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- [00:03]
A
Hi, I'm Sarah and this is the Squiggly Careers Podcast. This week, you're going to hear me in conversation with Dr. Sunita Sa, and she's going to be talking to us about how to say no in a world that often demands yes and her new book, Defy. I can promise you this is one of the most practical, useful, and insightful conversations I've had about this topic. Dr. Sunita Sar is brilliant. She has so much to offer from her reflections and her research, and I think you're going to find this a really brilliant listen, whether it's something you want to get a bit better at or whether you're something you're just getting started with. I think there's something for everyone in today's episode. I hope you enjoy listening and we'll be back at the end to say goodbye. Sunita, thank you so much for joining us on the Squiggly Careers Podcast. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.
- [00:58]
B
Thank you very much for inviting me. I'm excited to be here.
- [01:01]
A
So your new book is called Defy, and the subtitle, which I particularly like, and I know from experience, subtitles are hard to write, but yours is the power of no in a world that demands yes. And I remember reading that subtitle, and straight away, I think you can think of examples of where you wish you'd said no, but for some reason you didn't. You kind of said yes instead. And very early on in your book, it really struck me that saying no is so hard because compliance and obedience is our default. It took me back to being at school, you know, like you and growing up. Right. And you're like, you don't want to get things wrong and you learn to follow rules and do what you're told. I felt like we were conditioned to behave in that way. That feels kind of like often what's expected of us and the right thing to do. Why is it so hard for us to say no almost when we grow up? And I feel like we should have more agency and I should be able to make a choice. And yet it continues to be hard even when we're not in that school setting.
- [02:07]
B
Yeah, I mean, there's numerous reasons, but you're right. For many of us, we were socialized to comply. And that means, like, when we were younger, we received those messages to be good, which really meant to obey, to. To be polite, to do as you're told, not make a scene. Then that becomes our default response is to comply with other people. And Our brains become wired to comply, in a way. And so when we grow up, we're still operating on that system. Especially if, like me, you had a masterclass in compliance, you're still operating on that system. And even though you would like to say no and you feel tension, it becomes very difficult. I've discovered multiple reasons for this, but one major reason that we find it difficult to say no even when there's two consequences, is in my research, I've discovered a psychological process that makes it difficult for us to reject other people's suggestions, orders, or even expectations because we don't want to signal to them that we don't trust them. So when you say no to someone, it's really sort of saying that you don't believe what they're suggesting that you do. So if your boss, for example, or your co worker suggests that you take a particular action, if you say no, it's insinuating that they're incompetent or cannot be trusted or that they're even doing something inappropriate. And that becomes really difficult for us to do. And I call that psychological process insinuation anxiety. It's the anxiety that we feel to insinuate that somebody is untrustworthy or incompetent. And we don't want to do that for our advisors, our managers, our co workers, or even our family or friends. We find it really difficult to say no in those situations.
- [03:52]
A
So I think this is a tough process for us to learn. And in lots of ways, as I was reading your book, I was thinking, okay, we've got to do some unlearning and relearning here. We've got to let go of probably a way of working and a way of being that lots of us would be used to. And you've got to choose to do something different. And I found it particularly helpful where you describe these five stages of defiance. And even that word makes me being a bit like, oh, I'm not, I'm not sure I'm. I'm up for being defiant. But actually, I think it's a. I don't know if gentle is the right word, but it's a gentler definition, I think, as I, as I read your description and the definition that you use. So I wonder, before we then kind of dive into what this looks like and kind of how we do it, I found those stages useful as a way of thinking, what does success look like? What am I aiming for here? So I wondered if you could just talk us through kind of briefly, each of those five stages so we all know together, right? Okay, this is what I'm aiming for. And then we'll kind of talk about, well, then how do we do that?
