sarcasmThe time of objectivity is fading out. Meritocracy is now a rude word. Metrics in management will soon be considered as harassment. Productivity is already a false objective. It’s time to start taking advantage of this era of nonsense. The era of impostors is coming! Don’t miss the opportunity to become a great one. Here is a quick summary of key techniques to make you highly successful in any argument you may have in your flat democratic organizations of the future without any skills, knowledge, education, or real achievements. Just pure love and emotions.
“Trust Me!” Don’t even try to prove anything by numbers. This is an outdated technique. They will only treat you like a weird person, at best. Rationality is not a sign of professionalism nowadays. Instead, you should hit them with a straight “trust me” and expect no answer back. How can they reply to that anyway? Can they really say that they don’t trust you? Such toxic behavior no serious organization would tolerate! We are supposed to trust each other since we are in the same team. And not just in the same team! We have to trust everybody in the world—this is what good human beings do! Thus, no numbers, no facts, no proofs—just a pure and simple “trust me” and you will be the king of any argument.
“I Know What I’m Doing!” Do they still think that you are not convincing enough with your “Trust Me”? That won’t help them. Tell them that you worked five years in Oracle and also four years in Intel. This automatically means that you are right. Can they argue back with “We don’t care where you worked before”? That’s too harsh, they won’t do it. They must respect their colleagues! Especially those who worked in Oracle and Intel.
“Do You Think I’m Stupid?!” If they continue arguing, ask this question, looking them right in the eye. What do they answer? They will apologize. The smartest of them will beg for forgiveness and then run away from the meeting room. This question doesn’t have a right answer. No matter what they say, you win. If they start with “No”, your point is proven. If they start with “Yes”… well they won’t start with “Yes”. They are good and kind people.
“I Will Quit If You Keep Talking Like This!” This is your last line. After it they won’t have anything in their hands. They will have to stop right there. And they will be afraid to get into a fight with you ever again. Your position will be solid for many months ahead Especially in a big company, where retention rate is the most important indicator of success. If you quit because of an argument—your opponent will lose a lot of karma points. “I will quit” is the most powerful weapon in your arsenal. However, use it carefully, only after you massage them with the other three tactics.
Your ultimate goal in your career as a great impostor should be the situation where nobody argues with you. They must be scared of verifying your results, questioning your conclusions, validating your points, and even asking you difficult questions. They must know that by doing so they will immediately become “toxic and negative people”—your team doesn’t appreciate such behavior.
They must understand that real experts are very fragile and can easily be offended. They must learn the lesson: doubting the opinion of an expert is simply rude. The best they can do with you, an expert, is to tell you how great you are and how much they respect your contribution. Anything aside from that you must treat as an offense and react immediately.
This is how you tame them.
