apply-hearts-and-minds

Apply Hearts and Minds

Win genuine voluntary commitment from a resistant counterpart by repeatedly demonstrating the logic of your position and releasing pressure — not by enforcing compliance — until the counterpart accepts your terms from conviction rather than coercion.

Why This Is Best Practice

Origin: In 225 AD, Zhuge Liang led Shu Han's army south to pacify the Nanman tribes, which had rebelled under their king Meng Huo. Zhuge Liang could have occupied and garrisoned the south by force, but his advisor Ma Su argued for a different approach: the southern region was remote, the tribes numerous and mobile, and garrison troops would be a permanent drain on Shu resources. Instead, Zhuge Liang captured Meng Huo six times, each time explaining clearly why the king's position was strategically untenable — and each time releasing him, allowing him to regroup and fight again. On the seventh capture, Meng Huo acknowledged the logic of Zhuge Liang's position and submitted voluntarily. Shu's southern border remained stable for the rest of Zhuge Liang's lifetime without requiring a permanent garrison — because the submission was genuine, not imposed.

Adopted by: The pattern appears in every domain where enforcement capacity exists but enforcement cost is prohibitive. Nelson Mandela's post-apartheid reconciliation strategy — the Truth and Reconciliation Commission — chose genuine accountability over punitive prosecution, creating a settlement that held without requiring indefinite enforcement. Satya Nadella's transformation of Microsoft culture after 2014 explicitly rejected forced compliance with new behaviours ("growth mindset") and instead created repeated demonstration moments — public acknowledgment of Microsoft's past failures, reversal of the "stack ranking" policy, genuine partnership with Linux — until engineers adopted the new culture from conviction. Open-source license enforcement through legal action (coercion) reliably produces fork and defection; the companies that built durable ecosystems (Red Hat, HashiCorp before its BSL shift) did so through genuine community service that made compliance natural.

Impact: Coerced compliance requires permanent enforcement. When enforcement capacity weakens — when the garrison thins, the contract expires, the monitoring lapses — the coerced party defects. Genuine commitment is self-sustaining: the counterpart enforces the terms themselves because they have accepted the underlying logic. Zhuge Liang never had to return to the south. Mandela's settlement required no army of compliance officers. The enforcement cost differential between coercion and genuine commitment compounds over time.

Why best: The seven-captures structure is not cruelty — it is the minimum number of demonstrations required for genuine conviction. One demonstration is insufficient: the counterpart can attribute defeat to a tactical error, a specific disadvantage, bad luck. Repeated demonstration, with genuine release between each, removes each alternative explanation systematically. By the seventh capture, Meng Huo had no remaining rationalisation. The release between captures is as important as the capture itself: it signals that the goal is conviction, not punishment, and it gives the counterpart the opportunity to arrive at the conclusion themselves rather than being forced to perform submission.

Sources: Chen Shou, Records of the Three Kingdoms 三国志 — "Zhuge Liang Zhuan" 諸葛亮傳 (280–290 AD); Luo Guanzhong, Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三国演义 (~1400 AD); Cialdini, Influence (1984); Pink, Drive (2009)

Steps

Step 1: Determine whether genuine commitment is actually required

Coercion is faster and cheaper than genuine commitment. The seven-captures approach is only justified when the cost of permanent enforcement exceeds the cost of the repeated demonstration cycle.

Ask: what happens when enforcement is withdrawn?

Situation	Coercion sufficient?	Hearts and minds required?
One-time transaction, no ongoing relationship	Yes	No
Ongoing relationship but counterpart is replaceable	Yes	Borderline
Counterpart controls resource or territory you cannot garrison permanently	No	Yes
Counterpart will interact daily with your team, customers, or community	No	Yes
Defection by the counterpart would damage your position even after enforcement	No	Yes

If coerced compliance is genuinely sufficient, use it — the seven-captures approach imposes a time and resource cost that is not warranted for a purely transactional outcome.

Step 2: Identify the counterpart's actual objection — what must they believe to commit genuinely?

