Lessons from Dr. Charlan Nemeth, on Fostering Authentic Dissent, and what impact it can have on your creativity and world view
Hello and Welcome back to Episode 10 of the Creation Stories Podcast where we make each day a day to make! I'm super excited to share with you this episode where we talk about fostering creativity through dissent, how to break out of our bubbles, and the importance of courage. Today's episode I am joined by professor and author Dr. Charlan Nemeth. Charlan is an expert in creativity and dissent, and her book, In Defense of Troublemakers has been used by public and private sector leaders alike to rethink how they foster innovation and the role authentic dissent can have in our public and private lives.
Charlan has taught at UC Berekley and her work has been features in Wired, the New Yorker, Ode, and many other news outlets. If you consider yourself a trouble maker or someone who challenges norms, I really encourage you to listen to this podcast. You can find her at www.charlannemeth.com to learn more and explore more of her research.
Full Interview Transcript:
Apologies, as always, for any typos / grammar errors in transcription - cons of a one man shop :)
Jack: Hello and welcome back to episode 10 of the Creation Stories podcast, where we make each day a day to make. I'm super excited to share with you this episode, where we talk about fostering creativity through dissent, how to break out of our bubbles and the importance of courage .Today's episode. I am joined by professor and author, Dr. Charlan Nemeth. Charlan is an expert in creativity and dissent.. And her book In Defense of Troublemakers has been used by public and private sector leaders alike to rethink how they foster innovation and the role authentic dissent can have in our public and private lives. Charlan has taught at UC Berkeley and her work has been featured in Wired, the New Yorker, Ode, and many other news outlets.
If you consider yourself a troublemaker or someone who challenges, norms, I really encourage you to listen to this podcast. As always I ask each of you to please consider following us on Instagram at @creationstoriesmedia, and to subscribe to the podcast on apple music, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Each subscription helps us reach new thinkers and creatives. While you're at it please share with your friends, your family or coworkers, and on social media, every mention helps us grow. With that, please welcome Charlan to the podcast.
Jack: I'd love to start going back through your background, how you became interested in researching creativity and dissent and in terms of how that came up in your academic career as something you're passionate about.
And then also some of the factors that increase creativity and where it's taken you, I'd love to hear about.
Dr. Nemeth: Right. I mean, that's going to be a whole sequence. So you want me to start with just the background and kind of a bit of a root term, the interest in dissent and in creativity.
Jack: Yeah. That would be great.
Dr. Nemeth: Okay well kind of hard because I have to summarize it rather tightly it's a lot of years, a lot of factors that affected it, but I think the bottom line is as an undergraduate I was a math major and, it was one, it's why I say this really to an audience in general. To what times do you learn a lot about yourself by going back to the things that really you were passionate about when you were reading.
Even if you didn't think they made sense as a career, or, as one friend mentioned to me, pay attention to what you look at, when you go in a bookstore, where do you find the books you pick up? You learn about yourself to some extent. And for me, in some ways it was one lecture in one undergraduate course.
I still remember it that well. And it was a lecture in social psychology, it was on brainwashing and they had tapes of returning POW visitors in the Korean war. And there were stories, but what they came down onto is, and again, my memory is very faded, obviously since I was an undergraduate, which is a long time ago, is that I can remember that there were stories, for example, of the enormous importance of camaraderie between the men in terms of sustaining the brutality being in an account, but also occasions in which an individual, for example, feeling, very removed from the group, literally just laid in his bed and died.
I remember being so affected by how much people matter to each other, how much they influence each other, how much they shape even their willingness to live or die on level that it struck me as that seemed like the kind of issues that I wanted to spend time studying and in part, because I was very idealistic and for me, there were two huge things that mattered to me.
And one of them's freedom and one of them is justice. And those are big terms. You think everybody's in favor of them, but I felt kind of a visceral. Oh, of kind of already, I had very much a cynicism if you will, about, , the usage of power.
Jack: Interesting.
Dr. Nemeth: And anyway, I mean, I'll get into some of that, a little more in detail, but rather than digressed too much from the trajectory is that there was an appeal of that.
And anyway, make a long story short is that I had a Woodrow Wilson nationalfellowship and Woodrow Wilson's are primarily for people going into university academic teaching. And I had pretty much just decided to do it in social psychology. And I had the math still cause it was legitimate. My father thought that was legitimate.
He thought psych was kind of dilatant. But I can remember that, with that I could have gone any place in the country then with that national fellowship in Wisconsin for literally $300 more here. I mean, I didn't have great advice. They would put us a really good school and I learned a lot that year, but I also realized that it wasn't what I thought it was going to be.
So it wasn't studying those big heady issues. And so, And decided to quit. And, a, professor didn't really want me to quit, got me to at least take another year. I went on, I looked a couple jobs and I knew I didn't want to do those. So I was in that session sometimes in youth where you know what you don't want to do, you just don't know what you do want to do. And then you feel lost. The bottom line of it is that, after that second year, I was sure I was going to quit. And that same professor set up an arrangement for me in Oxford, where I was working with Who proved to be very well known and the founder of the European association.
I didn't know that at the time it wasn't a strategic decision, but it turned out to be an important one. He was a Polish Jew spent five years in a prisoner of war camp, lost his whole family in the war. , I mean, knew from big issues. So he was dealing with, if he was dealing with an experimental issue, he had a sense of where it fit in the larger discourse about important issues.
And I found that that year he became a good friend as well. I got interested in the field. And I almost went to Paris to work with, another turns out European Eastern European Jew, in this case, again, the other co-founder of the European association, brilliant Renaissance men, both of them.
And, make a long story short is that the second one the Romanian became really almost a lifelong friend and mentor of sorts. , so I had to go to Paris, an awful lot. I've always for my Sabatticals when you could go elsewhere, but for one thing, it's a great place and I love it. It's also that the interaction with him and just spending all day walking and talking, it was always just an enormous infusion.