- [04:52]
B
Just to first of all, take a step back and really understand what I mean by defiance. Because as you said, there is this negative connotation about defiance, especially when we're children. Right. Like a defiant child is seen as a negative thing. And I grew up believing that, because we start equating our socialization that compliance equals good and defiance equals bad. But when you delve into it, there's serious problems with compliance, you know, even if we think about in the workplace. One survey found that nine out of 10 healthcare workers, on average, which is a huge amount, nine out of 10, most of them nurses, don't feel comfortable speaking up when they see a colleague or a physician making a mistake. So we really do want to think about what we're doing when we sacrifice our values or find it so difficult to speak up at certain times. And there is a myth that defiance has to be loud, aggressive, violent. But my definition of defiance is that is simply acting in alignment with your values when there is pressure to. To do otherwise. It's a skill set that's necessary and available for all of us. So the five stages of defiance. The first stage is tension. And that's when we feel that tension between what's expected of us and what we think is the right thing to do. That tension can manifest in many different ways. So some people can feel unease in their stomach. They can feel a dry mouth, their throat constricting, a headache. So there's many different ways that we feel that tension. But we can really try to understand what we feel in our own bodies, because that tension is actually a very useful warning sign for us that something is wrong. And perhaps we do need to defy in this situation. So what we often do when we feel that tension is that we disregard it. We think it's not worth our doubt, or the other person probably knows better, especially if they're in authority. And so we try to sweep it away. And we shouldn't do that. We should move to the stage two of defiance, which is really acknowledging that tension to ourselves. So rather than disregarding it, we feel it, and we acknowledge there's something I'm uncomfortable with. So that's just to yourself. Now we move to stage three. And this is a really critical stage, and this is about vocalizing that tension to somebody else or asking questions. Why I say this is a critical stage is because the research shows that if you can get to this stage where you externally vocalize your uncomfortable feeling or you're asking questions, then you're more likely to get to the last stage of defiance, stage five, because you can't go back in time now and say, oh, you were fine with it all along because you've told someone now and so that cognitive dissonance would be too much. So at this stage, you're still in a subservient position. All you're saying is, I'm not comfortable with this, or you're asking people, what do you mean by that? Can you clarify this or have you considered this instead? So you're asking questions. This is not about confrontation. This is about curiosity in a way. Curiosity and clarification. But why it's so important is that that clarification really raises the volume on the situation. And so you're not disregarding your tension. You're not, you're acknowledging it to yourself. And now you've vocalized some questions to someone else or some statements that, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this. I'm not quite sure about this. Stage four, it could be seen as a threat of non compliance, but you're simply saying, I don't think I can do this. You know, I'm not comfortable with going ahead with this. I can't do this. And this is the stage where you have to continue to say that. You can't just say it once and then if you're pressured, go back down again. But if you stick to saying that, then you will get the final stage of defiance, which is your act of defiance. Now, the wonderful thing about that is right at the beginning, when I spoke about the tension at stage one, if we just try to disregard it, what I found in situations where, okay, I'm just going to go along with this is that tension usually grows and you remember and you regret afterwards and you feel awful. But if you can get to stage five of defiance, that tension just melts away. It feels really good to act in alignment with your values.
- [09:18]
A
And that's really interesting because we talk a lot about values at Squiggly Careers. So we have a free values toolkit that lots of our community use, which is about exploring your values. We describe them in a very similar way to how you talk about them in the book. We talk about them. They're a really useful compass. We talk about in the context of careers. You know, they're a good filter for your, your future. And we describe them in a very similar way. You know, we say they're pretty constant. They rarely change. What is interesting, though, when it comes to defiance and your values is. And I think you've got a student who used the kind of lovely phrase around. When it comes to our actions, values can show up more as sort of aspirations. And even when something is counter to one of our values or something that really matters to us, we can still sometimes struggle to get to Defiance because almost maybe the power structures or that kind of need to just say yes, because that's sort of the default that we've got so used to, almost overrides our values, which are so important to us. And there were these three great questions, which I think our listeners will really appreciate that you shared, which is a kind of a how do we decide how to behave? Maybe we're presented with something we don't agree with, but maybe the rest of our team at work do think something's a good idea, and we're thinking, I don't think I agree with this. And those three questions were kind of, who am I? What kind of situation is this? And what does a person like me do in this situation? And I was thinking back to all of those moments, like those real memorable moments where you felt like you've been trying to kind of say no or kind of defy the norm in some way. There was you wanted to do something different. And actually, I think when I've asked myself those questions, it has helped me act in a way that was aligned with my values and given me the confidence to do that. Because I'm guessing confidence is a really big part of going through those stages, because often you are doing something where maybe you're feeling like the only person, you know, saying that thing or with that point of view. You share lots of stories in the book, like, lots of different examples from loads of different contexts and some of your own personal stories about maybe when you haven't been as defiant as you'd like to be, and then where you have then having used some of these techniques. And I wondered whether you'd seen confidence play a part in that, in terms of that ability to kind of get through those stages.
