The manipulation pattern

[Babs]

I wasn't decreeing it. I have no idea if they will or they wont. In fact, perhaps by pointing out what I think is the unduly pejorative assumption it will encourage conservative wing members to post.

Heck, I could share some of these sorts of experiences from my firm's partnership meetings, where we always govern by consensus. Always. It doesn't have much to do with Church, really.

Of course it doesn't. The tactic is used in all kinds of settings all over the world. Danimal was simply asking about times others had encountered it in the church, while taking advantage of the opportunity to brag that he was the only one in his EQ who resisted the pressure.

[Indy Coug]

One person's motivation is another person's manipulation.

[SteelBlue]

So I stood up and said "The Kowloon East Zone will baptize 7 people next month", and there was silence throughout the room, and the MP gave me a bit of a dirty look. I am pretty sure that meeting is why I never made AP.

So in the end, the mission had a goal of over 200 baptisms. We just missed that number, baptizing around 35.

Lol. Great stuff Clark.

[UtahDan]

So pretty much any thread someone posts that invites agreement is manipulation. I shall henceforth view CUF in a new light.

[Sleeping in EQ]

The public-scorn-threatening, guilt-inducing arm twisting Danimal describes is, I think, evidence of a lack of communication/motivation/persuasion skills on the part of the person using it. It might also evidence a lack of ethics.

That's probably why it is common amongst missionaries. They simply lack skills and probably don't ponder the ethics of treating people in this fashion.

Amongst Church leaders it can also just be a result of convenience, laziness, or exhaustion. I don't think that excuses the fact that this approach can be a smokescreen for "Do what I say, damn it!" but I do have some sympathy for the Church leader who is at his/her wit's end.

Add to that a sometimes unjustified "follow the leader" mentality and a predisposition to cultural cohesiveness, and this approach will be overused.

[Marvin Hardtospell]

I'm not sure if this completely fits the premise, and I feel kind of bad replying after Creek's admonition, but this was one of my favorite mission stories.

My mission would usually baptize about 40 people a month. The highest we ever had was around 70. During the time period of this story, things were slow, and we had only been baptizing 15 to 20 per month for a few months. My Mission President got a hold of this talk or article on Convenanting with the Lord. I've heard of a few other missions who did something similar, so I think it was spreading around at the time. This was not written by a GA, and was not in an official publication. In fact, Elder Komatsu, who was the Area President at the time, did not want my MP to pursue it in a rather loud argument in his office.

The theory of this program was that if we made a goal, and then said "here is what we will do to meet this goal", the Lord would be bound to honor this covenent and it would happen. So we had a mission conference, and the MP (who was and is, I should say, a great man) really laid it on us about how we needed to have faith, covenant with the Lord, and we would surely meet our goals. He had each companionship make a goal for how many baptisms they would have next month. Then he had all the Zones meet and compile the numbers. Then all the Zone Leaders went to the front of the room and, one by one, state what there goal was, with a lot of pressure to make it big.

For the purpose of this story, I must reveal that I was a ZL on my mission. My comp and I got all the companionship goals, and they added up to over 20 baptisms. We knew how many investigators we currently had, and we knew that in the previous month we had baptized around 4, so we knew that that 20 wasn't going to happen. So we go up with all the other ZLs. The first one is called up, and he says "The Kowloon Central zone will baptize 25 people next month!", and everyone cheers. Then the next one stands up and says "The Island East Zone will baptize 28 people next month", and everyone cheered louder. We were about the sixth zone to go, and by that time the mission had already committed to about 150 baptisms, which was twice as many as we had ever had, and the crowd is in a frenzy. So I stood up and said "The Kowloon East Zone will baptize 7 people next month", and there was silence throughout the room, and the MP gave me a bit of a dirty look. I am pretty sure that meeting is why I never made AP.

So in the end, the mission had a goal of over 200 baptisms. We just missed that number, baptizing around 35. On the plus side, we were the only zone that met our goal, but somehow we didn't get any credit for that.

My mission president went the covenant route for a couple of months as well. If I recall correctly, a missionary or two raised some concerns about us setting the terms of the covenants with God and he subsequently recanted. I am not sure if he based his idea the same talk you referenced or not. I think this was in the latter half of 1999. It is all a bit hazy.

