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Podcast Summary: The Art of Charm - The Power of Saying “No” | Dr. Sunita Sah
Episode Overview In this episode, hosts Johnny and AJ engage with Dr. Sunita Sah, an expert in decision-making and organizational psychology, discussing the importance of saying "no" and the transformative power of defiance. Dr. Sah, author of *Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes*, shares insights on aligning personal values with actions and offers practical strategies for cultivating moral courage.
Key Themes and Concepts
Understanding Defiance
- New Definition of Defiance: Dr. Sah redefines defiance as acting in accordance with one’s values in the face of pressure to conform, contrasting the traditional notion of defiance as directly challenging authority.
- Importance of Values: Emphasizes the need to understand and articulate personal values to effectively resist social pressures and make principled decisions.
Societal Conditioning and Compliance
- Insinuation Anxiety: The anxiety felt when noncompliance may be viewed as a signal of distrust or disrespect, inhibiting individuals from voicing dissent.
- Impact of Compliance: Regular compliance can lead to stress, burnout, and regret. Dr. Sah highlights the concerning statistics regarding professionals, such as healthcare workers, who fail to speak up in critical situations.
The Defiance Compass Framework Elements for True Defiance
- Identify Core Values: Understanding personal values is essential for making principled decisions.
- Assess Situations: Evaluate whether it is safe and effective to resist pressures in particular contexts.
- Acknowledge Internal Tension: Recognize feelings of discomfort as indicators for potential defiance.
- Build Skills for Defiance: Practice voicing concerns and resisting pressures in low-stakes situations to strengthen confidence.
- Actionable Steps: Utilize questioning strategies to challenge inappropriate behaviors in a non-confrontational manner.
Building Moral Courage
- Practice in Low-Stakes Situations: Engaging in smaller acts of defiance can cultivate the confidence needed for more significant situations.
- Visualization and Scripting: Preparing scripts and visualizing potential scenarios can help individuals better articulate their values when faced with pressure to comply.
- Curiosity Over Confrontation: Asking clarifying questions can disrupt inappropriate group dynamics and encourage others to reflect on their actions.
Becoming a Moral Maverick
- Encouragement of Defiance: Cultivating a mindset that sees defiance as a positive force for change, rather than a negative trait.
- Empowerment Through Values: Being a moral maverick involves holding oneself and others accountable to shared values, fostering a culture of integrity within organizations.
Key Takeaways
- Reframe Defiance: Shift the perception of defiance from negative to a necessary and proactive social force.
- Value Alignment: Consistently assess and ensure actions align with personal values for authentic living.
- Practice Defiance: Develop skills to articulate and act upon values in various contexts, enhancing both personal and professional relationships.
- Ripple Effect of Dissent: Understanding that individual acts of defiance can inspire broader societal change and encourage others to do the same.
Conclusion Dr. Sunita Sah’s insights provide a powerful framework for understanding defiance as a necessary component of ethical decision-making. By cultivating awareness of core values and the courage to act upon them, individuals can navigate social pressures effectively and foster a culture of integrity in their personal and professional lives.
Additional Resources
- Visit Dr. Sunita Sah’s website [sunitasar.com](https://sunitasar.com) for more information on her work and insights.
- Check out her book *Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes* for practical strategies on embracing defiance.
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This structured summary aims to encapsulate the vital discussions and takeaways from the episode while also guiding listeners on how to implement the concepts in their lives.
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Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter. You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at goodtoknowfacts.org. No spin, no judgments, just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit goodtoknowfacts.org. My definition, a new definition of defiance is that to defy is simply to act in accordance with your values when there is pressure to do otherwise. It's simply saying no to something that you don't agree with.
0:45It's not being quiet, silent and compliant for fear of either offending someone else, doing something that you don't think is polite. It's speaking up when you need to speak up.
1:04Welcome to the Art of Charm podcast, where we break down the science of powerful communication and winning mindsets so you have the cheat code to succeed with people. Every episode is jam-packed with actionable steps to unlock the hidden superpowers inside of you. Level up with us each week by listening to interviews with the best in business, psychology, and relationships. We distill thousands of hours of research in the most effective tools and the latest science so you can start winning today. Let's face it, in order to be seen and heard, your communication needs to cut through the noise, and we're going to show you how.
1:36I'm AJ, successfully recovered introvert, entrepreneur, and self-development junkie. And I'm Johnny Zubak, former touring musician, promoter, rock and roller, and co-founder here at The Art of Charm. And for the last 15 years, we've trained thousands of top performers and teams from every background. We have dedicated our lives to teaching men and women all they need to know about communication, networking, and relationships. You shouldn't have to settle for anything less than extraordinary. All right, let's kick off today's show. Today, we're talking with Dr. Sunita Sa. Dr. Sa is a professor, author, speaker, and consultant.
2:11She helps executives and leaders make decisions, think critically, negotiate, and transform. She's the author of Defy, the power of no in a world that demands yes. Today, Dr. Sa redefines defiance with us. We discuss the five elements of defiance and why it's so important to become a moral maverick. In a world that demands compliance and answering yes, we break down how to learn to say no. Welcome to the show, Dr. Sa. So great to have you. It's wonderful to be here. Thank you. Johnny and I were talking before the show how defiance is often seen as a negative. We've talked a lot on the show about influence, never talked about defiance.
