Why you should treat the truth with gratitude

A WOMAN in our classical music division was considering representing a rather eccentric musician who wanted a career as a conductor.

She attended his orchestra rehearsals to see how he handled musicians. She went to his concerts to hear how he interpreted the classics and gauge his rapport with an audience.

None of these forays made much of an impression on her, until one day the conductor invited her to a lecture he was giving to students at a business school.

She was amazed at what she saw. Sitting at a piano, the conductor made some dazzling analogies between what composers and executives did. The students gave him a standing ovation.

In the end the woman concluded that representing this musician would not be a good use of her time, and she candidly told him why. ''Face it,'' she said, ''you'll never be Sir Geor Solti, because you're too strange and you're just not that good a musician.'' She did add he could have a lucrative career as an entertainer on the fringes of classical music and in front of business groups.

''Your future,'' she said, ''is talking to amateurs - because the real professionals know you're nuts!'' Now, that last remark might seem gratuitously cruel. But in fact, it was priceless advice. In one neat sentence, she had given this man a career niche. She had turned him away from his fruitless pursuit of a major-league conducting career and steered himin a direction that capitalised on all his eccentricities.