1187: Knowing When to Speak Up versus Shut Up with Vanessa Bohns

[MUSIC] Part of why giving feedback is so hard, like honest feedback is that we are genuinely kind and we want to be kind to people. And we feel like that kind of feedback is not kind. But the kind of feedback that is kind is what helps people improve. We found that by giving someone a heads up, so that they already know what you're asking, makes them feel like they had time to process so they're not put on the spot. [MUSIC] That's Vanessa Bons. She's a social psychologist and award-winning professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University, whose research in the science of social influence has helped countless people navigate difficult and complex relationships and situations. Her new book, should I say something? The science of what to share and what to keep to yourself helps professionals navigate this tricky decision with grace and wisdom. So you'll learn one, how to be honest without being harsh. Two, the hidden trade-off between vulnerability and competence. And three, when it does her to ask. And if you want to quick summary right up of the actual wisdom that Vanessa shares, I recommend you drop on by [email protected] and sign up for the free Golden Nugget email list. I'm Pete Pekitus, this is how to be awesome at your job. And now, here's Vanessa. [MUSIC] Vanessa, welcome back. >> Thanks so much for having me again. >> Well, I'm excited to learn once and for all. Whether or not I should say something and discuss your book. But I got to hear about your time working in a sleep lab first. >> Yeah, you know, my introduction to research and the thing that made me fall in love with it was working at a sleep lab at Brown University when I was in undergrad. And it was just a crazy experience where we ran this sleep camp for kids between the ages of eight and 12. We were trying to capture them right around puberty. And they had to live in the basement lab for a week in the dark. And we gave them little naps throughout the day to see how sleepy they got. And they had to take these little sleep tests and they had to eat the same little baloney sandwiches at the same times all the time because they couldn't know what time of day it was outside. We couldn't have watches. It was this crazy experiment. It was actually very useful for the world. It showed us that kids through puberty have to get more sleep. They have to go to bed later, wake up later. So there was a purpose behind the madness, but it was a wild experience. And it just showed me how elaborate psychology study can be. >> Oh, well, Vanessa, I love that so much for several reasons. One, I love sleep. And I have been into a sleep lab myself at Vanderbilt. And that was an experience of the wires and the monitoring things going on there. >> What they test you for? >> Well, sleep apnea, very ordinary. And it was so crazy. It's like they told me, oh, yeah, looks like you have mild sleep apnea. And I was like, no way. Like I didn't believe it was like, can you show me some footage? And then I just like got a phone recorder and the next night is like, oh, yeah, there I am doing the thing. I was like, I guess I could have just done that instead of God to elaborate laboratories situation to learn this. >> Actually, I worked in one of those labs after the NYU lab. And I would watch people sleep all night and then put the apnea mask on them to see if it actually made their sleep better. It was fun. Anyway, I loved the sleep stuff, but you know why I can't do it? It's because you have to stay up all night. And I love sleep too much. I cannot do sleep research. >> Understood. And that's a great reason. You love it too much to do it. Let's sleep versus the study of it. And one thing that I thought was so striking, those I asked someone as the lab technician that she was getting me all hooked up to the things, I was like, boy, I bet you've met a lot of people and heard a lot of tips and tricks for how people are trying to sleep better. So what's the thing? I guess I can't stop being an interviewer about being awesome at your job, being awesome at your sleeping. And she's like, oh, I heard all kinds of things. But the real thing that does the trick now and wants to hear, which is to put your phone in another room. I'm just like, oh, okay, there you have it. Cool beans. So should I say something? I'm glad she said something. She's sort of shared her perspective. Your latest book, The Science of What to Share and What to Keep to Yourself. Can you tell us what's the big idea here? >> Yeah, so partly this is a follow up on my first book, which is all about the influence we have on other people. And I kind of left that book saying, you know, we have more influence than we think than other people. And that means sometimes we should use it and sometimes we shouldn't, because that influence could be good or bad. And so this book is kind of answering the question, okay, you told us to use it sometimes, but when are those times? And so the big idea here is that the choice of weather to say something is as important, if not more important, than how we actually say the thing. Usually the dilemma we're wrestling with. And I saw this again and again, because I'm obsessed with advice columns and I would read like the ethicists in the near times and social cues and it was like every question, it's not like, oh, how do I phrase this thing? 