I recently had some publicity shots done for work. You know the drill, a conference room, a photographer, maybe a background, a variety of expressions and poses...
But this one was different. How?
In the way the photographer spoke to me. There was some chit chat about holidays and relaxing. But as we began the shoot, above and beyond instructions for posing or my posture ("chin down", 'look to the left", "open your shoulders"), he also gave little encouragements, if he liked an expression or a gesture he said so ("good", "oh nice"), if something didn't work, he made a suggestion for a tweak or adjustment. But the feedback was specific. Something actionable
And, as I relaxed, he spoke lass about my physical presence and more to evoke an inner state that could reflect on my face.
Questions such as, "What are your goals for the year?" or, " What are you looking forward to?" or statements like "these pictures will be more serious in tone, can you look at the camera and think about the biggest challenge you want to address?" or, "think of a dilemma you're facing". My personal favorite, "if you were on the cover of GQ Magazine, what's the pose you'd like to use?" And the results were very different to previous shoots. And it all came down to the way he spoke.
So what's the lesson here? How do you encourage? How do you give feedback? How do you evoke internal states to help share the way your team does things? Let me know - and you look great!