Management Musings

By R.Devarajan

This book is a compilation of some of the most popular articles written by David King / R.Devarajan on the diferent dimensions of Management during the later part of the last century and the early years of the current century. This period incidentally has been the most happening period in the history of management due the nature, magnitude and impact of change and transformation that swept the world of business.

The choice of themes and topics that Devarajan has written on is extremely relevant to both the working professional as well as students of management. Perusing his articles provides not only insights into the chosen subjects - which he delineates with great clarity - but he also exhilarates the reader with characteristic choice of words and phrases.

The selection of articles covers a wide spectrum of management aspects - Change, Culture, Ethics, Empowerment, Human Resource Management, Leadership, Marketing and Strategy. This book may well serve as a primer to management for the uninitiated as well a refresher of the fundamental principles for the young manager. The seasoned professional will also find this book of interest for it is bound to remind him of the dilemnas and opportunities in the vast canvas of Management.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Jul 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781482850819

R.Devarajan

R.Devarajan is an outstanding professional with four decades of managerial experience across various functions. He is a well known management writer and commentator. He has been a prolific writer, contributing articles to various newspapers / journals for over two decades. He has also written under the pen name of David King.

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CLUSTER 1

CHANGE

Challenges in Change Management

Fifteen years ago at the watershed of the two centuries, business organizations across the globe faced a new environment, which was a far cry from the world of regulated domestic economy that was characteristic of the last century. Today, international markets have turned much more mercurial and volatile. Industries are undergoing quantum change, thanks to the unprecedented globally wide recession.

The challenge is to marshal the cumulative and collective managerial experience in order to countenance the changes created by the new market environment. Inside an organization, the hierarchies have crumbled down. Predictable career paths have vanished. New networks comprising suppliers and subcontractors have sprung up to surface.

Industry and commerce will never return to the regulated and predictable world of work. The only way ahead is towards the unknown. The viable solutions will be novel creations engineered to the needs of the foreseeable future, and not relics of the preceding past. Initiating change, responding to change, and implementing both types of changes – all three activities will become the new way of life in the modern commercial entity.

There are two compelling, but contradictory, imperatives facing contemporary commercial organizations. The first factor is that the rate of change warrants that those who operate closest to the action area must be empowered to take decisions, so that it will facilitate quick and effective organizational response.

The second factor is that the rate of change, also, demands swift and decisive leadership action, which can arise only from the top management; they are actions such as turning around a sick unit, closing an unprofitable business, investing in new ventures, entering into a fresh strategic alliance, etc.

The incompatibility of these two approaches is self-evident. After a major and successful programme of team-building and employee empowerment, the top management cannot abruptly arrogate to itself all the authority. However, there may be times and situations, when the present day companies need decisive command structures, which alone will be able to carry the day.

There are, also, situations where employee empowerment is an essential input for building organizational capabilities. Competitive edge in the current context will be built both on the human capabilities and the technological capabilities in the company.

Such capabilities are in effect systems, which empower employees to perform in ways that enable them to realize their optimum potential through teamwork. The problem for the executives, however, is how to combine the command style and the empowerment style without giving room for cynicism or loss of commitment.

In the successful change programmes, shifts in styles of management will not be random fluctuations, but strategically planned ploys and interventions designed to reposition the company at a vantage point vis-à-vis the market opportunities and challenges.

Executives who handle such situations are not canonized icons in management. They are simple and ordinary people, who act with courage in the face of fear; who act with conviction despite doubts – their own doubts as well as the doubts of others. They are positive and proactive in their outlook and action. They are not given to watching the unfolding drama of corporate transformation as silent spectators and hapless bystanders.

Managing change has never been easy or hassle-free. However, if we take adequate care in preparing the environment for change, then the actual process of change will be relatively easier. The steps before the change process require equal, if not greater, attention and application, as the actual change process. Preparing/planning for change as well as consolidating and building on the foundation of change – both are very important.

Rushing through the planning and preparation step, or neglecting the post-implementation phase of follow-up, will render the very process of change ineffective, time-consuming, and impermanent. A good analogy for the preparation, implementation, and follow-up of change process in industry is that of a family shifting house. The actual move may take less than a day, but the decision to move in the first place, and the subsequent planning and organizing may take sizable time. Further all members of the family need to be consulted, and their opinions and suggestions seriously considered, if not always accepted.

