Saying No in Academia

“No is the single most powerful word in the English language, [but…] it's a very tough weapon to deploy. Everyone knows how difficult it is to say no. It's one of the reasons why people seem to be comfortable asking you for favors they have no business asking you for. They know how hard it is to say no.”

Shonda Rhimes in “The Year of Yes”

Tomorrow, I’m running a workshop on “Saying No in Academia'' for the Dutch Sectorplan on Transformative Effects of Globalisation in Law at its annual networking event. The irony of it all is that I’m not very good at saying no (hello imposter syndrome). I actually failed at saying no to doing this event. Part of the reason why I suck at this is because I (used to?) equate being a good person with being a person who did not say no to people asking for help. I’ve always been a people-pleaser and an external-validation addict, which I (very recently) learned are serious character flaws. 

Rousseau once compared being polite to being inauthentic (and thus deceitful). He elaborated that being polite - for example, by saying yes to something you don’t actually want to do - is to compromise on what you really want and to sell your true self short. While I’m not advocating for impoliteness, I do believe that being true to your authentic self and being able to say no are important skills that are seldom taught in classrooms (especially in the Japanese classrooms that I had to sit through).

The wonderful Brazilian novelist, Paulo Coelho, elegantly summarized this point as follows: “When you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.” For the longest time, I was not following Coelho’s advice. I had been mindlessly saying yes to others for so long that at the ripe old age of 40, I still cannot clearly define what it is that I want for myself. There is no shortage of self-help books and “literature” claiming that they can help one become better at saying no, but I find that most of them often tend to be rather superficial. For what it’s worth, I combed over a bunch of them just so that you don’t have to (hello people-pleaser) and the collective summary of the literature goes something like this: 

• Form a “NO committee” with a group of friends or colleagues that encourage you to say no. Check in with them regularly to share stories of how you turned down something or how they said no to an undesirable task. Bonus points if you can find a group member or an ally more senior than you (or who have more experiences), as they may serve as your saying-no-role-models.

• Keep track of what you say yes and no to and reflect on it from time to time.  

• Rethink your priorities. Saying yes to something inevitably means you are saying no to something else. Make sure what you are saying yes to is in alignment, not only with your priorities, but your values. Also, stop comparing yourself to others as they may have different priorities, values, and goals. As the “wisdom” of Instagram suggests, a flower does not compare itself to other flowers, it simply blooms. So go on and just bloom!

• Don’t answer a request right away (unless you can give an immediate no). If you must, deflect with a “let me think about it and get back to you,” and really think about whether it is something you want to do. If they don’t get back to you, you don’t even have to bother saying no.

• Saying no may stir feelings of guilt or shame within, and some of us may try to avoid these negative feelings by reluctantly saying yes to something they ought to have declined. What can alleviate these negative feelings is to explain to the favor-seeker, why it’s a no for you (e.g. “I’m sorry but I am super busy with another task” or “I would love to, but I’m in Mars on that day and won’t be on Earth.”). It will help them understand why you cannot. This may diminish some feelings of guilt and shame (as it solicits their empathetic understanding), and in doing so, it may also preserve your relationship with the requestor as you have a good reason for rejecting them. 

• Offering a “strategic no” may help create an “illusion of scarcity” around you (e.g. “This person is so busy and in such high demand, they must be really good!”).

• Remind yourself that saying yes can actually be physically and psychologically harmful: “A propensity to say yes to everything can lead to burnout, mental and physical health problems…” 

• Learn to appreciate the joy of missing out (JOMO). 

All of these tips may help us in some situations, but it may not help - for example - a young academic trying to assess which engagements they can say no to (and get away with) and which tasks they must say yes to (or risk career-suicide). It’s tough out there for young academics just starting up because bosses, supervisors, colleagues, and students will all want something from them (e.g. “Can you teach this course?”, “Can you peer-review this?”, “Can you write me a recommendation letter?”, “Can you be on this taskforce/committee?”, “Can you be my thesis advisor?”, “Do you want to write an article and apply for this grant with me?”, etc.). And as the Shonda Rhimes quote at the top suggests, some people will ask for all sorts of things (that they know they shouldn't be asking), because they know how hard saying no is (especially to a boss). They know that we all want to be a good person and a team player and some people will try to exploit that to your detriment. 

As a side note, the Maastricht Young Academy recently hosted a Growing Up in Science event with the Rector of our University - Pamela Habibović - who noted that for young researchers just starting up, it may be particularly difficult for them to say no (and perhaps they should not), because saying yes will indeed expand their networks and stimulate new trails of thought that may contribute to their research. So we shouldn’t always be saying no, but we just have to get better at saying no to certain things, which brings us to the next point.