2:47How has Defiance impacted your career and what made you decide to write the book? Well, I've been fascinated by what that single word, powerful word defy means for a really long time. So as a child, I was known as being an obedient daughter and student. So I did what I was told, got up when I was told to, did all my homework as expected, listened to my parents. And it wasn't just my parents. These messages were also coming from teachers, the community, to be good, to be polite, to obey, not question authority. And we often get those kind of messages as children. And I went along with that, but then I became really fascinated by people who could defy.
3:36And when I looked at this in a little bit more depth, what I discovered is that there's some real problems when we are so compliant. because one survey showed that only one out of 10 healthcare workers, most of them nurses, feel comfortable speaking up when they see their colleague making an error. So if nine out of 10 are too uncomfortable to speak up, that's really worrying for us, as patients. And it's not just in healthcare. In other industries, a survey of 1 ,700 crew members on commercial airlines, only 50 % of them felt comfortable to speak up when they saw someone making a mistake. So again, it's life and death type situations.
4:21But even when it's not life and death, I often felt silent and muted and really drained by following everybody else's expectations. And what I really came to the conclusion, which really changed what I thought, is that we have misunderstood what it means to defy. So we need a new definition for defiance because the old definition from the Oxford English Dictionary, and since I grew up in England, I'm not one to usually disagree with the Oxford English Dictionary. But in this case, their definition is that to defy is to challenge the power of someone else, so boldly and openly. And I think that definition is too narrow because my definition, a new definition of defiance is that to defy is simply to act in accordance with your values when there is pressure to do otherwise.
5:20And this is really important because it makes defiance a proactive social force in society. Because if you think about it, all our individual acts of consent and dissent every single day create the society that we live in. And that's why it's so powerful. It affects our lives, our communities, our workplaces and society. And we need to be very mindful of when we're being compliant when we should not be. Dr. Sunita, could you explain the difference between the two definitions? Sure. So the old definition is to challenge the power of someone else, right? So boldly and openly. And the new definition is to act in accordance with your true values.
6:06And that does not need to be done boldly or openly. It does not need to be done as a confrontation to someone else. It's simply saying no to something that you don't agree with. It could be, for example, the nurses speaking up when they see an error. It could be the co-pilots telling the pilots that there's something wrong here. It's not being quiet, silent, and compliant for fear of either offending someone else, doing something that you don't think is polite, not making a fuss. It's speaking up when you need to speak up. What I find so fascinating, and you talked a little bit about this compliance and societal pressures and education, and we see this so often in our clients when we do our work together talking about core values, they kind of stare blankly at us or they have a laundry list of things that they think other people think their core values should be or society tells them their core values should be.
7:00And if we need to wrestle with our core values in order to defy, I think it'd be helpful to talk through a little bit of how you discovered your own because I think that discovery of core values is counter to a lot of the conditioning that we have through compliance and education and society. Absolutely. So the value aspect of it is basically the first question that I use when I'm trying to decide whether to defy or not. And that first question is, who am I? You know, what are my true values? And those values, I've done the value exercise with my own executive students of year after year. And often we don't get asked explicitly to write down what our values actually are.
7:42And most of the students, including myself, these values come from some of the experiences we had either in childhood or in young adulthood. And when I ask the students to sort of write down and explain what their values are, this is really helpful for a number of reasons, because there's often a gap I've seen in studies between who we think we are and how what we actually do. So there's this large gap between what somebody believes their values to be and then how they actually behave in a situation. And the idea about defiance and the questions I have in what I call the defiance compass, which I can go into, is really to decrease that gap.
8:26So for example, when I ask my executive students about their values and I ask them to write them down, Pretty much so many of them say integrity as one of their values. And I think this is a value that people really prize highly. They might want to say they're incompetent at something, but never that they're untrustworthy or they're dishonest. So in our culture, integrity is very, very important. So then I ask them, on a scale of zero to 100, please rate your level of honesty compared to other people in the room. So if you think you're the most honest, it would be 100. If you think you are the least honest, it would be zero.
9:09And if you're about average, it would be 50. And guess what they say year after year? 100. That is basically extremely high, right? So everybody is saying 85 or above, right? Really high, 90, 95. And hardly anyone says that they're about average and nobody's going below average. And obviously that's impossible, right? So if the average is 50, half of the people in the room need to be below and half need to be above. But we see this year after year. So we're rating ourselves really high on integrity. But then when you actually look at some of the studies of how we behave, and this starts from a young age.
9:50So there was a survey of over 20 ,000 high school students. And in that survey, nearly two thirds of them said that they had cheated on a test. Nearly one third said that they had stolen something in the past year from a store, which I found quite surprising. But the next one was even more disheartening because I have a child who's at high school. More than 80 % of them said that they had lied to their parents about something significant. And so these numbers are even likely to be conservative because one in four of them said that they had lied on at least one of the questions in the survey. So here we are, So really rating integrity highly, and yet we're not living up to those values.