It really affected me both personally and professionally. So that was kind of by luck. So it's not like something you can easily clone, but sometimes when you avail yourself of an opportunity that comes up, even if it's not clear that it leads you strategically to some end goal, there are many times things that you've learned or relationships that you create that in fact get you closer to that goal. To some extent, there's a hidden message there for the entrepreneurs and the notion of creativity and certainly startups, which take not only that kind of an openness, but more than a small element of guts and courage, which we'll talk about when we talk about dissent but nonetheless is that after that the same professor at , Wisconsin, who had always been the guy who said you got to stay in the field and created these situations for me, moved to Cornell, basically encouraged me not to start doing these, , when you're at a time, even though it was kind of interesting, but to come back, finish the PhD.
And, so I did, and it kind of know he had the old fashioned phrasing of, come back, finish your PhD, and then you can be your free lady because there was a paternal quality to it. But it was one that wasn't, paternally tried to shut you down. It was paternal that tried to really expand you so grateful to those three men.
And I mentioned them because my book is dedicated to those three men, all of whom had passed away. Okay. Bad for me. But, it was, you know, it's still. a tribute, anyway, I finished the PhD. So what do you, do? You have a PhD where you teach. Okay. And the bottom line of it is that I had, my first job was at the university of Chicago where I learned a lot, a lot, because it was 1968 to 1973.
I was there and as 68 was a horrendous year as you know, all the assassinations Bobby kennedy . Right. Right. And, and Chicago was tough anyway, on the south side, I mean, there's race relations, horrible crime, all over, blood in the streets during 68. I mean, literally you get students and police together you're going to have blood on the streets.
But I learned a lot and it certainly was a time of dissent and dissent that was very unpopular. And my first year of teaching a colleague of mine, , I almost get teary-eyed thinking about it, but it was my first, we co-taught a course in social psychology first year there. Okay. He got beaten up and nearly killed in his office he was very prominent in the news and particularly, defending the, protesting students.
That was a period when, that was really not popular. Right. And some guy came in and purported to be a reporter who basically last thing my friend knew is that he reached for the phone and that's the last thing he knew. He got hit. The guy hit him with a crowbar and cut his right-hand off.
Okay. So I made it even had some knowledge. I had to get the blood from it. Anyway. I thought the city is too tough for me, you know, particularly coming out of benign Cornell. And I thought, I don't know if I can take this. And the bottom line of it is, is that there was that kind of savior again from the two in Europe, in which they invited me to come for a year as a visiting prof half year in England, half year in France.
And, Chicago was happy to let me have a leave of absence. They don't care as long as somebody else is paying for it. You know? I mean, that's one of the advantages of being an academe. And so I did, and, and in many ways, That year back with those two, gave me a sense of the importance of intergroup relations, the notion of the close versus the open mind and in the case of the one in France who was starting to get interested in what was really not a field at the time, which is how dissenting views could actually prevail, could persuade. Cause they were dissenting views were always seen as the recipient of influence. I mean the whole field was about conformity . And so from that perspective, you see the power of having numbers against you and that you acquiesce or best are independent, but you're always the target of influence, not the agent of influence.
So studying something that people thought didn't almost happen, brought up some very interesting complexities about influence in general, one of which being, which people often didn't bother to study, there's a big difference between what people are willing to do publicly or in terms of their behavior and what they've really changed their mind about that may not even acknowledge it.
So you have to get artful when you do the research as well to study this stuff. But the interest really hit me because it had a sense of bucking power. And in this case, the power was the majority of the consensus, the conformity that the whole field was full up and wrung their hands over.
But look small ways trying to confront it. And here was This kind of complete different way of looking at it. And it was engaging and many of us in that age, in France at the time, where to some extent, even coming from minority groups, it was very unusual to be a female with a PhD.
I took my doctorate in 1968, it's like eons ago. Uh, and, but others, you know, one was a former priest. One was , a communist one was a, Jewish person at a time when, when they were under siege, you know, just had this sort of mixed, but a kind of a sense , you get kind of tired of, you could do a ton of study documenting the misery of say being in a minority category or the misery of being the recipient of influence humbling you all the time, you can document that and wring your hands over it. But I think there was something that was given to us from a perspective that thought that, being the outsider can have agency, can have value , can have power even, and that had a certain kind of an appeal plus it was intellectually interesting.
Anyway, that's how I got to the interest really in the dissent aspect. I mean, creativity is another story, but the short element of it is that a lot of the research studying dissent , both studying conformity and dissent and the parallels and the contrast. It came clear to me that when I became interested, not in people winning, but in essentially changing the way they think that opened the mind that led to better decisions.
And it turns out that those elements of the way you think that are good for decision-making are also the same elements that are good for creativity. So we did a couple of studies related to creativity per se, cause I already kind of knew from teaching. I created a course on creativity as well, because it did it always interested me.
And so that, the parallels were clearly there. And then I decided that I read everything and I did I read most anything available in creativity in the bottom line of it is. I didn't like it because it didn't tell me how it occurred. It just, it so much, it was personality based, so traits and you can debate it on it.
But I didn't have a sense that I don't know who they are because wasn't IQ that much I knew that they're orthogonal they're not related after a basic IQ And we had Nobel laureates at Berkeley who had been big time, not just any old Nobel Laureate, I'm talking about, the laser and all that stuff.
I mean, the pecking order they're up there. They really all were in physics and chemistry. Econ was a Johnny come lately in term, you know, right. Kind of world and, make a long story short. Something that they'd never done it in their lives that, is going to be my next book is the interviews I did with them that were very long, and quite wonderful.
And, It gave me not enough that there's anything that's organized in my head about it, but I had a sense, a bit more of a sense of at least insights, , not so much, experimental information, but insights that come from in-depth interviews. I mean, they go on for 11 hours over four different times and they never did it in their lives, but I was really prepared.
And I'm scientifically literate, right. Basically. Anyway, it, but it worked in a way that they never did it in their lives. I mean, it was, it was for a lot of reasons that were both personal and professional, I think why, why it clicked, but nonetheless it said it added to my interest in creativity and that it is kind of far more complex than the additive, results from specific research studies, because there's so many distinctions you have to make and creativity, we often think of creativity as artistic and that's only one element. Again, there's creativity in business. I teach this stuff.
