Your Buddy Boss will treasure the one-on-one time with you. When she suggests you meet once a month instead of only once a year, smile and ask if you get a raise every month. She might be so happy you want

to spend time with her that she'll come up with the extra coinage. How bad could it be? Your Buddy Boss wants to interact with you constantly. There shouldn't be anything new to discuss at a performance review after being joined at the hip to your Buddy Boss all year long. To drive your Buddy Boss into an elated frenzy, wear similar clothing and act excited as you point out how you match. What a surprise! What a wonderful coincidence! It must mean you're meant to be friends forever. When it gets too thick, go out for some oxygen. Don't try the emergency phone call about your brother in intensive care. A Buddy Boss will beat you to the hospital. Just act delighted with everything your Buddy Boss says and does and, the moment you're out of her sight, do whatever spins your crank. Prepare all year long for a performance review from your Buddy Boss by:

■ Keeping everything you do as friendly as possible—take every opportunity to make all activities seem as socially driven as possible without embarrassing yourself in front of the cynics in the company. Arrange your working space so that she can observe you from her office or regular routes of travel. The higher your literal visibility, the more opportunity to wave. That's right, wave. You can often keep her out of your space by waving across the office. That contact will be enough for her if she's just needing an acknowledgement fix.

■ Using body language that features friendly, welcoming gestures that say, "It's so good to see you"—to assure her you are having pleasant thoughts. The more time that passes without reassurance, the more she will be nagged by doubt. It doesn't matter that you've been friendly, even giddy, every time she encountered you for the past 15 years; if she has received no assurance in the last 15 minutes, you might want to wave. Tell her you'll be thinking about her (at least that project of hers) whenever you leave the office and make sure you give a visual or verbal reassurance that all is peachy each time you return.

■ Using voice mail and e-mails to reassure her that she is in your thoughts—like the Sadistic Boss, your Buddy Boss doesn't need the full measure of her remedy as much as the regular appearance. A stitch in time will save nine. A brief, preemptive e-mail or voice mail, might keep your Buddy Boss out of your office long enough to get some real work done.

■ Saying up front that special projects sound like fun and will give you more opportunities to report in on a regular basis—as always, you are using special projects to write your own ticket as far as workload is concerned. You can also use them to create social interactions that will please your Buddy Boss. Now that's catching two birds in one net.

■ Celebrating success openly with your peers and your Buddy Boss—she will love nothing better than a reason to party. Celebrate in the office as much as possible to reduce the possibility that she'll wind up at your place. She'll join in any festivities available. It's up to you to design the festivities in such a way you can satisfy her insatiable need for social acceptance and have a life of your own. As with all other boss types, you're managing them to the extent of your influence. If you don't intentionally remain a step ahead, resign yourself to accepting whatever your boss comes up with according to his or her own devices.

■ Making wardrobe and workspace decorating choices in ways that indicate maximum affection for your Buddy Boss—like naming the softball and bowling teams after her on the jerseys. Pictures on your walls, the departmental bulleting boards, and around the coffee area should display your Buddy Boss with you and every other team member you can squeeze into the frame. Like the e-mail and voice mail assurances, these pictures are a visual reassurance that your Buddy Boss is constantly on the hearts and minds of her best friends/employees. Consider doing these things, within reason, for 12 months. If your diagnosis is correct and your boss is as emotionally needy as the day is long, you will receive the best marks possible on your performance review. If you have included her physically, via written and spoken word, as well as in visual references, she can't help but feel included. And why wouldn't you want your work environment to be as friendly as possible? It falls to you to get anything worthwhile accomplished. But what else is new?

