Issue No. 520 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features an amazing book on gift-giving. Caution! Re-gifting might backfire! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, and click here for John's new blog, Pails in Comparison (PIC), with shorter book reviews of his latest “PICs.”
“Dear Abby: More ambassadors are visiting next week. What gifts would be appropriate?”
Dear Abby:
Dear Abby...Our country will be hosting some rather important guests from abroad. When our king visited their king last year, we miscalculated and presented several expensive, but inappropriate gifts. (We were embarrassed!) Meanwhile, their king showered us with stunning gifts—including an elephant! (Did I mention we were really embarrassed?) Any ideas for this year’s visit and gift exchange? Thank you,
The 5th Ambassador in 5 Years!
POP QUIZ! If you were “Dear Abby,” How would you answer this anxious ambassador’s cry for help?
[ ] OPTION #1. Read Diplomatic Gifts: A History in Fifty Presents, by Paul Brummell.
[ ] OPTION #2. Recommend that the ambassador resign immediately!
[ ] OPTION #3. Suggest the ambassador read Chapter 10 in Diplomatic Gifts about the gift exchanges in the 14th century between two sultans. “…the latter was so incensed that he ordered the waterboarding of the unfortunate Timurid envoy.” (And then suggest the ambassador resign immediately!)
How often have you been perplexed over what gift to give a friend, a business colleague, a host or hostess—or if you’re a king, prime minister, president, or an ambassador—what’s the perfect gift for each unique person/country/culture?
Fortunately, you don’t need to wait for “Dear Abby’s” answer. Ambassador Paul Brummell has written a masterpiece on gift-giving. And he admits, it’s a perilous path sometimes. The waterboarding incident? The damage was done because “a gift of a robe of honour to a Mamluk sultan” was taken as an insult.
The author’s capacity for research is remarkable (incredible and memorable detail)—but the short chapters (just four to six pages each) ensure that each profiled gift, with an economy of words, is still wondrously described. Brummell’s wordcrafting is a delight. His British wit (often subtle) is present in every chapter, and frequently elicits satisfying chuckles. Example:
“Our next story concerns another pachyderm gifted in the year 1514, in this case not an elephant but a rhinoceros. It was to be gifted, regifted and then regifted again, although (spoiler alert) tragically dying in the course of its transportation to the final intended recipient. Its stuffed carcass then served as a less impressive replacement diplomatic gift.”
Who is this impressive author/researcher? Paul Brummell is a British career diplomat and currently the UK ambassador to Latvia. He’s served previously as ambassador to Romania, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Brummel was also the UK’s high commissioner to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean. He also writes travel guides. (Imagine his frequent flier mileage!)
Who Should Read This Book?
• Corporate Gift-Givers. Caution! Chapter 9 highlights the expensive and rare silks given by higher-ups of the Byzantine Empire to popes and other rulers over several centuries. The author documents the gift of an embroidered silk in 1261 (specifically a silk now known as “The Pallium of St. Lawrence”). Fascinating. Yet…fast-forward a few years and we learn that not every silk was treasured by all. “…the Mongol ruler Nogai Khan was decidedly unimpressed by gifted silks, complaining that they had no practical value and offered no protection from the elements.”
• Nonprofit Gift-Givers. My nonprofit CEO and fundraising friends will glean new insights about the subtle levels of gifting—and what happens when Gift Recipient A learns that Gift Recipient B received a more favored gift. (Time to rethink the recognition levels and donor gifts for your next capital campaign—before your major donor invites you to a waterboarding reception!)
• Re-Gifters! OK, admit it—sometimes you “regift” a gift, hoping the original giver won’t find out! In Chapter 6, the author reveals the genesis of “white elephant” gifts—in this case, actual white elephants. “Exotic animals were gifts guaranteed to impress,” he writes. And “the impracticality of the gift of a wild beast ensured its exclusivity and added to its prestige.”
Brummell adds, “There are many examples of the regifting by monarchs of exotic animals received as presents, perhaps after the initial wonderment generated by the creature had started to pale, and the expense had started to bite.” (Ask Charlemagne about the cost of feeding and housing an elephant!)
• History Buffs. Oh, my. If you enjoy BBC World News, but maybe feel a tad guilty for skipping much of your World History required reading in high school or college, then Diplomatic Gifts will be your redemption. Brummell serves up 50 fascinating and short chapters that sweep history from c. 4 BCE (“Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh, a Gift from the Wise Men from the East to Jesus Christ”) to more recent gifts:
--1973 - How a gift of diamonds from an African president in 1973 scuttled a politician's run for president of France in 1981
--2004 - Cuban cigars
--2007 - a stadium!