Okay. There's creativity in everyday life, I mean, it, it, it takes many, many, many forms of it and, but each domain could have some of its own specificity. So. It's not simple in a way, but there are still parallels, I think, across those domains. And I had chosen to do the scientific creativity, partly because I had access and because it works so well and I can guarantee, and it was based on trust back to what I started when I was low.
They wouldn't spend five minutes with you unless number one, they found it interesting. And number two, they trusted you and you don't have that with almost anybody. And, the fact is they knew that I would honor whatever they wanted and they gave me freedom to make decisions that I would protect them more than they protect themselves because they're nobody's business as far as I'm concerned.
So, I mean, I'm kind of a purist about stuff, but they knew that at some level, I also knew their lives, even I understood the kind of life let's put it that way. And for whatever reason, plus I think where you come to a time in your own life where you're sort of open and willing to explore things, is that there was an amazing, kind of an honesty.
And that gives you an entree into remarkable lives that putting it together in terms of where does it fit with the Ra-ta-tat-tat of research, and what domain and, and, and sometimes things get too big and you have to make distinctions first. And so I made my own bore you with all the stuff, but, but it, so I mean the route to creativity , sort of came along the way, shall we say?
Right. You know, and then it partly, you get an idea and you decide to go for it. And then you think you're going into brick walls, anybody that I'd access, they'd have an army of people. They want you to sign this or that, or tell you that you could. Right. And I thought, I'm not doing this for somebody to tell me how to write.
I'm going to write it. As I see it, the academics understand that they may not spend time. But they understand that the business guys, they're looking a little bit at what the advantage is for them and whether they find it interesting, but they also really want to control it. I got close to getting to Jobs by the way, that would have been a great one.
I couldn't have written it in the way other people have done it. No question about that. But I had a sense of being on a roll and willing to try it and then you have to get full practical in terms of what's what's doable. So I don't have a lot of insights on the big issue of creativity, but I have a lot of thoughts because a lot of the important elements to creativity have a lot of overlap with the important elements of good decision-making, which is back to the research I spent so many years on and is really the heart of the book, In Defense of Trouble Makers, which by the way, I didn't even like the title. I had a different title, but the publisher talk me well, I wanted, I wanted more of a theme of courage and of , some of the important issues, but the publisher wanted a term that would get people to want to pick it up like what's it about and more than I realized people really identified with the notion of being a troublemaker.
I mean, I'd get I can't tell you how many emails of people pouring out their heart or their own experiences, you know, and then, the vice admiral of the coast guard. I had several hours with him. He bought several copies for his own men. I thought, where'd this come from? I mean, I learned so much because for him it represented leadership.
So he sent takeaways from the book. And what I found was that even opened up my thinking about all kinds of other ways in which, it expands the publisher, you see kept containing me because he wanted it shorter even though I have other chapters that I spend a lot of time on. . Or he was reminding me that there's a short attention span from the reader and that a book should have a laser like focus.
And I thought, yeah, but there's this, there's this. But the ordinary reader is can it, you know, so I learned an important lesson, namely that even if it's my work is that, I've got a lot to learn and there are other people smarter than I am who have expertise in particular kind of areas and it's smart to listen to.
Jack: Right. Yeah. I can imagine the editing, editing processes is not the most fun, but then you do realize okay, there are some, some give and takes here of what goes in versus, you know, is interesting to me personally but might not apply as I can imagine. That was a bit of a struggle.
Dr. Nemeth: Oh, oh, more than that I'd get really upset.
Jack: Yeah. Understandable.
You spend hours and hours on it to be told nobody. Nobody wants to read this, you know?
Dr. Nemeth: Well, yeah or they'd be nerds like me. I mean, look, I knew what I wanted to say in one year, the other two, two and a half years, we're finding a way to say it, finding the story, which the principals would have insights so people could see the value and meaning of it.
Because my sense is I didn't write this for myself. I wrote it. I wrote it to influence other people, to think about things in a different way to see the applicability. So even if their bottom line people, there's a bottom line that's of this as well. So, you know, I tend to be quite practical, so I don't stay too high in the sky.
So I took some time to decide on the right stories that weren't just barely related, , but where you had a way of thinking about it, where the principles come back, you start to really believe it. And so, I mean, I learned to write in a different way doing that book, but it was hard won, believe me, but I have a wonderful editor and a wonderful agent. So I'm, I'm grateful for that.
Jack: That's great. Well, I think it's interesting also the troublemaker language switch, but also , your word, which is around courage, because I think oftentimes at least when I think of dissent, you know, there's that term, the term of devil's advocate or that for me, if anyone called me a devil's advocate, I would be abhorred. it would be, it would be something I really don't want to be seen as, and I wonder if you draw a distinction between those terms, if that, you know, these mean different things to you or how you can bring dissent without delving into, now I'm starting to make people angrier or feel like I'm just trying to pick fights.
Dr. Nemeth: Well, you're raising several really important each big issues. if I don't cover one of them, remind me my memories not that great. Yeah, they're very different. Devil's advocate is a mechanism, a device of offering a different viewpoint and it's origins were in the Roman Catholic church.
So that putting somebody up for sainthood, you go through the beatification and the candidates and stuff, and they had this mechanism that is called the devil's advocate in which what you do is you dig, dig up all the dirt you can for the person being proposed. And, I kind of only half joking say , you don't want to make someone a Saint and then find out a couple of years later it was a pervert, you know, that wouldn't look too great. So they had this with the idea that it would basically make the decisions more accurate, safer, and remind me to tell you a little story about Christopher Hitchens, how the Roman Catholic church changed that, which I thought was remarkable.
It's a great story. But, going back to that for a second about what the devil's advocate is, is that it was meant as a mechanism to improve decision-making. And a lot of, both researchers and companies use devil's advocate. I mean, they actually appoint someone as a devil's advocate or a person who choose to take it on, but it's seen as a valuable component, but the main thing, but it's more of is let me play devil's advocate.
One could say this, the opposite of that, , there could be this issue, the opposite of that, or what about this fact? So that the ideas that, that process is of some value in companies use that to, like, , hedge funds, for example, you know, that kind of thing. But, the problem with it, again, I'm trying to capsulize, a lot of the research has said.