- [11:38]
B
So, I mean, the three questions that you mentioned, who am I? What type of situation is this? And what does a person like me do in a situation like that? Like, I basically designed them around a Defiance compass because that last question of what does a person like me do in a situation like this? Goes back to who you are. Right.
- [11:56]
A
So your actions, you said, yeah.
- [11:59]
B
Yes. Because, you know, so often we hear people saying, this isn't me, you know, and what they're saying is that they don't want to be the person that's taking the action that that they're taking. But if you are continuously doing that, it does become you. And in terms of confidence and skill set, what I've discovered about defiance that really substantially change how I think and is that we have misunderstood so much means to defy. We think it's a personality trait and actually it's just a practice. It's a skill set. And the more that we practice it, our confidence and ability increases. So that last step requires two elements, actually. So what does a person like me do in a situation like this? It requires both responsibility. So connecting with your values. Are you going to take responsibility in the situation or are you just going to put it off onto someone else? So what does a person like me do in a situation like this? Connect with your values, take responsibility. And then to actually do something, you need the confidence and ability to defy. And how do we get that? We get that by practicing. And the reason that practice is so important is because if we have been wired to comply, like many of us have, we have to change those neural pathways. And the only way to change those neural pathways is with practice. So if you have complied like many of us have in the past, you can learn from that. You can think about the situation where you complied, start visualizing it, and then even role playing or scripting what you wish you had said or what you wish you had done. And once you start practicing that, that starts changing the neural pathways. And the next time that situation, you can use some of the scripts that I have in the book or the step by step process. But you could just ask sort of simple questions. What do you mean by that? I'm not comfortable with this. And then that starts changing those neural pathways and making it easier for you. Next you have to defy because the practice is way before a moment of crisis. You can't just wish you had the confidence in the moment. You've got to build it up before then.
- [14:09]
A
So brilliant and really practical. And one of the things actually I started to do was I think you could make a list and preempt the moments of saying no and defiance at work, you know, that you are likely to experience. So I was starting to write down, oh, you know, there will be moments where you need to say no to your manager or just to someone else senior, so someone in a position of power or authority. There might be a moment where you want to defy a policy or a Practice or a decision. So again, and I was like, I think you can think these through ahead of time.
- [14:42]
B
Absolutely.
- [14:43]
A
And exactly to your point, I was like, oh, that's where the scripts come in handy. Also, you can use words that work for you. We sometimes share squiggly scripts. So actually, when I saw those in your book, I was like, oh, brilliant. That's so helpful. We have shared before something called a nocabulary and said, oh, just here are some examples of what this could sound like. But now, obviously, do it in your own way and in your own words. And I think you could also start small. So, you know, some of the examples I read about in your book, I was like, wow, those are really inspiring examples of defiance. That made me think, well, crikey, if that person couldn't do that, you know, I should be able to hold myself to account to, you know, much smaller examples. And I think you don't have to go straight into what I'm going to challenge absolutely everything all of the time, especially if this is a new behavior for you. I think you could start really small, like when your manager asks you to do something in a time frame that feels unrealistic, being able to say no to that, you know, that's a really small act of defiance. But if you're not saying no at all, I was like, maybe just spotting those situations that you can already see is a useful way to kind of practise this.
- [15:54]
B
Absolutely. And I think that's a great way to go about it, is to start small and start practicing. Because there's this wonderful quote that I keep with me that really helps me in situations where I need to defy and understand how important it is to practice. And it's often attributed to Bruce Lee. And I can see why it applies to. So exercise, maybe martial arts and training, but it applies to defiance as well. And the quote is, under duress. We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training. And so we can start training in small ways for defiance. So if there is someone that is less intimidating to you, for example, but like a co worker asking you to do something, you can start there and just ask those clarifying questions or just say, I can do that, but I will need more time. Oh, I can do that, but I won't be able to do this instead. And just practicing those statements and scripts. So really your mouth gets used to saying them and your ears get used to hearing defiant words from yourself, because that's. We often sort of think like, and you mentioned the big. Some of the big examples in the book. Again, another myth of defiance is that you have to be superhuman or heroic. And again, you don't have to be that. You can be defiant in your own unique way with far less angst, something that's much more natural to you.