Reasons for not accepting a suggestion must be explained to the satisfaction of all concerned, and everyone must have the firm conviction that the participative and consultative process is in vogue. After this stage has been reached, the family may execute the move.

And, after the move has been completed, there is still the need to settle into the new home and convince all that the move has been vindicated. Hopefully they will all feel positive about the future, have no reservation in their minds, and accept the new home as a blessing, and not a compromise.

In the context of change management, there are three critical elements in the process of translating strategy into performance viz., leadership, communication, and culture. The central task of management today is the leadership of the change process. Effective change is led from the top. The CEO may be compared to the army general who wins the battle by being on the front line.

However, leadership does not always arise at the top; sometimes it comes from below. In the ideal circumstances, strategic change will be first led from the top, and later, it will provide encouragement and support to the initiatives shown by executives down below.

Secondly, every change process involves generation of new strategic directions to guide the employees in the implementation phase. Such directions will generally originate in the form of a vision at the level of apex management. Then and thereafter, the top management must communicate that vision to other employees for being translated into action. Sometimes, creation of the vision itself may be a two-way engagement, whereby a large number of employees will participate in the process. Communication, therefore, becomes a vital ingredient in the change process.

Thirdly, the long term objective of change management is to regenerate an organizational culture that will support and ensure a high degree of performance as an ongoing activity. Organizational culture consists of the core assumptions, values, beliefs, norms, and ideologies shared by all the employees.

Culture provides employees with the rationale for what they do. It enshrines reasons for the activities pursued by the employees. Culture prescribes the norms for acceptable corporate behaviour. As employees share their experiences in the process of implementing a change programme, the existing culture undergoes a metamorphosis.

Cultural renewal cannot be left to chance; neither can it be designed and orchestrated in advance, as an intellectual exercise. It is the cumulative effect of the proactive measures initiated by corporate chieftains; and it helps to define and disseminate a normative value discourse in the organization. It is not so much what the leaders say. It is what the leaders do as they interact with others in the process of unrolling the agenda of the change programme.

Change is the name of the Game

Innovate or stagnate – that is the stark challenge confronting all enterprises today. Change is the key to winning, and retaining leadership in world market. In the hypercompetitive international market place, the name of the game is change: radical, unrelenting, ever-accelerating, and never–ceasing change.

In this whirlwind of change, only such business organisations, which are prepared to make the leap beyond traditional hierarchies will thrive and survive. New ideas and new ways of doing things are the main ingredients for sustained success in business. An organisation that is not kind and receptive to change will begin to stagnate, then decay, and eventually fade away.

The pace of life seems to be picking up speed all around us, and all the time. In industry and commerce, this aspect of speed is unprecedented in the current scenario. Speed entails changing models of products so fast and frequent, that we find it difficult to keep pace with obsolescence overtaking our ability to purchase the latest brands in the market, which is especially true of the mobile phone.

It is not only competition thanks to globalisation, but there are a few other factors also which bother industry and commerce today. The consumers’ demand for quality and their insistence on fair play have gained great momentum.

So much has been said and written about quality, of late, that it is needless to waste any more trees on this subject. What is significant, however, is the trend that global standards tend to become the local standards. Local consumers clamour that what is good for the world is, also, good for them.

Secondly, managers nowadays have to account for their actions or inactions, not only to investors and creditors, but also to other social interest groups such as local communities, consumers’ forums, etc.

People are prepared to denounce companies, boycott products, file lawsuits, and demand legislative action for what they may perceive as alleged injustice. When costs are constantly being reviewed and reduced even to stay in business; this constraint to make things a lot better than before and as close to perfection as possible; and to make available improved service to customers, both ahead of and after their purchase – all these warrant more and more money, when less and less is there.

Senior managers are the custodians of culture in any organisation. They have the power, vision and opportunity to usher in the change process: they must initiate support and sustain any cultural change. However, the paradox is that consequent to the continuous exposure to old-time procedures and practices, the senior management is wedded to deeply ingrained habits and values. Invariably, therefore, it is the senior management which throws a spanner in the works. Quite often, radical transformation of companies necessitates change of guard at the senior level.

Metamorphosis is difficult to come by. Is there not a saying that bottlenecks are always in the top? Nevertheless, eventually when the demands are overwhelming, either they acquiesce, or they are replaced. Trees begin to die top downward: so also this sad process of elimination starts with the chief executive.

In this new dispensation, managers will no longer identify and implement some ideal, or universal model: no more will concept be forced down the throats of employees, who may be reluctant to accept and abide by them. On the other hand, managers may merely provide conducive conditions in which individual initiative and team work will flourish: they will not prescribe or proscribe what an employee should or should not do.

Unfortunately, however, an optimum degree of structure, discipline and routine are necessary for a business environment in a commercial context. Hence, a manager has to exercise prudence in the fusion and integration of these two divergent climatic conditions to accomplish the best results.

In this change process, the actual number of steps or phases may vary dependent upon the needs and circumstances of the situation. But the philosophy and process of change are always one and the same viz., recognition of the need for change, making the actual change, and consolidation of what has been changed.

It is always better to execute change in steady and small doses, instead of bulldozing or steamrolling the way of transformation. Not only small is beautiful: but it is drips and drops that make an ocean. A journey of thousand miles always begins with a small step.

Wise men know that it is futile to fight change, and that we cannot stop it happening. If we do not take change by the hand, it will take us by the throat. When it comes to managing change in an organisation, the chief executive and senior management should be able to sense the drift of change, and steer the organisation along and aligned with it.

The flexible person, team and organisation – only these are capable of responding and reaching to the demands of changing situations. What top management clearly perceives as a corporate opportunity may seem to others down the line as a departmental threat. They may not see the wood for the trees. Under such circumstances, it is the weight and influence of the top management, which will ultimately overcome the barrier and resistance to change, and accomplish a winning position for the company.

In organisational terms, quite often it involves a flat structure, delayering the hierarchical pyramid and pushing decision-making downward and even outward to where the organisation interacts externally with the environment. In other words, managers must slaughter sacred cows that create rigidity, and introduce progressive ways of thinking about markets and customers. They must invest in training, in research, and in organisational flexibility, and improvement. A key requirement will be creation of a free and permissive work ethos, which will enable the organisation to achieve continuous change and improvement.

Innovative organisations believe only in guidelines, and not in rules. They function and perform on the basis of faith, trust, and goodwill. They have ideal internal communication, more by word of mouth, and less with pen and paper. Their employees are free to take intelligent risks, and are not penalised when they make mistakes.

An autocratic corporate culture which is intolerant of genuine mistakes is bound to commit the bigger mistake of curbing initiative, clutching progress, and bidding goodbye to profit, growth, and survival in that order.

Creative thinking is a necessary prerequisite for strategic innovation. But creative thinkers by character and personality do not mesh well with organisations. Their creativity fails to flourish in the constraint and discipline of an organisation. The straitjacket culture of an organisation is no fertile ground for a creative thinker. This is a classic dilemma, but has to be resolved, by judicious combination of freedom and discipline.

Focus on the Corporate Future

The end of a century and the commencement of another ushers in a stage of transition and a time for introspection: when all of us must redefine our concepts and criteria about the world around us. There has been no period in history, in which the geopolitical and business environments were subject to such a total metamorphosis as in the recent past.

It started with the fall of Berlin Wall, and the reunification of Germany. Much later, we saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the dislodgement of communism throughout Eastern Europe. That China is holding hands with Uncle Sam is a statement of fact today which, however, would have been dismissed as heresy and travesty, ten years ago.

The onset of fax machines, cellular phones, personal computer, and Internet – all these have altered and expanded the dimensions of time and space. Companies all over the world are required to address issues such as cultural diversity, racial minorities, gender equality, and a place for the handicapped in every organization.

Every assumption on which business theory and practice have been based hitherto is, now, being put under the microscope. In order to accept and exist in the future, we may have to let go much of the past. The corporate in the twenty-first century needs an iconoclastic entrepreneur with a ruthless attitude, one who will let the past bury its dead.

The future manager will possess an indefatigable energy to adapt and assimilate whatever changes in criteria are called for; and display a band of behavioural repertoire never seen before. In order to achieve all these, managers are now deeply concerned to find out the norms and imperatives for success in the twenty-first century.

They are anxious to discover what will be required to steer through and stay ahead of competition. As mentioned earlier, business as we have understood and conducted hitherto will cut no ice hereafter. Applying past practices to present problems will disorientate our focus on the future. Problems which are created by our current level of thinking can only be solved by an ability to foresee the potential opportunities lying ahead.

A complete regeneration of the organizational mindset is a condition precedent for achieving success in the context of the ongoing cataclysmic transformation.

Only such companies will thrive and survive – which stick their necks out, which are in the forefront all the time, and which make things happen even before anyone else thinks about them.

The choice in front of us is simple and straightforward: which type of company we want to belong – one that makes things happen, or one that watches and wonders what is happening.

The cardinal principle in change management is that organizations do not change; but it is people who change. Obtaining and retaining the collective commitment of all the people is sine qua non for the success of any group activity.

Such commitment must commence at the top: and then, it must percolate and trickle down to the last employee. The involvement of the top management must be loud, clear, and transparent. Otherwise, they run the risk of being dubbed of doublespeak, and displaying a dubious attitude.

Managers in the millennium will get into the habit of working beyond the normal schedule, thanks to the pressure of work; the demands of the customer; and the cutting edge of the competition. Every executive will fall in line with the 24/7 doctrine: 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week will be the prescription for success in the future.

Innovation is an expression of a deep commitment to creating things that go beyond into the future. In a world in which everyone else is aggressively searching for the benchmark and the best practices, if we do not innovate, we shall stay in the past, and never step into the future.

Delivering the right response at the right time is not a technological problem; it is a people problem. Technology just helps to amplify what people can do, and how people ought to perform in the midst of ambiguity, instability, and uncertainty.

Like the ability to innovate, adaptability is another parameter essential for success in this century. Adaptability is rooted in the anticipation of change. While what will happen next is not known to anyone, by training ourselves to meet the unforeseen with a level of confidence, and a conviction to conquer, we shall reinforce our strength to confront change with style and aplomb.

Diversity is anathema to the orthodoxy in technology. However, in the emerging system of production management it is variety, diversity, and dynamic instability that will guide and govern the new dispensation of manufacturing methodology. Process technology will become paramount, and product technology will take the back seat. Management focus will shift from competition to customer orientation. Plurality will cease to be a problem: it will be accepted as a simple business reality.

Companies in the future cannot afford to hide and hoard their best talents behind the castle walls. The front office is the place to display the trump card. That is where the rubber meets the road.

The people in the front office must be empowered to take decisions then and there. If the best that the company can bring to bear is not available at the front office, then it is like playing tennis with one hand tied behind the back.

It is people who generate ideas, and then, translate them into action. Future success, therefore, will be increasingly determined by the ability of an organization to marshal the ideas of its people.

Individual employees will get together in groups – small, ad hoc, cross-functional, time-focused, and job-oriented groups. Such groups are sometimes referred to as self-managing teams. The key trait of such teams is their ability to put numbers on the board quickly. Teams imply instant action, besides bureaucratic bypass.

Telecommunication and Information technology have made colossal inroads in the commercial arena, causing the death of distance. It is, now, possible to do business without buildings. Electronic spaces are supplanting corporate edifices as the locus of business transactions. We are where our network is: it is in the hyperspace that current commerce thrives and survives.

Executives can work anywhere – at home, in hotel rooms, in automobiles, on airplanes, even on the golf course – thanks to the cellular telephones, laptop computers, and so on.

Where does this take us with reference to the human face of the corporate governance? What happens to the soft side of the enterprise – the sentimental, the emotional, and the individual needs of the employee? Are they forsaken and made a martyr at the altar of material prosperity?

As the stationary workplace becomes a shifting workspace, perhaps, the feeling of oneness and the sense of belonging to a community may evaporate into thin air. Working in the amorphous office can create feelings of alienation, dissociation, and isolation.

The consequence can make an employee the victim of void and vacuum; and drive him into silence and solitude. If the office is everywhere, the employee is nowhere. Let us hope and trust that the corporate of the future will find and foster means and methods by which the fraternity and fellowship within the community of employees will not be lost, but will last and endure.

The Grammar of Globalization

The term globalization was first used by Theodore Levitt in a definitive and landmark article, which he wrote more than thirty years ago in the Harvard Business Review. He used it in a limited sense – as a synonym for standardization of a brand for international markets. In terms of quality, appearance, and every other factor governing the product, it will correspond to identical standards in whichever part of the world it may be manufactured or marketed by the parent company, or its franchisee.

Today, the word has acquired a much wider connotation and significance. International Monetary Fund has defined globalization as the growing interdependence of countries worldwide through the increasing volume and variety of cross-border transactions in goods and services, and of international capital flows, and also, through the more rapid and widespread diffusion of technology.

In order to understand the structure and grammar of globalization, at least in respect of its impact on economic governance, it is essential to examine the critical driving forces and key building blocks behind the process. The growing interdependence mentioned in the aforesaid definition has taken place only because of the increasing acceptance and enthronement of economic liberalism as the preferred method of managing the market forces.

In fact, managing the market forces, in the context of a liberal approach is a paradox and self-contradiction. Liberal economics demands little politics. The role of the political rulers must be confined to the provision of an enabling environment and a conducive climate, in which trade and commerce will feel free, and find their own way to the fulfillment of their target.

The logic of globalization suggests that the world is on the threshold of an era, in which there may not be any national business enterprise, or national corporation, not any more. No single company can manage to service the whole world. Globalize, or perish is the slogan for survival and success in the corporate sector in the current commercial context.

It is this imperative for growth, which finds an echo in the phenomenon of mergers and acquisitions [M&A]. Merger with, or acquisition of, a company overseas is a short circuit to enter into the global market. Immediate access to the plant, ready-made equipment, trained personnel, existing goodwill, and established distribution/procurement network are some of the salient advantages in this route. Alongside M&A, Greenfield investment is another avenue for globalization.

The choice of Greenfield investment over M&A in a specific situation may be advisable, either due to some inherent advantages in the latter proposal, or simply because there may be no purchase candidate available. Unlike M&A, Greenfield investment offers a clean slate to an entrepreneur.

There will be no inherited handicaps such as financial mismanagement, demoralized workforce, deserted supply chain, dissatisfied customer base, and so on. Most modern equipment, up to date manufacturing technology, fresh and zealous employees – such and similar factors will provide and promote a sense of involvement and commitment in the minds of all the stakeholders.

The market space in India will witness more and more alliances, joint ventures, and networks, thanks to the LPG syndrome – an acronym popular with the financial analysts to describe the process of liberalization, privatization and globalization – which has been predominant since 1991.

Change is the name of the game in this new epoch. You cannot step into the same river twice, wrote Heraclitus. In this whirlwind of change, only such organizations will thrive and survive – which stick their necks out, and which are proactive, and not reactive.

It is possible and probable that such changes may usher in a new world order, and spell a different dimension to the global economic environment. Already Europe has a new currency [EURO], and a closely collaborating comity of nations. China and the United States, which were till sometime back poles apart politically and economically, are now hand in glove in respect of trade pacts and partnerships. WTO, which has emerged as a worthy successor to the GATT, has brought sunshine into the field of economic cooperation among countries. All these are harbingers of a cataclysm in commerce, and a revolution in international trade, which are already on the cards.

The spectre of a shift to a global level of governance, on a number of erstwhile local and domestic issues, has further reinforced the trend and thinking towards obliterating national boundaries, and countenancing cross-border transactions. The world seems to be progressing clearly on the path of a multi-level system of national management, in which regional and global interests will operate in tandem and transcend all other parochial parameters.

The establishment of a totally integrated global economy, however, has a long way to go. It is a protracted process, and in the current scenario of a clear emphasis on regional cooperation and concepts like European Union, SAARC, ASEAN and so on, an integrated global economy appears to be a pipe dream.

While the regional organizations may want to exclude third party nations from their conglomerate, perhaps it is possible that they may serve as a stepping stone to eventual globalization on a full-fledged scale. The range and spectrum may extend from the locus of a country to a region, and then from a region to the globe; this way, the growth will be gradual and logical. Unity in diversity may be the idiom and grammar of globalization.

The growth of trade and investment in sequel to globalization warrants parallel movements of capital and finance. Traditional and orthodox public finance, however, has always been highly regimented and regulated; and hence, a localized and fragmented phenomenon. It is, hence, that the advocates of integrated financial markets claim and clamour that creating a global resource base is sine qua non for fostering international trade and commerce.

Globalization adds an incremental dimension to the cultural issues inside a company. All organizations cultivate over a period of time, their own institutional behaviour, norms, culture, code of conduct, ethics, and values. This psyche becomes more pronounced, when the corporate extends its presence to other countries.

The tendency to preserve, protect, and persevere with one’s own value system is accentuated, when it is in competition with an alien ethos. The confluence of corporate and country culture brings about a social synergy par excellence. In fact, such a synthesis is a condition precedent for globalization. It is a virtuous circle.

Nevertheless, the depth and roots of the philosophy of diverse cultures across the world are intensive and extensive; they are almost immune to any external influence. On the other hand, if at all any cultural convergence is possible, it can transpire only when there shall be no clash with such profoundly professed and practised indigenous beliefs and faiths like religion, ethnic tradition etc. The ability to respect, inhabit, and coexist with the local milieu is crucial for any success in this regard.

CLUSTER 2

COMMUNICATION

The Conundrum of Communication

The majority of managers in trade and industry believe – and rightly so – that their success is largely a function of their communication skill. Nevertheless, some managers are not very clear about what is effective communication. The difficulty arises basically because of two assumptions usually made by such managers.

The first assumption is that they think that whatever is clear to them will be equally clear to everyone else. The second assumption is that whatever is contained in a message will be understood as it is delivered; and that there is no scope or possibility for any bias, filter, or misinterpretation on the part of the receiver.

A corollary derived from these two assumptions is that having focused accurately on encoding and translating their thoughts into the linguistic format, those managers conclude that their job has been completed. According to them, thereafter the responsibility for understanding and acting upon that communication totally rests with the receiver.

In other words, they do not subscribe to the theorem that communication is a mutual and reciprocal commitment. They believe that the onus for the success or failure of a communication rests only with the receiver. Now, what is the reason for those managers to adopt this one-sided orientation?

In the first place, usually most entrants into the industry come with an engineering background – educated and brought up in the engineering discipline. Engineers always expect a predetermined result for their every action. The engineering mind has been taught and trained to operate and function only with the design – delivery equation.

So it was designed, so it would be delivered. There is no scope for any variation in the product. They are inclined to treat communication as another type of design issue. Like any other design–delivery specification, they expect that everyone would and should interpret the message in the same, singular, and stereotypic manner, in which they perceive that message.

Transferring that logic and hypothesis into people management – especially in an ambiguous and nebulous field like communication – is bound to create a conundrum. People do not always react like how they are supposed to react. Human beings are not passive objects. Each person is an individual; and that is the reason why, no two persons are alike in their bearing and behaviour.

Moreover, some managers have an inborn trait and tendency to treat communication as a one-way process. By their aggressive nature and temperament, they would like to drive away and steer clear of the ambiguities, complexities, and paradoxes of human behaviour. Dynamic situations and variable styles of discourse are alien and anathema to their basic nature. Perhaps, their psychological predisposition may warrant that type of behaviour as a genetic necessity.

In short, they want to treat communication as an event and not as a process. Tenaciously, they want to cling to the orthodox and old-world view. Such managers may revel in the command-and-control syndrome, but rebel in the current context of consultative and participative style of management.

In the commercial scenario operating in the twenty-first century, communication is an important influence for the success of an organization. It facilitates the democratic style of management. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. [C.S.Lewis]

The content of a message consists of the actual words used by the sender. Some people may think that the content is the meat of any communication. But it is only one aspect of the message. It is the context that functions as the basis and background for the content. The context is like the canvas for a painting.

Content per se does not provide a complete or comprehensive connotation to the message. It functions only as a vehicle and conduit. Always it is the context that supplies and supplements additional inputs, so that the message is interpreted in a wholesome and proper perspective. The context helps to denote, designate, and determine the implicit and explicit elements in a message.

Ascribing the actual meaning to a message is the sum and substance of communication. Can a manager be absolutely certain that his words or actions will be interpreted as intended by him? In one word, the answer is No. Conversely, does this mean that it is impossible for a manager to predict or presage how his employees will interpret a message? Again, the answer is No.

A manager cannot expect absolute certainty of his intended interpretation of the communication by his employees. Hence, he must learn to live with the probable and the plausible. The manager must contend with and understand the psyche and personality of his people, so that he can project an assessment of how they are likely to interpret his messages. This ability to infer how the content of a communication will reflect and