'You Have More Influence Than You Think' with Vanessa Bohns

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.

Episode Transcript

Leon Goren (00:00):
Hi, I'm Leon Goren, president of PEO leadership, a
peer to peer leadership advisoryfirm. We're an amazing community
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(00:23):
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PEO-leadership.com. Specialthanks to Cleveland Clinic for
helping us bring you today's peoleadership's way forward
podcast.

Michele Calpin (00:38):
Welcome to the PEO live webcast. On the way
forward series. My name isMichele Calpin, I'm a co owner
and executive advisor of PEOleadership. And I'm thrilled to
welcome Vanessa this morning,we're going to be talking about
influence. If you're notfamiliar with PEO leadership,
welcome to the community PEOleadership is a peer to peer

(01:01):
advisory leadership firm. And wework with executives,
entrepreneurs in Canada. Andthey work in peer to peer
leadership teams. We also bringin experts like Vanessa to help
us learn and grow. And we alsohave a leadership conference
once a year. So if you'reinterested in to leadership,
then I'm going to ask Kelly toput in the chat, her email and

(01:24):
also our website. So pleasecheck us out. So let me formally
welcome Vanessa. Vanessa is asocial psychologist and a
professor of organizationalbehavior at Cornell University.
She is a sought after expert onpersuasion and influence. And
she's written an excellent bookcalled you have more influence

(01:45):
than you think. And you can seeit but it's anyway, here it is
here. And Vanessa also has aconnection to Toronto, she did
her postdoc at University ofToronto where she met her
husband. So she's familiar withCanadians and comes up here
quite a bit, she said. So, um, Ijust wanted to mention how this

(02:05):
webcast will be structured. SoVanessa, and I will chat for
about 25 minutes. And then I amencouraging you to post your
questions in the q&a box. Andwe'll get to those questions
after that. So Vanessa, I reallyenjoyed your book, it made me
think of how much I enjoyed mypsychology class back in

(02:25):
university, because you have somany research studies in here
and stats that are socompelling. And you also have
tips for us as leaders in termsof influence. So it is both
interesting, and also veryuseful. So let me just dive
right in. You're right, that oneof the most effective influence
tactics we can have is justshowing up. So can you explain a

(02:49):
little bit more about that?

Vanessa Bohns (02:51):
Sure. And first, let me say hi to everybody,
welcome. And thank you so muchfor having me, it is a pleasure
to be here. And Toronto doeshave a very special place in my
heart. Um, yeah. So one of thethings I talk about in the book,
the very first influence tacticI talk about is just showing up.
And one of the reasons that Isort of make that one of the I

(03:14):
forefront that, in a way, isthat when we think about
influence, we tend to have akind of narrow, formal idea
about what influence means andwhat influence is. And we tend
to think of influence as meaningthe person who's standing there,
in the front of the room, youknow, with the PowerPoint,
giving the presentation with amicrophone in front of the

(03:35):
podium, right? The person who'ssort of capturing the attention
of the entire room thateverybody's looking at, and the
person who's speaking. But infact, influence is so much more
than that. And we influencepeople all the time in all sorts
of subtle ways. And for any ofus who have actually been that
person who's in the front of theroom kind of looking out, we

(03:56):
know that we're looking out atall those faces in the room and
responding to their reactions,right. So if those people are
nodding and smiling, we kind ofthink we're onto something, and
we keep going in that direction.
And maybe we convince ourselvesthat yeah, that was a really
good idea. If those people arefrowning, or if someone in the
room looks really troubled bysomething we've said, we might

(04:17):
start to doubt it a little bitand maybe explain it a little
more. And maybe the conversationshifts a little bit. And one of
the reasons I point out thissort of power of being in the
audience, is because when we'resitting there in the audience,
whether it's an actualpresentation, or if it's a
meeting, we often forget thatjust by being there, you know,

(04:40):
we use the word coming to thetable, right? Just by being
there by being present. We areshaping the discussion around us
in ways that we might notrealize, and many of us feel
like we need to really takeadvantage of being at the table
and it's great if you havethings to say and you want to
voice them and I also talk alittle bit about how that's
another great influence strategythat we underestimate sort of

(05:02):
the power of. But even if you'rejust sitting there, you're
having an impact on what's beingdiscussed more than you realize.
Another example I like to giveis you can imagine a meeting
full of men talking aboutemployee benefits, right? All of
a sudden put one woman at thattable. And even if she never
says a thing, all of a sudden,people start to notice her,

(05:24):
right? And maybe they, it makesthem think of maternity
benefits, or parental leave orsomething like that. And now
they're throwing that into themix. And they're having more of
a conversation about that,right, simply by noticing that
person. And in fact, we tend tohave a psychological bias that
makes us think that peoplearen't noticing us as much as
they actually are. But people donotice us, they tune their

(05:47):
messages to us, that shapes whatthey think about that message,
and it can shape conversations.
And that's all from just beingthere. Not saying a word.

Michele Calpin (05:58):
So interesting.
I remember you mentioned aresearch study where you had
people speak, and just by sayingit, you believe it, I thought
that was so you being in theroom and getting the message
tailored to you, you actuallystart to believe what you're
saying, even though it's notnecessarily originating from
you.

Vanessa Bohns (06:19):
That's right. So that's a phenomenon called The
saying is believing effect. Andwhat we do is we do something
called Audience tuning, when wetalk to another person, right?
If I think you have a certainopinion on something, I tailor
the way I talk about aparticular topic to kind of fit
your opinion, because I feellike that's going to go better,
right? We're going to have abetter conversation, you're

(06:39):
going to like me more if I justkind of gently tailor what I'm
saying to meet your opinion. Andthen you're happy with that, and
you smile, and you're okay. Andthat actually makes me feel like
what I said, made sense. And nowthat I've said it, you've
confirmed it, I start to believethat a little more. And again,
that's not from you know, I'vethat person has basically shaped
my belief, that person I'mspeaking to, without saying a

(07:02):
word, but just be by being thatperson I'm speaking to by being
my audience, which is kind of afascinating effect when you
really think about it.

Michele Calpin (07:11):
Okay, so we need to show up, that's a big thing.
Can you talk about just theeffectiveness of influencing
someone, because I mean, we'reall busy, we all email and we
try to do things quickly. Now,even your text a lot, but the
effectiveness of face to faceversus emailing?