'Cause that's not a true dilemma. It's more of a practical and instrumental thing, but like the dilemma is, do I tell this person that I got the job that she wanted? Do I tell this person that they're doing something annoying? Do I tell this person that I hate their Botox? And so these kinds of questions were the real dilemmas. And so I wanted to look at what the science said and trying to answer them. - Ooh, that is so fantastic. And I'm glad you wrote this book because I was thinking about running a book kind of like it. I thought this was gonna be a lot of work and I don't know, I've got other things I wanted to do. So you did it for me and that's fantastic. And because I'm right with you, that is so critical and not just because it's a juicy question for the New York Times ethicist, but it has real implications. And on the one hand, we've heard Amy Edmundsons on the podcast and we talk about psychological safety and that's just so magical in part because folks are really able to, they feel safe, saying what they really think. Like if this thing we're doing kind of doesn't seem to be working, maybe we should do something else versus just like holding that to themselves and then the team never being enriched from that. So one might infer from that. Like, oh, it sounds like that's the move. You know, to be awesome at your job, to have awesome teams, we really gotta be doing the sharing about Vanessa, you suggest it's not quite so simple. - Yeah, and I love this connection to the work on psychological safety because it's true, you know, you would think in a psychologically safe environment, that means I can say anything and people are, you know, it's not gonna change how people think of me and it's not gonna change their feelings. And we know that's not true because even in a psychologically safe environment, people are people, right? And so one example, so I organized the book and chapters about like, should I be honest, should I share my success, should I share my failure, should I apologize? And so one of the chapters, the one about sharing failures and vulnerabilities, right? You might think that, oh, it's psychologically safe. I can just kind of share the stuff that's going on in my life. Like I'm having a really hard time in this aspect of my personal life. And then everybody is just gonna be open and supportive. And what the research shows is that people are supportive. And so if you're looking for social support and building rapport and trust, you will get that if you share this difficulty that you're having in your personal life. But again, because people are people and we build our impressions about other people aside from any psychological safety in a group, we also can judge that person as being less competent. And so when you share something, they're often these trade-offs. And that one, it's like you share vulnerability at work and there's a trade-off. It doesn't mean that people are gonna like you less, which we often really focus on, but in a workplace environment where you really want to display competence and be seen as someone who can get things done, it can actually hurt you a little bit in terms of the perceptions of your competence. - Yeah, so Vanessa, I'm with you. I mean, the stakes are big. They can be, depending on the context of the conversation. So can you walk us through? How should we think about it when we're in that pickle? Hmm, should I say this? Do we have some key principles to work through or how do we wrestle with it? - Yeah, so each sort of dilemma has its own set of specific principles, but there are also some just overarching principles that we see kind of in most of these domains. And so one is that we tend to be overly focused on the short-term discomfort of saying something and less on the long-term ramifications of it or consequences of it. And so one principle that shows up again and again is to take a long-term view, right? If you say this right now, what are people gonna think when they remember what you said six months from now? And sometimes that means you should definitely say it. So when we take a long-term view about, for example, being honest with someone about their work performance, right now in the moment, I'm really focused on sort of the short-term discomfort of being honest and how it's probably gonna hurt this person's feelings if I'm giving them honest, difficult feedback. But in the long-term, I really want them to have that feedback. It's gonna help them improve. They're gonna look back and be happy that they received it and how that I gave it. And so when you take a long-term view, you realize that this momentary discomfort isn't really worth the long-term consequences. So I'm not going to stay silent. I'm going to actually say something. There are other situations where you might not want to say something, right? And so if we take the same sort of feedback question, if someone has done something that they're not going to have a chance to do in the future, and it's already done, and they can't go back and fix it, there is no point in being honest and telling them they did something wrong. So there's this distinction researchers make between brutal honesty, just honesty for honesty, sake, like, oh, that really stunk, and benevolent honesty. So honesty with this kind of long-term plan. And so one sort of principle that applies specifically in the feedback domain, but also you can apply it to other domains, is ask yourself if I say something, if I say this thing, if I give them this feedback, how are they going to use it? And if you can't come up with a reason why they might use that feedback, then you really don't need to say it. There's no point in saying it. If you instead say, oh, well, they can use it to improve in the future, then it's worth saying. And so this is something I talk about. I teach this big intro class, and I give hundreds of students their first exam, usually their first college exam ever. And I have to make this decision each year about what kind of exam to give them. And there's a lot of different ways you can go, right? And people have taken each of these approaches. So you can imagine a professor who decides, I'm going to give a really easy exam to boost their confidence, their new students, their anxious, we're