There was a split second of awkward silence, and I held my breath.
Then the room erupted with bursts of laughter. A colonel named Hawk piped up: “Come on, that’s
way off base. I’m pretty sure you’re thirteen.” From there, I proceeded to deliver a near carbon copy
of my first presentation—after all, the information I had to deliver on motivation hadn’t changed. But
afterward, when I looked at the feedback, it differed night and day from my previous session:
“Spoke with personal experience. He was the right age! High energy; clearly
successful already.”
“Adam was obviously knowledgeable regarding the topic and this translated
into his passion and interest. This allowed him to be very effective. One
word—EXCELLENT!”
“Although junior in experience, he dealt with the studies in an interesting
way. Good job. Very energetic and dynamic.”
“I can’t believe Adam is only twelve! He did a great job.”Powerless communication had made all the difference. Instead of working to establish my
credentials, I made myself vulnerable, and called out the elephant in the room. Later, I adopted the
same approach when teaching Army generals and Navy flag officers, and it worked just as well. I
was using my natural communication style, and it helped me connect with a skeptical audience.
Takers tend to worry that revealing weaknesses will compromise their dominance and authority.
Givers are much more comfortable expressing vulnerability: they’re interested in helping others, not
gaining power over them, so they’re not afraid of exposing chinks in their armor. By making
themselves vulnerable, givers can actually build prestige.
But there’s a twist: expressing vulnerability is only effective if the audience receives other signals
establishing the speaker’s competence. In a classic experiment led by the psychologist Elliot
Aronson, students listened to one of four tapes of a candidate auditioning for a Quiz Bowl team. Half
of the time, the candidate was an expert, getting 92 percent of questions right. The other half of the
time, the candidate had only average knowledge, getting 30 percent right.
As expected, audiences favored the expert. But an interesting wrinkle emerged when the tape
included a clumsy behavior by the candidate. Dishes crashed, and the candidate said, “Oh, my
goodness—I’ve spilled coffee all over my new suit.”
When the average candidate was clumsy, audiences liked him even less.
But when the expert was clumsy, audiences liked him even more.
Psychologists call this the pratfall effect. Spilling a cup of coffee hurt the image of the average
candidate: it was just another reason for the audience to dislike him. But the same blunder helped the
expert appear human and approachable—instead of superior and distant.* This explains why Dave
Walton’s stuttering made a positive impression on the jury. The fact that Dave was willing to make
himself vulnerable, putting his stutter out for the world to see, earned their respect and admiration.
The jurors liked and trusted him, and they listened carefully to him. This set the stage for Dave to
convince them with the substance of his arguments.
Establishing vulnerability is especially important for a lawyer like Dave Walton. Dave has a
giver tendency: he spends a great deal of time mentoring junior associates, and he fights passionately
for justice on behalf of his clients. But these aren’t the first attributes that a jury sees: his appearance