The problem is it may be better than nothing, but it isn't anything close to as effective as dissent in terms of getting people to really rethink their positions, to, to want to look for additional information, to really consider an alternative perspectives, all the things that you want them to do to make a good decision.
It really isn't nearly as effective as actual dissent . And I think if you think about it, I'm getting a little bit ahead of story, but the research that people really paid attention to of mine, isn't so much where like dissent wins or majority's win, but it has to do with it it changes the way you think.
And so what our research showed over decades really is that majority is when you have consensus that actually closes the mind is that they're much more likely to look for corroborating information that sustains what they believe, et cetera. I mean, all of the things you don't want them to do, where as dissent actually, you may not like it, even when it's wrong is that it actually opens the mind so that you, you do actually search widely, you do consider alternatives.
That challenge, in fact, it's enormously not only invigorating, but it causes you to think the way, if you had the power, you'd want people to think, to make good decisions. That challenge is really good, but it's premised really not on, which is why I think it's not the reason. I think it's so much more important than devil's advocate is that an authentic to center, you know, That to some extent he or she's paying price for that position. Okay. And that's compelling. There's an authentic, if you see them as authentic and it helps if they're paying a price for it with no clear advantage, you don't see anything they're getting out of it.
That has enormous power. You know, you think about it like martyrs back to more religious connotation. People willing to die for their ideas. You may think they're nuts, but you know, you don't dismiss it. You don't there must be something to it that could lead to that behavior. And all I'm saying is it has a compelling quality to it.
Jack: Right.
Dr. Nemeth: And so when someone actually dissents , , it does have that stimulating effect on the mind for good we're devil's advocate doesn't do that nearly as well. And it's because it's pretend dissent . And so I hate it when I see people on the news, so many of the interviewers who are getting a little bit boring, you know, one question they ask is, well, how do you feel?
And I thought, asked me how I feel when my father just died, how you feel? It's not exactly, but you know, the one that's going to open you up. Right. And so, but apart from that, one of the standard questions or statements really is sort of like any statement you'd make people then will say, well, let me play devil's advocate.
And I always makes me smile because they always preface it because they're basically saying this is not what I really believe. I'm just sort of intellectually trying to be, even handed. And somehow that always misses because it's more like, well, what do you believe? Why don't you argue with what I'm saying from the perspective you think is right?
Why are you game-playing intellectually? I'm just saying that's me. So I get an emotional reaction, but also you see is that . I don't want to think that's the way that people really rethink what they're doing. It's not pure information. It's not like, well, because you plop another point of view on paper, or you have someone say it who doesn't necessarily believe it.
It doesn't have the power to really affect the way you come to the issue or make decisions where authentic dissent does. And the beauty of it, which I love is that our studies over and over again, say it has that quality, that impact even when it's wrong. So we often think, well, dissent only adds value when it has happened to be correct nobody else noticed it. I mean, that's easy way to say, you know, dissent pat on the head, the tough part is selling the point, which I do, is that , even if you think he's nuts and even if he is wrong, the fact is, is that, that process you still benefit from it's recognizing that, that makes people open then to a community that allows its expression, which is back to one of your questions I know you'll want to pursue, which is, it's, it's very hard to speak up and so you need to create a culture or you need the leaders to behave in such a way in which there is, you can use the term safety not necessarily total, total safety, but where there's a sense of value and that you're not going to get killed.
Right. And you're not going to be useless. And so there are many ways to create that so that people are more willing to speak up. But I think you start with the recognition that it's important to speak up, even if you're wrong. And that is not immediately something people say, well, I get that and I already agree with it.
Sometimes people read the book and they'll say, oh, I liked it because I agreed with each point, it's sort of like, well, I would hope that what you learned in the book was something that you wouldn't necessarily have agreed with or known ahead of time. Right, right. Got you to think.
Exactly. Anyway,
Jack: Well, I want to come back. I want to come back to the Christopher Hitchens story that you mentioned.
Dr. Nemeth: Well, the only thing, I only noticed that, at the end of writing the book, but given the distinction, I just made of devil's advocate and dissent right? You said even the Roman Catholic church, apparently at the time of the beatification or I don't know where it was in the process of the Mother Teresa at Christopher Hitchens was not one of her biggest fans.
And, she he is who he is so he thought the fact that she wanted to convert them to Catholicism somehow negate it all for the lifetime good works for the poor in Calcutta. So, I mean, these battles opinion, but the point is, is that apparently during that process, at least what I'd read, don't take me as absolutely sure on this, because I have to go back.
Jack: Yep. Yep.
Dr. Nemeth: I remember reading it. I just can't remember the specificity of it, but that they actually asked him to come and to argue the position against her sainthood. And I struck and I thought, you know, perfect. The institution that originated the technique and it's used it for centuries actually reached out and had an actual dissenter rather than someone playing devil's advocate, whether they understood that distinction or not that openness to do that, which was from my research, the smartest thing they ever did.
Jack: Right.
Dr. Nemeth: They may not want to believe what he's saying, but they're welcoming it to come in. And it, isn't just kind of via somebody playing a devil's advocate who says, you know, there are those who point this out. And even if they met mentioned him, it wouldn't have the same impact. So it struck me as brilliant. And also, so in keeping with the message that I was you know, presenting.
Jack: So that is a cool story
Dr. Nemeth: You don't think of the Catholic church as being particularly kind of open to being challenged. Although you know, some popes have been a lot more open to that than others and you know, more recently, you know, we've been fortunate.
Yeah. I say, we , I was raised, but I haven't practiced since I was at your age,
Jack: I think we're I'm from the same place, you know, it's, uh, I like to call it half licks. You know, you still have kind of the cultural side.
Dr. Nemeth: No no, it's true. I mean, I mean probably 50% of friends, people I know are Jewish and many of them don't have a really religious connection, but they really do have a cultural connection.