Vanessa Bohns (07:29):
Yeah, so this is something that comes up in a lot
of the different types ofinfluence I talked about in the
book. So we talked aboutpresence, and how people notice
you more than you realize in aroom. But if you're
communicating through email, andnot in person meetings, of
course, that kind of takes awaythat form of influence. Other

(07:49):
things I talk about is the factthat when we speak up about
something, sometimes just makingit clear, our stance or opinion
on something is enough tochange. Again, the conversation
in the room and what people arethinking, even if we don't state
it perfectly are, you know, inthe most articulate way, I also
talk about asking for things andhow people are more likely to do

(08:11):
things for us than we think thething is that all those things
are incredibly powerful inperson. And they're really
diluted over email. And it'ssomething that we tend not to
fully appreciate. So we havestudies, where we've had people
ask someone for something right,make a request that they'd like
someone to do, either overemail, or in person. We've also

(08:34):
done it over zoom and over thephone. And what we find is that
when we're making a request,we're really focused on what
we're asking, and how likely wethink that person is to agree to
that thing like, is what I'masking appropriate? Am I asking
for too much? Might theydisagree with that? And say no,
because I'm just asking for toomuch. So we're really focused on

(08:54):
kind of what we're asking. Butin fact, what matters so much
more is how we're asking andwhether we're asking in person,
or if it can't be in person andthe richest possible way, right?
So we think that sending anemail is going to be just as
effective as asking in person.
And our studies actually showthat people don't differentiate,
they just assume I'm asking forthe same thing. So it shouldn't

(09:15):
matter how I asked, they'll justdecide what they want to do. But
in fact, asking in person, andone of our studies was 34 times
more effective, even thoughparticipants thought that it
would be equally as effective asasking over email. And so we
really do see a delusion of lotsof these influence tactic
tactics as you get further andfurther away from in person

(09:36):
interactions. So a little bitdiluted over zoom and the phone
in fact, they still can't reallymeet the power of being in
person with someone. But thenonce you get to email and text
based interactions, then it'sjust far far, far less
effective. Even though we thinkthat if we write it down we can
we can say things perfectlyright, we can articulate exactly

(09:57):
what we mean and get it alldown. They're, in fact, being
inarticulate, but in person isbetter.

Michele Calpin (10:05):
You talk about asking for things. And a lot of
us don't like asking for things.
It's just, it just feelsuncomfortable, but you really
encourage us to just ask forwhat you want. Um, can you just
talk a little bit about thatmore in terms of why we should
be doing that? And how effectiveit is to ask for something?

Vanessa Bohns (10:22):
Yeah, so this is actually, one of my main areas
of research is on asking, and onour ideas about what will happen
if we ask for something. Andwhat actually happens when we
do, right, as you said, we tendto be nervous, we think, you
know, this person is going tojudge 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 riskywhen we ask for something. And

(10:44):
so that makes us feel veryuncomfortable. But at this
point, I've actually runstudies, where I've had
participants in my studies, askat this point, over 15,000
people for things, which is kindof wild, when I actually added
up how many studies we had done.
And we asked people before theymake their requests of another
person, how likely they thinkthat person is to agree to this

(11:04):
request, then we have them goout and actually ask people for
things. And again, we foundacross all of these different
studies that people tend tothink they're more likely to be
rejected than they actually are.
So people are in fact twice aslikely to say yes to us when we
ask for something, as we think.
And interestingly, you know,it's not just the rejection. I

(11:27):
think that's a huge part of it.
But it's also how we think we'regoing to be judged for asking
for things. And there's otherwork showing that people
actually judge us morepositively. When we ask for
things than we tend to think wethink, especially in domains
like advice, like if I'mstruggling in a project, and I

(11:47):
want some help, or I need someadvice from somebody, we think
that if we actually go tosomeone, and we ask for their
advice, they're going to judgeus negatively, because we're
kind of showing ourvulnerability or showing that we
don't know what we're doing in aparticular domain, or just need
some extra help. In fact, whatthe research shows is that
people judge us more positively,when we ask them for advice for

(12:09):
help with something, becausethey feel kind of flattered that
we would go to them, right. Soit makes sense when you're on
the receiving end, like oh,yeah, you know, of course, I can
help you out with that feelsgood to feel effective, and help
somebody out and feel flatteredthat they think you could help
them. But in fact, we worry somuch when we're asking that we
miss that fact.

Michele Calpin (12:28):
I liked when you talked about someone trying to
cut in line to use the photocopymachine. And everyone's do using
the photocopy machine andsomeone just cut in line and the
percentage of respondents thatlet the person kind of line, it
just was just like, yeah, sure,like people just agree to
things.

Vanessa Bohns (12:46):
Yeah, exactly. So that's a classic study, or as
you said, they just had a lineof 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 reasonthat person needs to make copies
anymore. They're not giving anyadditional information like
that. So people are kind of justgoing along with this mindless

(13:08):
request. That doesn't reallymake that much sense. Right. But
as you said, the compliancerates are so high, they're the
vast majority of people over80%. In that study, whoever
asked that request, let peoplecut in line. And I think what
that really reveals that issurprising to many of us is that
people's default, when we're noteven thinking right when we're

(13:30):
not, we're just kind ofmindlessly processing a request.
People's default is to agree.
Now, when we ask for something,or when we think about
persuading someone, or we thinkabout negotiating, we always
assume that people's default isto push back, right, that we're
trying to get past know thatwe're trying to, you know, get

(13:51):
past this resistance that we'represuming. But in so many
situations, people's default isnot to be resistant. It's not to
say no, it's actually to beagreeable. And we tend to miss
that and kind of go in gunsblazing in some cases, thinking
we need to push past thesebarriers that aren't always
there.

Michele Calpin (14:10):
You talk about guns blazing. And most of the
people on this webcast will beleaders. And one of the things
that really stuck out to me isyou said when they speak, it
comes across often like they'reshouting. And so maybe less is a
bit more than So, maybe justgive us some advice in terms of
being a leader and communicatingwith your organization or your

(14:32):
employees.

Vanessa Bohns (14:34):
Yeah, and the the quote about when you speak you
know, your the quote was by AdamGalinsky a professor at Columbia
who says when when peopleempower whisper, their whisper
sounds like a shout right to thepeople who are in power. So when
you make a gentle suggestion, oryou're kind of just spitballing
in a meeting and you're comingup with possible ideas, the

(14:55):
people around you are takingthose much more seriously than
sometimes you might intend Andso it's really sort of a call to
be attentive to the kinds ofthings you're saying and make
sure that they are landing onpeople in the way that you're
hoping they are. Right? Ifyou're just kind of giving them
a suggestion, and you're hopingthey push back, you need to make
extra sure that that's clear.
Because in many cases, peoplefeel like, Oh, I've got to run

(15:18):
with that, because the boss,that's what the boss likes,
right? That's what they reallywant me to do. And so even
though I don't think it's thebest idea, I'm not necessarily
going to argue back. So one ofthe things, I think, especially
new leaders, but I think even,you know, people who have been
in power for a while or in aleadership position for a while,
we tend to think the hard partis getting other people to

(15:40):
listen to us, and persuadingthem to do things and getting
them to do the things that wewant, right? When in fact, being
an illiterate leadershipposition, 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 reallyseriously. And so it's really
less about convincing people todo things. And it's about making

(16:04):
sure that they're doing thingsthat are going to be worthwhile
for them and for theorganization. And for you kind
of taking, presuming that theyare going to follow through on
these things and thinking aboutreally what's worthwhile to be
saying that's going to kind ofstick in their heads, what's
worth asking them to do thatthey're most definitely going to
wind up doing. And one of thethings I talk about in the book

(16:26):
is the fact that when you're ina position of power, when you're
in a position of leadership, youactually spend less time trying
to take the perspectives of thepeople around you to kind of
check in on how they're takingyour words, right? When you're
in a low power position, and yousay something you obsess about
it, you know, for hours later,maybe days later, wondering
like, oh, did they take it thisway? Did they take it that way?