For most academics, young or old, we want to strive towards becoming the go-to person in that field or some niche therein. To combine one of the popular tips suggested in the bullet point and the wisdom of our Rector, we should develop a better sense of who we are (i.e. our authentic self), what we want to accomplish, and what makes us happy and use these criteria to determine more thoughtfully what we say yes and no to. We can ask questions such as: “Is this part of my research line?”, “Will saying yes de-stabilize my personal life?”, “Who am I doing this for?”, and so forth. Whether you actually do this everytime you are confronted with a task or a favor, ultimately comes down to your personal incentives and what drives you to want to say no. 

For me, two factors motivate me to want to say no more: 1) Having kids realigned my priorities, and 2) the disappointing realization that having said yes to too many things, the quality of everything I was doing - from research to teaching and being a good father/partner - all suffered a noticeable decline. It still hurts me to admit this, but it is true. So by saying yes, not only did I lose my authentic self in the process, but I was becoming mediocre at everything I was doing. One of my colleagues who I shared this thought with recently responded that he knew exactly what I was going through as he felt the same way: everything he was doing could have been better if only he had more time. How we make time, and to shed this very negative, nagging feeling that we are not good enough, starts with one word: no.

In the end, saying no is a mechanism of protection and an act of self-compassion. I do not want to feel like I am mediocre at everything anymore. Instead, I want to be good at the things I selectively choose to care about. This will inevitably mean that I will miss out on certain things (bye promotion?), but it won’t bother me as much because I made deliberate choices in the interest of my authentic self. Brian Little and Adam Grant’s work note that one’s well-being is intricately tied to the sustainable pursuit of core projects, which are passionate commiments that align with our values. Saying no buys us time for these pursuits. Now say it all with me. NO!

UM University & Faculty Council Elections: VOTE 4 LEAD!!

Back in 1954, Dwight D. Eisenhower said that "politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free men." I think his sentiment is still very valid today (though perhaps I would have preferred the use of a more inclusive language, but Ike lived in a different era).

Inspired by Eisenhower’s words and perhaps by this memorable scene from The West Wing (where President Bartlett quotes Margaret Mead), I decided to run for the Law Faculty Council this year against the prudent advice of most - if not all - of my friends/colleagues. It turned out that only 4 staff members (including myself) actually signed up to serve on the Council, which had 5 open seats. While I am happy to serve my faculty for the next 2 years in this capacity, I found it a tad disheartening to know that people generally do not care (that much) about who presides over these councils. My sneaking suspicion about the cause of this apathy is that people do not care enough to engage because: 1) they are already over-burdened with multitudes of other tasks, 2) they are cynical about the impact that these councils actually have, and/or 3) the combination of the two.

University politics - much like politics in general - does feel like a breeding ground for cynicism and disgruntlements. It’s a lot easier to avoid it all together, while throwing the occasional shade from the sidelines. I for one did this for many years, often just complaining about the things I didn’t like or how someone in charge was “messing up” without really having a full grasp of what is going on or doing something tangible to change it. But a few years back, I realized that this really gets us nowhere, so I decided to engage more actively with matters that impacted all of us.

During my last few years of so-called engagement with university politics and molding of its policies, I have been fortunate enough to meet a group of like-minded, hard-working colleagues with a strong set of values and vision. We’ve gotten together to create the LEAD Party (Leadership for an Equitable Academic Democracy), which is an interfaculty group of academic and support staff, striving to make our university a more supportive and inclusive community.

So while I was spared the burden of campaigning for myself during this election cycle (which kicked off today), I would like to campaign on behalf of my wonderful party members running for University Council. They are all wonderful, dedicated staff members interested in making our University a better place. There are important challenges that lie ahead, from the internationalization debate to implementing Recognition & Rewards and creating a much safer working environment for everyone in the UM community. I would trust each and everyone of these candidates to selflessly dedicate their time and effort for the betterment of all of us here at the UM. With that in mind, I ask - for the UM staff members amongst us - to vote for one of them by following this link. Even for those outside of the UM, I hope that my vaguely disguised virtue signaling serves to remind you of that Edmund Burke quote (which I feel like Mead paraphrased): “Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could do only a little."*

*(Seriously, these old white folks with their male-dominant pronouns. This would be one of those issues that if you vote for LEAD, we will work towards addressing in a constructive, non-militant manner).

The Crux of Cross Cultural Communication

Last week, we organized an international commercial contract negotiation between some of my International Business Law students and a group of students from the Toyo University in Tokyo that I taught while I was on my fellowship there. The nature of the case was not too complicated (and something that my former IBL students would probably recognize), but what made this negotiation process difficult was the language barrier and our shared ethnocentrism.

