PEO Leadership's Michele Calpin sits down with Vanessa Bohns to discuss why we fail to recognize the influence we have, and how that lack of awareness can lead us to miss opportunities or accidentally misuse our power.
Vanessa Bohns is social psychologist and professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University. She argues that despite the popular opinion that we need to gain influence in order to get what we want, we actually already have it — we’re just not using it mindfully. If you’ve ever felt ineffective, invisible, or inarticulate, chances are you weren’t actually any of those things. Those feelings may instead have been the result of a lack of awareness we all seem to have for how our words, actions, and even our mere presence affect other people.
Weaving together compelling stories with cutting edge science and original research, Bohns offers science-based strategies for observing the effect we have on others, reconsidering our fear of rejection, and even, sometimes, pulling back to use our influence less.
PEO Leadership's Michele Calpin sits down with Vanessa Bohns to discuss why we fail to recognize the influence we have, and how that lack of awareness can lead us to miss opportunities or accidentally misuse our power.
Vanessa Bohns is social psychologist and professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University. She argues that despite the popular opinion that we need to gain influence in order to get what we want, we actually already have it — we’re just not using it mindfully. If you’ve ever felt ineffective, invisible, or inarticulate, chances are you weren’t actually any of those things. Those feelings may instead have been the result of a lack of awareness we all seem to have for how our words, actions, and even our mere presence affect other people.
Weaving together compelling stories with cutting edge science and original research, Bohns offers science-based strategies for observing the effect we have on others, reconsidering our fear of rejection, and even, sometimes, pulling back to use our influence less.
Hi, I'm Leon Goren, president of PEO leadership, a peer to peer leadership advisory firm. We're an amazing community of CEOs, presidents and senior executives. Ask yourself, are you learning as fast as the world is changing? It's time for Ontario business leaders to band together for counsel and support. It's time for you to tap into the business wisdom of our peer groups and unlock new ways to grow. I want you to come out of this COVID crisis a better leader and your organization ready for what's next, take the first step at PEO-leadership.com. Special thanks to Cleveland Clinic for helping us bring you today's peo leadership's way forward podcast.
Michele Calpin:Welcome to the PEO live webcast. On the way forward series. My name is Michele Calpin, I'm a co owner and executive advisor of PEO leadership. And I'm thrilled to welcome Vanessa this morning, we're going to be talking about influence. If you're not familiar with PEO leadership, welcome to the community PEO leadership is a peer to peer advisory leadership firm. And we work with executives, entrepreneurs in Canada. And they work in peer to peer leadership teams. We also bring in experts like Vanessa to help us learn and grow. And we also have a leadership conference once a year. So if you're interested in to leadership, then I'm going to ask Kelly to put in the chat, her email and also our website. So please check us out. So let me formally welcome Vanessa. Vanessa is a social psychologist and a professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University. She is a sought after expert on persuasion and influence. And she's written an excellent book called you have more influence than you think. And you can see it but it's anyway, here it is here. And Vanessa also has a connection to Toronto, she did her postdoc at University of Toronto where she met her husband. So she's familiar with Canadians and comes up here quite a bit, she said. So, um, I just wanted to mention how this webcast will be structured. So Vanessa, and I will chat for about 25 minutes. And then I am encouraging you to post your questions in the q&a box. And we'll get to those questions after that. So Vanessa, I really enjoyed your book, it made me think of how much I enjoyed my psychology class back in university, because you have so many research studies in here and stats that are so compelling. And you also have tips for us as leaders in terms of influence. So it is both interesting, and also very useful. So let me just dive right in. You're right, that one of the most effective influence tactics we can have is just showing up. So can you explain a little bit more about that?
Vanessa Bohns:Sure. And first, let me say hi to everybody, welcome. And thank you so much for having me, it is a pleasure to be here. And Toronto does have a very special place in my heart. Um, yeah. So one of the things I talk about in the book, the very first influence tactic I talk about is just showing up. And one of the reasons that I sort of make that one of the I forefront that, in a way, is that when we think about influence, we tend to have a kind of narrow, formal idea about what influence means and what influence is. And we tend to think of influence as meaning the person who's standing there, in the front of the room, you know, with the PowerPoint, giving the presentation with a microphone in front of the podium, right? The person who's sort of capturing the attention of the entire room that everybody's looking at, and the person who's speaking. But in fact, influence is so much more than that. And we influence people all the time in all sorts of subtle ways. And for any of us who have actually been that person who's in the front of the room kind of looking out, we know that we're looking out at all those faces in the room and responding to their reactions, right. So if those people are nodding and smiling, we kind of think we're onto something, and we keep going in that direction. And maybe we convince ourselves that yeah, that was a really good idea. If those people are frowning, or if someone in the room looks really troubled by something we've said, we might start to doubt it a little bit and maybe explain it a little more. And maybe the conversation shifts a little bit. And one of the reasons I point out this sort of power of being in the audience, is because when we're sitting there in the audience, whether it's an actual presentation, or if it's a meeting, we often forget that just by being there, you know, we use the word coming to the table, right? Just by being there by being present. We are shaping the discussion around us in ways that we might not realize, and many of us feel like we need to really take advantage of being at the table and it's great if you have things to say and you want to voice them and I also talk a little bit about how that's another great influence strategy that we underestimate sort of the power of. But even if you're just sitting there, you're having an impact on what's being discussed more than you realize. Another example I like to give is you can imagine a meeting full of men talking about employee benefits, right? All of a sudden put one woman at that table. And even if she never says a thing, all of a sudden, people start to notice her, right? And maybe they, it makes them think of maternity benefits, or parental leave or something like that. And now they're throwing that into the mix. And they're having more of a conversation about that, right, simply by noticing that person. And in fact, we tend to have a psychological bias that makes us think that people aren't noticing us as much as they actually are. But people do notice us, they tune their messages to us, that shapes what they think about that message, and it can shape conversations. And that's all from just being there. Not saying a word.