always hearing about like the mental health crisis of students. So let's just give them a really easy exam, and it'll boost their confidence. Or you could take the approach with some of my colleagues take as well. Let's give them a super difficult exam to wake them up and weed out anyone who's not going to sort of make it, right? And so these are like two approaches that are completely approaches I've seen my colleagues take. What I try to do is, neither of these one is like brutal honesty, like, oh, you can't make it using your current set of skills. The other one is just kind of avoidance of the issue and false hope. So it's like, okay, you know, eventually they feel good now. Eventually they're going to encounter something that's a lot harder. So I try to use this benevolent honesty strategy where I give them a challenging exam. I give them real feedback. And then we focus everything on how you're going to improve on the next exam. And so again, it's all this forward thinking like, I assume you're going to get better. We're going to have a difficult conversation about what went wrong here. I'm not going to give you false hope by giving you an easy exam. I'm not going to be brutal and say, I guess you can't make it in this. But we're going to have a difficult exam. We're going to have the conversation and we're going to talk about how to do better next time. And so in general, that sort of approach of let's look to this forward long term oriented way of giving feedback is really useful both for deciding whether to give feedback and how to give the feedback. Yeah, there's that's really nice distinction there. The benevolent honesty versus brutal honesty. If you can't answer that question, how will they use this or behave differently as a result of it then don't do it? So if it's like one and done never again, okay, maybe just like just let it go. Although you might say, hey, we're not going to handle this exact situation again, but there will probably be a time in which a client has a unique request and when they do, it'd be great to, I don't know, read their email twice or double check the thing or anticipate what they might really need or ask a clarifying question like whatever it is. So I suppose if you zoom out one layer of, are they going to do this again? I guess the this can be super specific or or broadly more and more vague or generalizable. Yeah, and what you're doing is really looking for this future oriented feedback, right? So it's not like, oh, you shouldn't have done that you shouldn't have sent care in that email. It's like in the future when we have clients like this, we want to make sure that we run an email by somebody else. We send this kind of email, we read the email twice, whatever it might be. So it's less about like what you did in this specific situation and more like how we're going to avoid that problem happening in the future. And the nice thing about that is it, it's easier to give that feedback. It's really hard like you, when you think about like telling someone what they did wrong, you brace for it in your stomach. Like it's just like, oh, this is going to be painful for me. They're going to get defensive. It's just me telling like saying something that's going to make them feel bad. And part of why giving feedback is so hard like honest feedback is that we are genuinely kind and we want to be kind to people. And so saying instead, okay, in the future, let's do it this way. It says, I trust you to improve. I know that you can improve and you care about this. And we're kind of on the same team to improve in the future. And it makes it so much easier to give that feedback. It's like a helpful kind of you feel like you're being kind of prosocial and benevolent as opposed to just being kind of mean, which is part of the the holdup people have. But also people are way less defensive. They're not going to argue with you. Well, I meant to do it this way. It's like, okay, going forward, we can do it that way. Well, in Vanessa, I just want to check an assumption. I think we're both making here this notion of we want to be kind and not mean. I think that seems like a general human principle. But I also could be pressured. There's a subset of folks who they're unconcerned entirely with that. And so it's like, this is how it's supposed to be done. So I'm just going to say it. And I was asked that is like, they don't give it a second thought. Do you have a sense from the research like, what's the term we use for these people with this on this continuum of this trait? Like what do we call the trait and how many people have it versus don't? I mean, I would say, you know, there are people who are more communal oriented or agreeable things like that. But I wouldn't say that the feedback example that you gave, this is just how it's supposed to be done, is necessarily not benevolently honest. Right? It's like, it's still like, this is how it should be done. There's this kind of broader future oriented, you know, I'm teaching you. So maybe I'm not doing it in a super touchy feeling way. And I think that's where people get a little bit caught up. Like it doesn't have to be touchy feeling. There has to be a plan for the future. Not just you, you did that terribly. Oh, certainly. Yeah. So there are people, I'm sure who would say like, Oh, you did that terribly, you're terrible at your job. That's a think a very small subset of people. And it's more for the people who don't feel comfortable saying that, but don't really know how to do this other like benevolent honesty future oriented kind of feedback. I hear you, it can be benevolently honest and genuinely helpful, although in a super blunt, maybe a candid package that's not fun to get. So, but I guess what I'm hearing from you is that is it fair to say the vast majority of humans are concerned about such things