Mitzi Perdue

https://mitziperdue.com/the-art-of-influence/

Journal:  Leader to Leader

You’ve proven that you’re a lifelong learner: the act of reading this article shows you are a seeker of new information. But why do you choose to keep on learning? Is there more to it than just personal enjoyment?

In this article, you’ll see my take on how leadership and learning are intertwined. My advice is partly drawn from my many years of work in humanitarian endeavors, philanthropy, and as an anti-human-trafficking advocate. The premise is that the more skills and talents we develop, the more useful we can be to ourselves and to others. And the more useful we become, the more influential we become, and the broader our capacity to do good.

As leaders, we get things done through others. The more we can perfect our ability to help others become all they can be, and the more we can influence them to use their skills in service to others, the better leaders It’s because of Scouting we will be.

To me, influence is the Holy Grail for leaders. I’m a big believer in the notion that, “An idea imposed is an idea opposed,” while in contrast, “An idea you adopt as your own and that becomes part of your identity, is one that you’ll go the extra mile to help achieve.”

In other words, influence may be the biggest, most powerful tool available to us. Done right, it doesn’t cause resentment, but instead creates inspiration. Here’s a compendium of the tools that I’ve seen work in my life, beginning in childhood.

Girl Scouts Transforms Selfishness to Service

One of the biggest influences on my childhood was the Girl Scouts. I feel I learned more from Scouting than I ever learned in school, and these learnings included values, teamwork, and striving to be all i could be. While i cherished my school experience, it was Scouting that shifted my attention from myself and my grades to something bigger, as expressed in the Girl Scout Promise:

“I promise to do my best,
To be true to myself and my beliefs,
And to act in ways that make the world a better place.”

Actually, the Promise has changed over the years, and while I endorse the modern version, the one that I learned in the 1940s included the phrase as part of the Promise, “To help people at all times.” I’m still influenced by that phrase, and will always be grateful that Frances Hesselbein was the longtime leader of this organization that’s influenced me so profoundly over the years.

If I could wave a magic wand and do something to help all future leaders, I’d influence them to join Scouting. Of if not scouting, a similar nonacademic organization that helps young people shift their focus from selfishness to service.

Lifelong Learning

I was born ambitious. I wanted to carry out my goal of increasing happiness and decreasing misery, and I wanted to do it on as large a scale as I could. That meant developing the skills that would help me do this. Even before my teen years, it occurred to me that writing was a tool that was freely available to me but that potentially could have considerable influence.

At age 12, I started a diary, and my biggest reason for doing it was the theory that if I wrote something every day, that I would develop fluency in using words, the way someone practicing the piano practices every day to get good at playing.

I knew I wanted to be a writer, and I knew I wanted to write about real-world problems and opportunities. For me personally, that meant striving to be a journalist.

The next part of my plan for developing influence was, if I were to become a nonfiction writer, I needed to have expertise and credentials. As a result, fairly soon after I started keeping a diary, I became afflicted with a passionate, almost monomania of wanting to go to Harvard University.

I looked at every school quiz or exam or even homework assignment through the lens of, could I do it well enough to help my chances of getting into Harvard. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t much fun as a teenager, but it was a price I happily paid.

I did go to Harvard and studied government and economics. After that I got a master’s in public administration at George Washington University. In the years since, I’ve made it a rule to take at least one course every year, with the idea that the more I knew, the more useful I could be.

In the 59 years since I finished formal education, I’ve taken courses in everything from design, to Chinese history, to pediatric first aid, to database programming, to the Dale Carnegie Salesmanship Course, to how to make the best use of ChatGPT.

From this experience of taking a course in something every year, I developed the theory that in some mysterious, statistics-defying way, whatever you study will at some time in your life be surprisingly useful to you. It’s worked that way for me.

Networking

In graduate school, I can remember long debates with my classmates about whether success depended on who you know or what you know.

Today, I’m good with the idea of “Embrace the healing power of “and,”” and that both are crucial. Even so, looking at the career successes that have come my way, I’ve seen that once I had a certain basic competence, that it was who I knew that was responsible for every one of my career successes.