Jack: Yeah absolutely. I actually find that funny, my partners he's Jewish and, , it's similar. I think in a lot of regards, you know, it's so big part of the community and how you think about things really, if you are raised in that way which is interesting, but in any case, I am curious to come to the point of, you know, how do you productively then give dissent
cause I think there is, you know, Similar reaction to me, if I, have a discussion around, let's say pro-choice first pro-life. If someone is like, let me play devil's advocate, but they don't really believe in the pro-life camp. Then I just really react negatively. You know, I get tense if someone has those authentically held beliefs, whether it's on big topics like that, or you know, a decision that you're making in the business. How do you do that in a way that comes from, a generous place that comes across as authentic and then, you know, shifts the mindset, even if it's not the right answer, as you said, at least opens people up a little bit more. I'm curious if you found any useful tips for that.
Dr. Nemeth: do you suppose you mean to be artful in how you dissent?
Well, there are people who know me well, who would question whether or not I believe me, I've been more than once you could have said that with more tact and on reflection, they're right. So it, number one to be kind to yourself a little bit, because we're all human. And so when you have firmly held beliefs, for example, and particularly if, even when you mean very well, you can, many, many times, , offend inadvertently or whatever.
So, I mean, there's no magic answer to it, but I do think that and I mean for myself as well as other people's, I think sometimes we worry too much about not offending people that we end up not being completely honest. And it's partly because we're not sure they'll accept it. They'll understand it. And the spirit that it went there's costs involved that you don't want to pay whatever. But I do think that, , I do think it's important , to voice dissenting views. I, I think partly, I think once you're, you undersatnd and are convinced that number one, you can use it, you're providing a benefit.
And, you know, sometimes you really have to say, I know this is the right thing to do, and kind of like the consequences be damned and you have to make that calculation obviously. But I think in general, I think it has, for me, at least I think it has to do with, the way you approach it is that if in offering it, you really are respectful of the fact that they differ.
So it means that I not only want the right for me to be free to speak and to have a different view is that I want you to have that right. And I respect that you have a different view, even though I adamantly disagree with you. And sometimes it's hard because when you really adamantly agree. You can't, you know, you don't contain yourself well enough to kind of really make that distinction as believable.
Yeah, so maybe you have to pick your moments when you can do this authentically. But I do think that if you do respect their views and you want to articulate it as clearly as you can, it means you refrained from any kind of a tendency which people often do, which is that we disagree because you don't know enough, you know, you're stupid at some level, you know, or we are basically, you've been influenced by X, Y, and Z.
And so you're kind of a pawn what kind of words to insult, and that is almost obvious without stating it. That's not particularly the most mechanism, and it wouldn't even really get them to think I asked to be is that this is just what you believe. And this is what you believe because the one thing that all the studies have shown even from the beginning is that it's important to be consistent.
And persistent in terms of something, otherwise, people don't think you believe what you're saying, so if you compromise too easily or you falter, you go back on what you were saying, or, you know, whatever, it's all kind of ways to screw it up. But I think that when you've thought about it, some something you clearly believe in you articulate that you're not imposing it on them.
And so that's back to respect. So I think sometimes the attitude with which you bring it as important. And in this context, I mean, I always love one of the people I've long admired. Also a very good friend is Carl White, who does organizational behavior. But I remember Carl it's just like the one line, but it had to do with, Which capsulized I think some of the research I'm talking about, which is, you know, argue as if you are right.? And you do, you need to be consistent, persistent, clear, not compromising. And if you compromised, by the way, we've got other studies that show that you do do it in a way that is clear in negotiating. You're not just because you've changed your mind, but, and so I think that's wise, but the second part of it is that listen, as though you're wrong.
And I think that's very important because, when you really listen to the other, that's partly an element of respect. So I can use a different words for it. But I think that that number one makes you more effective. It, secondly, it makes you less, annoying, you know, and, I'm not saying any of this is easy, but, and it's not like this particularly profound, but it's worth remembering I think.
Jack: Yeah, it is profound though. And it's funny because I think even your comments, like, don't approach it as, oh, you only believe this because you listened to XYZ. You know, it's things we implicitly, we know we shouldn't start the conversation that way, but when you are emotional about a topic, so easy to slide into that, I'll fall around politics.
I'm like, well, you only believe that cause you only listen to Fox status and it's like, that's, that's not a productive place to start. So I think you do have to be cognizant and remind yourself before you go into these conversations and, and keep your emotions a bit in check right? And to your point, like around timing, I think is important around when you have those conversations.
Are you going to be ready to have a productive conversation? Are you coming at it in a way? I think. You know, you're not going to be generous from the start because I think we can all be guilty of that as you started in the start of of the answer.
Dr. Nemeth: No, you're exactly right. we've all had people in our lives, even people in your lives you have, you can tell like the beginning of a conversation, they're looking for a fight, debating you that's a no, win, it takes some doing to recognize it and to basically not let it get there, exactly.
It's easier said than done. I understand. But I think being clear about the kind of the principles and even to some extent, I think being encouraged and emboldened a bit to engage in these sorts of things that have such promising results. I think both for others and for yourself, it's important to do so, you know,
Jack: Yeah, I completely agree. Completely agree. And the one thing I mentioned to you over email that I am curious about, because I think , it's so topical right now is just, I'm curious either anecdotally or through research that you've seen or done the impact of social media and online sources. Obviously we know it can cause us to find these bubbles even more so.
And the mechanisms behind these machines, , push that down our throats a bit, but is that something that you've seen impact our willingness to share dissent or to be generous in our dissent and curious too, obviously in Berkeley, maybe you see that among the student population, for example, if that's changed over the years, but curious to hear your thoughts.
Dr. Nemeth: Yeah, well, I try to start with the first, , I'm not a social media buff myself by the way. So that's a bit of a disclaimer, but, there's two principles. Because it concerns me a lot. The disinformation aspect concerns me a lot. And the bubbles, I mean, you used the word of a hive mind, I think, it was, you know, and that's why I asked her for clarification, when you talked about hivemind it means you're kind of together, but you know, I have to separate are you kind of together because you're accessing the same information or are you together for other kinds of social tribal reasons? And there's a lot of elements to separate it out, but you were concentrating on the fact that you basically have a bubble of information and so you're not exposed to dissent, essentially within this bubble because people gravitate to those with whom they agree.
