Laundering Money

Consider this…. 

Is there any person, company or organization whose “no-strings attached" donation you would not accept? If you worked in an anti-human trafficking organization, would you take a donation from a producer in the pornography business?   If you worked for a cancer research organization, would you accept funds from a tobacco company? If you worked for a faith-based organization, would you accept funds from a strip club owner?

Over the last year, I have met with three different non-profit organizations that were faced with these exact dilemmas. Interestingly, these types of choices are not as uncommon as many might think. And, in all three cases, the ethical choice was seemingly easy and obvious – they all refused the money. Of course! It's what you are supposed to do - everybody knows that. So, logically, it was a no-brainer for two of the three groups, only one had any hesitation. And, while I mean no disrespect, I unfortunately agree with them - it was "a no-brainer," because from my standpoint they did not thoroughly think through the rationale and implications of their decision, rather they all three reacted with passionate conviction, albeit misplaced, and carried the water of the status quo. While I understand completely the visceral response, I believe that their decision was ultimately misguided and did not serve "their cause" well.

Let me be clear, I strongly believe that pornography, strip clubs and tobacco are all destructive forces and leave a wide wake of broken lives behind them.  I am in no way “light” on any of these industries.

In each case, I asked the leadership teams to tell me more about their decision process and the groups all gave very similar answers. In essence, the consensus was that it would compromise their ethics, standards and brand to take funds from the aforementioned people/organizations, who were representative of the very problem they were trying to improve. At this point, I asked:

Q: It was no-strings attached, right?

A: yes

Q: So, there was no expectation or public recognition of any kind, right?

A: Correct…

Q: Then how would accepting funds from the donor this compromise your ethics? Where were you compromising?

A: Silence…

These are all well-intended and great professionals, but in my opinion, they lost focus and sight of their goal/mission. Their apparent “disgust” for the donor, industry and/or their fear of possible public opinion misdirected their attention away from their goal, a-la Apollo Robbins and towards an array of negative distractions, leading them to make decisions contrary to their organization’s goals. It’s an easy reflexive trap to fall into and I assume that most unprepared people would make the same mistake. These groups were so turned off by any personal association with the donor that they turned away from seeing the excellent opportunity to use bad money to do good.  

Bear in mind, if there were any strings attached, it changes the equation completely and I too would say no….  But there weren’t. Therefore, you could take the donation and sleep “the sleep of the righteous.” At its heart, it’s an uncomfortable situation wearing the mask of a moral dilemma.

Now Consider, what happens if you don’t accept the money? …Nothing. Nothing happens; at least, nothing good. You might feel better about yourself, but then again this shouldn’t be about you, should it? If you don’t accept the money, it may be used to make another pornographic movie, open another strip club or produce more tobacco – three things contrary to these organizations’ mission. In such cases, I say, “The devil has used the money long enough - it’s high time that the money start doing some good.”  Personally, I am not willing to walk away from an opportunity to do good, because I am too uncomfortable with a situation or donor. These are clearly hard and possibly stressful decisions, but if you want to be a professional, you have to make hard decisions.  

I can guarantee you that anyone working for a non-profit will eventually confront this crossroad, if you haven’t already. Consequently, you are best served to consider this inevitable dilemma now and how it might correlate to best interests of your organization and begin to decide where your line in the sand is. In her work in Calcutta, even Mother Teresa faced this issue. She was often criticized for taking donations for her work with the “Missionaries of Charity” from anyone, local criminals and publicly disgraced figures alike (i.e. Charles Keating and Robert Maxwell). In spite of her many critics, Mother Teresa was unwavering in her perspective on the state of charitable donations no matter the source. She would bless the funds, declaring “all money is made pure in the service of God.”

- kdk

The Jedi Mind Trick

I recently came across an oddly, fascinating article in the New Yorker, “A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Spectacular Thefts of Apollo Robbins.”  Apart from the entertainment, Apollo Robbins provides wealth of wisdom about human behavior as he describes the way in which he separates people from their possessions. Amongst all the terrific insight in the article, one statement really stood out and resonated with me as a particular important statement of professional advice for anyone who works with people and ideas.

“It’s all about choreography of people’s attention… attention is like water. It flows. It’s liquid. You create channels to divert it and you hope that it flows the right way.”

In my opinion, this is a not some esoteric perspective, but a provocative revelation on interpersonal activity, full of macro- and micro-implications that can positively affect our lives and goals. I am concerned that it is easy to confuse this notion with what we understand as convincing people. It’s different. As Apollo points out that it’s sophisticated choreography using verbal and physical tactics to capture and shift people’s conscious focus away from some things and towards other. Ultimately, this choreography moves people minds to an open position where they can be convinced and influenced.  Just, in the same fashion that you can channel people’s attention away from your efforts to remove their wallet or watch, you can also use the force to channel their attention towards your efforts, ideas and initiatives.  

