So what is Skill in Means? From the Buddhist concept, Upaya Kausalya... the story goes, a man's house was burning and he was not having success getting his family out. He went to the first, who loved horses, and told her there was a pony outside for her. To the next, who loved money, he said there was a pile of gold outside, and so on with whatever the family members most desired. Though it was all a lie, it was enough to get them out of the house.
The point is not so much that it is OK to lie for a good reason, but that one has to use the method which will work best given the person one is working with. It is seen as a melding of Wisdom and Compassion, the ascent of the many to the one and the descent of the one to the many...
So for me skill in means involves using the proper language out of the particular world-view out of which a given person is operating. THis involves assessing what that world view is and speaking its language. And to paraphrase Bob Kegan, it involves welcoming a person at the level they're AT and simultaneously sewing the seeds for that level's breakdown (toward upward movement to the next higher and more encompassing level of being).
Use Wilber's Integral Operating System, Beck's Spiral Dynamics Integral, Armour/Browning's Systems Sensitive LEadership, whatever works as a VERTICAL TECHNOLOGY.
Vertical- transformative
Horizontal - translative (maintain and enhance the status quo
