I've found this approach to work very well, particularly when I have to deal with people whose thought processes are different, if the processes exist at all. Remember, people's actions may not make sense to you, but to that person, there is an internal logic to it. Find that, and you've solved half of the problem.

I've also had good results appealing to their basic character, or lack thereof. I once had a marketing director say that I would get no time to test code because it should work right the first time. (This was software that dealt with the phone company's 911 database.) My response was "Gosh, that's awfully brave! Thank you for not thinking that I'm clueless."

I got twice the requested testing time after that.

--
tbone1
As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

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