10:41And it might start young, but it still continues as we grow into adults, as we have professional life maybe, and into our personal lives. And since so much of our behavior is influenced by other people around us, learning to defy and say no to things is really important for keeping those values and keeping you honest. so that is why defiance is really important and why our values are really important now you asked me what my values are and I found them sort of through my early career as a medical doctor when I saw disadvantaged patients or patients that were really sort of ignored a lot by the medical system and so for me unfairness and equity became really important aspects of my values.
11:32And that experience really solidified that aspect. But it also could be a part of my growing up as well and seeing how my family was treated growing up as Indian immigrants in England. So the certain experiences that we had, that would also probably solidify and clarify that fairness was one of my values. Yeah. And I think about a lot of our early experiences around those moments of defiance too, where we feel the internal pressure of maybe this isn't in line with my values or how I was raised or what my parents or teachers said I should do. And what does behavioral science tell us about those internal pressures we're feeling to defy, but maybe we don't have the strength or the courage to act on?
12:17What we normally do is we actively resist defiance. And I found that there's three key reasons for why that happens. So the first one is the pressure that you're talking about, the social pressure, this enormous pressure to go along with other people. And some people might feel it more than others, but plenty of us feel that pressure. So that's the first one. The second one is that we don't really understand what compliance and defiance are. And if we don't understand it, then we don't know what we mean by compliance, consent, or defiance. And then the last one, which is also critical, is that once we decide to defy, we don't know how to.
12:58We don't have the actual ability or the skill set. And all these things are important. But if we go back to the first one, this enormous pressure, the social pressure to comply with other people. Now, in some of my experiments, I've just seen how clear it is that people will take bad advice. So I was really fascinated by this in my early days when I was studying psychology at the University of Edinburgh and I came across the studies Milgram Obedience to Authority Studies and you're probably familiar with those studies and in those studies they had the experiment of bringing people from outside and have them give what they believe to be harmful electric shocks to another person because of some kind of learning or memory experiment.
13:44Now nobody was getting shocked but The subjects thought they were shocking someone else. And two thirds of them, 66%, went up to the maximum shock level of 450 volts, which is really harmful, could cause death. And it was clearly labeled as such XXX severe shock. And why was that? So Milgram sort of labeled the people that went to that full 450 volts as obedient subjects and the ones that didn't and refused to do it as the defiant subjects. So again, we're reframing defiance as being positive. Now, I can't repeat those types of experiments, but I did look at just people following bad advice and have looked in the medical context, of course, I'm really fascinated by that.
14:33But if you're looking at real behavior, real choices with something consequential on the line. I gave people an option of two different sort of die roll lotteries and one was clearly superior to the other. You could win twice as much by taking lottery A versus lottery B. And so if there was no advice, pretty much everybody took lottery A, right? Didn't feel any pressure or anything like that. That's the preferred choice. You just bring in an advisor said that tells you to take the other lottery, then all of a sudden things start to change. And we get compliance rate depending on what the advisor says and other aspects, even when they have full information and the other person is just a random person in a one-off situation, we're getting 50 % up to 85 % compliance.
15:23The compliance rates are really very high. And when we ask people, a lot of the time, especially when the advisor discloses a conflict of interest, like I'm going to get a compensation and I'm going to get a reward if you choose lottery B, the inferior one. People trust the advice less. So that's great. They're understanding the information. But at the same time, they feel uncomfortable to turn it down. They don't like the advisor. They don't like they're not doing things for warm altruism, but they feel pressure because they don't want to signal distrust to the other person. And I call this psychological process insinuation anxiety.
16:06And this is a distinct type of anxiety that arises when people start worrying that their noncompliance with another person's wishes could be interpreted as a signal of distrust. So it insinuates that the person is not whom they appear to be or should be. So we can imagine that like, you know, our boss asks us to do something and everybody else is saying yes, and you're thinking this is a terrible idea, but how can you say no? There's also a wonderful example in a book called How Professors Think by Michelle Lamont, where she talks about a situation there where there's a committee and they're trying to decide who should be awarded grants based on the applications that have come in.
16:53And there's one woman on this committee that's with four senior men, and it's her first time on the committee. And there was one applicant that she felt that they weren't going with the qualifications, they were going with some gossip. And she didn't know whether the gossip was true or not, but it was not relevant to the process. And what she said was, the one thing that I wanted to do was the one thing I couldn't do. And that was to say something, to speak up, because she didn't want to question the integrity of the four people that she just met and say that they didn't know what they were doing or that they were biased or untrustworthy or being unethical.
17:32And she just couldn't do the thing that she wanted to do that she felt was so wrong in the room. And that's an example of insinuation anxiety that we feel so uncomfortable. We feel like something is wrong, but we remain compliant to save the face of the other person. We don't want to insinuate that they out anything but what they should be. Dr. Sunita, we may not be able to recreate the Milgram experiments, but we did have two years of COVID mandates and everything that went with them between six feet apart, masks, vaccines, everything else that went along with that. So what did we learn through all of that with defiance?
18:15We can learn from defiance from many different moments. What happened to many people during the COVID pandemic is that it might have clarified to them their values, what's really important to them. And sometimes values do get clarified when we, for example, start a new role, when we have what psychologists call role entrance, that we suddenly feel something new, something uncomfortable. And the pandemic was almost like a one-way ticket to a new world for a lot of us. And there we have to start questioning what's really important to us, what are our values, and are we living in alignment with those values?
