How to One-Up Your Colleagues: “The Hospiter”
In One-Upmanship, Stephen Potter includes a section on Committeeship, or “the art of coming into a discussion without actually understanding a word of what anybody is talking about.” If you’re like most people, this represents up to 40% of organizational interactions.
The key to proper “committeeship,” according to Potter, is a consistent approach. He writes, “[This] entry can only be made effective if the speaker decides what sort of person he, the speaker, is, and sticks to it.”
Of his eight approaches to committeeship, the “hospiter” is my favorite, because the hospiter’s interventions require no talent.
Hospiter Parlettes, many of them silent, are as follows:
(a) When rival committeeman is speaking:
i. Look sadly at boots (it is best to have actual boots).
ii. Doodle and continue to doodle with the faintest possible deepening of the corners of the mouth. Try to suggest that you see something irresistibly inappropriate or comic in what your rival is saying, but wild horses wouldn’t make you spoil his little speech by mentioning it now. This delicate and highly expert ploy was first described to me independently by H. Whyte and F. Anderson, and named by the latter the ‘Mona Lisa Ploy’.
(b) When rival committeeman has finished speaking, say:
i. ‘Well, we sort of came to a decision about that, didn’t we, after a fairly full discussion last week, a rather good discussion, I thought. I mean we agree.’
Or alternatively say:
ii. ‘Well’ (pause and look hard at chairman, as if only you and he know this), ‘there are definite reasons why that is going to become impracticable fairly shortly, aren’t there?’
Or say:
iii. ‘Yes, but we have got to think of the effect on the ordinary nice people we meet in the street. They are not terribly brainy, but they are quite nice people really.’
If rival makes obviously good bold and original point, counter it
(i) by saying: ‘Yes, I think that's a good idea—I wonder if we were right to discard it five years ago when there was all that row.’ Or
(ii) If you can only think of something conventional and commonplace as alternative, make your flat suggestion in an ‘of course I'm completely mad’ voice (flair-ship) and add: ‘I know you’ll think I’m making a fool of myself, but I think some of us are bound to make fools of ourselves before anything really happens, don’t you?’ Or
(iii) simply say: ‘Yes, but that isn't really what we’re discussing, is it?’
Thanks for reading!
Charles
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