Are you the smartest person in the room but still getting passed over, misunderstood or ignored in executive meetings?
Welcome back to Speak Up, the podcast for high-performing introverts, including you, social introverts where we reveal the charisma and communication secrets of A-listers so that you get the recognition and the opportunities you have earned.
I am your host, Laura Camacho. your magical executive presence coach, godmother, and strategist.
And by the end of today's episode you will know the powerful difference between being right and being heard in executive spaces.
You will learn how to translate deep expertise into business strategy.
Leaders actually care about and avoid credibility-killing habits that hold you back, even if you're the smartest technical professional.
All right, Sam Deutsch from Texas.
Guys, this is a historical time to be listening to the Speak Up with Laura Camacho podcast, because today is our first time to have as a guest you know, all of our guests are A-list the best people who have something of value to tell you He's a listener.
Like he literally is on this show, because he emailed me about the scorecard which probably, if you've listened to more than one episode, you are aware of.
And we started a conversation, which I love.
And here we are.
And one of the things that called my attention about Sam and why I invited him to come on.
Even though he's not technically an introvert I think he's kind of chatty but he definitely has an understanding about branding yourselves, which you know is important for executive presence.
And he calls himself.
If you look on his LinkedIn profile, which I'll link in the show notes, he's the relatable scientist.
How cool is that?
So welcome, Sam.
As you know, we don't do too much on intros, but I do want to know where did relatable scientists come from?
Sure.
Yeah.
Thank you, Laura.
I was going to say you know, first time long time, as they say on the sports shows, but I've been listening to you for a while now.
I'm really glad to be here.
And while you're right, I don't really consider myself to be an introvert.
I definitely work with all types, introverts, experts, etc.
So science has always captivated me for a long time.
I was a kid of the 90s, right?
So I was growing up with the internet becoming a thing.
Human Genome Project was out there.
Climate change was becoming more awareness.
And I took every science class my high school had to offer.
I earned degrees in undergraduate chem-e and a doctorate in chem-e, and even an MBA in applying technology to business.
But that wasn't enough.
I always loved people, and this is maybe where the relatableness comes in.
I've been part of teams my entire life.
I remember memories on the high school football team, bringing the team members out, team members at work, team members in the community.
And when you work with so many different kinds of people, You have to alter your approach.
Understand what makes people tick.
Find out what brings out the best in folks.
And if I can bring that to some of the toughest scientific challenges in the world, we can have, I think, a lot more success.
Yes, I love that.
And by the way, folks, he works at a company you may have heard of called ExxonMobil.
That's interesting.
So you have this scientific background chemi extremely challenging, but the people that you're talking to like they really don't care that you have a doctorate in chemo.
What do they care about?
They care about results.
They care about impact.
Science for science's sake, some people do that mainly in academia, I guess.
But in a business the whole point is to make some kind of impact, depending on what the values of that company are.
And so the only way I think you can do that, in addition to understanding, in my case, the science but the same is true for any discipline that has deep expertise that might be hard to understand, like finance or technology or some kind of deep science right is understanding the strategy that the company has, as well as communicating, to be understood.
There are so many stereotypes out there of specialists who just don't get it.
When you become the person that's speaking the language of the stakeholders, that understand the strategy.
You want to be the person where they say man, that person just gets it.
They get it from the technology side, from the business side.
I can trust them.
And you build credibility and you start to get listened to more.
And that's where the impact comes in.
For today for me.
If those of you who may not know, I'm located in the beautiful city of Charleston, South Carolina, but I've been talking to Texans all day.
My first conversation this afternoon was with a client who's also based in Houston.
And exactly to your point.
He works in ai.
I hadn't spoken with him for a while and so we were catching up, and i could tell that he was really focusing on the financial aspects of how this ai is going to either save you or make you money.
He was, you know, just reeling off these numbers, which don't really mean that much to me as an outsider.
But if you're inside the company, if you're the EVP or above, or any really anybody, I would guess director or above, like you, need to know how what you do affects how your company makes money right.
And I think that is a little bit more challenging if you're in AI or if you're in science like how does science make us money?
Is that the connection or is it more about other strategic objectives?
You're absolutely right.