--2008 - a pair of R.M. Williams Boots
There’s much more. Don’t skip the conclusion (it will be on the test!). Enjoy this: “We started our journey with the story of the baby camel gifted to the French President Francois Hollande, a diplomatic gift whose fate was to be treated over-casually. It was a gift not intended to be consumed, but which was eaten by its custodians. We will end with a gift that reverses this tale: a diplomatic gift that was intended to be consumed, but was not. It was instead treated with far more reverence than was intended by the giver, becoming the object of veneration.” (See the section, “Chairman Mao’s mangoes.” LOL!)
Father’s Day is Sunday, June 19. Diplomatic Gifts is the perfect gift for your father, your mother, your grandparents, or the voracious lifelong learners in your family or organization. Enjoy!
To order from Amazon, click on title for Diplomatic Gifts: A History in Fifty Presents, by Paul Brummell.
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Yikes! In 1948, according to Paul Brummell, a local radio station telephoned the British Ambassador to Washington and asked what he would like for Christmas. Sir Oliver Franks, “a man of frugal tastes, thought long and hard before replying.” That Christmas Eve, the radio station’s special holiday broadcast listed the gift requests from several ambassadors stationed in D.C. “The French ambassador had asked for world peace. The Soviet ambassador had requested freedom for those enslaved by imperialism. The British ambassador had asked for a small box of crystallised fruit.” So…what would you like for Christmas? (Careful!)
2) Diplomatic Gifts describes a 1571 faux pas. “Mehmed’s delegation left after a fortnight, and he was given a parting gift of 8,000 gold coins by Istvan, a present that reportedly reduced him to tears, though not in a good way. He had been expecting more.” Describe a gift you gave or received that brought you to tears! Share some insights from Diplomatic Gifts or read my review of Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: The Bestselling Guide to Doing Business in More than 60 Countries.
The Customer Bucket reminds nonprofit fundraisers to listen to and understand the four types of givers. Not all givers are alike!
Buckets Countdown:
The Customer Bucket (#2) Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips from John Pearson, with commentary by Jason Pearson (2nd Edition, 2018) - Order from Amazon.
The Customer Bucket Core Competency: “We know our primary and supporting customers. We segment our customers to more effectively meet their unique needs. We listen to our customers. We are zealots for researching and understanding our markets.”
Nonprofit leaders who are serious about listening to and understanding their customers will also hyper-focus on the art and science of giving and gifting. According to R. Mark Dillon, in his helpful book, Giving & Getting in the Kingdom: A Field Guide, there are four broad segments of givers:
• THE GIFTED GIVER (2-5% of givers) will show up at the dedication of a new building and ask, “What’s next?” Dillon says “the gifted giver seldom needs to be asked.”
• THE THOUGHTFUL GIVER (15-25% of givers) tends to calibrate giving to current income “and rarely involves lowering their net worth to fund what they care about.”
• THE CASUAL GIVER (35-50% of givers) “possesses a vague understanding of their obligation to be faithful and generous stewards of their resources, but rarely seek out opportunities to give. They usually give in response to a specific request.”
• THE RELUCTANT GIVER (perhaps 33% of givers) may be “an overly generous description, because many in this category give very little of their resources for any charitable purpose.” Easy to offend, they’ve had few, if any generosity mentors in their lives. Their parents were unlikely to be kingdom stewards either.
Check out the books and resources in the Customer Bucket and the Donor Bucket. Do your newest staff members have a biblical theology of fundraising? Who is coaching them?
The 20 management buckets are perfect content for the lifelong learning segment in your weekly staff meetings (you do have weekly staff meetings, right?). Visit the 20 buckets webpage here.
BONUS! Listen to The Discerning Leader Podcast for Steve Macchia's interview with John Pearson (Episode 4, April 21, 2022). And click here to read John's review of Steve's new book, The Discerning Life.
SYNERGY! The The Synergy Solution: How Companies Win the Mergers and Acquisitions Game.
Read just one line in this new book on mergers and acquisitions—and you’re hooked: “In most organizations, PMI is not a core skill.” PMI (post-merger integration) torpedoes many, many mergers. (Read the review at John's new blog, Pails in Comparison.)
JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Breaking News! When you incentivize donors with gift premiums, here’s a reminder: All Donors Are Not Alike! They fall into four buckets: Task-Oriented (Info-Sponges and Just-the-Facts) and Relationship-Oriented (Heartfelts and Share-Meisters). Each type might not appreciate the same vanilla-tasting gift. Learn more in our book, ReBrand: Workbook + Coloring Sheets For Ministry Branding. For more help, contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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