Michele Calpin:So interesting. I remember you mentioned a research study where you had people speak, and just by saying it, you believe it, I thought that was so you being in the room and getting the message tailored to you, you actually start to believe what you're saying, even though it's not necessarily originating from you.
Vanessa Bohns:That's right. So that's a phenomenon called The saying is believing effect. And what we do is we do something called Audience tuning, when we talk to another person, right? If I think you have a certain opinion on something, I tailor the way I talk about a particular topic to kind of fit your opinion, because I feel like that's going to go better, right? We're going to have a better conversation, you're going to like me more if I just kind of gently tailor what I'm saying to meet your opinion. And then you're happy with that, and you smile, and you're okay. And that actually makes me feel like what I said, made sense. And now that I've said it, you've confirmed it, I start to believe that a little more. And again, that's not from you know, I've that person has basically shaped my belief, that person I'm speaking to, without saying a word, but just be by being that person I'm speaking to by being my audience, which is kind of a fascinating effect when you really think about it.
Michele Calpin:Okay, so we need to show up, that's a big thing. Can you talk about just the effectiveness of influencing someone, because I mean, we're all busy, we all email and we try to do things quickly. Now, even your text a lot, but the effectiveness of face to face versus emailing?
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, so this is something that comes up in a lot of the different types of influence I talked about in the book. So we talked about presence, and how people notice you more than you realize in a room. But if you're communicating through email, and not in person meetings, of course, that kind of takes away that form of influence. Other things I talk about is the fact that when we speak up about something, sometimes just making it clear, our stance or opinion on something is enough to change. Again, the conversation in the room and what people are thinking, even if we don't state it perfectly are, you know, in the most articulate way, I also talk about asking for things and how people are more likely to do things for us than we think the thing is that all those things are incredibly powerful in person. And they're really diluted over email. And it's something that we tend not to fully appreciate. So we have studies, where we've had people ask someone for something right, make a request that they'd like someone to do, either over email, or in person. We've also done it over zoom and over the phone. And what we find is that when we're making a request, we're really focused on what we're asking, and how likely we think that person is to agree to that thing like, is what I'm asking appropriate? Am I asking for too much? Might they disagree with that? And say no, because I'm just asking for too much. So we're really focused on kind of what we're asking. But in fact, what matters so much more is how we're asking and whether we're asking in person, or if it can't be in person and the richest possible way, right? So we think that sending an email is going to be just as effective as asking in person. And our studies actually show that people don't differentiate, they just assume I'm asking for the same thing. So it shouldn't matter how I asked, they'll just decide what they want to do. But in fact, asking in person, and one of our studies was 34 times more effective, even though participants thought that it would be equally as effective as asking over email. And so we really do see a delusion of lots of these influence tactic tactics as you get further and further away from in person interactions. So a little bit diluted over zoom and the phone in fact, they still can't really meet the power of being in person with someone. But then once you get to email and text based interactions, then it's just far far, far less effective. Even though we think that if we write it down we can we can say things perfectly right, we can articulate exactly what we mean and get it all down. They're, in fact, being inarticulate, but in person is better.
Michele Calpin:You talk about asking for things. And a lot of us don't like asking for things. It's just, it just feels uncomfortable, but you really encourage us to just ask for what you want. Um, can you just talk a little bit about that more in terms of why we should be doing that? And how effective it is to ask for something?
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, so this is actually, one of my main areas of research is on asking, and on our ideas about what will happen if we ask for something. And what actually happens when we do, right, as you said, we tend to be nervous, we think, you know, this person is going to judge us for asking, we think that they're going to reject us, we're not really sure it's going to happen, it feels very risky when we ask for something. And so that makes us feel very uncomfortable. But at this point, I've actually run studies, where I've had participants in my studies, ask at this point, over 15,000 people for things, which is kind of wild, when I actually added up how many studies we had done. And we asked people before they make their requests of another person, how likely they think that person is to agree to this request, then we have them go out and actually ask people for things. And again, we found across all of these different studies that people tend to think they're more likely to be rejected than they actually are. So people are in fact twice as likely to say yes to us when we ask for something, as we think. And interestingly, you know, it's not just the rejection. I think that's a huge part of it. But it's also how we think we're going to be judged for asking for things. And there's other work showing that people actually judge us more positively. When we ask for things than we tend to think we think, especially in domains like advice, like if I'm struggling in a project, and I want some help, or I need some advice from somebody, we think that if we actually go to someone, and we ask for their advice, they're going to judge us negatively, because we're kind of showing our vulnerability or showing that we don't know what we're doing in a particular domain, or just need some extra help. In fact, what the research shows is that people judge us more positively, when we ask them for advice for help with something, because they feel kind of flattered that we would go to them, right. So it makes sense when you're on the receiving end, like oh, yeah, you know, of course, I can help you out with that feels good to feel effective, and help somebody out and feel flattered that they think you could help them. But in fact, we worry so much when we're asking that we miss that fact.
Michele Calpin:I liked when you talked about someone trying to cut in line to use the photocopy machine. And everyone's do using the photocopy machine and someone just cut in line and the percentage of respondents that let the person kind of line, it just was just like, yeah, sure, like people just agree to things.
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, exactly. So that's a classic study, or as you said, they just had a line of people. And they had research assistants go in and just say, Hey, can I get in front of you in line, I need to make copies. And that request is nonsensical, right. Like everyone needs to make copies, there's no reason that person needs to make copies anymore. They're not giving any additional information like that. So people are kind of just going along with this mindless request. That doesn't really make that much sense. Right. But as you said, the compliance rates are so high, they're the vast majority of people over 80%. In that study, whoever asked that request, let people cut in line. And I think what that really reveals that is surprising to many of us is that people's default, when we're not even thinking right when we're not, we're just kind of mindlessly processing a request. People's default is to agree. Now, when we ask for something, or when we think about persuading someone, or we think about negotiating, we always assume that people's default is to push back, right, that we're trying to get past know that we're trying to, you know, get past this resistance that we're presuming. But in so many situations, people's default is not to be resistant. It's not to say no, it's actually to be agreeable. And we tend to miss that and kind of go in guns blazing in some cases, thinking we need to push past these barriers that aren't always there.
