Finally, the 'm' word. Haven't we all been waiting for it to show up? We
all know what the word *means*, but that doesn't account for the range of
interactions it's used to refer to. It's one of those second- or third-
person verbs, easier to recognize from the outside when "you" or "they"
are doing it, than from the inside when "I" or "we" are. Has any teaching
or training book or course since Machiavelli ever explicitly recommended
"manipulation" as a management technique?
And then, the last time I thought about this - a couple of years ago - it
occurred to me that when I want to broach a difficult topic with my wife,
and want to get a mutual decision to go my way but to forestall, somehow,
a thorough discussion, I might spend hours thinking about what to say and
when to say it. And then it occurred to me that this too is manipulative.
What's a man to do?
What's particularly interesting about your story is that it also relates
to an earlier thread about names. It seems as though your intentions, in
the story, were of the best. Is it possible that you had not completely
rendered your methods "nameless" (in the sense of my post from a couple of
weeks ago)? Residual self-consciousness, from a set of thoughts that have
not yet been perfectly assimilated into action, can leave you far more
"transparent" than you would think. This may be what the executives saw
in you. There may have been inauthenticity too, of course; but that is at
least a different issue.
Regards
jamzen@world.std.com
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. . . . . . . . . . Actions speak louder than words . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . but not as clearly . . . . . . . . . .