I mean, this goes to understanding your audience.
So if I'm anything, I'll say I'm a scientist, right?
So if I'm talking to my team and there's a relatively large team depending on the program I'm working on I'm going to speak one way to my team.
It'll be the same message, but the way I communicate will be different.
It'll be much more technical.
I'm going to give them what they need.
They might need to help seeing themselves in the work, in the big picture.
But if I show some kind of chart of how every team is working together and all the contingencies and dependencies, that same clarity that my team gets, it's going to look like chaos to a vice president.
So we want to simplify things and show where there is control, where there's no control, what the implications are.
Executives, they care about time and money, give it to them in the bottom line.
And that's a different way of having a conversation than compared with deep technical peers.
A third audience who loves what I do and always wants to hear about it is my mom.
And I have to tell her in a completely different way.
That's true.
Your mom wants to know what you're up to.
And everybody listening, I can promise you your mom also wants to know what you're up to.
Don't forget to tell your mom.
Call your mom.
Call your mom.
That's right.
There's a little hint for you.
You want to be successful in life?
Call your mom.
Oh, that's precious.
All right.
Okay.
So how do you prepare then, Sam?
Let's say you're working on something new and you have an audience that mixed like there's the technical people, the scientists in the weeds and all the way up there may be finance people.
How do you decide who you're going to talk to in that presentation?
You can't be all things to all people.
I've had a very different career path than most scientists.
So for example, My last job, I was actually in investor relations.
It's a corporate function.
No way, no way.
Nothing to do.
Yeah, nothing to do with doing science, but everything to do with communicating science and translating business results into financial performance.
And so you have everyone listening to these disclosures and reading these disclosures.
So how do you figure out what to do?
Well, first, you got to find out who that primary audience is.
Who's the most likely to be listening or reading?
And then those secondary audiences okay, they're important, but they're not the true audience for this.
You address any kind of misconceptions up front.
You hit them with the most critical information.
You structure, you practice.
At the end of the day, you take Q&A and you make sure that you focus on those people first.
Now, there's a lot of harm that can come from not understanding your audience.
Oh, tell us about that.
Tell me more.
So I can tell you some personal examples.
So when I was starting off in investor relations, I had come from a scientific job.
And it was our first happy hour.
We were getting to know each other.
And I was like, yeah, I used to work on the FCC out in the refinery.
What's FCC?
You mean, what's an FCC?
And they're like, yeah.
And I said, oh, you know, the fluid catalytic cracker.
And they're like, huh?
Yeah.
And I said, it's the thing that makes the gasoline in the refinery.
And like, oh, OK, I get it.
That would be my level, too.
Yes, that's right.
And so I realized from that moment it's like I need to really think about who's listening to what I'm talking about.
This is nothing new.
Right.
You know, I recently gave a talk about a more impactful situation.
Giordano Bruno was a cosmologist back in the 1600s and he was put to death by by sharing his research, his work, with fervor brazenly, and not contesting his message.
For silly things like the stars are just suns and they could have planets and it could be life and the universe is infinite like silly things like that.
Right, right, right.
And then, you know, Galileo comes by in the same country, in the same Renaissance time period.
Right, right. but does it so much differently.
He ingratiates himself with the leaders of the time.
He names the moons of Jupiter after the leading Medici family folks.
And he's protected from those who murdered his predecessor.
So it's the same discovery.
No one's being put to death for their science anymore.
But it can kill your scientific career if you don't do it the right way.
If you want to grow in your career, like if you want to stay where you are for a while, that's perfectly fine too, right?
Because everybody's got other stuff going on besides their work.
But if you want to grow, you have to learn how to invite other people to care about what you care about right.
Yes.
It's a two-way street because...
I'm sure that your company has certain priorities that they want you, the relatable scientist, to care about and work on and solve.
But then let's say that you develop several options for dealing with a certain problem, but you think one is better.
So it's your job to convince them, right?
To take option C instead of A or B, right?
So what is your approach to persuasion in that context?
I love it.
So whether you're a doctor, Again, you're a knowledge worker.
If you're a technologist, if you're an AI, if you're doing science, if you're doing deep finance, the only product that we have is our intellectual product.
