NAFE - Magazine

The evidence piles up. Although we want to believe that looks don’t matter, the fact is they do. One new book, Harvey Coleman’s Empowering Yourself, reckons that image accounts for up to 30 percent of success or failure in your career. What’s more, Coleman says, when you separate the nonverbal from the verbal in the image you project, the nonverbal components accounts for 70 percent. In March, Catalyst, the New York-based research, information and advisory organization, released a study of women in senior corporate leadership, confirming statistically what intuition has been telling us all along: “Effective personal style [ranks] second only to job performance as a factor in advancement.” Or as Dallas executive coach Valerie Sokolosky says, “Image and style matter because people relate to what they see.” Who could disagree?

In fact, women may be even more susceptible to the image standard than men. The late Pauline Frederick said: “When a man gets up to speak, people listen, then look. When a woman gets up, people look; then, if they like what they see, they listen.” That leads us to our cover story. “The Body Language of Power,” page 48, which is all about the nonverbal messages that you send and how to make them better.

One story, of course, is just the beginning. A world of experts stands ready to make our business images convey power and savvy – to turn a whispering presence into a roar. In one week’s time, these pump-up-your-image books (in addition to Coleman’s) have crossed our desk, each one espousing the notion that image is (almost) everything: Make Yourself Memorable; Winning People Over; Hook ‘Em; The Persona Principle; Corporate Protocol; A Brief Case for Business Etiquette; A Woman’s Guide to the Language of Success.

And speaking of looks, our pretend virtual office in the blue briefcase on our March/April cover was so arresting it brought one new NAFE member, Laura M. Broadie, from her office in Clearwater, Florida, to our offices in New York City, to show us the real cutting edge in mobile offices. It’s not just a case with a handle, but a literal office-in-a-box: the Mobile Work Station, which combines computer, printer, and cell phone in one sleek black package, and eliminates all the connector cables, chargers and adapters that until now the mobile professional had to carry around. (More information from Laura at Microlink at 800-427-0123.)

Back to the May/June issue, where we talk about a lot more than just “the nonverbal component.” There’s the corporate approach to ethics, for instance, and how you can influence it. “Can Consumer’s Change Corporations” (page 42) evolved from a close-up look at what makes a good (and yes, profitable) business image. A peek inside the lives of successful women whose husbands are unemployed (page 52) reveals the angst that can lurk behind that proud image of “breadwinner.” And lest we get too distracted by what our image is and what we want it to be, there is always the option to just “Take Six Months Off” (page 56) for a mind-expanding soul-search.

Gary Bryant
Editor-in-Chief