- [17:25]
A
And I think the idea of defiance, even in a small way, has some risk. I was like, oh, some of this feels risky. And when we're thinking about, you know, the work that we do, it's interesting. How do we apply a kind of filter or a judgment about whether this is the right time or the right moment to defy? Because I think what would stop a lot of people is thinking, if I say no to my manager, does that mean that I'm going to get a bad performance rating or review at the end of a year? If I'm seen as being difficult, is that going to be really career limiting for my progression? And actually, I think a lot of her work over. There's a kind of good intersection between your work and some of the work on Amy Edmondson around safety. You know, often the reason people don't speak up and do those things is because that interpersonal fear is just really high. You had this really nice phrase, and I always like things that feel pragmatic where you talk about. It's got to feel kind of right enough, safe enough, and effective enough, you know, to sort of in that moment. So I wonder if we could just talk a little bit about. More about that, explore, like, what would that mean? And how could we learn from this idea of, like, how do we judge that kind of. The riskiness associated with this.
- [18:43]
B
This is often the thing that keeps us silent, is that we worry about the consequences. And even though I've said that people struggle to say no, even when there's little consequences, we need to take that into consideration. But very often there are consequences for being defiant, and we need to be aware of those. So it's often never risk free. And so there is some cost to. To defiance. And also there's more costs to certain people than they are to other people, too. So we need to be aware of that as well. And so the two questions I ask when it comes to actually, the second question in the Defiance compass, which is, what type of situation is this? What you're really asking when you're looking outwards is, is it safe enough and is it effective enough? In other words, would it have positive impact? And here what I'm saying is that defiance is rarely risk free. And so if we just ask those questions, is it safe enough or will it be effective enough? It's very easy to come up with rationalizations that it's never going to be safe enough or it's never going to be effective enough. And sometimes, actually all the time, we want to be aware of the fact that not speaking up, not defying going along and simply bowing your head to other people and complying with them constantly or also has a cost. And it has quite a large cost. It's not just neutral. If you're like, oh, I'm worried about losing my job, but I really wanted to say something in that situation, or I think this is wrong, we need to ask, is this situation going against my values? And if it is a strong violation, then if you don't speak up, it really has effect on you psychologically for sure. You're thinking about it, you're regretting it. And that can lead to other emotional problems, stress, chronic stress, inflammation. So it affects you physically, too. And we need to be aware of that, because, as I said, if you can get to the final act of defiance, a lot of that tension goes away and you actually feel more authentic. You can be more yourself and have, like, a more joyful, honest life in a way. So what we want to ask is, is it safe enough for me? Will it be effective enough for me? And those two questions, is it safe enough? Is it effective enough? Are actually deeply personal questions, because for some people, it's never going to be safe, but it's safe enough for them. So if you think about Rosa Parks's famous snow on the bus, like she was facing, you know, death threats, and she had lived in a time of segregation, so it was never gonna be safe for her to say no. And she had also complied many times before. She had anticipated it. It wasn't a spontaneous decision for her. She had been thinking about that decision for a long time, I would say practicing for it all her life. So what we want to do is think about, is it safe enough for me? And is it effective enough? And again, for some people, they don't consider whether it's going to have a positive impact. Sometimes they just want to stand up or, as in Rosa Parks, sit down for what they actually believe in and take a principled stance. So these are deeply personal questions, and nobody can tell you when it is exactly the right time to defy. But we do need to think about the defiance calculus. How costly is this? What are the benefits? And is that safe enough for me? Is it effective enough for me?