The Idiot Boss Review

If the sample performance review in the HR manual looks identical to the review your Idiot Boss presents to you it's because he copied it straight across. Unfortunately, the sample review has average rankings across the board. I-Bosses don't understand the concept behind performance reviews any more than they understand the concept behind inflatable tires. Bosses do performance reviews, people put air in their tires, and idiots don't understand the need for either. They know it's better to have air in the tires than not. They figure it's better to have performance reviews than not. And performance reviews are a break in the boring office routine. Even if performance issues are discussed only once a year for 30 minutes, I-Bosses welcome the diversion. Left to invent their own diversions they usually create redundant busy work resulting in zombie land. You can actually convince your I-Boss to improve your performance review rankings if you make a game out of it. Point out how he can give you a larger raise if he elevates your rankings. Tell him how he can get a raise by suggesting the same thing to his boss. When he does and is slapped silly, he'll be too embarrassed to confess to his boss that he gave you a raise when you asked for it. Never mention the unfortunate incident again or bring up the red handprint on his cheek. If he tries to bring it up, develop instant amnesia. He'll drop it soon enough. Throughout the year, always have your I-Boss's latest ridiculous project nearby in case he unexpectedly drops in on you. Pull the bogus papers over the real materials or football pool you're working on and fire a preemptive comment to cut off any project he's cooked up to amuse himself. Spout something about what a terrific idea it was to rewrite last year's mid-range plan and that you should have it finished for him in a month or so. Prepare all year long for a performance review from your Idiot Boss by:

■ Keeping everything you do as overstated as possible— take every opportunity to make all activities seem driven by your allegiance to the corporate philosophy, as he understands it. Without embarrassing yourself in front of your peers, arrange your working space to reflect the type of corporate empire the idiot imagines he's in charge of.

■ Using body language that reflects the type of follower your Idiot Boss imagines his leadership style will attract. If he feels reengineering means treating everyone like piston rods, walk and talk like piston rods. Hopefully, he'll fancy himself a leader of self-actualized, creative, and enthusiastic people. That way you can be yourself, except for the part about giving lip service to his hairbrained ideas.

■ Using voice mail and e-mails to reassure him that his vision is being realized—like the Machiavellian Boss— your Idiot Boss probably sees his role in the universe as something other than the way the universe sees him. He doesn't need the full measure of his remedy as much as the appearance that his imagination is reality. • Explaining repeatedly how special projects are a way to accelerate his agenda (and shape your workload more the way you want it). As always, you can create special projects or reframe your existing projects to give the appearance that his agenda is comprehensive and meaningful.

■ Celebrating success openly with your peers and your Idiot Boss—the key is to boast and brag that what you've accomplished is what he imagines is important. What you accomplish might (and should) be important and consistent with the overall goals and objectives of the organization. You'll even want to make sure people who matter are appropriately informed of what you've done. However, what your boss thinks was accomplished should be tailored to his world view to keep him from asking you to do it over again.

■ Making wardrobe and workspace decorating choices based on the cultural mores of the empire in your Idiot Boss's imagination—like naming the softball and bowling teams "The Cheese Movers," "The Saw Sharpeners," or "The Outside the Box Bunch." What do you have to lose? Are you really that good at bowling and softball anyway? Consider doing these things, within reason, for 12 months. If your diagnosis is correct and your boss is an idiot, you will receive the best marks possible on your performance review. If you have convincingly created the illusion that his imaginative empire is alive and well, he can't help but feel important. You should want your Idiot Boss to feel important. While it's true he's not, any doubt he has about his importance will wind up as burdensome, unnecessary, and even ridiculous work on your desk. Preemption is key to applying all of these techniques to all of these boss types_

