I remember writing a history essay at school on the difference between the French Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin who in the seventeenth century were senior figures in the church and state, both becoming chief minister in the French Government with Mazarin succeeding Richelieu. Cardinal Richelieu has also been made famous in fiction in The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.
Richelieu as I recall it had a very different approach to diplomacy, preferring a direct route to solving a diplomatic problem, whereas Mazarin was much more cunning and devious in seeking a solution - His modest manner contrasted with the imperiousness of Richelieu.
I was reminded of this different approach recently. I was asked to attend a meeting of four people set up to determine who should be allocated a particular task on a team. I was very clear who I thought this should be for various reasons, but was not the final decision maker. By accident I met one of the other attendees in a coffee bar – again not the decision maker, but somebody who could be called a key influencer. I explained my views, making it very clear I totally recognised I was only an adviser.
He obviously listened and spoke to the actual decision maker because the meeting was cancelled and the person I had supported given the task. I realised that I had achieved what I thought was the correct approach – but indirectly without the need for a meeting and without any possible confrontation.
A Harvard Business School article suggests that: When direct methods of communication and management don't work, you may have better luck with a more subtle approach. Advocates of indirect influence assert that it's often better to let people figure things out for themselves, come to their own conclusions, and take initiative on their own. This article offers six alternate techniques for getting your message across. Among them: spend more time listening than talking, play up any similarities with your audience to increase rapport, and use stories and metaphors to put things in context.
This is also a cultural difference, with Western Anglo-Saxon business methods being more direct than say those in Japan where working out by whom and how a decision is going to be made can be a quite complex and subtle challenge. The same is true of other cultural differences in the business world. The French and the Americans have always to my mind had different approaches to business. I have a former colleague who runs a consultancy focused on explaining to French business people how to deal with Americans.
As Cardinal Mazarin said The French are nice people. I allow them to sing and to write, and they allow me to do whatever I like.
Richelieu as I recall it had a very different approach to diplomacy, preferring a direct route to solving a diplomatic problem, whereas Mazarin was much more cunning and devious in seeking a solution - His modest manner contrasted with the imperiousness of Richelieu.
I was reminded of this different approach recently. I was asked to attend a meeting of four people set up to determine who should be allocated a particular task on a team. I was very clear who I thought this should be for various reasons, but was not the final decision maker. By accident I met one of the other attendees in a coffee bar – again not the decision maker, but somebody who could be called a key influencer. I explained my views, making it very clear I totally recognised I was only an adviser.
He obviously listened and spoke to the actual decision maker because the meeting was cancelled and the person I had supported given the task. I realised that I had achieved what I thought was the correct approach – but indirectly without the need for a meeting and without any possible confrontation.
A Harvard Business School article suggests that: When direct methods of communication and management don't work, you may have better luck with a more subtle approach. Advocates of indirect influence assert that it's often better to let people figure things out for themselves, come to their own conclusions, and take initiative on their own. This article offers six alternate techniques for getting your message across. Among them: spend more time listening than talking, play up any similarities with your audience to increase rapport, and use stories and metaphors to put things in context.
This is also a cultural difference, with Western Anglo-Saxon business methods being more direct than say those in Japan where working out by whom and how a decision is going to be made can be a quite complex and subtle challenge. The same is true of other cultural differences in the business world. The French and the Americans have always to my mind had different approaches to business. I have a former colleague who runs a consultancy focused on explaining to French business people how to deal with Americans.
As Cardinal Mazarin said The French are nice people. I allow them to sing and to write, and they allow me to do whatever I like.
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