being kind and not mean. Yes. And even that awkwardness we feel when we give difficult feedback, that is telling you that you care about hurting someone else's feelings. There's nothing else in that interaction. That's like really the hard part. The hard part is when you say something that other person is going to be uncomfortable. That's not going to feel good. That other person's going to be a little bit hurt. You don't know how they're going to react. There's this idea. It's really racing yourself for hurting this other person that makes that so uncomfortable for us. Okay. So it's not just us feelers who feel that a substantial amount of discomfort here. This is you believe by prevalent across the vast majority of humanity. Yeah. People hate giving negative feedback. I mean, there's tons of research just on these, whether it's doctors, even who give regular feedback, who have to tell people about dire diagnoses, professors, you know, I'm sitting here talking about this. I hate giving negative feedback to students. It pains me. But this is why the way that I've sort of found to do it is this future oriented way where I'm like, okay, together we're working to help you improve, right? I'm not just here criticizing you essentially. So I do think it's a pretty universal difficulty that people have giving negative feedback. Okay. So we're talking about the feedback, Tobain. What's another key domain we should think through? Yeah. So another one, if we go back to sort of the sharing vulnerability at work, right? As I pointed out, in this case, there's kind of another theme. So you asked about kind of these general themes in the book. So one is this long term short term thinking, right? Being future oriented. Another one is trade-offs. And the fact that in different situations, you should be super aware of what your goal is in that situation to understand how to manage a trade-off. And so in the vulnerability domain, like expressing to a colleague about some personal stuff that's been going on with you at home, the trade-off, as we talked about, is between competence, and warmth, we would say, in experimental psychology. So it would be like, people are gonna like me, feel close to me if I open up and trust them. And so a lot of our fears are about like, oh, if I tell people the things I don't like about myself or things that I'm finding difficult, they won't like me. And in terms of that is really not true. People feel like when you trust them with what's going on with you, they really lean in towards you. But as I mentioned, there is a straight-off with competence. You can seem less competent, less able to handle certain things. And so, in that case, you wanna first of all ask what your goal is. Which of these things do I prioritize being seen as competent in this situation or being liked? And if you're like in this workplace environment, I really want to make sure I'm still seen as competent. But if you still see your kind of work friends as your friends and you therefore want to share these things with them, there are ways to do that that just aren't in the workplace. And so one sort of recommendation I give in the book is that when you're trying to balance these things, if you're trying to prioritize competence, don't tell people in the hallway at the beginning of meetings, all the stuff that's been going on with you at home. Unless you have a specific instrumental ask that I need some support or I need some time off, that's fine. But if you're just kind of sharing sort of difficulties that you're having, keep it to happy hour after work. Keep it to a coffee meeting outside of work. And that can give you a chance to actually connect with people, talk to them, make them feel closer to you, which we see as a benefit of sharing vulnerabilities. But at the same time, it's not like in the workplace, I'm talking about these things. And now people are questioning my professionalism, they're questioning my competence. They know what's going on outside of work. But then in the workplace, I'm kind of putting my workplace face and getting the job done. And so people continue to sort of see me that way in that domain. And then I guess when it comes to vulnerability and versus that competence situation, I imagine there's a number of things we could disclose that feel personal but would not result in a competence hit. Like it was like, oh, you know, I'm really worried about, I don't know, my son's drug problem. I'm just making this up, my kids are drug free. But like that, that's a vulnerable thing to share. It's heavy, it's emotional. And it's not something that you broadcast generally. And yet I would imagine that the recipients at work would not conclude you're less competent as a result of this disclosure or how would you think about that? - I'm not sure. So they didn't ask that exact kind of thing. But I guess when you look at the kinds of things that researchers have tested people disclosing. So for example, saying like, oh, I had a big fight with my girlfriend today, right? That's kind of similar. It doesn't have to do with the workplace. It's something that's kind of on your mind and is this vulnerable thing you're wrestling with. People, again, they felt closer to people who are willing to share that. But if they were the ones sharing it, they also got this hit in competence. They don't have a mechanism in these studies. So it could be a number of things. It could be that you think this person is distracted or they're not like focused on work or they don't know professional norms, but to talk about these are all conjecture. I have no idea based on the research that didn't actually show any of that. But there is sort of this sense of like, okay, my sort of friendliness trust button is being pushed and not my like, oh, this is a competent worker when you're disclosing these kinds