Chapter 1
Be Humane ~ Confucius
Boston: October 1989. Since Monday, I’d been fantasizing about quitting. My employer of nearly one week was The Forum Corporation, a medium-sized corporate training company. My job was to copyedit and produce materials—workbooks, instructor guides, and other bits and pieces—for their sales and management seminars. I sat in a small cubicle farm with several other editors, all of us clicking away on IBM 286 desktops.
My two previous jobs had been at publishing houses, where most everyone had been a task-focused introvert like me. Here at Forum, the culture was different: People beamed and said, “Hey, how are you?” as they passed in the corridors; shouts of laughter came from New England Sales, the office adjacent to the Editing cubicles; meetings began with icebreakers. Moreover, the entire enterprise seemed questionable: teaching people how to sell and manage? Was that even a thing? I felt thoroughly out of place and had decided to stay only until I could find another job in the publishing industry. I already had a few applications out.
It was now 4:00 p.m. on Thursday and I was editing some handouts when my boss, Mona, appeared in my doorway toting an enormous rubber-banded roll of Mylar flip charts.
This was before PowerPoint. For visual aids the class instructors used large, preprinted pads of flip charts, which were produced as follows: an editor compiled the 50-plus charts needed for a workshop, printed them out on the laser printer, and sent the sheaf to a calligrapher; the calligrapher hand-scribed the words and graphics in black ink onto translucent plastic sheets the size of area rugs; a great roll of these so-called Mylars came back for proofreading; assuming there were no errors, the Mylars were shipped off to the printer, whence would eventually emerge a bound set of flip charts for the instructor to use. The whole process took about two weeks, which from today’s perspective seems insanely time-consuming. It had, however, a kind of artisanal charm.
Mona put the roll of Mylars on my desk. “Christine just sent these over,” she said. “It’s a rush. Can you proof them now?”
Our day ended at 5:30 p.m., and I’ve never been good at pivoting. I looked at the foot-thick log, then up at Mona. “I can’t. I’m doing these handouts.”
Mona said, “We really need to get the corrections back to her first thing tomorrow.”
I had an inspiration. “Could I take them home and do them this evening?”
“Of course,” said Mona. “Thanks.” She turned to leave. Then she turned back: “Just one thing. Be careful when you take them home, because . . .”
The next few seconds changed everything. There are many reasons I stayed with Forum for 23 years, but had Mona not said what she said instead of what I expected her to say, I might not have stuck around long enough to give all those other reasons a chance.
What I expected her to say was: “Be careful . . . because those Mylars are expensive.”
That’s the sort of thing managers at my previous jobs would have said. Oh, they weren’t mean people; they were perfectly pleasant, but as managers they were naturally concerned with costs to the firm. I assumed Mona had the same concerns. I was just about to assure her that yes, I’d be very careful not to damage the flip charts, when she finished her sentence:
“. . . because those Mylars have sharp edges. It’s easy to cut yourself.”
In his “Everyday Leadership” TED Talk, Drew Dudley describes the time when, as a university orientation-week coordinator, he gave a lollipop and a friendly smile to a young woman standing in line to register for her first year. Unbeknown to him, she was terrified by the whole scene and had decided college wasn’t for her. She was just about to walk out the door when Dudley’s small gesture changed her mind. She told him the story four years later, at her graduation; the odd thing, he says, is that he doesn’t remember the “lollipop moment.”
I bet Mona doesn’t remember the flip-chart moment, either. To me, though, it made all the difference. It told me this was a place where the first order of business was to care.
The Humane Neighborhood
The Master said, “A neighborhood suffused with a humane spirit is beautiful. How can a man be considered wise when he has a choice and does not settle on humaneness?” (Analects 4.1)*
Caring is also the first order of business for China’s greatest philosopher (see “The Sage: Confucius,” below). In the compilation of his teachings known as the Analects, Confucius speaks of no quality with more approval than ren, which translates as “humaneness” or “benevolence.” Ren isn’t just about being nice; it’s about treating people as ends rather than means, as beings worthy of our concern. The English phrase “neighborhood suffused with a humane spirit” is captured in the Chinese word liren. Li means neighborhood, but (says Analects translator Annping Chin) it could also refer metaphorically to the sphere one travels in, including one’s profession and circle of friends.1 Liren, then, is a sphere of humanity: a community, physical or virtual, where people care for one another.
