ABSTRACT

Long before I knew anything about learning theory, I worked with a boss who habitually experimented, amongst his colleagues, with ways to handle tricky interpersonal situations. For instance, I recall him asking during the raging inflation of the 1970s ‘How do I start to tell the Managing Director that we need to raise salaries by 15 per cent?’ We would have then brainstormed a number of arguments that he could have used:

Tell him that we are losing key staff.

Tell him that we are in danger of having to make penalty payments for non-completion of contracts if we don’t recruit more engineers.

Ask him if he’s heard about the threatened strike by our lorry drivers.

Ask him if he’s thought by how much we will need to raise board members’ salaries.

The same boss was perfectly open to subordinates and colleagues ‘picking his brains’ over how they would tackle an impending problem. However, he would usually ask us first for our own ideas. I think that I learned more about interpersonal skills from working with this manager than from any other source.