What Confucius Told Me About Influencing People

Here’s something to think about this week …

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?