Run Game Conversation

How to be charismatic: social skills you can practice

5 min read

People often describe charisma as something you either have or don't. Watch a few people who seem to have it, though, and you mostly see behaviors: they look at you when you talk, they don't rush, they ask the next question, and they remember what you said. Those can be practiced. This post covers six drills and what the research behind them does and doesn't prove.

What charisma is made of

There's no single scientific definition of charisma, so treat any tidy formula with caution. What psychology does offer is a well-studied way people size each other up. In work by Susan Fiske, Amy Cuddy and Peter Glick, people tend to judge others on two dimensions: warmth (friendly, sincere, trustworthy) and competence (skilled, capable). A summary of this research in the psychology magazine In-Mind (written by Abdollahi and Fiske) says people perceive warmth faster than competence, in a fraction of a second, citing a study of brief exposures to faces. The same summary notes that which dimension counts most shifts with context and culture, so treat it as a framework, not a law.

A sensible reading, and it's a reading rather than a proven recipe: people who come across as both warm and capable are easier to like and trust, and both can be shown through ordinary behavior. The drills below mostly build the warm side, because that's where practice pays off fastest.

Drill 1: ask a follow-up question

In 2017, Karen Huang and colleagues at Harvard published three studies of live conversations. People who asked more questions, and especially follow-up questions, were better liked by their partners. When people were told to ask more questions, they were seen as more responsive: more attentive, understanding and caring. In a speed-dating dataset, people who asked more follow-up questions were more likely to get a second-date yes. Participants also didn't expect asking to help.

Limits: the lab conversations were mostly online chats, and the speed-dating data was a single dataset. Too many questions can feel like an interview, so mix them with your own comments.

Practice: after any answer, ask about one detail in it. She says she just got back from Lisbon. Not "Did you like it?" but "What was the best meal you had there?" Aim for two follow-ups in a row before you change topics. Then trade back something specific about you, which is most of what makes someone interesting without playing games.

Drill 2: slow down by about a third

Fast speech can come across as nervous to some listeners. Try speaking a little slower than feels natural and finishing each sentence with a drop in pitch. Record a 60-second voice memo about your day, listen once, and notice where you sped up. Voice and tonality goes deeper on pace, pauses and pitch.

Drill 3: hold eye contact for a full thought

A common coaching rule is to look at the person while they're finishing a thought, then glance away naturally. Most guides suggest looking more while listening and less while you're thinking aloud. That's coaching advice rather than a research result, and comfort varies a lot by culture and person. If you freeze up, look at one eye, then the other. Eye contact covers how much is right.

Drill 4: be fully there

Phone away, face toward the person, no scanning the room. This is the cheapest habit on the list, and a common one for coaches to start with. If your attention keeps drifting, try repeating the last few words she said in your head before you answer.

Drill 5: use her name, and remember it

Repeat a name once when you hear it ("Maya, nice to meet you"), and once more naturally in the next few minutes. It's a common memory trick. Afterward, type it into your phone's notes with one detail: "Maya, from Portland, starting a pottery class." It takes 20 seconds, and it gives you something real to bring up next time.

Drill 6: carry yourself so you take up your own space

Shoulders loose, feet planted, hands visible. It's a posture that tends to read as open, and it isn't about looking tall or imposing. See confident body language. In a crowd, the same habits are part of standing out socially without faking anything.

Why people like you more than you think

You might finish a conversation convinced it went badly. A 2018 study led by Erica Boothby and published in Psychological Science found that, after conversations, people consistently underestimated how much their partners liked them and enjoyed the conversation. They called it the liking gap. It showed up with lab strangers, first-year college dorm mates and members of the public at a workshop, and it lasted for months with dorm mates. This doesn't mean everyone likes you. It means your own read of the conversation is probably harsher than the other person's. A helpful habit: before you replay what you said, ask yourself what you noticed about her.

If charisma feels fake to you

Some people worry that practicing makes it fake. A comparison: nobody calls it fake when you practice cooking. Drills are scaffolding, and over time the behavior stops feeling like a drill. If a technique feels wrong to you, drop it. The goal is to be a more attentive version of yourself, not someone else. If nerves are the main issue, how to not be awkward is the better starting place. For a look at one popular coach's version, see Charisma on Command.

What to do next

  1. Today: in your next conversation, ask two follow-up questions in a row about the same thing she said.
  2. Record a 60-second voice memo, then re-record it 30% slower. Compare.
  3. For three conversations this week, keep your phone in your pocket the whole time.
  4. Use someone's name once on hearing it and once later. Note it in your phone afterward with one detail.
  5. After a conversation, write down two things you noticed about the other person before you judge how it went.
  6. In Run Game, log any approach you do as Success or Rejected and use the optional note to record which drill you tried.

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