as leaders, potential if not actual, became professional managers
and absorbed the managerial mystique. While walking blindly
along the path of the corporate career, they fell into the trap that
Sigmund Freud first identified as "suggestibility," one of the mental
states in which thinking and feeling separate and hence widen the
rift between the mind and the heart and between logic and com-
mon sense.

The managerial mystique is only tenuously tied to reality. As
it evolved in practice, the mystique required managers to dedicate
themselves to process, structures, roles, and indirect forms of
communication and to ignore ideas, people, emotions, and direct
talk. It deflected attention from the realities of business, while it
reassured and rewarded those who believed in the mystique.

The extent to which reality becomes distorted in the work-
ings of the managerial mystique is illustrated in a case involving
General Motors. A man who had bought a GM luxury car com-
plained to his dealer that the transmission was not working prop-
erly. He was told that the problem would clear up after a suitable
break-in period. The problem did not clear up, and, moreover, the
irate customer discovered that he had to replace the transmission
at his expense, because the warranty period had expired while he
awaited the spontaneous cure promised by the dealer. The me-
chanic who examined the car pointed out that he could replace
the transmission, but that it would not last six months because the
transmission specified for this large car belonged to a small car.
Evidently, people at General Motors had neglected product qual-
ity and customer satisfaction, probably to get around their own
mistakes in scheduling or to cut additional expenses. The man
initiated a class action suit, and in February 1987 General Motors
agreed to settle for $19.2 million.

Within a few days after General Motors settled the suit, the
corporation declared its intention to repurchase up to 20 percent
of its common stock at a cost estimated at over $5 billion. The
purpose of the stock buy-back was plain: to increase the price of
the stock by dividing the existing earnings among fewer shares. In
the meantime General Motors had lost market share not only to
foreign competition, but also to Ford and Chrysler. Instead of
presenting a program of improved product design, quality, and
value to overcome its competitive weakness, GM chose a financial
solution to refurbish its image to the investment community. This

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