Why is such a place so desirable? “A person who is not humane cannot remain for long either in hard or easy circumstances,” says Confucius, whereas “a humane person feels at home in humaneness.” (4.2) A humane community, in other words, has stability and resilience. When members of a group feel they belong, they’re likely to stay put and lean in; when they feel out of place—as I did in my first few days at Forum—they spend their time and energy searching for an exit. Moreover, individuals who lack humanity also lack patience and resolve; always on the lookout for a better crowd or more useful contacts, they don’t remain anywhere for long. An inhumane community is perpetually leaking humans.
The Sage: Confucius
Confucius, who lived in the sixth to fifth centuries BCE, remains China’s most-revered moral teacher and one of the world’s most-quoted thinkers. His sayings are drawn mainly from the Analects, a collection of anecdotes and sayings featuring “the Master” and his followers. Compiled by several generations of disciples, the Analects are a record of what Confucius said, not of what he wrote—just as Plato’s dialogues are a record and interpretation of the words of his teacher, Socrates. During much of the first millennium CE, the Analects took a backseat to Buddhist texts that had arrived from India and been embraced by China, but by the thirteenth century Confucianism had returned to center stage and with it the Analects, which became one of four books young men had to know cold in order to pass the civil service examinations that were the ticket to the middle class. “These hopeful aspirants,” says translator Annping Chin, “would memorize the text when they were very young and then return to it repeatedly almost as a daily exercise.”2 The Master would no doubt approve. “Is it not a pleasure to learn and, when it is timely, to practice what you have learned?” he says on the Analects’ opening page.
The value of liren might therefore seem obvious, but in Confucius’ day it wouldn’t have been. People then had a place in society and would typically stay in that place: Farmer Po of North Village would remain Farmer Po of North Village whether the village was suffused with humanity or not. Today there’s more recognition that individuals can pick up and go, hence more talk of employee retention schemes and Best Place to Work awards. Still, mobility can cut the other way, causing employers to see little point in building a sense of community among workers who are here today, gone tomorrow. In all eras, organizational leaders have been inclined to dismiss ren as either unnecessary (“Why bother? It’s not as if these people have anywhere else to go”) or futile (“Why bother? They’re going to leave anyway”). But Confucius saw the benefits of ren and made it the core of his teachings:
The Master said, “Zeng Can, my way has a thread running through it.” . . . After the Master left, the disciples asked, “What did he mean?”
Zeng Can said, “The Master’s way consists of doing one’s best to fulfill one’s humanity [zhong] and treating others with the awareness that they, too, are alive with humanity [shu].” (4.15)
The word zhong is formed from the Chinese characters for “center” and “heart,” and may be translated as “doing one’s best.” Shu is formed from “knowledge” and “heart,” and means “putting oneself in another’s place.”* So, humaneness has two aspects. Zhong is directed inward and consists in knowing and trying to live up to one’s best self: “doing one’s best to fulfill one’s humanity.” Shu is directed outward and consists in seeing the full personhood of others: “the awareness that they, too, are alive with humanity.”
As we encounter more Eastern sages, we will find flowing through their works these same two principles: first, appreciate that you are human; second, appreciate that others are human. This is the moral double-helix analogous to the chemical double-helix that comprises our DNA: the twin silver threads spiraling through all our interactions, rendering them humane.
One more linguistic note: In classical Chinese, the written character for “heart” is the same as “mind.” Zhong, therefore, could also be read as “center-mind” and shu as “knowledge-mind.” The Chinese language doesn’t make the distinction most Western languages make between emotion and reason, feeling and analysis. Heart-mind (xin) is simply the ability to think and act with care: that is, with a sense that the human world matters and that our response to it matters. For Confucius, humaneness requires—to use Western idioms—a warm heart and a cool head. Judgment, informed by tradition and honed by experience, tells us whether to approach a situation with passion, with detachment, or with equal amounts of both.
Confucius also explores what humaneness isn’t. In Chapter 5 of the Analects, a disciple asks the Master what he thinks of three other men in their circle:
Meng Wubo asked, “Is Zilu humane?” . . . The Master replied, “Zilu could be put in charge of military levies in a state of a thousand chariots, but I don’t know if he is humane.”