Not only do we all tend to perceive the world through our own experiences and lenses, but when we are unable to clearly articulate our interests and views to the other party, the negotiation process stalls (or derails). One obvious remedy to this problem would be to further develop our language skills, but above and beyond that, there are psychological barriers and issues of conflicting values that are more difficult to overcome. For example, Japanese students generally tend to be more reserved and deferential, even in adversarial situations, because that is how they are taught to be, which may place them in a disadvantageous position in terms of the negotiation. The UM students, on the other hand, may have to learn to read between the lines better and think about what the Japanese party is trying to say by paying attention to what they are not saying. After all, the Japanese are taught from very early on how to “read the air” or as we would say, “read the room”.

In the end, there are “no one size fits all” solutions to any of these cross-cultural communication issues. The only thing we can really do is to practice a lot and gain plenty of experiences working with diverse teams from different cultures, backgrounds, and values. Not only does doing so harness our ability to adapt and to think quickly on our feet, but it also allows us to reflect on our own ethnocentrism and our blind spots.

Special thanks to our participants: Emma Evangelisti, Gabriel Sielaff, Vincent Durán Lagunas, Laetitia Nzungize Teta, Lucie Valachová, Julia Czajkowska, Tamaki Uchida, Asumi Kikuchi, Nao Yamashita, Oozora Seyon, and Urara Tanaka!

Fighting Imposter Sydrome One Book Review at a Time

A review of our book from the European Association of Private International Law!

Last December, a group of academics and advocates of mediation (including yours truly) published a commentary on the Singapore Convention through Edward Elgar. We just received a kind review from the European Association of Private International Law for which we are very grateful for. Amongst other things, it noted the following:

“[The book] provides deep theoretical and practical analysis of the Convention and its consequences for the promotion of mediation as a mechanism to solve commercial conflicts with a cross-border character. In particular, this work includes a comparative approach with perspectives from five continents and a variety of legal traditions, a critical discussion of every stage from the negotiation to the conclusion of the Convention, with proposals for the Convention’s implementation and application by States and regional organisations. A particular feature of the work is that it provides contributions of a diverse group of leading practitioners and academics from diverse legal backgrounds and jurisdictions, including some who participated of the negotiation of the Singapore Convention itself.”

Whenever I write anything and send it out into the world (including this little blurb), I am immediately filled with a feeling of dread and remorse. This is due, in most part, to the fact that I suffer from a serious case of imposter syndrome. That plus an unhealthy need for external validation (although this is getting less and less as I work through an assortment of issues with my wonderful therapist). I feel anxious because I do not feel secure enough in my knowledge and question the level of my analysis. So much so that I doubt whether what I am putting out into the world has any added value. I must say that in a world drowning in unnecessarily negative and dismissive comments (#reviewer2), I am grateful when people do take the time to offer kind (and/or constructive) feedback for the work that I have done or that I have contributed to and I find myself - at least momentarily - feeling happy and relieved.

So thank you to EAPIL and also to Guillermo Palao Moreno over at the University of Valencia for looping me into this delightful project.

On the “Sadness” of Teaching and My New "Hobby"

Erasmus Exchange Students taking International Business Law class getting together for a drink at Cafe De Tribunal

It’s exam week for my International Business Law students (with their final memorandum assignment due tomorrow). This period just flew by and it feels like it was only yesterday that we just met one another. This is one of the small things that make me a bit sad about my job because I feel like having only met these students and having spent the last seven weeks with them, I was just getting to know them better. We were also picking up some momentum to engage with the subject a bit deeper as well.

To be fair, we did manage to put in a lot in this short period of time: We covered the substance of international business law through assignments like drafting a negotiation strategy, conducting a settlement negotiation and drafting a legal memorandum. We also developed global citizenship skills from empathetic listening and creative problem solving by working with Erin Meyer’s Culture Mapping exercise or enabling the students to tap into their own academic curiosities by asking them to design elevator pitches for an IBL related topic of their own choosing. Yet, I still feel sad and unsatisfied because deep down, I believe I have more to offer and if only we had more time, we could do much more (it is possible that the students may not share the same sentiments and enthusiasm here, but I digress).

To release some of my lingering frustrations, I have set up extra-curricular projects starting with an international commercial contract negotiation exercise between a handful of my (soon-to-be-former) IBL students and students from Toyo University in Tokyo (where I taught during my fellowship last year). Some of the other upcoming exercises involve running Harvard Negotiation Project’s multi-party simulations for our students and workshops on international commercial arbitration. While I’ve been told that I should probably take some things off my plate, working on these projects with enthusiastic students is one of my guilty pleasures and dare I say, my hobby? It may sound strange to consider an extension of my work as a hobby, but I’m sure that there are worse hobbies out there like running ultramarathons?

