5 ms·

I'd love to see the whole list, do you have it written down?

• anigbrowl 9y ago
  You won't get me to hand it over that easily XD Seriously though, I think a lot of sales and leadership skills are unethical forms of manipulation. By this I mean covert or implicit triggers to change behavior. I'm fine with bargaining strategies, even aggressive ones - I don't enjoy bargaining but it's honestly self-interested conflict, if you see what I mean. Where it stops being ethical is in the deliberate use of ambiguity to create informational asymmetry. In the example above, I'm very wary of propositions like 'we need to move on, will you take a gamble with me on this?' What exactly does the proposition of a gamble mean here? It has implications of win and loss, but the sense of urgency and the lack of clarity could mean that if the gamble is a win the proponent will take all the credit, whereas if it's a loss I'll be blamed for not having spotted the pitfalls. Of course you can't infer too much from a single example out of context, but the idea of 'privatizing the gains and socializing the losses' is sadly widespread and I have encountered many decision-makers who seem to operate on such a principle. Of course it's natural to want to take a decision and move on rather than get bogged down in many situations. When I'm in charge I like to do this by saying 'I want X, if it doesn't work I'll take responsibility and we'll do Y instead.' Obviously not a brilliant business strategy from many people's point of view :-)