That's true. Even in terms of friendships, by the way, there's all kinds of research on how friendships form and or maintain, and that similarity of approach is very powerful predictor. , but in social media, I mean, partly you're doing this yourself and that's forgetting for a moment of the corrupt ways in which is introduced or pretended into your group, because people are manipulating that group also by targeting who the people are and what they'd be susceptible to.
So, I mean, it's taken like research from social psychology to a crazy, very serious and dangerous realm and that's time to talk about, but I think pertinent to, to the topic of today is one of the most powerful phenomenon in social psychology is called polarization. And this is something that's been studied for decades.
And it is reliably powerful. I mean, more than most, , areas of research. And it is pertinent to , the bubble within social media. And that's that if you basically get people who are essentially like-minded on an issue, so if you had a midpoint , and you're on the pros and you got the cons and you've got people on the pros and some may be more strongly held than others, or for different reasons or whatever.
But if you get people who are basically like-minded, , in a group and say a discussion, making a decision or whatever, that interaction tends to make them more extreme, in the direction that they are already leaning and it makes them more confident and that is reliable. So if you get people, for example, who were segregationist by and large, even of different levels after they talked to one another, they become more segregationists, same way for integrationists.
And it'd be that it doesn't matter what topic. And we even played with the little bit kind of simulated juries, cause I would kind of an all group be of sorts, you know, cause that has to do with justice. And that's where you deal with the quality of the decision you don't deal with just winning, at least not if you're interested in appellate issues, but basically though, I mean, and so we even did it as said, if you had a group and you had them sub-divide in terms of the ones who already favored, not guilty and the ones who favor guilty, you'd let them talk to each other for a little while they come back into the discussion, more extreme.
More powerful in their statements. So I'm saying, is that without going through a million ways, in which this shows is that, and that's what cults do by the way, they create a like mindedness. So they recruit for people that are likely to buy the message. They make sure that they socialize with people who already are inculcated in it.
They don't brook dissent at all. And so you create a like-minded grouping. You don't have to have the power to monitor everything then because they almost do something. I call it like self brainwashing it's to some extent they become more extreme, more confident, more vigilant, harder to penetrate and to change their minds so that you get them then acting in lockstep, which is why in the book.
For example, I often use the Jonestown example because it's when I tracked pretty carefully over a period of time and which I could kind of see some of the basic principles I knew they were using. You may not call them principles or whatever, but what they were using and why it worked. It was precisely because of these mechanisms that essentially brook no dissent.
Right.
Create not only consensus, but through the polarization exacerbate that power of that consensus. So, I mean, you get, radical believers. I mean, ,you see the groups, for example, marching on, on Washington. For example, with that kind of a commitment that has to do with legitimising killing the enemies in their view the enemies and so what I'm saying is that people are always surprised because they always say, well, the people have to be crazy. They don't have to be crazy to some extent it has to do with social psychology. Their information, their bubbles, the other people, , joining with them on something that kind of belief set that you can create partly by lying to them, partly by even selective information.
I mean, there are many, many, many mechanisms for this stuff, but we're starting to see in real time, not just some abstraction. And we aren't seeing quite as many cult behaviors, although some of the others, some of the more recent ones are looking a little bit like it in terms of its principles, or some people have seen certain religions even have, can have that quality.
I mean there's goods and bads and mixes in all kinds of groups, but, but the principles are there and it still comes back to that notion that it's dangerous to have just the like-minded and always an interaction makes you worse in some ways I think makes you better. It could give you an enormous courage. Point is it is going to extremize what it, whatever you're going, it isn't a way to reflect it, isn't the way to critically think, it isn't a way to revisit issues or to think of alternatives. But it has its place. I mean, if I'm an executive, if I want people to be creative, I want the energy of a hot group for lack of a better word.
Okay. Yeah. With the dissent and the speaking up and all that, if I'm in an execution mode, , Which is that we know what we want to do. We just have to get it done. Then you don't want that. Then you want the same page stuff. And there are many ways I could I'd create a same page, get the job done. But that's a shift from one to the other.
And sometimes we mix it up because we sort of treat it as though was that a good idea or how was the performance or did it end up working? Well, partly, it's a difference between where you start and come to a decision and then where you are when you're implementing the decision. And I hate to get kinda nerdy, but you have to make those distinctions.
Otherwise we're talking in circles.
Absolutely.
I agree. Lay out a little bit of a, of a platform for people.
Jack: No, I like, I like that distinction too, to your point is there's also a point where we have to say, okay, we've taken in the right input. We've aligned on these principles and we're going to have to go forward for that.
And then it can, if we reopen and reopened for those conversations, you know, I think we see that a lot in government and NGO work where you want to do really impactful stuff that lots of experts and brilliant people working on a problem. But if you need to get sign off from a hundred people and continue to go back and re sign off for every change, it's
Dr. Nemeth: It paralyzes people. I mean, even it's remarkable the amount of unity right now, on Ukraine , but you can see how easy some fear of what could happen will pull maybe one country in a different direction or another, and they have different constituencies. So I think it's been a remarkable accomplishment of Biden, frankly, to hold that union together as well as it has been.
I've spent a lot of time with a friend in the UK yesterday on zoom, you know, stay in touch, we're chatting about all this stuff and what we see and hear and teach and you know, that kind of stuff, but it's heady times and you look at a dissenter like Zelensky, for example, who's become really a pop star, a hero in many ways.
But if you look at I'm sure it's not that he kind of thinks about it. Cause I think he's saying what he believes and he's gotten his own advisors. I mean, I'm not, obviously don't know much about him particularly, but I can see that in terms of, if you're going to speak power, you're going to essentially at some level, I don't know if it's totally dissent because he's speaking to the choir by and large, by appearing before parliament, or some of these , other groups who speaking choir to get the help he wants.
But it's also set in a broader context in which it is a dissenting view but it has a clarity to it. It has an authenticity. It has a talk about a willingness to take a risk. You don't then walk back into your own office when you've got a target on your back, right. Foolish. That may be very foolish.
