169: Part II, Bas Wouters on Influence and Persuasion

Please welcome Maria Yager and Bas Waters to One CA Podcast. 

Originally, I was cohosting the show with Mariah, but I got OBE'd (or overcome by events), so Maria covered until I arrived and helped with questions and answers. 

This is part two of a two-part episode on influence and persuasion.

FeedSpot ranked One CA Podcast as one of their top 20 foreign policy podcasts. Check it out at: https://podcasts.feedspot.com/foreign_policy_podcasts/

One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail dot com

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

Special thanks to Max Sedgley for remixing Sarah Vaughan's iconic signing of the theme to the show Max Gunn. Found at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33GglmH6U1k

---

00:00:02 Introduction
Welcome to the 1CA podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.

00:00:37 Mariah Yager
Hi, everyone. I'm Mariah Yeager, your host for today's SMA speaker session titled On Persuasion. We have Bass Waters, who is co -founder and CEO of the Cialdini Institute. He's the author of Online Influence, which is combining Dr. Cialdini's work with insights from other behavioral experts, creating a highly practical framework to boost online results.

00:00:57 Jack Gaines
Please welcome Mariah Yeager and Bass Waters to 1CA Podcast. Originally, I was co -hosting the show with Mariah, but I got OBE'd, or overcome by events, so Mariah covered until I arrived to help with questions and answers. This is part one of a two -part episode on influence and persuasion, so enjoy.

00:01:14 Mariah Yager
So after establishing the Cialdini Institute, companies like Disney, Bookings .com reached out to our speaker today. So he has extensive experience. We're happy to have him today. So with that, I'm going to turn the floor over to Mr. Waters.

