The CRUCIAL Difference Between Compliance and Consent (And Why It Matters) with Vanessa Bohns

I have some incredible news. My second book, how to have Difficult Conversations About Race, is now the number one new release in its category on Amazon. I'm so excited, so excited for this because we've put a lot of work into it, and this was risky because as a lawyer who's focusing on negotiation and conflict resolution, talking about race seems for many to be outside of the scope of what I usually do. But again, how are we defining negotiation? We define negotiation as anytime you're having a conversation and somebody in the conversation wants something. And as the podcast is titled Negotiate Anything, we can negotiate anything. And in my years of doing all of this work in the professional world, difficult conversations about race is something that comes up over and over and over again in the workplace. And there isn't really a solid resource out there that blends the fundamentals of negotiation and conflict resolution and effective communication with this particular topic. So it's risky. It is risky, risky to venture in this way. But I'm really excited and encouraged by this early result. So this is not just a win for me, this is a win for you too, because you are part of this tribe. And so a quick note about the book. Who did I write this for? I wrote this for the person who is passionate about changing the world and their organizations for the better, the leader who leads a diverse team, and the professional who wants to learn how to overcome the hidden barriers that make it tough to connect with people with a different background. So whether you consider yourself an ally or just want to avoid making a critical mistake when discussing race, this book is for you and for you as a podcast listener, I'm making a direct request. After six years and over 600 episodes of Negotiate Anything, I'm asking for your support in this endeavor to make the world a better place. Our goal of the American Negotiation Institute is to change the world, and this book plays a critical role in making that happen. And we would love to have your support. We have the links in the description of this episode so you can get your copy of how to have Difficult Conversations About Race. Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute here at A&I. We believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations, and we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings both virtually and in person all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Vanessa, welcome back, my friend.

Thanks so much for having me again. I'm so excited to be back.

Yes, we're excited to have you again. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Yep. So I am a social psychologist and I'm currently a professor at Cornell University. Professor in Organizational Behav. And I wrote a book called you have More Influence Than youn Think. And I'm an experimental social psychologist. So I run experiments where people get to sort of test out their influence and see if it matches what they think it is.

Yes. And I, you know, I'm very predictable. So I probably said this before, but listeners essentially, Vanessa is who I wanted to be because I had my undergrad degrees in psychology and I was always thinking about these cool experiments to run, but Vanessa's actually doing it. So this is great. And today we're going to talk about a really important, important topic, compliance versus consent. And we, we touched on this last time and I said, no, Vanessa, you need to come back. And we need to go a lot deeper on this because I think it's super important. So how about I'll just pass it over to you and let you set the stage.

Yeah, you know, this is a topic that I actually got interested in when I was exploring who I wanted to be. So we're like the reverse. So I always wanted to be a lawyer. One of going into psychology. I had been studying compliance for many years, but hadn't really thought about how my findings related to compliance might inform the topic of consent. I really hadn't thought about consent at all. It's really not a major topic in psychology. But I was approached by this graduate student at Yale Law School who was studying consent and she was aware of my work and sort of made that connection because in law and in legal scholarship, consent is actually this huge topic. I mean, Aristotle talked about consent and they've been working out really what it means to consent for many years. And so I had all these findings basically looking at what we sort of perceive as consent without actually labeling it as consent. So just to give you an example, so I have these studies that we talked about the last time I was here where I have participants go out and ask people for things. And one of the things we didn't get into too much was one study in particular where I had participants go out and ask people to vandalize these library books. We basically took books off my bookshelf and put library codes on them. And we sent our participants into libraries, and they went up to people and they said, hey, we write the word pickle and pen in this library book because I'm playing a prank on my friend and they know my handwriting. So our participants, of course, thought that, like, nobody would agree to this. But in fact, they went out and they asked people to do this and found that most people wound up agreeing. So many more people, about twice as many people as they had expected. And one of the interesting things about running that study is that was literally the script that we gave them, right? I'm playing a prank on my friend, but they know my handwriting. Will you write the word pickle and pen in this library book? Simple request. But as we were running this study, I would get these angry emails from people who had agreed to vandalize the book, who had written pickle in the library book. And we gave them a debriefing form afterwards so they knew what the study was about and that they hadn't actually vandalized the library book because we didn't want them to feel like they had actually done something wrong. And so they had my email address from these debriefing forms. And I would from time to time, get these angry emails, like, I can't believe you made me do this, right? Like, I can't believe you put me in this position. And I just thought this was such a fascinating reaction because it's like, we did not make you do this thing, right? Our undergraduate participant went up to you and made a request, and you felt so pressured by that request that you feel like you were almost course, like you were made to do this thing. And so that's really the link where I think the law student I was working with, Rosanna Summers, the link she sort of made between my work on compliance and consent, because these people are agreeing to do this thing, right? They're vandalizing this library book because of a simple request, but they feel like they didn't really consent, like you forced them to do it. They were somehow coerced. And it just gets at sort of the social Pressure that people can feel sometimes just by a simple request that we don't always recognize.

