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The Power of Warmth
Hello everyone,
A simple realisation: why is warmth so powerful?
I think it's because it shows that you like the other person. And people like people who like them. So when you smile, when you have a warm tone, it subcommunicates "I'm happy to see you and I like to spend time with you." So your social circle naturally grows.
As an example, I know a lot of people in my currently small hospital (maybe 100 people out of 150-200, approximation). So when I enter I say hello to at least 5 people and I think I greet maybe I don't know 30 people or more.
The effect is powerful as I realized today that everyone is greeting me and I greet everyone. What a change! It does feel like you're a rockstar. You're talking with someone and 2 people pass and both greet you (so the person you're talking to see you being greeted by 2 people). You enter the building you greet 2 more. It blew my own mind.
Simple and effective.
On my side I just love people so it's a natural thing. I just had put barriers due to some experiences in my personal and professional past.
Once more I owe this to Lucio through PU.
Awesome note, thank you for sharing, John.
Absolutely, when you're warm and friendly with people, more people greet you and say hi, and that's a major status/power booster ("social proof", as it's sometimes referred to).
Plus, as you say, it also makes you feel better and more social, improves your status and reputation, and opens more door (a positive virtuous cycle).
You're welcome! You described exactly what is happening.
Another side effect I already talked about in the past I think: the 2-3 people who do not greet me (emergency nurses, who decided I'm either bad at my job, a bad person or both or want to social climb on me or any combination of that) despite me greeting them:
1. Start to feel weird/puzzled/confused (hypothesis based on the look on their face) when we see each other and I greet them (now I greet them from a position of power, it's like I moved on from our past conflicts and I'm now taking them to my emotional level of acceptance/friendliness/togetherness/warmth)
2. Will look like bad person themselves if they start talking shit about me
So when most people like you, I think the people who don't or decided to show you they don't like you (aggressive/stern face power move) start to feel a social pressure to conform and like me as well. I've seen some behavioural change in some people who started to treat me radically better in the past two months and all we did was greeting one another in the hallways.
It's a reputation protector as in point 2. If you make mistakes or anger someone you'll have more forgiveness. Also if someone start to spread rumour against you, they will have a harder time to influence negatively others.
As this to be useful to other members: the mindset is liking people. There is no faking. I forgave all the people who treated me badly. I'm above that. I'm flying high like a certain bird that we all know. I'm past all their pettiness and nastiness. I see them as they are and I think: "It's ok, you are who you are. You decide to behave this way, it's ok. But I'm not going to let you ruin my mood, reputation or my work". So I smile because now I have the teeth to defend myself if needed.
Another secret is to treat all people well. Many people greet and treat well the people they interact with because they need something from them. Even if needing something from a colleague.
Yeah, absolutely, it also does a lot of good to your reputation and, indirectly, also increases your power (so it's not like power/warmth are independent variables).
If you think about it, many iconic scenes that want to portray a movie protagonist being high value, high power or "cool" show him saying hi or being said hi to a lot of people:
- Goodfellas, when Henry enters the Copacabana
- Saturday Night Fever, when Tony Manero enters the club
- Election, more of a "funny scene" but still, right after he has sex with the woman he likes and he feels on top of the world, he imagines himself driving a convertible and saying "ciao" to imaginary people on the road
2 interesting ideas there:
- The relationship between power and warmth (new idea to me and totally logical)
- Yes, that is definitely how we imagine ourselves or other people being high-value. When joking among friends, we do use the greeting imaginary people as a symbol for being at the top.
This thread could have been named: the power of greeting people.
That is actually how I solve conflicts with colleagues we are in cold terms with. I say hello to them every day with warmth for a few weeks or months and then we are back to a neutral relationship. Then I proceed to ask how they are. Then I proceed to ask when is their next holiday. Then I proceed to ask them how their week-end was. Then I proceed to ask them how their children are (because they will have told me they have children). From there I usually automatically get a positive judge position. This is done over a couple or few months.
From there, since I'm positive and congratulate/encourage/support them, even if only in small 5 min weekly interactions, I think that I actually do gain power as you said. An example is that when I need help on anything, the people I called I had good interactions with. So they want to help me and they do prioritise my request. Also because they know that I respect them so they understand that my request is fair (it's actually not for me as it's for the patient). Also if I don't have change for a drink at the cafeteria, they trust me to pay the next day (which I do).
This is maybe one of the aspects of servant leadership (warmth). I'm speculating here.
This is something I want to actively work on so thanks for creating this thread!
Sometimes, I tend to avoid greeting people that I am not very familiar with, because I am afraid of the awkward pauses beyond the initial greeting. During those awkward pauses, I feel the need to fill up the silence and sometimes that put me in a weaker power position. But if I don't greet people, I am seen as not standoffish and not warm enough. How do you strike off a balance between those two? Maybe it's just a matter of me preparing a few stock phrases/topics to talk about after the initial greeting and get out of my head sometimes, but would like to see if anyone experiences something similar and has any tips to share
Hello dsnw2022,
I think it depends on the context. Here I'm talking about meeting people in hallways in the workplace. If the situation is the same, here is what I would say:
Options:
- "Hello" with a smile
- "Hello" with a smile asking how they are
If they ask you how you are, you just say: "Fine, thank you, have a good day!" and you continue on your way.
If they stop or you stop: the "correct" first step (before asking about their holiday as I said above) is asking how their work is going. This is appropriate as you're at work and you guys are not friends (yet). The social convention is that you can talk about work with any of your colleagues, whatever the distance or the hierarchical relation. For instance:
You: Hello how are you? (smile)
Her: Hello fine and you?
You (maybe the person stops, maybe you stop): Fine thank you.
You: "Is it busy right now in department X (her department)?" or "How did the case/presentation went the other day?", something that is enquiring how her work is going.
From there they will give you elements in their answer you can start from:
Her: Well, the case was tough, this client is giving me a headache. I'm exhausted.
You (empathetic, rebounding on the "client is giving me a headache"): Yeah I can imagine. In what way was he annoying?
Her: he would not listen to what I was saying.
You (relating, : Yeah, I totally see. I hate it when they do that. So how did you do? (alternative: share your own story relating to that, similarity binds people)
Then you have a conversation and you can stop at anytime:
You: It was nice talking to you, I have to get back to work. Have a nice day! (smile)
After you will know them better, the topic will be: "So how were the holiday in Spain?" because you will have had prior conversations where they revealed this information.
I appreciate the concrete example of greeting people at the workplace, John! This is very specific and actionable.
I can also relate that it's hard to greet people for the fear of rejection or negative experiences happened in the past - something I need to work on myself and glad to see that you made great progress. This is also something I've observed from my current boss - she seems to greet a wide variety of people and sometimes jokes with them. That makes her higher power for sure.
