When Someone Has More Power Than You

0:00From Entrepreneur Media, this is Problem Solvers, a show in which entrepreneurs do what entrepreneurs do best, solve unexpected problems in their business. We were completely wrong. And I'm just like, it's not selling. It was like, we have to start from scratch. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine.

0:22Someone in your life has more power than you do. And you have to deal with them. And that's just a fact of life. And it gets even worse. The thing that there's just absolutely no manual for at most companies is how to navigate power dynamics. Right. The bad news is that nobody is trained on how to navigate this stuff. But Selena is. My name is Selena Resvani. I'm the author of Quick Confidence. And Selena is a leadership consultant, which means she does a lot of trainings with different companies and organizations from Silicon Valley to the World Bank to ad agencies. Those are the example she gave me, working with high potential talent and helping organizations try to keep that talent.

1:09And one of the things that always comes up that she helps people navigate is power dynamics. So what kind of stuff are we talking about here? How to speak up in a meeting, for example, when you disagree with your boss who's saying something that you just cannot get behind. How do you manage that tricky dance? Or if you're interrupted by a senior executive, Same thing when we're maybe negotiating for a raise or a resource of some kind. And all we can see is the other person's power, their title, their role in the hierarchy. And guess what that does to our role? It tends to shrink it and make it very small.

1:48And so one of the things I get excited about is offering people some techniques, some clarity around how they can approach even the most intimidating person, even the toughest power imbalance. So how do you do it? Well, that is the subject of today's episode of Problem Solvers. Selena and I had a great conversation about how to navigate power imbalances, and it's all coming up after the break. There is a game where no one wins, where no one even wants to be playing the game. And what is this game? It is the waiting game. Waiting is terrible. And when it comes to hiring, do not wait for great talent to find you.

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3:18Offer good for a limited time. Claim your$75 credit now at Indeed.com slash ProblemSolvers. Indeed.com slash ProblemSolvers. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. All right, we're back. I'm talking with Selena Rezvani, leadership consultant and author of the new book, Quick Confidence. And we're talking about how to navigate and how to rebalance power dynamics. And one of the first pieces of advice that Selena offers on this is to work with the person, not with the power, which sounds catchy and insightful, but also how do you separate the two? Because sometimes they feel very intertwined.

4:02So that is what I started by asking her. Yeah, I can remember early as an entrepreneur negotiating with the legal team of a Fortune 50 company. And I could not get over the company's logo was like taking over my brain. That's all I could see in my head. And I finally had to say to myself, Selena, negotiate with Rachel, the assistant general counsel who you're talking to, the person, not the mighty power. And I think there's something for all of us in that. This is a human being that you can foster a connection with. And the more you can be curious and authentically curious, you know, asking them questions about them, getting to know them on a human being level, meeting them where they are.

4:54That's how you're going to foster the connection in an important way. So I think we all have those figures in our lives who just seem so daunting. You have to make that mindset shift to the human being, the one who wakes up and brushes their teeth and tries to make a healthy-ish breakfast choice, right? And has all those same moment-to-moment decisions like the rest of us. How would you suggest somebody navigate that? What you're describing there feels intellectually understandable, but one, a little hard to absorb at first. I think that probably takes some practice. But then number two, I wonder if there's still landmines in the idea of connecting with the human being.

5:41I'll tell you what I'm thinking is you don't want to walk in and meet with someone who is very powerful and maybe be too casual or chummy with them. the way that you might with just some random person. And I have definitely thought this myself, how much deference do I need to give to the status that they have, even as I'm trying to connect to them as an individual? So how would you suggest that people navigate that? And is it a case by case thing? Because certainly I've met billionaires who don't want to be seen as billionaires. They want to be seen as your best friend and billionaires who I think it is quite clear that though they are friendly, they want you to at least act in some way like you are aware of their accomplishments.

