Diplomatic Dispatches: The Ethics of Influence

The Bewildered Child

In the spring of 1968, ten-year-old Daryl Davis marched down a tree-lined street in Belmont, Massachusetts, his Cub Scout uniform pressed and perfect. He was the only Black child in his troop, but that detail seemed irrelevant to him. What mattered was the parade, the crowd, the sense of belonging.

Then the rocks started flying. Bottles. Soda cans.

"I had no idea what was happening," Davis would later recall. "I thought those people just did not like the scouts."

When his parents later explained that the crowd had targeted him because of his race, Davis asked a question that would haunt him for decades:

It's a child's question, really. Simple. Devastating. And impossibly complex.

That question would eventually lead Davis to do something that seems incredibly courageous to my mind: over thirty years, this blues musician would befriend members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Not just befriend them - convert them. More than 200 Klansmen have left the organisation after conversations with Davis.

Which raises an uncomfortable question of our own:

Was Daryl Davis manipulating these men? Or was he doing something else entirely?

The Paradox We Don't Want to Face

We have a peculiar relationship with influence in the modern world. We tend to think of it as inherently dirty - a trick, a manipulation, something that happens in smoke-filled rooms between people we don't trust.

But here's what I learned working inside government: real power is quieter, messier, and far more human than we imagine.

It's not the dramatic arm-twisting we see in movies. It's the careful reading of a room. The strategic pause before speaking. The choice to sit instead of stand, to ask instead of tell.

Consider this: every effective parent influences their child's behaviour. Every good teacher shapes how students think. Every skilled manager guides their team's decisions. They read emotional cues, adjust their approach, and frame their arguments based on what they sense others will respond to.

The ethical question isn't whether we influence - we already do. It's whether we do it consciously and responsibly, or pretend we're not doing it at all.

The "Manipulator" as Moral Genius

Let's return to Daryl Davis, because his story illuminates something profound about the nature of ethical influence.

When Davis sits down with a Klansman for the first time, he's not winging it. He's employing a sophisticated understanding of human psychology that would make any diplomat proud. He maps the real power structures - understanding who actually influences the men he meets, who they listen to, what they fear losing.

He builds proximity, sitting physically close rather than shouting from across a protest line. He listens far more than he speaks.

Most importantly, he never argues. Instead, he asks questions. He seeks understanding.

When he met Roger Kelly, a former Imperial Wizard of the Maryland KKK, Davis's approach was remarkable in its simplicity.

As Davis later explained: "I wasn't there to fight him, I was there to learn from him where his ideology came from."

This wasn't clever rhetoric or emotional manipulation. It was something much simpler and more profound: he treated Kelly as a human being capable of change.

Those same tools - mapping power, building proximity, listening with genuine curiosity - sit at the heart of every successful diplomatic negotiation. The psychology used to broker peace treaties is the same psychology that dismantles hate groups.

So again: manipulation, or moral genius?

The Historical Long Game

Here's what might surprise you: humans have always been students of influence.

Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, filled his histories with detailed observations about how different cultures persuaded, deceived, and motivated each other.

The Aztecs developed elaborate systems for reading human behaviour and predicting responses.

Medieval courts operated according to unwritten rules about influence that would make modern corporate politics look quaint.

Machiavelli didn't invent manipulation - he simply wrote down what was already happening in Renaissance Italy. His name is synonymous with dark deeds and unethical influence. But what if we reframed Machiavelli's "crime"? What if it wasn't teaching princes how to manipulate but committing the unforgivable sin of making the invisible visible? Documenting the game that powerful people had always played in secret.

The difference today isn't that we've become more manipulative. It's that we've democratized the knowledge. The psychological insights that were once the exclusive domain of kings and their advisors are now available to anyone with internet access.

Which raises an intriguing possibility: maybe the ethical problem isn't that we study influence, but that we've spent so long pretending we don't.

The Discomfort We Need to Face

If the idea of conscious influence still makes you uncomfortable, you're not alone. There's something in our cultural DNA that rebels against the notion of deliberately shaping others' decisions.

But consider this reframe: you're not manipulating - you're translating.

When Daryl Davis sits across from a Klansman, he's not trying to trick the man into changing his beliefs. He's trying to translate his own humanity in a way that the other person can receive.

He's building a bridge across a chasm of misunderstanding. As he puts it:

The diplomatic parallel is exact. When I worked in government, the most successful negotiations happened when both sides stopped trying to win and started trying to understand. The goal wasn't to manipulate the other party into submission - it was to find a translation that both sides could live with.

Here's a practical test I call the Daryl Davis Standard: would this approach help someone leave a hate group?

If your influence techniques could theoretically be used to pull someone away from destructive beliefs, you're probably on the ethical side of the line.

The Ethics Test

Davis's approach passes what I think of as the three-part ethics test. His conversations helped the Klansmen long-term rather than harming them - freeing them from the prison of their own hatred.

He was transparent about his hopes to change their minds, never hiding his intentions. And his mission served something far larger than his own ego.

Before you use your influence, ask yourself the same three questions:

Does this help them or harm them long-term?

Would I be comfortable if they knew exactly what I was doing?

Is this serving something larger than my ego?

If you can answer yes to all three questions, you're probably in ethical territory.

The Matrix Moment

Once you understand how influence really works, you can't unsee it. You start noticing the subtle ways people shape each other's decisions. The strategic pauses. The careful word choices. The body language that opens or closes conversations.

This is your Matrix moment. You can take the blue pill and pretend influence doesn't exist; that successful people just "get lucky" and failed negotiations just "weren't meant to be."

Or you can take the red pill and see the code.

The uncomfortable truth is this: knowledge itself isn't evil. The most dangerous people aren't those who study human behaviour - they're those who influence others while denying they do it.

And when we refuse to acknowledge the game, we leave the rules to be written by people who have no qualms about using them.

The Choice That Defines Us

Ten-year-old Daryl Davis asked an impossible question: "How can you hate me when you don't know me?"

It took him thirty years to find the answer. Not through protests, policies or cancelling, but through the patient, methodical work of changing minds one conversation at a time.

He learned to read people, to influence them, to guide them toward their better angels.

Was that manipulation? Or was it the most ethical use of power imaginable?

The choice, as it turns out, isn't whether you'll influence others. You already do, every day, in ways both subtle and profound.

The choice is whether you'll do it with awareness and integrity - or leave that power in the hands of someone else.

When you understand the game, you can finally choose to play it for good.

I've experimented with something a little different this week for my podcast episode- don't worry, there are still many more interviews in the pipeline - but this week's mini episode, 'The Briefing: The Real Power Networks,' draws together the practical tools we've been exploring around influence and shows you how to map the hidden power structures that actually drive decisions in your world.

I've been loving all your wonderful feedback emails so don't be shy in letting me know about this experiment!

The Briefing: The Real Power... Oct 16 · How to Diplomat - storie... 12:25   ​