“What about Qiu?”
The Master replied, “Qiu could be made to assume the stewardship of a town with a thousand households or of a hereditary family with a hundred chariots, but I don’t know if he is humane.”
“And what about Chih?”
The Master replied, “Chih, standing in court with his sash fastened high and tight, could be asked to converse with the visitors and guests, but I don’t know if he is humane.” (5.8)
Zilu, Qiu, and Chih are talented men; their talents, however, are not on a par with humaneness. Zilu is a captain, a bold commander on the battlefield. Qiu is an administrator who could manage the affairs of a thousand households with efficiency. And Chih is a diplomat, navigating delicate negotiations at court with nary a slip of his sash. We know these types, and while they’re more admirable than the baron, the legalist, and the seducer—the three power chasers whom we’ll meet in Part II—they still fall short. Confucius is skeptical about their paths. “Sure, you can be a great captain, a great administrator, or a great diplomat,” he implies, “but don’t imagine you have reached the pinnacle of success. Above you on the mountain stands the real deal: the great human being.”
By this point we may be growing worried that humaneness is out of reach for us mere mortals. Confucius takes pains to assure us that ren consists not of grandiose acts of altruism but of something far more ordinary, something like the spirit present in a happy family. The following dialogue suggests how simple yet elusive that spirit is:
Zigong said, “If there is someone who is generous to his people and works to give relief to all those in need, what do you think of him? Can he be called humane?”
The Master said, “This is no longer a matter of humaneness . . . Even Yao and Shun found it difficult to accomplish what you’ve just described. A humane person wishes to steady himself, and so he helps others to steady themselves. Because he wishes to reach his goal, he helps others to reach theirs. The ability to make an analogy from what is close at hand is the method and the way of realizing humaneness.” (6.30)
Zigong’s view of humaneness, in other words, is a little overwrought. Confucius notes that humaneness is both more difficult and more realizable than “working to give relief to all in need.” Such all-encompassing benevolence is easy to talk about; putting it into action, however, was a stretch even for legendary sage emperors Yao and Shun. But if virtuous talk is not enough, and virtuous action so hard, what are we to do? For Confucius, humaneness requires only that we “make an analogy from what is close at hand”—that we take up the strands of the zhong-shu double helix and reflect as follows: “I’m a human being. I want security, prosperity, and respect. I want my work to go well. I want to see my children grow up happy and healthy. You’re a human being, too, so you want those same things. If we acknowledge each other as human, and support each other in achieving our mutual goals, things will go better for us both.”
Near the end of the Analects, there’s this impressively concise summary of ren, its elements, and its value:
Zizhang asked Confucius about humaneness. Confucius said . . . “Being respectful, large-minded, trustworthy, quick in response, and generous. If you are respectful, you will not be met with insult. If you are large-minded, you will win the hearts of the people. If you are trustworthy, people will have confidence in you. If you are quick in response, you will get things done. If you are generous to others, this will be enough to ask them to do things for you.” (17.6)
I suspect when Zizhang “asked Confucius about humaneness,” he wasn’t asking, “What is it?” but rather, “Why be it?” Confucius’ answer is: “Look what happens when you’re humane. You win hearts. You earn trust. You get things done.” In short: humane is influential.
Quiet Influence Practice 1: Demonstrating care for colleagues
First in our list of twelve influence practices is “Demonstrating care for colleagues.” Some believe care is out of place in a business setting; after all, we’re there to make money, not friends (or in a nonprofit, to serve the mission, not to socialize). The problem with this view is that humans are social animals—in fact pack animals, for whom acceptance by the collective means life and rejection by the collective means death. “There is nothing in the whole world so painful as feeling that one is not liked,” says Sei Shōnagon, eleventh-century Japanese court lady and author of The Pillow Book. Our need to belong is hardwired. To think it can be ignored because we have donned a business suit and boarded a commuter train is the height of folly (see “Influence in Brief: Demonstrating Care,” here).