6:32Yeah, you know, it can feel like a dance, but I think there's a saying that applies here. If you put somebody up on a pedestal, don't be surprised if they start to look down on you. And so I think you really need to see the downsides of putting them up here and yourself down here. It's not going to do you any favors. So in general, I encourage people to speak peer to peer in a professional way, respect their time, be ready, be prepared with your ideas or your contribution or the questions you have of them, but approach it peer to peer like somebody you respect, but maybe are speaking to at your level.

7:16I'll tell you what I do when I meet with very big celebrities. It's a different kind of power imbalance in that they don't actually have any power over me. They're not my boss, but they live in a world where people defer to them. And we are meeting generally because I'm going to put them on the cover of a magazine. So that gives me some authority, but whatever, they have been on magazine covers before and they star in movies and whatever. So it's not like they really need it. Anyway, I'll tell you what I learned years ago to not be intimidated by these situations. And that was to not care at all about the thing that makes them famous.

7:56Like at all. I generally interview celebrities without having immersed myself in the bulk of their work, which I get to do because I'm not writing about pop culture. I'm writing about business. And so I don't really need to watch episodes of their television show. But I find that walking in and not having a deep familiarity with the thing that makes them powerful in the world and therefore being able to just focus on them as a person and the thing that we need to accomplish together helps quite a lot. And I wonder if there's a version of this that's inside of what you were describing there, which is, right, put the logo aside, for example, put the title aside, because if you spend too much time thinking about everything that this person represents or does, then you will engage with all of that at the same time.

8:44And they are not actually all of that. It's the craziest thing is that when you sit down with somebody who's incredibly accomplished, they have done all these things. They're attached to all these things, but they don't bring all those things into the room with them every time they sit down. What do you make of that? Yeah, you have so much good experience in this. And I've experienced something similar myself interviewing 75 C-level women at the top of all different organizations. And their humanness, to your point, was what made them the most interesting, not the logo, right, on their desk or any other part of them, but their humanness, the times they talked about mistakes, evolutions in their thinking, crises, you know, like a crisis of conscious.

9:30So I think you're absolutely right in that way. I think one of the things you can do in a situation with somebody like that is apply just like me thinking. What do you mean by that? I mean, there's an actual exercise called just like me. And in it, you say things like this person, whether it's Oprah Winfrey or somebody else, David Beckham, like whoever it is, this person has needed to be courageous, just like me. This person has wanted to make a good first impression, just like me. This person has felt nervous and unsure of their words, just like me. The more you can do that and even see the person kind of doing the ordinary, like I said, picking that kind of healthy-ish breakfast choice and having to get out of bed when they're feeling grumpy on a rainy, dreary Monday, it kind of brings them down to size and makes them human.

10:31Like even if you need to have fun with it. Stars, they're just like us. It's the weekly thing. Yeah, that's a great point. And something that I always do for what it's worth in those interviews is that I'm looking for those moments of connection where I can relate a story of mine or a story of somebody who I met who is not famous to the thing that that person is describing. And I'm doing it in a way to connect, but also to remind them of the level in which I'm looking to connect, which is down at this personal level. But so far, what we've been talking about is someone who has authority, but is neutral about it, isn't looking to lord that authority over you in some way, which is a wonderful thing.

11:11That means that you can really try to meet them where you both are as humans. But we all know that some figures of authority quite like their authority and want to be recognized as such. So how do we rebalance a power dynamic in which we're dealing with someone who, frankly, is happy with a power dynamic that's a little unbalanced? That's a really tough kind of character, right, to be in the room with. And I think there's different ways you could approach it. I think you should continue you to speak up and contribute and say your piece, I think how you come at it could look a little different.

11:57I think you could ask a question and make an invitation. Can I, Jason, can I offer an alternative? It's a little different than that's the worst idea I've ever heard. Let me tell you how it really is. Right? So making an invitation to a figure like that can be one way to put it, simply telling them. I see it differently. You know, getting even an agreement getting statement, what I call an agreement getting statement from somebody like that. What does that mean? An agreement getting statement? It means kind of setting the table with a premise you both share. Would you agree that it's problematic?

