Moment 182: How To Make People Respect You In Seconds: Evy Poumpouras

In this moment, former U. S. Secret Service Special Agent Evy Pompouras discusses how to earn and maintain respect in the workplace. According to Evy, it is important to reflect on your own actions when faced with disrespect. This includes assessing the tone and pitch of your voice to see if any changes could lead to gaining more respect. The same principle applies to self-assessments of your contributions in the workplace, as Evy emphasises that people who speak too much often lose respect in the workplace while those who provide meaningful insight gain in. Evy also recommends addressing signs of disrespect straight away rather than avoiding the situation. Although difficult conversations may be uncomfortable, they can ultimately strengthen relationships and improve future interactions. Listen to the full episode here - Spotify- https://g2ul0.app.link//4lagoaEAoNb Apple - https://g2ul0.app.link/TIVYc9ZjNu Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Evy: https://www.evypoumpouras.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Steven Bartlett?

  In those environments, if someone's not, if you feel like your manager or your boss or your, or the CEO, or even like a colleague, isn't showing you respect. And I, I've read your story, so I know that this happened multiple times in your life, where there'd be someone around you that wasn't showing you the respect you deserve. And I have a lot of people that come up to me and they say, I'm struggling because my boss is not showing me respect, or my colleague, this colleague isn't listening to me, or all these kinds of things.

• 0:33Steven Bartlett?

  Where, where does your mind default to when I say that? Like, where do you go to in your mind? What is your, like, action A?

• 0:39Evy Poumpouras?

  So with the last one, you just said, my, my colleagues don't listen to me. I would come back and I would say, give me an example of where they don't listen to you, right? So I would say to you, when you do speak, do you look at people when you speak? Do you project your voice? So it's called paralinguistics. Everyone's so focused on what they say, like reading my notes or reading my agenda. They don't think about the tone, pitch of the voice. How are you delivering this? Are you projecting your voice?

• 1:04Steven Bartlett?

  Give me an example.

• 1:05Evy Poumpouras?

  Do you talk like this when you speak? I have a question. I just want to share something. People are gonna like glaze over. I have a question. Or, or even just the tone, how you under, hi, I'm Evy. Hi, I'm Evy.

• 1:22Evy Poumpouras?

  Feels different.

• 1:24Evy Poumpouras?

  Those are simple things you can do to make sure people hear you. The other thing is, I say this a lot when I speak to companies, because communication's a big thing, don't just talk to talk. There's this thing out there, and especially with women, where it's like, make sure they hear you. Make sure your voice is heard at the table. I'm fine with that. Do you have something beneficial to say or value to say? Because if you don't, don't say anything. Half the meetings I go to, I don't speak. Because I, maybe I have nothing to say.

• 1:55Steven Bartlett?

  It's so interesting. I am, from being in many boardrooms for many, many years, probably 15 years being in marketing boardrooms, not 15 years, about 10 years being in marketing boardrooms with CEOs, with my team, with lots of different people, lots of different teams. I've had thousands and thousands of meetings. I eventually observed something in myself, which is a bit of a prejudice that I have, which is, the minute someone speaks...

• 2:18Steven Bartlett?

  Based on their contribution score, which is like a credit score, based on all of the contributions you made in the past. In those first couple of seconds, if their previous contributions were all valuable, everyone in the room would stop and look and lean in. But if they had developed a low contribution score because they'd continually talked for the sake of talking, i.e. they're just like, I'll give you an example. In my New York office back in the day, there was this one guy who, we'd be in a brainstorm, trying to solve a problem, and he would start speaking. And you'd see by the way he started speaking that he hadn't actually thought through what

• 2:56Steven Bartlett?

  he was going to say, and he'd go, what about if we put a, I don't know, like a pop-up? And like, maybe we'll do some TikToks? And so honestly, what I then observed from that individual is every time they opened their mouth, people would instantly basically dismiss the idea because they had such a low contribution score. And like, we all have a contribution score. You have one, I have one, based on the last 10 years of when we've opened our mouth, how valuable it was to the people around us. Like, that individual, whenever he spoke, I would see the person sat next to him, who I won't name, almost like low-key roll their eyes in the first five seconds and shut it down before he'd even got it out.

• 3:41Steven Bartlett?

  And then there was this other guy called, in my UK office, called Paul, never spoke, like, never really said anything, super mature, super experienced guy. The minute he said anything, because every time he opened his mouth, it was important and valuable and considered, everyone went, he could interrupt anyone, the instant silence, everyone stares over at this guy. Because when he contributed, we all knew that he had something valuable to add. And I, so I would say to my team, and I said this to this team that we're here with us in New York, like, just make sure you protect your contribution score.

• 4:10Evy Poumpouras?

  That, I think, that's such a brilliant way to say it, yes. You're probably, yes, it's like, it's your score because people keep tabs on you.

• 4:17Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 4:18Evy Poumpouras?

  They know Stephen's going to say something. He doesn't always speak, but if he's going to say something, every time he drops something, he drops something of value. Where people think like, I have to talk because everyone tells me I have to talk, make my voice heard. No, shut up.

• 4:32Steven Bartlett?