The Good Boss Review

A Good Boss will have engaged you every day throughout the year about organizational goals, objectives, and your role in attainment. You will have nothing new to talk about at your performance review except how she is scheming to get you more money and better working conditions. If she has truly been a Good Boss, she will have orchestrated an effective and well-balanced team approach to organizational performance objectives. Many larger organizations appropriate a fixed amount of funds to be distributed as raises in each department. This is done independently of the performance review process. The performance review is simply a means to slice up the pie. I like the 360-degree approach myself, and a Good Boss will attempt to gather and consider peer input to balance and validate her own, even if it's not the official approach of the HR department. Your Good Boss knows productivity and loyalty are tied to a sense of ownership and a sense of ownership increases proportionately with participation. If team members can actually influence how salary and wage increases are distributed, they will feel empowered. The bond between Good Bosses and their team members is the strongest of any power disparity dyad because the boss has earned the team members' trust by sharing power. Although Good Bosses share power, they remain ultimately responsible to the point of taking the heat when team members screw up. As leadership author and lecturer Danny Cox (Seize the Day) says: "If the team hits a home run, a true leader points to them and says, `They did it.' If the wheels come off the project, a true leader says, `I'm responsible.'" If you have a Good Boss rejoice, thank your Higher Power, be grateful, and pass it forward. A performance review from a Good Boss is probably the only one you'll feel truly good about signing.

Like Likes Like

Whether we're right or wrong, hard workers or lazy, smart or intellectually challenged, the fact remains that a boss won't give a raise to someone she doesn't like. It's human nature and I don't advise betting against it. Observe and determine what boss type you're working for and start developing your plan from there. Reflect to your boss what makes her happy. Spend your energy making her feel comfortable. Get all you can from the cards you were dealt and only then think about more. You can ignore the nature of the beast, work diligently with a sense of integrity despite your boss, and hope she will recognize and reward you. I tried that for most of my working life to little avail. To keep frustrating myself long after I should have known better means I clung to at least some of my stupidity after I asked God to remove it. Be real I rarely have difficulty working with or relating to anyone after I honestly inventory myself, my motivations, and what I might intentionally or unintentionally bring to the party. Coaching, counseling, consulting, and mediating have all taught me 90 percent of the time, when conflict is based on assumptions and limited information, the conflict will evaporate once the truth is brought into the light of day for everyone to see. Conversely, when the issues dividing people are clearly articulated, it doesn't necessarily bring them closer to agreement.

But everybody can see what must be overcome and can focus his or her energies on reaching compromise rather than on being right. Conflict is rarely one-sided. In a conflicted personal or professional relationship, even if Person A is a diabolical monster, completely without redeeming virtue, Person B, at the very least, is contributing to the problem by staying in the relationship. Usually, Person B is up to more, consciously or unconsciously, than she is willing or able to admit. Consider what happens when Person B exits the problematic personal or professional situation. It reverts to being Person A's problem. That's fine until Person B hooks up personally or professionally with Person C who is remarkably similar to Person A. Imagine the therapist's surprise when Person B comes in complaining that Person C is a diabolical monster, worse even than Person A, and she (Person B) is completely without fault in the scenario. There is a theater in Moscow named for this line of thinking. It's called the Bolshoy, which in English doesn't mean what I'm suggesting it means, but it's as close to barnyard language as you're going to get out of me without asterisks. The buck stops with you and me Many people have trouble listening to Dr. Laura broadcast her therapy because she immediately goes to the caller's role and responsibility in the presented problem. That's not what most people want to hear and it's the last thing they want to talk about. It's more fun to talk about how someone else is making our lives miserable. But if we're serious about having our stupidity exorcised, we must first admit we have some.

Calling my bosses names, no matter how accurate, doesn't release me from my responsibility to be a skilled employee— skilled at working with my bosses. Idiots beware Ambitious, creative, innovative, and enthusiastic team members can still draw enough attention to be executed or run off by status quo preservationists. Many people do a good job and make tremendous contributions to the achievement of organizational goals, only to have those achievements and contributions minimized, marginalized, and maligned. Such people often buy into the mythical belief that they can take their hard work and enthusiasm to another organization where they will be better appreciated. That rarely works. Most of the time, they find the grass no greener in the new pasture and all they have succeeded in doing is lowering their seniority. There are bad bosses everywhere. You might as well master the art of working with them right where you are. After a few such disappointing attempts to find greener pastures, some formerly enthusiastic people go numb, fall silent, melt into the woodwork, and manage to coast across the retirement finish line before anyone notices. They didn't set out to do it that way, the system merely knocked them unconscious, and that's how it turned out. The "greener pastures" syndrome has always worked in favor of lifers. As the enthusiastic, optimistic hard workers clear themselves out in search of more promising digs, the bureaucrats have less to challenge them, organizational leaders eventually accept less from them, and we get the kind of service we've come to expect from the government agencies: overpriced and underdelivered. When planning your personal and professional strategy, make a realistic assessment of the role and influence idiots might play in your success and try not to be the biggest idiot of them all.

