If you really want to influence people, involve them instead of merely trying to inform them. You already know this.

I started out as a communicator, a broadcaster and then a newspaper writer, and so I had this desire to inform. Then, I got really interested in this different way to see the core of influence when I first heard it from Confucius.

Well, actually someone quoted him to me. (I’m not that old.) A man with long white hair and a long white beard from Indonesia, Mustafha, sat regally in the front row at a talk I gave many, many years ago.

Mustafha raised his hand, and told me that Confucius said:

(I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.)

So Confucius would have us involve people, actively, if we seek to influence them.

Or better yet, the goal is to engage.

We put this idea into action in the workshop, as people experience being active and engaged in an ideal setting. When you experience this principle in action for yourself, you’ll have it in your bones and others will get it from you, easily and naturally.

By the way, if you’re all about results, you may like knowing that we call this way of working together “action-learning.”

It’s a way to step back, slow down, reflect. And to truly engage in a robust back-n-forth with members of the cohort and me. To learn just what’s called for (and no more or less) to fuel your action after we’re together.

And it works much better than me standing in front and lecturing for days on end. (Thank goodness!)

I’m sure you’ve seen for yourself how engaging people is more powerful than merely informing them. (As I said, you already know this.) But are you always aware of how powerful this idea can be, and how you can be working from it and practicing it today, more mindfully?

“When you want to influence, involve – or better yet, engage.” That’s Mustafha’s and my mantra. Maybe yours?

Last week

Inspired to the core

“You might begin at the beginning,” I offered to Dick when we resumed our conversation about the Guilds’ School. “You could start by looking for what the school has going for it, and wallow in that for a while.”

Dick called a time-out on the strategic plan, then gathered his staff and board together for a carefully considered purpose: To tell stories of their best moments at the school, in order to discover what was at the heart of their success as an organization. (He knew about this way from his first workshop five years before.)

Believing in one another.

That’s what they found at the heart of the school and their work, at the center of the many assets and strengths they uncovered.

Of course, you might expect people at a school would believe in kids. But at the Guilds’ School, that core is so vital, so pulsating, that it overflows into relationships with everyone who is involved with the school: staff, siblings, parents, board members. Everyone. (Even me, an outsider.)

Seeing this identity, this DNA of the school, flipped their state of mind from deficit and defeat to genuine, grounded power.

Better prepared to dream … and to act

They also had gained more information: the stories provided evidence from their own experiences, proof that showed them what they were capable of and what mattered most to them. This made it possible to envision a successful future for the school that was both ambitious and well-founded.

Out of this strength grew many new ambitions, including a bold idea for an international conference that the school soon developed and still hosts today. The conference lifted “believing in one another” to include their colleagues from afar, indeed their entire profession.

In the course of a single year, this small school, barely known in the state but deserving of much wider influence, became an international leader in advancing its field.

“We reached firmer ground,” Dick told me later. “We had more clarity about who we are and what we bring to the table. That made all the difference in raising our sights. When all we could see were our failings, there was just no way to imagine we could succeed, much less make a big leap.”

The school had also moved beyond strategic planning in another important way. People experienced with planning often acknowledge that the tricky part comes when it’s time to actually execute the plan. Even when implementation gets off to a good start, resolve may falter from time to time.

Guilds’ School made a fateful decision. When the good folks chose to begin at the beginning and see what they had going for them, they built the energy for sustained action right into the process. More precisely, they found the energy and idealism they already had in them, waiting to be released.

Your very first question makes the difference

Once again, we see here the importance of the simultaneity principle — the idea that the seeds of change are embedded in the first question we ask. In the book, What Kind of World Do You Want?, we see other examples: the company that dealt with sexual harassment by inquiring into high-quality cross-gender working relationships … the organization that asked for stories of success even though it had just laid off staff … the two consultants in Jacksonville who got very different results by asking very different kinds of questions.

Whenever we set out to move a group or a cause forward, we have a choice: We can build confidence and energy by fortifying the health and vitality that’s already there. Or we can show people their deficiencies and expect that will motivate them. You already know where I’d place my bet.

So what happens when we follow the example of the Guilds’ School and build on the greatest strengths of the social sector: passion, conviction, taking a stand for what we believe in, idealism, contributory spirit?

Well, we find that we can organize in ways that express our beliefs and aspirations (rather than compromise our values to get the results we seek). We can create the world we want by starting where we live: in our organizations.

And rather than treat social sector organizations as “wannabe” businesses, surely a deficit approach if ever I’ve seen one, we can strengthen their distinctive strengths and watch them thrive.

“We’re just finishing up our strategic planning, and you know how I try to stay away from ‘stinkin’ thinking,’” he told me. “But I’ve got to admit it: the staff is feeling beaten up. All they can see are the gaps between where we are and where we want to be — the places where they’re falling short.”

