chapter 25
Present to persuade
The Bambara are the largest farming tribe in Mali. They are largely illiterate. But they regard words as being close to gods. They say: ‘Words create whole new worlds in the mind; words make people do things; words separate humans from beasts.’ Words are powerful. The Bambara say that ‘words should be forged like a blacksmith, woven like a weaver and polished like a cobbler’. Not surprisingly, they value restraint in how people talk – better to talk little and well than to talk for the sake of it.
Words can have as much power in the management tribe as they can in the Bambara tribe. We cover the art of communicating, ...
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