Idiotthink: The Great Disguise

Sometimes the distinctions between the 12 steps for recovering idiots are subtle. In article 6, I prepared myself for God to remove my stupidity. Now, I'm wondering why it takes Him so long. I'm formulating numerous plans for replacing stupidity with something useful, which is what the preparation for stupidity extraction is all about. It should be obvious that, once stupidity is removed, the resulting vacuum will suck something in. We must fill the void where stupidity once lived with something premeditated and consciously selected to avoid another, more profoundly stupid idea, notion, or behavior to be sucked in. The plan I suggest in this article is the old "false identity" ploy. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Or make it appear as if you're joining 'em. Sometimes it's just no use fighting the system. Burn your personal fuel cells on things you have some control over and enjoy. If you're trapped in a culture of idiots with no possibility for improvement in your lifetime, you might as well blend in. Why burn yourself out? This method of job survival is different from the invisibility ploy described in article 6. By adopting the appearance of an idiot, you can move up in the organization without threatening anyone.

Changing identities is not a clever maneuver to trick your I-Boss into liking you. That would be difficult to sustain over the long haul. As "honest" Abe Lincoln said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time. But you can't fool all of the people all of the time," or words to that effect. In the workplace, it's possible to fool some of the people all of the time. You can pretend to like your I-Boss just enough to make him comfortable around you. You might even be able to convince everyone you're on good terms with him. But some people will put you into the same category as the I-Boss and never trust or cooperate with you again. Attempting to fool all of the people all of the time requires you to operate against your essential nature. Operating against your essential nature is like struggling against gravity. You're better off being real and finding ways to use your essential nature to your advantage. Pretending you like your I-Boss when "despise" is the more accurate term is like holding a fully inflated beach ball under the water in a swimming p001. It's easy to do at first and can be kind of fun for a while. Then it becomes tedious. You start to wonder why it's so important to hold the ball under the water. "Oh, yeah," you remind yourself, "I'm fooling everybody by keeping my true feelings beneath the surface." As time goes by, it becomes increasingly difficult. What seemed at first like a small expenditure of energy starts to add up. Every now and then, the ball starts to slip. You catch yourself just in time to shove it back under the water again. "Whew," you think. "That was close." You almost let the cat out of the bag, so to speak.

Beach Ball Nightmares

As you read this, there are more people than you might realize wandering around your office holding big beach balls under the water. They're the ones who have funny expressions on their faces. You know the expressions I'm talking about—the look of constipation. They appear to be holding their breath a lot. The truth is they're in constant fear the beach ball will pop to the surface and their true feelings toward their I-Bosses will be exposed. The lucky ones really are constipated. The only thing between them and relief is an effective laxative. There is no off-the-shelf laxative for unresolved malice toward your I-Boss. You must find a way to simultaneously be real and peacefully coexist with him. Stoking your conflict boilers won't bring you relief. Constant fear of exposure causes you to toss and turn all night, raises your blood pressure, and can give you ulcers. I've often bolted upright, out of a dead sleep, in a cold sweat, after dreaming my beach ball popped out of the water in the middle of a staff meeting. To make matters worse, sleep deprivation makes it even harder to concentrate on keeping the thing under water. You know you're in trouble if your I-Boss, or even a coworker, wanders by unexpectedly and catches you off guard. "Whatcha doin' there?" your I-Boss asks. Taken by surprise, you frantically scan the office for telltale signs of your beach ball and instinctively countermove with a response you learned in childhood. "Nothing," you say with all of the energy and innocence you can muster. "Aw, come on now," your I-Boss cajoles. "You're up to something. You jumped when I snuck up on you." "You snuck up on me?" Surprised indignation might turn the blame around onto the I-Boss. If he purposefully attempted to catch you in some sort of subversive or insubordinate behavior, you might be able to invoke the entrapment defense.