I could imagine what Dick was going through: An organization decides to look to what might be on its horizon. It’s practically an article of faith that this task is accomplished through something called “strategic planning,” one of many practices the social sector has borrowed from the business world in recent years. So the organization hires a consultant and does a strategic plan, assuming that’s the best way to get to their next level of success (or at least stave off failure).

Why does the outcome so often disappoint?

Standard strategic planning practices, rooted in business models of human behavior, simply are not designed to tap into the contributory spirit and high ideals that are especially visible in the social sector.

Martin Luther King Jr. did not say, “I have a strategic plan.” He shouted, “I have a dream!” and created a crusade.

If our work is born of passion, conviction, and taking a stand for what we believe in, then why overlook that energy in favor of the more superficial and mundane?

To my mind, what happened at the Guilds’ School is an example of the common struggle to squeeze high ideals into the confines of flow charts and spreadsheets. The school’s staff are among the most talented, creative people I’ve ever met. They’re passionately dedicated to the kids they serve, so they take great pride in doing their best. In fact, they bring to their jobs a devotion — a sense of mission — that businesspeople often only wish they could develop in employees.

So how could a seemingly routine strategic plan have shattered their confidence in themselves?

Focusing on strengths gives people the confidence to notch up both their ambitions and the belief that they can deliver on those aspirations. Instead of such a life-affirming approach, typical strategic planning gives equal time to internal weaknesses and external threats. Given our collective and individual tendency to overvalue the negative, people can quickly become overwhelmed and demoralized by wallowing in what they lack.

For the school’s staff, people who find deep personal significance in their work and hold high aspirations for all, that experience was devastating. They saw the plan as proof of how badly they’d fallen short of their most cherished ideals. They saw only the weaknesses that had been identified, the gap between what was and what could be. Believing they’d been portrayed as inadequate, they felt shame in front of their CEO and their board.

I’ve seen this happen time and again, especially in organizations with the highest hopes and most capable staffs.

And more than a decade ago, it dawned on me that we may have had it backwards: Instead of feeling embarrassed and deficient, or compelled to play catch-up to the business world, the social sector actually has a lot to teach businesses about what makes people tick. After all, how many businesses get people to show up as volunteers and work for free (and even pay for the privilege by contributing money) or to work as staff for much less money than they might be paid elsewhere?

Today this insight is beginning to spread. Jim Collins, author of the best-selling business book Good to Great, wrote in a recent monograph on the social sector: “Social sector organizations increasingly look to business for leadership models and talent, yet I suspect we will find more true leadership in the social sectors than the business sector.”

The leadership role of the social sector is also evidenced by the spread of idealism in the business world. A growing number of businesspeople are taking up the banner of social responsibility and seek to imbue their work with more meaning and significance. They’re putting into practice one of the great lessons of the social sector: the power that comes from standing for what we believe in and acting on our ideals.

So what did I say to Dick? Tune in next week.

Jim

The Revolution Has Already Begun

We can choose to tell stories that paint a picture of a world that works, a world where there are at least islands of achievement, a fundamentally encouraging and hopeful view in which individuals and their actions matter.

More commonly told is another set of stories that leave us with very different images: failed states, collapse, disaster, impending doom.

Our choice to tell one set of stories or another is much more than a simple judgment about which set is more “accurate” or “reality-based.” It’s a choice that can actually influence what will happen and how things will turn out. It just might be the most important choice we can make if we care about the future of people and the planet.

Rather than hold the world as dismal and oppressive, we can allow promising stories to crowd out the others. One narrative that I find exhilarating is the story of how powerful we have become because so many of us are freer than ever before. I hope you’ll indulge me for a few moments and perhaps see what this account suggests to you.

Human freedom is greater now than at any other point in history. The progress has been swift. Little more than 200 years ago, “the bulk of mankind, over 95 percent, were miserable slaves or tyrants,” according to economic historian Stanley Engerman.

Another measure: At the beginning of the 20th century, not one nation could be described as democratic, if judged by the standard of universal free elections. Today, 121 of 192 nations can be called democracies by the same standard. (And this was before Tunisia and Egypt; it looks like that number may well be on the rise.)

Freedom has taken giant steps with the spread of literacy and education, as well as the dramatic improvements in human health that have given many of us much longer lives. And in just the last decade, the Internet has changed the distribution of power and enhanced human freedom in ways we have yet to fully grasp.

Individuals are freer than ever before to effect social change by acting on their personal passions, increasingly trusting themselves rather than solely trusting authority.

