#HR #RRHH Making love and making personal #branding #leadership

Whether you’re speaking to a roomful of colleagues, your boss, or a group of friends, you can’t wait to draw people in. You either hook them with your first words, or you don’t.

Think of the expression that hooks people in as your “grabber.” It’s the prefatory line or phrase that basically says, “Listen up! You’re gonna want to hear this.” An effective grabber isn’t shouty or alarmist, though–it builds a bridge to your listener.

You can call them by name, mention something about them, refer to a point they’ve brought up, or reflect on a conversation you’ve had with them. You can even just ask them about themselves, or bring up something that you know interests them. The point of the grabber is to create rapport, so not only will it vary depending on whom you’re speaking to, it will also change according to the situation.

With that in mind, here are seven of the most common scenarios you’re likely to encounter at work, and the grabbers that are best suited to each.

Possibly no piece of productivity advice is more well-worn than the adage, “Work smarter, not harder.” Of course, the directive points to the fact that it’s not how many hours you put in at your desk that matters—it’s how you spend your time there. In other words, get results faster and you won’t be spending so many late nights at the office.

But what does it really mean to work smarter?

“It means figuring out better, faster ways to work,” says personal productivity expert and trainer Peggy Duncan. But before you enrol in a time management course or start playing “beat the clock” with your project list, consider these counterintuitive ways to get more done.

If you’re always working for the weekend, you’re not alone. Just one-third of employees are actively engaged at work, leaving the majority of us unhappy on the job, according to the most recent State of the American Workplace Gallup poll. Instead of keeping an eye on the clock and the calendar, take the reins by creating a career that you love, experts suggest.

“People often find themselves on a lifelong career journey without a destination in mind, only to look back at some point and realize they are not where they expected or wanted to be professionally,” says Tom Kemp, MBA executive-in-residence at the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business. “Often this reflection happens when they either find themselves confronted with a job loss or they simply become so disenfranchised that they quit with little idea or thought about what they want to do next.”

What’s the point of networking if not to get other people to like you? Sure, you need new contacts to see you as interesting, competent, professional, and potentially valuable to them—but if they don’t also find you likeable, nobody will feel motivated to reach out later and work with you.

The reason why all comes down to emotional intelligence, the set of skills and qualities that allow people to form deeper, closer relationships with others. Likability is a key ingredient in that, and its career benefits are pretty obvious. For instance, being likeable—and liking your coworkers in return—can increase your chances of getting promoted.

But when it comes to first impressions, you don’t always have much time to get people to like you. So here are a few straightforward things that the most emotionally intelligent people do to cement their likability from the get-go.