Kenneth Berger: belief

Transcript context

…Such a good point about what you identified and the way... I think a lot of people that think about it, it's just like, "I'd always do this without causing anyone any pain or risking anything going wrong." I think that's, to your point, part of it. So you talk a lot about founders. You work with a lot of founders, a lot of listeners here are not founders, they're product managers, ICs on teams, other functions that don't have "power". Is there anything that you suggest these folks do differently or think about this differently or is it kind of the same thing? In the end everyone has power in some way. How would you think about this if you're just, say, a product manager, individual contributor? I think one of the most important balances in terms of the asking step is both asking clearly, but asking with great humility. And this actually works whether you're in a position of power or not because I think a lot of folks will go so far to the end of humility. They say, "Well, I'm not going to say this out loud at all." But in fact, if you're willing to say, I really disagree with this product decision and I would really prefer that we make this different decision. I know it's not my call and I'm just one opinion and a lot of people are going to see things differently and that's fine, but it's important to me that you know that. So what do you think? Are you willing to reconsider this?" That's such a great approach. It's very not scary to say that. It also, I think, highlights something I wanted to touch on is I think people have a lot more influence and power than they think they do. Say a PM on a team disagrees with a plan for a product. People actually care about your opinion and you could actually change things. But just telling them, "I think this is a bad idea." And you often don't. Is that what you find, that people have a lot more influence than they think they do? Anything along those lines that comes up?…

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