of personal things. One interesting thing is that if you find out that somebody is going through some of these personal things but they don't specifically disclose it. So it's like, oh, wow, this person is being professional and pressing on and doing their work despite all this other stuff they have going on. And that's where you can find out like, again, in a coffee shop outside of work or through word of mouth. Suddenly that makes us think, oh, wow, that's a really competent person, right? And so again, it's the idea is not to deny yourself asking for help for things you actually need help for. When there's an instrumental need, when it's like, I need support, you should ask for that. When you need advice, ideally you can go to like a mentor and who is there to hear things that you need advice on, you know, and that could be like work life challenges and things like that. But it's one of these things that's kind of tricky if you're walking around your workplace, regularly kind of talking about personal difficulties going on at home. It's just worth knowing that there could be some risk that that could make you seem kind of less competent. - Yeah, it's true. It's good to know and to be making a formed decision with regard to giving these trade-offs. And sometimes you might gather, you know, what this team seems to think, I've got competence in spades, but they think I'm kind of cold. So this is a trade well worth making in this context with this environment. Well, I'd also love to hear, what were some of the most mind-blowing experiments in terms of, wow, humans are like this? - Hmm. - I'm surprised. - I think one kind of fun one, just because I love animals, I wouldn't call it mind-blowing, but is this study on zookeepers? And this was with respect to whether you should express your passion for your work. And this study looked at zookeepers who see their job really, as not just a job, but a calling, which, you know, when you think about it, so many of us want to feel about our job. We want to love our job. We want to have passion for our job and zookeepers feel this way. And so they interviewed these researchers, interviewed a number of zookeepers, and they expressed their job, their love for their job. But one thing that was really interesting is that they explicitly said that they would not tell their managers the kinds of things they were telling these researchers. So expressing that they love their job, they're a passionate, because they felt like, if their managers knew how passionate they were about their job, they might exploit them, ask them to work extra hours, ask them for things that they felt like were unreasonable. And one thing that's really interesting about this is when experimentalists have kind of taken this idea and tested it, we tend to think, if you just give people jobs that people tend to be passionate about, or jobs that tend to not have a lot of passion or not be associated with passion, like you take a zookeeper versus like an accountant, or, you know, someone in a creative industry versus like a financial industry. And you ask them, like, would it be okay to ask this person to do things outside of their role, ask them to stay late, ask them to do things without pay, basically do these kind of borderline exploitative behaviors. People think it's okay if you're passionate about your job, to ask people to stay late, but they're like, oh, the accountant, the financial person, that's not fair to ask them to stay late. They even have things like, you know, there was a strike, is it fair to ask these people to clean the bathroom? And they're like, okay, yeah, this person in a creative industry who's passionate about their job, they can clean the bathroom, but this financial person, no, that wouldn't be right to ask them to clean the bathroom. And so once again, there's this kind of trade-off and being passionate about your job, where it's really great to be passionate about your job, but it may not be so great to express it to people who might exploit it, for example, to managers. And so I've just found that really, really interesting that these people who love their job are still kind of cagey at work about telling the people who are in charge that they did. - Yes, and I imagine it comes from experience. They've lived it, they've seen it, they've witnessed it. And that is a nice little gut check for anyone who's asked, he didn't want to do anything. It's like, would you ask this of someone who had less passion for the job, that's handy. And so then within your zone of should I say something, it seems that I feel that trade-off yet again. I've known someone who was interviewing and he was really warned the job, and then the person interviewing did not give him the offer. And said, well, he just didn't seem that interested. And he's like, I'm very interested. It's like, that's just my personality. It's like, it's funny when you're interviewing for a job, it seems like you want to show all kinds of enthusiasm and passion for it. And yet, when you're in the thick of it, your manager may or may not exploit that knowledge. And I guess it's kind of case by case or do you have any pro tips for navigating it? - Yeah, so that's exactly right. You kind of picked out the different points at which you should say that you love your job or shouldn't say that you love your job, right? And so for example, lots of job ads these days are like, we want a passionate worker. So Yannu Kimowicz, who does a lot of this work on passion has looked at job ads and shown this increase, right? So we do want to hire people who seem interested and passionate, particularly for certain kinds of jobs. Like again, if we go to like accountants, like we don't care that much if our accountants are really passionate, but in some kinds of jobs, right? We're really looking for someone who's