(16:48):
When you're in a leadershipposition, you're much less
likely to do that the researchshows, so you might spit things
out, and not really think thatmuch about how someone took
something that you said. And soanother thing is to kind of be
aware of that, that, in fact,people may be taking things you
say more seriously, or, youknow, for better and for worse

(17:08):
than you might realize. So acompliment from a leader means
that much more, right. But sodoes a little throwaway comment
that could be read, as you know,hurtful or sarcastic or
something like that.

Michele Calpin (17:23):
That's very interesting. Can you give us a
little bit more about why?
Because, again, there areleaders on this call, why are we
underestimating our influence?
Like, why do they? Why do theynot understand their influence?
Yeah,

Vanessa Bohns (17:39):
so and it's interesting, because, the, in
general, sort of the researchshows that most people
underestimate their influence inmany different situations. And
it also suggests that whenyou're in positions of power
leadership, you're not justdoing it, but you're doing it
even more. And it's kind ofsurprising, because you would
think that if you're in aleadership position, you'd be
really aware of the influencethat you have. But in fact, you

(18:01):
know, as we were talking about,one of the reasons we don't take
the perspectives of people thatmuch, is that we don't really
need to as much when you're in aleadership position. So when
you're in a position of power,you know, you're not trying to
figure out what's going on inthe heads of the people around
you, so that they can, you know,help link you to resources, but

(18:22):
because you are the one who's incharge of the resources, right,
there's just no real need foryou to be constantly monitoring
what you say. So that you're notsort of, you know, for lack of a
better word, like pissing offthe powerful people, because you
are the powerful person, right.
So you're just, it's just not anecessity to constantly have to
check in. And so you have tokind of make yourself check in
because you don't need to, it'snot automatic. Another thing is

(18:44):
that when you're in a positionof power or leadership, you feel
more free to say no to thingsyourself. So people in positions
of power don't usually questionas much the things that they are
allowed to do. Or you know whatpeople want them to do, they're
more likely to make decisionsand say no more freely, if
something is ambiguous, they'renot sure if they should do it,

(19:06):
they just do it. Because I thinkthat's the right thing to do. So
in a classic study, there wasthis really annoying fan blowing
on participants in a study, butsome participants had been
primed to feel like they were ina powerful leadership position,
and others had not. And so theones who hadn't been primed to
think that I'm in a position ofpower, they just kind of, they

(19:26):
weren't sure if they could movethe fan, it was really annoying,
but they just kind of sat thereand discomfort, right? The
powerful people, the people whowere primed to feel like they
were the leader, just move thefan, right? They're just like,
and these are randomly assignedpeople, right? So it just comes
with this kind of sense ofleadership and power. And the
problem with that, though, isthat if you feel like well, you
can just fix things in your youknow, vicinity, you just say no,

(19:51):
if you don't want to dosomething, you often forget that
other people don't feel the sameway. And so if you ask someone
to do something thing you maythink 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 feeluncomfortable, just say no. But
in fact, we forget when we'renot kind of constrained in the
same way as other people, thatother people with less power

(20:13):
don't always feel comfortablespeaking up against us.

Michele Calpin (20:19):
Makes sense, your perspective is skewed. And
you feel everyone is like you.
But that's not the case. Thatmakes a lot of sense. Another
thing that I think is reallyimportant these days is the
concept of conveying gratitude,and complementing each other,
and that we don't do this nearenough. And it really makes a
big difference in people'slives. Can you talk a little bit

(20:39):
about that?

Vanessa Bohns (20:42):
Sure. And it's true this is this is much more
important again, then we tend togive it credit. I think we're
seeing this too, even with thethe great resignation, right
that lots of people, you know,we thought lots of people were
leaving, because all of asudden, all these places were
offering potentially more moneyand more promotions and things
like that. But it turns out thata lot of people were leaving the

(21:04):
workplace cultures that felttoxic to them, workplace
cultures, where they felt likethey weren't being appreciated,
right. And there's work showingthat simple complements, showing
your employees that youappreciate them, you know,
complimenting them, when they doa good job expressing gratitude
for all the hard work they do.
All those things actually meanmore than we realize, and can be

(21:25):
more important to people, thenyou know, financial rewards,
which doesn't mean you shouldn'tpay people the right amount, of
course, you want to keep themhappy and pay them well. But all
those other things matter justas much. And sometimes even more
enough, where people who feellike they're not appreciated
wind up leaving certainsituations even when they're
paid well. And we have severalstudies that we've done, where

(21:49):
we've asked people to give otherpeople compliments. We've had
them guess how good thosecompliments would make the other
person feel. And then we'veactually asked the other people,
How good did that complimentmake you feel? And we find in a
bunch of different contexts,that we tend to underestimate
just how good it feels to get asimple compliment. Other
researchers have shown you know,more sort of extensive gratitude

(22:11):
letters have a similar impactwhere writing someone who did a
really great job, or someone whoreally helped you in your career
path, a gratitude letter meansso much more to them than we
tend to think. And part of it iswe think, you know, we're going
to deliver it awkwardly, wethink it's kind of going to be
annoying, or they won't take usseriously. Or, you know, maybe
they'll even think we're tryingto get something out of them or

(22:32):
butter them up or it's notsincere, like, we have a million
things going through our ownheads that make us think, you
know, what's the point andreally saying this, but in fact,
when you hear something niceabout yourself, a lot of that
stuff fades away, and you'rejust like, I just feel good,
right? And we tend to forgetthat.

Michele Calpin (22:51):
And so the idea of this sincerity of it, or who
it's coming from, or like to getthat 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 wealso want to convey gratitude

(23:12):
and give compliments more,should we just sort of say, Oh,
I'm just going to start doingthat? Or how would you suggest
we start that?