In this book I won’t explore the growing field of “neuro-leadership” (neuroscience research applied to the workplace), since other authors are doing a fine job of it. Moreover, I don’t believe we need such research to confirm what we already know based on our ability to make (as Confucius says) an analogy from what is close at hand. We all know what it’s like to be the new kid in school, to be last picked for the team, to have our true love leave us—or worse, not notice us in the first place. We all know what it’s like to struggle through the first week in a new job, confused by everything from the jargon in the meetings to the coffee system in the break room. Therefore, we all ought to understand how much humans crave care from their fellow humans.
A manager I once knew used to say, “All we owe our employees is a salary, a desk, and a laptop.” He may have been right about the “owe” part. In making it about owing, though, he was demonstrating an inability to look inward, to see his own need for kindness, and to make an analogy to the kindness his employees may not have been entitled to, but certainly needed. This same manager would occasionally lament, like Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, that his dog was the only one who liked him. I always wanted to point out that he was probably pretty nice to the dog; maybe he could try being nice to the humans, too.
Influence in Brief: Demonstrating Care
In order to have any influence, you have to start with trust, and the basis for trust is your relationships. In Asia there is the concept of guanxi: the web of relationships. What relationship of trust do I have with this person such that they will be willing to introduce me? If you trust Jiro, and Jiro says you should meet with me, you will honor your relationship with Jiro and meet with me. And if I come in and screw up, then Jiro’s off your list. It’s the web we weave: guanxi.
–Galina Jeffrey*
The stages of team development—membership, control, cohesion—still apply. Even when I’m with, say, the top 20 executives at a Fortune 500 company, I still go around the room and ask them to say what’s going on in their world. Who am I? What do I do? Why am I here? People love it. Everyone likes to talk about themselves, and this kind of introduction is rarely done.
–Bruce Thomas
Influence is not a transactional, one-and-done effort. It is a loop of goodness, a contribution to the collective. Word gets around that you’re a person to sit down with. People watch what you do, talk to each other; if they hear of your insight and see your generosity, they trust you and ask for ideas or introductions. We can tie it to the word values more than currency. If you can provide something to support what they value, it is contributing to the larger system.
–Molly McGinn
I think a culture of influence was the root of Forum’s culture. I was way down at the bottom of the food chain, a customer service rep. But I was listened to.
–Elizabeth Griep
Keith Bronitt is a consultant and trainer who joined Forum in the firm’s early years and taught countless Influence seminars. Here’s how he thinks about influence:
I teach seniors in a retirees’ driving program. The sponsor organization supplies the training materials, and often they can’t get their act together. I say, ‘I’m going on vacation; I need the materials by such and such a date.’ I come home from vacation and I have four boxes of materials sitting on my porch, soaking wet. So I call one of the associates responsible for logistics. She’s 19, I’m 77. She has people calling her all day long to complain, and many of them can be dictatorial: they’re used to running large companies, and they have egos to match. Can I appreciate this woman’s situation and make her feel good about what she does? Can I cause her to want to help me?
It’s about building relationships. If you don’t have a relationship with someone, you’ll never have an influence relationship. Don’t treat others the way you want to be treated; treat them the way they want to be treated. That’s the real golden rule.
In the early 1990s, Keith was a senior instructor who also designed customized training programs for clients. A few months into my tenure I was assigned to be his editor. He was based in New York (I was in Boston) and had a reputation for being a stickler. I felt some trepidation. But we talked on the phone, he seemed organized, and the first project seemed to go fine, so I assumed the work would proceed much as usual.
A couple weeks later, Keith called and said he’d be in the Boston office the next day; would I have time to meet? “Sure,” I said, figuring he’d breeze by, dump the latest set of materials on my desk, and leave. But something quite different happened.
He arrived, said hello, and asked if it was a good time to talk. “Um, OK,” I said, fearing there was a problem. He sat down in the other chair in my cubicle and launched into a series of questions about editing. What did I do? What was the process? What were the lead times, and when did I need the handoffs? Who else was involved? And (most surprising), how did I like to work? What should he know about me in order to collaborate well? I started off hesitant, unsure why he was asking me all this stuff, but soon warmed to the conversation. He listened, taking notes on a yellow pad as I talked. The whole thing took about half an hour.
