Ronald M. Shapiro - Bullies, Tyrants, and Impossible People: How to Beat Them Without Joining Them

Bullies, Tyrants, and
Impossible People

How to Beat Them Without Joining Them

RONALD M. SHAPIRO &
MARK A. JANKOWSKI

with James Dale

CONTENTS

The N.I.C.E. System for Battling Bullies, Tyrants, and Impossible People

NNeutralize Your Emotions: Learning to Act Rather Than React

IIdentify Types: Know What Kind of Difficult Youre Up Against

CControl the Encounter: Shaping the Outcome

EExplore Options: Getting Unstuck

To my love, Cathi,
and to our wonderful children and grandchildren
may they live in a world with fewer tyrants and bullies.

RMS

To my dad for showing me the path. To my mom for getting me started. To my siblings for leading the way. To my friends for
making it fun. To Lori, Jack, Anna, and Rosa
for putting it all in perspective.

MAJ

ONCE UPON A DEAL...

(A grim fairy tale with a happy ending)

ONCE UPON A TIME, there was an infamous corporate raiderlets call him B.B.W.who preyed on companies with good products but weak management. He was known as a bully who simply blew away anyone or anything in his way. The mere threat of his involvement was often enough to make management fold without a fight. B.B.W. would take over, fire staff, slash product quality, and suck profits out until the companys reputation was destroyed, and then hed move on to his next target.

One of his early victims was a company that used a straw-and-hay composite to build low-cost (but not very durable) housing. B.B.W. employed his usual threats and coercion and sure enough, the president, F.L.P., waved the white flag before the battle had even begun. B.B.W. decimated overhead, gutted quality control, and reaped windfall (though temporary) profits.

Full of his own success and more intimidating than ever, B.B.W. set his sights on a developer of rustic wooden homes. B.B.W. bullied until the company management, led by entrepreneur S.L.P., panicked and surrendered. True to form, B.B.W. swept in, cut operations to the bone, and squeezed out short-term gains.

Feeling unstoppable, B.B.W. took aim at a bigger target, a company that constructed sturdy brick ranch homes. Company founder, T.L.P., was a savvy businessman who had studied B.B.W.s past techniques. T.L.P. didnt take B.B.W.s vicious methods personally. Instead, he asked questions, assessed B.B.W.s strengths and his own, considered various scenarios, and planned responses for each. After fair consideration, T.L.P. politely declined B.B.W.s overtures. B.B.W. doubled his hostile efforts, pressuring other investors, threatening legal action, and lobbying board members. Finally, B.B.W. pressed for a board vote on his takeover offer. T.L.P. made his casethat the company would be stripped bare, bled dry for profits, and discarded, as was B.B.W.s modus operandi. The board voted to remain independent.

B.B.W.s conglomerate, now drained of critical assets, floundered until he was forced to sell. The buyer? T.L.P.s company, which restored the component companies to financial health.

B.B.W.s deal-making style was, in a word, bullying. It had always seemed to work. That is, until he encountered an adversary who understood how and why B.B.W.s techniques worked and knew how to deal with them.

If the story sounds familiar, it should. Its The Three Little Pigs. As you may recall, the Big Bad Wolf (B.B.W.) huffed and puffed and blew in the straw house of the First Little Pig (F.L.P.), did likewise with the wood house of the Second Little Pig (S.L.P.), but ran into a brick wall, so to speak, when it came to the house of the Third Little Pig (T.L.P.) and ended up a casualty by trying a hostile entry via the chimney. The Third Little Pig understood how to deal with lifes Big Bad Wolves. And thats just what we intend to teach youhow to get what you want from difficult people without becoming one of them.

In this book, well show you how to harness the power of what we call N.I.C.E., to outnegotiate, outsmart, outmaneuver, outlast, outlogic, outthink, and outwin lifes bullies, tyrants, and impossible peoplewithout becoming one of them yourself. Well show you how to do it while not losing your cool (unless you mean to do so as a tactic to get what youre after). Well show you how to do it while maintaining your integrity. Well show you how to do it without surrendering, sacrificing, giving up, or giving in. And well show you how to do it in business life, social life, and family life.

First, we will teach you how to get what you wantin a deal, negotiation, transaction, contract, sale, encounter, or conversationno matter how difficult the person on the other side of the table, desk, phone, computer, or backyard fence, and we will teach you how to do this without waving the white flag, running away, or becoming impossible yourself.

Second, we will teach you a systematic approach to getting what you want based on the acronym N.I.C.E.:

Neutralize your emotions

Identify type

Control the encounter

Explore options

Third, we will arm you with tools and exercises to help you assess your own strengths and weaknesses in dealing with difficult people.

Finally, we will teach by anecdote, that is, by bringing lessons to life with actual cases. Well offer real-world storieson buying and selling, staff management, cultivating talent, lobbying positions, marketing products and services, motivating employees, winning

raises, winning friends, wooing dates, and getting along with in-lawsfrom business deals (within both Fortune 500 companies and family-owned businesses), labor-management impasses, sports contracts, and strikes to who-blinks-first showdowns with stars, agents, producers, and studio bosses. These stories of deals struck and deals lost will illustrate and demonstrate how the N.I.C.E. system works and how you can apply it in your own difficult situations.

PART ONE

The N.I.C.E. System for Battling Bullies, Tyrants, and
Impossible People

CHAPTER ONE

N.I.C.E.

How to Beat Them Without Joining Them

BULLIES, TYRANTS, AND IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE ARE EVERYWHERE

THEYRE AT THE OFFICE, down the street, at the mall, on an airplane, in the checkout line, in the next highway lane, on the Internet, on the phone. Theyre male, female, old and crotchety, young and feisty, strangers, relatives, and even people who call themselves friends. Sometimes it seems like everywhere you turn, theres another one: your nothing-you-do-is-good-enough boss, your no-price-is-ever-low-enough client, the next-door neighbor whose dog barks all night, the guy at the movies who sits between two empty seats and wont move over so you and your friend can sit together, the matre d who looks through you like you dont exist, the granite-hearted lost-baggage attendant, the meter maid who sees you running up with change but wont stop writing that ticket, the piggish developer whod rather lose the property than share the profit, the purchasing agent who pits suppliers against one another until one crumples, the broker whose commission is more important than the sale, the chief executive officer (C.E.O.) whose fragile ego is all that matters.