Thomas Sowell’s Farewell Letter to His Secretary

In Man of Letters, Thomas Sowell publishes many of his personal letters.  It is a very engaging read, and it gives you a real flavor for  his thinking and his influences.

One letter is to his secretary Beverly, who recently quit (retired?). It's clear from Sowell's very heartfelt letter that he is sad to see her go:

I am of course very sorry to lose a very good secretary. But I have also gotten to know you somewhat over the past year or so, and if I may consider myself a friend, then as a friend I think you may have made the best decision. Just this past weekend I expressed my concern to my wife that you seemed to be making the job far harder on yourself than it needed to be, partly by trying to shape my decisions instead of simply getting me the information that I needed to make my own decisions. She suggested that I take you to lunch and air our different conceptions of the work. But, by the time I reached the office on Monday, you had made your decision.

Emphasis mine. I think this is a common employer-employee dynamic. The employee is trying too hard to shape the decision-making (beyond their actual mandate to do so), while the employer just wants the necessary information to make a decision. Sometimes it’s even cynical. The employee tries to influence the employer toward the decision that will require the least effort and headache (for the employee). The employer senses this and has to push back through the employee’s manipulation and stonewalling. Sometimes it’s sheer ego, as in the employee thinks they know better and wants to be the boss. And of course sometimes the employee does know better, and the boss’s boneheaded decision really does blow up in everyone’s face even though s/he tried to warn him.

This is a slightly different variation of something I wrote about in a recent post. It’s not specific to work relationships, either. I think it could be at play in any power dynamic (parent-child) or even between equals (partners in a firm or project). I feel like I’ve been on both sides of this conflict.