- [22:08]
A
I Just find that really helpful as a filter. So when I was looking back on a couple of examples where I felt like I was defiant, but I think I definitely did it in an enough way. So this was where I was observing behaviours that were a contradiction to my values. And I found that really hard because I was also, you know, I was in a job and I needed to be in a job and I was trying to figure out really how to kind of call that out. And I definitely did it in a sort of safe enough way. So. And it was gradual. I think the other thing is you don't have to do all of your defiance doesn't happen kind of in one moment in time. And so over time though, I think I became almost like more defiant. And it did get to the point where I was like the stress of not doing something was definitely higher than the kind of stress of the status quo of continuing with where I was. But I couldn't have gone straight to that because also I needed in the background, as I think I was figuring that out, I needed to figure out, well, what would the consequences, what could the cost of this be? Can I live with that? What could I do instead? What might I want to do instead? But I think it's such a good insight around the cost of not doing it because that period of time where I wasn't as probably defiant initially as I would have liked to have been in hindsight, you know, where I was going along with it, I was incredibly unhappy. So I was really stressed. Also physically I was in quite a bad way, like in that moment. And so you're like, oh, it shows up in so many ways. And so when people are, this is, I think often when we hear from people who are in quite toxic, very low trust work environments, that's why people get to burn out into kind of really difficult situations. And you're right, you can't always fix these things really fast individually. But I think kind of knowing that there is options and that you can do small things is reassuring.
- [24:00]
B
Absolutely. And you know what you described to me as your sort of small acts of practice to begin with that kind of build up. But we do need to think about the cost of compliance. And we also need to think is it bad to be so good sometimes because it harms ourselves and it harms other people too. And that's when we really do need to speak up. But, but the defiance is not a knee jerk defiance and also not knee jerk compliance. We're talking about the times when we think about it and we think it's too costly. This is what I call conscious compliance. We're doing it now. We're deferring defiance to another day. That doesn't mean that we're just always going to comply at some point. Our no, it's just lying in the waiting.
- [24:42]
A
I really like. That's a really smart way to think about it. One other area I just wanted to touch on because I think this is a really good action for people to take and we've mentioned it before on the podcast. I think it' it's good to bring some of these ideas. You know, when you start to connect dots and it's this idea of self talk and actually in the third person self talk. So we've had Ethan Cross on the podcast, he wrote Chatter, who talks a lot about kind of confidence and self belief. And we often talk about when you get distance, when you sort of fly on the wall, you get a different kind of data for your development. So I wondered if you could talk to us a bit about in this context of saying no in Defiance, like why that skill can be really helpful.
- [25:21]
B
It's really helpful because one of the things you want to do when you get put in that situation and somebody is asking something of you or even expecting something of you and you don't want to say yes straight away. You want to take what I call the power of the pause. Because that really gives you some time to think through sort of the step by step process that I have and other elements of should I defy or not in this situation. And you can work through a flowchart I also have. But sometimes we can't get away physically from the moment we're asked to make a decision on the spot. And there's some scripts you can use in that situation where you can actually ask them all the time and other things. But sometimes you might just have a few seconds where you can just close your eyes and ask yourself, is this something you really want? What does this tension mean? And. And you can talk to yourself in that third person. You know, Sunita, is this what I really want? Or Sarah, should I really be doing this? And that gives some psychological distance from the actual matter at hand. And that allows us to think about does this align with my values or not? What is it that I really want? Rather than just completely 100% thinking about the person that's in front of us, we're also thinking about does this align with my values? What about my needs? What is happening in this situation? And so it gives us that chance to really step back and take that pause, even though we're still physically in the moment.
- [26:52]
A
Yeah. And that power of the pause also really stood out to me. Like you say, whether it's five seconds, five minutes, five days, giving yourself the permission to pause and not feeling the kind of pressure to default to, oh, yes, of course I'll do that. Of course. I agree. And like, knowing that's okay. I think it just. We sometimes describe that as, you know, like, slowing down to speed up. You just need to give yourself that exactly that little bit of space. And I'm interested to know from the work that you've done, because you've done lots of research and spoken to lots of people and also obviously been on this journey for yourself. You know, this is kind of an individual thing for you. But then also you're an academic and a doctor with kind of the. Lots of the science, too. What's the one thing that you think has helped you the most? So when you kind of know about all of these kind of, whether it's mindset or skill set, ideas and actions and kind of what's worked. But what's one thing that's worked really well for you?
