Quality Archives - Page 6 of 19 - understand-culture

Half a Minute

In 1993 two Harvard psychologists, Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal, published a study called “Half a Minute.” Nine undergraduates watched three 10-second clips of each of 13 college teachers, “with the audio turned down completely.” They rated each teacher on traits such as “confident,” “competent,” “enthusiastic” and “professional.”

Their ratings predicted the evaluations the teachers’ own students gave at the end of the semester. In a later part of the study, even shorter clips still predicted the evaluations.

Half the Grade

At Harvard Business School, “half of a student’s grade derives from class participation” in many courses, according to Poets&Quants. Many classes start with a cold call. The professor picks a student, who must present the facts and issues of the case.

A guide to case teaching says that the quality of a comment “relates not only to the content, but also the delivery and timing of comments within the flow of the class discussion.”

Television Is Not a Gimmick

In 1967 Richard Nixon appeared on The Mike Douglas Show, and Roger Ailes helped prepare him. “It’s a shame,” Nixon told Ailes, “a man has to use gimmicks like this to get elected.” Ailes replied: “Television is not a gimmick.”

In the 1968 campaign Ailes produced live televised discussions for Nixon, with a studio audience. He handled the set, the lighting, the makeup and the camera positions. In November 1968 he said: “This is the beginning of a whole new concept. This is it. This is the way they’ll be elected forevermore.” He added: “The next guys up will have to be performers.”

Joe McGinniss’s The Selling of the President 1968, an exposé, became one of the most influential books on American presidential campaigns.

Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas

The Common Core State Standards set goals for English in American schools, from kindergarten through grade 12. One group of speaking standards is called “Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas.” In kindergarten, children should “speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly.”

By grades 11 and 12, students should “present information, findings, and supporting evidence” so that “listeners can follow the line of reasoning.” The standard asks that “the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience” and task. Another standard asks for “a command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.”

Dress for Success

In 1975 John T. Molloy published Dress for Success, a bestseller that told men what to wear at work. In 1972 Time magazine had reported that he had become “America’s first wardrobe engineer.” The researcher Barry Popik credits the book with spreading the saying “dress for the job you want.”

Molloy based his advice on his own tests. In one, an actor posing as a trainee asked secretaries in a New York office to get information from their files. In a greenish-blue suit and a “chintzy blue polyester tie,” he got 12 of 50 to do it. In an “expensive blue suit” and a “silk polka-dot tie,” he got 42 of 50.

Curb Appeal

Americans who sell a house are told to improve its curb appeal. Merriam-Webster defines the phrase as “the visual attractiveness of a house as seen from the street.” It dates the first known use to 1975.

In a 2025 survey by the National Association of Realtors, 77 percent of sellers’ agents recommended improving curb appeal. Cleaning the entire home was recommended by 88 percent. Of buyers’ agents, 83 percent said that staging a home made it easier for a buyer to see it as their future home. The figures are agents’ answers, not sales records.

The Elevator Speech

In 1981 the quality expert Philip Crosby wrote: “When teaching Quality Management, I always teach my students to learn an ‘elevator speech.'” He meant a short speech for the boss, ready for the length of an elevator ride. It is the earliest dated use in the researcher Barry Popik’s collection of citations.

By 1997 the business writer Tom Peters used the form “elevator pitch.” He wrote that it “isn’t really about dealing with pressure. It’s about communication. And caring.” Other origin stories, about Hollywood screenwriters and an editor at Vanity Fair in the 1990s, offer no earlier date.

Sell the Sizzle

In 1937 the sales trainer Elmer Wheeler published Tested Sentences That Sell. The title of its first chapter was “Don’t Sell the Steak—Sell the Sizzle!” Time magazine quoted the slogan, from a speaker for Wheeler’s firm, in August of that year. In 1938 The New Yorker quoted his explanation: “The sizzle has sold more steaks than the cow ever has, although the cow is, of course, mighty important.”

Americans also use the image as criticism. A person who is “all sizzle and no steak” seems able but gets little done. In July 2013 House Speaker John Boehner used the phrase about a speech by President Barack Obama.

Thirty-Five Points for Presentation

At the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, judges score projects out of 100 points. Presentation is worth 35 of them: 10 for the poster and 25 for the interview with the judges. For science projects, data collection, analysis and interpretation together are worth 20.

The poster is judged on “logical organization of material” and “clarity of graphics and legends.” In the interview the judges look for “clear, concise, thoughtful responses to questions.”

Kennedy and Nixon on Camera

On September 26, 1960, Americans watched the first televised presidential debate. Richard Nixon had recently left the hospital after a knee infection and was 20 pounds underweight. Both candidates declined the network’s makeup artist. Nixon used a drugstore powder, and under the studio lights he sweated visibly. John F. Kennedy looked tanned and ready. He won over the 70 million television viewers by a broad margin.

The story is often told with one more detail: radio listeners thought Nixon had won. That claim rests largely on one survey by Sindlinger & Company. Of more than 2,100 people asked, only 282 had listened on radio, and only 178 named a winner. In 1987 two scholars, David Vancil and Sue Pendell, judged that group too small and unrepresentative for firm conclusions.

In an experiment published in 2003, 81 percent of participants who watched the debate thought Kennedy won. Of those who only listened, 60 percent did.