Guy Kawasaki is the former chief evangelist of Apple, co-founder of the “online magazine rack” Alltop.com, and the best-selling author of The Art of the Start and Reality Check. In the following interview, Guy discusses his most recent book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions, as well as the key to enchanting your employees – even in the face of bad news - and how you don’t have to keep company with rock stars to enjoy life’s little perks (although it certainly doesn’t hurt).

I wanted to ask you first about your previous experience at Apple. In your bio, you describe your role there as chief evangelist. What exactly does a chief evangelist do? I was an Apple Fellow. An Apple Fellow is a position that is not a line position. The Fellow was an engineer and was supposed to sit around inventing the future in the technical sense, but I’m not technical, so I would sit around and figure out marketing innovations. They wanted to ensure the “Mac cult” was still happy at a time when the Macintosh cult and the Macintosh market was seen as imploding. So, I didn’t really have a team reporting to me. I was just supposed to be this icon representing faith and belief in the Macintosh way.

You were one of the earliest adopters of Twitter, and you say yourself in your book that it’s one of the best marketing tools around today. How did you find Twitter, and how did you know it would turn into this phenomenon? Well, the first reaction of any intelligent person to Twitter was, “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.” [Laughs.] And that was my reaction, too.  But the light went on for me when I learned about power of searching Twitter. The first thing an egomaniac like I would do is search my name, right? I saw all these people talking about me, and so I started to get into these conversations with them. The second thing you do is start searching for your product. In my case, that was Alltop, so I started searching for people searching Alltop, and I started conversing with them. That’s when it hit me: “Wow, I can proselytize my product and my personal brand using Twitter. It’s fast, it’s free, it’s ubiquitous…What am I missing here?” Because [with Twitter] you couldn’t be further away from traditional marketing, which was slow, expensive and limited. Hallelujah! I was born to tweet!

There are a lot of stories out there about both individuals and companies running into trouble for things they’ve said or done on Twitter. Have you ever had a bad Twitter experience? I’d say that if you haven’t had a bad Twitter experience – for example, no one called you out, no one accused you of being a spammer, whatever – you’re probably not using Twitter right. It’s just like good marketing and advertising: if somebody isn’t complaining about your advertising or marketing, it must not be good advertising or marketing.  You know, if Mother Theresa were on Twitter, someone would be complaining that she’s not Catholic enough, and someone would be that she’s too Catholic. If you try to make everyone happy, you won’t be using Twitter right, basically.

How do you know that you’re enchanting? In other words, how would someone who read this book and started applying these principles necessarily know that they’re working? What’s the litmus test? Well, pretty soon, you’ll start getting upgrades to first class, and hotels will be giving you better rooms. I have a test at the end of the book, and there’s sort of extra credit section where you can see, “Are you able to get some of these things?” Not that the purpose of Enchantment is to get upgrades to first class, but the world is a more pleasant place if you’re an enchanting person, because you’re making the world a more enchanting place for other people. I think there’s a karmic scoreboard.

What gave you the idea to write Enchantment? I’ve been evangelizing products and services since 1983, and in order to evangelize something, you need to be enchanting. And I wanted to document those skills that make someone enchanting. Now, to be perfectly clear, I don’t think I do everything in the book, but I’m saying, “This is what you should do,” not necessarily, “This is what Guy does,” because I’d be a hypocrite. The bottom line is that [enchantment] is a skill set. I’m trying to teach people a skill set at a very tactical level. I love Malcolm Gladwell, but at the end of the day [after reading The Tipping Point], you know that in order to be successful, you need to tip, but you don’t know how to tip. I don’t spend 200 pages telling you why to be enchanting, I tell you how to be enchanting. That’s because I come from a business background. I’m all about the how.

When you talk about creating win-win situations in Enchantment, you tell a story about Steve McQueen’s first wife working her way to the front of the line at service station bathroom by dropping the names of Steve McQueen, Paul Newman and James Garner, with whom she happened to be traveling. So what’s your advice for how ordinary people (who aren’t in the habit of traveling with an entourage of celebrities) create a “win-win” for themselves in that – or any other – type of situation? [Laughs] Well, there have been lots of studies that show that if you simply give a reason for something, the word “because” is very powerful. So one tip, if you’re ever in line and want to skip ahead (and I’m not suggesting you lie): if you provide some reason for why you need to be in front, people are more likely to oblige.  Or imagine if you’re standing in the line at the TSA, and you go up to someone and say, “Can I go in front of you?” There’s a big difference between that and saying, “Can I go in front of you because I’m going to miss my flight?” I don’t know if that’s necessarily enchanting, but that answers your question.

I want to talk now about enchantment from the employer perspective, because that’s something to which you dedicate a chapter in your book. What’s the key to enchanting your employees? When it comes to enchanting your employees, the most important thing is not money, but to provide what I call MAP, which stands for Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose. Mastery means that you allow your employees to master new skills and to become better at what they do. Autonomy means you allow them to work without being micromanaged. And finally, purpose means to allow them to work at a function that has higher purpose than simply making money. So if you said to most of your employees, “Here, I’m going to let you improve your skill set, you’re going to be working autonomously, and we’re doing something important for the world,” I guarantee you, you’ll enchant them.

Is there a way to be enchanting when delivering bad news? Well, yeah. Part of being enchanting is being honest and trustworthy, so there are instances of delivering bad news, and trustworthiness is everything. Enchantment isn’t about always delivering good news, it’s about being likeable and honest.

Aside from just learning how to be enchanting, I’d like your thoughts on how to be enchanted. Given the psychological toll this recent recession has had on this country as a whole – we see a lot of people who are disenchanted from their jobs, burned out, depressed, etc. – it seems we could all use a little enchantment right now. How do you allow yourself be enchanted at a time like this? I think most of it is just keeping an open mind. Having an open mind is a quality of being enchanting. It’s close-minded people who don’t allow themselves to be enchanted. And because they’re close-minded, they also won’t be enchanting. Close-mindedness is the opposite of enchanting. And, in my opinion, it’s just easier to live life open-minded. If everything aggravates you, and you’re always trying to force your beliefs on other people, that’s just an aggravating way to live. Life is hard enough without trying to run other people’s lives.

Guy Kawasaki is the author of nine other books, including the international bestseller The Art of the Start, as well as Reality Check and The Macintosh Way. His most recent book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions, comes out March 8. Stay tuned for my review of Enchantment later this week.