As an example, in the late 1970s, I had a column in a local newspaper in Davis, California. It occurred to me that for the same amount of work, if I could get syndicated, I’d make much more money and have more influence. This was before personal computers and mail merge. I laboriously sent sample columns to 30 syndicators.

None of the syndicators even answered.

But then, a fellow board member at KVIE, the local PBS affiliate, said he was friends with the head of California’s Capitol News Service. He got me an appointment with my future boss and friend, Fred Kline, and I got the job that day. My stories were now going to 200 newspapers.

When Frank Perdue and I married in 1988, I still wanted to be a columnist, but being ambitious, I hoped for a national readership, now that I was living on the East Coast. Again, I sent out pitch letters to close to 30 national syndicators. This time I had a track record, and Fred Kline gave me a testimonial letter saying I was reliable and accurate. I thought it would be easy peasy to get syndicated again.

No such luck. No one answered.

But then, I was volunteering for a charity, and one of my fellow volunteers said she’d show it to her friend Walter Veazey at Scripps Howard. Again, I got hired almost on the spot. It was all a question of knowing the right person.

I also ended up with a syndicated television show and a syndicated radio show. It was the same story in both cases: People I knew recommended me. Without them, I hadn’t been able to get my foot in the door.

Frank Perdue, Olympics-Level Networker

Frank Perdue also knew the value of networking. You might be interested in some of his techniques, and they’re all ones that I still do my best to emulate.

I used to watch in awe when I’d see him at a large gathering of people, when, for example, we’d be supporting a charity. Imagine for a moment that you’re accompanying him at, let’s say a United Way function. (This was a charity he adored.)

For starters, if the event was to start at 6:00 p.m., you and he would invariably be there by 5:55 p.m. You’d be standing inside the room, maybe 30 feet from the door, so you’d be in position to interact with each individual as he or she entered the room.

Each contact would be brief, but you, in your role of observing Frank, would notice that in each case, as he greeted someone, he was looking this individual in the eye, shaking his or her hand, and for a moment, focusing his attention on the person so completely that the individual was almost certainly feeling at that moment like the most important person in Frank’s world. In truth, at that moment, that person was the most important person in Frank’s world.

A couple of hours later, at the end of an event, you and he have shaken hands with everyone in the room. And you would be in the unique position to know that this didn’t happen by accident. Frank had planned it by positioning himself near the entrance and arriving early.

Frank was so insightful, going about it this way. Remember, we typically go to big important charity events for networking and to be seen supporting whatever cause it is. However, after they’ve invested the time and the money to be there, how many of them accomplish their networking and visibility goals as thoughtfully and as efficiently as Frank did?

Tend Your Electronic Rolodex

Something else that Frank did, that I do, and that I recommend to you: don’t just collect business cards, follow up on them. In my case, at a typical event, I might collect 15 business cards.

Often, moments after I’ve just been given the card, I write a note on the card to remind me who the person is or what future action would be desirable. The notes are invaluable because without them, I might not remember why I had the card.

That night, I’ll enter the cards in my database, including notes about where I met the individual, what his or her interests are, and appropriate follow-up.

When I’m tired and wanting to skip this exercise, I remind myself that I invested time and effort and the cost of travel and a hotel to attend this event, and if I don’t record the people I want to network with, I’m not getting the benefit of the time, effort, and money I’ve invested in attending.

One more comment on what I record for my database: if I have a way of being helpful to the person, I’ll record that. When I contact the person, in most cases, it’s not to ask for something but rather to offer them something. Maybe they’re interested in a story I wrote on Russian disinformation in Ukraine: I’ll send them the story. Maybe they’re head of an NGO/Nongovernmental organization that could use good publicity for fundraising; I might ask for an interview to do a story on them.

In some cases, if I have a deep belief in what they’re doing, I might offer to give a dinner or a cocktail party for them for donor cultivation or donor appreciation. My attitude is, “What can I do for them?” And then, magic, magic, incredibly positive things often come my way as a result.