Vanessa Bohns (23:19):
I would I mean, I'd say for sure, with
compliments and gratitude, I'dsay when you see people doing
something work relevant, thatyou really appreciate that you
should make an effort to goahead and give them a
compliment, you know, expressyour gratitude for extra efforts
they're putting in. And I think,you know, I say work relevant,
because on the other hand, youknow, you don't want to

(23:41):
compliment someone who just gavea great presentation on their
hair, right? Because thatcompliments are meant to convey
respect, like you belong here,we respect you for the role that
you play here. And that's whatfeels good. It's like, people
accept me, they respect me, andcomplimenting someone on
something that's not roleconsistent. That's just about

(24:01):
like, the way they look, forexample, can actually convey the
opposite can convey a sense ofdisrespect. So you want to make
sure that the compliments areappropriate for the context.
Now, that doesn't mean that youcan't ever compliment someone on
their looks like, especiallyequal colleagues will often you
know, say like, Hey, I love youroutfit, etc. And that can also
feel good. But especially whenyou're in a position of
leadership or power, you know,you really want to focus more on

(24:23):
work relevant kinds of thingsthat convey respect for your
employees. Right. But yeah, I'dsay definitely in the positive
domain, more compliments, moregratitude. And they asked a
domain. Interestingly, I thinkthere's kind of two takeaways.
So one of the big things we findis that people are more likely
to agree to do things for usthan we realize. But in many

(24:45):
cases, that's because they findit really hard to say no. And so
sometimes that means people areagreeing to things that you
know, which make them take ontoo much work in certain
domains, which might make themagree to things that they
actually feel uncomfortablewith. that they think are the
wrong course of action or eventhink, you know, in the extremes
in some cases we've seen, youknow, they think might be kind

(25:07):
of borderline unethical. Right.
And they won't push backnecessarily. So it is I think
it's being aware of why peopleare more likely to say yes, then
we think that, in fact, pushbackis usually less than we expect.
And that can be a good thing.
And lots of reasons. And it canmean that we don't have to push
so hard and a lot of a lot ofsituations. It also means that

(25:30):
in some cases, people mightagree to things they actually
think are wrong, right. And inthose cases, ideally, you're
kind of giving people the spaceand the time to come up with a
way to tell you that theyactually disagree with something
you might be asking. I thinkthat's especially important for
leaders to create that, thatspace, and that sense of

(25:50):
psychological safety that peoplecan say, you know, what, I feel
a lot of pressure to do what youasked, but you know, I'm gonna
send you an email, expressingwhy I actually think that maybe
this isn't the greatest idea.

Michele Calpin (26:02):
Yeah, that psychological safety point is
really big these days in termsof a trust based environment.
And that makes a lot of sense.
In the last chapter of yourbook, you have strategies we can
use to better understand and useour influence. Can you talk
about these, and in particular,the seven minute writing
exercise that saved a fewpeople's marriages? Yeah,

Vanessa Bohns (26:26):
definitely. So um, so one of the reasons that
we tend to underestimate ourinfluence 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 howthey're behaving that's
interacting and affecting oneanother, we see the things

(26:49):
they're doing that's affectingus, right. And so we see this
scene of influence, but thething that's missing just by
design, right is ourselves, wedon'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 puttingout there that people are
responding to, right, so we tendto see all the action out here,

(27:10):
assume the reason that person isbehaving in this weird way is
because something about them,because I only see them right as
opposed to maybe somethingweird, I said, or something
strange I'm doing that they'reresponding to. And so one of the
sort of takeaways from that,that I've recommended to try to
intervene and try to get out ofyour own head is kind of a first

(27:30):
step of being more aware of yourinfluence is little writing
exercises, where you actuallyvisualize or write about a
scenario where you are seeingyourself and other people
behaving from a third partyperspective, from a fly in the
wall. You know, maybe somepeople describe it as like
watching yourself on a TV show,something that gets you out of

(27:51):
your own head. So you seeyourself essentially, and this
comes from a number of differentresearch areas, one of which is
described in a book calledshatter, which is great by my
graduate students, graduateschool friend, Ethan Cross, but
also one that was done by EliFinkel who works with couples.
And what he did is he hadnewlywed couples do this writing

(28:12):
exercise. And he was trying tocombat what happens with
newlyweds where they start outwith a certain marital
satisfaction, and then ofcourse, declines over the first
and second year, right. And it'sjust a natural kind of part of
get married, you get kind of offthat newlywed high starts going
down. But he wanted to see ifthere's a way to fix that and to

(28:32):
actually keep their maritalsatisfaction at the you know,
the level it started. And so hehad them do this really simple
exercise, it was a three timesin a year, basically, they would
write for seven minutes about anargument that they had had with
their spouse from a third partyperspective. So they would just
write in a journal write again,just three times a year, so a

(28:53):
total of 21 minutes in a wholeyear. And they would write
about, you know, all thedifferent things that a friend
of theirs, if they were watchingthe argument would notice. And
so because our writing from thisthird party perspective, you
know, they were able to kind ofstep out of their own heads,
regulate their emotions a littlebit better in that situation,
and also recognize the thingsthat they were doing, right that

(29:15):
maybe their spouse had beenresponding to and the ways they
were contributing to thisdynamic. And he found that this
simple writing exercise actuallydid have the effects they had
hoped, where it maintainedmarital satisfaction for the
first two years after gettingmarried. Whereas the people who
didn't do this, their maritalsatisfaction dropped as is
typically found. And so justdoing something as simple as

(29:36):
that thinking back to a lastdifficult conversation, right
with an employee a difficultmeeting, something that didn't
go the way that you had hoped,finding a way to take some time
to either write about it, youknow, or even just spend some
time visualizing it andreminding yourself of the things
you did in that situation. Whatdid other people see you doing
that might have beencontributing to it to a dynamic

(29:58):
you would have preferred not tohave happened.

Michele Calpin (30:02):
So taking a neutral third party perspective
on yourself, helps youunderstand your peace in the
dynamic.

Vanessa Bohns (30:12):
Yeah, exactly.
Yep.

Michele Calpin (30:15):
Great. Um, you also say that people like us
more than we think. And then weunderestimate how much we're
liked and how much they justwant to get along with us. I
think that was so interesting.