Genuine commitment requires the counterpart to reach a specific internal conclusion. That conclusion is not "I must comply" — it is "this is correct." Identify the specific belief that must change:

• A founder resisting acquirer culture change: "your way is not better, just different"
• An open-source community resisting a license change: "you are extracting, not contributing"
• A sales prospect resisting closure: "the risk to me exceeds the benefit at this price"
• A regulatory body resisting compliance: "the rule is arbitrary, not protective"

Do not begin the demonstration cycle without knowing what conclusion the counterpart must reach independently. Every demonstration must be designed to address that specific objection — not to humiliate, not to demonstrate general superiority, but to systematically remove the specific rationalisations supporting the counterpart's current position.

Step 3: Demonstrate capability superiority — establish the reality of the situation

The first demonstration is not optional. Without a clear demonstration that the counterpart's current position is untenable, there is nothing for them to accept. The demonstration must be:

• Unambiguous: The counterpart must not be able to attribute the outcome to luck, a specific disadvantage, or a tactical error
• Complete: Do not stop short of full demonstration — a partial demonstration allows partial rationalisation
• Not punitive: The demonstration establishes reality; it does not punish. Punishment produces resentment that blocks genuine conviction

After the first demonstration, make the terms of genuine commitment explicit. Meng Huo was shown exactly why his position was untenable and what the terms of submission were. The counterpart must know what they are being asked to accept — and that the ask is based on logic, not arbitrary imposition.

Step 4: Release — allow the counterpart to withdraw and reflect

After each demonstration, release the counterpart fully. This is the mechanism that converts demonstration into conviction:

• The release signals that the goal is voluntary commitment, not enforced submission
• The counterpart must be seen to choose re-engagement, not to be trapped
• The interval between capture and return is where the counterpart processes the logic of the demonstration, tests alternative rationalisations, and — eventually — runs out of them

Do not modify the terms during the release period. Meng Huo knew what he was accepting each time. Changing the terms between rounds gives the counterpart cause to reject the new offer rather than to accept the underlying logic.

Step 5: Repeat — each cycle removes one rationalisation

Each capture-and-release cycle should address the counterpart's next rationalisation:

Cycle	What the counterpart attributes failure to	What the next demonstration removes
1	"I was unprepared / caught off guard"	Intentional, deliberate engagement
2	"My tactics were wrong — I can win with a different approach"	The new approach fails also
3	"I had the wrong allies — with better support I can win"	The allied approach fails also
N	All alternative rationalisations exhausted	The underlying position is untenable

Track which rationalisations remain. When the counterpart has no remaining alternative explanation for why their position is untenable, the next engagement will produce genuine conviction. The number of cycles required is not fixed — it depends on how many independent rationalisations the counterpart has, not on an arbitrary number like seven.

Step 6: Confirm the commitment is genuine before treating it as durable

The difference between genuine commitment and tactical submission under duress is verifiable:

• Genuine: The counterpart can articulate why your position is correct, not just that they accept it
• Genuine: The counterpart acts consistently with the commitment when enforcement is absent
• Tactical: The counterpart complies when monitored but defects when not
• Tactical: The counterpart cannot articulate the logic — they have memorised the required answer

Test for genuine commitment before withdrawing enforcement capacity. Meng Huo's seventh capture was not the end of Zhuge Liang's scrutiny — it was the point at which Meng Huo's own court pressed him to submit, because they too had accepted the logic. That social confirmation from the counterpart's own side is the most reliable signal that the commitment is genuine.

Rules

• Never begin the cycle without knowing the counterpart's specific objection. Demonstrations that do not address the actual objection produce frustration, not conviction. The counterpart must reach a specific internal conclusion — identify that conclusion first.
• The release must be genuine. A release that is conditional, monitored, or circumscribed signals that the goal is submission, not conviction, and will be read as such. Release the counterpart fully between each cycle.
• Do not modify the terms between cycles. The counterpart is testing whether the logic of your position is sound, not negotiating. Changing terms suggests the logic was not sound after all.
• Distinguish resentment from resistance. A counterpart who becomes increasingly resentful with each cycle is not approaching conviction — they are approaching permanent defection. Resentment signals that the demonstration is being experienced as punitive, not logical. Adjust the framing, not the substance.
• Do not confuse the end of resistance with genuine commitment. Exhaustion and genuine acceptance look similar in the short term. Test for genuine commitment before treating the cycle as complete.
• Stop the cycle if genuine commitment is not reachable. Some counterparts will not reach genuine commitment regardless of the number of cycles — their objection is not rational, or their identity is too bound up in resistance. Recognise when to shift from hearts-and-minds to a different approach (exit, replacement, or sustained enforcement).