We can already see this freedom taking shape as a groundswell of voluntary action. Here’s the tip of the iceberg from just one sector: A global network of volunteers develops open-source software (including most of the software that runs the World Wide Web) and gives it away for free, putting increasingly powerful communications tools into the hands of billions of people. Politics, journalism, and publishing are being reshaped as amateur bloggers and self-published authors take advantage of these new means of influencing the world, while repressive governments find it increasingly difficult to keep a lid on free speech.

Such leaps have astounding and exciting potential for human liberation. Even more important, it seems to me, the developments are themselves proof of the human desire and capacity to achieve, to grow, to collaborate, to create, and to take charge of our lives. If we have more freedom, more options, and more opportunities than ever before, it is because we’ve made a series of choices.

Together we have created the new beliefs and ideals, new institutions and infrastructure that support both our individual potentials and the evolution of society as a whole.

My gift to you: Download the book in convenient electronic forms here. Proven ways to enliven civic life, reignite confidence, and inspire people to act — with renewed conviction that we can change the world and create the future we most desire.

Vibha told me how she’s using the new audiobook version of What Kind of World Do You Want? to lift up the people around her.

I gave my iPod to a very energetic young fellow, Deepak. (He sounded very pessimistic about our country, especially because of the corruption). Deepak picked up right away on the importance of choosing the right kind of conversation … the non-deficit one.

I also shared it with a young boy from Pune, Maharashtra, who wants to serve the country through civil service. He too had lot of passion but was showing glimpses of negative views in the context of governance in India. I let him listen and then he wanted to copy the book on his pen drive.

I’m always moved to learn that halfway around the world, folks are on the same journey, facing so many of the same situations and choices. (And listening to a book on an iPod, just as I do!)

Vibha calls what she’s doing her “way of magnifying my belief in my dreams as I CHOOSE to further my my mission of social change.” And her story gets even better …

Jim and Pam, I was listening to the gift audiobook on my way to the place where Buddha gave his first sermon after attaining Enlightenment. I was listening and smiling to myself as I heard words like courage to change and courage to question and how all these relate so well with teachings in the life of Buddha.

And I am having different kinds of CONVERSATIONS with my co travellers. What fun… what a gift….!!

Click here to claim your gift audio-book of What Kind of Word Do You Want? — as well as readable versions in various downloadable formats, all with my compliments. I want you to be able to use the book to change the conversations … and the world … around you.

As the year turns, do you feel the urge to go single-mindedly for the results you want this year? Or are you focused on “softer” goals, such as treating well the people around you?

Sometimes it seems difficult to do both at the same time. At least, conventional wisdom is that you have to give up on your ideals in order to get results.

You may recall that I was puzzling over this last month. And I came to realize that I want both — “living ideals and delivering concrete results,” as Elizabeth Doty put it in an email to me a couple of weeks ago.

What’s more, I’ve grown even more convinced that it’s the high road that gets us to where we want to go. Contrary to what so many seem to believe, we succeed not in spite of, but because of our high ideals about the kind of world we want and how we want to treat others.

In other words, when you’re clear on what you stand for and your drive for results, you’ll attract more people to your cause.

Thank you for listening. I’m much clearer now (smile). And thanks again to those who gave me the benefit of their thinking.

Best new year to you — really,

Jim

P.S. The key to all of this is to develop your presence and let your authentic self show up.

Last week a leader — someone I hold in the highest regard — told me he’d winced to see me urging people to generate “the largest contribution in your history.”

My first reaction? Moist eyes.

I saw in my mind Justus and Sahadev, Barney and Marcela, Debbie, Roger H., Bob, Roger F., Dan, Sonja, Rufus and Nancy and their buddies … and so many others I’ve known. (As well as myself.)

I thought of how they dedicate themselves to society — always with the aim of making their largest contribution to the world around them.

People like them have been coming to my workshop for well over a decade to learn how to up their game. Along the way, many have told me they’ve discovered their greatest contribution is in laying the groundwork for someone else to make their own contribution.

Now that’s a contribution — to facilitate the best in others.

To be fair, my leader friend was reacting to another meaning of the word “contribution” — giving money. The way some folks talk about that can obscure the humanity at its core. But even when that’s the form of contribution, it’s really about moral leadership and the message sent.

So I’m going to continue to urge you to up the ante, whatever form your contribution may take. (You may well have already made the greatest one in your life. Or maybe it’s yet to come?)

Best,
Jim

P.S. Early next year, I’ll be holding a special workshop. Although the focus will be on raising money, it’s just as relevant if you want to facilitate other kinds of contributions — or even to decide what your own largest contribution will be. Because you’ve been with me for a while, I want to make sure you know about it ahead of time. You can get a preview here.

When I posed my puzzle a couple of weeks ago about my new workshop, I got an insight that I’ll bet you can use — regardless of whether you’re directly involved in raising money.