00:01:28 Bas Wouters
Thank you, Mariah, for this great introduction. Thank you all for joining and to dive deeper into the practical application of the science of persuasion. I'm representing the Cialdini Institute. I'm aware that a lot of you know the great work of Dr. Robert Cialdini, and he is my business partner in the Cialdini Institute. I'd like to start with some things you may not know about Robert Cialdini, and one of the things that we are very proud of is this research in 2022. They established a jury of the top entrepreneurs in the world, which included Warren Buffett, Mark Cuban, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos. And they voted for the best business book of all time. And as you probably can guess, the winner was Influence from Dr. Robert Cialdini. And actually, they repeated this study with those top entrepreneurs. And in 2023, again, the winner was Influence from Dr. Cialdini. I understood from Jack and Mariah that most of you read his book, published in 1984. And Dr. Cialdini became a professor at the University of Arizona State. He started lecturing, PhD students, but he also started to do research. And one thing that fascinated Dr. Cialdini is why people can influence so easily. I'll give you an example. One day at home, somebody rings the doorbell. He opens. He makes a nice chat. Goes back inside and then he realized, why do I suddenly have a new energy supplier? I didn't need that. I didn't ask for it. I said yes to the request. So that fascinated him. So he started looking into the research that was already done for influence, the science of persuasion. But he found actually the first influence research of psychologists who were wondering in the 1930s. When Hitler came to power, how can a man who is an advocate for such a totalitarian regime, how can he move complete societies in his direction? So Dr. Cialdini was looking at approximately 40 to 50 years of data on influence research. And then he realized something important. These are lab studies. But influence is done in the real world. So I need to go out there where it actually happens. So Dr. Cialdini went undercover and he infiltrated a lot of training programs. So training programs on sales, marketing, VR. But he also infiltrated army recruitment and even calls. And after three years, he collected his findings and connected that to the 50 years of research that already was out there. And then he wrote his book, Influence. And in that book, first he wrote the six principles of persuasion. And later, in this new and expanded edition in 2021, he added a seventh principle. These seven principles of persuasion, these are the universal principles of persuasion. Sayers shows us these principles work in every culture, in every language, in every country. There's also research on what is the most powerful principle per culture, but they all work in every culture. The thing is what Dr. Cialdini wondered during his research is something different because everybody told him, well, we are from marketing. That's completely different than PR. Well, I'm from PR. That's different than sales. Sales is different from advertising. So everybody told him. how different everybody was. What he was looking for, what is the same? Which principles motivates in every case to move more people in your direction? Like I said, in 1984, he found six. Based on research, he added a seven principle. So these principles are reciprocity. If I invite you to my birthday party, you feel a pressure. To invite me back at your party. Liking. We like to say yes to our friends. To give you an example. If I walk here on the street. And a complete stranger is moving houses. And they say to me. Well boss. Do you want to help me? Most likely I would tell that stranger. I don't have time. Or no I don't want to help you. But if my best friend would ask me that same question. Probably I say yes. The fourth principle is social proof. There's something interesting with social proof. In its first edition, it was referred to as consensus. Dr. Cialdini created the term social proof. What it states is, when we are uncertain, we look to other people to decide what we should do. Think, for example, about booking .com. Which hotel should we pick to stay? A thousand people tell me this is a great hotel, so I booked that hotel. The fifth principle is authority. We follow the advice of the experts. This is an interesting one because how we base in our decision making if somebody is an expert is very interesting. To give you an example, if I go to my general doctor. I just ask him questions about whatever health condition I have. But who ever checked the diplomas of that general doctor? Probably nobody did that. But based on his title, I already trust him that he has expertise about whatever complaint I will bring to him in my health situation. Then consistency. It's about if we made a small commitment previously, we feel an internal pressure to act consistent with what we previously have said or done. Consistency is the most powerful internal driver to motivate into action. And that leads me to the second principle, and that's scarcity. Scarcity is the most powerful external driver that motivates us into action. And you can think, for example, about Black Friday. It started in the US, but now it's spread all over the world. And on Black Friday, everybody is moving into directions just because they assume they can get great deals. Then unity. This is the seventh principle that Dr. Cialdini introduced in his new and expanded edition of Influence. And it's about... Do we belong to the same group? We are all football fans. We are all Americans. So the fact that you belong to the same group may increase the motivation to say yes to a certain request if that is raised to awareness. Those are the seven principles. What's important, these principles are based on science. Everything we do in the Cialdini research has three core values. One is science. The other one is application. So you cannot change your outcome just with theory. You have to be able to translate the theoretical research into practical application. But that's another very important component of us, which we will discuss into a systematic way of applying today. And the third is ethics. And ethics, it's about these powerful principles. You have to use them in an ethical way because we talk not about manipulation. Influence is not manipulation. Ethical influence is not manipulation because it's raising to awareness parts of information that are also helpful for people to make a decision. And therefore, you create win -win outcomes. Because things are based on science, it can be taught. And if something can be taught, it can be learned. There are a lot of people out there who have a natural gift to be persuasive. They often end up in marketing, sales, or leadership positions because they have this natural ability to persuade. We know one thing for sure. People who master the science that don't have the natural ability to persuade are more powerful persuaders than people who have the natural ability to persuade. Can you imagine if you have both? One, you have a natural skill to be persuasive, plus you master the science. And why this is also important, I train a lot of people all over the world. And especially in sales and marketing, after a training, people told me, now I can actually explain what I was doing. They were successful, but they could not teach it. It's just what comes up to me natural. That is not transferable. So because it's science, it can be taught, and therefore it can be learned by everybody. And today we want to dive into the application. Dr. Neidert has been a right -hand man to Dr. Cialdini for the last 25 years. He is also a professor at ASU University, and he consulted the Fortune 100 companies, but also a lot of government agencies, including intelligence. And every time when he did such a consulting, he selected a principal that was most suitable for that case. And people asked him, of course, Dr. Neidert, why you've chosen reciprocity or why you've chosen scarcity to overcome our influence challenges? And this answer could not be, that's just because I do. Everything is science and research -based. So he developed the core motives model so we can teach you how to select the best principle in every given situation. Let me start by introducing the first core motives model. In an influence challenge, the relationship we have with a person is very important. To give you an example, let's imagine I'm in a very important meeting and my phone rings and I look at my phone and I see somebody that I don't speak so often. What would I probably do? I wouldn't pick up my phone. But imagine the same situation. I'm in that very important meeting and my spouse or your partner or friend that knows you are in that important meeting calls you. Now probably what will happen is you will excuse yourself and try to pick up the phone to at least know why they are calling you because you assume there's something urgent. You do this based on the relationship. you have with that person. And if you go back to the 50s, one of the communication models that was introduced was the sender -receiver model, which says, when you send out a message with words and images, then you have the receiver. That receiver processes the information they get and make it a message. Then you have the channel. Those channels are now extended in the online world. First, you had face -to -face. Then we had... face -to -face and phone calls. And now you have face -to -face, video calls, phone calls, text messages, emails. Also, the channel is very interesting to look at and which one is most persuasive in influence. Then back to the first core modus model. So as I shared with you in the situation, do I pick up my phone during that important meeting? Yes or no? So in any given influence situation, we have to establish a relationship. Some questions that you can ask yourself, well, how can you recognize a signal that you have to work on your relationship? Do people pick up the phone, for example? Do they answer my text messages because you see those blue check marks in WhatsApp, for example, but they don't reply? You saw that they got it, they read it, but they don't reply. People don't pay attention when you are in a meeting. They are distracted. Look at their phone. These are all signals where you should recognize in the future, I need to work on my relation. And the three principles that most likely will do the job to cultivate a relationship or repair an existing relationship are reciprocity, liking, and unity. So what you see... Pulling here is now we can recognize a signal. Why we might not reach our goals, why we get a no instead of a yes, can only be one core motive and the whole machine is start pinning again. So relationship can be one of those gears we have to work on. It's not a one, two, three step model. It could be in a new influence challenge, but it could also be just fix the relationship. So influence is start to move in your direction. So the second core motive that I like to introduce is uncertainty. In every decision -making process, we get uncertain most of the time. To give you an example, let's assume you want to buy a new kitchen. You go into Google and you type in buy a new kitchen. And then bang, you right away have like a million hits. Unconscious, we get uncertain. Where do I click? What are signals? What could you recognize when other ways that people are uncertain? Well, if you communicate with them, they might just say it. I don't know what to do. Or I doubt that this is the best decision for me. These kinds of expressions will help you recognize that people are still uncertain. Here's another thing people do. They start improving your offer. One of times we think, oh, but I am the expert. Why they don't listen to me? It's because they are uncertain. Those people don't want to act annoying. They know what to bother you, but they express uncertainty. And you should think I should move into the principles of social proof and authority. Social proof and authority are the most likely principles. that will overcome uncertainty. If a person is uncertain, you raise to awareness what other people did in that same situation or what an expert says to do in that given situation. And then we reach the last gear or modus model, and that's motivation. You've probably all been there. You are influencing or persuading somebody, move them in your direction. You know you have a good relationship. That person says, yes, your offer is the right one for me. But they don't act. So we have to motivate them into action. These people are probably wondering two things. Why should I act now? Or what did I previously said or done that I will act on this request now? So consistency and scarcity are most likely to do the job. to motivate people into action. What the Night of Port Motives model does and why it's a crucial foundation for me to become an expert in the science of influence is now we are able to analyze a situation, recognize certain signals, we can select the best principle to overcome that challenge, and we can generate ideas which... most likely will have the most persuasive outcome. That leads me to another interesting model which I like to introduce, how to generate those ideas. Most often when we want to generate ideas, we go into brainstorm sessions. And those brainstorm sessions, if you rationalize what actually happens, most of the time, especially in business organizations, people go into a room, they start, talking to each other. Often they don't walk away with a solid action plan. They just talked a lot. But that isn't very productive. So to generate the best possible ideas, we developed the influence process. And actually, you can apply this process to any brainstorm question. There are four steps. One person does the initiation and just... Briefly say we have this challenge and we need a solution. For that person who initiated the session, it's pretty clear what needs to happen. But by briefly addressing it, just with a few words or maybe two sentences, it's most of the time for 70, 80 or 90 % clear for the other participants, which is we start generating ideas, people move into different directions. So what we recommend to do, one person explains what you're going to think about. What is the current situation? What do you hope to achieve? What is a good outcome? What did you already tried? And what are your next ideas? So then you set the stage into a direction that everybody more clearly understands what I am going to talk about. And then something fun happens. When we start talking in these kinds of sessions, it's often a competition who has the loudest voice. We are all together in a room and you've all been there and only two or three people are continuously talking and the rest is pretty silent. That's not very productive because you don't get the best ideas in the room. You get the ideas from people with the loudest voice. You first need to do something else. You need to think. We often act on a question right away. Pretty impulsive. But that doesn't mean that's the best idea you can come up with. We say, think five to seven minutes. Really crack your brain. That's not 30 seconds thinking and four and a half minutes staring out the window. Really think. And after people did that, again, we don't want to have the competition who has the loudest voice. We want to hear everybody's ideas. So you want to have all ideas on the table. That's why we recommend give people two to three minutes max per person so they share not all their ideas, but the best ideas to overcome the challenge.