For now, these events will keep me going until I start teaching again in the next period, where I’m coordinating three courses across three different faculties, but that is an entirely different kind of frustration and sadness about teaching.

International Commercial Arbitration Webinar with Bas van Zelst

Every year, I try to get practitioners to come give a seminar for my International Business Law course because students always say that they want to be exposed to actual lawyers working out there in the real world (and I’m so far removed from practice that I don’t even know what it’s like out there anymore).

This year, I am very excited to have Bas van Zelst back to give a webinar on International Commercial Arbitration. Not only is Bas a wonderful lawyer/arbitrator full of experience and wisdom, but he is a standup guy, who I very much enjoy spending time with. While this webinar is intended for my IBL students, anyone who is interested in the topic is more than welcome to come join our session. Looking forward to seeing you there, and thanks in advance to Bas for taking the time out of his incredibly busy schedule to do this for us!

Abolishing Hierarchy in Academia!? A Conversation with Jan M. Smits

Jan M. Smits was not only my PhD supervisor who supported me and mentored me through the agony of writing a PhD, but he was the person who saw potential in me and gave me the idea - and the inspiration - to leave legal practice for the world of academia. While we’ve had our various differences of opinion over the years, I have enjoyed working with him (i.e. translating his contract law book into Japanese), learned a lot from him, and for all of these things, I will always be grateful to him.

Last month, Jan published an opinion piece on the Dutch newspaper, NRC, advocating to abolish the hierarchy within academia (i.e. the distinction between a full professor, associate professor, and an assistant professor). My colleagues in the Maastricht Young Academy and I drafted a response in support of Jan’s opinion, which has not only sparked a discussion, but triggered some fierce resistance to his ideas.

In light of these events (and for many other reasons), it is my absolute pleasure to announce the upcoming Growing Up in Science event with Jan hosted by the Maastricht Young Academy!! Spaces are limited so for those interested, please register ASAP!!

So I Asked ChatGPT to Draft a Recommendation Letter...

I start teaching one of my favorite courses, International Business Law (IBL), next week. I try to keep the course updated as much as possible, not just in terms of content, but also in terms of what’s going on out in the real world. This year, it’s hard to ignore the impact of ChatGPT in how we - the teaching staff - must prepare assignments and adjust our teaching accordingly.

My alma mater where I got my Juris Doctorate - University of Minnesota (go Gophers) - recently tested ChatGPT’s ability to draft law school exams, and according to their research, ChatGPT passed four classes based on its final exam with an average of a C+ across all exams. Although not great by any standard (e.g. this result would have placed a real student on academic probation), according to their research, “if such performance were consistent throughout law school, the grades earned by ChatGPT would be sufficient to graduate with a JD.” So that is an interesting development for sure.

My stance on this emerging technology is to embrace it to the extent feasible and incorporate it into what we are doing. Along these lines, I always conduct a pre-course survey for students taking IBL, asking them how they want to be tested, what they want to learn, and if there are things that they would like their teachers to know about them and so forth. This year, I added a question about their opinions and experiences with ChatGPT and other AI systems and while I got a handful of “I don’t know what that is”, there were also very informative answers from the students. For example:

• “It’s an extremely disruptive piece of technology. I have used it from time to time, mainly to get the gears in my head rolling and for inspiration. Using it still feels a little bit too superficial.”

• “Would prefer not to use this as it diminishes personal development.”

• “It walks a fine line between cool technological development and dangerous rapidly developing tool that takes away development of critical thinking in people. We grew up without it, but future generations will already probably use it for their middle school essays and depend on it.” 

So what I’ve learned from my students (thus far) is to experiment with it and to use it for specific/limited purposes (e.g. finding “inspiration”, conduct menial tasks with it, etc.), but not to over-rely on it or become complacent, thus stopping our cognitive development and dulling our capacities for critically analysis. I for one have been playing around with various tasks that I might be able to delegate to ChatGPT (entirely or partially), including the ghostwriting of recommendation letters. Just to give you an idea, here is a generic letter of recommendation that ChatGPT has drafted.

In all honesty, it’s not half bad right?! If I were to add a few personal anecdotes and individualized competencies, would students be satisfied with a letter of this caliber? For admission offices, would this letter be a factor that would contribute to the student’s candidacy? I would be quite curious about their inputs, but I for one think that there is some added value here for teachers and staff members who are asked to draft dozens of letters each year. If we are able to reduce some of the time we invest into our administrative tasks such as this - without compromising too much on quality - that is more time we can spend on teaching or researching. If only there was an AI system that would grade exams, now that would be a true game changer!

