Volume 3 · The Corner Cabin · Essay 157

Manipulation Matrix

A good test is a lamp, not a verdict. Manipulation Matrix lights the corner you forgot to sweep.

No single score defines a person, a team, or a year. But a score honestly taken is a mirror, and mirrors, however unkind, are cheaper than self-deception.

The idea is simple, and like most simple ideas it is easy to nod at and hard to use. The nod is free. The use costs attention, every day, in small change.

In any Indian office there is one person who knows where everything is, whom to call, and how things actually get done. The organisation chart does not show this person. Reality does.

An organisation is only a group of people who have agreed, for now, to pull in roughly the same direction. Do not memorise it. Notice it. Noticing is the senior discipline.