Right.

That they may not feel like they're truly consenting in that moment.

There is so much to go into here. First of all, I feel like Stanley Milgram is somewhere looking down on us, laughing about this finding. So for the people who are not psychology nerds, Stanley Milgram is the person who had this really fascinating study about authority and compliance where they had people dressed up in lab coats. Essentially, they would trick people into thinking that they were delivering electric shocks to people if they answered a question wrong. And the person wearing the lab coat would tell the person to continue to deliver these shocks. And essentially, mostly everybody complied with hurting people. And there's so much that we could go into there. But long story short, they were shocked at how many people could do this hurtful thing just because they were told by somebody who they don't know wearing a lab coat. And I think what's really interesting to me about this experiment, this modification on this, is the fact that the people who were your confederates here were undergrad students who have no clout. No clout. And so we removed authority from it. And people still complied at a high level, but they felt coerced. You made me. You made me do this. Removing the element of choice in their minds. I think, to me, that's one of the most interesting things about this. No relationship, no authority. And they still complied.

Yeah. And we actually, in those studies. And then I can tell you about some other studies I did with Rosanna Summers that we were trying to sort of update the Stanley Milgram paradigm. So I'm glad that you brought that up, but we were. That was one of the aims was to not have any sort of indicators of authority or this kind of obedience paradigm that Milgram had used where it was obedience to authority. We just wanted it to be a simple request to show that even. That even this thing that seems so sort of benign. Right. Can feel really compelling or coercive to people. And it's because we feel like if we say no to somebody. Right. We are somehow, potentially, it's a socially risky moment where we feel like we could be damaging the relationship or our standing in the group, or, you know, we could be seeming like a jerk or embarrassing the other person. And so it's this really awkward moment where we will agree to something that we feel uncomfortable doing because it's even more uncomfortable to say no in that moment. And so I do want to tell you, since you brought up Stanley Milgram, I Would love to tell you about the studies that Rosanna and I did. So actually, Rosanna, who is the graduate student at Yale Law School, studying consent. So she was studying consent, and one of the contexts in which she was studying it is consent to search. So basically, when police search someone, they don't, I'd say, in over 90% of cases, right, they don't need to have any kind of reason to to be searching you. They don't have to have a warrant. Like, we have this idea that, like, police search is all about warrants and like some sort of legal process. But in fact, in more than 90% of the cases of police search, they just ask somebody, can I please search you? And the person just hands over whatever it might be, a bag, you know? You know, you let someone into your house, whatever it might be, and that's called consent search. And basically, most searches are conducted through consent search. And when people are asked to be searched, hardly anybody says no. But if someone were to say yes in that moment, and this is, again, bringing authority back into the fact and into the situation, right, you got a police officer asking you with this power, with this authority to be searched, right. What are people going to say? Of course they're going to feel like they can't say no, even though it's called voluntary consent. And so one of the things Rosanna and I were interested in was say, I'm one of those people who says, okay, you can search my car and you find something that I shouldn't have had in the car. Right? And I say, actually, I don't feel like I consented to allow you search my car. And a judge or a jury has to decide whether you truly did consent. Right. They're going to look at that situation and ask some questions. Did this person feel free to say no in this moment? And if they didn't, then technically they wouldn't have consented. Because that's part of consenting, is you have to feel free to say no. So anyway, long, long way of getting to the idea that many people have argued in courts of law using Stanley Milgram, that people don't really feel free to say no to authority because the Milgram studies, right, you've got an experimenter, as you said, in a lab coat, saying, please continue with the experiment. And you feel like you have to keep shocking. In this case, you have a police officer asking to search. You feel like you can't say no. People have been referencing the Milgram studies for a long time and really had not updated them for a Very long time. Rosanna and I wanted to run some studies to play around with this paradigm. What we did is we created a search experiment in our lab, and we had participants come into the lab, and we basically asked them to unlock their phones and let us search their phones.