Artificial Intelligence, Loneliness Epidemic, and Various Other Concerns Over the Digital Future of Universities

It is only human to fear that we do not (yet) understand. Some would argue that we’re just hardwired that way (something to do with evolution and survival or so I’ve heard). News about how students might exploit ChatGPT or how we must face the dooming consequences of the loneliness epidemic triggered by COVID-19 have been rather salient and have saturated our thoughts rent free, doing little to relieve us of our mounting worries about the future of education.

At the very least, Maastricht University and its “Digital UM 2030” Taskforce is currently conducting a project on the “Digital Futures of UM” together with some of our students recruited through the PremiUM initiative.

The best cure for overcoming anxiety - at least for me - is through action. In this case, we are trying to get ahead of our problems by collecting as much input from the stakeholders (e.g. students and staff) and planning/designing a future for our university that is more in alignment with that of our vision and values, all the while “future-proofing” (to the extent possible) our university.

I for one am very much looking forward to working with the team consisting of Sally Wyatt, Nilam Khalil, Costas Papadopoulos, Erica van den Oever and coaching two of the PremiUM students Leonie Klüver and Felix Bui in this interesting endeavor. There is so much I do not yet understand about all the developments that impact the way in which we educate today, but I am very much looking forward to learning about it together with my colleagues and the students. And this thought alone, already helps me relieve a bit of my worries about the future.

A Blue Monday Reflection for Lawyers and Law Students

Perhaps you’ve heard psychologists talk about how people are bad at knowing what makes them happy. If only I could get that new pair of sneakers, I would be happy. Or if I land that dream internship, that will surely make me happy. If I win the lottery, so on and so forth. While these things might give us a jolt of momentary joy, it has been proven that it does not contribute to long lasting, sustainable happiness or well-being.

Kennon Sheldon (Missouri) – a psychologist – and Lawrence Krieger (Florida State) – a lawyer – have teamed up and co-authored serval interesting articles that strengthen this argument, but more specifically with regards to law students and lawyers. In their articles, “What Makes Lawyers Happy? A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success” and “Understanding the Negative Effects of Legal Education on Law Students: A Longitudinal Test of Self-Determination Theory”, Sheldon and Krieger make the case that what makes lawyers happy is not working at a prestigious firm, having a high salary, or the chances of making partner. Rather, what contributes to sustainable happiness and well-being for a lawyer is whether they have autonomy over their work, whether they can relate to the causes that they are advocating for, and whether they have the competences that make them conduct their job effectively. What makes a difference, therefore, is choosing to do the kind of work that internally motivates the lawyer.

So in sum, autonomy, relatedness, competence and inner motivation are factors that have higher positive correlations with a lawyer’s happiness and well-being as opposed to prestige, high salary, and other external factors, which do not. Bearing this in mind, law schools should be providing an environment that supports or enables the student’s autonomy to help them determine what it is that they would like to do, and offer lessons accordingly to build their competences so that they can be successful in that field. However, in their article on legal education, Sheldon and Krieger make the argument that law school creates an environment that is hostile to these endeavors. We are all influenced – whether we like it or not – by various external pressures, need to conform, and indoctrination from our parents, friends and community to be successful and to achieve a certain level of status. Law school and law students who – relatively speaking – are quite competitive against one another add extra layers of stress and expectations.

Law school takes a group of privileged students who have done well enough to be pursuing a legal career and puts them in a competitive grind. While I think this rigorous process builds character and trains them for their future, I also believe that there is also a need for law schools to better facilitate their students’ autonomy, relatedness, competence, and inner motivation. Sheldon and Krieger give an example of how a student who entered law school with idealistic motivations to change the world was corrupted by their own success and the environment. Because the student was doing so well, their values shifted to more selfish desires to maintain that status and that ultimately lead the student to go work for big brand firm offering a high salary because that was the most prestigious and prominent path that others expected this student to take, even though it conflicted with the student's initial idealism.

I am happy to report that I have seen many exceptions to this example, where students with strong sense of belief and purpose go through their legal education uncorrupted and go on to pursue a their dream careers. However, I have also seen just as many students (and practitioners) who are feeling lost or have strayed far away from their initial dreams. Regardless of which category you fall into, perhaps it would be a fruitful exercise on this Blue Monday to have a fresh rethink about why you are doing the things you are doing and ask yourself, what would actually make me happy, knowing that money or reputation isn’t really the answer.