Creating any kind of change requires rallying people to your cause. This post is about how to make that happen.<\/em><\/p>\n The author of this post, Teju Ravilochan<\/a>, is the CEO of the Unreasonable Institute.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Among the greatest challenge that we face as a human species is how to come together, united by a common purpose, and then work together to achieve that purpose. It is the <\/em>singular challenge that I struggle with on a daily basis as CEO of Unreasonable Institute.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s a nut I\u2019m far from cracking, I\u2019ve written this blog post as a reflection on practices that I\u2019ve observed have repeated success in galvanizing people to action.<\/p>\n I\u2019m thrilled to witness there\u2019s an Occupy Movement that\u2019s aware of the social issues of today and that is courageous enough to take a stand against them (even if that means getting pepper sprayed). In my view, however, the Occupy Movement has slowed down because, while it\u2019s identified a problematic gap between the wealthy 1% and the other 99%, it hasn\u2019t defined what it\u2019s after. What would the world look like if Occupy succeeded?<\/p>\n One of the reasons that Martin Luther King was able to embolden so many people to willingly confront deeply entrenched racism is how clearly he defined the world that could be. He famously declared<\/a>: \u201cI have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed that all men were created equal [\u2026] I have a dream that one day, my four little children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. [\u2026] I have a dream that one day [\u2026] little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and little white girls as sisters and brothers.\u201d<\/em> He painted such concrete images that people knew exactly what they were working toward, even when he was no longer around to offer direction to the movement.<\/p>\n Defining success, however, is not enough. People aren\u2019t going to summon the courage to take action without trust in the people behind the movement.<\/p>\n How to achieve that trust is best explained through a story about famed civil rights activist Cesar Chavez<\/a>. Three young organizers drove across California out to the farms in which Cesar was working at the time to learn from him. They asked him a simple question: \u201chow do you organize?\u201d He answered, \u201cFirst you talk to one person, then you talk to another, then you talk to another.\u201d \u201cYes,\u201d the students responded. \u201cBut how do you organize?<\/em>\u201d He repeated his answer. \u201cFirst you talk to one person, then you talk to another, then you talk to another.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, when you\u2019re just starting a movement, all you\u2019ve got is yourself. And for your first followers to trust in your movement, they\u2019ll need to trust you. <\/em>You can\u2019t build that trust without sitting down with people one at a time.<\/p>\n We took this message to heart at the Unreasonable Institute. People often ask us how we built over 180 partnerships<\/a> or found the mentors we did<\/a> (who include folks like John Elstrott, Chairman of Whole Foods; Lisa Waits, head of business development at Nokia; Neal Baer, former Executive Producer of Law & Order: SVU<\/em> and ER<\/em>). The answer is simple: for our first 15 months in operation, we focused on only one thing: hundreds of one-on-one conversations each month with anyone who would talk with us (using principles my teammate and friend Daniel Epstein outlines in this blog post<\/a>). And we asked each of those people we sat down with to introduce us to five more people.<\/p>\n Bottom line: Be prepared for one-on-one conversations becoming your full-time job for a while.<\/p>\n After articulating where you\u2019re going and sharing that message in one-on-one conversations, you\u2019ll begin to see a few souls brave enough to join you. How you engage these first followers is imperative to your movement growing. And the talk below by Derek Sivers called \u201cHow to start a movement\u201d explains exactly how.<\/p>\n
\n1. Clearly Define What The World Looks Like If You Succeed.<\/h3>\n
2. Talk To One Person, Then Talk To Another.<\/h3>\n
3. Welcome Your First Followers As Equals.\u00a0 <\/h3>\n