The entrapment defense is a brilliant way to claim doing something bad isn't bad if someone catches you doing it. A.C.L.U. lawyers use it to defend criminals against the crooked and conspiratorial cops all the time. To A.C.L.U. lawyers, there are no criminals, just victims of crooked and conspiratorial cops. To sourpuss employees, there is no subversive or insubordinate behavior, only Idiot Bosses. You've always considered yourself above such reprehensible, utterly amoral, and deleterious abuse of the legal process, until your I-Boss snuck up and surprised you. Instantly, your number-one priority is to get off the hook at any price and by any means possible, ethically or unethically—before you know if you're even on the hook. The guilty human mind is an amazing thing. Once you determine there is no smoking gun lying around where your I-Boss can see it, you start to worm your way off the hook. "What makes think I'm up to something?" you retort with confidence returning to your voice as you realize the beach ball never reached the surface. This is remarkably similar to a mother catching, her child with his hand in the cookie jar. Once the evidence is swallowed, he can deny it until the cows come home. "You practically jumped out of your chair when I opened my mouth," your I-Boss presses. "Are you sure you weren't trying to sneak in some real work instead of working on the rewrite of our midrange plan?" "Yeah, that's what I was doing," you blurt out, seizing the opportunity. "Nothing gets by you, boss. I was trying to do something productive and you caught me red handed." "Well," he says proudly, "we do what is important to me in this department and not what's important to anybody else." "I forgot for a minute," you apologize. "But you brought it to my attention just in time." "I'm not as dumb as I look," your I-Boss chuckles as he continues down the hallway. "You have to get up pretty early in the morning to be more awake than me." You sit for a moment, trying to figure out what he thought he meant by that last comment. Then, as always, you just shake it off. The important thing was your Idiot Boss didn't see your beach ball. You're safe, for now. But he noticed you were hiding something, and that's troubling. Your facade is getting harder and harder to maintain.

Don't Bank on Cluelessness

I-Bosses rarely make such transparent comments, except in the fiction I write. But, they can see a beach ball if one pops up right under their nose. They might not recognize the beach ball as a simile for your loathing and resentment, at least not right away. But if they see enough beach balls popping up around the office, their suspicions will eventually be aroused. I-Bosses don't understand the concept of hidden feelings as much as they understand you might be hiding a candy bar in your desk when you're supposed to be on a diet. That's big news to them. The feelings you might be harboring are of no great consequence to an I-Boss. But the very fact you're hiding something is enough to set off his sensors. If you insist on holding a beach ball under water or otherwise keeping your feelings under wraps, always have a candy bar in your desk that you can pull out when your I-Boss sneaks up and accuses you of hiding something.