I was 26, a lowly editor. Keith was in his 50s, a senior manager and star instructor. Never had anyone taken such an interest in my work. Never had I felt so respected on the job.
What was Keith’s payoff for showing that respect? From then on, I made him my No. 1 customer. If he called at 5:29 p.m., I would take off my coat and sit back down. If he made a mistake in some materials, I didn’t shrug it off; I left him a voicemail about it. I’m a conscientious person as a rule, but with Keith, I went beyond the call of duty. Even more telling, though, was what started to happen fifteen years later, when I had risen to a senior manager role and Keith was an independent contractor. Now in a position to give him work and recommend him for client projects, I did both, often and enthusiastically. Some other people I’d worked with back in my editing days, talented though they were, had nothing like the same pull with me.
This story illustrates a key fact about influence: it works within but under the radar of the hierarchy, flowing around the boxes of the org chart. Keith was never my boss; he was, however, in a position to be generous to a colleague—as are we all. In any situation, work or personal, there is always someone, high or low, whom we could surprise with humane treatment. Care is not just something to hope for from our superiors. If we want to be influential, care is something to dispense freely, ourselves.
Where do we start? The impetus for humaneness will come from believing three things: first, we’re all creatures of heart-mind, of emotion intertwined with reason; second, we’re all creatures of choice, free to give our best or merely to skate by, depending on our inclinations; and third, we’re all creatures of equal worth, no matter our role or title. But to give those beliefs muscle, we’ll need to “just do it” by demonstrating care in our daily work. (For tips on how to do it, see Appendix A: Quiet Influence Tactics.)
Western Pitfall 1: Relying on reciprocity
We shouldn’t stereotype Westerners (by which I mean people of European descent) as loud and pushy any more than we should stereotype Asians as quiet and subtle; nevertheless, there are characteristically Western habits and attitudes that can trip us up as we seek to build influence. The Western pitfall for this chapter is relying on reciprocity.
Robert B. Cialdini’s Influence, first published in 1984, has shaped the Western business world’s view of the topic. Central to the book is the concept of reciprocation bias, which, put simply, is the human urge to return a favor. Cialdini cites experiments showing that, for example, we are more likely to help out the generous guy who gives us five of his ten dollars than the stingy guy who gives us only two. It isn’t surprising that people feel indebted to those who are generous—whether with money, job references, or party invitations—or that people feel a need to keep things even by reciprocating when they can. What is surprising (to me, at least) is the sweeping theory of influence-as-favor-trading that Cialdini and other researchers have spun from this one small aspect of human psychology.
It’s a seductive idea, that influence is primarily economic. If it is, the whole matter is straightforward: we become more influential by assessing the “currencies” we have to offer, finding viable trading partners, and engaging in smart transactions. I pay you one job reference, and you pay me one introduction to a potential customer. I support your idea in today’s meeting, you support mine on tomorrow’s conference call. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. It’s a view that goes down especially well in a commercial republic, that quintessentially Western form of society, wherein citizens see themselves as untethered individuals pursuing profitable transactions in a free marketplace.
The problem with this transactional view of influence? It fails to hold up in the real world, which is built more on relationships than on transactions. True, we do feel bound to reciprocate favors, and doling out favors does get us some short-term payback. According to Forum’s research, though, influence over the long term depends much more on perceived trustworthiness, which in turn depends on three things: 1) Competence—do you deliver promised results? 2) Humility—do you admit what you don’t know? 3) Cooperation—do you share decision-making? Scratching a back may get a back scratched in return, but being seen as competent, humble, and cooperative earns trust. And trusted people are influential.
Furthermore, we tend to trust the recipients of our own favors more than those who perform favors for us. In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin (who as a dispenser of wise and practical advice bears more than a passing resemblance to Confucius) tells how he finally won over a fierce critic, a man who had disliked him for years, by asking for the loan of a rare book. The man sent over the book immediately, and when the two next met, says Franklin, “He spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility, and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends.”3 Franklin saw the turnaround as evidence for the truth of an old maxim: “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.”4
This oft-studied phenomenon has been dubbed the Ben Franklin Effect. Psychologists say it’s a mechanism for reducing cognitive dissonance: when we do something nice for a stranger or an adversary, our mind searches for a reason and lands on, “I must like this person.” Confucius would offer a different explanation. He would say that kindnesses we bestow on others increase our awareness of their humanity and our own, thereby enhancing our liren: our humane neighborhood. In showing care to others, we make them part of the family.