00:01:16 Bas Wouters
And then something fun happens. When we start talking in these kinds of sessions, it's often a competition. Who has the loudest voice? We are all together in a room and you've all been there and only two or two people are continuously talking and the rest is pretty silent. That's not very productive because you don't get the best ideas in the room. You get the ideas from people with the loudest voice. You first need to do something else. You need to think. We often act on a question right away. Pretty impulsive. But that doesn't mean that's the best idea you can come up with. We say, think five to seven minutes. Really crack your brain. That's not 30 seconds thinking and four and a half minutes staring out the window. Really think. And after people did that, again, we don't want to have the competition who has the loudest voice. We want to hear. everybody's ideas. So you want to have all ideas on the table. That's why we recommend give people two to three minutes max per person so they share not all their ideas, but the best ideas to overcome the challenge. Therefore, you're only collecting what people themselves support as their best ideas. And now, based on that, step one, one person is talking. Step two, everybody is silent in the room. Thinking is an individual process. Then step three, solicit input. Again, one person is talking. Don't react on the ideas of the other person. Don't say, that's a great idea or yes, but I think this is better. Wait till step four and then create an action plan. You do this process with three to six people. So in a time framing here, you have five minutes for step back. Let's say seven minutes to think, that's 12 minutes. If you have three people, give them three minutes. Nine minutes in total plus 12 is 21 minutes. Then you have nine minutes to create an action plan. And then you do this entire process in only 30 minutes. How many brainstorm sessions we have for an hour and not walk away with an action plan. Applying this to influence will create you a solid action plan. Only what do we say, what kind of action plan we suggest is a list of bullet points. Prioritize your ideas that you're going to implement and make them from low -hanging fruit to the more complicated ideas to implement and start doing that. Don't write full reports because two things can happen. One, the person who's writing these reports anchors their brain. Oh, this is the full truth now, and we cannot diverse anymore. An influence process needs to be flexible. And second, often in organizations, what research also tells us, people don't read these reports. So create an action plan, a list of bullet points, prioritize them in the order you're going to execute them. And then in 30 minutes, applying the influence process, you can get... more effective outcomes in a more efficient timeframe. Thank you all for your attention. And of course, we're going to answer questions.

