Mark: I’m going to start with a number: 65 percent. Michelle: Okay, a statistic. 65 percent of what? People who believe cilantro tastes like soap? Mark: Close, but infinitely more disturbing. 65 percent of ordinary, good people who, in a famous experiment, were willing to deliver what they thought were fatal electric shocks to a total stranger. Michelle: Whoa. Okay. Not cilantro. That’s a terrifying number. What on earth is that from? Mark: It’s the chilling reality that sits at the heart of the book we're diving into today: Intelligent Disobedience: Doing Right When What You’re Told to Do Is Wrong by Ira Chaleff. Michelle: That title alone is provocative. It sounds like it's giving us permission to be rebellious. What makes this author the guy to write about it? Mark: Well, for him, this isn't just an academic exercise. It's deeply personal. Chaleff's grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, and that history sparked his lifelong quest to understand why ordinary people follow destructive orders. He’s spent his entire career in leadership consulting, working with organizations like NASA and the FBI, trying to answer that very question. Michelle: Okay, so he’s seen this dynamic up close. He’s not just theorizing. That 65 percent number is still rattling around in my head. How did they even arrive at that? It sounds unbelievable.

Mark: It comes from one of the most famous and controversial studies in psychology: the Milgram experiment. And the setup was deceptively simple. You, the volunteer, walk into a Yale University lab. A man in a gray lab coat, the authority figure, tells you you're part of a study on memory. Michelle: Seems harmless enough. Mark: In another room, there's a "learner," who is strapped to a chair with electrodes. Your job, as the "teacher," is to read word pairs. If the learner gets one wrong, you have to administer an electric shock. You start at 15 volts, labeled "Slight Shock." With each wrong answer, you move one switch up the board. Michelle: And the voltage gets higher? Mark: Exactly. The switches go all the way up to 450 volts, marked with a terrifying "XXX." And to make it feel real, they give you a sample 45-volt shock at the beginning. It stings. Michelle: Okay, my palms are already sweating. But the learner is an actor, right? People must have known it wasn't real. Mark: That's what everyone assumes. But no, the participants were completely convinced it was real. The learner, an actor, would start grunting in pain around 75 volts. At 150 volts, he'd yell, "Get me out of here! I refuse to go on!" At 300 volts, he’d scream about his heart condition. And after 330 volts... just silence. Michelle: Oh my god. So you think you might have seriously injured, or even killed, this person. Mark: Precisely. And here’s the crux of it. Most participants would get deeply distressed. They'd sweat, tremble, stutter, laugh nervously. They'd turn to the man in the lab coat and say, "I don't think I can do this." Michelle: And that's where they stop, right? That's where a normal person says "no." Mark: You would think. But the experimenter would calmly respond with one of four pre-scripted prods. Things like, "Please continue," or the most powerful one: "The experiment requires that you continue." Michelle: And that's all it took? Just "the experiment requires it"? Mark: For 65 percent of people, yes. Two-thirds of ordinary people, just like you and me, followed the orders all the way to the 450-volt switch. They were deeply uncomfortable, but they did it. Michelle: I just... I can't wrap my head around that. We all want to believe we'd be in the 35 percent who walked out. I'd like to think I would. But those numbers suggest I'm probably wrong. Mark: And that's the book's foundational point. It's not about being a good or bad person. Milgram called this the "agentic state." It's a psychological shift where you stop seeing yourself as responsible for your actions and instead see yourself as an agent for carrying out another's wishes. Your moral compass gets outsourced to the person in the lab coat. Michelle: So it’s like you’re on moral autopilot, and someone else is holding the controls. That’s a bleak thought. It reminds me of the Stanford Prison Experiment, where college kids became sadistic guards in just a few days. Mark: Exactly. It shows how powerfully situations and authority can override our own sense of right and wrong. It’s a deeply ingrained human tendency. Michelle: Okay, so we're all susceptible. It's a bit of a downer. Does the book offer any way out, or are we all just doomed to follow orders from anyone with a clipboard and a confident voice?

Mark: It does, and the model for a solution is completely unexpected. It comes from guide dogs. Michelle: Guide dogs? You’re saying we need to be more like Labradors? I’m listening. Mark: I am. Chaleff was inspired when he learned about a core principle in guide dog training. We think of them as the ultimate symbols of obedience, right? They follow their human's every command. Michelle: Of course. Sit, stay, forward. Mark: But the most crucial part of their training is learning when not to obey. It's called "intelligent disobedience." Imagine a blind person is at a crosswalk and gives the command "Forward." But the dog sees a car speeding around the corner. What does it do? Michelle: It has to stop. It has to disobey the command to save the person's life. Mark: Exactly. The dog is trained to understand that the mission—keeping the human safe—is more important than the command—"Forward." If the command conflicts with the mission, the dog's job is to disobey. It might plant its feet, or even physically pull the handler back from the curb. Michelle: That's fascinating. It’s not rebellion; it's a higher form of loyalty. It's like a GPS recalculating the route. The destination is still "get home safely," but the turn-by-turn instruction to "drive off this cliff" is clearly wrong, so it finds another way. Mark: That's a perfect analogy. The dog isn't just an agent following orders; it's an active partner in the mission. It has situational awareness that the leader, the human, lacks in that moment. And Chaleff argues this is the model for us. Intelligent disobedience isn't about anarchy or disrespect. It's about being so committed to the true goal—the company's success, the patient's health, the project's integrity—that you're willing to question a command that would undermine it. Michelle: So, when your boss gives you an order that you know will hurt the project, your "intelligent disobedience" is to say, "I understand the goal is X, but this specific instruction will actually prevent us from getting there. Here's another way." Mark: Precisely. You're not challenging their authority; you're serving the shared mission. It reframes disobedience from a negative act of defiance to a positive act of responsibility. Michelle: I love that. It’s a much more empowering way to think about it. But this guide dog analogy is a controlled, trained environment. Does this actually work with humans when the stakes are real, when there's social pressure and fear involved?

