AI has listened to Scandinavian CEOs and ranked their speaking skills, with the head of the fabled toy empire Lego pressing all the pieces into the right slots as far as the bot is concerned.
Ever since us Brits were pillaged by the Vikings we’ve been intrigued and a bit in awe of everything Nordic. Once we got over their incredible sailing skills and predilection for extreme heathen violence, we switched to admiring how they’ve created wealthy economies while maintaining fairly equitable societies, their sense of design, Abba, Nordic noir, IKEA … you know the drill.
But now we have fresh reason to admire the Scandis: their use of AI to measure CEO speaking skills.
It may have gone under the radar amid this week’s turbulent news churn but the Nordic Leader Speaker Index has been published. And this has established that Niels B Christiansen, chief executive of Lego, is the master of chat, scoring the highest in four out of six drivers: credibility, likeability, persuasiveness, and authenticity.
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In second place came fashion giant H&M chief executive Helena Helmersson, then, in third, Telia boss Allison Kirby, who’s from the UK.
Daniel Ek, boss of Spotify, was sixth and Martin Lundstedt, president of Volvo, was seventh. Nokia’s president, Pekka Lundmark, was in bottom spot, in 10th.
The analysis was done using MySpeaker Rhetorich, a new AI-powered platform developed for assessing speaking impact. The AI generates a score based on the six drivers of impactful speaking: credibility, likability, authenticity, presence, persuasion, and storytelling. The drivers are apparently based on “deep learning algorithms”.
Unfortunately, no polling was carried out among humans that would have allowed us to gauge the bot’s accuracy. Rumours that in preliminary tests it had given Alan Partridge a very high rating were said to be unfounded.
Business was certainly impressed. Branding and marketing expert Eka Ruola from Nitro Group said: “It is interesting to experience that toy brands like Lego and Barbie are boosting their brand value through exceptional marketing communications and reaching a stronger position in the minds of their audiences.”
André Noël Chaker, co-founder of MySpeaker Rhetorich, added: “Christiansen has clearly contributed to Lego’s brand value with his effective verbal communication ability. His combination of speaking skills is rare with top scores in four of the drivers of impactful speaking. If a leader is perceived as both credible and likeable, his effectiveness in the CEO role receives a substantial boost.”
H&M’s boss Helmersson’s lofty position on the list was down to her storytelling skills. These were the among the most valuable speaking assets, said Chaker, while Kirkby, the British head of Swedish telecom company Telia has great presence according to the bot, which was positively bowled over by her eye contact and facial expressions.
Maria Krajewska-Olkkonen, chief operating officer of MySpeaker Rhetorich, confused those of us at Personnel Today who perceive “corporate speak” as being a negative mode of communication. She said: “The ability to produce so-called ‘corporate speak’ in the form of anecdotes, cases or other compelling narratives is key in driving interest and engagement of all stakeholders.”
Hmmmm … what would MySpeaker Rhetorich bot make of that sentence? Perhaps it’s how you say it, rather than what you say that impresses the bot.
Chaker thought it significant that leaders of technology firms such as Nokia and banks, such as Nordea, did not impress as much as the heads of a toy and a fashion company. He added: “In general, storytelling is challenging for technology companies in the Nordics. Everyone in the top 10 is a highly skilled speaker, but it’s interesting to note how the two top positions go to a toy and fashion company while the technology companies are behind them.”
A UK Speaker Index can’t be far off. Given our awe at all things Nordic will business leaders over here adopt Scandi accents to enhance their AI ratings?
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