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Re: today's articles

At 11:05 AM 10/28/2003, Kestutis Kveraga wrote:
Hopefully, the swami won't do too much damage (except to Grousbeck et al.'s
wallet). If Niednagel's as cunning as I think he is, he simply tries to divine
what Ainge (or any other executive he's "advising") thinks about a player or a
deal, and then repeats it back to him, presenting it as his own opinion and
lacing it with the pseudo-scientific jargon he stole from the famous cuckoo
Carl Jung. The enthralled executive likes what he hears and says to himself,
"wow, this guy really knows his stuff". It's a simple psychological trick -
people like when their opinions are shared by someone else, even if they're not
fully aware that it's their own opinion. Then Niednagel takes credit when his
client turns out to be right, blames it on the poor schmuck when he's wrong
(giving a new meaning to the phrase "blaming the victim"), and his legend lives
on.The good news is, Ainge MIGHT be doing his own thinking; Niednagel just
serves as a psychological teddy bear for him. The alternative is too scary to
contemplate.

D'ya think? I dunno, I actually don't think it's completely intentional con. I'm pretty sure Niednagel's got a dose of true believer syndrome, where he really believes his own schtick so much that it HAS to be true and that's why any evidence to the contrary has to be flawed, with excuses created accordingly. And of course, with Briggs Meyer and all that, it's a currently very hot approach, with a lot of others saying similar things.

That being said, I'm not too worried about its effect on Danny, who has impressed me much more than I've expected since we brought him in. Every manager I've had has had some equivalent in terms of a concept they've been impressed with, but to the good ones it was just one among many tools they used to evaluate, with the ability to evaluate well the real key. One of the things I do as a side line is review manuscripts for a small publisher - to do it well I have to be able to evaluate the difference between a book I dislike because it's a bad book for reasons that include taste and one I dislike just because it just isn't to my taste. I think I can do that pretty well, and I think Danny's capable of doing the same with whatever Niednagel feeds him.

Kim