Vanessa Bohns (30:31):
Yeah, this is a great program of research done
by a researcher at Wharton namedErica Boothby, who does this
thing called, she calls theliking gap. And what she
basically shows is that when twopeople interact, right, they
both kind of walk away from thatinteraction, wondering about all
the things that they did wrong,that they wish they had, you

(30:52):
know, said more articulately,that they should have asked more
questions, they should havetalked more like, I can't
believe I brought up this, youknow, silly topic, I'm sure that
person was so bored by thattopic. You know, we do this
whole kind of post mortem aftera conversation, where we're
pretty harsh on ourselves. Butwhat's interesting is that the

(31:13):
other person is doing the samething. And in fact, when they
walk away from thatconversation, they're recalling
about us a more sort of justgeneralized, nice feeling,
right? They're just kind of theydidn't obsess about all those
things that we thought that wesaid wrong, or, you know, things
that we shouldn't have broughtup there more thinking, like,
that was a nice person that I'vetalked to, but I feel like I

(31:35):
talk too much, right? And soshe's actually done studies
where she has measured people'simpressions of how much they
liked the other person afterhaving a conversation and all
these different contexts, andthen measured the ask the other
person, how much did you likethem? Right, and she shows that
both people walk away thinkingthe other person like them less

(31:56):
than they actually did. And soit's another place where we tend
to be overly harsh on ourselves.
We tend to underestimate howcharitable people are in a lot
of situations that at the end ofthe day, people want to connect,
they want to be agreeable,right? That is kind of a
fundamental of human connectionand interaction. But we often go

(32:18):
into situations thinking thatpeople are out to sort of judge
us negatively, like they want tobe critical they want. They're
looking for all our flaws, whenin fact, that's not true in most
cases.

Michele Calpin (32:31):
But that's very optimistic and heartening, so
I'm glad to hear that. I'm goingto turn to a couple of questions
that have come in from theaudience. Thank you so much for
posting them and if you couldkeep posting them, that would be
great.

Nelson Fresco (32:44):
I was made president just before COVID-19
lockdown began

Unknown (32:47):
Nelson Fresco President Miele Canada

Nelson Fresco (32:50):
We pivoted by compressing our five year online
strategy into the last fiveweeks

Unknown (32:54):
Surprised? Don't be.
Nelson is a member of PEOleadership, Canada's premier
peer to peer advisory firm

Nelson Fresco (33:00):
PEO leadership helped me develop my ability to
lead with speed, we've seen asubstantial increase in online
sales and Miele officesworldwide are following our
Canadian example.

Unknown (33:10):
The time to step up and lead is now go to
PEO-leadership.com.

Michele Calpin (33:14):
So the first one is given the power imbalance
between leaders and followers,and the impact of speech and ask
Can you comment on theimportance of self awareness and
emotional intelligence andleadership effectiveness? How
can leaders learn or understandthe impact of their ass on those
around them?

Vanessa Bohns (33:31):
Yeah, I think that's a spot on question. That
is exactly the kind of thingthat I hope to get at with kind
of these considerations of thepower imbalance, the fact that
people do find it hard to sayno, when you're in a leadership
position, and they find it hardto kind of argue against
anything that you might say,right. And so one of the other

(33:52):
strategies I talked about in thebook is this is this strategy of
getting perspective instead oftaking perspective. And so I
mentioned first, you know, alittle while ago, that people in
leadership positions are lesslikely to sort of spontaneously
try to take the perspectives oftheir of their colleagues and
particularly their lower powercolleagues, right. Um, and the

(34:16):
thing is, it's, you know, it'sgreat to suggest that you take
people's perspectives more andtry to understand how your words
might be coming across to them.
And a lot of people haverecommended that I mean, even
Dale Carnegie and How to WinFriends and Influence People
says, like, one of the ways toinfluence people have to take
their perspective. But there's aproblem with perspective taking
that a lot of people don't talkabout, which is that when you
try to take someone'sperspective, right, you never

(34:38):
actually leave your own head.
It's like an exercise in yourown head of trying to figure out
what someone else is thinking orhow 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 thanit may have, right you're going
to kind of give yourself Thebenefit of the doubt and assume

(35:01):
they knew what you really meant,right? If you, for example, had
a different experience in acertain domain right than
somebody else, you might thinkthat person is reacting to a
situation that they might bestruggling with, in a similar
way that you did. Right when, infact, they may have a very
different experience. So someresearch shows, for example,
that people have been through adivorce, kind of project, their

(35:26):
experience of that divorce andother people's experiences of
divorce. And so they kind ofthink they know how that other
person feels, even if they'rehaving a very different kind of
experience. And so whatresearchers have suggested to
combat this, right is instead oftrying to take other people's
perspectives, and never gettingout of your own head, to try to
get perspective, which is thethe phrase they use, and you get

(35:49):
perspective, and actually a verysimple and straightforward way.
And that's by actually askingpeople what they're thinking or
how they're reacting to thingsthat you said, right. And that's
the only way you can really getout of your own head, as much as
you want to try to understandother people's perspectives
until you get someone elseoutside of your head to say,

(36:09):
this is how I felt when you saidthat, right? This is how I
interpreted this, or a thirdparty perspective, right? If you
talk to someone outside of thesituation, how do you think this
person might have taken what Isaid, and all of a sudden, what
the research shows is that whenyou try to take someone's
perspective, you're actuallypretty inaccurate at guessing
how they feel. But as soon asyou start to ask them, not

(36:31):
surprisingly, you get superaccurate, and now you understand
how they feel. So that does takecreating, again, we talked about
psychological safety involvescreating a situation where
people feel comfortableexpressing what they really
feel, and telling you how theyinterpreted something. But
really, until you get people whoare willing to open up and say,
Oh, I thought this is what youmeant. Let me just clarify, this

(36:53):
is how I took this right and getout of your own head, you're
really not going to be able tounderstand the exact impact
you're having on people.

Michele Calpin (37:00):
That's great.
Thank you. So ask more, justlisten and just say is this how
do you feel about this? This iscoming across well?

Vanessa Bohns (37:08):
Yeah. Yeah.

Michele Calpin (37:10):
I think this is a really good question about
remote work. You're talkingabout being in person and but
we're, we're hybrid a lot of thetime. So how do you have this
influence when you're not inperson, and we're remotely
working?

Vanessa Bohns (37:23):
Yeah, and this is, um, I'll say there is an
unfortunate side of remote andhybrid work, which is that you
do lose a certain amount ofinfluence, like, there's just a
lot of research showing thatbeing in person really does have
more of an impact. And that,especially in hybrid
environments, that people whoare not in person can kind of
get left behind, if you don'tactively try to manage that and

(37:45):
make sure that they continue tohave influence. So there's a few
suggestions in terms ofcontinuing to have influence in
hybrid or in remote kinds ofcontexts. So one is not to let
go of the kind of informalinteractions where you just talk
about stuff, you know, not in anactual meeting that we get when

(38:07):
we're in person, right? Thecoffee dates, the drinks, you
know, the cocktail hours, it canbe hard, it doesn't feel the
same when we try to do it overzoom, for example. But it really
does mean so much to maintainthat kind of connection. And it
changes the dynamics of when youactually get in that meeting.
And you're talking about work,right? If you have this other
context of a person, you knowthem outside of work, it kind of