I'm not even talking about patents.
I'm talking about the opinions that we share.
We're there for our professional opinions.
And we want those to carry the day.
So we want influence.
Show me someone who wants to have less influence in life.
Right.
There's nobody, right?
It's silly to even ask the question.
So how do you get that influence?
Well, again, number one, we already talked about it, understanding your audience.
But two, it's showing that you have the credibility to want to and will trust you.
I alluded to this a little bit earlier.
Let's bring it back to strategy, okay?
If I understand the strategy of my company and how the business is going to be making money, I can focus my innovative efforts in that one area as opposed to going off in all different tangents.
So number one I know where I'm going and I can have focus, innovation and stand on the shoulders of giants, so to speak.
But number two, if I innovate, I know that others, if I'm going in the direction of the strategy, can help me along on that journey, because they're all going in the same direction too.
So say I'm in the lab, right?
And that discovery happens.
If I'm going in the wrong direction.
There'll be no scale-up engineer or project manager or salesperson to go ahead and run with it.
But if I'm going in that strategic direction where everyone's aligned, it can really take flight.
And that's where the impact can happen.
And when it gets to influence, oftentimes we specialists know the most about our subject.
But if we can say You know, we know the most about this subject and we know what you're trying to do, Mr President or Vice President.
Or investor or whatever.
Exactly.
You can say, and you know what?
I recommend we stop this program.
Or I recommend that we go forward or we change direction because I know what your strategy is.
That's when he gets you.
Oh, man, that guy gets it.
Yeah.
You understand.
And then they'll listen more to you. going forward.
So you build that influence, you build that credibility, and then it kind of snowballs.
Oh, I'm so glad you said that because you reminded me of a conversation I've had multiple times over years.
I've been doing what I do for a very long time.
It'll be somebody, say a manager, not early, early career, but not senior either.
And they will, you know, present their research, present their findings, present the situation, and they stop short of making that recommendation, Sam.
And I just lose it.
And there's this fear, I guess a novice fear of oh, but there's so much you know, more elevated in the company.
They'll know what to do, but they're depending on you to tell them, because they're The higher up you go, the less you know about the details.
And we've talked about on this show many times that the people at the top, they don't have the hands-on information.
They can't because they're too busy doing other things.
They have to make decisions with incomplete information.
And the only way they're able to do that is, first of all, practice.
But also, they have their trusted advisors.
And Anybody, it doesn't matter your level, you can be a trusted advisor, right?
I love that.
You know to your point.
I've taken on this philosophy over the last few years, which is silent.
Disagreement is unacceptable.
Oh, I love this.
I'm going to repeat that.
Silent disagreement is unacceptable.
Okay.
Especially in the cases where you know people like scientists finance folks doctors, technologists right.
Our output is... intellectual opinion.
And so if we're holding that back, we are doing everyone a disservice.
Correct.
We are here for a reason.
Our voice needs to be heard.
Now, I'm not saying you railroad everybody.
Right.
Okay.
And I'm not saying that once a decision has been made, you keep hammering away at it.
Just ensure that your point has been heard.
Use phrase like with respect.
I just want to make sure everyone understands this concern that I'm bringing up.
Exactly.
And the potential way to address it.
Have we addressed this?
Okay.
Thank you.
Yes.
Okay.
It's giving your idea, your expertise, its day in court.
And some people hold themselves back.
This is something that we introverts sometimes do.
We hold ourselves back because we think, well, if they really wanted to know, they would ask me.
That's a false assumption.
Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like people were pushing against you, that you didn't think that they really had a strong case?
And how do you avoid getting heated about it?
Yeah, so that's a good point.
I have been flustered in my past.
I've had the sweats, right?
I've had the clam up moments.
And I realized I never want to feel that way again.
It's not easy to speak up.
It's unpleasant to feel flustered, yes.
And people who are great when they're prepared can fall flat on their face if they get sideswiped right.
Yes.
The only advice I have for this is practice.
And you can start in safe spaces. talking in small groups.
And then you start to build on those things until it becomes second nature.
I've been starstruck a number of times and I get tongue-tied because I've seen these folks who seem larger than life.