[wally]

I'm not sure if this completely fits the premise, and I feel kind of bad replying after Creek's admonition, but this was one of my favorite mission stories.

My mission would usually baptize about 40 people a month. The highest we ever had was around 70. During the time period of this story, things were slow, and we had only been baptizing 15 to 20 per month for a few months. My Mission President got a hold of this talk or article on Convenanting with the Lord. I've heard of a few other missions who did something similar, so I think it was spreading around at the time. This was not written by a GA, and was not in an official publication. In fact, Elder Komatsu, who was the Area President at the time, did not want my MP to pursue it in a rather loud argument in his office.

The theory of this program was that if we made a goal, and then said "here is what we will do to meet this goal", the Lord would be bound to honor this covenent and it would happen. So we had a mission conference, and the MP (who was and is, I should say, a great man) really laid it on us about how we needed to have faith, covenant with the Lord, and we would surely meet our goals. He had each companionship make a goal for how many baptisms they would have next month. Then he had all the Zones meet and compile the numbers. Then all the Zone Leaders went to the front of the room and, one by one, state what there goal was, with a lot of pressure to make it big.

For the purpose of this story, I must reveal that I was a ZL on my mission. My comp and I got all the companionship goals, and they added up to over 20 baptisms. We knew how many investigators we currently had, and we knew that in the previous month we had baptized around 4, so we knew that that 20 wasn't going to happen. So we go up with all the other ZLs. The first one is called up, and he says "The Kowloon Central zone will baptize 25 people next month!", and everyone cheers. Then the next one stands up and says "The Island East Zone will baptize 28 people next month", and everyone cheered louder. We were about the sixth zone to go, and by that time the mission had already committed to about 150 baptisms, which was twice as many as we had ever had, and the crowd is in a frenzy. So I stood up and said "The Kowloon East Zone will baptize 7 people next month", and there was silence throughout the room, and the MP gave me a bit of a dirty look. I am pretty sure that meeting is why I never made AP.

So in the end, the mission had a goal of over 200 baptisms. We just missed that number, baptizing around 35. On the plus side, we were the only zone that met our goal, but somehow we didn't get any credit for that.

This, almost exactly, happened to me too. The 2 differences being that there was no ZL meeting with cheering, and that after we (the mission) failed to meet it's goal, the Prez (and AP's at his instruction) gave a series of zone conferences about how we should measure our success by the progress we make rather than by meeting the goal.

[Babs]

So pretty much any thread someone posts that invites agreement is manipulation. I shall henceforth view CUF in a new light.

In fact the very existence of this board implicitly persuades people to post. I don't know about the rest of you but I find this blatant attempt at subversive mind control to be highly offensive.

[UtahDan]

In fact the very existence of this board implicitly persuades people to post. I don't know about the rest of you but I find this blatant attempt at subversive mind control to be highly offensive.

Is your statement of offense an attempt to manipulate me to agree with you?

[Babs]

Is your statement of offense an attempt to manipulate me to agree with you?

Not so fast...I see what you're trying to do with this post.

[Green Monstah]

[YOUTUBE]NRlB0HV7nH0[/YOUTUBE]

Put me firmly in the "I like that filmstrip" camp. The songwriter actually lost a daughter named Jamie in a car accident, but wrote the song about a son named Jamie who lost his mother. The reason? Boy rhymed with joy. Not joking.

[tooblue]

So pretty much any thread someone posts that invites agreement is manipulation. I shall henceforth view CUF in a new light.

Manipulation is implicit in all human interactions. And your righteous indignation hasn't skipped a beat. Bien fait.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Lol. Great stuff Clark.

Clark is the best. That was great.

[Babs]

Manipulation is implicit in all human interactions. And your righteous indignation hasn't skipped a beat. Bien fait.

lol. While UDan's sanctimony is indeed epic, I'm pretty sure he's just playing around here.

[UtahDan]

Manipulation is implicit in all human interactions. And your righteous indignation hasn't skipped a beat. Bien fait.

No need to make jokes about my weight.