Somehow you guys just get people to do things. And then when we're doing *that thing*, we'll go, "Wait, how did I end up doing this for that ENTJ? I should be home now working on
my stuff." We have no idea how we got into it that deep or got that involved in it.
One example I can think of off the top of my head is when my ENTJ friend is holding one of his meetings (I've discussed this on the forums before), he will text people and say, "We look forward to seeing you at the meeting tonight."
Because I know him so well, I know that this text message means:
(a) I'm expected to make this a priority. He is politely saying, "Be there!"
(b) He wants a text response (presumably *right now*) letting him know if I will or will not be there so that he can count me in or out.
To me, the first few times I got this message it seemed manipulative to me because I recognized right away that there was much more to his message than just simply, "We look forward to seeing you there." He wouldn't bother texting people if it was just to say "See you tonight!" One time I didn't respond and didn't go to the meeting and I got a phone call later that night asking if I had received his text message and what had caused me to miss the meeting.
To me, his text was just a statement: Look forward to seeing you there! And so I treated it as such. I didn't respond. I knew there was more to his text, but, if he's laying ground rules, I'm going to lay some also. If you want to ask if I'm going to be there, then just ask it. Don't go through the side door. Knock on the front door and you'll get the answer you're looking for.
If you want to ask if I'm going to be make it and if you want to emphasize the importance of the meeting, then just come out and say it. Say, "This meeting is crucial to what we are doing, we are going to cover some very important bases in this meeting, and I need you to be there. Are you going to make it?" Then I'd respond with either, "Yeah, I'll be there." Or, "No, I won't be there. Deal with it
D)."
But, the way he phrases it is so subtle. People know him and how serious he is about this, so when they get that text, they cringe. Instead of thinking, "Oh, he's looking forward to seeing me. I'm an important piece of this puzzle", they are really thinking, "Darn. I really have other things going on tonight but I know he's relentless and if I don't show up, he'll call me tonight like a used car salesman and, blah, blah, blah." So, people just end up going to the meeting in order to keep the peace and stay on his good side.
That's how it feels like manipulation. He's totally and completely nice about it, but if you don't show up to the "unpaid" meeting and put your energy behind this cause, you know you're going to hear about it from him. And so people just conform in order to avoid the trouble/headache of having to explain why they didn't want to come. Or that they'd rather watch their favorite sitcom than attend his meeting.
I know him, so I know his intentions are good in getting people involved, it's just "how" he does it sometimes. Sometimes I just have to be direct with him and say, "Aint makin' it tonight! Got too much going on. Have to catch up with you next week." And he'll say, "Hmmm, OK. What do you have going on?" I sometimes feel like saying, "Absolutely nothing. I just don't want to go to the meeting tonight." But, I somehow intuit that this might somehow hurt his feelings somewhere deep down in a place that nobody has seen before because he cares so much about the cause.