18:55And a lot of people decided that they were not living in alignment with their values, decided this is, they want more family time or they don't like their commute anymore. And when people returned back to the office, a lot of people did not want to have that type of life anymore. And so they were able to clarify their values in a lot of these things. One thing I should also say about the second thing about why we might actively resist defiance is that we don't actually know what compliance and defiance are. So let me explain a little bit more about that, because what I mean by to comply is to go along with something.
19:33So it could be imposed by another person or a system or a default reaction that we have. We just go along and we do what is expected of us. But if we actually want to defy, we need to think about like, in what situation would I say yes here? And in what situation would I say no? Like what is required? And here it's really useful to take informed consent in medicine and what's required for that and apply it to other decisions in our lives. So if we think about what's required for informed consent is you need five elements. So first of all, capacity. So you need the mental capacity. You don't want to be under the influence of any drugs, alcohol, any illness or anything like that.
20:14So mental capacity is number one. That's important. And then you need to have the knowledge, the facts, the costs, benefits, alternatives, and a good understanding. So the understanding of that is not just getting all the information. You have to actually understand it. So that's two and three, knowledge and understanding. And then you need the freedom to say no, because in certain circumstances, we can't say no. It might be too costly for us to say no. But if we have the freedom to say no, then we can actually then get onto the final element, which is your authorization. If you have capacity, knowledge, understanding, the freedom to say no, and you want to go along with it, then that's your true yes.
20:59That is your informed consent. If you want to say no after all those same factors, that is dissent, that is defiance, your informed refusal. And so if we apply that to other decisions in our lives, as long as those factors are there, then we can be defiant, like we have true defiant. Sometimes we want to rebel just for rebellion's sake, and we don't have all those factors there for true defiance, which is what I call false defiance. Sometimes we defy because everybody else is doing the same thing. And that is actually just compliance, right? We're just conforming with what everybody else wants as well.
21:38So we really need to have that distinction and understand that we are acting with our true values. You've mastered the technical side, the numbers, the strategy, the execution. But there's a variable you can't quite solve for. The X factor that some people just seem to have. And the truth, it's not magic. It's methodology. For 18 years, the Art of Charms X-Factor Accelerator has decoded the science of influence and persuasion for analytical minds like yours. Not with personality types or cheap psychology tricks, but with proven systems that deliver results fast. In just 12 weeks, you'll develop elite-level rapport-building skills, natural charisma that draws people in, and advanced networking abilities that create opportunities before others even see them.
22:27Special Forces operators use it. Fortune 500 executives swear by it. Because for nearly two decades, it works. Implementation sessions, group coaching, and a money-back guarantee that puts our reputation on the line. The X-Factor Accelerator, because soft skills shouldn't be your toughest challenge. Head over to unlockyourxfactor.com to apply to join today. Accelerate relationship building to make an impact at unlockyourxfactor.com. Now, digging deeper into that insinuation anxiety, there are obviously situations where you could be outcast from the social group, but there are also situations where you could be fired and lose your livelihood.
23:10So there is a real sliding scale there. And is there any way for us to manage that anxiety in the lower stakes situations where it isn't really our job on the line, our career or life and death? I talk about having values-based defiance. So not just defying everything, but something that really does go against your values. So if your values are integrity or unfairness or equality, when you see something going against that, that violates that, then that's the time for you to speak up. Now, some of the costs or the consequences of defiance that you've named, such as losing your job, losing a relationship, even feeling embarrassed, they're very real.
23:49They are real costs. We do see that. But what people don't often consider are the costs of complying. When you consistently disregard your values and you're always bowing your head to other people, it has a cost too, psychologically, physically, in the end. it really does lead to more stress if you can't be authentic, more burnout and other aspects. So the way to assess when is the time to defy is to come back to what I call the defiance compass. So the first one is first question that you ask. So there's three questions, three main questions here. The first question is, who am I? Which is going back to the value.
24:29So reconnecting to what your core values are. Then the second question is, what type of situation is this? So here you're looking now at the situation and you're trying to determine, is it safe and is it effective for me to defy? Because it might not be, and you might decide that you are not going to defy in the situation because the costs are too great or the benefits are too meager. so in that situation it is not compliance it is what I call conscious compliance it's not like a knee-jerk reaction we're not we are fully aware we have the all the five elements for consent and also for defiance but we're consciously deciding not now maybe later we're deferring defiance to another day when it could be safer and more effective and then the last question is what what does a person like me do in a situation like that?
25:25So after you've identified who you are, what type of situation is this? Just ask yourself the question, what does a person like me with these values? So fairness, equality, compassion, whatever your values are, what does a person like me do in a situation like this? And this really gets to your aspirational self. Like, what is it that I would like to do in this situation? And it's really about decreasing that gap between who we think we are and how we're actually going to act. Because if we don't act in that way, that also affects who we are. And that's why I call it this circular motion of questions.
