Don't correct - invest

We sat on the floor in the very back. People were polite enough. They didn’t say anything to us. Well, one older woman did speak to my wife and friend. She said, “That’s bad.” She was making a comment about their sitting posture. They had grown weary of folding their legs so they stuck them out in front of them. The non-lotus position is disrespectful. Opps!

- A recent visitor to an ISKCON temple

It is a principle that correcting people that you don't have a relationship with puts you into a negative emotional bank balance with them. As a consequence, if you want to grow in influence with someone, don't try to correct them if you have no relationship with them. If you want to "correct", then first invest.

Influence can only take place across a relationship. Only force can be applied across a vacuum, and force is generally inappropriate and counterproductive in what is a purely volunteer organization. As this person said in their account: "I went into their world…..but they didn’t keep me!"

Small wonder. If this simple principle were applied in this case, then the experience of this visitor would have been very different.

In this case the "purity" of the temple was conserved and proper behaviour was enforced, effectively by chasing the perpetrator away. But was that the goal? If the goal is to bring people in to the community, then it wasn't so effective. We have to reach out and touch the heart before we can change the mind. We need to bring people in and guide them by walking alongside them, supporting them, and gently nudging them in the right direction, and letting them go there themselves.

Of course, the only people that this will influence will be those that I have some relationship with. For everyone else, please carry on as you were.