Powerlessly Powerful

The Parable of the Rich Fool offers a platform for describing the debilitating dangers of self-sufficiency.  After all, is there any more definitive conversation about self-sufficiency than one that begins, "Self!"?

Adam Grant describes, for example, David Walton--a successful attorney who stutters.  Grant points to this example to discuss the difference between "powerful" and "powerless" communication.  Our culture expects powerful communication--loud, fast, dominating and articulate speech.  At the beginning of a relationship, we reward such communication with attention and deference.  But that response is often short-lived.  Powerful communication is likely to generate resistance rather than respect over the long haul.

Grant says, "Powerless communicators tend to speak less assertively, expressing plenty of doubt and relying heavily on advice from others.  They talk in ways that signal vulnerability, revealing their weaknesses and making use of disclaimers, hedges and hesitations" (Give and Take, page 130).  These communicators tend to be givers rather than takers.  Grant reminds us that there is no substitute for knowing your stuff, but after that vulnerability is often a more effective way to exercise influence.  And it would seem that Walton is one powerlessly powerful communicator in the courtroom.

The self-sufficient Rich Fool didn't need anyone else, it would seem.  And that's a good thing  People had probably stopped listening to him a long time ago.

In fact, the best salespeople are almost always givers rather than takers.  It's not that giving is required to be a losing proposition for those who give of themselves to others.  In fact, giving is one of the primary ways of receiving personal satisfaction in this life.  The catch is that we cannot give in order to get.  That is, if we treat others as means to our ends, they will catch on fairly quickly and that will be the end of that game.  But givers have surrendered by and large both self-absorption and self-sufficiency.  So they are of all people the happiest and the most productive.

"It's the givers," Adam Grant notes, "by virtue of their interest in getting to know us, who ask us the questions that enable us to experience the joy of learning from ourselves.  And by giving us the floor, givers are actually learning about us and from us, which helps them figure out how to sell us things we already value" (page 137).

I see this in mediation practice as well.  The parties most focused on their own interests and positions often end up getting the least out of the process in the end.  Those gentle-spirited givers--the ones who both know their own bottom lines and are willing to be open to the needs of the other--these are the parties that on average get more in mediation than anyone else.  They walk away with much of what they hoped to gain.  More than that, they walk away with hearts and spirits more whole and less drained than the combative takers and the cautious matchers.

What if the Rich Fool had been wise?  Perhaps his dialogue would have gone like this.  "Wow, do I have a lot of stuff--way more than I could ever use!  I wonder who else might benefit from all these blessings.  I'm going to call a meeting of the village elders and see how we might manage these gifts for the good of all.  I have some ideas, but I'd really like to hear what some other folks have to say."  

One's life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.  But that abundance could surely give a lot of life away.