Positive Influence
The First and Last Mile of Leadership
Book Edition Details
Summary
In a world ever more connected yet paradoxically distanced, Tsun-yan Hsieh and Huijin Kong offer a transformative guide that transcends typical leadership rhetoric. "Positive Influence: The First and Last Mile of Leadership" is not just a book—it's a manifesto for harnessing the untapped power of +Influence. Imagine navigating life's complexities with a toolkit forged from empathy, wisdom, and strategic foresight. Hsieh and Kong distill their rich global experiences into actionable insights, illustrating how +Influence can turn everyday interactions into catalysts for change. This book is your invitation to master the delicate dance of mutual benefit, where personal success is inextricably linked with the upliftment of others. Whether you're steering a multinational or cultivating your personal growth, this work lights the path toward a more harmonious, impactful existence. A must-read for anyone yearning to shape a world where success is symbiotic, "Positive Influence" is your map to a future where leadership is as much about heart as it is about head.
Introduction
The conference room fell silent as Maria, a mid-level manager at a Fortune 500 company, watched her presentation fall flat. Despite months of preparation and compelling data supporting her proposal for a new customer service initiative, the executives sat unmoved, their expressions ranging from polite disinterest to barely concealed skepticism. She had delivered the facts flawlessly, but somehow failed to connect with the people who held the power to transform her vision into reality. This scene plays out in boardrooms, family discussions, and community meetings around the world every day. We live in an age where technical expertise and logical arguments seem insufficient to create the change we seek. The missing ingredient is something far more fundamental: the ability to influence others in ways that benefit everyone involved. This is not about manipulation or coercion, but about genuine connection that moves people toward shared outcomes that serve the greater good. At its core, positive influence represents a profound shift from viewing influence as a zero-sum game to understanding it as a collaborative art form. It requires us to look beyond our own immediate interests and consider what would truly benefit all stakeholders in any given situation. This approach demands not just intellectual understanding, but emotional intelligence, moral courage, and the willingness to engage with our whole being. Through real-world stories and practical frameworks, we discover that everyone possesses the capacity to become more influential, regardless of their position or background. The journey begins with recognizing that influence is not about winning arguments, but about creating conditions where everyone can thrive.
From Communication to Connection: The Power of Positive Influence
When David, a young project manager at a technology startup, discovered that his team's innovative software solution was failing in the marketplace, he faced a dilemma that would define his career. The product had been his brainchild, born from months of late nights and weekend coding sessions. Early user feedback was harsh, with only 12% of trial customers converting to paid subscriptions. His immediate instinct was to defend the technical merits of the solution, armed with charts and performance metrics that proved its superiority over competitors. However, David chose a different path. Instead of immediately presenting his technical defense to the executive team, he spent two weeks interviewing dissatisfied users, observing their workflows, and genuinely trying to understand their perspective. What he discovered challenged his fundamental assumptions about what customers actually needed. The software was indeed technically superior, but it solved problems that users didn't prioritize while ignoring their most pressing daily challenges. When David finally addressed the executive team, he didn't defend his original vision. Instead, he presented a complete reimagining of the product based on genuine customer insights, acknowledging his initial misjudgment while proposing a path forward that would serve both user needs and business objectives. This transformation from defensive communication to authentic connection illustrates the profound difference between traditional influence and positive influence. Where conventional approaches focus on persuading others to accept our predetermined position, positive influence begins with genuine curiosity about others' experiences and needs. It requires the courage to remain open to having our own perspectives changed, even when we've invested significant time and ego in a particular outcome. David's willingness to set aside his attachment to his original solution and truly listen to stakeholders created space for innovation that served everyone's interests. This fundamental shift in orientation transforms influence from a battle of wills into a collaborative exploration of possibility, where the best ideas can emerge regardless of their source.