00:04:46 Mariah Yager
All right. Thank you so much, Bas. That was great. Welcome. So the Chris Voss book, Never Split the Difference, Negotiating as if Your Life Dependent on It. You know, it's like, hey, there seems to be a lot of similarities between negotiating and persuasion. So I want to ask if you expand a little bit on the semantics and also include the word influence. In your title, you say you looked into the science of influence and persuasion. Can you talk about what's the difference between influence, negotiating, persuasion?

00:05:17 Bas Wouters
Oh, I like that. So influence, there are many forms on how to influence another human being. Let's say money is a tool to influence people. If I have a request and I walk into the room with a suitcase with a million dollars in it, and I say, well, if you say yes to my request now, you get these million dollars. Probably I increased my chances to hear a yes. Problem with money is if I want to influence that person again, what will they ask? At least for a million dollars or probably more. So money isn't. a resource in influence that has ongoing power. Second, violence, force is a way to influence people. Entire regimes build on that principle. What happens if people are under pressure? You force them, they push them, people start pushing back. So again, we don't see that it has a great long -term effect. Works on the short run, but not on the long run. And then we have persuasion. Persuasion, how we perceive it. It's influencing people with images and words so you can have a short -term win, but also on a long -term. That's how we see influence versus persuasion. So persuasion is a form of influence. By connected to negotiation, persuasion is used during negotiations. So you use persuasion to negotiate more effectively.

00:06:52 Mariah Yager
All right. Thank you for that.

00:06:53 Jack Gaines
Hi, Mariah. This is Jack Gaines.

00:06:56 Mariah Yager
Oh, hey, Jack. Sorry for being late.

00:06:56 Jack Gaines
Sorry for being late. I did want to thank Boss for coming in and covering for me. But also I wanted to address this question because in Chris's book, he talks about tactical empathy.

00:06:57 SPEAKER_00
being late.

00:06:58 SPEAKER_02
I did want to

00:06:59 SPEAKER_00
thank Boss

00:07:00 SPEAKER_01
in and covering for me.

00:07:01 SPEAKER_02
also I

00:07:01 SPEAKER_00
wanted to address this

00:07:07 SPEAKER_03
And what that is is the ability to, as you're engaging in persuasion, reaching into your audience's mindset and understanding their motivations.

00:07:08 SPEAKER_00
that is is the ability to, as you're engaging in persuasion,

00:07:16 SPEAKER_03
their practices and culture, what their projected behaviors will be, and then applying your negotiations towards that so that you're signaling to them that you hear them and you understand them.

