Hans Christian Anderson wrote a great story – “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
The central tenant of the story is that great men can be fooled by yes men. That eventually, the truth wins out, and when it does, it destroys great men.
There is a staggering amount of truth to that.
Except, another author, Neil Gaiman, in his masterpiece, the Sandman, made another observation:
It it is the prerogative of the fool to say the emperor has no clothes. But in the end the emperor is still emperor and the fool is still a fool.
I’ve spent a lot of time in my career thinking about this sentence.
Much of my career, I saw the fool as the person of power. The fool pointed out what was wrong and humiliated the Emperor. The fool was the source of truth, the Emperor a joke.
Much of my career has been motivated by this story. I wanted to be the fool by fool talking truth to power, and an Emperor that no fool can ridicule.
Such was my life until I discovered that there was a part of the story that nobody talks about.
It turns out that the Emperor arrives in his palace. And he’s furious and humiliated. And he thinks, “I’ve lost a measure of my power. My advisors will demand more control over the state finances and decisions or, worse, my resignation.” But then he remembers that he is still the Emperor.
“What an extraordinary opportunity, this fool has presented to me,” he thinks.
A meeting of all of the advisors is quickly called.
The Emperor, solemnly, announces, “We have erred. We erred in which advisors we trusted. And that faith has cost the Empire the trust of the people in the Emperor. And as Emperor, we must protect the Empire.”
The advisors who let this happen are delighted, the Emperor has been knocked down a peg.
The Emperor then announces a set of advisors who are to be taken to the dungeon and then publically executed.
Everyone is shocked. And then they look at the names, and those advisors slated to be killed were all enemies of the Emperor. Faction leaders who were untouchable and thorns in his side are now dead men.
And everyone realizes the crowd will roar with approval and the Emperor will be even more powerful and more beloved.
A few days later, the Emperor has a meeting with his head of secret police.
“We need to create a fool-astro-turfing program. When I need to get rid of some enemy, we will have a planted agent attack my policies. I will then use that to get rid of the enemy and change the policy and gain more power.”
“And what about that fool who mocked you?”
“I should hang him, but let’s make him a knight of the realm. And then we can kill him when he is forgotten.”
Meanwhile the people celebrate their Emperor who acknowledges his mistakes, rewards those who speak the truth and punishes his bad advisors!
The thing is, and I have learned this late in my career, speaking your mouth off and saying the truth is hazardous. If you do it without a plan, you have no idea what the outcome is. The folks in power will use it to their advantage to do whatever they want. And at least once in my career, speaking the truth cost me my job.
So was Aaron Burr right, “Talk Less, Smile More?”
Yes and no.
When you do speak truth to power, be aware of what the set of possible consequences are. Make sure that you do it in a way that maximizes your leverage to get what you want. And most importantly of all, be willing to live with the consequences.
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