In the sixteenth century, Portuguese missionaries tried for years to convert the people of Japan to Catholicism, while at the same time Por...
In the sixteenth century, Portuguese missionaries tried for years to convert the people of Japan to Catholicism, while at the same time Portugal had a monopoly on trade between Japan and Europe. Although the missionaries did have some success, they never got far among the ruling elite; by the beginning of the seventeenth century, in fact, their proselytizing had completely antagonized the Japanese emperor Ieyasu. When the Dutch began to arrive in Japan in great numbers, Ieyasu was much relieved. He needed Europeans for their know-how in guns and navigation,
and here at last were Europeans who cared nothing for spreading religion-the Dutch wanted only to trade. Ieyasu swiftly moved to evict the Portuguese. From then on, he would only deal with the practical-minded Dutch. Japan and Holland were vastly different cultures, but each shared a timeless and universal concern: self-interest. Every person you deal with is like another culture, an alien land with a past that has nothing to do with yours. Yet you can bypass the differences between you and hirn by appealing to his self-interest. Do not be subtle: You have valuable knowledge to share, you will fill his coffers with gold, you will make hirn live longer and happier. This is a language that all of us speak and understand. A key step in the process is to und erstand the other person's psychology. Is he vain? Is he concerned about his reputation or his social standing?
Does he have enemies you could help hirn vanquish? Is he simply motivated by money and power? When the MongoIs invaded China in the twelfth century, they threatened to obliterate a culture that had thrived for over two thousand years. Their leader, Genghis Khan, saw nothing in China but a country that lacked pasturing for his horses, and he decided to destroy the place, leveling all its cities, for "it would be better to exterminate the Chinese and let the grass grow." It was not a soldier, a general, or a king who saved the Chinese from devastation, but a man named Yelu Ch'u-Ts'ai. A foreigner hirnself, Ch'u-Ts'ai had come to appreciate the superiority of Chinese culture. He managed to make hirnself a trusted adviser to Genghis Khan, and persuaded hirn that he would reap riches out of the place if, instead of destroying it, he simply taxed everyone who lived there. Khan saw the wisdom in this and did as Ch'u-Ts'ai advised. When Khan took the city of Kaifeng, after a long siege, and decided to massacre its inhabitants (as he had in other cities that had resisted hirn),
Ch'u-Ts'ai told hirn that the finest craftsmen and engineers in China had fled to Kaifeng, and it would be better to put them to use. Kaifeng was spared. Never before had Genghis Khan shown such mercy, but then it really wasn't mercy that saved Kaifeng. Ch'u-Ts'ai knew Khan weIl. He was a barbaric peasant who cared nothing for culture, or indeed for anything other than warf are and practical results. Ch'u-Ts'ai chose to appeal to the only emotion that would work on such a man: greed. Self-interest is the lever that will move people. Once you make them see how you can in some way meet their needs or advance their cause, their resistance to your requests for help will magically fall away. At each step on the way to acquiring power, you must train yourself to think your LAW 13 99 100 LAW 13 way inside the other person's mind, to see their needs and interests, to get rid of the screen of your own feelings that obscure the truth. Master this art and there will be no limits to what you can accomplish. Image: A Cord that Binds. The cord of mercy and gratitude is threadbare,
and will break at the first shock. Do not throw such a lifeline. The cord of mutual self-interest is woven of many fibers and cannot easily be severed. It will serve you weH for years. Authority: The shortest and best way to make your fortune is to let people see clearly that it is in their interests to promote yours. (Jean de La Bruyere, 1645-1696) REVERSAL Some people will see an appeal to their self-interest as ugly and ignoble. They actually prefer to be able to exercise charity, mercy, and justice, which are their ways of feeling superior to you: When you beg them for help, you emphasize their power and position. They are strang enough to need nothing from you except the chance to feel superior. This is the wine that intoxicates them. They are dying to fund your project, to introduce you to powerful people-provided, of course, that all this is done in public,
and for a good cause (usually the more public, the better). Not everyone, then, can be approached through cynical self-interest. Same people will be put off by it, because they don't want to seem to be motivated by such things. They need opportunities to display their good he art. Da not be shy. Give them that opporttinity. It's not as if you are conning them by asking for help-it is really their pleasure to give, and to be seen giving. You must distinguish the differences among powerful people and figure out what makes them tick. When they ooze greed, da not appeal to their charity. When they want to look charitable and noble, da not appeal to their greed.
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