In the 1990s, along with high-waisted ripped jeans, the Spice Girls (remember them?) and The Simpsons, we discovered soft power. The term soft power comes to us from the work of Harvard business professor Joseph Nye.

Nye saw soft power as the use of co-option and attraction, rather than force, to influence. The theory was first applied to international relations, where hard power is represented by the military and soft power relates to trade, diplomatic negotiation and building friendly relations.

Soft power influences through persuasion rather than coercion. In organisations it involves connection, cooperation, consultation and collaboration. Soft power ignites desire. In our personal lives it is about love, peace, and physical and emotional connectedness. You never want to go through a day without soft power at work and at home.

An awww moment

Recently I flew to Auckland from Melbourne. The flight had already been delayed and boarding was slow. Finally we had all settled in, when a flight attendant approached a man sitting in my row who had an empty seat beside him. She said, ‘Sir, would you mind moving to another seat at the back, also a middle seat?'

He looked at her, amazed. He was in his allocated seat, had stowed away his baggage, settled in, organised his entertainment settings, and now she was asking him to move. Could life be any more irritating?

She quickly added, ‘We have a couple on their honeymoon who are sitting apart, but if you moved into one of their seats, they could move here and sit together'.

Everyone around him sighed, ‘Awww’. He got up with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders and moved to the other seat. Soft power can sometimes be as simple as giving people a reason why. In his bestseller Start with Why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action, Simon Sinek presents a compelling case for what separates great leaders. They all start with why, not how or what.

In Hollywood terms, soft power is like Marilyn Monroe. Not that it is purely feminine, but it is beautiful, seductive and slow. Hard power is more like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

If hard power is about action and threat, soft power is about desire. If hard power is push, then soft power is pull.

Sometimes only soft power will do

On 31 October 2000 Singapore Airlines, one of the world's largest and most respected carriers, recorded its first and only fatal plane crash. The catastrophe killed 83 people. Singapore was traumatised.

The airline staged a press conference, with the families and friends of the deceased invited. The press conference was beamed live around Singapore and everyone stopped what they were doing to watch. Rick Clements, vice president of public affairs, took the lectern.

He was deeply apologetic and extended his sincerest condolences to the victims' families. He promised that the airline would analyse every element and process of the flight to ensure that such a disaster would never occur again.

In the audience, a man who had lost his brother in the crash began hurling abuse at Clements. Two security staff moved in quickly to remove him.

Clements quickly stepped away from the lectern, waved the security guards aside and walked over to the man, who was now sobbing openly. You could have heard a pin drop. Clements stood in front of the man with his hands open. And then he reached out and embraced him.

That embrace, that moment of soft power, reduced people in the room, including hardened journalists, to tears. It was the tipping point, when Rick Clements persuaded not just the people in the room, but an entire nation and an international audience, that they could all move forward together.

General Wesley Clark, a highly decorated US soldier and veteran of more than 30 years and a Rhodes scholar, was once challenged about hard power. Why would the US military, the epitome of hard power, dabble in soft power? General Clark wisely replied, ‘Because soft power gives you influence, far beyond the edges of hard power’.

Experiences with soft power

I grew up in Mumbai. Mumbai is a city on steroids, an urban jungle, astonishingly busy, moving at a manic pace and marked by an entrepreneurial ferocity. Mumbai worships commerce, and I worship Mumbai.

Mumbai trains are packed to the ceilings, human sardine cans. They have no doors. If you run for the train, hands will reach out to help you aboard. Soft power, in one of the hardest cities on earth, where strangers reach out to help each other.

Some leaders, such as Mother Teresa, understand soft power intuitively. She is paraphrased as saying, ‘I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there'.

Peace is one of the most potent symbols of soft power.

One of the most beautiful monuments on earth, and one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Taj Mahal, was inspired by the strongest, the most potent power we know. At the same time, it's the softest power we can bring to bear, a power that no amount of money can buy. It's the power of love.

More wars have been fought over it, more poems, songs, screenplays and books have been written on it than on any other subject. A Google search on the word love reveals more than 1.6 trillion results.

Love is so important for us as power players that chapter 9 is dedicated to it.

Martin Luther King, Jr said, ‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that'.

Love seems scarce in North Korea right now. Since March 2014 all male university students have been required by law to have their hair cut in the same style as supreme leader Kim Jong-un. So a dictator subjects hair, a symbol of the soft power of beauty and attraction, to the hard power of military conformity and compliance.

Hair, food and culture are all symbols of soft power, as are the power of touch, peace and love. Money may make the world go round in the world of Cabaret, but it is soft power that makes the world go round in our lives.

You never want to be without soft power. At work it's connecting, consulting, collaborating; at home it's a hug, a helping hand, love.

Softness isn't weakness; it's strong power without the sharp edges.

Soft power to influence

Walking my dog along a public footpath in Melbourne, I came across this sign: ‘Dog guardians, please pick up after your dogs. Thank you. Attention dogs, grrr, bark, woof. Good dog!'

You know there is hard power behind this message — the threat of fines and prosecutions to enforce community standards of behaviour. The people who crafted this sign are trying to influence our behaviour with soft power, appealing to our better selves, our empathy and sense of humour. Who wouldn't want them to succeed?

In business, you probably think logic informs people. Sometimes it does, but not always. You also probably expect people to change their behaviour based on logic. When they don't, do you become frustrated?

If logic fully governed the way you behaved, you would always obey speed limits, eat healthily and exercise properly every day. You would give up smoking and do only what was of clear benefit to you and your community. Reality tells you otherwise.

As a businessperson, you make daily choices through your communications. Are you trying only to inform — to lay out facts impartially so the recipient can reach an unbiased decision? Or are you trying to influence behaviour and encourage action, choices or thinking that directly benefit you as well as the target of your influence?

If the latter, then your next choice is to decide how soft power can work for you.

Soft power, slooow results

Soft power makes the world go round, but soft power is also slow power. If hard power is a microwave, soft power is a slow cooker. It takes time to percolate through collaboration, consultation and connection. It takes meetings, meetings and more meetings.

Effective influence gets people who turn up to turn on. Hard power in the end turns them off, while soft power turns them on, but slooowly.

Soft power is hard to do well. Trust and respect are prerequisites. It also depends on reciprocity, with the other person responding fully and positively to your approach.

I work with leaders attempting to make the switch from hard power to soft power. One of them, who has spent a lifetime in the trenches with hard power, once said to me, ‘Making the switch to soft power is like turning a nun into an exotic dancer!'.

If hard power is a fist, soft power is a fingertip. Because it's subtle, soft power can also sometimes be misunderstood or miss the mark.

We have met Shanaka Fernando, the inspiring founder of Melbourne's Lentil as Anything restaurants, which are built on the soft power of trust. In his Melbourne 2012 TEDx talk Fernando shared his story.

A Buddhist, Shanaka had been looking for enlightenment in his adopted city of Melbourne, Australia. When his Buddhist teacher instructed him to live in a tent, he left home and set up his tent on the foreshore of St Kilda, one of Melbourne's busiest and most popular beach suburbs.

Inevitably he ran foul of the police and council officials. After a few weeks he called his Buddhist teacher and shared the frustrations of his journey towards enlightenment through tent life.

His Buddhist teacher replied, ‘You silly man … I never said live in a tent, I said live with intent!'

Leaders worry that using soft power may make them appear weak or vulnerable. Hard power can bring you results, but it can also hurt your chances of long-term success. Soft power makes you and the world revolve, but it is slow, subtle and sometimes hard to do well.

Could there be something beyond hard and soft power that would work for your context as your situations change? In the next chapter we will explore story power.