Seven Rules for Effective Dissent: Guest Column by Todd Kashdan

Issue 130: How to exert influence when you lack power, status, or a large number of allies who share your point of view

Introduction from Dom & Jay

Since publishing our book and starting this newsletter, we have been welcomed by a wonderful community of kind and smart fellow authors. With the purpose of increasing the cross-fertilization of ideas and sharing some of their brilliance with our audience, we have decided to publish an occasional post by other thinkers and writers who we think are doing great work related to smart groups and effective identities.

This week, we are pleased to publish a guest post by Dr. Todd Kashdan, Professor of Psychology and Director of The Well-Being Laboratory at George Mason University. Todd is author of the recent book, “The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively”, as well as the very popular “The Provoked Newsletter”. We encourage you to check out his book and sign up for his newsletter.

As Todd notes, “Even when the dissenter’s idea is wrong, other group members are stimulated to think differently. By thinking differently, on balance, groups gener…