I don't disagree with much of that at all. Intelligent wasn't some nod to the learned class or a differentiator, I meant it in a very general and generous way.

I don't disagree with much of that at all. Intelligent wasn't some nod to the learned class or a differentiator, I meant it in a very general and generous way. People quickly see through things like, "I understand that you feel that way, and I'll definitely take your comments on board. Moving forward let's see how we can collaborate in a manner in which we can all feel heard and empowered." Or rote-learned manufactured smalltalk. It's not an argument against generally finding things in common with people either, of course, just a recommendation to avoid the scripted stuff and get to the meat of it sooner. I do think that a lot of management advice would suffer from a replication crisis if it had a strong enough base for that to be coherent.