26:02How are we going to act in this situation? And I'm sure there's many times that we have acted in a way that we didn't want to act or we've remained silent and gone along with something, even though we didn't agree with it. And often in those situations, we have some element of regret and we start sort of ruminating on it and thinking about what is it I could have said? What is it I could have done differently? And so asking that question, what does a person like me do in a situation like this, really helps you connect with both your responsibility and hopefully gives you some more confidence as well to define that situation.
26:40In the book, you discussed some of the professional and personal consequences of saying yes. So here we've mentioned feeling inauthentic, having some regret, general fatigue, and being tired of living to other person's expectations. What else would people be seeing there? In terms of being compliant? I mean, so many things. I've heard so many stories about being compliant that I didn't speak up in that situation when I knew something was wrong. So the woman that I told you about with the grant application committee, she said she doesn't know what would happen to that person who didn't get the grant, right?
27:19What impact does it have on their career? What impact does it have on their family and also has an impact on her? I started my career in medicine and worked as a doctor before I became an organizational psychologist. So I spent, you know, it was all, I could say it was all perfectly planned, right? But we, people spend years in the wrong career for them, right? People spend years in the wrong relationship. So there's many things where we become very compliant. It's not just about, which is also what some people describe when they think about insinuation, anxiety, not being able to send their meal back or like having a really bad haircut and then sort of thanking the hairdresser and also paying a tip on the way out.
28:00Well, I think a big part of it, and Johnny and I as teachers, and I'm sure you've experienced, is the environment in which the defiance happens. And oftentimes in a teaching role, you may find that one student starts defying by cracking jokes and taking attention away from what the lessons are in front of the room. And then other people start to feel more open towards the defiance. And very quickly, it could swing from compliance to defiance. So is there a mechanism that we can utilize to strengthen our ability to defy, maybe in lower-stakes situations, so we can approach that as a muscle that would allow us in these higher-stakes situations to really be more principled?
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28:39Yeah. So a couple of things there. So one is like, how are we defining defiance in this situation where one of my students, say, for example, starts cracking jokes in class? Would I call that values-based defiance? I'm not entirely sure that I would. Like, what value are they living up to? Oh, maybe it's compassion because the lecture is boring and we want to have a laugh, right? In which case that's fine. But the other aspect that you're talking about is, yes, if you see somebody else defying, then it's much easier for you to defy as well, right? So having an ally really does help. And in the Milgram studies, we saw that a lot, right?
29:18If you have such high compliance of 66%, if there was somebody else in the room that defied and refused the orders, and one version of the experiments had that, and in that situation, we saw obedience go down to about 20%. So it really does make a difference. We just have to know whether we are defying because we're acting in alignment with our true values or whether we're just doing what somebody else is. So again, clarity on the values is really important there, but having an ally is really helpful. Yeah. And I know for myself, part of the active learning to say no, and it comes with the job as an entrepreneur, inbound pitches, constantly people asking for your time and energy.
30:02And if you don't say no, well, you won't have enough focus or energy left for actually growing your business or doing the things that matter. But what I've recognized over time is the more comfortable I've become with saying no, a lot of the internal expectations or reactions I was expecting from the no never end up happening. So going along with that insinuation anxiety, we may feel that the other person is going to feel judged. They're going to feel really hurt by us turning down that request. But the more that I've actually learned to say no, the more I've recognized that actually I've gained respect by being principled and staying true to myself instead of saying yes to things I can't fulfill, saying yes because other people want or need me to do that, and it makes their life easier.
30:43And I think that's kind of hard for us to judge internally in the moment, but I've found through experience of saying no, that that's actually strengthened my ability to say no in the higher stakes situations. Yeah, I think it's practicing in sort of lower stakes, as you say, is really helpful. and I also agree with you that sometimes we sort of magnify what we think the response is going to be and we keep deferring defiance because we don't know we don't know what's going to happen to us and we fear something that probably would never happen and so practicing in some smaller stakes situation is really helpful to build up some of the skill set so when we look at that last question and the defiance compass what does a person like me do in a situation like this you're both tapping into your responsibility and what your values are and reconnecting with that.
31:31But you also need the ability to defy. And building that ability up as a practice is really important. And the way that I have done that is, like in many situations, I wish I had defied and then I didn't, is that I start thinking about that. And most of these situations you can anticipate. They're predictable. So for example, AJ, you might know that you are going to get asked to do certain things that don't align with your goals for the day or your values. And so you can predict them if you come across them several times. I know, for example, that in a certain work meeting, a certain colleague is going to make an inappropriate remark.
32:16So some of these things are predictable. And so we can start anticipating it because it's surprise that disables defiance a lot of the time. But if you anticipate it, then you can be prepared. So think about the situation where you wish you had put your values into action and you didn't, and you regretted it, and what you wish you could have said. So I did this, I started anticipating in it and then start visualizing it. Because if you can picture it, you can start role-playing or scripting out what you would wish you had said. And this is really important for the people who were brought up with a masterclass of compliance the way that I was.
32:59Because we start equating compliance with being good and defiance with being bad. And we need to disentangle that. And we need our ears to get used to hearing saying no for myself. So hearing some defiant words and we need our mouths to get used to saying them. So that changes the neural pathways. It's not just intellectually understanding, oh yeah, I should have said no in that situation or I should have spoken up. It's really practicing for that changes the neural pathways. And then the next time you're in that situation, it becomes easier. So it really is an action plan that starts long before the moment of crisis that you have to think about.
