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>I've personally never learned this skill of persuasiveness, The few people I've met like this were pretty much office bullies. There's no mythical silver tong

>I've personally never learned this skill of persuasiveness, The few people I've met like this were pretty much office bullies. There's no mythical silver tongued nice guy. When someone dominates the meeting and shoves his agenda into your face and argues until you're exhausted, well, that works because he's not worth fighting. The question is do you want to be a person like that? Pretty much anyone can be taught to be a Gordon Gekko or a GlenGarry Glen Ross's Blake. I don't take my job remotely seriously enough or care to modify how I act for crap like this. I kinda pity those who do. They seem to get their validation and emotional fulfillment only from work. The above might be overly critical, but I think everyone hits a point in their career where they have to decide where they will draw the line in terms of personal modification to get ahead. There are so many more asshole-ish ways I could be at work that would definitely lead me to a higher level of success. I just consider it against my moral system to be a person like that and think its absurd that we have to do this constant study of "how to get ahead" just to make a decent living. Threads like this just depress me. Work life shouldn't make this kind of demand on our personal and internal lives. I think if everyone pushed back more against employers, we'd all be happier, instead we have this rat-race that we accept as perfectly normal and rational. Its not.

Jemaclus 10y ago
Well, bullying is a little more overt than what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the kind of person who is so good at persuasiveness that they convince you without you even realizing it. That's a totally different skillset from "argue until your opponent is exhausted and gives up". I had a coworker once that was pretty good at this. I'd go into a meeting with a strategy that I was positive would work, and I'd walk out of that meeting with his strategy -- and somehow I was convinced it was even better than my original one! (Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't, but I never resented him if it wasn't -- because he always somehow made it seem like it was the natural choice, not just his choice.) Anyway, that's the kind of thing i'm talking about. It's easy to talk over people and beat them over the head til they do what you want. I'm more interested in getting everyone on my side and excited about it.

Jemaclus 10y ago

Well, bullying is a little more overt than what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the kind of person who is so good at persuasiveness that they convince you without you even realizing it. That's a totally different skillset from "argue until your opponent is exhausted and gives up". I had a coworker once that was pretty good at this. I'd go into a meeting with a strategy that I was positive would work, and I'd walk out of that meeting with his strategy -- and somehow I was convinced it was even better than my original one! (Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't, but I never resented him if it wasn't -- because he always somehow made it seem like it was the natural choice, not just his choice.) Anyway, that's the kind of thing i'm talking about. It's easy to talk over people and beat them over the head til they do what you want. I'm more interested in getting everyone on my side and excited about it.