And then I started to work with more of these folks, and I realized they're looking for my opinion.
That's why I'm in the room.
Exactly.
And then I said, what's the worst that can happen?
So I share, not just whatever comes through my mind, things that I have been thinking about that I believe are justified to share.
Again, I'm there for a reason and I share it respectfully.
Some of the toughest things I've had to do is give advice to the most senior leaders of the company without some kind of blowback.
Yeah.
So tell us what happened.
That's a good story.
It's good.
You basically acknowledge the things that people do very well.
And, by the way, it's no different from anybody else.
You have knowledge of things that people do very well.
For every one point of criticism, you want to give five positive things that that person does.
And so that's exactly what I did.
I can't believe the way you're able to keep all these numbers in your head.
There is one number I wanted to make sure that you got right, though.
That's a good one.
Yes.
How do you find the right metaphors or analogies or stories to explain the complicated stuff to the people at the top, who A quite brilliant, but they're also like brain is overloaded and they certainly don't want to look dumb by asking, you know, a question.
Like you mentioned, what was it, the FFCs or the FCCs?
Yeah, the fluid catalytic cracker, FCC.
FCCs, like your peers, they don't mind saying, Sam, what the heck are you talking about?
But somebody way up the food chain.
They don't want to risk a reputational loss damage by asking the question that would reveal their ignorance or religious maybe in that moment can't think about it.
So how do you, what is your process for preparing these talking points for people who aren't technical experts?
There are plenty of examples out there.
The one I'll give is, I'll get you with this FCC, food calorie cracker example.
So what does it even do?
So it cracks cats, right?
No, but a cat crack.
So it literally, the scientific way, right?
It takes these very long chain hydrocarb molecules and reactions happen to make them into smaller molecules.
Okay.
But the reason why it's called the cracker.
One could imagine taking catalysts to crack them either in half or into smaller pieces.
So that's what it is.
And that's what I help people understand.
We're literally cracking these longer chain molecules into something that's more useful, like the gasoline range molecules, as opposed to say, TARS or resins or heavy fuels that really can't be sold or really can't be sold for the same value.
So people would understand, though, that a short molecule is better than a long one?
Yeah, so I'll tell you about octane.
You've heard that term, octane?
Yes, yes.
Okay, so you know what oct means, O-C-T, that prefix?
There you go.
So octane is eight carbons.
Just think about that, eight carbons.
The cat cracker has molecules with 20, 30, 40 carbons.
Oh, wow.
You got to get to eight to get that octane.
Right, right.
So you got to crack to get eight.
Oh, wow.
Guys, I mean what a blessing to be listening to this podcast and learning about molecules and communication and charisma all these good things.
Yeah.
Sam, I know I got to look at a couple of slide decks that you prepared in our introductory conversations.
Very creative.
How did you come up with your ideas?
Where do they come from?
I love talking to people.
I'm an actor for it.
Okay, I'm sorry.
I apologize for being on the intro podcast.
But I do have a lot of mentors.
And one of my mentors, former professor, Vice president still works at ExxonMobil.
Vice president of R&D.
His name is Vijay Swarup.
He's a director of climate science and technology at Exxon.
And one of his sayings is science is a superpower.
And I love it.
I love it.
Again, the analogies.
And my wife will tell you I'm horrible with analogies.
I beg to differ.
But, you know, science is a superpower.
So let's think about it.
People with superpowers are either superheroes or they're supervillains, right?
So let's analyze what makes those superheroes superheroes, but without looking at their powers.
Right.
So a superhero, they care.
They care about the right things.
They care about what we care about.
They have a common purpose with what we're trying to do.
They have a vision for the world that aligns with our own.
Right.
They're relatable.
Right.
They get us.
We get them.
Oh, yeah.
And they have powers.
Right.
Now, let's look at the supervillains.
Right.
Oftentimes.
They're misunderstood.
They can't get out what they want to say.
It's like the victim of circumstance.
The social norms, they just can't adhere to them.
And as a result, they're ostracized.
So how many times have we seen the movie where the villain is a mad scientist?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, there's a reason for that, too, because so many people are misunderstood.
Right.
And some of these very nuanced, novel, new-to-the-world things takes a lot of context.