- [27:46]
B
Am I only allowed to say one thing, or can I?
- [27:49]
A
Oh, you can have a few extras. But now, because now you've said that, all our listeners will be like, oh, what else? What else? What else did you want to say?
- [27:55]
B
So let me say a couple of things. One that I think everybody should really be aware of is just shifting that mindset about what Defiance is. We've misunderstood what it means to defy. It's a positive thing, not a negative thing. And you don't have to have a particular type of personality or be superhuman. So I think that's a really important thing to first of all acknowledge. The second thing is to really then practice, because Defiance is not a personality, it's a practice. And once we do that, even if we've been wired to comply, even if compliance is our default, it isn't our destiny. And I think that's something that we really should take away with us, that it's available, it's necessary for all of us. And what I hope to do with this book is make Defiance accessible to everyone.
- [28:42]
A
And I think you definitely do that. I think as somebody where very quickly I recognize the tension bit, but then I've probably got mixed experiences of whether I've made it through the five stages or not. And I think it is a very optimistic and very positive read. So, like you say, because you're not sure about that word. And I was like, oh, I don't know how I feel about that. As I was going through, I was like, oh, no, I'm much more on board with it now. And I was thinking it could even be interesting. I was getting to by the end, not only how I could do this, but also, how could we do this? How could we do this as a team, how could we do this as an organization? Because actually, when people defy in this kind of useful and positive way, you'll get to better work, you'll get to better ideas, you'll get to better suggestions. People will say things that you've not thought of. So I was thinking, oh, this is a really positive practice for yourself, but it's also a really positive practice, like in organizations generally.
- [29:37]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, how much creativity can you have if everybody's complying? You know, you need to have defiance for innovation, disruption, new ideas, and really to have people speak up about errors. You know, that's really important. If people are too scared to speak up about errors because they fear the consequences if they don't feel safe enough, or even if they feel safe enough, that it's not going to make any difference if they say anything. As a leader, you can manage that environment, to model that type of defiance and listen to your employees and, you know, going to be less burnout, less stress, more creativity. And so there are lots of positive benefits for the workplace.
- [30:18]
A
And we always finish our expert interviews with the same question, which is, what's the best piece of career advice that you would like to leave our listeners with today? So these can be some words of wisdom that someone shared with you that's helped you throughout your squiggly career. And actually, if people do a bit of research on you, your career has been really squiggly and you've transferred your talents in all sorts of different directions. Or maybe it's just something that you live by that you found really useful.
- [30:45]
B
Sometimes when we're in organizations and we think we're being the good employee by complying and things like that, but we feel disconnected. There's some kind of tension there that we're not really addressing. We do need to go back to who are we? And what are our values? And really thinking sometimes it's not you, right? A lot of us, like, we beat ourselves up about. I've done all these things. I've done everything that I was asked and I'm not getting where I need to be or this is not going the way I exactly thought. And the best piece of advice I ever got given by someone that's always stayed with me and actually was a big relief burden off my shoulders was that it's not you, it's the system. Sometimes the system is set up in such a way that it makes it very difficult for people to defy, to communicate, to do their best work and live up to their best potential. And they are ways that you can stay in the system and change it. And I describe some of those things and steps of defying within organizations. There are times that you don't need to take a principled exit immediately. There are things you can do, but we should remember in certain situations, it's not you, it's the system.
- [32:00]
A
Dr. Sunita Sar, thank you so much for joining us on Squiggly Careers Podcast today. I've really enjoyed the book. I really enjoyed the mix of the kind of the science and the stories and the practical ideas and tools. And our conversation today has been absolutely brilliant. So thank you so much.
- [32:15]
B
Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.
- [32:22]
A
Thank you for listening to today's episode of the Squiggly Careers Podcast. I hope you found it as useful as I did. If there are other experts that you'd love to hear from, please do email us. We're Helenand Sarahquigglycareers.com and good luck putting into practice some of those ideas and tools and hints and tips that Dr. Sunita Sa shared with us today. But that's everything for this week. Thank you so much for listening. And we're back with you again. Soon, soon. Bye for now.