(38:28):
changes the whole dynamic andthe way people are willing to
talk and how much you hear thatperson, right, because now you
know, so much more richnessabout them. So I'd say
definitely trying to maintainthe socializing as much as
possible. One suggestion I maketoo, is that, you know, we so
many of us have zoom fatigue atthis point. And it can feel like

(38:49):
just another meeting, if you'reon Zoom. Phone calls are a very
underrated but really useful wayto have these kinds of ketchup
meetings. It turns out, in somecases, phone calls, we can
understand people's emotionsbetter. So there's more of this,
like emotional socialconnection. And part because
we're not like trying to manageall the data on the screen,

(39:10):
right? We can see ourselves onthe screen that's distracting.
There's all sorts of otherthings going on and a video
call, but a phone call canactually feel more relaxed and
more intimate and can actuallysometimes have a better
conversation that way, kind ofoffline. The other thing is to
try to make sure, especially inhybrid environments, but I'd say

(39:30):
in any event, like everyone'shaving a chance to speak up in
these kinds of zoom meetings,especially with the kind of
glitchy Enos of some of thetechnology, right? It's hard to
jump in, you can't just havethis open conversation where
people's voices are jumping inand you're getting all these
different opinions, right?
Because you cut people off allof a sudden you can't hear one
person you know, there's alwaysawkward Oh, go ahead. were you

(39:52):
speaking? So as much as you cansort of manage giving each
person time to speak right Andover zoom, unfortunately, to
some extent, but it's just worthbeing aware, what you actually
say is more important than inlike an in person context where
you can kind of come up with aword salad and basically get
your point across. And peopleare much more charitable over

(40:12):
zoom, it's like, I only hearyour voice, I don't see any
nonverbals of the room likenodding along to you or
anything. Like, I'm justlistening to what you have to
say, really. And so you do haveto focus more on what you
actually say, and making acohesive point that you don't
just, you know, jump in withlike, a little comment. So those
are some suggestions for kind ofmanaging that that dynamic.

Michele Calpin (40:34):
Thank you very helpful, because I think we're
going to be in that dynamic fora little bit of time on
unfortunately I think this is areally interesting question. How
do you keep people focused onwhat you were saying, without
their attention wandering off?
Hmm.

Vanessa Bohns (40:50):
You know, I'm, I don't know, this is the answer
you're looking for. But I thinkkeeping things shorter is a huge
way to do that. So there'sactually research showing that
people who can make their pointin shorter kind of bits are more
effective influencers, right.
And so if people's minds arestarting to wander, it suggests

(41:11):
that maybe you are kind ofspeaking about a particular
topic for too long. So I'd saykeeping the main point sort of
nice and short and concise is away to keep people's attention.

Michele Calpin (41:27):
I actually had a question, because you mentioned
fear of embarrassment as humans.
And we haven't had a questionyet. And I think diversity,
equity and inclusion are veryimportant for everybody,
particularly leaders these days,and the fear of embarrassment is
holding us back in that regard.
Can you just talk a little bitmore about that just to bring it

(41:49):
to our attention so that weunderstand that? Because it it?
We need to speak out, but we'refear of being embarrassed.

Vanessa Bohns (41:58):
Yeah. And I, I like to kind of start with a
quick anecdote, because I thinkthat people tend to assume
embarrassment is this kind oftrivial emotion that how could
that really play a role inequity? Like, how could you ever
put embarrassment over, youknow, someone making a racist
comment or something, and itfeels like very trivial and hard
to believe, but one of theexamples I love to give is

(42:22):
people who are choking at thedinner table, right? People's
immediate response, when they'rechoking at the dinner table is
to stand up and what leave,right they they exit the
situation, because they feel soembarrassed to be going to to in
this like an uncontrollableembarrassing situation in front
of a group of people. And sowhen most people wind up dying

(42:43):
of choking, it's because they'realone, and they've left any
people who could actually helpthem. So this, it tends to be a
very common response is to putembarrassment over literally a
life or death kind of situation.
And so it just shows you howpowerful of an emotion
embarrassment can be. And therehave been studies showing that,
for example, you know, whenpeople ask women, if you were in

(43:04):
an interview context, andsomeone were to start asking you
these inappropriate questions,that are, you know, basically
sexually harassing, right, soquestions about your boyfriend
or your bra, women say like, Iwould obviously tell the
interviewer that wasinappropriate, I would leave, I
would call them out, I would dosomething about it. And I would

(43:25):
feel angry. When the sameresearchers unbelievably,
unbelievably, were able toactually stage a situation where
they did interview people, andthey added these kind of
harassment type questions, writethose very questions into the
interview. Hardly any of thewomen did anything about it.
Instead, they kind of smiled andnodded and try to appease the

(43:45):
interviewer. And in fact,instead of feeling angry, like
they imagined they would, theyactually felt anxious and
embarrassed. And it was hard toactually come up with the words
to say something in the moment.
Similar things have been foundfor calling out racist and
homophobic remarks. So whenpeople are asking the abstract,
what would you do if someonemade a racist comment? What

(44:07):
would you do if someone made ahomophobic comment in you know,
a group? Everyone we all saylike I would say something, I
would stand up and do something.
When they actually staged theseexperiments where someone does
that. Most people don't sayanything. They we underestimate
sort of how difficult it is inthe moment to get over that fear
of embarrassment, the socialrisk of standing up and saying

(44:29):
something of threateningsomeone's face. All the ways we
convinced ourselves that maybethey didn't mean it like that,
you know, the situation feelsambiguous, and why even mention
it and embarrass everybodyinvolved if it's not really
clear, right? And so, in fact,embarrassment can hold us back
from pointing out a lot ofproblematic behaviors,

(44:50):
especially gray areas, whereyou're, you're more likely to
give someone the benefit of thedoubt because embarrassment
would be such a painful,uncomfortable kind of dynamic
tension. So it really can play arole in situations like that,
and in our willingness to bebystanders and actually
intervene when we seeproblematic behaviors.

Michele Calpin (45:09):
So this perpetuates the microaggression
issue. So what would you saythen to leaders and people that
are trying to combat thisknowing that embarrassment is
holding people back? What's thewhat's the antidote? What should
we be doing?

Vanessa Bohns (45:22):
Yeah. So you know, one of the things that's
been really effective andcombating things like sexual
harassment and problematicbehavior, other types of
problematic behaviors in anorganizational culture is
actually bystander interventiontraining. Like basically
teaching people how to deal withthat feeling in the moment, and
all those feelings that aregoing to come up where you

(45:43):
convince yourself, you know,maybe they didn't mean it this
way. Giving people scripts touse to be able to actually stand
up and say something, a lot oftimes in the moment, we don't
know what to say, right. But ifyou already have a script, that
is practice, you already know,if I encounter this situation,
here's how I'm going to dealwith it. Here's how I'm going to
feel I can't anticipate what I'mgoing to feel. But I know what

(46:06):
I'm going to do in response tothat feeling right, the more you
can kind of plan ahead for asituation like that, the more
comfortable you are speaking up.
And so I think that has been avery effective sort of training.