33:39If you can't just wish yourself to be defiant in the spot. And there's a really nice quote that really captures this element of practice, which is often attributed to Bruce Lee, but it was actually a Greek poet that said it, which is, under duress, we don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training. And so that training for defiance is really critical. So let's walk through that example, because I think that is really illustrative. And we've kind of all been in a situation at work where someone maybe has a history of acting out of line or just acts out of line.
34:18And we kind of look around the room and gauge from each other, well, we all know that shouldn't have been said or that's inappropriate, but no one speaks up. So how can we start to prepare, visualize, and allow ourselves to strengthen that defiance in those moments? Yeah, I think what's really helpful here as well as that sort of visualizing is really having some scripts at hand, right? What is the script? What is it I wish I would have said in this situation? And when we think about defying, there's five stages of defiance. And we might not experience them all, we might like jump some, we might go back and forth.
34:53But they're really useful to think about these stages in terms of what does it take for me to defy. So usually the first is that you feel some kind of tension. So somebody will say something, you feel like you should respond or you want somebody to respond. And then there's that uncomfortable feeling. And we all feel tension in different ways. So somebody might feel sort of a punch in the stomach, or they might have a headache, or they might just have a really dry mouth. You know, we all feel it in different ways, but we can get familiar with what our warning sign is, because often with that tension, we just all self-doubt, right?
35:30Oh, maybe they didn't mean anything. Oh, you know, I'm sure they know better. That we often sweep it away because it's uncomfortable to us. But what we should do is if we feel that tension, we should go to stage two and acknowledge it to ourselves. Just really tell ourselves, oh, what is going on here? I feel uncomfortable and examine it in more detail as to why. And then what you might want to do then is go to stage three, which is vocalizing that discomfort to someone else. And that stage is really critical because the research shows that if you are able to do that, then you can't go back later on and say, oh no, I was fine with it.
36:11It was okay because you've now vocalized it to someone else. So you can't have those rationalizations and you're more likely to get to stage five. And that's stage three, you still can be in a subservient position. You don't need to be confrontational. You could just approach with, what I say, approach with curiosity rather than confrontation. So if somebody has said something inappropriate, one script could just be, what do you mean by that? What did you just say? Because then people start thinking themselves critically about what they just said. And some of them, if it's very offensive, don't want to repeat it.
36:46And you might not think you've done anything. The moment might just pass. Well, nothing, nothing. But you have, because the next time you are in the room, that person knows that you might ask again and they're less likely to do it. So just that one simple statement, what do you mean by that? Or did I hear you correctly? Can you clarify? Just really changes the external environment. It changes the water in which everybody else is swimming in. So it has this ripple effect that's quite powerful and it isn't angry or aggressive or, you know, it's not even confrontation. You're still in that subservient position.
37:24In other situations where, for example, you're being asked to do something you really don't want to do, then you might want to continue that vocalization to get to stage four, which is expressing that you can't go along with it. You know, this doesn't seem right to me. I'm not comfortable with this. I don't want to do it. And then the last stage is your act of defiance. But that's stage three of asking clarifying questions. It's not a confrontational stage, but it's a really powerful one. Yeah, and I love that because the curiosity is not accusatory. It puts a magnifying glass or a flashlight on the words, but doesn't put it on the person.
38:02And that allows the person then to apologize, to back away from what they said, to admit that it was said in error versus labeling or, as you say, creating more of a confrontation. So it draws everyone's attention in. And that curiosity then, as you shared, is so powerful because it does create that ripple effect. People start paying closer attention in the next meeting. Odds are that's not going to happen. And we didn't even have to get to stage five to fully defy. Yeah. You don't have to took the person out of the room, right? You are just asking a simple question. And again, there's other people that are observing you and it also has an effect on them.
38:38So even if you're not in the room, maybe somebody else will say something next time. And that's like one of the really powerful things about defiance is that it doesn't just change you. Like you feel good for having spoken up, but it also changes the people that are observing it. So it's a really powerful effect. If you're still overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to saying no. That's Mint Mobile's whole thing. Their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS. And that's why I love Mint Mobile premium wireless service for just 15 bucks a month.
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42:59Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Obviously, a lot of these situations around work and professional life can be very devastating, but we also see it a lot just in managing relationships and going along with things and being a bit of a yes person. And I know the way I was raised was to be compliant. And I've had to really work to be aware of those signals, those initial signals. So are there any exercises that we can do to really focus on stage one, to bring awareness to what's going on for us in terms of our physical reaction in response to that tension? Yeah, I think the introspection that you have, if you have been raised to be compliant.
43:37You've probably gone along with things many times. And it's not like judging yourself for that or having shame on that. Like when I talk about like Rosa Parks, for example, that everybody recognizes as the defiant moment of saying no for not moving on the bus. She said yes many times before, right? It wasn't that like she was continuously defiant. She was practicing for defiance though. And what's really interesting about her story is often portrayed as being like she was the accidental matriarch of the civil rights movement. I think that was one of the sort of headlines in the New York Times, all that she was tired all over in the LA Times.
