84 Management Stripped Bare Flattery Research shows that there is no point at which flattery becomes counter- productive. The more outrageously you flatter people, the more they will think that you are a wonderful person. Forget the academic research, test this idea yourself. For a start, how many of your colleagues think that they are under promoted, underpaid and under recognized? And how many people you know think that they are below average in terms of honesty, hard work, intelligence, driving cars or loving? In fact 95 per cent of people think they are above average: this is statistically impossible but emotionally inevitable. And you can use this to your advantage. We live in a cruel and uncaring world that does not always recognize our innate brilliance and humanity. And then someone comes along who suddenly seems to realize that we are as great as we always thought we were. So will we think that person is an idiot, or will we conclude that he or she has very fine judgement? Even better, when we flatter someone the person will feel the need to reciprocate the favour: so we will find ourselves on the receiving