Snippet 2 - How To Be More Likeable At Work: Will Storr
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Hey friends, how's it going? Welcome back to the Deep Dive Snippet. In this little clip, I'm speaking to Will Storr, the author of the bestselling book, The Status Game. And in this little clip, he and I are talking about that, given that we know that ultimately we're all fundamentally motivated by the chase and the desire for social status, how can we use that concept to end up being more likable at work

and in our day-to-day lives and through the people that we come across. Now, this is not a video clip about the science of manipulating people for your nefarious ends or anything like that. It's literally a guide on how to understand human motivation and therefore use that to be more likeable at work, if that's what you're into. Anyway, let's roll the clip. There was an interesting chapter where he talked about sort of the real life cues that we give off when we are higher status or lower status.

And I wonder, like, often, you know, we did a survey for the podcast and people said that they like getting actionable tips that they can apply in their work life. Yeah. And I was kind of thinking that, like, are there actionable tips that you can apply in your work life, for example, knowing that the status game exists in every relationship you're going to have at work, for example? Yeah, I think so. You know, one of the things I think is really important is...

in the business context is to always have that understanding that you're never the hero in other people's stories. They're always the hero. They're always the one on this great pursuit of status, which their brain remixes as this kind of heroic, you know, pursuit. And so it's much better in the business context to come across as

They're kind of like it you're a helpful person in their story Yeah, so there's a story scholar who I think it was really smart guy called Christopher Booker who wrote a book or the seven basic plots It's like a huge like two thousand word two thousand page thing. I think is like huge Tome but but he writes about this archetypal figure in story called the light figure and

And the light figure is like... The light as in light? Yeah, exactly. The light figure. And the light figures come into the story and they're like the ghosts in the Christmas Carol. Their job is there to help Scrooge become heroic, to see the area. And so I think in the business context,

If you go in there boasting, I'm amazing, you want to work with me, I'm fantastic. You're going to put people off because you're not the hero, they're the hero. So you're much better off being the light figure and your story is, this is how I'm going to help you gain status. I'm going to do these things to help you. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is about impression management. So there's lots of sciences looked at how socially do we give a good impression to other people?

And for a long time, they talked about two domains, warmth and competence.

And more recently it's been argued that there should be a third domain added to that which is morality. And when I was reading about this, it really struck me because in the book I write about there's three status games. There's dominance, which is the aggressive animalistic status game. There's virtue and there's success. And those three, they called them warmth, competence and morality. But I called it warmth, competence and sincerity. Map on perfectly to those three status games.

So I don't know, but I don't think that's a coincidence. I think that it's interesting that those map onto those three status games so well. And the logic is when you approach somebody with warmth, what you're subconsciously signaling to that person is that I'm not going to compete for status with dominance with you. I'm not going to threaten you. I'm not going to coerce you. I'm not going to.

use physical violence against you, so we're gonna have a healthy non-aggressive status game. When you're signaling with sincerity,

You're saying I'm going to play a good virtue game with you, which is I'm going to be morally respectable. And that doesn't mean I'm going to suck up to you. I'm not going to give you bullshit. I'm going to tell you the truth. And when I'm not happy, I'm going to tell you I'm not happy. So I'm going to be sincere. I'm always going to be honest with you. And then finally, competence. If you come across as a competent person, you are signaling not only am I going to be useful to our community,

Not only am I going to be useful to our group, our game, but you also might learn some stuff from me. So there are things that I can do. And if you learn how to do them from me, you're also going to raise in status. So I think if you can, it's obviously easier said than done. But if you can manifest in those three ways, warmth, sincerity and competence, it's very hard to know how you're going to fail in life.

And you can't just come across in those ways. You've got to actually live those ideals. You've got to be sincere. You've got to be non-aggressive and you've got to be competent. You've got to be good at the thing that you're doing.