Mark: It does, and the book gives us powerful, real-world examples of both what happens when it fails and when it succeeds. Let's start with a failure: the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 in 1982. Michelle: I remember hearing about that. The plane that crashed into the Potomac River in Washington D.C. Mark: That's the one. It was an icy day, and the plane's instruments were giving faulty readings because of the ice. The first officer, the co-pilot, knew something was wrong. You can hear it on the cockpit voice recorder. He says things like, "That don't seem right, does it?" and "Ah, that's not right." Michelle: He's questioning, but it sounds very soft. He's mitigating his language. Mark: Exactly. He's being polite. He's deferring to the captain's authority. He's not being "intelligently disobedient." He's being "intelligently suggestive." The captain, feeling the pressure to take off, dismisses his concerns. The plane attempts takeoff, stalls, and crashes. 78 people died. Michelle: Wow. And the tragedy is that the co-pilot knew. He saw the danger, but he couldn't find the right voice to disobey assertively. The difference is just... the way he said it. One was a suggestion, the other needed to be a command. Mark: Now contrast that with a story of incredible success: Rick Rescorla, the head of security for Morgan Stanley in the World Trade Center on September 11th. Michelle: Okay. Mark: Rescorla was a former army colonel. After the 1993 bombing, he became convinced the towers were a major terrorist target. He relentlessly pestered his bosses and the Port Authority, telling them the building was unsafe and they needed better evacuation plans. They mostly ignored him. So he took matters into his own hands. Michelle: What did he do? Mark: He started running his own surprise evacuation drills for all 2,700 Morgan Stanley employees. He made them practice walking down the stairs, timing them with a stopwatch. People complained. Executives thought he was paranoid and over-the-top. But he kept doing it, month after month. Michelle: He was preparing for a disaster everyone else was trying to ignore. Mark: Then came 9/11. When the first plane hit the North Tower, an announcement came over the South Tower's PA system from the Port Authority: "The building is secure. Please return to your offices." Michelle: That was the official order. Stay put. Mark: Rescorla heard that, grabbed his bullhorn, and gave a different order. He yelled, "Get out! All out!" He completely disobeyed the official command because he understood the mission was to save lives, not to follow a bureaucrat's instructions. Because of his drills, his people knew exactly what to do. They moved quickly and calmly. Michelle: He was their guide dog. Mark: He was. He was on his walkie-talkie, directing people, and as the towers filled with smoke, he started singing patriotic songs and old military tunes over the bullhorn to keep everyone's spirits up. He went back into the collapsing tower to look for stragglers. He was last seen on the 10th floor, heading up. Michelle: Wow. Mark: Because of Rick Rescorla's intelligent disobedience, all but 13 of Morgan Stanley's 2,700 employees in the towers survived. He saved nearly 2,700 lives by having the courage to disobey a single, catastrophic order. Michelle: That story gives me chills. It's the ultimate proof of the concept. Rescorla understood the mission—people's lives—was infinitely more important than the Port Authority's order. He had the training, the foresight, and the courage to act.

Mark: And that's the book's ultimate message. Intelligent disobedience isn't just for heroes like Rick Rescorla or for specially trained guide dogs. It's a skill. It's a responsibility. We are all conditioned from birth to obey, but Chaleff shows us that the most responsible, and sometimes the most heroic, act is to pause and ask: "Does this order actually serve the mission?" Michelle: It completely reframes the idea of being a "good employee" or a "good citizen." It's not about blindly following the rules. It's about understanding the purpose of the rules. It makes you rethink every meeting you've been in, every time you've felt that something was wrong but stayed silent. The book's challenge is that silence isn't neutral. It's a form of agreement. Mark: Exactly. It's a choice. And the book is highly rated for a reason; it gives people a framework to make a better choice. It's not just about grand, life-or-death moments. It's about the small acts of courage in the office, in the community, in our families. Michelle: It's about having the courage to be the one who says, "Hold on, let's think about this," even when it's uncomfortable. Mark: So the question Chaleff leaves us with, and the one we'll leave our listeners with, is this: The next time you're told to do something that feels wrong, that violates the mission, will you have the courage to be intelligently disobedient? Michelle: A powerful question to end on. This has been a fascinating and, honestly, a really important conversation. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.