Replying to LO28661 --
Hello Alan, dear reader,
The 'therapeutic lie' is very well phrased.
A few weeks ago i was introduced to the work of a philosopher who works in
organizations and he concluded - amongst others - that managers are the
people in an organisation who are most skilled in the use of "wartaal". It
is called gibberish in English, but i think i'm going to call it "Duble
("do_able") Dutch": it is a "foreign" language that exploits double
meaning to get dubious results: fear, uncertainty, manipulation, etc. On
the surface however it looks like your natural language - what ever that
is - but is had been "dubbed" by Duble Dutch. The issue seems to be that
Duble Dutch is so engrained into the culture of an organisation that most
of the time nobody notices, or - perhaps better, Duble Duthc is uses to
hide the use of Duble Dutch: double Duble Dutch, - it is the true prose of
organisations ("I've been talking Duble Dutch all my life without
knowing?"). As you have shown in your mail: it is not possible to discuss
the use of Duble Dutch because of Duble Dutch. Any attempt to do so will
lead to evasive maneuvers, etc.
Is there a way out: yes and no. No, because even when you admit you're
using Duble Dutch it might be uses as a token that you're only admitting
this to cover of that benefitted from its use, to admit now and exploit
later etc.. Yes, because now we've beceome aware, we can start searching
for clues and build the Duble Dutch Grammar. Than we can design training
and consultancy in Duble Dutch ("What and how, Duble Dutch").
And there is another "escape": behaviour. You cannot not behave. As you
told in your mail: the branch manager made sure he was elsewere. This fact
cannot be denied, only the explanation ("you're not willing to discuss
your own deficiencies") can be denied.
Best,
Jan Lelie
Alan Cotterell wrote:
> Almost every training seminar I have attended in the Australian public
> service, has been typified by the 'therapeutic lie'. While working for
> Telstra I attended a training course on TQM. When it came time to discuss
> leadership, the branch manager made sure he was elsewhere. He had no
> interest whatsoever in analysing his own deficiencies, however everyone
> else was expected to do this.
--With kind regards - met vriendelijke groeten,
Jan Lelie
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