So.

We brought them into which you can imagine, right? Like, we think about all the things that are on your phone that you wouldn't want someone to go through. Like, that's a serious search request. And so we. We assigned half of our participants to just imagine this. We said, we're thinking about doing this. Would a reasonable person do this? Would you agree to hand over your phone? And then the other half, we actually asked them. We said, please hand over your phone so we can search it, and they would have to unlock it and hand it over. And I printed out the numbers because they were, like, so astounding, we couldn't even believe it. We designed the study. We weren't sure anyone was going to hand over their phone. We were like, this is too much that we're asking people, right? And so the group that was told to imagine what this would be like, they said, I have my numbers right here. 14% of them said a reasonable person would hand over their phone. So they're saying basically, 86% of people will say no. They said that 27% of themselves, right, if you were asked, would agree. So they were saying, basically, like, 73% of us would say no. So everyone's saying, like, most people are going to say no to this. This is not a fair request. When we actually asked them, 97% handed over their phones. We asked 103 people in our first study to hand over their phones, and only three said no. And we ran this study for, like, two weeks before a single person said no, expecting that we weren't even gonna get anyone to say yes. So people are basically just unlocking their phones and handing them over, despite the fact that they said that they wouldn't do this.

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I think that's exactly right. Yeah. There are other studies as well, showing we think we're going to be basically bolder in a situation. In this case, it's like saying, no, you can't have my phone to an experimenter, but maybe in a negotiation it's saying like, no, you can't. You know, I'm not going to make that concession. We think we're going to be really bold, so. But in the moment, we actually find it a lot harder than we think.

Yes. It's almost quick aside, you know, a bit humorous here. It's like the keyboard warriors who talk a lot of trash online and talk about what they're going to do. There's some shows that say, all right, hey, I saw you made this tweet about this basketball player or this UFC fighter. Care to restate that? Yeah, this is what I said. Do you believe that? Okay, well, here's that fighter now. It's like, oh, my God. Yeah, right? And so, so we think about it in terms of our own self defense, but then we also have to think about it in terms of when we're asking these questions because, I mean, that's all about. That's what your book is all about. Just the shocking, how shockingly persuasive we can be, you know, you know, you're more influential than you think. That's the proper way to say it. Right. And so when you think about it, you have to question the consent, we have to question the yes. So, okay, they said yes, but did they feel like they had a choice? That's not always apparent. And so that's the practical relevance here.

Yeah, I totally agree. And you know, I would add one more thing, which is that most negotiations, right, we're negotiating with people that we want to have long term relationships with or at least go back to, you know, at some point in the future, it's pretty rare that we have these one shot negotiations where I'm never going to see you again and I can just bully you into agreeing to exactly what I want and leave. And then you can hate me forever and feel like I pressured you into an agreement that you weren't happy with. Right? So keeping in mind this idea of like, what things can I do to make this agreement feel more, get more buy in from the agreement, right? So after the fact, once we make that agreement, this person feels like, okay, you know, I feel good about this. I keep wanting to work with that person in the future. We have some studies showing that if you sign something like for example, one thing consent is relevant to, right. Is like terms of agreement, like signing contracts and things like that. If I didn't read a contract carefully and I don't know what I'm signing after the fact, if something happens, I may feel like, why didn't I agree to that? I feel like I didn't agree to that. And if you feel like you didn't really consent to something like a work contract, you feel like you can't trust that person who gave you the contract. You feel like you don't want, you know, you're not motivated to work with them, you're not motivated to work hard for them, there are all these kind of negative downstream consequences. So keeping that in mind, that like, I don't just want you to say yes, I want you to want to say yes. I want your buy in, I want you to consent, not just comply, right? I think that's important in lots of contexts.