Building Your Influence Craft: Principles, Presence, and Practice
Sarah had always prided herself on being logical and data-driven in her approach to leadership. As the newly appointed director of operations at a mid-sized manufacturing company, she believed that presenting clear facts and rational arguments would naturally lead to organizational change. Her first major initiative involved implementing a new quality control system that would reduce defects by 40% and save the company over two million dollars annually. The business case was ironclad, the return on investment undeniable. Yet three months into the implementation, Sarah found herself struggling against unexpected resistance. Long-tenured employees questioned the necessity of change, middle managers worried about disrupting established relationships with suppliers, and even senior leadership seemed hesitant to fully commit resources to the project. Despite her presentations being technically flawless, Sarah realized she was missing something crucial in her approach to influence. The breakthrough came when Sarah began applying a more systematic approach to influence that went far beyond logical argumentation. She started by deeply understanding the context surrounding each stakeholder's concerns. For the veteran employees, job security fears stemmed from previous layoffs during company restructurings. Middle managers were protecting relationships that had taken years to build and were genuinely worried about supplier partnerships. Senior leadership was balancing multiple competing priorities with limited attention and resources. Armed with this understanding, Sarah redesigned her influence strategy to address not just the logical business case, but the emotional and relational concerns of each group. This evolution in Sarah's approach demonstrates the essential elements of building influence craft through systematic practice. Effective influence requires deliberate preparation that considers context, stakeholder pressures, and clear objectives for both task completion and relationship building. It demands presence that allows us to sense reactions and adjust our approach in real-time, rather than rigidly following predetermined scripts. Most importantly, it requires the ongoing practice of aligning our whole being with our influence objectives, ensuring that our words, emotions, and actions all support the positive outcomes we seek to create together.
Leading Through Being: Character, Conduct, and Cross-Cultural Mastery
When Robert took over as CEO of a struggling automotive parts manufacturer with operations spanning five countries and three continents, he inherited more than just financial challenges. The company's culture was fractured along geographic and functional lines, with the engineering team in Germany barely communicating with the manufacturing facilities in Mexico, while the sales organization in Asia operated almost independently from headquarters in Detroit. Previous attempts at integration had failed spectacularly, creating deeper divisions and reinforcing stereotypes about cultural incompatibility. Rather than launching another top-down integration initiative, Robert chose to begin with himself. He spent six months traveling to each facility, not to deliver presentations or mandate changes, but simply to understand how people worked, what they valued, and what challenges they faced daily. In the German engineering center, he learned that the team's apparent rigidity actually reflected deep craftsmanship pride and a genuine desire to create products that would last decades. In Mexico, what headquarters had labeled as "informal communication patterns" revealed sophisticated networks of mutual support that kept production running smoothly despite limited resources. The Asian sales team's independence had developed as a creative response to serving customers whose needs differed dramatically from those in Western markets. As Robert genuinely connected with people across these cultural divides, something remarkable happened. Teams that had been suspicious of each other began to see their differences as complementary strengths rather than obstacles to collaboration. The German engineers appreciated the Mexican team's resourcefulness in solving manufacturing challenges, while the Mexican facilities gained confidence from the engineering team's technical expertise. The Asian sales insights began informing product development decisions, creating solutions that served global markets more effectively. This transformation reveals the deepest truth about influence across cultural and organizational divides. Technical strategies for cross-cultural communication have their place, but authentic influence flows from character that sees beyond surface differences to recognize shared human aspirations and concerns. When we approach others with genuine curiosity rather than predetermined judgments, when we demonstrate through our conduct that we value their perspectives and contributions, and when we consistently act from principles that serve collective rather than merely personal interests, we create conditions where true collaboration becomes possible. The craft of influence, ultimately, is inseparable from the ongoing development of our own character and our commitment to outcomes that benefit not just ourselves, but all those touched by our actions.
Summary
The journey from conventional persuasion to positive influence represents one of the most fundamental shifts we can make in how we engage with the world around us. Through stories of managers who transformed failing projects by truly listening to stakeholders, leaders who bridged seemingly impossible cultural divides through genuine connection, and individuals who discovered that their most powerful influence came not from their position or expertise but from their character and authentic care for others, we see that influence is ultimately about creating conditions where everyone can contribute their best. The path forward requires us to move beyond the comfortable illusion that influence is simply about having better arguments or more compelling presentations. Instead, it demands that we develop the courage to remain genuinely curious about others' perspectives, the wisdom to see situations from multiple viewpoints simultaneously, and the patience to work toward solutions that serve collective rather than merely individual interests. This approach asks more of us as human beings, but it also offers far greater rewards: relationships built on mutual respect, solutions that address root causes rather than symptoms, and the deep satisfaction that comes from knowing our actions contribute to outcomes that make everyone's situation better. The most profound insight emerging from this exploration is that positive influence is not a technique to be applied, but a way of being to be cultivated. When we align our thoughts, emotions, and actions with genuine care for collective wellbeing, when we approach each interaction with presence and openness rather than predetermined agendas, we discover that influence becomes less about convincing others and more about creating space for the best ideas and solutions to emerge naturally. This transformation in how we engage with influence has the power to change not only what we accomplish in the world, but who we become in the process of accomplishing it.
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By Tsun-Yan Hsieh
