Re: Ah ha
Trivial example which doesn't require HUGE amounts of context:
While jackrabbited unexpectedly into turning around a debacle: my (inherited) senior exec in charge of Client Services had been singing me to the high heavens for a year+ for turning things round, but all the time raging that she/her dept wasn't allowed to simply visit customers LIKE THEY *NEEDED* TO DO!!! (Which was true.) Per her: I was A GENIUS (? just common sense) but she/they were CRIPPLED by evil senior mgt.
(Looking back on it now, of course, I recognise the age-old standard tactics of two-faced wannabe-elite/down-treaders: Drama! Unjustly confined! Someone higher status holding us back, holding us down! Good&Evil! Black&White! Us&Them! I'm fighting The Good Fight to help the plebs! THIS ONE SINGLE THING! If only SPECIAL PEOPLE LIKE US were in charge, everything would be fixed! etc)
I finally cracked the pushback at top-level: walked up in the open office, announced with everyone hearing that FINALLY she/dept were allowed to visit clients, unrestricted budget.
She went white.
Froze.
Box of spiders in her face.
Then what the psychs call a "microexpression" of sudden twist into what could only be called pure hatred.
I had Become EVIL.
I had pulled her out of The Narrative into Reality. And into real-world Consequences: personal responsibility.
Nothing to hide behind. She'd actually have to do what she said.
Not just The Story anymore.
(I really wish I had a video of that few seconds. The REVEAL was incredible. Enlightening. A mask torn off unexpectedly. Hard to communicate to people without taking forever or sounding in summary-attempt like a nutter.
Thing is, I saw a LOT of that. This is just the quickest no-context-needed trivial example.)
Suffice to say: from that point on, she never visited any client despite having banged the table many many times a week for the year+, nor allowed any staff to. She was in looneytoons caricature mode of hatred vs me (quite surreal to go from Hero! to TDS-alike in an instant of solving someone's problem), worked hard to screw over the whole group, resigned later to take a more senior position elsewhere, and has gone from strength to strength ever since.