going to bring this passion and extra energy. And so when you are interviewing, before you have the job, you do want to express your passion. you actually have the job continuing to walk around being like, I love my job. If you're okay with getting extra work, that might be fine, but there is there should be this sort of awareness once again that there is this tradeoff. So people, there's been recent research by one of my students actually and some other researchers showing that bosses tend to give more work to employees I see as passionate and employees as he is intrinsically motivated. And so if again, if that's fine with you, you can express your intrinsic motivation and your passion, but it is one of those things to be aware of that that also could set you up to potentially be exploited to be the person who's asked constantly to stay late to do the extra work, etc. Yes, and then I guess there's get another layer in terms of, and if you do those things, is there some meritocratic force that's going to result in, you know, good things flowing to you? It's like, oh, wow, that person, they're on it, I count on them. Of course, they're going to get the promotion or the raise or the bonus or whatever versus there are none of those available for anybody. So we just appreciate them. Thanks. Yeah, and some of this research has specifically looked at like promotable and non-promotable tasks. So this is a distinction that's been done in research looking at like the kinds of tasks, certain groups of people like women versus men wind up taking on and also people who express passion versus and like intrinsic motivation for the job. And this research has shown that specifically it becomes a problem because these people wind up getting these not these jobs that don't actually lead to promotions later on. They're just like extra work. It's just, yes, I can count on that person to do it, but it's written just like kind of the busy work that needs to get done, right? It's the like, pitch in and, you know, again, like, stay late, clean the bathroom in that one study, do things that are really outside of your role that may not actually help you down the line. I mean, this is really related to another section of the book, which is on asking and whether we should ask for things because one of the things I talk about is the fact that an ask really is inherently full of social pressure, particularly in the workplace. And so when we ask people to do things outside of their role to stay late, to do something even, you know, borderline inappropriate, whatever it might be, it's really hard for people to say no. And so I have done research on that for about 20 years. My most recent research has really tried to push it to the extreme in the lab. And so you asked about like, studies that make me say, wow, I can't believe people are like that. I have to talk about one of my own because I've honestly been shocked that this has been happening in our lab. We have these studies where we ask participants to unlock their phones and hand it over to us to look through. And when we tell people, we're going to run a study like this. Most people, like 75% say, I would never unlock my phone to just let you look through it. But when we actually ask people, they immediately unlock it and hand it over over 80% of the time. And so we think that if we're asked to do something we're uncomfortable with, or we're asked to do something we don't want to do, we'll just say no. But when we're actually put in that immediate situation, we wind up complying. And we even have people, so we had a study where we said, we're going to look through your web search history because no one really wants to share their web search history. And they would like blurred out random things they had shared, rather than just say, no, thank you. I don't want to do that. And so this idea that, you know, the things we ask also, sometimes that means go ahead and ask. There's no harm. And people are more likely to say yes than you think. Sometimes it means like think twice. Maybe don't ask for that if that person is already over committed. And do you know that by asking, they're going to feel pressure to agree? Well, yes. And then they may agree and they may do it. And then they resent you in the relationships damage, even though, ideally they would have said no. So when you said they blordered out, what were they blording? So we had, you know, just random things that they had searched because they thought we were going to look through their web search history. Okay. So it'd be like, I just searched how tall Peppa Pig is. I can tell you why if you want to know. I had a warning on my foot. It's almost gone now. Yeah. I'm only sticking to the ones that are like less personal. But yeah, those two. Yes. Good point. Thank you. Well, Vanessa, tell me, is there anything else you really want to make sure to put out there before we hear about some of your favorite things? Well, I'll just kind of finish this whole when to ask when not with a couple suggestions that I've been really excited about that we were working on a lab for how to get people to say yes, but still feel like they are, you know, not resent you after the fact, feel like they actually genuinely committed. And so one thing we've been testing is if you give someone an advanced notice, so, you know, you can try this when you're asking for something at work, we often will just either email someone with an ask or show up and ask them in the moment. The best thing is to combine those two things to tell them, okay, I want to come ask you this question and actually ask them, but I want to ask you face to face because that's the most effective way to ask. And we found that by giving someone a heads up so that you walk into their office, you make their requests, but they already know what you're asking. It