Next 100% and something that just after we had our conversation last time, it was just layers and layers of revelations for me too, because as a leader, I want my, my, my staff and my team to feel empowered to speak up and advocate for themselves. And sometimes, you know, after I've lived with myself for 33 years, so I'm less impressed by Me, right. And so I was like, oh, you know, I'm just Kwame, I'm having conversations, right. And then I don't realize the leverage and authority that I have that other people can see me having that I don't fully appreciate in myself yet. And so when people can comply with what I say, sometimes I'm surprised down the road where they don't. Where the employees might not have felt like they had a choice with a strategic decision that we made, tactical decision, whatever it happens to be. But, but I say we had several conversations about this. Why didn't you tell me? They didn't feel like they could. And especially as a lawyer who is trained in persuasion, sometimes I have now like becoming more self aware of this dynamic. It's changing the way that I persuade and interact with my, with the people on my team, with people who, and other people who might see me as somebody who is, who carries a little bit of authority too. So that, that self awareness from understanding this was incredibly helpful for me, just personally and professionally.

Yeah, that's so true. And you know, one of the things I talk about in the book is how being in a position of power or in leadership, you know, it can exacerbate a lot of these, these biases where we underestimate the pressure that we could put on people. So my colleague Adam Galinsky has used the expression, when you're in power, your whisper can sound like a shout. And at the same time, we may not realize that. Right. Like we're just kind of making suggestions or making requests. But to someone who's not in a position of power or who you know, we have power over, they can feel like demands and they can feel like they can't really say no to us. And at the same time, many of us, by the time we reach that position of leadership, we've worked so hard to get there and we, we've kind of had to scrap to get there. And we feel like we're one of, you know, the, the sort of lower people on the ladder still. Like it's hard for us to kind of update our mental model to know that like, wait, I'm the one in charge now. Like I'm one of the grown ups and I have to act like one of the grownups and recognize that I do have this position of authority here and I have some responsibility that comes with that.

Yeah, that makes so much sense. So much sense. Now there's so many different ways we can go because we can talk about it through the lens of just interpersonal Interactions from the negotiation side. I think what would also be interesting is to go a little bit deeper on the structural implications of this, because the person you were working with was a Yale law student. Right. And so there are going to be legal implications of this within, like, just like the law in government, that type of stuff, but also the structures within our companies as well, because those essentially operate as quasi governmental authority structures for the people within the organizations. So how does this dynamic play within governments and organizations?

Yeah, I mean, I think, for one. So I guess it might make sense at this point to sort of back up and say, what goes into consent? Like, how do you actually get someone to feel like they consented? And so, as I mentioned, psychology actually doesn't have a lot of empirics or even theory about consent. So it's kind of turned to law. And the legal definition of consent has three parts. You have to feel like you were free to say no. So the consent was voluntary and not coerced, as we've been talking about. You have to know what you're getting into, so you have to be informed. People can't, like, hide things from you or just deceive you. And you have to be competent. And so that's, you know, you have to be cognitively able to understand what you're consenting to. So that could be, like, you're not drunk, which is less common in many of these situations, or at least in organizational situations, but who knows? But also, you know, you have to be competent to be able to assess what you're sort of agreeing to. And so there's sort of different ways to make sure people not just that you're plowing them with information so they feel informed, you know, or just telling them, like, you know, you can say no, but you're standing right there handing something out, you know, actually creating that psychological experience of I read the terms and I understood them, you know, like, I get it, and I had time to process them, and I felt like I truly could say no. It wasn't just, you know, this kind of shuri that you were playing with me, where you said I could say no, but I knew that I really couldn't say no. So I think that in all these different contexts, it's about sort of creating that psychological experience. And so to give an example, to go back to police search, right? There's been a lot of advocacy around something called Miranda for search. So if you're arrested, someone reads you your Miranda rights so that you're supposed to be informed of, you know, what your rights are, there's no such thing for search. So if someone says, you know, I, you know, let me see your bag, you're allowed legally to say no, but no one has to tell you that. So the police don't actually have to read you some sort of Miranda for search or some rights like, like you are allowed to say no. And so people have argued that maybe if you tell people they're allowed, they're free to say no more people will feel comfortable saying no. Or at least if they say yes, they'll feel like it was more voluntary. Turns out when they've done interventions where they've informed people of this, it doesn't actually change compliance. And we did this in the lab as well. We told people we'll still pay you, you can say no. But they didn't actually feel comfortable enough to say no. And so even though you're kind of doing the thing that you think you're supposed to do, you're informing them, the person still doesn't feel free to say no in that moment. They still don't feel like it's a voluntary choice. And so it's kind of depending on the situation, assessing like what is the real thing making someone feel like they're consenting or complying in this particular situation. Right. You could take another context, like downloading an app. How many of us click? I mean, it's not even worth asking. We all do it, right? We, there's an update, there's an app that we want to use. All of a sudden we click those terms of agreement, no one reads them. Even if they do the whole scroll, we won't let you click it until you scroll. Like it's all just again, some sort of charade. And at the end we feel like, okay, I clicked it, but I agreed, I consented in theory. We don't really feel like I made a choice and know what the trade offs were when I agreed to download this. And all the things are going to happen on my phone now, you know, so I think it's a situational thing. Like in this case you mentioned, structurally, like if I'm going to ask someone to sign a mandatory arbitration agreement, if I'm going to ask them to sign a non disclosure agreement, I can get them to do this. Right? They need the job. But do they really know what they're signing? Is a way to still, you know, maintain whatever kind of privacy I'm concerned about in the organization while not making people feel like they're signing things that are really signing away their freedom or their rights in some way.