Examples

Satya Nadella's Microsoft culture transformation (2014–2019): Nadella inherited a Microsoft defined by internal competition (stack ranking), hostility to open source, and market decline. He did not mandate the "growth mindset" culture — he demonstrated it through specific reversals: eliminating stack ranking, open-sourcing .NET Core, partnering with Linux, acquiring GitHub without changing its culture. Each demonstration addressed a specific engineer rationalisation ("Microsoft just says the right words but doesn't change"). By 2019, the culture transformation was sufficiently genuine that engineers enforced it themselves — the external demonstrations were no longer necessary because the internal conviction had taken hold.

Post-acquisition cultural integration: A technology company acquires a smaller competitor whose engineering team is resistant to the acquirer's development processes. Mandating compliance immediately produces surface compliance and silent defection — engineers follow the letter of the process while working around its intent. Instead: the acquirer runs one joint project using its process, with the acquired team observing the outcome. The outcome is demonstrably better. The acquired team identifies the specific elements they are willing to adopt. Another joint project applies those elements. By the fourth or fifth joint project, the acquired engineers are explaining the acquirer's process to their own new hires — they have adopted it genuinely because they traced the logic themselves.

Open-source community license enforcement: A developer tools company discovers a large commercial user deploying its GPL-licensed software without contributing improvements back. Legal enforcement (cease-and-desist) produces compliance under duress and immediate reputational damage. Instead: the company approaches the user, explains the logic of the license — why contribution creates the ecosystem that makes the tool valuable for everyone including the commercial user — and offers to help with the first contribution. The second large violation is addressed with the same approach. By the third engagement, the commercial user has joined the advisory board and is contributing actively — because they understand the ecosystem logic, not because they fear legal action.

Sales: conviction vs. pressure close: A SaaS company has a prospect who has evaluated the product positively but is stalling on commitment. A pressure close (discounts, urgency, fear of missing out) produces either a forced yes or a defensive no — and a forced yes produces a customer who will churn or demand concessions at renewal. Instead: the sales team asks specifically what belief is blocking the decision ("What would need to be true for this to be an obvious yes?"), addresses that specific concern with evidence, and allows the prospect time to test the conclusion. After two or three such cycles, the prospect who commits does so because they believe the product is correct for them — and renewals and expansions follow naturally.

Common Mistakes

Starting with enforcement: Deploying enforcement capacity as the first move produces a counterpart who is negotiating the terms of submission, not testing the logic of your position. Once enforcement is on the table, every subsequent action by the counterpart is instrumental (minimising the cost of the enforced outcome) rather than genuine (reaching conviction). The seven-captures approach requires that enforcement be demonstrated but not sustained — the release is what creates the space for genuine conviction.

Releasing with conditions: A conditional release — "you can go, but we're watching" — signals that the goal is surveillance, not conviction. The counterpart who is released conditionally has no opportunity to reach the conclusion themselves; they are operating under ongoing enforcement. Release must be complete.

Accepting performance as conviction: A counterpart who articulates the right words under pressure is not demonstrating conviction — they are demonstrating compliance. The test for genuine commitment is behaviour when enforcement is absent, not language when enforcement is present. Do not treat the cycle as complete until the commitment is tested under conditions where defection is possible.

Confusing repetition with progress: Seven is not a magic number. The number of cycles required depends on the number of distinct rationalisations the counterpart has, not on an arbitrary count. Running the same demonstration multiple times without addressing new rationalisations is not progressing toward genuine conviction — it is producing increasing resentment. Each cycle must address the next specific rationalisation.

Applying hearts-and-minds where coercion is sufficient: The approach is expensive in time and resources. Applying it to situations where genuine commitment is not required — a one-time transaction, a counterpart who will be replaced, a situation where enforcement is cheap and reliable — wastes resources that could be deployed where the approach's advantage actually matters.