When we do work in places like China and Vietnam, research tends to be really effective as a way of getting change, whereas in more open places, mobilization and the creation of public pressure through the media often seem to be the things we try.

There's a tendency for people who believe passionately in something to be so convinced of their rightness that if they just repeat themselves a lot at the person, that will convince them. And that hasn't worked on things like immigration or trade deals.

People are saying, "I have a right to my opinion. Don't just keep condescending, telling me what to think." There's something slightly liberating about that, but also it lends itself to being taken advantage of, because in come the demagogues.

The question, "When did you last listen to a poor person properly and try to understand what's going on inside their own experience?" enables you to connect.

I have to be sure of myself - in a conditional way, always being open to the possibility that I'm wrong.

Until you have looked in depth at the system and found out where women in Egypt are not being cut through female genital mutilation, or where kids in Vietnam are not malnourished, or where hospitals in America are getting rid of the superbugs anyway - unless you have that level of curiosity about what's going on without you, you will always come in with your great new recipe and just ignore what's going on, and that will make you much less effective at what you're trying to achieve.

When we do work in places like China and Vietnam, research tends to be really effective as a way of getting change, whereas in more open places, mobilization and the creation of public pressure through the media often seem to be the things we try.