Michele Calpin:You talk about guns blazing. And most of the people on this webcast will be leaders. And one of the things that really stuck out to me is you said when they speak, it comes across often like they're shouting. And so maybe less is a bit more than So, maybe just give us some advice in terms of being a leader and communicating with your organization or your employees.
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, and the the quote about when you speak you know, your the quote was by Adam Galinsky a professor at Columbia who says when when people empower whisper, their whisper sounds like a shout right to the people who are in power. So when you make a gentle suggestion, or you're kind of just spitballing in a meeting and you're coming up with possible ideas, the people around you are taking those much more seriously than sometimes you might intend And so it's really sort of a call to be attentive to the kinds of things you're saying and make sure that they are landing on people in the way that you're hoping they are. Right? If you're just kind of giving them a suggestion, and you're hoping they push back, you need to make extra sure that that's clear. Because in many cases, people feel like, Oh, I've got to run with that, because the boss, that's what the boss likes, right? That's what they really want me to do. And so even though I don't think it's the best idea, I'm not necessarily going to argue back. So one of the things, I think, especially new leaders, but I think even, you know, people who have been in power for a while or in a leadership position for a while, we tend to think the hard part is getting other people to listen to us, and persuading them to do things and getting them to do the things that we want, right? When in fact, being an illiterate leadership position, by default means that people are listening to us, right? People pay attention to the people who are in power, they take their words and their, you know, requests really seriously. And so it's really less about convincing people to do things. And it's about making sure that they're doing things that are going to be worthwhile for them and for the organization. And for you kind of taking, presuming that they are going to follow through on these things and thinking about really what's worthwhile to be saying that's going to kind of stick in their heads, what's worth asking them to do that they're most definitely going to wind up doing. And one of the things I talk about in the book is the fact that when you're in a position of power, when you're in a position of leadership, you actually spend less time trying to take the perspectives of the people around you to kind of check in on how they're taking your words, right? When you're in a low power position, and you say something you obsess about it, you know, for hours later, maybe days later, wondering like, oh, did they take it this way? Did they take it that way? When you're in a leadership position, you're much less likely to do that the research shows, so you might spit things out, and not really think that much about how someone took something that you said. And so another thing is to kind of be aware of that, that, in fact, people may be taking things you say more seriously, or, you know, for better and for worse than you might realize. So a compliment from a leader means that much more, right. But so does a little throwaway comment that could be read, as you know, hurtful or sarcastic or something like that.
Michele Calpin:That's very interesting. Can you give us a little bit more about why? Because, again, there are leaders on this call, why are we underestimating our influence? Like, why do they? Why do they not understand their influence? Yeah,
Vanessa Bohns:so and it's interesting, because, the, in general, sort of the research shows that most people underestimate their influence in many different situations. And it also suggests that when you're in positions of power leadership, you're not just doing it, but you're doing it even more. And it's kind of surprising, because you would think that if you're in a leadership position, you'd be really aware of the influence that you have. But in fact, you know, as we were talking about, one of the reasons we don't take the perspectives of people that much, is that we don't really need to as much when you're in a leadership position. So when you're in a position of power, you know, you're not trying to figure out what's going on in the heads of the people around you, so that they can, you know, help link you to resources, but because you are the one who's in charge of the resources, right, there's just no real need for you to be constantly monitoring what you say. So that you're not sort of, you know, for lack of a better word, like pissing off the powerful people, because you are the powerful person, right. So you're just, it's just not a necessity to constantly have to check in. And so you have to kind of make yourself check in because you don't need to, it's not automatic. Another thing is that when you're in a position of power or leadership, you feel more free to say no to things yourself. So people in positions of power don't usually question as much the things that they are allowed to do. Or you know what people want them to do, they're more likely to make decisions and say no more freely, if something is ambiguous, they're not sure if they should do it, they just do it. Because I think that's the right thing to do. So in a classic study, there was this really annoying fan blowing on participants in a study, but some participants had been primed to feel like they were in a powerful leadership position, and others had not. And so the ones who hadn't been primed to think that I'm in a position of power, they just kind of, they weren't sure if they could move the fan, it was really annoying, but they just kind of sat there and discomfort, right? The powerful people, the people who were primed to feel like they were the leader, just move the fan, right? They're just like, and these are randomly assigned people, right? So it just comes with this kind of sense of leadership and power. And the problem with that, though, is that if you feel like well, you can just fix things in your you know, vicinity, you just say no, if you don't want to do something, you often forget that other people don't feel the same way. And so if you ask someone to do something thing you may think like, if you're if you disagree with what I'm asking, just tell me right? If you don't want to do that or feel uncomfortable, just say no. But in fact, we forget when we're not kind of constrained in the same way as other people, that other people with less power don't always feel comfortable speaking up against us.
Michele Calpin:Makes sense, your perspective is skewed. And you feel everyone is like you. But that's not the case. That makes a lot of sense. Another thing that I think is really important these days is the concept of conveying gratitude, and complementing each other, and that we don't do this near enough. And it really makes a big difference in people's lives. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Vanessa Bohns:Sure. And it's true this is this is much more important again, then we tend to give it credit. I think we're seeing this too, even with the the great resignation, right that lots of people, you know, we thought lots of people were leaving, because all of a sudden, all these places were offering potentially more money and more promotions and things like that. But it turns out that a lot of people were leaving the workplace cultures that felt toxic to them, workplace cultures, where they felt like they weren't being appreciated, right. And there's work showing that simple complements, showing your employees that you appreciate them, you know, complimenting them, when they do a good job expressing gratitude for all the hard work they do. All those things actually mean more than we realize, and can be more important to people, then you know, financial rewards, which doesn't mean you shouldn't pay people the right amount, of course, you want to keep them happy and pay them well. But all those other things matter just as much. And sometimes even more enough, where people who feel like they're not appreciated wind up leaving certain situations even when they're paid well. And we have several studies that we've done, where we've asked people to give other people compliments. We've had them guess how good those compliments would make the other person feel. And then we've actually asked the other people, How good did that compliment make you feel? And we find in a bunch of different contexts, that we tend to underestimate just how good it feels to get a simple compliment. Other researchers have shown you know, more sort of extensive gratitude letters have a similar impact where writing someone who did a really great job, or someone who really helped you in your career path, a gratitude letter means so much more to them than we tend to think. And part of it is we think, you know, we're going to deliver it awkwardly, we think it's kind of going to be annoying, or they won't take us seriously. Or, you know, maybe they'll even think we're trying to get something out of them or butter them up or it's not sincere, like, we have a million things going through our own heads that make us think, you know, what's the point and really saying this, but in fact, when you hear something nice about yourself, a lot of that stuff fades away, and you're just like, I just feel good, right? And we tend to forget that.