12:39We're having so many employees leave our department. Would you agree? Yes. Yeah, I would. Well, one of the solutions, one of the ways we could come at that is to do A, B, and C. Sometimes getting their buy-in, finding that common ground can be helpful. Look, there's not a lot you can do to change them and certainly not their style, but I think it's important you continue to contribute. The worst thing you can do is kind of shut down, slink out of the room, read their intimidating presence as everything. Most of the time, what I've noticed is intimidation is a little bit them, and it's a little bit you.

13:22What mistakes that we haven't already covered here do people tend to make when they're engaging with someone who they perceive as more powerful than them? Yeah. Well, here's one. And it's kind of basic verbal self-defense. And it's when somebody comes in with an intrusive, let's say, question or diminishing question, feeling a compulsion like you have to answer that. Yeah. So when somebody says something, I don't know, rude or intrusive, why don't you have kids yet? When are you going to get a real job? Hmm. These are tough questions. Who's throwing these questions? I'm glad nobody's, nobody ever put me on a spot like that.

14:06Right. But, you know, or even a peer saying like, hey, what makes you think you could make it to the director role or get the coveted VP role? Somebody's questioning you. I think for a lot of us, our instinct is to defend, right? To go to the 32 reasons why I'd be a great VP and let me tell you all the reasons and it's this and that. And I think one of the things we have to learn is when we're in this situation, someone's trying to lord power, maybe with a question like that, is you don't have to answer it. You can try, for example, the technique of making a comment about the question. That's, yeah.

14:48Yeah, or asking a question back to the question, but an evaluative question. Yeah, that's a great point. I hadn't really thought about that, but I'll tell you, I do a similar thing. again, I tell you, cause I'm curious for your reaction to it, which is that, so first of all, I, I long ago learned that, that ego is not a permanent tally, right? Like I, if I, if I do something that is just, just, I don't defend in a moment that frankly doesn't need the fight or I just apologize, or I just deal with somebody who is being obnoxious by just letting them be obnoxious that I don't, I don't like lose points.

15:30Like it's on a video game. You know, sometimes I feel like people need to protect their ego or their status, even if nobody's watching. And even if it doesn't matter because they feel like they're walking around with some kind of score and I realized it doesn't matter. And so if, if this is a uncomfortable situation, then the number one thing that I need to do is just defuse it or allow it to not explode, which means that fine, maybe somebody is going to say something somewhat insulting and I'm not going to defend myself or insult back. Instead, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to let them, I'm going to engage with it in some way that allows it to reach a fairly clean closure, which I think is what you're describing here by maybe just asking a question about, oh, what makes you wonder that?

16:13Which is a very different response to a difficult question than pushing back or giving some answer that then you have to stick to. Yeah, absolutely. Which kind of invalidates the question in a way. If you ask a question about the question or say something cheeky with some humor, wouldn't you like to know? And there are so many ways we can get at this from kind of diffusing it with humor, changing the subject, answer, you know, asking a question back instead of answering. but I think that there's some power there to your earlier point in protecting your peace, protecting your peace. You don't have to take the bait just because somebody kind of knows I'm gonna push the button here and get you upset.

16:58There's also a great technique. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's called gray rock. No, what's gray rock? By the way, you just said take the bait, which just made me think, you know how fish get killed? They take the bait. Like there's no reason to take the bait. Taking the bait just means you're gonna get yanked somewhere. So I just, that was a great visual. So no, Grey Rock, tell me about it. So Grey Rock is for those characters who maybe you know someone who asks lots of intrusive questions or I don't, gossips or wants to stir up these power dramas. When you use Grey Rock, you answer them with very little affect or emotion, kind of like a Grey Rock.