Michele Calpin (46:18):
That's very helpful. Thank you. I, I think
that's a really good idea. Goodadvice. And we had some
questions that came in ahead oftime as well from the audience.
And one of them was how do youinfluence up?

Vanessa Bohns (46:33):
Yeah, this is a question I get a lot right about
upward influence. Because Ithink also we think of power and
influence as something thatcomes from authority that comes
from hierarchy. And we tend toassume that we don't have a lot
of influence, the lower we areon the ladder. And in fact, so
there's research showing, forexample, that we underestimate

(46:54):
how much the people above us areactually want to hear our advice
and our ideas. So there are someresearchers who showed that, for
example, people who are younger,when given the option to give
advice to people who are theirage, or older, they vast
majority of these participantsin this study said, I'll give
advice to people my age, becausethe people who are older, you

(47:16):
know, older as wiser, they'renot going to be receptive to
this advice, they're not goingto be interested. But in fact,
when they did studies where theyhad people give advice to people
who are equal level or abovethem, both groups were equally
appreciative and found theadvice really helpful and
implemented the advice, right.
And so sometimes, even when wehave a lot of knowledge in a
domain, we hesitate to try tobring it up to the people above

(47:39):
us, or we think that they're notreally gonna be receptive to it.
And that may actually be a bias,they may actually be more
receptive to it, than we tend tothink. And so that is also kind
of indicative of a certain typeof influence, informational
influence. So you can haveinfluence and power through
authority, you can also have itby just knowing certain things.
So the more you kind of developa domain of expertise, that

(48:01):
would be interesting to peoplewho are above you, the more you
can influence upwards and kindof bring that information to,
again, the people above you.
Another way of influencingupwards is through social
contact. So we talked a littlebit about in a remote, remote
context, how important it is tomaintain those kind of

(48:23):
extracurricular socializingsorts of contact with other
people. But that's also anotherway to maintain influence,
because one of the biggestfindings and influence the kind
of most consistent, and it's notsurprising when you say it, but
we often forget is that we areinfluenced by people we like,
right? So if someone you reallylike and think is cool, tells

(48:45):
you to try something out a newrestaurant, or you know, a new
show, you're more likely towatch that show than someone
that you don't like as much oryou don't know as well. And so,
in that way, the more you cankind of develop these outside
relationships with people andhave people get to know you. And
like you, the more when youspeak, their ears perk up,
right, the more that they arewilling to sort of hear you out.

(49:07):
And so as simple as it is, youknow, and it's, you know, the
old kind of networking thing.
That is a way to have upwardinfluence. And I'll just add
that there is also research Italked about in the book,
suggesting that we think thatwe, you know, need to work
harder to like network and befriends with people than we
actually do. But in fact, youknow, a little bit of networking
can go a long way and you'reactually you know, more

(49:28):
connected to people then youtend to think,

Michele Calpin (49:32):
yeah, I remember reading that you said that.
People underestimate howconnected and their their their
likeability and they thinkeveryone else is. It's like the
social media effect, I guess.

Vanessa Bohns (49:44):
Yeah, exactly. We think you know, everyone else is
friends with everyone. Everyoneelse is going out all the time.
And were the home bodies on thecouch who have no friends to
take it to the extreme. Butthere's so many more people just
like us, right? We're much moresimilar to other people and more
social and more connected thanwe give ourselves credit.

Michele Calpin (50:04):
Here's another question How should and it's
relates to influence up? Howshould Junior Professionals
Network with those senior in away that creates connection and
a relationship you mentionedthat have something to say, and
you know, have some some sort ofvalue and also just go for it
because they appreciate it. Butis there any other ways that
they can create a connection ina relationship with more senior

(50:26):
professionals?

Vanessa Bohns (50:28):
Yeah, you know, I actually think that asking for
advice and asking for mentorshipis a really powerful way to
connect with people who areabove you. It will give you that
advice and mentorship, which ishelpful. But it also creates
this warm feeling in the personwho's being asked, all of a
sudden, you feel like thisperson admires you and looks up

(50:49):
to you and kind of wants to belike you. And so that can make
someone automatically kind offeel warm towards you. And it's
also not a strange orinappropriate feeling. Ask in a
workplace write to say, youknow, I'd really love some
advice in this particulardomain. I really love what
you've done in this particulararea. I'm really looking for a

(51:10):
mentor. And I'd love if youwould be willing to be my
mentor. That's a really greatway I think, to start to develop
that that relationship.

Michele Calpin (51:19):
Great. Thanks.
That's a that's an another greatidea. This also came in ahead of
time, what is the single mosteffective formula to prepare for
a compelling influenceconversation?

Vanessa Bohns (51:32):
Yeah, so I have a few thoughts about this one. So
one of my biggest ones is that Ithink we tend to overcomplicate
influence. And I think we thinkthat we need to make this super
compelling argument and thisreally persuasive pitch, and and
many ways, simply kind of sayingwhat we think and just

(51:53):
supporting it, right, and makingjust a basic pitch, not kind of
overthinking, it can often gofarther than we think. But my
other piece of advice kind ofgoes back to what we were saying
before about how we tend topresume more pushback and a lack
of receptiveness, right? Ifinstead, you kind of presume

(52:15):
before you go into a meeting orconversation, where you actually
want to put something forward,if you presume that actually
people are going to be open tothis, that sets you up to make
your argument at the rightlevel, right. So if we think no
one's gonna go for this, weoften do one of two things, we
either really downplay it, wekind of one way to say it would

(52:35):
be to negotiate with ourselves,before we negotiate with the
other person, right? We, we kindof take our big idea, we make it
smaller, so that maybe they'llbe receptive to the smaller
idea. Or we, you know, pushreally hard. And we come in, you
know, as we mentioned earlier,like guns blazing, and we just
push, push, push, push. But ifyou assume, actually, if people

(52:56):
hear this, they're going to bereceptive to it. At the end of
the day, they may havequestions, they may have pushed
back and you need answers forthat. But as a starting place,
they're going to be receptive tothis, if I can actually explain,
just explain it to them, thenyou're kind of just explaining
it to them with this presumptionthat you will get it and you
will like it. And I think thatsets you up at a nice kind of

(53:16):
level for making your yourargument.

Michele Calpin (53:20):
That makes sense. That's a good mindset to
go in with. There's a question.
And I didn't understand thedifference, but I get it now.
Any tips on being a moreeffective persuader? So rather
than just influence someonepersuading someone? Hmm, yeah.

