I think there’s a lot of great advice in here, and a useful exercise is to find equivalences - or equal but alternate ways to rephrase timeless advice x. One s

I think there’s a lot of great advice in here, and a useful exercise is to find equivalences - or equal but alternate ways to rephrase timeless advice x. One such equivalence that I found to the above is to focus on regarding others honestly. Often times there are barriers to seeing people for who they are, so if you can focus on identifying those barriers and confronting them with yourself, you then have a shot at regarding others truthfully. The theory goes that if you can do that, you don’t need to have so much managerial social engineering polish. You can just be polite and honest and everything will pretty much work. I have to say from personal experience that this has worked well with me. In the situations that it hasn’t it’s been due to others being caught in their own inability to regard me honestly. In such a case, I don’t think the smooth operating manager would fare any better or worse. So basically you can’t win at everything, but you can worry about yourself!