17:35So when they come to you, guess what? I have to tell you the dirt on so-and-so and what's happening with such and such. you're kind of like, huh, you're acting like a gray rock. You don't give it to them. You don't give them the thing that they're looking for. That's right. And again, what are you doing? You are protecting your peace in many ways. You're not engaging on a deep level. You're not getting caught up in it. And these are the things that can keep us sane and contribute to our well-being. And so when you get an invitation to kind of fight a power dynamic and get involved, really think twice about it.

18:13You always have a choice. You always have a choice about whether you shut it down, leave the situation, diffuse it, get involved. Selena, you also write about, and this is a related subject that we've overlapping with things we've already talked about, but which is how to deal with intimidating figures. Intimidating can mean any number of things, right? It can be someone who is intentionally intimidating. It could be someone who you're just intimidated by. And this has to do with power, but I imagine that there's also something of a difference here. So can you tell me how we should start to wrap our heads around dealing with people that we find intimidating?

18:49Yeah, the most common one I hear, which probably won't surprise you, is a direct authority figure. So somebody who has some control over my day to day. And one of the times this comes up so often is around asking for things, asking for a raise or for that leadership role or whatever juicy opportunity it might be. And so I think in situations like this, it's actually better to focus on your competence than your confidence. Instead of saying, I'm going to summon this presence and energy that's just right or will match or meet theirs. How about instead really focusing on competence, the value you bring exactly what you have to offer.

19:38So I'm talking about quantifying things, for example. We've all heard it's important to quantify your value, but you want to make it really hard to argue with what you're saying and the good case you're making. So focusing on things like bringing in 40 ,000 impressions or onboarding 10 new employees or whatever it is, is really an important way to focus on your competence with these individuals and to kind of come prepared and ready to use this time well. I'm curious, before you learned all of this, how did you deal with intimidating people? I think I buckled. I often felt in my early career, I started in management consulting, like the very good second or third choice job candidate.

20:29And it wasn't so much because of competence, but boy, it was a lot about confidence and a willingness to talk about value and value I could create. And so I think I certainly buckled under it. There's one really memorable time. I got a very exciting opportunity to interview, to be a spokesperson, a global spokesperson for a tech company. I was so excited. Went to New York City, did the interview. and as I got closer to that interview, as excited as I was, I really felt like the doubts creeping. What am I doing? Do I have the chops? Was I invited by mistake? All of those questions. And look, unfortunately in that interview, I look back at it and I really gave them like the diet soda version of me.

21:20And they didn't get anything memorable. They didn't get my best ideas. I remember I even kind of dressed in a way that wasn't me. And I wasn't really surprised a couple days later when I got the polite, thanks, Selena. We're going to go in another direction, but stay in touch. And it stung, but what an instructive moment to realize, like, if you don't make your presence felt, nobody's going to notice if you're not there. That really became a mission for me is to help people grab these opportunities and make their presence felt and to do it in an authentic way. Yeah. You know, I love that story.

22:02Thanks for sharing it. I have found for me that in moments like that, which are destabilizing moments, right? You're walking into a situation, you want to impress, you want to be the best version of yourself. But you now have to do it against the headwinds of this unfamiliar situation, these very tight confines. You have a limited amount of time in front of these people who you've never met. You're trying to impress them, but at the same time kind of read their faces and understand what's going on. And you know that the stakes are very high and therefore every single thing that comes out of your mouth is in some way evaluated on yes or no.

22:43It's awful. And this, of course, isn't just for something like what you're describing, but it could also just be a interview with somebody or, you know, a conversation with someone who you don't talk to that often. Anyway, what I have found for me is that over time, I figured out the character that I play in those moments. So the person who will stand on a stage in front of an audience is not, for example, me, because me is the guy who watched Succession with his wife on the couch last night. But the guy who has to stand up on stage has to be something different. And I have to be able to become that guy instantly.

23:26There's no ramp up to that. And so after enough time of being in high pressure situations, what I think I started to do was to pay really close attention to the version of myself that I was creating in that moment. It's not me. It is me. It is authentic, but it's just a really focused, intentional version of me. It's 5 % of me. And that 5 % speaks and talks and moves and thinks in a certain way. And if you do that enough, I found that you can just kind of put it on then whenever you need to. And therefore you don't have to, if you're walking into a room like you did there and it's high stakes and there's possibly an amazing opportunity if you do well, you don't know these people and the whole thing.