Michele Calpin:And so the idea of this sincerity of it, or who it's coming from, or like to get that habit in your head as a leader, or even as a person, like what kind of advice would you give us in terms of, okay, we want to show up more. We want to ask for things more, but we also want to convey gratitude and give compliments more, should we just sort of say, Oh, I'm just going to start doing that? Or how would you suggest we start that?
Vanessa Bohns:I would I mean, I'd say for sure, with compliments and gratitude, I'd say when you see people doing something work relevant, that you really appreciate that you should make an effort to go ahead and give them a compliment, you know, express your gratitude for extra efforts they're putting in. And I think, you know, I say work relevant, because on the other hand, you know, you don't want to compliment someone who just gave a great presentation on their hair, right? Because that compliments are meant to convey respect, like you belong here, we respect you for the role that you play here. And that's what feels good. It's like, people accept me, they respect me, and complimenting someone on something that's not role consistent. That's just about like, the way they look, for example, can actually convey the opposite can convey a sense of disrespect. So you want to make sure that the compliments are appropriate for the context. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't ever compliment someone on their looks like, especially equal colleagues will often you know, say like, Hey, I love your outfit, etc. And that can also feel good. But especially when you're in a position of leadership or power, you know, you really want to focus more on work relevant kinds of things that convey respect for your employees. Right. But yeah, I'd say definitely in the positive domain, more compliments, more gratitude. And they asked a domain. Interestingly, I think there's kind of two takeaways. So one of the big things we find is that people are more likely to agree to do things for us than we realize. But in many cases, that's because they find it really hard to say no. And so sometimes that means people are agreeing to things that you know, which make them take on too much work in certain domains, which might make them agree to things that they actually feel uncomfortable with. that they think are the wrong course of action or even think, you know, in the extremes in some cases we've seen, you know, they think might be kind of borderline unethical. Right. And they won't push back necessarily. So it is I think it's being aware of why people are more likely to say yes, then we think that, in fact, pushback is usually less than we expect. And that can be a good thing. And lots of reasons. And it can mean that we don't have to push so hard and a lot of a lot of situations. It also means that in some cases, people might agree to things they actually think are wrong, right. And in those cases, ideally, you're kind of giving people the space and the time to come up with a way to tell you that they actually disagree with something you might be asking. I think that's especially important for leaders to create that, that space, and that sense of psychological safety that people can say, you know, what, I feel a lot of pressure to do what you asked, but you know, I'm gonna send you an email, expressing why I actually think that maybe this isn't the greatest idea.
Michele Calpin:Yeah, that psychological safety point is really big these days in terms of a trust based environment. And that makes a lot of sense. In the last chapter of your book, you have strategies we can use to better understand and use our influence. Can you talk about these, and in particular, the seven minute writing exercise that saved a few people's marriages? Yeah,
Vanessa Bohns:definitely. So um, so one of the reasons that we tend to underestimate our influence is totally by design of just our physiology, right? When we look out at the world, we're looking at the world through our own two eyeballs, right. And so we see everyone else in the world, we see how they're behaving that's interacting and affecting one another, we see the things they're doing that's affecting us, right. And so we see this scene of influence, but the thing that's missing just by design, right is ourselves, we don't see ourselves in that same picture. And so for that reason, we don't see the things that we are doing, that we're putting out there that people are responding to, right, so we tend to see all the action out here, assume the reason that person is behaving in this weird way is because something about them, because I only see them right as opposed to maybe something weird, I said, or something strange I'm doing that they're responding to. And so one of the sort of takeaways from that, that I've recommended to try to intervene and try to get out of your own head is kind of a first step of being more aware of your influence is little writing exercises, where you actually visualize or write about a scenario where you are seeing yourself and other people behaving from a third party perspective, from a fly in the wall. You know, maybe some people describe it as like watching yourself on a TV show, something that gets you out of your own head. So you see yourself essentially, and this comes from a number of different research areas, one of which is described in a book called shatter, which is great by my graduate students, graduate school friend, Ethan Cross, but also one that was done by Eli Finkel who works with couples. And what he did is he had newlywed couples do this writing exercise. And he was trying to combat what happens with newlyweds where they start out with a certain marital satisfaction, and then of course, declines over the first and second year, right. And it's just a natural kind of part of get married, you get kind of off that newlywed high starts going down. But he wanted to see if there's a way to fix that and to actually keep their marital satisfaction at the you know, the level it started. And so he had them do this really simple exercise, it was a three times in a year, basically, they would write for seven minutes about an argument that they had had with their spouse from a third party perspective. So they would just write in a journal write again, just three times a year, so a total of 21 minutes in a whole year. And they would write about, you know, all the different things that a friend of theirs, if they were watching the argument would notice. And so because our writing from this third party perspective, you know, they were able to kind of step out of their own heads, regulate their emotions a little bit better in that situation, and also recognize the things that they were doing, right that maybe their spouse had been responding to and the ways they were contributing to this dynamic. And he found that this simple writing exercise actually did have the effects they had hoped, where it maintained marital satisfaction for the first two years after getting married. Whereas the people who didn't do this, their marital satisfaction dropped as is typically found. And so just doing something as simple as that thinking back to a last difficult conversation, right with an employee a difficult meeting, something that didn't go the way that you had hoped, finding a way to take some time to either write about it, you know, or even just spend some time visualizing it and reminding yourself of the things you did in that situation. What did other people see you doing that might have been contributing to it to a dynamic you would have preferred not to have happened.