00:07:23 SPEAKER_00
that you're signaling to them that you

00:07:26 SPEAKER_03
You don't have to empathize with them, but you have to signal that you understand where they're coming from in order to then bring them to the table and negotiate a settlement. And so I just wanted to bring that up because I think that's a key part of the persuasion process.

00:07:26 SPEAKER_00
don't have to empathize with them, but you have to signal that you understand where they're coming from in order to then bring them to the

00:07:40 SPEAKER_00
That makes total sense. And that also has to do with that. Early model that I introduced, the sender -receiver model, of course, you have to know who is your audience. And that's what I connected with the core motive. What kind of signals do you get? Why people don't move in your direction? So I see there also the connection with the work of Chris Voss, which is brilliant, by the way. I agree. I'm going to go back to you. Please continue, Mariah. No,

00:08:07 Mariah Yager
no. Hey, Jack, glad you were able to join us. For the audience, Jack Gaines was going to help with the session. Unfortunately, he was called away, but no, Jack, glad to have you and jump in if you'd like. With that, I'm going to go to our next question. What SMA speaker series would we have if we didn't bring in some kind of philosopher? So Aristotle, three pillars of persuasion, ethos, pathos, logos, formulated over 2 ,400 years ago, and it's largely been validated through scientific studies in the 20th century. So how do the seven principles you laid out compare to Aristotle's? I'm thinking out loud how we compare.

00:08:39 SPEAKER_00
thinking out loud how we compare. Well, what my answer would be is, and it's interesting that somebody brings it up, that it works throughout time.

00:08:49 SPEAKER_00
works throughout time. Yes, there is comparison with Aristotle's and the seven principles. What you see actually, and what's for me the biggest takeaway, is that It is tested by the power of time. Human behavior and decision -making, and therefore how to be more influential, doesn't change. From Daniel Kahneman, who called it System 1, System 2, how do we make decisions, that's deeply rooted in our system. So I would answer that question, how is it connected? It's connecting about persuasion doesn't change a lot. This material was powerful 2 ,000 years ago. It still is today.

00:09:37 SPEAKER_01
No, absolutely. All right. Thank you. How do we take these principles and the process from the one -to -one to the one -to -many or the company -to -company or government -to -government?

00:09:47 SPEAKER_00
Ah, like that. So one -to -many, that's, of course, a form of communication that came up with the internet. So there's definitely a difference. in persuasion going on with online persuasion, because nonverbal communication is very powerful in influence situation. But if you communicate to a mass email or to a website or a web page, you don't have the luxury of using nonverbal cues. You don't have the luxury of anticipating on your audience. So there's already a difference. which you have to realize. So you have to design more in a way how those elements communicate nowadays. Then the question, how do you do this more from organization to organization? A lot of time I get the question, is this applicable for B2B? Yes, it is. Because there are human beings in those organizations still making decisions. At the moment. AI bots or robots will take over the decision making, then we have a different world. But at this moment, yes, human beings make decisions. So yes, it's applicable in those situations. And even there's multiple research studies that shows that reciprocity, for example, is not only applicable to individuals, it's also applicable to organizations and even in entire countries. To give you an example, which is Dutch and American, so maybe I'll briefly introduce that. When Hurricane Katrina hit the U .S., of course, there was a lot of damage. Very early on, there was a politician that took the stage and said, well, we are so happy that we already sent a lot of help to New Orleans to help all these people. didn't receive help yet. So why is this politician claiming that he's so proud? It was actually a Dutch politician that made that claim. And the Dutch government actually acted almost quicker than the US government to support. Why? In 1953, we had a water flood disaster and 50 % of our nation was entirely underwater. Who helped us? The Americans from New Orleans. That happened in 1953. If I'm not mistaken, Hurricane Katrina was in 2007. So the people who made the decision in the Netherlands to right away help people, were those the people that actually had the help in 1953? No, they were children if they were even born. But still, there was a pressure to pay back. the people of New Orleans, because the pressure of acting reciprocal was not even on the individuals. It was on an entire society. So yes, so these principles will transit that it's just based on individuals.

00:13:03 SPEAKER_01
Thank you for that. So what are some examples of the methods that you have used to assess the effects of influence when it's not sales focused? And is there a challenge when it takes time to assess the effects?

