I was sitting outside enjoying my lunch sandwich in the sunny spring weather, listening to the fresh green leaves being tickled by the wind. Art Burshy sat down next to me, he opened something that looked like a lunchbox and indeed took out his sandwich. We sat for some time when Art started his story of the day, and although I felt I needed to get back to work I decided to stay and enjoy his story. And enjoying the sun warming my face.
Art explained what happened that morning.
Art had been in a meeting and a new senior management hire had entered the room to discuss some issues that needed to be solved.
Now, it is not a problem that someone new does not exactly know what he is talking about...he or she is new to the job and content, so that is logical.
Art does observe however some human behaviour that doesn't stop surprising him:
- people throwing out management bullshit; general slogans that have no meaning without understanding the detailed impacts
- them not resisting giving an opinion within 2 minutes for a subject that could not be solved by anyone in the last 2 years
- not respecting the experience, skills and knowledge of the others
- demanding people to follow without even taking a moment to listen and understand the views of other people.
Art has developed over time a few strategies to deal with such situations. He explained a few; and he told me that the solution chosen depends on the amount of shock that needs to be effectuated to eliminate the bullshit-blurt-manager.
1. test intelligence
Basically this is about stepping up and confronting the person with a sentence that is of a somewhat higher complexity. This can be achieved using terminology that people with a modest experience and lack of depth would have difficulty to understand. Examples? Correlation, Cognitive dissonance, dilemma, preventive-detective-repressive measures, conceptual challenge, etc.
Important is that the sentence actually make sense; you would not want to beat a bullshit person by adding to the bullshit...
2. ask until they confess they don' t know (or care) enough
Whenever someone prematurely comes up with an oversimplified solution, you just call their bluff.
Important is to be polite, ask open questions to force them into explaining, and then in the end force them into a closed question where they need to confess they do not know...
3. sarcasm
This one is less subtle but in cases where you see multiple people thinking "why can't the guy shut up and let us discuss the real issue" (unfortunately these blurt-cases seem to be more frequent for managers of the male species). In that situation a good sarcastic remark can eliminate the person from speaking. Be careful though, you must be sure the person is not able to get you fired within 5 minutes...
4. detect their weaknesses (opportunities for future manipulation)
This one is similar to option 1, but this time you stop before making them look stupid you stop; the purpose is to know heir weakness, and to have it ready for:
a. another time when the issue is more pressing, and requires you to make a fool out of the person
b. influencing the person on a more structural basis; which is even more effective when it is your boss.
After hearing these simple suggestions from Art Burshy I thought back of some moments in my career when these tactics would have come in handy; well, too late now for those moments in history. But I will look out for future occasions where they might be needed.
In the situation today that Art described, he ended up using tactic 1: testing intelligence.
And so he mentioned...
"unfortunately there is no linear correlation for confidence displayed and intelligence".