Michele Calpin:So taking a neutral third party perspective on yourself, helps you understand your peace in the dynamic.
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, exactly. Yep.
Michele Calpin:Great. Um, you also say that people like us more than we think. And then we underestimate how much we're liked and how much they just want to get along with us. I think that was so interesting.
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, this is a great program of research done by a researcher at Wharton named Erica Boothby, who does this thing called, she calls the liking gap. And what she basically shows is that when two people interact, right, they both kind of walk away from that interaction, wondering about all the things that they did wrong, that they wish they had, you know, said more articulately, that they should have asked more questions, they should have talked more like, I can't believe I brought up this, you know, silly topic, I'm sure that person was so bored by that topic. You know, we do this whole kind of post mortem after a conversation, where we're pretty harsh on ourselves. But what's interesting is that the other person is doing the same thing. And in fact, when they walk away from that conversation, they're recalling about us a more sort of just generalized, nice feeling, right? They're just kind of they didn't obsess about all those things that we thought that we said wrong, or, you know, things that we shouldn't have brought up there more thinking, like, that was a nice person that I've talked to, but I feel like I talk too much, right? And so she's actually done studies where she has measured people's impressions of how much they liked the other person after having a conversation and all these different contexts, and then measured the ask the other person, how much did you like them? Right, and she shows that both people walk away thinking the other person like them less than they actually did. And so it's another place where we tend to be overly harsh on ourselves. We tend to underestimate how charitable people are in a lot of situations that at the end of the day, people want to connect, they want to be agreeable, right? That is kind of a fundamental of human connection and interaction. But we often go into situations thinking that people are out to sort of judge us negatively, like they want to be critical they want. They're looking for all our flaws, when in fact, that's not true in most cases.
Michele Calpin:But that's very optimistic and heartening, so I'm glad to hear that. I'm going to turn to a couple of questions that have come in from the audience. Thank you so much for posting them and if you could keep posting them, that would be great.
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Unknown:Nelson Fresco President Miele Canada
Nelson Fresco:We pivoted by compressing our five year online strategy into the last five weeks
Unknown:Surprised? Don't be. Nelson is a member of PEO leadership, Canada's premier peer to peer advisory firm
Nelson Fresco:PEO leadership helped me develop my ability to lead with speed, we've seen a substantial increase in online sales and Miele offices worldwide are following our Canadian example.
Unknown:The time to step up and lead is now go to PEO-leadership.com.
Michele Calpin:So the first one is given the power imbalance between leaders and followers, and the impact of speech and ask Can you comment on the importance of self awareness and emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness? How can leaders learn or understand the impact of their ass on those around them?
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, I think that's a spot on question. That is exactly the kind of thing that I hope to get at with kind of these considerations of the power imbalance, the fact that people do find it hard to say no, when you're in a leadership position, and they find it hard to kind of argue against anything that you might say, right. And so one of the other strategies I talked about in the book is this is this strategy of getting perspective instead of taking perspective. And so I mentioned first, you know, a little while ago, that people in leadership positions are less likely to sort of spontaneously try to take the perspectives of their of their colleagues and particularly their lower power colleagues, right. Um, and the thing is, it's, you know, it's great to suggest that you take people's perspectives more and try to understand how your words might be coming across to them. And a lot of people have recommended that I mean, even Dale Carnegie and How to Win Friends and Influence People says, like, one of the ways to influence people have to take their perspective. But there's a problem with perspective taking that a lot of people don't talk about, which is that when you try to take someone's perspective, right, you never actually leave your own head. It's like an exercise in your own head of trying to figure out what someone else is thinking or how someone else might be reacting to something you said, if you had a certain intention in mind when you said something, right. You're gonna assume that intention came across more than it may have, right you're going to kind of give yourself The benefit of the doubt and assume they knew what you really meant, right? If you, for example, had a different experience in a certain domain right than somebody else, you might think that person is reacting to a situation that they might be struggling with, in a similar way that you did. Right when, in fact, they may have a very different experience. So some research shows, for example, that people have been through a divorce, kind of project, their experience of that divorce and other people's experiences of divorce. And so they kind of think they know how that other person feels, even if they're having a very different kind of experience. And so what researchers have suggested to combat this, right is instead of trying to take other people's perspectives, and never getting out of your own head, to try to get perspective, which is the the phrase they use, and you get perspective, and actually a very simple and straightforward way. And that's by actually asking people what they're thinking or how they're reacting to things that you said, right. And that's the only way you can really get out of your own head, as much as you want to try to understand other people's perspectives until you get someone else outside of your head to say, this is how I felt when you said that, right? This is how I interpreted this, or a third party perspective, right? If you talk to someone outside of the situation, how do you think this person might have taken what I said, and all of a sudden, what the research shows is that when you try to take someone's perspective, you're actually pretty inaccurate at guessing how they feel. But as soon as you start to ask them, not surprisingly, you get super accurate, and now you understand how they feel. So that does take creating, again, we talked about psychological safety involves creating a situation where people feel comfortable expressing what they really feel, and telling you how they interpreted something. But really, until you get people who are willing to open up and say, Oh, I thought this is what you meant. Let me just clarify, this is how I took this right and get out of your own head, you're really not going to be able to understand the exact impact you're having on people.
Michele Calpin:That's great. Thank you. So ask more, just listen and just say is this how do you feel about this? This is coming across well?
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah. Yeah.
Michele Calpin:I think this is a really good question about remote work. You're talking about being in person and but we're, we're hybrid a lot of the time. So how do you have this influence when you're not in person, and we're remotely working?