00:13:17 SPEAKER_00
Yes. In early assessment or in research, there's always a challenge to get significant data so you can make a certain claim. Scientific approved research, of course. How do you assess this based on outcomes? I just heard the word negotiation. In this case, there was negotiation about... One fortune homeless company want to buy other companies. What has been assessed, changing a few small elements in the approach of the negotiation, led that an average merchant acquisition process went down from nine months to six months. How could they do it? By not measuring one merchant acquisition process, but multiple, and still only change that small item. So that's one. Another thing. What Dr. Cialdini, for example, and Dr. Neidert advised is how to gain information. There's an example in the book Persuasion from Dr. Cialdini, so I can talk about that. He refers to a behavioral scientist who helped in negotiating terrorists to get information. And he didn't give any information at all. They found out he was a diabetic. And they gave him sugar -free cookies and tea instead of having all these other approaches that were common. And within a very short amount of time, he opened up and started talking. Of course, that's based on the principle of reciprocity. So how do you measure it? It's about setting your goal and reaching that goal is achieved more often. That's the key focus. And then add percentages. So as you also understand, we have also a lot of real life challenges where we consult. It's not the scientific research that we apply. It's applying the research to real life cases. And then it's very easy. Did we get an increase in the current result or did we realize the goal in general? So, for example, in the last case, it was the goal. Does this person start stalking? Yes, he did. the influence strategy worked. I hope that's helpful.

00:15:40 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it was. And actually, it's got me thinking more about measurement effects. So in your experience, what about success measured in a behavior not happening or decision not happening? What examples or lessons have you learned in your experiences there? In a way of measuring it or changing it?

00:15:56 SPEAKER_00
a way of measuring it or changing it?

00:16:01 SPEAKER_01
To be honest, both. Specifically, I was asking about the measurement of it, because there's a lot of people in our audience that that's going to be part of their job is like, how do we know that we were successful and be able to show that? Yeah.

00:16:16 SPEAKER_00
I came up with one, but please feel free to add an example. OK, this is Jack. Back when I was at UCOM,

00:16:23 SPEAKER_03
when I was at UCOM, we were working with the Ukraine Air Force on air for security.

00:16:23 SPEAKER_00
when I was at UCOM,

00:16:28 SPEAKER_00
air for security.

00:16:30 SPEAKER_03
And one of the problems at that time, back in 2011, 2012, was that the Russians were having fits over the European ballistic missile defense program, troops going into Poland and setting up a preliminary base.

00:16:30 SPEAKER_00
one of the problems at that time, back in 2011, 2012, was that the Russians were having fits over the European ballistic missile

00:16:41 SPEAKER_00
into Poland and setting up a preliminary base.

00:16:44 SPEAKER_03
And so we were trying to figure out how do we run these air corridor exercises without building more rancor with the Russians.

00:16:45 SPEAKER_00
so we were trying to figure out how do we run these air corridor exercises without building

00:16:59 SPEAKER_03
six to eight months, and so we tied the air security corridor to helping protect the European soccer championships from another 9 -11 -style attack. And then we also brought in that Sochi was coming up, and that this is typical for major sporting events,

00:17:10 SPEAKER_00
we also brought in that Sochi

00:17:15 SPEAKER_03
sporting events, so that it then forced Russia to accept that this was not an attack on them, but helping to support a larger event. And so with that mindset,

00:17:16 SPEAKER_00
events, so that it then forced Russia to accept that this was not an attack on them, but helping to support a larger event. And so with that mindset,

00:17:29 SPEAKER_03
They just did not message.

00:17:30 SPEAKER_00
did not message.

00:17:31 SPEAKER_03
They were all over ballistic missile defense. They're all over the troops from Poland, but they withdrew from messaging on Ukraine. It created a positive environment where they had no place to message without looking bad.

00:17:38 SPEAKER_00
created a positive environment where they had no place to message without looking bad. I love this example. That leads also to what I want to introduce as a word. It's also be creative in these situations like you currently have. Look at the whole picture. Where can you connect certain things or how can you work around things when you aren't able to get the information? An example I wanted to introduce is research done by Dr. Cialdini based on can you predict the outcome of an election even more closely than the polls are doing? And in fact, that was the case. He did that in multiple states. And what he did was when people voted, he put flyers. on their bicycles, their cars, whatever they came with. And of course, there were flyers from the two candidates. And they calculated. So you just voted for a certain person. You don't put the flyer on the ground. That was the assumption, the hypothesis. If you just not voted for that person, but his competitor, you probably would put that flyer on the ground. But by counting the flyers, he could predict the outcome in that certain state more closely than even the exit polls were doing it. So it's about also being creative. And what I said about Dr. Cialdini, he is known to be a great observer and known to set up these work around with what you can have and come up with those solutions.

