The "M" word--interesting idea... however, I guess I don't have the same
aversion to it. Seems to me that most everything we do is "manipulation"
in the sense that we are trying to influence someone to do something--
otherwise, why would we be communicating in the first place? The issue
also doesn't appear to be how "intentional" it is, since most of what we
do, at least at the time we do it, is largely driven by unconscious
motivation and habit patterns.
I think the problem centers on the ethics of the event, especially who is
it serving. If it if wholly self serving and to the detriment of the
client (system), then it has a negative connotation; if it serves both,
then it is considered more positive. The question to me is more one of how
much responsibility we take for what we do (unconscious or not), what the
outcomes are (positive or negative), and how open to be about our motives
(when we happen to be aware of them).
As an example of the point on the unconscious and rationale: A few years
ago I was at a hypnosis workshop with Joe Barber (master Ericksonian
hypnotist in clinical practice in San Diego) who gave a marvelous
demonstration of indirect hypnotic intervention. Sometime later he was
asked what his rationale was. He followed with an erudite explanation of
his strategy--then quickly followed by admitting that his rationale was
what he "thought" he was doing, but that it might bear no relationship to
what he did or why he really did it. It struck me that our rationale
(manipulative or direct, conscious or unconscious) may be irrelevant much
of the time and bear little relationship to the behavior in question.
Perhaps we attribute too much to intention and control, when in fact we
operate as a result of a much larger pattern acting on us (of which we are
a part).
Finally, if manipulation was as effective as it's cracked up to be, we'd
all be getting more of what we want, and I would't be typing this on such
an archaic computer.
Dave
From: "david swenson" <dswenson@css1.css.edu>
On Fri, 31 Mar 1995 21:39:08 +0001 (ES, Jim Michmerhuizen wrote:
>
>On Wed, 29 Mar 1995 jack@his.com wrote LO606:
>[ bunch of stuff snipped... ]
>> issue) and all his/her energy will move to support change rather than
>> oppose it. The executives immediately smelled something inauthentic in
>> this approach, and labeled it "manipulative". We were unable to redesign
>
>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.
[...quote of previous msg trimmed by your host...]
David X. Swenson Ph.D. (dswenson@css1.css.edu)
Associate Professor of Management
College of St. Scholastica
Duluth, MN 55811
(218)723-6476