You know, this is so interesting, and you probably recognize my body language as very pensive and then somewhat like, defeated because I was trying to think about different solutions. And you're like, well, actually, here's a solution. It doesn't work. I'm like, oh, no, another one went down. This is really interesting. And so I'm thinking again, when we think about the difference between legal consent and psychological consent, they're two very, very different things. And then for me, thinking about this through the legal lens, as a lawyer, when you have those three points free, they feel like they're free to say no. They're informed, they're competent. And so from a legal perspective, we have to have clearer lines where people can make decisions and rulings on that. But that doesn't necessarily mean that there's legitimacy to that principle as a whole. Right. The elements might be clear and easy to understand and clear enough for a judge to get to a point of adjudication and maybe for a jury to. To figure something out. But that doesn't mean that the person truly consented in a psychological sense. And so this is incredibly tricky, and it's helping me to understand just how high of a burden it is and then how much of a moving target it could be because it's going to be different from different people. And then there could be another thing that is. That impacts our perspective of consent because we have the experiencing self, and then we also have the remembering self. And the remembering self can be warped by bias by subsequent information and those type of things. And so how in these situations would you distinguish between somebody feeling as though they didn't have the ability to truly consent in the moment from buyer's remorse, like, because this did not turn out well, now I feel coerced, but in the moment, I was okay with everything.

Yeah, that's a great question. That's one of the things we're working on is this sort of temporal aspect. You know, as you accumulate these life experiences and you look back on things that you agreed to, you might say, like, you know, I. I don't really feel like I knew what was I was getting into. So did I. Do I really feel like I consented? But I think what you're saying about the difference between legal consent and psychological consent is really important because in a lot of these cases, in almost all these cases legally, you know, it's consensual. So you can, you know, look at the situation and say, actually, you know, we did inform you. You. You Know, just because you don't read the terms doesn't mean that, you know, they don't apply to you. If they're unfair, you can still challenge them, but doesn't mean just because you didn't read them that they don't apply to you. So there can be this element of legal consent. But I think the big thing that I like to point out is I think it's a mistake because a lot of people in corporate America and organizations kind of just assume consent is a legal issue, right? Just make sure that they're signing things that say that this was all legal, right? Like, that's all that matters. And they don't even think about that separate psychological aspect that, like, as long as we got the signature, we're good. But actually, the way you're treated as part of that process, you know, whether it's. It's allowing someone to search you or do a background check or signing something that gives away some of your rights to sue someone, for example. So there's all sorts of things that you may be signing legally or doing legally, but they just make you feel like you're not respected, like you don't trust this organization or this authority figure. And so keeping that in mind, that the way I treat someone, it's not just about the right words on the paper. That's usually the way people think about it. It's also about, you know, so the two things we're finding that seem to matter, especially combined, are time to process. So, for example, with the Miranda for search issue, part of it is that right there in the moment, I'm looking at you telling you you can say no, but I'm not giving you time to think about it, right? You got to make your decision on the spot. And if you could actually process it, you may still weigh the pros and cons and say it's still worth just consenting in this moment. But you feel more like, all right, I had time to process, right? My brain was caught up basically with my emotions in that moment. And then the other one is all the things that we found in our research that make people feel like they have this sort of freedom to say no. So one is distance, right? So, like, if you negotiate face to face, but the final decision is made over email, like, I have a little distance. I don't feel like I'm face to face with someone, and I feel this pressure. If you're in a leadership position, making sure that it's very clear, like finding ways to really clarify that someone can say no. That there is this element of freedom. So things that make someone really feel like it's both voluntary and they have time to process are kind of the main things. But again, that doesn't change the legality doing those things or not, but it does change the way someone feels. Do I feel like I was respected? Do I feel like I trust these people and want to keep working with them?

