Maskirovka aka Masking & Your Underlying Message

shorn of words and strange ‘bat’ silhouette, the central imagery of the emblem for the Russian secret spying agency, GRU, responsible for assassination of Putin regime critics at home and abroad

I remember 1984. Half The West wailed that we were going to get fried in nuclear war. The other half got on with prevailing through free enterprise and expression.

At the time, the positioning of non-Western regimes as Orwellian was roundly dismissed in many quarters. ‘People there are equal’, many would cry. ‘All this secret police state oppression you paint is plain wrong’. Yet when the Walls crashed down, when the curtains were drawn, all we knew was found to be true. And so it remains in totalitarian toylands of today. Like Russia.

Yet now they feel immunity to drop deadly nerve agents wherever they please. Then simply lie with all manner of laughable yet despicable propaganda to deny, deflect and destroy.

Through this I learned a new Russian word. Given the English label ‘masking’. Maskirovka seems literally translated as ‘camouflage’. Not in the sense of the S African army this week claiming they must stop camouflaging their vehicles because they’ve become so hard to spot they keep losing them. No, more in the sense of the Soviet tendency of Camouflage, Concealment and Deception.

This doctrine appears entrenched.

There’s an underlying message. And it is that which is of key note.

Who cares if the backstory is risible, the potency of what underpins the actions is what’s really important. Closely linked with their concept of vranyo; telling a barefaced lie which you do not expect anyone to believe.

Not quite the same matter of life and death, this though does share a space in solution sales.

We have a story. Both this and the telling of it can mask true intent.

How we make phone calls, lead meetings, run workshops, write emails, format proposals, show presentations, arrange communications, collate information, supply documentation, introduce peers, approach colleagues, provide references, give pricing, attempt understanding, dig deeper, acknowledge issues, define projects, problem solve and keep promises all portray our real delivery likelihood.

What does your prospect make of the way you do all these?

Are you making yourself look untrustworthy, raising warning signs, putting people off? Or are you totally on it, honest, helpful, and eminently someone with which to partner?