44:16And actually that wasn't true. What she actually said is the only tired I was, was tired of giving in. And she was defined in many different ways before that day. She had seen her own mother refuse to move on the bus for a white person. And 10 months before she was mentoring a teenage age girl that did something similar. And she knew in that situation, this was the right time for her to defy. So we are very compliant before the moment of defiance. And so thinking about the times that we have been compliant and recognizing what is that tension that we have? How is it that we, how does it manifest for us?
44:56Is it anxiety? Is it self-doubt? Is it a headache? Like what is it that is true for us? And like, what is the warning signal we are getting? Because that is one of the most powerful things that I call this resistance to resist, right? We resist defiance. And how does that show up in our bodies? Because sometimes our bodies know before we do consciously that this doesn't feel right. Something feels wrong about this situation. And I'm not talking about a gut feel here. I'm talking about some manifestation of tension that we actually think about and acknowledge to ourselves to discover what it is about.
45:38Because if we're just going with like your gut, you know, sometimes your gut can be right. And sometimes it can be just your biases speaking to you. I'm talking about some tension between a force of what we think is the right thing to do and what somebody else is expecting us to do. Yeah, I think for me, my experience growing up, I would often label that tension with a guilt or shame towards myself. Like I'm doing something wrong, I'm letting people down. And I would dismiss that initial tension. And then of course, if I'm not tuning into the signal, then it becomes very hard to defy as you get older.
46:11And as you realize how important it is to really strengthen that ability and the power to say no, recognizing now that, oh, that tension, that signal in my body is not something to be guilty about or embarrassed about, but it's something to recognize of, okay, now we're coming up against my values and who I aspire to be, and I should act on that sensation. Are there situations where your and maybe silent defiance and the response to it is a signal that maybe you should leave that group or maybe you should leave that job or maybe that's not the right place for you based on your principles and values?
46:45because I know for myself, avoiding confrontation, not wanting to be bold and brash, which a lot of us label as defiance, defaulting more towards the quiet defiance. How do I know when it's, you know, maybe this isn't the place for me or maybe this profession or maybe this group or this job or this workplace or this culture is not the right fit for me? Yeah. So there is a hypothesis called the ASA sort of very, you might be familiar with it, the attraction, selection, attrition aspect in that we are attracted to certain places, we get selected if we're a good fit, and if we're not, then there's attrition.
47:20And that basically means that places become similar, right? People become similar to each other, because if you're not a good fit, you're going to leave. If you can be defiant in that situation, then you can change the environment around you. So I do think there is power in one sort of not leaving, but staying and changing the environment. But if that is really difficult, there are a few ways to do this. You don't have to have like what I called a principal exit immediately. You can start from just doing things like on a smaller basis. So for example, you can just start advocating first of all for yourself or for other people.
48:00And we see this in like I draw from the literature on medical professionalism here is like, what are the stages of medical activism? And the first one is of advocating. So that might be sort of going back to insurance companies and saying like this particular test or treatment is necessary. So you're advocating for your patients on a continued basis. And you can do that in your workplaces. Maybe you're advocating for an unfair policy to be removed, or maybe you're advocating for something to be improved, a quality fee, something to be improved. If that doesn't work, then you can go to some kind of dissent, right, which is could be internal, that you could sort of say, you know, I think this aspect of our culture needs changing, or this particular process needs changing.
48:47And if that doesn't work, there's always public dissent to which some whistleblowers will do, right? They, if they see something hugely corrupt, and Jeffrey Weigand is an example of this, when he was working for the tobacco industry. And he saw that a lot of the studies and evidence was being suppressed that tobacco was actually very harmful. And he decided to speak up for that. It took a long time and there were many costs for him, but he was very glad that he did it in the end. You could also have what's called professional disobedience, which is just refusing to go along with things when you think they're wrong.
49:25So refusing for a doctor, for example, refusing to not treat undocumented immigrants. So you could refuse to go along with rules within the organization that you think are unfair or don't demonstrate empathy or compassion. And you could try those things out before the principled exit. But if none of those things have an effect and you are living in misalignment with your values every single day, then that might be an indication that now is the time for a principled exit. In the last section of the book, you discuss the idea of becoming a moral maverick. I know we've touched on some of the concepts, but what do you mean by a moral maverick and what are some more concrete steps we can take recognizing now the importance and impact of defiance?
50:12So being a moral maverick is really incorporating the practice of defiance and knowing that we're not perfect, but we are practicing towards speaking up and defying when necessary and doing this in alignment with our values. So these people are not people that don't believe in their organizations. A lot of people who are defiant really believe in the mission and values of their organization. And they want to hold the people responsible for going against those values to, they want to hold them responsible. Like this, this doesn't actually serve who we're supposed to, it doesn't serve the patients.
50:50It doesn't serve the clients. You know, this is what we need to do. And in order to become a moral maverick is to really practice for that. One of the first things that you can do that's really helpful is this mindset shift. So we often think about defiance as being like loud, bold, violent, even angry or aggressive. Or we think about it as being heroic or superhuman and just out of reach. It's not for us. And it's none of those two things, right? You don't have to be a superhero. You don't have to have a strong personality or be larger than life to incorporate defiance into your life. It's not just for the brave or the extraordinary.
