Predatory Thinking: A masterclass in out-thinking the competition by Dave Trott

Author:Dave Trott
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781447248392
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2013-05-22T14:00:00+00:00

PART SEVEN

THE ART OF WAR

Fragging

When I was at art school in New York, I knew a guy who was there on the GI Bill of Rights.

This meant he served his time in the armed forces, so Uncle Sam paid for him to go to college.

This guy had been a lieutenant in Vietnam.

He told me they had a high mortality rate among lieutenants.

One of the main reasons for this was ‘fragging’.

Fragging wasn’t enemy action.

It was your own troops.

What would happen is this.

A gung-ho lieutenant would arrive from the States.

He’d be desperate to prove himself, so he’d pick all the most dangerous missions for himself and his men.

Obviously the men didn’t like this.

The troops were all enlisted and only had to survive their two-year stint.

They weren’t going to do this by taking unnecessary risks.

So they would give him a warning.

When he pulled the blankets off his bed that night, there would be a fragmentation grenade lying there.

As this was only a warning, the pin would still be in it.

So it wouldn’t explode.

Of course, if he ignored the warning, the next time it wouldn’t have the pin in.

So the only thing stopping it exploding was the weight of the blanket.

And when he flipped the blanket back he, and the evidence, would disappear.

Of course, that only happened to lieutenants who didn’t listen to the warning.

But it did happen.

That’s the most important thing about warnings.

Don’t make any that you aren’t prepared to carry out.

Otherwise, the very first time you make a threat and don’t follow through, everyone knows your threats are empty.

Far better to think first.

If you threaten something, are you really prepared to carry it out?

I watched one of my son’s friends and his father once.

We were picking the two boys up from a bowling alley.

The boys asked us for some money to play the video games.

Both of us said the same thing.

‘OK, here’s £2 but that’s it.’

Both the boys came back when they’d spent it.

The other son said, ‘Dad, can I have some more?’

The father said, ‘OK, another £2, but that’s it.’

He went away and came back. ‘Dad, can I have another £2?’

The father said, ‘You’ve already had £4.’

The son said, ‘Please.’

The father said, ‘OK, but this is definitely the last.’

The son went away and came back for more.

The father gave him another £2 and said, ‘This is the last time, I really mean it.’

When my son and I left it was still going on.

The father had trained the son to ignore what he said.

When he said no, it didn’t mean no.

It meant pester me and I’ll give in.

So that was their communication.

That’s why in advertising account managers think all creatives are drama queens.

Constantly making threats they don’t mean.

So it comes across as whining.

Threatening not to work on the account.

Threatening not to make changes to the script.

Threatening not to go on the shoot.

Threatening to let the account man edit the commercial himself.

Threatening to resign.

But they aren’t going to do any of those things.

Everyone knows it.

So all they achieve is to train the account men to ignore them.

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