makes them feel like they had time to process, so they're not like put on the spot. And we found that it doesn't actually change how likely they are to say yes very much, but it does make them feel like, okay, I know what I was getting into. I don't feel like you kind of forced me to this. I didn't feel obligated or compelled, so I would recommend people trying out these different ways of asking for true consent and not just complaints. Okay, well, any final really cool stories that have come about in putting this together? Okay, one thing I do talk about in the book is my own experience being ghosted on the academic job market. And this idea that when I was on the job market, I wound up having these interviews and academic jobs or intense interviews where you have meals with tons of people and you spend tons of hours with people. And I really feel like you get to know these people. And when I got rejected for this job that I was kind of holding out for, no one told me that I got rejected. I had like months later, I had to be like, is that job still happening? Like, oh, no, we just want to be not hiring anybody. And so one of the things I talk about is this idea that we often let our anxiety about being honest about these things, particularly rejection and difficult feedback, convince us that the kind thing to do is not to reach out and tell someone, oh, you've been rejected. But in fact, it's so much worse for the person on the receiving end. And so one sort of point I make there is how important it is to actually explicitly reach out and tell people like, I'm sorry, the position's been filled or we're not hiring, etc. Yeah. And I think that really exposes the truth of our sort of pusillanimous interior avoid itself. Is this really about kindness or is this really bad to this comfort? Because just ghosting is clearly not kind, but it's more comfortable for an individual in terms of like not saying the thing is more comfortable than saying the thing yet ghosting is clearly less kind than saying the thing. But you know, the research shows that we know that when we're on the receiving end and we clearly say that felt way less kind than actually just having someone tell me I was rejected. But the rejectors slash ghosters don't realize that it's actually more kind. And as you point out, I completely think it's possible that we convince ourselves because it's easier for us. And so I think a big one big takeaway is that as we're figuring out like, what's my goal here? What's my motivation that we're honest with ourselves? Because I think if we were to put ourselves together on the sort of the receiving end, we would realize that actually no, that's that's really unkind to just have no communication. Yeah, it takes one extra layer of thoughtful consideration. It's like, oh, that'd be so mean to say you're rejected. It's like, yes, but how mean it would be to say nothing. It's like, oh, yeah, I guess that would be even meaner. Okay. So yeah. And I'll tell you even more sort of realistic scenario, for example, when we have candidates come and interview, they interview with my entire department. And as department chair, if I'm telling someone they didn't get the job, I'm the one who reaches out and says, like, I'm really sorry, but we went with someone else. And I think there is a sense that if everybody else that person met with also sent them like a version of a rejection email that that might not be kind. But I actually think that people would appreciate having someone reach out and say, I'm really sorry, I didn't work out, but it was a pleasure to meet you as opposed to like, oh, then I never heard from those other people I actually spent a lot of time with again. And I think that's a clear place where you can imagine really not being sure, like, should we all essentially reach out and reject this person, but you can do it in a way that is actually kind and says, like, oh, no, I acknowledge that I met you. I'm sorry, I didn't work out. Good luck. But thanks if it ends if I share it or isn't with us. And thanks to our sponsors, check them out. One sponsor to check out is Vintage. Vintage is a second hand marketplace app with a mission to make second hand feel like your first choice. Here at How To Be Awesome at Your Job, we love the 80/20 rule. Oh, so much. And it applies to your closet just as well. In my experience, I wear about 20% of my clothing items. about 80% of the time. So why not clear out those trivial many clothing items? Vintage is a second-hand app that makes it super easy for everyday sellers that's folks like you and me to sell pre-loved fashion and earn some extra money in the process. I've personally been impressed by the beauty and simplicity of the Vintage app, which is free to download, listing items is super quick and easy with just a few taps. With Vintage, there are no selling fees, and once your item sells, Vintage creates the pre-paid shipping label for you. So if you're ready to declutter your closet to the vital few and make some extra money, download the Vintage app for free and start listing. With no seller fees, you keep every dollar that you earn. (upbeat music) - No, agreed. Cool? Well, now can we hear about a favorite quote? So do you find inspiring? - Ah, yeah, so I will say this is not a quote, I find inspiring, but it's a quote, I find enraging, which is kind of a type of inspiring. So there's this Wayne Gretzky quote that you miss 100% of the goals you don't take. - Yeah. - Or shots you don't take. - Yeah, I see it all the time, people always have it and they're like email signatures, and it drives me crazy because specifically, because the whole point of my research and this book is like, it's not about just always taking the shot, right? There are times you shouldn't be asking for things. There are times you wanna think twice. And so that