E is for Energy! S is for Success!
MIT Professor Sandy Pentland says it’s possible to predict who will win business competitions based on the social signals they send, and he discusses how he is measuring the power of charisma in the newest edition of Harvard Business Review. In one experiment, says Pentland, executives at a party were outfitted with elaborate sensors that gathered data on their tone of voice, how they used their hands, and how closely they stood to other people, among other things. Pentland -- who directs the MIT Human Dynamics Lab -- was looking for cues predictive of which executives at the party would win a business plan competition later that same week. As it happens, they were the most energetic executives of the group.
21 January 2010•2 mins read
