, power is sometimes seen as a synonym to status, but there’s a big difference: power is about control over resources; status is about perception.

While you can get power by force, most of the times it is awarded based on status. So focus on status, and power will likely follow.

So, how can you increase your status? You need to show likability and warmth. Here are some examples on how to do this, according to Alison:

Speak faster
Answer faster
Speak more (I do have to say: this one is tricky. I understand the exposure effect, but just make sure you have something to say that is worth saying… we’ve all grown tired of that speaker who feels the need to speak all the time)
Be more assertive
Make and sustain eye contact
Choose where to seat
Use humor
Offer help (my favorite!)

I’ll add another one that won’t surprise you: learn how to tell great stories.

If the stories you share are brief, relevant for the audience, and engaging, you’ll gain more mental space in your audience, and this definitely communicates both likability and warmth.

I talked about this as a panelist at this year’s Wharton Latin American Conference at the Penn Museum:

Last year I wrote a couple of post on specific types of stories. I’m getting them translated. Here’s the first two of them:

Now, as you’ve probably been thinking, there are other status characteristics that makes this game much more complex: race, age, socioeconomic level, appearance, etc.

The rest of this post will be focused on the handicap Latinos can feel while trying to build social status at work.

Growing your Status as a Latino in the U.S.

Since I moved to the U.S., I’ve been asked many times about the differences I’ve noticed between personal communication habits and organizational culture in Mexico and in the U.S.

After thinking about this for months, I created this slide to explain what I’ve seen:

I showed this for the first time last week with a group of Latinos at the with varied degrees of experience working in a Fortune 500 U.S. company. Their reaction?

“YES”, especially with the first pair of concepts: Latino professionals, entrepreneurs and business owners are not accustomed to talk about them and their successes.

Also, at least for first-generation Latinos, the accent component can also hinder their ability to connect, and to eventually grow their status.

It also limits the use of humor, or witty remarks that could help you connect with others and liven the mood. As Sofia Vergara’s Modern Family character Gloria tells the rest of the family:

Do you even know how smart I am in Spanish?

@moviesforyoufordays Modern family 🍿🎬 #modernfamily #sofiavergara #spanglish #funny #comedy

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

For all of us, I would say: let’s be a little bit shameless.

Like kids

Like my kids!

When we moved to the U.S., my kids didn’t speak English. They knew some words, but couldn’t sustain a conversation.

Then, just days and definitely weeks later, they started getting it.

I remember attending an Open House event at my kids school just one or two weeks after they started classes, and seeing that my five-year old daughter was having a conversation with an adult. Her English sucked still to be honest, but in her mind, she was actually speaking English.

Look at these pictures, taken the first day of school for now three years in a row. Can you notice the differences?

In the picture on the left, the guys are mortified. The picture on the right? They basically seem to run the school.

But maybe the picture in the middle is the most relevant: one year after we got here —and I can assure it took them much less— they were fully confident on their ability to talk, make friends and engage with whomever they wanted.

Yes, most of us first-gen will have an accent, maybe for years, maybe forever.

You can try get better at it. Last year I bought an annual membership of Bold, and it definitely helped me improve some words.

Even if you don’t, you’ll be ok. It’s mainly your self confidence that counts. I can think of a couple of business leaders high in the org-chart of Fortune 500 companies that have a thick accent.

Takeaways

Ok, So let’s wrap this up.

If you want more power, work on your status
Aim for likability and warmth
Dare to tell brief and relevant stories
Work on your accent (or not at all!), but be self-confident
Be a little bit shameless

My overall suggestion is this: look for moments where status is traded:

Informal conversations
Networking events
Your presence in social media
A job interview
An alumni meeting
Introducing yourself to a new boss or team

Map those moments in every week or month, and get to work.

Good luck!

INFLUX 🪐 by Astrolab

Discussion about this post