This is great. Yeah. Because I like, again, that you're reinforcing that distinction between legality and the way that somebody's feeling. And really, when it comes down to the everyday negotiations that we talk about on this show, really, the. The latter is what's most important too. Because if you're checking the box on making somebody feel as though they psychologically consented, then you're pretty sure that actually legally they consented as well. And when you're thinking about the. The relationship aspect, that's really important. Important. And it also kind of speaks to some of those high pressure negotiation and sales techniques where even if you actually close the deal, while you could still be doing significant damage to the relationship because the person feels coerced. And let's say down the road, Vanessa, they don't even feel buyer's remorse. They still have that emotional residue from the process and how it made them feel in the moment. And so we could be damaging the relationship and not understanding or recognizing that we are.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think one sort of takeaway to keep in mind is as we're sort of checking in to see, is this person, does this person feel like they're consenting? Am I pressuring them too much? We have biases that lead us to see more voluntary behavior than someone else experiences. So what we see as someone doing something voluntarily might not feel that way to them. And we are biased in the direction of thinking People are behaving more sort of, of their free will than they are. And then we have another bias called the curse of knowledge, where we know what's in that contract. We drew it up like we know what's in there. We assume that someone can process it a lot faster than they actually can. Right. If I've read this statement a thousand times, I know it by heart. I may not give you enough time to process. And so just kind of making sure that we're sort of calibrating in those biases. We have to see consent where consent isn't quite yet there. So giving people a little more time than we might think they need and taking. Dialing down the pressure a little bit More than we might think is necessary.

Tell me if I'm getting close on this. It's seeming like we need to start to be a little bit more critical of our own biases in these moments, because we have to recognize it is not us on the other side of the conversation. It is them with their knowledge that we don't have. We don't. We can't fully empathize. And so instead of having that biased assumption that, yes, this makes sense and they're cool with this, we should say, maybe it doesn't, and maybe they're not.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I. I mean, I think of all the moments someone has shown me a contract before I'm about to. To sign up for, you know, a million things like a phone contract or a job, and they're just like, you know, legal, legal, legal, blah. Sign here. You know, and they. They've done it a million times. They're not worried about what's in there. And part of it is also to kind of seem cool and, like, not. I'm not going to, you know, go through all the legal stuff, because that's all boring. But if you did kind of think to yourself, like, this person really doesn't know what's in there, maybe. I know it. I know there's no big deal, but if I just took an extra beat to, like, go through, okay, this says this. This says this.

This.

This says this. Just so you know what you're signing, you know, no big deal. Sign here. Just a little slower, a little clearer. So it actually feels like, okay, I have a sense of what I just put my signature on. I think that if that became kind of the norm, we would all be better off as we sign things and sort of click on terms and agreements. And this idea that, like, I. It's not that I don't know anything. Like, someone did actually lead me through, so I have some sense of what I'm putting my signature on, you know?

Absolutely. And so I think it. It shows a little bit of patience, too. Right. Because a lot of times we're so quick to get. Get to. Yes. That we don't think about the process it takes to get there. And I'll tell you, I mean, yeah, Kwame is a lawyer. That is true, But I don't read contracts unless I'm paid. Vanessa. I'm not interested in reading terms and conditions for everything that I'm signing up. Are you crazy? No. You know, so I fall victim to this, too, and I sign my life away a Lot of times. And I'm like, man, I hope that doesn't come back to bite me. If I. I'm Kwame in lawyer mode. And Kwame representing a. And I as the CEO. Yeah. I'm reading through line by line, but Kwame, then the individual is living a YOLO lifestyle when it's coming to these terms and conditions.

