Exciting news for my friend! She interviewed for a leadership program she was nominated for at her company and got the great news that she was accepted! Slay. She had her post-interview debrief call yesterday and gave me a little 411 on what went down. 

The interviewers asked her if she had any feedback for them. 

I sure do! 😳 Which took them by surprise. 

“You guys have the most PHENOMENAL poker faces.”

They started cracking up in the way that you do when you’ve been called out on shenanigans. Except these were intentional, unpurposeful shenanigans. 

Apparently it’s the unspoken rule when you interview folks for this program to own your poker face. Give them nothing. No reaction. No response. Nothing. 

She continued on and I interrupted and asked, “WHY?! TO WHAT END?! WHAT IS THE PURPOSE?” 

She had no good rationale. Probably because there is no good rationale. 

One would think if you are vetting people for a leadership program and they are showing some energy, some authenticity, some animated verbals and non-verbals you would respond in kind. You know, like most humans do without even trying. 

I would think that if you want this person to be a future leader, you would encourage them with non-verbals for the good stuff 😊 and maybe give a little 🤔 if you were confused. Then they might learn to take signals from their future teams of what’s landing and what’s not landing. 

Instead nothing 😐.

When we communicate we’re sending out signals. We’re looking for signals. We’re sending out cues. We’re looking for cues. When we’re doing it and get no response, we tend to: 

• Stop doing what we’re doing: get quiet and shrink. 
• Get in our heads and think oh-God-what-are-they-thinking-I-must-be-a-train-wreck
• Over-correct and get real animated and real point-proving 
• Continue on and then, in hindsight, realize that it was BS and why would I want to work for a company who thinks being poker face for no reason is a good call?

I’ve been known to give the active listening head nod a hard time. If you’ve seen one of my keynotes, you know the deal. The issue I have with the head nod is all the activity that’s happening between our ears: assumptions, judgments, daydreaming, coming up with an answer, to name a few.

Why is the active listening head nod the go-to how-to-communicate 101 teaching? BECAUSE YOU ARE SENDING CLUES TO THAT PERSON THAT YOU ARE WITH THEM. That head nod is encouraging them to go on. It’s indicating that they are picking up what you are throwing down, and a dynamic conversation ensues. 

Effective and impactful communication is a fair energetic exchange. Which is a mildly strange way of saying you give me something, I’ll give you something, and we’ll create a vibe. 

If you ever get caught in the weirdo corporate poker face, you can pause the conversation, check in, and ask, “Is there anything I might clarify for you? I’m sensing you might not be tracking.” 

Asking clarifying questions about their intentions, their expectations, if the timing of the conversation works just might give them a clue that things with the conversation are off. 

I do think it’s funny-not-funny that everyone has their panties in a bunch about AI taking over the world when NGL, we’ve got bigger problems when the humans are acting like bots for no apparent reason. 

For the record, it’s OK to show some facial expressions. 😊🤔😫🙄😆 are a few to inspire you. 

Emojis were created to give tone and context to our written words because we can’t see faces and adjust our non-verbals and verbals accordingly. So clearly, there is something behind non-verbals with the sheer amount of emojis available. 

It seems pretty silly to remove those emotions from your face in a real-life situation.