At meetings, are you treated with the same regard as your colleagues? Or are you treated like the stepchild of the organization. If so, it may not be entirely the fault of others or the reputation of the HR industry. It could, in fact, be your own actions that are keeping you out-of-the-loop.
The HR community has gone to great lengths building a reputation and changing perceptions. It has been a long and comprehensive process, yet an extremely effective one. However, HR professionals still strive to raise-the-bar on how their HR department is looked upon, or even closer to home, how they as an HR professional are perceived.
To help HR professionals accomplish this, HR professionals need to ensure their Professional Presence matches their title and profession. You have the knowledge and expertise of being an HR professional, but do you know how to communicate who you are and what you know to others?
Throughout my 22 years of working in the arena of professional development I have seen people not promoted simply because they did not dress, act or communicate appropriately. An organization is not going to take the risk.
I am not suggesting that your appearance and personality need to be a certain way to be successful. I am saying that if you follow a few professional guidelines, it can help close the gap between where you are and where you want to be in your career in a more timely fashion.
A great starting point in developing a Professional Presence is understanding first how others perceive you at first impact so that you know how to position yourself in any business situation. It’s called Perception IDentity™.
This program identifies how others see you at first sight; either authoritative or approachable. This perception is formed without knowledge or experience and is based soley on your physical characteristics and the overall tone of your body language. We call this identity your Perception ID™.
Once you identify your Perception ID™ the key is to learn how to strategically position that perception in important business situations. To help you position your Perception ID™ you need to incorporate the 4 Principles from “The Parker Factor”.
THE PARKER FACTOR
Principle 1: Desired Perception
To determine a “desired perception”, consider the following elements from Image Positioning™ to create a scenario that will help in your particular situation.
Consider the dynamics of the situation. What do you want the outcome to be? What is the relationship between you and the other participants? A situation may require an initial impact of an authoritative presence. We call this your “desired perception”. The next step of “The Parker Factor” is to determine how much of an authoritative presence you need to project in order to obtain your outcome.
Principle 2: Percentage Impact
How much of an impact of your “desired perception” do you need to project? This is called “percentage impact”.
To position yourself as more authoritative, the question is, how authoritative do you need to be? This is based on a percentage scale.
The CPR of Image Positioning™ should always be considered when determining “percentage impact”. This percentage should range between 50-100%.
Principle 3: Modification Quota
The next step is to determine how much to modify your Perception ID™ in order to reach the “desired perception” of an authoritative presence at 90%.
Assume that your Perception ID™ is 30% authoritative. To determine your “modification quota,” subtract your authoritative traits (30%) from your “percentage impact” (90%), giving you a “modification quota” of 60%. (90-30=60).
The key is to determine which impression-management-tactics™ to draw from in order to project an initial impact of authority.
Principle 4: Impression-Management-Tactics™
To reach your “modification quota” of 60%, you must know which Channels of Communication are available to make your initial impact more authoritative. Options include Appearance and Body Language.
These Communication Channels are made up of many elements. When incorporating one of these elements to communicate a “desired perception” we refer to it as an im-tactic™.
It is not what you say, but how you say it that matters. Use a positive tone. You can “say” that you really like the idea of a new initiative, but using a sarcastic tone tells others how you “really” feel. People do not like being around “negative” people. You can disagree without being condescending. Instead, mention that while you are not sure if the initiative is effective for your group, you feel that other items might need to be resolved first, such as XYZ. Do this with a positive tone, reducing the risk of offending others.