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, and this is, um, I'll say there is an unfortunate side of remote and hybrid work, which is that you do lose a certain amount of influence, like, there's just a lot of research showing that being in person really does have more of an impact. And that, especially in hybrid environments, that people who are not in person can kind of get left behind, if you don't actively try to manage that and make sure that they continue to have influence. So there's a few suggestions in terms of continuing to have influence in hybrid or in remote kinds of contexts. So one is not to let go of the kind of informal interactions where you just talk about stuff, you know, not in an actual meeting that we get when we're in person, right? The coffee dates, the drinks, you know, the cocktail hours, it can be hard, it doesn't feel the same when we try to do it over zoom, for example. But it really does mean so much to maintain that kind of connection. And it changes the dynamics of when you actually get in that meeting. And you're talking about work, right? If you have this other context of a person, you know them outside of work, it kind of changes the whole dynamic and the way people are willing to talk and how much you hear that person, right, because now you know, so much more richness about them. So I'd say definitely trying to maintain the socializing as much as possible. One suggestion I make too, is that, you know, we so many of us have zoom fatigue at this point. And it can feel like just another meeting, if you're on Zoom. Phone calls are a very underrated but really useful way to have these kinds of ketchup meetings. It turns out, in some cases, phone calls, we can understand people's emotions better. So there's more of this, like emotional social connection. And part because we're not like trying to manage all the data on the screen, right? We can see ourselves on the screen that's distracting. There's all sorts of other things going on and a video call, but a phone call can actually feel more relaxed and more intimate and can actually sometimes have a better conversation that way, kind of offline. The other thing is to try to make sure, especially in hybrid environments, but I'd say in any event, like everyone's having a chance to speak up in these kinds of zoom meetings, especially with the kind of glitchy Enos of some of the technology, right? It's hard to jump in, you can't just have this open conversation where people's voices are jumping in and you're getting all these different opinions, right? Because you cut people off all of a sudden you can't hear one person you know, there's always awkward Oh, go ahead. were you speaking? So as much as you can sort of manage giving each person time to speak right And over zoom, unfortunately, to some extent, but it's just worth being aware, what you actually say is more important than in like an in person context where you can kind of come up with a word salad and basically get your point across. And people are much more charitable over zoom, it's like, I only hear your voice, I don't see any nonverbals of the room like nodding along to you or anything. Like, I'm just listening to what you have to say, really. And so you do have to focus more on what you actually say, and making a cohesive point that you don't just, you know, jump in with like, a little comment. So those are some suggestions for kind of managing that that dynamic.
Michele Calpin:Thank you very helpful, because I think we're going to be in that dynamic for a little bit of time on unfortunately I think this is a really interesting question. How do you keep people focused on what you were saying, without their attention wandering off? Hmm.
Vanessa Bohns:You know, I'm, I don't know, this is the answer you're looking for. But I think keeping things shorter is a huge way to do that. So there's actually research showing that people who can make their point in shorter kind of bits are more effective influencers, right. And so if people's minds are starting to wander, it suggests that maybe you are kind of speaking about a particular topic for too long. So I'd say keeping the main point sort of nice and short and concise is a way to keep people's attention.
Michele Calpin:I actually had a question, because you mentioned fear of embarrassment as humans. And we haven't had a question yet. And I think diversity, equity and inclusion are very important for everybody, particularly leaders these days, and the fear of embarrassment is holding us back in that regard. Can you just talk a little bit more about that just to bring it to our attention so that we understand that? Because it it? We need to speak out, but we're fear of being embarrassed.
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah. And I, I like to kind of start with a quick anecdote, because I think that people tend to assume embarrassment is this kind of trivial emotion that how could that really play a role in equity? Like, how could you ever put embarrassment over, you know, someone making a racist comment or something, and it feels like very trivial and hard to believe, but one of the examples I love to give is people who are choking at the dinner table, right? People's immediate response, when they're choking at the dinner table is to stand up and what leave, right they they exit the situation, because they feel so embarrassed to be going to to in this like an uncontrollable embarrassing situation in front of a group of people. And so when most people wind up dying of choking, it's because they're alone, and they've left any people who could actually help them. So this, it tends to be a very common response is to put embarrassment over literally a life or death kind of situation. And so it just shows you how powerful of an emotion embarrassment can be. And there have been studies showing that, for example, you know, when people ask women, if you were in an interview context, and someone were to start asking you these inappropriate questions, that are, you know, basically sexually harassing, right, so questions about your boyfriend or your bra, women say like, I would obviously tell the interviewer that was inappropriate, I would leave, I would call them out, I would do something about it. And I would feel angry. When the same researchers unbelievably, unbelievably, were able to actually stage a situation where they did interview people, and they added these kind of harassment type questions, write those very questions into the interview. Hardly any of the women did anything about it. Instead, they kind of smiled and nodded and try to appease the interviewer. And in fact, instead of feeling angry, like they imagined they would, they actually felt anxious and embarrassed. And it was hard to actually come up with the words to say something in the moment. Similar things have been found for calling out racist and homophobic remarks. So when people are asking the abstract, what would you do if someone made a racist comment? What would you do if someone made a homophobic comment in you know, a group? Everyone we all say like I would say something, I would stand up and do something. When they actually staged these experiments where someone does that. Most people don't say anything. They we underestimate sort of how difficult it is in the moment to get over that fear of embarrassment, the social risk of standing up and saying something of threatening someone's face. All the ways we convinced ourselves that maybe they didn't mean it like that, you know, the situation feels ambiguous, and why even mention it and embarrass everybody involved if it's not really clear, right? And so, in fact, embarrassment can hold us back from pointing out a lot of problematic behaviors, especially gray areas, where you're, you're more likely to give someone the benefit of the doubt because embarrassment would be such a painful, uncomfortable kind of dynamic tension. So it really can play a role in situations like that, and in our willingness to be bystanders and actually intervene when we see problematic behaviors.
Michele Calpin:So this perpetuates the microaggression issue. So what would you say then to leaders and people that are trying to combat this knowing that embarrassment is holding people back? What's the what's the antidote? What should we be doing?