  And if you're silent, then you're not of value. That's what people think. They think, well, you didn't add anything.

• 4:36Evy Poumpouras?

  Right.

• 4:36Steven Bartlett?

  Well, you didn't take anything away either.

• 4:37Evy Poumpouras?

  Yes. I will tell you this too, Stephen, when I go to meetings, or sometimes I go to meetings, and if I'm the dumbest person in the room. I'm the happiest person. That's a one time where I'm happy because I'm thinking, wow, look at all these smart people around me and I get to be part of this. I get to listen. I love to sit back and listen. There's times, I just had a meeting with like my scripted agent, Sylvie, with my manager about some TV project. And I knew enough to know, to say, they're like, hey, Evy, this and this. And I said, you know what? This is space I don't know. I'm gonna follow your lead. Fill me in. I'm taking a seat back. You guys do the talking.

• 5:13Steven Bartlett?

  What about when someone compromises your boundaries or disrespects you? How do you react to that? Because I think I have a lot of leaders around me in my various businesses and I see sometimes that some leaders struggle with confrontation. They struggle with, you know, team member might disrespect them in some way or might not deliver work to the right standard. And they might struggle with like pulling that person in, knowing how to do that and how to address that situation. And the avoidance of that conflict obviously just causes a bigger future problem. Because you're setting a new, you're setting a new boundary, right? You've let someone jeopardize or cross a line. And if you don't, I'm assuming that if in the moment you don't address that, they're gonna cross it again in the future.

• 5:57Steven Bartlett?

  This is really about like conflict resolution, interpersonal conflict resolution. And when you've been disrespected, how do you deal with that?

• 6:03Evy Poumpouras?

  So the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna flip it back. What have you done to let people think that they can do that to you? That's the first thing I'm gonna say. What standards have you created or what things have you set up to let people think? I don't have to deliver on time. I can be disrespectful. I can't show up late for work. That's the first thing I'm gonna say.

• 6:21Steven Bartlett?

  So I would hazard a guess that I did, I in the past, set a standard for this.

• 6:27Evy Poumpouras?

  Right.

• 6:27Steven Bartlett?

  Or in some way that I showed up in the past.

• 6:29Evy Poumpouras?

  That's the first thing I'm gonna do. What, is there something I have done? To create an environment where a person thinks that it is okay to do these things? That's first.

• 6:38Steven Bartlett?

  Why do you go to I?

• 6:40Evy Poumpouras?

  Because I'm the one who sets the tone. I just interviewed a chief of station, former chief of station, John Franchi. He's former CIA. And he managed a lot of people and a very strong, a lot of strong personalities. Because you've got officers and all these different people. And he said to me, you know what I learned? He said, it is easier to be. More have boundaries and be a little bit more sturdy and more authoritative in the beginning and then pull back and to be everybody's friend and then try to put those boundaries in place. The latter doesn't work. He's like, you do the first, you let people know what you expect of them and then you can pull back a little bit, but you always have to toe that line. So that's what I'm gonna say first and he's right.

• 7:23Evy Poumpouras?

  What tone have I set in the environment that I'm working that people think it's okay to do these things? That's one. Now, let's say sometimes I have an outlier. I have a person who does these things. As soon as it happens, you have to address it. What people do is they don't address things. They let it go. It's small. And then it happens again. It's small. Then again. And then we become resentful. We become pissed. Why does this person keep doing it? Why don't they self-correct? Again, it goes back to me. Why haven't I addressed it? People are afraid of conflict. Conflict can be done in a great way. You have to think of conflict as, think of it as like I'm competing. I'm, I can speak to you, not raise my voice, not make it ugly and debate something with you.

• 8:07Evy Poumpouras?

  In the, in the White House, next to the Oval Office was the Cabinet Room. The Cabinet Room is where the President would sit with all his heads, you know, Secretary of Treasury, Secretary of Homeland Security, and they would discuss and debate policies, laws. And they would compete. One person would say, I don't like this idea. This is why. Another person would say, well, this idea doesn't work. This is why. You have to be comfortable in doing that. Most people are not. They don't understand that you can sit somebody down and say, hey, you know, this happened. Can you tell me about that? I had someone who worked for me and she had made a mistake on something. And so it was a pretty big mistake. So I, I called her up and I said, hey, you know what, this and this happened. You know, talk me through it.

• 8:51Evy Poumpouras?

  And I let her explain and, you know, she said, you know, I'm sorry, this and that. Uh, there's a reason why. But the one thing I did is said, because I wanted to rectify it, because I didn't want it to happen again. I was like, is there anything I can do to help make your job better so you can be more successful at what you do?

• 9:10Evy Poumpouras?

  Because I want to hear, is there something I'm doing or not doing that's impacting her decision making? Or the way she sees things? So it's a twofold. But you also do, when it comes to respect, and this is a whole separate thing you brought up. With the respect part, just make sure people are truly disrespecting you and that's not your ego that feels disrespected. Because sometimes people can't take somebody pushing back. And if my goal is to make a great product or business deal or transaction, then everything we do should be in furtherance of that. But what happens is, Stephen, people are so afraid of hurting other people's feelings or stepping on other people's toes. Nobody says something and that's worse.