quote, particularly, always just rubs me the wrong way when I see it. - All right, and a favorite study or experiment a bit of research? - I'll tell you one of my favorite studies from this book is this one where the researchers had their research assistants put like a glob of chocolate on their face or a glob of lipstick, and they went up to people and they asked them to complete a survey and pretended they didn't know they had something on their face. And they wanted to see what the personality traits were of the people who said something and the people who didn't say something. And in the end, what they found was that they couldn't even analyze the data because only like four people out of over 100 said anything. And so for me, that study is such a fun study, but also the fact that like, the effect was so much stronger than even they imagined like us not wanting to give feedback that they couldn't even use half the data. - Yeah, and a favorite book? - Yeah, so I'm really obsessed with this kind of weird but amazing book called Why Fish Don't Exist. It's nonfiction, I love nonfiction, and it kind of transcends genres. It's like a memoir of the author, but it's also about the taxonomists who came up with like the taxonomy that we currently have to figure out, you know, where animals fit in their like genre and species, et cetera. And it's just a fascinating read and fun. - Okay, and a favorite tool. So that you use to be awesome at your job. - I mean, it's just always, always gonna be a pen because I think, and I tell my students this, I tell my executive students, I tell my undergrad students because it's just true based on the research. Writing things down by hand helps you process more, helps you remember more. It's just so much better for deep thinking. Like typing is efficient, but if you actually want to process and think like pen is your best friend. - All right, and a favorite habit? - Going for walks that just clears my head and it helps me think. - Is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks? They quote it back to you often? - I would say, it's always my research on asking in person. I get so many emails from people, and I mean, I really, I respect, but they read the research and they come up with a cute intro, but I don't know if they realize how many emails they get like this that says, I know based on your research, I really should be coming and asking you in person. I'd say like 50% of the emails I get start with that. And so yeah, that seems to have made a mark. - All right, and if folks want to learn more, get in touch, where would you point them? - Almost everything you need to get in touch is on my website, vinesabonds.com, but I'm also on LinkedIn, I'm on Instagram, most of the social media sites at ProfBonds. - Okay, and do you have a final challenge? Are you called an action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs? - Ask for things more, but when you do it, practice asking in ways that actually give the other person autonomy to say no. And I think the asking is a good thing, but I think also the giving the autonomy. So give a try, give people, come up with a request, give people heads up that it's coming and just experiment, see if it works. - And do you have a favorite way or script or preamble or move you like to do for that autonomy granting a compliment? - Yeah, so I mean, there's giving people time, so there's giving people heads up. Another one is you ask people in person and then you say don't give me an answer right now, let me know tomorrow, let me know next week. Right, again, so you give them time to actually think about some things so you get their buy-in. Another thing we've tried is giving people the words to say no. One thing we found in our work is that it's really hard for people to find the words to say no and sometimes we'll just say yes 'cause we can't think of a good excuse. So when you ask for something, you actually give them sort of the script or like the thing you would accept in their know. And so I do this when, for example, I have graduate students and I want to ask them to start a new project. So my goal with graduate students, I want them, you know, I may think that this is a really good project for them to start, but I do not want them to take on more than they can actually handle. And I want them to be honest if they don't have time to do something or they're not interested enough to do a good job at it. And so we'll have a meeting and I'll say, I have this idea for a project. I want you to think about it and decide whether you want to be part of it. I would love you to run it. So I'm very clear I'm actually asking you to do this if you're interested, but I don't want you to tell me right now. I want you to look at your schedule, I want you to think about it, get back to me the next time we meet. And I'll also give them an excuse. And if you can't do it, just tell me, I just have too much on my schedule 'cause it's like I will accept that response. And so I try to model that in my own requests. - Oh, beautiful. All right, Vanessa, thank you. - Yeah, thank you, it's been a pleasure. (upbeat music) - I love Vanessa's perspective about taking the long-term view because our short-term discomfort is right up in our face. It's very present, and yet if you think about it, zoom out, hmm, what will people think when they remember what I said six months from now? Or will they remember it at all? Will they appreciate it? They'll be so glad that we said the tough thing. Or does that give us a new perspective that lets us know, hmm, maybe I should go ahead and shut up about it. Great stuff from Vanessa. If you want to check out the show notes, a transcript, or the links to Alan's Weaver reference. I recommend you drop on by [email protected]/ep1187. I hope to catch you next time and peace. (upbeat music)