Tonight:
4°c
Listening to Gordon Brown's speech in Washington this week I found my toes curling with embarrassment. Every time he said something clever or inspiring he ruined it with a soundbite of shameless flattery. But lo, each honey-dipped blandishment brought Congress collectively to its feet, for 19 ovations in all. Our unloved PM was even mobbed by senators insisting that he sign their copies of his speech. It was a masterclass in the power of praise.
I'm often wrong about flattery. To my ears it always sounds transparent. A plain-speaking Scottish background doesn't set you up to be
obsequious, so it surprised me to witness gruff Gordon's silver-tongued transformation.
Yet even I've learned it works a treat every time. Pay a person a compliment — even through gritted teeth — and they pitch and roll like a cat on heat. In today's credit-crunched workplace where praise is often the first casualty, the slightest compliment can feel like sunshine on a winter's day.
If Gordon didn't learn the art of adulation at the knee of his minister father, he'll have picked it up down here. London's wheels are oiled with flattery. When I first arrived, it grated when people I didn't know would compliment my work — “loved your piece!” — and reciprocal comments stuck in my craw. Now I realise it's just a persuasion tactic. How else to get busy people to do things for you?
And blatant puffery works wonders when you're suffering from low self-esteem. It takes only a comment on your shoes at a party to leave you abuzz with praise, ready to take on London again. Who cares if they were lying through their teeth? Sucking up is a great way to counterbalance this city's simmering paranoia.
It's a trick bosses know well. In management textbooks there are whole sections on strategic use of praise. And guess what: more than any other motivational method I've tried on staff, it really works. Neither is anyone too senior to be fooled by charm. In my most successful job
interviews I've carefully balanced toadying with critique to clinch the deal.
Politics is no different: flattery is always attended by an ulterior motive. As Abe Lincoln said: “Knavery and flattery are close relations.” Gordon may not have trickery on his agenda, but when it's so easy to get a group of the world's most powerful eating out of your hand, even a son of the manse couldn't resist.