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah. So you know, one of the things that's been really effective and combating things like sexual harassment and problematic behavior, other types of problematic behaviors in an organizational culture is actually bystander intervention training. Like basically teaching people how to deal with that feeling in the moment, and all those feelings that are going to come up where you convince yourself, you know, maybe they didn't mean it this way. Giving people scripts to use to be able to actually stand up and say something, a lot of times in the moment, we don't know what to say, right. But if you already have a script, that is practice, you already know, if I encounter this situation, here's how I'm going to deal with it. Here's how I'm going to feel I can't anticipate what I'm going to feel. But I know what I'm going to do in response to that feeling right, the more you can kind of plan ahead for a situation like that, the more comfortable you are speaking up. And so I think that has been a very effective sort of training.
Michele Calpin:That's very helpful. Thank you. I, I think that's a really good idea. Good advice. And we had some questions that came in ahead of time as well from the audience. And one of them was how do you influence up?
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, this is a question I get a lot right about upward influence. Because I think also we think of power and influence as something that comes from authority that comes from hierarchy. And we tend to assume that we don't have a lot of influence, the lower we are on the ladder. And in fact, so there's research showing, for example, that we underestimate how much the people above us are actually want to hear our advice and our ideas. So there are some researchers who showed that, for example, people who are younger, when given the option to give advice to people who are their age, or older, they vast majority of these participants in this study said, I'll give advice to people my age, because the people who are older, you know, older as wiser, they're not going to be receptive to this advice, they're not going to be interested. But in fact, when they did studies where they had people give advice to people who are equal level or above them, both groups were equally appreciative and found the advice really helpful and implemented the advice, right. And so sometimes, even when we have a lot of knowledge in a domain, we hesitate to try to bring it up to the people above us, or we think that they're not really gonna be receptive to it. And that may actually be a bias, they may actually be more receptive to it, than we tend to think. And so that is also kind of indicative of a certain type of influence, informational influence. So you can have influence and power through authority, you can also have it by just knowing certain things. So the more you kind of develop a domain of expertise, that would be interesting to people who are above you, the more you can influence upwards and kind of bring that information to, again, the people above you. Another way of influencing upwards is through social contact. So we talked a little bit about in a remote, remote context, how important it is to maintain those kind of extracurricular socializing sorts of contact with other people. But that's also another way to maintain influence, because one of the biggest findings and influence the kind of most consistent, and it's not surprising when you say it, but we often forget is that we are influenced by people we like, right? So if someone you really like and think is cool, tells you to try something out a new restaurant, or you know, a new show, you're more likely to watch that show than someone that you don't like as much or you don't know as well. And so, in that way, the more you can kind of develop these outside relationships with people and have people get to know you. And like you, the more when you speak, their ears perk up, right, the more that they are willing to sort of hear you out. And so as simple as it is, you know, and it's, you know, the old kind of networking thing. That is a way to have upward influence. And I'll just add that there is also research I talked about in the book, suggesting that we think that we, you know, need to work harder to like network and be friends with people than we actually do. But in fact, you know, a little bit of networking can go a long way and you're actually you know, more connected to people then you tend to think,
Michele Calpin:yeah, I remember reading that you said that. People underestimate how connected and their their their likeability and they think everyone else is. It's like the social media effect, I guess.
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, exactly. We think you know, everyone else is friends with everyone. Everyone else is going out all the time. And were the home bodies on the couch who have no friends to take it to the extreme. But there's so many more people just like us, right? We're much more similar to other people and more social and more connected than we give ourselves credit.
Michele Calpin:Here's another question How should and it's relates to influence up? How should Junior Professionals Network with those senior in a way that creates connection and a relationship you mentioned that have something to say, and you know, have some some sort of value and also just go for it because they appreciate it. But is there any other ways that they can create a connection in a relationship with more senior professionals?
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, you know, I actually think that asking for advice and asking for mentorship is a really powerful way to connect with people who are above you. It will give you that advice and mentorship, which is helpful. But it also creates this warm feeling in the person who's being asked, all of a sudden, you feel like this person admires you and looks up to you and kind of wants to be like you. And so that can make someone automatically kind of feel warm towards you. And it's also not a strange or inappropriate feeling. Ask in a workplace write to say, you know, I'd really love some advice in this particular domain. I really love what you've done in this particular area. I'm really looking for a mentor. And I'd love if you would be willing to be my mentor. That's a really great way I think, to start to develop that that relationship.
Michele Calpin:Great. Thanks. That's a that's an another great idea. This also came in ahead of time, what is the single most effective formula to prepare for a compelling influence conversation?
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, so I have a few thoughts about this one. So one of my biggest ones is that I think we tend to overcomplicate influence. And I think we think that we need to make this super compelling argument and this really persuasive pitch, and and many ways, simply kind of saying what we think and just supporting it, right, and making just a basic pitch, not kind of overthinking, it can often go farther than we think. But my other piece of advice kind of goes back to what we were saying before about how we tend to presume more pushback and a lack of receptiveness, right? If instead, you kind of presume before you go into a meeting or conversation, where you actually want to put something forward, if you presume that actually people are going to be open to this, that sets you up to make your argument at the right level, right. So if we think no one's gonna go for this, we often do one of two things, we either really downplay it, we kind of one way to say it would be to negotiate with ourselves, before we negotiate with the other person, right? We, we kind of take our big idea, we make it smaller, so that maybe they'll be receptive to the smaller idea. Or we, you know, push really hard. And we come in, you know, as we mentioned earlier, like guns blazing, and we just push, push, push, push. But if you assume, actually, if people hear this, they're going to be receptive to it. At the end of the day, they may have questions, they may have pushed back and you need answers for that. But as a starting place, they're going to be receptive to this, if I can actually explain, just explain it to them, then you're kind of just explaining it to them with this presumption that you will get it and you will like it. And I think that sets you up at a nice kind of level for making your your argument.