00:19:17 SPEAKER_01
So influence and persuasion are mentioned a lot as we look at competition. and the South China Sea between the U .S. and China. And I think this could be applied to not only this example, but other examples. So how can or should the U .S. government use these principles of persuasion and the influence process in competition?

00:19:40 SPEAKER_00
I like to answer questions based on case study, of course. So you are in coalition with China to reach a certain goal. So again, Where do you have the leverage of these principles? What is going on? By knowing these activators and amplifiers of these principles, knowing a case, then you can win the competition. I think in every influence challenge, you are in a certain competition. It's about being the detective using these principles in the most efficient and effective way. To look through these principles, what is your most persuasive approach? So to answer that question, I'm happy to give a more detailed answer because I understand this is pretty vague. But I like to get some more in -depth question about a certain case where I can say, well, in this case, this principle would be great. America is still perceived as the world economy. So there's an expert level. There's authority in certain cases. You have the expert on that certain matter. Again, I need to know who are you persuading? What are you trying to achieve? What is China trying to achieve to give you a good, informative answer on this challenge? Do you want me to jump in? Yeah, for sure.

00:21:01 SPEAKER_03
want me to jump in?

00:21:04 SPEAKER_00
Okay. One issue that's a great example is Cleo Pascal, who covers the PRC's influence on Palau and the Marshall Islands.

00:21:05 SPEAKER_03
issue that's a great example is Cleo Pascal, who covers the PRC's influence on Palau and the Marshall Islands. Her concern is that PRC comes into a nation like Blau or the Marshalls,

00:21:12 SPEAKER_00
concern is that PRC comes into a nation like Blau or the Marshalls,

00:21:17 SPEAKER_03
and they use criminality or direct influence to buy elections and then use those elections to change how the policy in that nation is towards PRC or removing recognition of Taiwan and other things.

00:21:18 SPEAKER_00
use criminality

00:21:21 SPEAKER_03
elections and then use those elections to change how the policy in that nation is towards PRC or removing recognition of Taiwan and

00:21:28 SPEAKER_00
or removing recognition of

00:21:32 SPEAKER_03
other things. And usually the way... That she spots it is that the PRC either tries to pre -trade them within Palau in order to run a casino, run drugs, run money into the nation and then start buying influence in the political realm to get their foreign policy goals.

00:21:37 SPEAKER_00
either tries to pre -trade them within Palau in order to run

00:21:46 SPEAKER_03
the nation and then start buying influence in the political realm to get their foreign policy goals. This is also very similar to what Sam Cooper talked about. He just recently went to the Canadian Foreign Influence Commission and spoke about how China is using drugs and casinos to run drugs in and spread throughout the population, gain money, launder it back through the casinos, but also then buy properties in Canada as long -term holds for their financial assets.

00:22:06 SPEAKER_00
drugs in and spread throughout the population, gain money, launder it back through the casinos, but also then buy properties in Canada as long -term holds for their financial assets.

00:22:17 SPEAKER_03
But then they use that money in position to influence politicians.

00:22:18 SPEAKER_00
they use that money in position to influence politicians.

00:22:22 SPEAKER_03
to get either reduced political scrutiny on their actions or they do direct buys to bring influence on that country to support more PRC foreign policy goals.

00:22:29 SPEAKER_00
influence on that country to

00:22:34 SPEAKER_03
And so by knowing their behaviors and actions, then you can start to expose certain aspects of it.

00:22:35 SPEAKER_00
so by knowing

00:22:40 SPEAKER_03
aspects of it. And that's what Cleo did in Plow. She exposed the free trade zone, some of the rules that are being applied. But by exposing it, it forced the politicians then

00:22:47 SPEAKER_00
that are being applied. But by exposing it, it forced

00:22:52 SPEAKER_03
to acquiesce that it was a bad deal,

00:22:52 SPEAKER_00
acquiesce that it was a bad deal,

00:22:54 SPEAKER_03
and then they shut it down. And so they did build a casino in the country. They still continue influence,

00:22:55 SPEAKER_00
they shut it down.

00:22:57 SPEAKER_03
did build a casino in the country. They still continue influence, but she continues to dog them on what they're doing as they try to persuade that country to remove their ties with Taiwan and build more ties with PRC.

00:22:57 SPEAKER_00
did build a casino in the country. They still continue influence, but she continues to dog them on what they're doing as

00:23:04 SPEAKER_03
they try to persuade that country to remove their ties with Taiwan and build more ties with PRC.