But from the point of view of at least, even his detractors would have to say, he believes what he's saying and that is powerful. And we're seeing in many ways the power that that has. Doesn't mean he's going to win. It doesn't mean that totally what he wants. It doesn't mean he's going to be able to get them mobilized and courageous in ways that he would like, and I'm sure there are, people who would like to see that voice completely silenced and another one maybe come. I mean, I'm not kind of getting into the right or wrong so much of it, but you kind of recognize that when people have a power and they're able to kind of capture something where many other people could not say some of the way, same words and it would be lost. And there's a whole art to much of that as well.
But I think at the center of it is really the power of an authentic voice. Even if you don't agree with it, because what you hope is that that maybe it'll cause you to become more flexible in your own thinking and start to look for mechanisms of negotiation, for example, or ways of getting out of the situation. I mean, that's what one can hope for. Now, it may be kind of far removed from the realities of power.
Jack: In this circumstance. Yeah.
Dr. Nemeth: Not as academics as I can kind of put on the table, I think.
Jack: Yeah. Well, I love and I want to take back cause there was one comment you made early on about something that you admired in your mentors was that they were taking these experimental issues , and bringing it into what does this actually look like?
And in the real course of the world, I think. It's it's so important. And I think, the field of social psychology does that in such an interesting way that it's so relevant to us. So I appreciate that your research and our conversation today, you always grounded in experiences that I, as a non-academic can can understand.
Dr. Nemeth: So, I really, I take pride in that. Sometimes I have a feeling that because I like to talk plainly because my feeling is, is that what's the point of talking if I'm not communicating with you, if I don't have you thinking, because then I'm just full of myself, you know, chatting away. And I think I've always been practical and in part, because it's not like I was raised privileged either, so I totally just had a sensitivity to issues, but I've always thought there was something very powerful about the two that you mentioned though, that they really lived .
I mean, very powerful, dramatic lives in a way then they know pain, they know complexity, and yet they're still very thoughtful and they're powerful intellectuals about it. And there's something kind of exciting about that. They don't get mired down in doing little studies that make sure they cite the person so that they get the kudos and they make more money and they advance up.
Now, this is still very idealistic . I have my own children. I mean, most of your generation say, God, that's an old fashioned idea , you've got to get real. Education is only for getting the right job and making money. So other stuff is like, good luck, sweetheart. But you know, you're swimming upstream and yet there's still something about which I believe is that things have to be practically grounded, certainly in education. Absolutely. But, but it's a lot richer. And I think teaching critical thinking for example is way more important than some of the other, which seem to be practical degrees where people aren't even sure what they learned at least nothing memorable happened in their lives as a result.
And so now that gives me pause because it comes from other kinds of places. And so it maybe it's hard for people to realize the importance of history or English literature, or, you know, all the things that may seem esoteric, but there's a privilege period, I think during undergraduate school where essentially your world opens and you reflect on things you wouldn't have otherwise. I think it changes you and that is way beyond, but it's hard to sell that these days, because what's selling is you're going to have a major, or then it's better to go to a trade school and all that makes a certain amount of sense, because some people you've got to get a job.
You don't have the luxury in some ways of a big education. That's sad because I wish we had more like the European system where education was really more available, because I think it makes for a more informed citizenry for that reason, not just for the person anyway. I mean, that's for another day, but you know, those values certainly mattered to me.
And I think the people I most admire, they have a way of still having some impact. And so I think you need to have some hope that there's a place for you to contribute. And I think entrepreneurs, I mean, they think that , they need to, to venture out with what they think it means being open to what we're talking to, to contrary views and to really doing your homework and being practical as well, because you want to win, you don't want to just kind of fly out there and try something and end up, , slammed against the wall, but it's not a safe track, but it's an exciting one.
I think that notion that it's not just a pat on the back, you can do it, but, , a lot of people have done it and you'll find out soon enough, you know? I mean, you still have your whole life ahead of you, so. I mean, I wish I were your age. Actually, no, I think I, I wish I were like 10 years older than you are.
I could do without the angst and adolescence at twenties.
Jack: That's right. Yeah. That's right. I think that's true. You have it a little more figured out at that point, right. At least I sure to God have to hope so.
Dr. Nemeth: So every day, every day I decide , I don't know anything. Yeah. I screwed that up again. What did I do?
Yeah.
Jack: Right, right. You think you've learned the lesson and need to learn in a few hundred more times before maybe it's sticks
Dr. Nemeth: it's nice to know though that there's, there's a wonderful part too, of interacting and being authentic with other human beings just at that level. We need it. And I'll tell you if we ever learned it in spades and starting this pandemic.
Jack: I absolutely agree. I mean, it's just so interesting. I think the way we saw people come back to their actual communities. In New York and , in bigger cities where, I don't know my neighbor. I don't feel connected to these people. And then you start to take more accountability in the places you inhabit, I think was a special part of me observing the pandemic, just given how hard it hit New York.
And of course I'm from Michigan, from a small town, which I'm more used to it, that kind of check-in on your neighbor behavior. And, even then I think it's even there it's improved a lot during the pandemic of people being a little more thoughtful about, what are the issues of, of where I live. So I think that's special.
Dr. Nemeth: That's true.
Jack: I have one more question. I know we're over time already, but I just want to, I want to ask you if you have any closing thoughts for, for creatives of any type, like you said, whether it's business science, writers, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Dr. Nemeth: Which area would you like me to think about a tip?
I think, let me see. Well, you know, I'll back up a little bit of a repeat of a couple of points I made. I think number one, I think that notion of first be kind to yourself, realize your human being whose going to fail at times. But I think that notion of humility is that don't have false humility.
You don't tell people that you don't think you're very smart when you know, you're smart, I mean, that's hardly an enduring at that. Uh, but it is humility in that sense of knowing you could be wrong. And so you, you approach things once you've thought it through and you know, what you believe and think ,
before then, you better be inquiring and searching and thinking. Okay. But once you, you do have that kind of clarity, I think being willing to articulate that clarity. People actually admire it. They may not like it too much for it, but they admire it. That was a distinction we had to make in some of the studies, depending on what you ask them, you get a very different kind of an image of the impact of the relationship, you know, but I think also that notion of, if you realize you could be wrong, that kind of Carl's comment was Swissness of you're wrong.