Ironically, I suspect, attention is one of those obvious, yet commonly overlooked areas of life in spite of its crosscutting influence on success. Whatever the case, the ability to choreograph people’s attention appears to be an exceptionally powerful skillset, perhaps one of a number of things that separates the good from the very great and the influenced from the influential.

I’ve often marveled at a lone person emerge above a group and exercise Jedi-like powers that move an entire room of people towards their point, until they have full command of the forum. Accordingly, the mastery of directing attention may be one of the X factors on why some people seem to disproportionately win the support of others, even though they may not possess the better idea. In fact, I have witnessed many excellent ideas fail or go relatively unnoticed, despite their superior merit …just ask the makers of “the Zune.” Therefore, one’s market share of attention stems from far more than strength of ideas. Clearly, some people are just naturally gifted at directing attention of people, but history is also well populated by rich line of people who were not naturally compelling forces, but hone this skill to rise to the stature of titans in their own respect and performance. Moses, Lincoln, Wilberforce, and Skywalker are a few names that immediately come to mind for me.  

Unfortunately, in my experience, too many people  fall into one of two extremes in their practice of this skill. Either, they are just passive and let the flow of others carry them out to sea or they are overly aggressive and splash around, making them ineffective and somewhat annoying. In other words, both approaches fail. Channeling attention doesn’t mean that one dominates meetings, conversation or calls; quite the opposite, I believe that it means that guiding people at the right time with the right verbal and physical moves. It might just be leaning towards the conference table and making an acute point. It might be leaning away from the table and using an extended pause. It might be putting your hand on someone’s shoulder and starting a sentence with their first name. It might be looking straight at someone and slowing your speech. It might be looking away and cracking a witty joke. It might be a whole host of situation appropriate and experience driven combinations. However, If done truly masterfully, you don’t necessaril need to speak or do much at all, but what little you do do has to be targeted and powerful enough to tilt the balance to your intended direction. In fact, if you think about people who are highly influential, each practice this invisible art in their own personal way, but all seem to share a number of common traits.

While far from exhaustive or complete, I have outlined what I believe are seven of the very basic trace elements in the skill of channeling attention:

1.        It's well-informed;

2.        It's goal-oriented ;

3.        It's incremental;

4.        It's deliberate;

5.        It’s precise;

6.        It's subtle;

7.        It's honed.

While I am confident that I am not doing this topic its full justice, I do hope that I have at least raised your awareness to the flow of attention. Hopefully, if you have not seen the flow before, you will begin to see it now; and if you did see it before, you’ll hopefully start practicing how to channel it , If you practice it, you’ll improve at it and if you improve at it and make positive impacts on things bigger than yourself. Something, I think it is a very good thing.  

kdk

Maiden Voyage - My First Blog Post

As a part of my 2013 New Year's Resolution, apart from getting in better shape, eating healthier, reading more, I have resolved to create a blog and post on it, at least, once a week. Its been a long overdue decision, and I have finally chosen to do so for the following reasons: 

1.) I am a firm-believer that writing is just a plain, good, professional discipline and it will make you a better <fill in the blank>. Since, I want to better my craft and myself, I am writing this as much for me as I am for anyone else; 

2.) I have always believed that "if you take a penny, you leave a penny." In other words, if I am going to take advantage of the ideas of others, I should also provide a few of my own, because no one likes a mooch. Hopefully, my ideas contribute to the lives of people, as some blogs have contributed to my life;

3.) I am blessed with an interesting, often fulfilling, complicated job to raise cash for an international humanitarian organization. I am paid to bring together the very rich with the very poor in a way that often provides value to both. I negotiate deals (big and small), build partnerships (big and small), and fight battles (big and small). Like most of us, I work with some titans, some saints, some characters and some real jackasses. And, I am able to travel to a number of wild places not easy to find on most maps - All of which enables me to live a great adventure, involving a rich mixture of people, places and experiences;

4.) I am blessed to have friends, confederates, and colleagues who believe in me and have long encouraged me to share my thoughts and experiences, online, as I have done in conference presentations and other venues.

5.) I wanted to do something different and see where it takes me. 

To conclude this introductory post, let me just say that I appreciate anyone who reads any of my blog posts, as I know that that your time is valuable and you have multitude of other good things that you could spend your time on. Of course, I also invite and would greatly appreciate any constructive input that anyone has to offer. 

I wish you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year! More to come....

kdk