24:13Well, then you don't want to spend all that brain space trying to figure out how to reconstruct the best version of you in that situation. You want to walk in with like a prepackaged version of the best version of you. And then you want to be able to just be it, just enact it because it doesn't matter whether or not you're doing it in that room or you're doing it on the street, it's the same exact thing. And that kind of thinking has really helped me. And I now find that I can slip into that mode, that character, literally whenever I want, because I'm just familiar enough with it. And it allows me to, it's funny, I was recently, a friend of mine tagged along to a speaking event of mine, and we were just talking like normal.

24:55and then as soon as I walked in the door, I put the character on and I was, I was in that character the whole time. And afterwards she said to me, she was like, it's a good thing that you're a good person who doesn't use that for evil. Cause that was a weird thing to see that you can do. Um, but I think that that's a thing that's available to everybody. And I wonder if what you're hearing from me sounds like a reasonable thing for other people to think about for themselves. I love it. I love it. And I think it sounds like it works so well for you because it's an integrated part of who you are.

25:30It's not a mask. It's not a phoniness. It's not conforming to what you think somebody else's version of Jason should be. It's one channel of you and what you can put forward in the world. And I think it's really smart to do that. I think unfortunately, the majority of people I talk to are often dealing with a not so nice character, very harsh inner critic, right? I've actually named mine Marjorie. I encourage other people to do the same. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Who's Marjorie? I mean, I understand Marjorie is a character, but like, tell me, tell me more about Marjorie and how and what role Marjorie plays in your life.

26:12Yeah. Marjorie is like really severe, not friendly, forgiving, understanding, kind of inspecting your home and all of your projects and your work, like tweed blazer, severe bun, glasses. And I had to do that and kind of have a little fun with this and picture it because guess what? Marjorie's doing me no favors. And I kind of had to start seeing her as like a helicopter parent, like good intentions, but too much, too much of a good thing, too much exacting nature, too much harshness if things didn't go just right and just being critical. And I encourage people to do that so they can kind of find more of a self coach.

27:00Because look, the point isn't to live a life where you're never rattled or, you know, you surmount self-doubt and no longer have any. That's not the point. For a while, I wondered if it was. I I thought maybe some people had just evolved to that. But it's to be able to face those self-doubts that will keep coming and coach yourself through it and kind of take the step, even knowing it could go sideways, knowing you can right yourself if it really all goes the wrong direction. So I think that's been important for me to find a kind of Ted Lasso figure in me. Seriously, like a sports coach. you know, you think about the best supportive kind of sports coach.

27:48They're not just there to hammer you for your weaknesses. Yeah. They're there to catch you doing good. And oh, I saw what you did there. And that was a good start. Try it this way next time. And I think we all will get a lot further if we have that kind of supportive, more understanding voice. Selena, you've given a lot of great advice in the last half an hour. So what I'm going to ask you is going to sound possibly redundant to things that we talked about before, but maybe pick one or offer something else. But for someone who's been listening to this, who relates to a lot of it, who feels like maybe they have a lot of either intimidating figures in their lives or just are in regular moments where they feel like they are diminished or do not have the power, what is the first thing that you think that they should do or work on or think about as soon as this podcast ends.

28:37I would love for you to think about this thought and repeat it to yourself. Say it to yourself like you mean it. I 400 % belong in this interview, boardroom, job meeting, venture capital, meetup, whatever it may be. You need to affirm your own belonging because look, first you seem powerful in your own eyes, and then you seem powerful in other people's eyes. So you really need to start there. Selena, where can people find you and get the book? You can find me at selenarezvani.com. And I would love for you to visit and say hi there. And my book is available everywhere books are sold. It's called Quick Confidence.