Kevin Murphy, president of a community foundation, wrote me that he’s seeing a sector

more frantic and almost desperate in tone. Even big universities seem to be acting weirdly (maybe especially places like them).

We see this desperation most clearly in the realm of fundraising, but it permeates the whole of an organization’s mindset.

Well, we can find opportunities in what most people see as dismal news. At a time when most organizations are busy pushing their “needs” and pressuring their staff, board, and donors …

You can stand out by choosing to be authentically different. (Some would call this your “competitive advantage.”)

You can begin with the hopes and dreams of the person you want to engage — staff, board member, donor, anyone. Each has a personal “why.” The simplest and most direct route to extraordinary success is through paying attention to that. Click here to see a powerful example of how this can work more boldly (and more quickly) than you might imagine.

And just in case you thought that this “interesting” economy means we should be in a “holding on” pattern instead of pursuing our dreams, I’ve got a thing or two to say about that as well. 

You’re attracted to this way of thinking since you’re here, reading me. Keep looking for opportunities to have people around you who think like this.

Putting together this workshop has gotten me in touch with how much I thrive on concrete results – like seeing an organization raise money for a project they’d thought was impossible, or the largest contribution in their history.

Here’s why I want to share this with you: When you’re deciding about your own times to learn, I suggest you ask yourself: “How am I going to use this? How will I apply it?”

So many professional conferences are all about experts talking at you, with no time for you to process and apply what you’ve learned. I used to think that I was somehow cheating when I designed my workshop to set aside time for people to figure that out — as if more content was what folks came for.

But what I found out was that people were hungry for a time and place where (right after they got all riled up about what’s possible) they could say “So? What am I going to do now with what I just got?” (And a chance to consider that before they returned to their inbox and voicemail.)

I hope you’ll take it on yourself to turn all your learning experiences into that kind of action-learning.

Often all it takes is blocking out time — right after the experience and before you get back to the urgency at the office — to reflect on what you’ve just learned. How will it change or strengthen what you’re going to do next? What are the next steps you’ll take to put it into action?

That simple pause-to-reflect can make all the difference.

Best,
Jim

P.S. If you want to respond to my question about the workshop letter, I’d welcome your reaction. You’ll find the puzzle here.

How do I grow and focus on results — and at the same time hold onto the core of who I am and what I value? (You may have that question about your work, too.)

Here’s what’s going on for me and the favor I ask of you …

People have been urging me to offer a workshop on raising money. That’s where I started my career, of course, and I do have a few things to say about it. (smile)

But for 10+ years now, my workshops have had a different focus. They’ve been about holding high ideals … standing in hope … dreaming big dreams and bringing them to life. (And they’ve been more for the money-givers than for the money-raisers.)

Of course, raising money is important to bringing dreams alive. You know that.

It’s the pivot point for everyone connected with every cause: feeling you can or can’t raise large money makes everything else possible – or not.

And raising money in an authentic way — filled with meaning and respect and high ideals — is something that’s not widely taught. So I am going to offer this workshop in early 2011.

But I sense I’m really going out on a limb.

You see, when I apply the workshop to the raising of money, it’s possible that I’ll lose the heart of the experience. People could be attracted who just want to “get the money, forget the meaning.” There are those who would see it as an extraction tool, a gimmick — a way to manipulate people.

You can imagine how deeply dismayed I am at that thought.

I want to make sure the authentic heart of this work stays strong, even as I take on this more “results-oriented” workshop. Just as you are results-oriented and want to keep your high level ideals alive.

(Of course, you and I know that it’s because of the high ideals that we see greater results, but that’s less obvious to most.)

So here’s my request of you: Would you please take a few minutes to read how I’ve described this workshop — and then reply to me with your thoughts?

Have I struck the right note and conveyed the high ideals we hold?

What else might I say to draw my “right people” toward this — and nudge the gimmick-seekers in another direction?

Or just tell me I’m “write on.” (Couldn’t resist, could I?)

I’d really appreciate your thoughts on this. The workshop description is here.

Best,
Jim

P.S. There’s something else that’s been on my mind — about the emails I send out. Until a few years ago, I engaged in lengthy, personal email conversations with a very small circle of folks. Other than that, I was pretty much invisible to the world.

That was intentional — I’d cut way back on my professional engagements in order to pursue my learning journey and R&D projects (such as developing the Quest workshop).

Since then, my circle has grown so much that I’ve had to resort to “bulk” emails to keep in touch. It feels impersonal — but it’s hard for me to see how else to stay connected with this growing circle of friends and colleagues. If I tried to write everyone personal emails … well, I’d be doing nothing else and would be unable to serve anyone.

I do want you to know that I read every reply and respond to as many as I possibly can. And I am deeply grateful for your attention.