51:34is available and necessary for all of us to have. And we can all learn to defy in our own unique way. Because even though I had a self-concept of being such a compliant person, people pointed out ways to me in that I was actually defiant and living by my values that didn't even register with me as being defiant because they were natural to me. So we all have that tendency and we can start just by asking ourselves a question in situations, does this situation? Yeah. And what I loved about the book is all the great examples, historically speaking, where these small acts of defiance lead to massive change.
52:13And that's happening politically, that's happening inside of companies, that's happening culturally. And I think oftentimes in these situations, those people aren't going in saying, I'm going to be the hero, or I have to be bold and brash. They're just recognizing that their values are being compromised and based on principles, they're standing up for themselves. But in standing up for themselves, they're actually imparting change for everyone. Yeah, absolutely. It can be so powerful that sort of what I call either the defiance domino effect that it ripples out to other people and really affects them.
52:47And even if it is just between two people, it's really important to do and can lead to a lot of positive change. And with that, this is a fascinating conversation. I loved all the science that you brought to us here on the show and in the book. I'm curious what you hope the takeaway for the reader is in this book. The main thing I would hope the listener would take away from this podcast and from reading the book is to think differently about defiance. Stop equating compliance with being good and defiance with being bad and really think about what have we misunderstood about defiance and how can I then incorporate defiance so it is a proactive social force in society?
53:30Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It was a fascinating conversation and we encourage all of our listeners to check out the book. Where can our audience find out more about you and the work you do? The best place is to go to my website. So that's sunitasar.com. So that's S-U-N, like the sun in the sky, S-U-N-I-T-A-S-A-H, just three letters, dot com. So sunitasar.com. You'll find also links to pre-order the book, to connect with me on social media, on LinkedIn or Instagram. And also you can subscribe to my newsletter for free. It's called Defiant by Design, and that's on Substack. Beautiful.
54:10Well, thank you again for joining us. This is fascinating. Thank you so much.
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54:52They have a system and a structure so that you can build what you need to see the matrix in yourself and actually get the results that you're looking for in the end. The awesome thing, AJ, Johnny, Michael, they work with you one-on-one as well as they put a lot of time and effort to set up continual meetings there during the week and groups. Again, I would highly recommend this. You're going to see the matrix. You're going to see things that will help you connect and build great relationships. Thank you. And it was fantastic working with you too. And good luck to all your future endeavors. If you've listened this far, you're probably somebody who understands the value of building meaningful connections and expanding your network.
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From the publisher
In today's episode, we explore the transformative power of defiance and the role it plays in aligning with our values with Dr. Sunita Sah, a renowned expert in decision-making and organizational psychology. A professor, speaker, and consultant, Dr. Sah empowers leaders to navigate complex ethical landscapes and make principled choices. As the author of Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes, she redefines what it means to stand up for your values, offering practical tools to resist undue influence and cultivate moral courage.
Join us for an eye-opening conversation with Dr. Sunita Sah as she redefines what it means to say "no" in a world that pressures us to say "yes." Why do we so often comply with demands that go against our values? How can we cultivate the courage to resist undue influence while staying true to ourselves? Dr. Sah delves into the psychology of defiance, the societal impact of compliance, and the powerful ripple effects of standing up for what matters most. Learn how to align your actions with your core values, navigate social pressure with confidence, and become a moral maverick in both your personal and professional life. Discover actionable strategies to unlock the transformative power of principled defiance and reshape the world around you.
What to Listen For
Introduction – 00:00:00
Why is defiance often misunderstood, and how can it be a proactive force for positive change?
What is Dr. Sah’s new definition of defiance, and how does it differ from traditional perceptions?
Why is acting in accordance with your values crucial in resisting social pressure?
How do everyday acts of compliance and dissent shape society at large?
Understanding Social Pressure and Compliance – 00:06:09
How does societal conditioning teach us to equate compliance with goodness?
What is insinuation anxiety, and how does it inhibit people from resisting bad advice?
Why do so many professionals, from healthcare workers to airline crew members, hesitate to speak up in critical situations?
The Defiance Compass: A Framework for Decision-Making – 00:18:45
What are the five elements required for true defiance, and how do they align with the concept of informed consent?
How can identifying your core values and understanding a situation help you determine when to defy?
What are the psychological and physical costs of living out of alignment with your values?
How does chronic compliance lead to burnout, stress, and regret?
Why is acknowledging and addressing your internal tension a critical step toward principled defiance?
Building the Courage to Defy – 00:28:09
How can practicing defiance in low-stakes situations help you build the confidence to act in higher-stakes moments?
Why is visualization and scripting important for preparing to act on your values?
How can asking clarifying questions like “What do you mean by that?” create powerful ripple effects in group dynamics?
Becoming a Moral Maverick – 00:46:04
What does it mean to be a moral maverick, and how can practicing defiance create lasting change?
How do small acts of principled defiance lead to greater personal fulfillment and societal impact?
What mindset shifts are required to stop equating compliance with being good and embrace defiance as a positive force?
How can understanding and practicing principled defiance improve your personal and professional relationships?
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