Idiotthink

This business about nearly everyone in the office holding his beach ball under water partially explains the phenomenon called Idiotthink. Idiotthink is remarkably similar to groupthink. Truthfully, I merely borrowed the idea from Irving Janis, author of Groupthink, and gave it a new coat of paint. Just because you might not have formally studied groupthink doesn't mean you haven't been exposed to the virus. Like groupthink, most people participating in idiotthink do so without realizing it. Idiotthink occurs because nobody wants to be a patsy. W.C. Fields put it this way: "If you're in a poker game for 30 minutes and you haven't figured out who the patsy is, you're the patsy," or words to that effect. Groupthink occurs when members of a group disguise anonymity as unanimity at the expense of quality. Idiotthink occurs when nobody wants to stick his neck out and risk being criticized or ostracized. A group of codependents can drive you insane when they try to make a decision. Nobody wants to offend anyone else or give anyone a reason to not like them. At the same time, they're all trying to control the outcome. The result can drive people bonkers. There is safety in unanimity. That's why it's so popular. With a group decision, the blame is spread out over many people should something go wrong. Nobody wants to ruffle feathers, even in their own imagination. You already know I'm one who avoids confrontation as much as possible. But give me a big issue and I've got to do what I've got to do. To avoid confrontation, if something happens to me, I'll shrug and tell myself not to sweat the small stuff. Let somebody else get screwed and I'm all over it. Let a staff member get bullied by an executive at a company I'm consulting and I'm likely to lose my job standing up for that person. If there is lying going on or misrepresentations being made, I'm on the case like syrup on a pancake. I'm a whistle blower by nature, providing the issue is large or significant enough. Righteous indignation means short-term employment Let go and let God. Don't let your lofty expectations of fairness and social justice cost you the things you really want. I've lost more than one lucrative consulting assignment because I didn't keep my mouth shut when I discovered stuff happening that ought not to happen. A case in point: A not-for-profit organization had managed to hire a shyster as president. The shyster president hired his old cronies and, before anyone knew it, a core of shyster executives were driving expensive sports cars leased by the charity, and taking bigger and bigger chunks of change in salary after convincing the board they deserved to be compensated on a par with executives in for-profit corporations. I urged the board to fire the shysters immediately and even offered to facilitate the termination session. They simply wouldn't go there. I believe to this day their reluctance was a form of Idiotthink. They didn't want to admit they had made a horrendous mistake for fear of what their donors would think.

Ultimately, the organization's legal counsel strongly advised them to oust the crooks or face potentially devastating legal problems. Able to pin the responsibility for their actions on the advice of counsel, the board finally terminated the bogus executives. Supporters of the organization forgave the board members, something I tried to convince them would happen all along. In the end, it was clear they should have acted the moment they identified the rats they were smelling, thus saving the organization a ton of money. This is not stone throwing. It's a warning label. Don't let your emotions run away with your common sense. I'm not suggesting you incorporate unethical or moronic behavior in your great disguise. This is a heads up about the tangled politics you'll encounter as you launch your plan to remain as real as possible as you disappear into the crowd. A tough lesson I've learned is that every time I try to enlighten people as to subversion or outright theft in their organizations, I end up being treated like the bad guy. Idiotthinkers are messenger killers. Their mantra is: See no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. Idiotthinkers have a deathly fear of being embarrassed, being wrong, and of making mistakes. I've seen top executives pal around with people they know are covertly subverting their authority and hurting the organization. The executives aren't necessarily crooks, they simply refuse to challenge inappropriate behavior. The top executives know what's going on because I told them. I don't doubt they believe the reports. Yet, they are reluctant to admit a mistake or confront the evildoer. This pretense gives the conspirators much to laugh and guffaw about when the top executives are not around. I've seen some truly colossal screw-ups caused by Idiotthink. Consider the ironic report that came in off the Internet of the company president fired by the board for "lack of intelligent leadership" after nine months on the job. Despite his brief stint, he was paid a prenegotiated severance package of more than $25 million. I'd say it was the Idiotthinkers who lacked intelligence.

