Friday 22 March 2013

Shut Up and Listen!

Thinking of helping people?

Instead of patronizing and paternalizing people, why not for once, learn how to shut up and listen to what the people have to say about what they want to do for their lives?

This video gives a new perspective in what works best in terms of helping people achieve their potential.

 
Ernesto Sirolli: Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!

Here are some important quotes taken from the video:
Above all the economic development, if people do not wish to be helped, leave them alone. This should be the first principle of aid. The first principle of aid is RESPECT.
I decided, when I was 27 years old, that I would only respond to people. And I invented the system called enterprise facilitation, where you never initiate anything, you never motivate anybody, but you become the servant of the local passion, the servant of local people who have a dream to be better person. So what you do, you shut up, you never arrive in the community with any ideas, and you sit with the local people, we don't work from offices, we meet at the café, we meet at the pub, we have zero infrastructure. And what we do, we become friends, and we find out what that person wants to do.
The most important thing is passion. You can give somebody an idea. If that person doesn't want to do it, what are you going to do?
The passion that the person has for his own growth is the most important thing. And then we help them go find the knowledge. 
Nobody in the world can succeed alone. The person with the idea may not have the knowledge, but the knowledge is available.

There is no point making people do something they don't want to do, even if that something could be beneficial to them, because at the end of the day, it may not be something that they are looking for and they won't appreciate it.

RESPECT their needs.

No comments:

Post a Comment