Well, that's when you're listening to them, but you should argue as though you're right. Know, with a clarity and a consistency, because the only way you're going to have impact, and it's the only way you're going to stimulate thinking. So if you bear that in mind and you have the courage to do it, knowing that that's also how you have the most impact that's wise.
I think you also, to some extent, because of admiration could well encourage other people to model courage. That was the title of one of our articles by the way way. And people do do that. So there's a lot of benefits that you create by just doing that and not being afraid. . You stop and think about what do you have to be afraid of it?
Maybe you need to be afraid for serious reasons. I mean, Zelensky ought to be afraid for serious reasons. Okay. Right, right. But a lot of times, all we're afraid of is that somebody might be mad at us or somebody might say something snotty to us and it's sort of like at some level, that's not going to kill you, you know what I mean?
And so you have, so I mean, some of these are pretty, pretty mundane thoughts, but, but it just seems like that kind of a clarity and certainty and confidence in your own judgment. And also because if they push back, then if you listen to them, they may help to clarify your own thinking that maybe you're, you're a little too confident and there's more nuances to it than you thought.
So there's all kinds of things to be gained that you get back as well. And that just makes you a better decision maker. And then I think there's that thing that most of us kind of lack, except under certain moments and that's courage. IT's when you have the idea. And I think all the entrepreneurs, there's always going to be a risk of failing, you know, losing money and making a fool out of yourself, a reputational fallout, whatever.
I don't think the reputational fallout is necessarily very bad because, Most people understand, you have a good idea and you worked on it and there are reasons why it did or didn't fail. And there's a lot of reasons why some people, even if they succeeded in their company made a lot of money, it's not because they were particularly smart, had a great idea. It was right time, right place. It was venture. . It was the right, whatever. You can never separate those things out. But I think you don't know unless you try and I'll tell you as you reach an older age, that line that everybody says over and over again and said, you never regret what you did do, you regret what you didn't do.
So for entrepreneurial, you know, ventures out there who have creative ideas go for it. And so what if you fail? I mean, hell. Just another day to try again and you will always regret you didn't if it was something that you really want to do. I mean, don't do it stupidly, you know, get information and try to make it win. It's like, when I did this book is I could've written a book and done the academic side of it just fine because I'm teaching it for so long, but there was a level where the element of wanting to make sure that the ideas had impact that I could find the right storyline so that I could write well enough and simply enough, because I'm not intend to speak simply, you know, I tend to, everything's complicated. That meant kind of training and a certain humility really.
And I didn't, I'm not saying I took to it easily cause I'm such a nice person. I mean, I fought it at times. I got mad at times, but I learned, and I'll tell you next time around, I'm going to be better at it. You know? And the same way with talking to huge audiences that are like extremely well known is that, you know, I began to realize I could worry all the call I want in the front end of it.
And I over-prepare, but once I get in there, I'm not afraid of them. I don't know why. I don't know why it came up. It's just habit or experienced or whatever. And there's a sense in which I didn't have an agenda, really I wasn't looking for a job or whatever, I was there to help and to give it, they don't want to take it., They don't want to take it. There's a second kind of a freeing quality about it. If you have that kind of an approach. And usually it really works because you come up with stuff you wouldn't have otherwise, they realized that they'd like it and the best of them want you to provoke to get them thinking.
I mean, I've taught for a big company in New York, boy did they bring out the red carpet. You know, four seasons, everything first class, , paid me a lot. I mean, it was wonderful to be rockstar for at least, you know, a few days, but all the partners and I went to dinner, no spouses, nobody else. There's 21 guys and me .
All of them make about 20 times anything I've ever seen. And that's probably an underestimate, you know, we took over the museum and in the museum of modern art and not the museum the restaurant. So the founder wanted me to go from table to table. Do you know? It was wonderful though, because I began to realize , who would have guessed that this would come, you start thinking about, I don't whine about being a female they treat me with enormous respect. I have to go back and find people my age, who kind of told me I should be opinionated or something, throw back to my upbringing. You know, there's something liberating and wonderful about, I didn't really think about that sort of thing, and, and the way that they engage, the things that they were interested in got me to have to think on my feet right then and there.
And sometimes , like, hell, I don't know that world. I don't have anything smart to say about it, but, but there was a kind of an honesty about that and, you know, I love that. There's something so invigorating, about honest discussion with people really to reflect, and they do it out of respect. And I think if you hold on to that and you try to find it where you can sustain you your entrepreneurs will do just fine.
Some of them will probably hit the big time. You just don't know who they are right now.
Jack: It's definitely true. And I appreciate this because I feel, , having the opportunity to have this kind of honest conversation and hear your thoughts is super interesting to me. Even just thinking about running a podcast, for example, and having it for me, it's similar to what you described.
And in talking to these crowds, it's less about, how many people are listening to each episode and if I get caught up on that, well, I'll get upset. If one episode is only three people listed and I'm like, what the heck I put in on the side? But if you think, okay, What is the value? And, you know, for example, for this, I'm able to share your work with, with new people. And I think they have so much to benefit from it as well. So I'm really grateful and I'm so grateful for the time and for you being so considerate in the workup to this too. I really appreciate it.
Dr. Nemeth: Well, thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank you for the compliment. Yeah, of course. And you did it, you had an idea and, and you did it. You created the podcast. A lot of us have thought about it. Didn't do it. So take some pride.
Jack: Thank you. Thank you.
Jack: Many things again to Charlan . I have been thinking about this episode and it's lessons on leadership and creativity for many weeks since our time speaking. And particularly within the context that Charlan mentioned within Ukraine, many, thanks again, Charlan, and for sharing your timely and topical research and for the time, please go check out her book In Defense of Troublemakers as well. I think it's a great read and something you'll really enjoy and gain from on a personal level. Thanks as always to Coma media whose music is licensed under creative commons and is used in this this podcast. Thanks and make today a day to make.
