Sunday, September 19, 2010

Flattery

I just read an article in The Economist about how to become a CEO.  The first point on the list of things to do was to learn how to 'manage upwards' effectively - with hefty doses of flattery.  It referred to research by Jennifer Chatman, of the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted experiments in which she tried to find a point at which flattery became ineffective. It turned out there wasn’t one.

I guess I knew that.  But it was still sobering to see it had been confirmed by scientific research. It also brings a suitable sense of scepticism to the compliments I received from time to time when I was a CEO.  I always took that praise with a grain of salt.  Or did I?

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