Yeah. And I think, you know, the other side of it is like, okay, so we all just are like, whatever, we'll sign it and hope nothing bad happens. On the other hand, when we're the ones getting someone to sign it, we're like, I'll just. I won't tell them about it. They'll sign it. And I hope it doesn't come back. Back, you know, to bite me either. And I think so. One example that I just read about in the New York Times a week or two ago was of a couple who had been on, like, one of those, you know, I guess I shouldn't say the TV channel, but everyone knows what it is. But one of those, like, home renovation shows, right? Where they come and they renovate your home. And it's like, we pay for all the stuff, and we do it in, like, however many ridiculous, like, this short amount of time. That's impossible. So anyway, they said when they agreed to be on the show, the producer came and they gave them this contract, and they're just like, yeah, yeah, sign here. And they made them sign it right there. They wouldn't give them any time, and they really didn't know what they were signing. So they do this home renovation. It looks beautiful on tv. They air the episode, and then everybody leaves, and their house just starts falling apart because the actual work was done so shoddily.

Oh, my gosh.

And so now they're suing them because they feel like they didn't truly consent. Right. They didn't really know what they were signing. And there's this. This debate there. Like, they were given the information, they had the piece of paper, but they weren't really given time to process it. You know, they didn't feel. And maybe if they had been, they'd be like, well, we. We made a mistake, but we're not going to sue because we feel like we really had time to process and we consented. But in this case, they're like, it was a whirlwind. Like, of course we didn't consent, so we're going to sue.

This is. I couldn't help but laugh, but I was. I was seeing this. This image in my mind of this, like this, this happening, just going back into your bathroom, like, wait a second, is this scotch tape? What is this? It looked so good on tv.

Yeah.

Oh, this is. Yeah, it makes so much sense. And again, it shows this. We, we cannot think transactionally about these interactions. At the end of the day, we're all people, right? And we have to think about what people really do. When we think about what is a, what is the natural state of humanity. All right, we're going to communicate, we're going to try to convey meaning back and forth, you know, using words. It is not a natural human thing to read a 36 page contract. That's not a normal human thing to do. So as much as my, my friends in the legal space would like to say, well, you know, this person was informed because they were competent, they were over 18, they were not drunk at the time we gave them the contract. They could have read it and they felt like they had time. You know, we can say all those things to make us feel better, but it doesn't change the fact that the person in the moment doesn't feel as though they truly consented. And so, so for us in our difficult conversations, we have to carry this information with us and recognize that, listen, your brain is a weapon at this point. You've listened to so many episodes. I know the listeners have listened to many. Right. So you're more persuasive than you think. So you have to recognize that with that power comes responsibility and you have to pay attention to the person on the other side and actually care about the relationship.

Yeah, well said. Totally agree.

Thank you. No, well, listen, I think it's really important for listeners to have resources to good books. Do you have any suggestions for books that might be helpful on this topic?

That's a really great question. So there aren't, as I said, consent and like the pop in the psychology world is really non existent. So in the pop psychology world there isn't a ton. I do like Zoe Chance's book influences is your superpower because it really talks about using influence for good. So it's not just about influence. It's like influence responsibly and ethically. And then actually Bob Cialdini was like the godfather of influence. So many people will have read his original book Influence, but he has a new version where he added an additional chapter where he deals with some of these nuances of how to use your influence responsibly. So I'd say those are two kind of more popular books, but they're starting to delve into this more sort of gray area of influence.

Vanessa, one of the many things I like about you is your humility. So let me go ahead and try to throw this alley oop again. Is there any other book that you would suggest that the listeners read?

They should definitely read my book. You have more influence than you think. And I definitely talk about consent and compliance in that book. So good question.

There we go.

I have that book.

Awesome. So, listeners, there will be links in the description for the. For Vanessa's book. Vanessa, really appreciate you coming back on. This is really helpful.

Yeah, thanks. It was such a pleasure to come back.

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