00:23:04 SPEAKER_00
they try to persuade that country to remove their ties with Taiwan

00:23:10 SPEAKER_03
And so exposure and countering with better options as well as showing the criminal intent that's going on.

00:23:14 SPEAKER_00
with better options as

00:23:17 SPEAKER_03
the criminal intent that's going on. All the negative things that a competitor is doing, you expose.

00:23:18 SPEAKER_02
criminal intent that's going on. All the negative things that a competitor is doing, you expose.

00:23:23 SPEAKER_03
The good things they're doing, you can steal.

00:23:24 SPEAKER_02
things they're doing, you can steal.

00:23:26 SPEAKER_03
And then you also then build your counter brand to compete with them. So you offer better trade and security deals. Like I said, you steal their good things and use them for yours as well. So you got competing in that space.

00:23:27 SPEAKER_02
also then build your

00:23:28 SPEAKER_00
counter brand to compete with them. So you offer better trade and security deals. Like I said, you steal their good things and

00:23:36 SPEAKER_03
And then you try to build a whole brand on top of that where you're offering things that the PRC just cannot do because of the structure of their government.

00:23:39 SPEAKER_00
on top of that where you're offering things that the PRC just cannot do because

00:23:45 SPEAKER_03
So there's my example in plowing the marshals of what's going on that support this.

00:23:45 SPEAKER_00
my example in plowing the marshals of what's going on that support this. Hopefully that helps. Thanks. That helps a lot, Jack.

00:23:50 SPEAKER_03
helps.

00:23:53 SPEAKER_00
For me, two things of the influence process. You see the long -term influence action plan there. A lot of people associate influence with a quick interference, but it's often built on multiple mini -influence challenge to reach the next step in your end goal. There are multiple micro challenges, so to say, to reach your end goal. So I think that's very important to realize. It's not one intervention often and have these huge influence challenges solved. You have to break it down into a step -by -step action plan. The second thing,

00:23:53 SPEAKER_03
For me,

00:24:28 SPEAKER_00
second thing, what I hear, by exposing them, they lose their credibility. If you lose your credibility, you lose your ability to use the principle of authority. So this is indeed a counterattack where the principles are actually used against the other person in order to make you more credible. And again, you're talking about one of the seven principles.

00:24:52 SPEAKER_01
Misinformation and disinformation, this would be the goodest problem. So based on your experience, principles, your influence process, specifically, how can the U .S. best counter misinfo and disinformation?

00:25:05 SPEAKER_00
A very interesting challenge we are dealing with. You have a lot of trolls, especially social media. If you watch, for example, the Great Hack documentary, you see the huge impact of this misinformation can lead to complete genocides in some African countries who were triggered just by messaging on Facebook. So, yeah, it's something very important we have to deal with. What the initial advice here is... It's often built on social proof. A lot of these trolls claiming something. So the best counterattack on those messages is the authority message. Show the experts are not agreeing with the majority here. So that's the best. You have to counter those messages with a more credible message. So that's the 32nd answer. And of course, there's a lot going on. But this is definitely make sure you are perceived. as the expert, as the trustworthy, credible sender. So your message will override the message of those many fake information that is out there.

00:26:12 SPEAKER_01
No, absolutely. Honestly, another thing that was talking about, a new challenge is AI, you know, machine learning and what that's changing the landscape.

00:26:21 SPEAKER_00
Especially in influence, I like to say quickly a word. The danger there is that people perceive what let's say chat gbt an ai bot tells them as 100 truth nowadays with social media posts from others we are still slightly skeptical when we see it a lot of course there's social proof and it moves us more into that message but ai if you control what is the outcome of ai people perceive it almost without thinking as the truth so there's again indeed interesting challenges coming up that needs to be addressed as well. You're mute, Mariah.

00:27:03 SPEAKER_01
This is not my first day, guys. All right. I was just saying with that, we're a little bit over the hour. I want to thank our audience for joining us today and sending us questions. Bas, thank you so much for your time and presenting all this information. It was great for me. I was telling you earlier, I'm a communication grad. And one of the reasons I added on communication as the second major is because I could walk out of the classroom and apply it. And you said that right at the top and see that to this day. So I really appreciate your time today. Thank you for having me.

00:27:35 SPEAKER_00
Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation.

00:27:38 SPEAKER_01
Absolutely. No, thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day.

00:27:39 SPEAKER_00
No, thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day.

00:27:43 SPEAKER_01
Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

00:27:45 Close
you. Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward US relations, thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack. your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes. One CA podcast.