The Great Disguise Reversed

Every time the name of this article is mentioned, somebody says, "I have a great Idiot Boss story for you." I'm convinced working for Idiot Bosses is one of the most common experiences on Earth. I'm also convinced that Idiotthink is the second most common experience. Everywhere I turn, individual acts of stupidity are being eclipsed by acts of group stupidity. Being out of touch with the pulse of an organization is characteristic of an I-Boss. For an executive to know the state of an organization and pretend he doesn't is something else again. After leaving Disney, selling the audio publishing company, and becoming an author and consultant, I walked into another spinning propeller—proving once again that no matter how much you might try to put distance between yourself and stupidity, it's never far behind. I was hired to facilitate a Board retreat that turned weird before my very eyes. Just when I think I've seen it all, I'm suddenly blinking, mouth agape, caught off guard, staring at something I never imagined possible. I had been providing executive coaching for the president of another nonprofit company and, with his permission, I interviewed department heads and others to help develop a comprehensive "state of the organization" report. The story I uncovered was far different from what the president predicted I would discover. I won't say he was a complete idiot, but he apparently thought things were much rosier than they really were. This president was a sweet fellow you could hardly bring yourself to hold accountable for anything. When his own people tried to tell him about problems in the organization, he buried his head in the sand. As president, he was out of his league and he knew it. But he liked the lifestyle and there was nobody bucking for his job from the inside. So, why not let things work themselves out? Instead of asking for help, he tried to bob up and down in the troubled waters and hope problems would simply disappear without a trace. Eventually, many problems do seem to disappear, but they leave traces. Problems not dealt with in a proactive manner leave a bad taste in people's mouths and a stale odor around the office. This president was content to let sleeping dogs lie. Then he let the dogs die. Then he left their decomposing carcasses to the flies and buzzards. With the passage of time, he figured they would turn to dust, which is true, as far as it goes. Meanwhile, his entire organizational population came down with a company-wide staff infection. Employees felt abandoned and betrayed; as if their problems didn't matter to him when, in truth, their problems might simply have overwhelmed him. No matter. He didn't address their problems.

Nor did he actively seek out and reward the good things people in his organization were doing. He practiced the maxim, "No good deed goes unpunished," by not making a conscious, cultural priority out of identifying and rewarding superior performance and effort. I don't promote recognition based on effort alone. Real rewards should be reserved for real results. In a perfect world, anything worth doing is worth doing well. But the world we live in isn't perfect. Often, anything worth doing is worth doing badly, if only to get us off our butts to do something. I could load you up with clichés like, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." They're all basically true. At the end of the day, it is better to have tried, failed, and tried again than to have never tried at all. Any leadership consultant will tell you that in most cases, organizational executives hire consultants not to develop leadership, but to wave a magic wand and develop followership. You could make the argument that seeking my counsel was a sign the meek and mildmannered president wanted to grow as a leader. Usually, clients just want a silver bullet. What I continuously offered him was a chance to be coached through the difficult process of rolling his sleeves up and addressing the issues his people needed resolved. Resistance is a familiar term to most therapists and consultants. He constantly turned the conversation toward what he referred to as the unreasonable pressure the board placed on him. I repeatedly tried to refocus him on his role in support of his team members. He continued to whine about the board's unreasonable demands. It should not have come as a surprise when he recommended I facilitate the upcoming board retreat. Stepping right in it I did what I usually do when I facilitate a retreat and circulated a questionnaire to all of the participants in advance to poll and rank their most pressing issues. That way we don't waste the first half of the first day determining what the group's feelings and concerns are. I wrote up the survey findings and distributed them to all participants before they left for the retreat. I did the same thing with the staff and the president. When I analyzed the data, I found the staff, Board, and the president all had a different take on the organization's most pressing issues. It quickly became clear that the president wanted me to facilitate the retreat so I could plead his case before the board. The board members were immediately suspicious of me because I was asking questions. They began to sense that there might be evil lurking out there, evil they would feel compelled to ignore, not discuss, nor confront. Meanwhile, the team members back home were hoping I would give voice to their concerns before the board for the first time. The discussion I facilitated quickly began to reveal a rift in the board. Some were unapologetically supportive of the president, while others openly wondered why, if he were doing as well as some Board members wanted to believe, team members would make comments like those on the survey

