The Power of Words

Assessor: Thank you.

Person assessed: You're welcome.

"Tomas," Flores says, "why this rebel-child attitude? Can't you answer me?" Flores turns away in disgust. Another colleague uses the script to assess Tomas. "Tomas," he begins, "you are a bureaucrat. You are married to rules, not to listening." In fact, Tomas keeps his head down, scribbling notes, unable to look at his colleagues. Flores asks Tomas what he learned from this comment.

"That I have more work to do," Tomas whispers.

Flores eyes the group warily. "I am using Tomas for one purpose," he says, "to show you what transformation is not. To show you what it means to be weak and insincere. Tomas, stand up and tell me honestly what you think of me. This is how you develop trust. I know you have been saying things behind my back. I promise that no matter what you say to my face, I will reply with, 'Thank you for your assessment.' "

Tomas measures out his words as if each one were a drop of poison for Flores to swallow: "I . . . don't . . . like . . . your . . . style."

Flores corrects him: "You hate my style."

"I hate your style," Tomas says.

"Thank you very much for your assessment, Tomas. I appreciate your sincerity. Now here is my assessment of you. You are an asshole, but less of an asshole than you were two minutes ago. You have opinions on things that you know nothing about. If you give me permission, I will train you. If you agree to be trained and don't follow my lead, I will kill you. And that's worse than my style."

Then something amazing happens: Tomas smiles. He . . . thanks Flores for his assessment. He looks relaxed. And he recites the script word for word, this time pronouncing "sincerity" flawlessly and without hesitation. The mood in the room lifts. Tomas has walked through the fires of truth and come out safely on the other side, and there he has found trust. His colleagues beam. He is now willing to listen to what they have to say about him and to accept the truth in their criticism. He is not hiding from them or from himself. He feels . . . free. The conversion is almost spiritual.

"You feel good now?" Flores asks.

"Yes," says Tomas, nodding, clearly pleased.

"That's what happens in an atmosphere of openness," Flores says. "When trust improves, the mood improves. Everyone feels more confident. One thing we need to do here is to produce despair -- because despair produces reality. A feel-good style can be a symptom of unawareness or lack of caring. I'm showing you what your blindness looks like. Drop the idea that you have a map for the future, or that you need one. I want you to build your sense of curiosity. If you act as if you know everything when you meet with your customers, you'll lose your job."

Tomas is not off the griddle yet. "Tomas," Flores says, "here is my prediction: You are going to be fired from this company if you don't transform yourself. You will be fired because all of the others in this room are committed to transformation, and they need you with them. If everybody here says you are full of shit, and you don't acknowledge it or see how that assessment serves you, you are doomed. You should be happy and grateful for these assessments."

Flores is making a larger point about the real source of strength in business. "In the western mind, there are two notions of compassion," he explains. "One is, I'm going to be a good Samaritan and help this guy. But that is the compassion of the weak. The compassion of the strong is in waking people up to their blindness. For that, you need to be a warrior. I am tough and sweet. I show you your bullshit, but I'm also infinitely patient with you." Flores stands up very straight and addresses the group. "Know this," he announces. "We aren't aware of the amount of self-deception and self-limitation that we collect in our personalities. I'm fighting for freedom, for breadth of being. I want to open up people's moral imaginations -- which will give them a strategic advantage in business, in politics, and in their personal lives."

The World According to Flores

There is magic in Fernando Flores: the magic of transformation. Like any true magician who transforms things -- or, in this case, people -- Flores is not content to describe the act of transformation. He must perform it -- which is what he has done with Tomas. To transform these executives, Flores must prompt them to engage -- specifically, through language. To get them to engage, he conjures up moments of truth and of trust. He must scare them to death about what they are not doing. "Great work is done by people who are not afraid to be great," Flores says.