Kimbo Slice vs. Marquess of Queensberry
You’re in a hunt, a complex and sizable whale hunt. And one of the members of the whale’s team starts going south on you. I don’t mean disagreeing or questioning, I mean active hostility: won’t return your phone calls or emails, misses commitments, pushes back on requests, challenges your capabilities/truthfulness/lineage… You get the picture.
You know this person is critical to the deal, but that he/she is not the decision-maker, more like a piece of the machinery. You have to get the whale’s executive leadership to bring them to heal.
Let’s assume that you’ve tried all the traditional get-along strategies: collaboration, cooperation, compromise, flattery, and bribery. It’s time to fight. And sometimes you have to fight. Let’s talk about a few rules…
Rule #1 – Go Sun-Tzu. The ancient Chinese military strategist said “The greatest generals win without battle.” Weigh your options one more time. Can you win this deal without a fight? It’s the better way to get what you want.
Rule #2 – You do not talk about Fight Club. If you’re making the move to fight, don’t talk about it internally or externally. If your whale, your people or anyone else asks you, the answer is: “We’re just working through a few issues right now, but things are going well in general.” At some point you will have to play nice with whoever’s left standing; don’t gloat to your friends and don’t warn your enemies.
Rule #3 – Never fight down. If you’re going to fight out an issue, you go over the person’s head. You have one shot at this and you’ll need the most senior person in the room at the whale’s house to bring authority to bear.
Rule #4 – Just the facts. Your opinions, their intentions, the he-said/she-said of conversations, they all make you look weak. Besides that, your opponent will go back to your supporters at the whale company after the phone call or meeting and retell the story, spinning it in his or her favor. Stick to the facts, the documents, the numbers, timelines, emails, meeting notes… You get it.
Rule #5 – Ask questions, make few statements. Is this how your company normally handles these types of requests? Is this what working together will be like once we close this deal? What parts of your process, as we have discussed it, are we not understanding or fulfilling our part of? You want to ask questions but just like a good attorney, you have to know the answers before you ask the question.
Rule #6 – Concede the little points. There has to be some ground to give. Everyone believes there are two sides to the story, so be ready to give on some issues that are not material but show balance. Stay focused on the core issues of the fight.
Rule #7 – Win, don’t wound. If you have to fight, play for keeps. You never back a snake into the corner and then turn to walk away. No jabs – just throw the haymakers, get the issue on the table and then resolve it. Clean, fast and move on.
Rule #8 – Leave an exit. You have to leave a way out for your opponent after you’ve won the fight. Look, big companies don’t fire your opponents. They keep them. So you have to have a way for those people to save face. Easy ones to use: change of scope, confusion, misunderstanding and so on. The point is, once you’ve won the fight, it is absolutely imperative to be gracious. Remember, you may very well have to deal with this person for a long time.
Let me be very clear. When it’s come to fights in the past, I’ve lost more than I’ve won for one simple reason: my opponent has been on the inside while I’m on the outside. They have the high-ground in combat. So you have to exhaust every other angle first. This is a last ditch effort. Sometimes it works, and that’s good enough for the effort, but often times all you get out of it is the moral righteousness of having left without regrets. There just isn’t much money in moral righteousness these days.
It would be nice if there were rules for how to fight in business, but it seems like most of the time we can’t even acknowledge that we ARE fighting. Like sweet old ladies exchanging poisoned barbs over a cup of tea, we smile and nod as our opponent delivers his or her passive-aggressive punch, and pretend everything is normal.
Your rules of engagement make sense…..Although…if you are taking the issue above the head of the problem (rule #3), can that really be called fighting? You’re not actually engaging with the “enemy” (just picking nits here).
Maybe this next thought falls into your mention of the get-along strategies…but I would also consider how the OTHER members of the whales team respond to the problem-child. If there’s a lot of eye-rolling and sighing, the person (albeit a danger to the sale) is not as dangerous as if the negative person is treated with respect. Sometimes the asocial-yet-brilliant team member has a very valid reason for objecting, but lacks the skills to communicate.
And sometimes, I think we (as sales teams) are very unwelcoming to the “vocal-minority” of critical thinkers within a whale’s team. So busy spinning and selling, we shut them down and create the passive-aggressive (or aggressive-aggressive) jihad to come.
Having stood in front a large group begging for feedback, questions, or challenges…while receiving only blank stares and the gentle whirl of the air conditioner in response….I think if we embrace and engage the “mouthy negative” person at the table early in the sale process, we might actually create a champion down the road.
I’m Jennifer and I’m a “mouthy negative” and I approved this message.
1Dear mouthy negative…
2There is a difference between the skeptical and the intractable- the negative and the aggressively hostile. I agree that turning a critic into a supporter is very powerful, (please see Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back, reference dialogue between Darth Vader and the Emperor). However, there are often those people who have the agenda to keep you out whatever the facts- then you have to fight.
True..though, as you say: it’s hard to win against an enemy inside the fortress who does not play fair…not to say it can’t be done.
And apropos of nothing except my own amusement:
“You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!”
3The challenge I find when encountering resistance/difficulty with a prospect is my EGO’s initial reaction to want to be right and prove someone WRONG. This is mostly unproductive and seldom does it help me get what I want in the end.
I really like Marcus Buckingham’s description of the most important trait when meeting obstacles – what he calls self-efficacy. He says, “Your level of self efficacy for an activity does an excellent job of predicting your subsequent performance. If predicts how quickly you will bounce back from failure at the activity, how forcefully you will persevere at the activity when you meet obstacles or setbacks, how high your goals for that activity will be, and , most important of all, the likelihood you will actually achieve these goals. When it comes to performance, self–efficacy is one of the most powerful of mental states.”
So, it’s not really about being right or fighting harder. I see self-eficacy as a higher level of emotional discipline and a focused, patient yet driven, stick-to-it-iveness (is that a word?). Something to think about. Tom B.
4I’m a “mouthy sales guy” and I disapprove of Jennifer’s message.
Just kidding – I think you make awesome points – the little old ladies smiling and nodding over a cup of tea is spot on. Some of my sales guys (and me on some days) are such nice guys that we don’t even realize the passive-aggressive attack or even direct subterfuge is going on. Sometimes the fight is on and you don’t even realize it.
We had one example where the IT department that felt threatened by us played along oh-so-nicely – and with two weeks left to go in a six week measurement period, we found out they had been giving themselves a hidden advantage in the numbers. The “oh, we forgot to tell you about THAT” (in a company with more process than Kafka ever dreamed about) was accepted by many on my team at face value. It wasn’t until later, with hindsight, that we realized they were gunning at us even though they appeared entirely cooperative on the surface. As our champion told us later, “you wouldn’t believe the number of runs IT took at you before they finally landed an arrow and killed you.”
5Having evolved from the IT genetic pool into a broader business player I can appreciate the “arms length with a smile” demeanor of a technical player on a buying team.
My observation from the limited information provided is that your team fell short on two critical fronts.
Number one is the failure to engage personally with the IT element. This may have been due to a lack of an IT counterpart on your team.
The second and more critical is that I would hardly refer to an individual that was aware of “the number of runs IT took at you before they finally landed an arrow” as a champion. Failure to identify a true champion versus a bystander willing to see you nailed is something to review.
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