. I steered clear of endorsing or criticizing, what he was doing. I wanted the organization's problems and suggested solutions to emerge from the dialogue. To my surprise, the more some Board members "got it" and began to talk in terms of challenges and opportunities for positive change, the more others resisted acknowledging there were any problems at all. We reached a sort of stalemate. On the morning of our final day, I knew my window of opportunity for results was closing. Instead of thinking of a continuing payday with this client, I became impatient and allowed my maniacal obsession with truth, justice, and the American way to cloud my judgment. It was a bad economic move. It should have been easy to read the handwriting on the wall, announce the dialogue was inconclusive, and continue coaching and facilitate for this company indefinitely. But no-o-o-o. The horse was standing in the stream and I felt compelled to shove its nose into the water. I came right out and, without naming names, announced there were key players in the organization who were looking elsewhere for employment. I tried to say it as delicately as possible, which is like dropping a bowling ball on your toe as delicately as possible. I hoped my semibreach of confidentiality would snap certain board members out of their denial. In other words, I hoped the end would justify the means. I never cease to amaze myself at how wrong I can be. Board members loyal to the president (that is, those who hired and protected him) were outraged that I would "stab him in the back" by bringing to their attention the fact that every core executive in their organization at that moment was posting his or her resume on Monster.com. It was Idiotthink to the 10th power, set into motion by an idiot consultant. I wish I had taped the whole thing to use in seminars to illustrate how well-intentioned people can cripple an organization's effectiveness. Just when I was starting to feel terrible about the wound I had opened in the board, things got worse. The president broke down in tears. As God is my witness, the man started to bawl right there in the middle of the meeting. A woman stood up between the president and me as if to shield him from a violent assault. The venom in her eyes haunts me to this day. "I have lost all respect for you," she spit. When I blow it, I blow it big.

The reasonable members of the board who had at first wanted to legitimately consider the views of the staff suddenly fell into ranks behind the president. Before I knew what had happened, a roomful of people were glaring at me in deathly silence, except for the president's sobbing. Half of the board members huddled around and laid hands on the president, who sat with his head buried in his hands. The rest of the board members stood in a sort of semicircle around him waiting their turn. In the midst of that bizarre scene, the president parted his fingers and snuck a glance at me that clearly claimed victory. Through red, puffy eyes, he shot me the old N.I.G.Y.S.O.B. look. N.I.G.Y.S.O.B. is a fateful moment known all too well to marital therapists when one spouse catches the other spouse (usually the wife catching the husband) in some untenable position. Loosely translated, N.I.G.Y.S.O.B. means, "Now I've got you, you son of a beaver," or words to that effect. As I started to inch my way toward the door and a taxi to the airport, I said a silent prayer asking for the divine intervention necessary to get out of the room alive. I had swung the bat as hard as I could out of desperation, hoping to hit a home run. What I hit was a foul tip into the catcher's mitt. The net result of the board retreat was a new contract with a raise for the president, the team members back at headquarters were completely disenfranchised, and Dr. John lost another client. My moles in the organization kept me abreast of the ongoing exodus over the next year or so. The president remained intact and unchanged, and the most talented and hard-working team members left one by one and two by two. The company's performance and financial problems became famously worse. The board held emergency sessions, each time expressing confidence in the president. Heaven only knows what they perceived the organization's problems were. The best intentions, the worst results These episodes and others like them are painful reminders that Idiotthink will come up and bite you just when you think everything has been handled and people are truly committed to positive and productive change. It's a pervasive and insidious problem. When a group of well-intentioned people tries to accomplish something, their first order of business should be to check their stupidity at the door. Group denial, as in the case of the board retreat, is a difficult problem to overcome. Communication problems can be repaired like washed-out bridges. However, people have strong reasons to deny reality. Overcoming denial can be practically impossible. To help someone admit he is engaging in denial is like reaching the first base camp on Mount Everest. It can be done, but only about one in 10 or 20 million people ever try. There are probably better odds in winning the lottery. Of those reaching base camp, even fewer ever reach the summit.