Vanessa Bohns (53:38):
So actually, so it does kind of depend on what
you mean, by persuasion, Iassume. I mean, like, change
someone's mind in addition totheir behavior? Maybe? Um, yeah,
I mean, I think, again, a lot ofit comes down to some of the
things we've talked aboutalready. And not to be too

(53:59):
repetitive. But it really a lotof it is, first of all, you
know, meeting people where theyare ideally in person, if you
can, one thing, here's one moreconcrete sort of strategy would
be finding out what someone elsecares about. So this is a big
way in which people you know,talk about persuasion is you

(54:21):
want to find out what somebodyelse cares about, and then
mirror what they care about inyour persuasive pitch. Right? So
whatever it is, you're arguingfor, you know, find out does
this person really just careabout the bottom line? And then
your argument should reallyneeds to focus on the bottom
line, does this person reallywant to improve diversity in the

(54:42):
organization? You know, then youmake sure your pitch includes
something about that. Are therehigher order values that you can
tap into? Right? So do you justreally value work life balance?
Do you really value hard work?
Whatever it is, you want to makesure that You can as much as
possible understand what theother person cares about what

(55:04):
they value and try to mirrorthat. Another thing, so Zoe
chance is another influenceresearcher, and she has a book
called influences yoursuperpower, which is great. And
I recommend that book as well asmine. And she has a question
that you can ask people, whichis basically like, what would it
take to get you to do thisthing. And that allows the

(55:24):
person to tell you exactly whatthey do care about, like what
the thing is that's holding themback from something or the thing
that they, you know, reallywould want you to take into
consideration. So again, thatthat combines a bunch of things
that combines like gettingperspective, not just trying to
guess what they care about yourbasically asking them, but also
trying to mirror what they careabout in the end to make your

(55:47):
persuasive pitch.

Michele Calpin (55:50):
Another question is, given your comments, read
the writing exercises, for yoursee yourself from a third party
perspective, can we assumeyou're a big believer in the 360
degree feedback process?

Vanessa Bohns (56:03):
Yeah, I think you know, I do really like that. I
think that is a great way thatpeople get feedback on things
that they don't always see wherewe're really bad at giving
people feedback, and a lot ofcontacts. And that is a great
time, I've seen a lot of, youknow, students here and
elsewhere, just learn all sortsof things from getting feedback

(56:24):
that they wouldn't otherwiseget. So yes, I think I think
that can be really helpful.

Michele Calpin (56:29):
The difference between persuasion and
manipulation? And how do youensure you don't cross that
line?

Vanessa Bohns (56:36):
Yeah, you know, I think this is so important. And
I think that so many peopleforget to consider this part of
persuasion. Like, we're sofocused on gaining influence,
you know, one thing I talk abouta lot of all the books and all
the tips out there, and all theseminars on like, here's how to
be more influential, right. Andwe often forget that in some

(56:56):
cases, we actually should beless influential, right. And I
think that's like, where thatline between persuasion and
manipulation can be sort ofdrawn these points where, in
fact, you know, manipulation is,like, I'm not being totally
honest with you, you know, I'mtrying to convince you to do
something I know that you don'treally want to do. So all those

(57:20):
things kind of come into play.
And I in particular, I'm verysensitive to that and influence
research, the way I talk aboutit, I usually make a distinction
not between persuasion andmanipulation, but between
compliance and consent. So youcan get people to do something
for you, you can get them tocomply. Like, we have studies
where we've gotten people tovandalize library books, just
because it's hard to say no,right? But they didn't want to

(57:42):
do it. And they felt badafterwards. And that can affect
their trust in you, right? Ifyou're a boss or a colleague, it
can have all sorts of negativeconsequences. So it's finding
ways not just to get people todo things you want. But to get
them to want to do the thingsthat you want to feel good about
it to feel like they could havesaid no, if they wanted to. And
so ways to do that is toactually be okay with no to get

(58:05):
more comfortable yourself withthem, saying no, potentially,
and making sure that that it'sclear to them as well that they
can do that.

Michele Calpin (58:16):
Great. And I'm going to ask this last question,
and then I'll just come backwith some, maybe some takeaways
for us at the end, and bestpractices for leaders to
influence their company'sculture.

Vanessa Bohns (58:29):
I'll give one example, which is we have some
research on the burnout peopleget from having emails at all
hours of the day, right? So lotsof people experience burnout
these days, because we'reattached to our phones, we hear
that thing all the time. Andleaders for one often don't
realize the extent to which theycontribute to that dynamic,

(58:49):
right by being themselves bymodeling this constant on, you
know, workplace dynamic, whereI'm sending emails, you know, 10
o'clock on a Friday, forexample. And so I think the more
that leaders can model the kindof culture that they want to
see, the more they can expressappreciation, express gratitude,

(59:10):
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 weekendand things like that, the more
you can model the behaviors youwant to see, the better and it
really, especially for leaders,right? People are watching them
all the time, more than theytend to realize, and they really
are picking up on what's okay,no matter what you say. You

(59:33):
could say I care about work lifebalance, you send an email, you
know, on a Saturday afternoon,expect someone to reply. That's
what they hear. They don't hearI care about work life balance,
they see that you don't and somodeling that behavior, I think
is really critical.

Michele Calpin (59:47):
That makes a lot of sense. The role modeling.
Well, I didn't underestimate theamount of tips and tools that
you gave today Vanessa? I mean,just your the box on influence.
So maybe just As we wrap up, arethere a couple of things, three
things that we should all bethinking of as we walk away from
this webcast today?

Vanessa Bohns (01:00:08):
Sure, I mean, if I were to say like three sort of
practical things to do,definitely express more
compliments and gratitude, itmeans more than you realize to
your employees. Be more aware ofthe power of the ask that you
can get the things you want moreeasily than you think, you know,
in all sorts of contexts. I'veeven interviewed Dean's asking

(01:00:29):
for millions of dollars, right?
And they, they show a lot ofsimilar sorts of, of biases. But
it's also hard for people to sayno, so be aware of that as well.
And be aware of how thecommunication medium that you're
using affects your influence,right. So use it for your
advantage. If you want to makepeople feel more like they can
say no, use email, because thatgives them the space and time to

(01:00:52):
think about how they want torespond to you. If you really
want to kind of get what youneed, right in that moment. Do
it face to face, right, but kindof modulate how you want to
influence someone using themedium now now that we have
access to all these differentmedia and everyone's so
comfortable with it. I thinkthat opens up a lot of ways to
use it in ways that we that willmake us better influencers and

(01:01:13):
free up people to say no if theywant to.

Michele Calpin (01:01:19):
That's great.
Thank you so much for your time,Vanessa, we really appreciated
it. And it was fantastic. Sohope everyone has a great day.
And as I said, if you'reinterested in pure leadership,
please check us out. Everyone.

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