Confucius certainly isn’t blind to the power of reciprocity. “If you are generous to others,” he says, “this will be enough to ask them to do things for you.” (17.6) Individuals will, in general, want to return the favors you do them. But more important for Confucius, and for most Eastern philosophers, is the goodwill you build when you behave humanely: “If you are large-minded, you will win the hearts of the people. If you are trustworthy, people will have confidence in you.” (17.6) A network of trusting relationships is called guanxi, a central concept in Chinese culture. Guanxi is similar to karma in the Hindu tradition. While karma has metaphysical roots and guanxi is purely social, both are about sending good actions out into the world with the expectation that those actions will come back around to benefit you in unpredictable ways.
This kind of reciprocity is different from the Western version. To strain my metaphor from the Overview, suppose you own a pistachio ice cream shop and you’re looking for ways to grow profits. Confucian reciprocity is like churning more butterfat into the product in order to make it more delicious and thereby attract more customers. Western reciprocity is like adding a few more pistachios and marking up the price of a scoop by five cents per nut.
When you demonstrate ren, says Confucius, you don’t merely get repaid; people are drawn to you. They want to sign up for your projects, to collaborate with you, to be on your team. I call this phenomenon “the draw of the humane.” The humane neighborhood is powerful simply because more people want to be in it. As important, when a group is known for its humanity, the problematic people tend to stay away, because ren attracts the good and repels the bad (12.22). If such was the case in Ancient China, a relatively static society, it is even more the case today, when most of us have choices about which jobs to take and with whom to associate. If we don’t work to create a humane neighborhood, we’ll find ourselves with few neighbors—or, worse, many bad ones.
Chapter 17 of the Analects opens with a story about Yang Hu, an ambitious swaggerer who for several years was a rising political figure in the state of Lu, a demagogue who sought to take down the governing elites and ride a wave of populism to power.5 He wanted to recommend Confucius for a government position, thinking, no doubt, to get the renowned teacher on his side and in his debt. But Confucius refused to see him, so Yang Hu sent over a piglet as a gift, knowing that etiquette would require Confucius to make an in-person visit to convey his thanks. Confucius pulled the old trick of waiting until he was sure Yang Hu was out of the house before stopping by to pay his respects, but Yang Hu spotted him in the street and called out rudely, “Come here! I want to talk to you!” Yang Hu continued:
“Would you call a man humane if he clutches a cherished jewel in his bosom while letting the country go lost and adrift? I would say not. Would you call a man wise if he is eager to take part in government while letting opportunity slip by again and again? I would say not. Days and months are rushing forward. Time is not on our side.” (17.1)
In other words: “You’re always babbling on about humaneness, Confucius, but your behavior is selfish. You’re hiding out instead of taking up power as you ought. I offered to help you. I gave you a piglet. Yet you’re ignoring me! What’s your problem?”
Yang Hu’s view of relationships was based on reciprocity. He must have been used to people accepting his favors, and he must have seen all life as a game in which those favors had racked up a lot of chips, chips he could cash in when he chose. Given his idea of influence as currency, he would naturally be baffled and angered by Confucius’ reluctance to join him in seizing opportunity: “This man has talents—jewels!—and he’s clutching them to his bosom. He’s hoarding his chips. He’s not playing the game.”
Yang Hu succeeded in throwing his weight around for a while, but his worldview was a cramped one, his attempts to topple the government failed, and his name today is obscure. Our influence will be equally limited if we rely on Western-style reciprocity, dispensing currency and expecting payback. If, on the other hand, we strive to pay forward and outward—to build liren, the neighborhood with a humane spirit—we’ll find our influence growing.
How did Confucius react to Yang Hu’s hectoring? He said, “Right, I shall take up office,” and left the scene.
And a few years later, the master did take up office, but not on behalf of the Yang Hu faction. He was appointed minister of justice, a job dedicated mostly to suppressing populist rebels. Yang Hu’s piglet, it seems, had little effect.
The next quiet influence practice is Encouraging others to express objections and doubts.