WSJ Your Money Briefing - The Key to Getting That Promotion Might Be ‘Rizz’

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

For some, mastering the skills required of their job isn’t enough to get ahead. Wall Street Journal Work & Life columnist Rachel Feintzeig joins host J.R. Whalen to discuss how “rizz” (short for charisma) can be learned and help propel you up the ladder. Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more. That's betterhelp.com. Here's your money briefing for Wednesday, July 24th. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. There are lots of ways to succeed in your career. Do the job well, be a leader, maybe take on a few extra projects.

But there's another quality that can be just as impactful. It's what many in Gen Z call Riz. It's less about kind of them putting on a show or a performance, less about you saying like, oh, that person's so charming. More about how they make you feel. oh, that person's so charming. More about how they make you feel. We'll talk to WSJ Work and Life columnist Rachel Feinsig about the importance of charisma or RIS. After the break. So what's it like to buy your first cryptocurrency on Kraken? Well, let's say I'm at a food truck I've never tried before. Am I going to go all in on the loaded taco?

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Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See Kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. The key to getting ahead at work might be, as Gen Z puts it, the amount of Riz you have. Wall Street Journal Work and Life columnist Rachel Feinstein joins me. All right, Rachel, it's time for me to come clean. I am not part of Gen Z. So tell me, what exactly is Riz?

J.R., you and I both, I am a geriatric millennial, as some people call us. I will do my best to translate Gen Z. Riz is this sense of kind of style, magnetism. I think there could be a dash of attractiveness there, but just the person how you connect with people. It's actually not totally about a charm offensive. It's really about connecting with other people and inspiring them. So how would you recognize that in a coworker? It's less about kind of them putting on a show or a performance, less about you saying like, oh, that person's so charming, more about how they make you feel. Charles Duhigg, who's an author of a book called Super Communicators, told me it's really a state that you elicit in other people. And so you

recognize the other person as charming. They almost make you feel charming or funny. Or when you're talking to them, you might feel inspired. You might feel like you trust them. You just might really feel like you like them. It almost sounds like it's a core skill of a politician. Totally. I think we see it a lot in politicians, in all kinds of leadership. I mean, it's really about communication. Like what we're talking about here is just really, really skillful communication. How does the charisma or riz that someone has differ from their skills? And what role does each play in their career track? I think of this as like almost an example of a soft skill. And what Charles Duhigg told me is that, you know, you may be hired for your skills. So there we're

thinking of kind of technical skills, how good you are at the job, but you'll be promoted for your charisma. He said this is leadership. This is the ability to kind of carry people and move them forward. And that's the kind of thing that can get you really noticed at work and propel you up the corporate ladder, if that's something you're interested in. Is Riz a teachable characteristic? Yes. I was very surprised by how adamant a lot of people were that this is teachable. I figured a good deal of this was something that you're born with, but a lot of people told me no, both experts and people that I consider charismatic. And when I reached out to these people, I was really surprised to find that a lot of them said,

no, I consider myself more introverted. Some people told me, like, I consider myself to be awkward at heart. Like, that's how I see myself. And this is something I really worked on for years. To someone who's shy, this might sound like they need to become an extrovert to succeed. And it might cause them to shiver. Do they have to change who they are to put Riz to good use? No. I heard from a communication coach, Vanessa Van Edwards, that you don't have to become this

bubbly extrovert. You don't have to be the life of the party. Sure, that's one flavor of charisma. But again, this is really just about connection and you can connect with people all sorts of ways. So for introverts, she recommends leaning into nonverbal cues, things like the way you position your hands or the way that you nod. You want to show that you're really engaged, you're present with other people, but that doesn't mean that you have to constantly be talking. question that you're known for. It doesn't have to be something that's kind of hokey, like an icebreaker or something totally out there. Something as simple as she had one executive who used to ask folks, what are you reading to kick off his meetings? He was bookish, a little bit more shy, and it was really true to who he was and it got people talking. In your column, you talk about how Riz is someone being magnetic. That might have been a valuable attribute to have for a long time, but why are we talking about it today?

From a leadership perspective, there's this sense that we want our leaders to seem more human. We want to feel like we have a connection with them, that that's what kind of builds trust, this idea of authentic leadership or transparent leadership, where I think like decades ago was more like command and control. You just listen to someone and maybe they screamed at you a little bit and you kind of just had to follow them. And from an individual perspective, I mean, we're at a moment where the job market

is tightening a little bit, where it can be a little bit harder to get promoted. We're seeing companies kind of thin down the ranks of managers. We're seeing that getting a new job in some industries is harder. And so I think this is the kind of thing that can make you really stand out when it's not the kind of hiring, promoting frenzy of 2021 or 2022. It sounds like this is a nice quality to have, but could it be a make or break thing for a career? It depends what kind of career you want. If you really want to be the CEO and be a good CEO, to me, a lot of that is about this kind of external communication and connection. I mean, your job there is really leadership, and that's what we're talking about here. If you want to be someone who's maybe more of an individual contributor, really good at this

specific thing you do, I mean, I heard from folks, you still probably should be good at this because there's so much collaboration in organizations these days. I think it's something that everyone should work on and that's important for everyone. But again, it doesn't have to be the kind of thing where you were just born like this or you have one specific idea of what the politician looks like. Not everyone has to come into that, but I think everyone should try to find their own charisma. That's WSJ columnist Rachel Feinsig, and that's it for your Money Briefing. This episode was produced by Ariana Osborough with supervising producer Melanie Roy. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening.