> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Warren Ockrassa > Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 9:17 PM > To: Killer Bs Discussion > Subject: Re: Brineller quoted in New York Times > > On Aug 1, 2007, at 6:39 PM, John Garcia wrote: > > > Gautam Mukunda is quoted in the July 31 NY Times piece on Chelsea > > Clinton. He comments about Chelsea's stint at McKinsey: > > [...] > > > "From what I know > > of her father, he has never been in any room in which he was not the > > center of attention, starting from before he became president. Chelsea > > has a deeply admirable ability to yield focus." > > What a nicely backhanded compliment. >
It wasn't meant as a backhanded compliment, but a sincere direct complement. Gautam said that, in context, that was clear....but the quote wasn't given in context. What is infuriating for him is that he has a witness (his officemate) who heard him ask for the interview to be for background purposes only. There are two reasons for this. One was that it is considered bad taste at McKinsey to make comments for publication about colleagues. Second, he had a good guess that if a snippet was published, it wouldn't reflect what he meant to get across. As Guatam pointed out, it's easy to draw attention to oneself in a crowd. It's probably easy for a shy person to just try to blend in....although it's much harder for a shy celebrity. But, what Gautam was describing wasn't a polite way to say wallflower, it referred to an active skill...the ability to take attention directed at oneself and then turn the focus of that attention to someone else by the comments one makes. An example would be a question about what one was working on...followed by a quick answer and a request for someone who was also involved to tell a funny story about the trip they took....or getting that colleague to detail what happened. I've had to do something somewhat similar, but easier, when running a meeting. It would have been easy to just dominate the meeting, but that wasn't the goal. Rather, I drew out other people, and directed at least some the attention away from me to folks I asked questions. Meetings that are facilitated instead of run can be much more productive. Anyways, that's what happened. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