People are not ready for that.
We have soundbite lifestyles now.
Yes, yes, so true.
And it needs more.
So look at who has had success as relatable scientists.
We've had Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson.
We've had Bill Nye, the science guy.
David Attenborough, he's a biologist.
Right.
Even Alton Brown from the Food Network.
He's all about food science and he breaks it down the way people understand.
And, as a result, they're relatable and we can understand, learn from them.
And if we're learning from them, then they're having an impact, right exactly, and then we're rippling out that impact.
That is so cool.
Wow sam, this is so interesting.
So, people listening, i just want to, you know, tell you that i brought sam on knowing i did know that he was an extrovert and you know the introvert club.
So it is.
It was definitely a a risky move here, but i i think that he has a deep understanding of the power talking about superpowers of communicating.
And he's definitely got that deep, deep, deep technical expertise.
I mean, a doctorate in chem-e for crying out loud.
Like, how much worse can it be, right?
How technical can you top that, listeners?
But you make it relatable.
The relatable scientist, that's just...
It's not only understandable, but it's magnetic.
It's attractive.
Even I would not be afraid or intimidated to talk to a relatable scientist.
And that's the point.
And that's it, yes.
You want people to be seeking you out.
Yes.
And be comfortable coming to you.
I want to be the advisor, the first person you turn to when you have a question about whatever specialty that is.
You want to run something by that person.
That is the influence.
That's the credibility that we're talking about.
That's right.
And you don't have to be a chatterbox, but just let people know that you are interested in talking to them and they will come to you.
That was so valuable.
There's something I want to mention.
It's called the anxious parade of knowledge.
And that's what a lot of us scientists and techno geeks really can fall into a trap, right?
Because we want to make sure that everyone knows everything we know.
Yes.
And there are things that bring up distrust that could hopefully not ruin our credibility, but they're inherent to the things that we do.
So for example, in science, we're never trying to prove things.
We're always trying to disprove things.
I mean, that's a scientific method, disprove a hypothesis, right?
And so when one day I say, you know, this seems like this is a good space to operate in, or this is the right conditions, right.
Or this is what we're learning.
The next week I could say, no, that's not going to work.
Yeah.
Now, in politics, that's called flip flopping.
Right.
But when we're doing experiments, that's called science.
Right.
It's a very different thing.
And people don't understand that.
So that can, you know, a pitfall that could potentially ruin your credibility.
I mentioned how the work we do is not simple.
There's a lot of caveats and nuances and conditions and people don't want to hear that.
They want that clear message.
I want to take it to the bank.
Right.
That soundbite.
Yeah.
And that's a challenge too.
And finally, you know wherever there's information, asymmetry.
And I mentioned doctors earlier, before they know so much more about medicine lawyers, financial advisors, right.
One bad experience can ruin it.
All those other people because like oh, those doctors they're all the same.
They know everything and they'll never tell me the same thing.
If I know one scientist, I know them all.
Right.
Everything that folks like us can do, introverted or extroverted, to dismantle those stereotypes and combat against that.
That's a great way to close this conversation.
Thank you so much, Sam.
So many good nuggets here.
I
I have taken copious notes.
So thank you so much.
And it was great.
Fantastic conversation.
Absolute pleasure.
Thanks, Laura.
Well, that was such a cool episode.
It's the first time I've interviewed a podcast listener. very interesting.
My favorite takeaway is that silent disagreement is unacceptable.
And if you're passive aggressive, I get it.
But holding back your expert opinion, even when you disagree, is a disservice, because you are the trusted advisor that leaders rely upon.
So if you want to have that influence, you need to speak up respectfully and with intention.
You may not be getting the recognition you've earned yet.
Deep down, you know that you've got what it takes to lead at a higher level.
If you could just package those ideas and credibility more effectively, my executive presence scorecard can be a big help.
It's divided up into four pillars of executive presence and it's an assessment that will tell you where your strengths are and where your opportunities are.
If you would like access to this executive presence scorecard, simply email me at hello, at speakupwithlauracom.
Put the word score in the subject line and I'll get that to you right away.
Have a fantastic day and I will catch you on the next episode.