Database Skills

One of the most useful skills for me is database programming. I don’t recommend this to everyone because, as with public speaking, to gain proficiency requires time and commitment. However, if you have a taste for computer programming, setting up databases to meet your unique needs can save you breathtaking amounts of time in the future.

With database skills, I can retrieve important quotes in seconds that, if I hadn’t cut and pasted them when I came across them on the Internet or in conversations or email, I would never be able to access again. As for individuals, I have roughly 25,000 names in my database, and I can retrieve them in dozens of different categories. I also have a database of schedules of upcoming talks, along with all the correspondence about them. I don’t have to hunt through old emails to get these details.

I actually have 24 databases.  These include such things as gifts, charitable donations, entertaining, or tips on writing.  To me it’s a huge timesaver to have information organized and at my finger tips.

Public Speaking

I’ve always been a fan of the art form of public speaking. A speaker like Winston Churchill or the late Israeli diplomat Abba Eban thrills me more than the finest painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. However, at age 75, it occurred to me that if influence was my goal, becoming as good at is as I could, would have the following advantages:

• I could influence audiences.
• It would be extraordinary for networking. A large part of the reason people attend conferences is to network, and if I could be the keynoter, my ability to network would expand more effectively than any way I can think of.
• It could provide the visibility that would mean when people were looking for subject matter expertise, my name would occur to them.
• I’ve met people at conferences who’ve turned out to be life-changing resources. Meeting them has meant career opportunities from people who otherwise wouldn’t know I exist.

With this in mind, at age 75, I joined the NSA and took their year-long speakers’ course. (My NSA is the National Speakers Association. We’re the ones who speak. The other NSA listens.) It was a heavy-duty investment in time, including 8 hours of classroom work once a month, and a requirement that you give a talk once a week to local service clubs, using the techniques that you had been studying during the previous class. I figure that between reading, preparing talks, and delivering them, plus the classroom work, that it was a 40-hour a month commitment.

It was an adventure, taking this on at age 75. I wasn’t just the oldest member of the class, in most cases, I was at least double the age of my 15 classmates.

Putting this kind of work into speaking has been for me one of the best investments of time I can imagine. It has paid off in every way I had hoped. It’s meant invitations to speak in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Israel, Dubai, Ukraine, and various European countries. It’s meant friendships and incredible opportunities, plus, to my delight, my electronic Rolodex is now populated with names from many dozens of countries.

Work-Life Balance

Here’s some advice that I’m guessing you won’t typically come across. I’m not a fan of work life balance. That concept may be just right for others, but for me, it’s a non-starter. I’m part of the tribe that believes that “Nothing great is accomplished without passion.” When I’m working on a project that I believe in, I’m so involved in it that work becomes way more fun than fun. 

The times when I feel most fully alive and fulfilled are when I’m making progress on a cause I believe in. That can mean 18-hour days, and in the process, irritating friends and family to death because I don’t answer phone calls or socialize. Still, this total immersion approach to projects is what’s enabled me to write 27 books and close to 5,000 published articles.

This approach isn’t for everyone. It’s a tradeoff. But I’ve loved it, and it helps me achieve my life goals.

Conclusion

Today, my focus is on Ukraine. Since I care passionately about the country and its people, and since at age 82, I’ve never seen a greater injustice than what Russia is doing to them, I want to give my all to doing whatever I can to benefit Ukraine.

I’ve been to Ukraine three times as a war correspondent, and I feel that all the skills I’ve developed over a lifetime, whether writing, speaking, or networking, mean that I have, I hope, something to contribute.  I’m not going to make a huge difference, but I’m part of an army of people who are also trying to help, and the chance to be of at least some help makes life feel meaningful and worthwhile.

From the foundational lessons of the Girl Scouts, to learning writing and speaking skills, to strategies of networking, each step has been a building block towards leadership and influence. The pursuit of knowledge, the cultivation of skills, and the nurturing of relationships are not just pathways to personal success; in my experience, they provide an ever-greater chance to participate in building a better world.

War correspondent Mitzi Perdue has been to Ukraine three times, and the material for several of her more than nearly 80 published articles on Ukraine was gathered from interviews in bomb shelters during air raids.