Michele Calpin:That makes sense. That's a good mindset to go in with. There's a question. And I didn't understand the difference, but I get it now. Any tips on being a more effective persuader? So rather than just influence someone persuading someone? Hmm, yeah.
Vanessa Bohns:So actually, so it does kind of depend on what you mean, by persuasion, I assume. I mean, like, change someone's mind in addition to their behavior? Maybe? Um, yeah, I mean, I think, again, a lot of it comes down to some of the things we've talked about already. And not to be too repetitive. But it really a lot of it is, first of all, you know, meeting people where they are ideally in person, if you can, one thing, here's one more concrete sort of strategy would be finding out what someone else cares about. So this is a big way in which people you know, talk about persuasion is you want to find out what somebody else cares about, and then mirror what they care about in your persuasive pitch. Right? So whatever it is, you're arguing for, you know, find out does this person really just care about the bottom line? And then your argument should really needs to focus on the bottom line, does this person really want to improve diversity in the organization? You know, then you make sure your pitch includes something about that. Are there higher order values that you can tap into? Right? So do you just really value work life balance? Do you really value hard work? Whatever it is, you want to make sure that You can as much as possible understand what the other person cares about what they value and try to mirror that. Another thing, so Zoe chance is another influence researcher, and she has a book called influences your superpower, which is great. And I recommend that book as well as mine. And she has a question that you can ask people, which is basically like, what would it take to get you to do this thing. And that allows the person to tell you exactly what they do care about, like what the thing is that's holding them back from something or the thing that they, you know, really would want you to take into consideration. So again, that that combines a bunch of things that combines like getting perspective, not just trying to guess what they care about your basically asking them, but also trying to mirror what they care about in the end to make your persuasive pitch.
Michele Calpin:Another question is, given your comments, read the writing exercises, for your see yourself from a third party perspective, can we assume you're a big believer in the 360 degree feedback process?
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, I think you know, I do really like that. I think that is a great way that people get feedback on things that they don't always see where we're really bad at giving people feedback, and a lot of contacts. And that is a great time, I've seen a lot of, you know, students here and elsewhere, just learn all sorts of things from getting feedback that they wouldn't otherwise get. So yes, I think I think that can be really helpful.
Michele Calpin:The difference between persuasion and manipulation? And how do you ensure you don't cross that line?
Vanessa Bohns:Yeah, you know, I think this is so important. And I think that so many people forget to consider this part of persuasion. Like, we're so focused on gaining influence, you know, one thing I talk about a lot of all the books and all the tips out there, and all the seminars on like, here's how to be more influential, right. And we often forget that in some cases, we actually should be less influential, right. And I think that's like, where that line between persuasion and manipulation can be sort of drawn these points where, in fact, you know, manipulation is, like, I'm not being totally honest with you, you know, I'm trying to convince you to do something I know that you don't really want to do. So all those things kind of come into play. And I in particular, I'm very sensitive to that and influence research, the way I talk about it, I usually make a distinction not between persuasion and manipulation, but between compliance and consent. So you can get people to do something for you, you can get them to comply. Like, we have studies where we've gotten people to vandalize library books, just because it's hard to say no, right? But they didn't want to do it. And they felt bad afterwards. And that can affect their trust in you, right? If you're a boss or a colleague, it can have all sorts of negative consequences. So it's finding ways not just to get people to do things you want. But to get them to want to do the things that you want to feel good about it to feel like they could have said no, if they wanted to. And so ways to do that is to actually be okay with no to get more comfortable yourself with them, saying no, potentially, and making sure that that it's clear to them as well that they can do that.
Michele Calpin:Great. And I'm going to ask this last question, and then I'll just come back with some, maybe some takeaways for us at the end, and best practices for leaders to influence their company's culture.
Vanessa Bohns:I'll give one example, which is we have some research on the burnout people get from having emails at all hours of the day, right? So lots of people experience burnout these days, because we're attached to our phones, we hear that thing all the time. And leaders for one often don't realize the extent to which they contribute to that dynamic, right by being themselves by modeling this constant on, you know, workplace dynamic, where I'm sending emails, you know, 10 o'clock on a Friday, for example. And so I think the more that leaders can model the kind of culture that they want to see, the more they can express appreciation, express gratitude, be okay with work life balance, and actually showed that they take vacations, they, you know, tell people, they don't have to respond to them on the weekend and things like that, the more you can model the behaviors you want to see, the better and it really, especially for leaders, right? People are watching them all the time, more than they tend to realize, and they really are picking up on what's okay, no matter what you say. You could say I care about work life balance, you send an email, you know, on a Saturday afternoon, expect someone to reply. That's what they hear. They don't hear I care about work life balance, they see that you don't and so modeling that behavior, I think is really critical.
Michele Calpin:That makes a lot of sense. The role modeling. Well, I didn't underestimate the amount of tips and tools that you gave today Vanessa? I mean, just your the box on influence. So maybe just As we wrap up, are there a couple of things, three things that we should all be thinking of as we walk away from this webcast today?
Vanessa Bohns:Sure, I mean, if I were to say like three sort of practical things to do, definitely express more compliments and gratitude, it means more than you realize to your employees. Be more aware of the power of the ask that you can get the things you want more easily than you think, you know, in all sorts of contexts. I've even interviewed Dean's asking for millions of dollars, right? And they, they show a lot of similar sorts of, of biases. But it's also hard for people to say no, so be aware of that as well. And be aware of how the communication medium that you're using affects your influence, right. So use it for your advantage. If you want to make people feel more like they can say no, use email, because that gives them the space and time to think about how they want to respond to you. If you really want to kind of get what you need, right in that moment. Do it face to face, right, but kind of modulate how you want to influence someone using the medium now now that we have access to all these different media and everyone's so comfortable with it. I think that opens up a lot of ways to use it in ways that we that will make us better influencers and free up people to say no if they want to.
Michele Calpin:That's great. Thank you so much for your time, Vanessa, we really appreciated it. And it was fantastic. So hope everyone has a great day. And as I said, if you're interested in pure leadership, please check us out. Everyone.
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