Dancing When You Might Have Stumbled
HERE I WANT to celebrate the mastery of Verbal Judo. Many who have incorporated the various principles in their lives have elegantly succeeded in situations where once they might have suffered loss or embarrassment. You can succeed too if you’re committed to following through on what you have learned.
I was one who suffered as much as anyone for lack of having discovered and mastered these principles. The failure of my marriages was largely due to the fact that no one had ever told me to not express my feelings when I got angry. Rather than saying, “I love you, what’s wrong?” I said things like “If you don’t like it, too bad. You want a divorce? Okay!”
We all find it hard, especially men, to say what we really feel and mean, and so we resort to shortcuts. We translate disappointment into anger, we translate frustration into anger, because it’s easier for us to look good, macho, and powerful if we lash back.
Just as in the workplace, when you come home you must play a series of roles. You’re a parent, a disciplinarian, a lover, a helper, a friend, a psychologist, or whatever is necessary at a given moment. I would take abuse and deflect it on the street, but then at home I wanted to relax. I dropped all pretense of skill at this, and my wife would say, “How come you don’t treat me as well as you treat those street lizards you deal with? You’re snapping at me like I’m a dog.” She was right. Eventually it cost me the marriage.
In a later relationship, after I had begun developing this program but before I had mastered the ninja skill of making skillful communication invisible, my wife would say, “Don’t use that Verbal Judo crap on me.”
You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to stumble. But it’s better to stumble using the right technique with good motives. As important as learning these principles is making Verbal Judo part of the fabric of your life and character and personality.
Every time you interact with somebody in your family, on the street, or in your workplace, make it your goal to improve the situation or the relationship. If you try to control people, you’ll be breathing down their necks. You can’t force people to do what you want in today’s society. You have to use your words strategically. Generate voluntary compliance and cooperation by directing rather than controlling.
GO AHEAD, MAKE MY DAY!
If you know movies, you know that famous Clint Eastwood line from the Dirty Harry series. He says to a punk, in effect, “Give me a reason to blow your head off.” I gotta tell you, I love Clint Eastwood and all his Westerns and cop movies. But I bring that up in classes with real cops and I have to say, “There, for example, is the difference between TV and life. In the real world, you point a gun at a guy and say that, he reaches for the gun, and you shoot him—you’re in deep trouble. In court it would be shown that you invited him to reach for a weapon so you could exterminate him, and you would be tried as a murderer.”
Clint’s approach may make for good theater, and we may all cheer when Dirty Harry exacts justice from the sleaze ball, but that’s the opposite of Verbal Judo.
When what we say or do forces someone to respond under duress, to whom are we giving the power to control the situation? To whom are we handing over the decision-making power? The badge wearer is the one who is supposed to make the citizen’s day. The proper approach is: “I’ll make your day for you. You want to resist arrest? You will not succeed. You want to fight a cop? You’ll be subdued before you begin. You want to rape this woman or sell crack cocaine on these corners? I’m not going to let that happen.”
RODNEY KING
Irrespective of your opinion of the verdict that resulted in the Los Angeles riots, a major question was brought to light by the Rodney King arrest. I happen to be one who believes the situation got out of hand and that entirely too much force was used. I believe in the justice system and the integrity of juries, and I have my questions about why King didn’t simply obey and go immediately to a nonthreatening prone position. I know he was a repeat offender and was a large and dangerous man, but I have eyes as you do. I saw the videotape and was repulsed.
More important, though, for the first time in America a question was raised: What if the police, the thin blue line between peace and disharmony in our society, are the problem? That was something we didn’t want to think about and, for the most part, had never considered. Charges of police brutality were few and far between and were often brought by obviously guilty parties. But when people who have long doubted those in power now start to wonder about the police themselves, we face a chilling question. Why should anybody trust the police to begin with?
I say to cops in my classes, “If out of the three hundred in this room there’s just one of you suckers who thinks that showing up and kicking ass and taking names and humiliating people is what your job is about, what happens to the thin blue line between order and disorder, between peace and violence? It’s gone.”
That’s the tragedy of the Rodney King affair. A lot of people say that it was business as usual in L.A., and of course a lot of L.A. cops say, “No, it isn’t.”
To me, the saddest part was that when it happened I was in the midst of a contract with the Los Angeles Police Department to teach Verbal Judo to most of its officers. Several of the cops involved in that ugly altercation were scheduled to sit in on one of my seminars the very next week. I like to think that something they might have gleaned from that would have put a different spin on what happened that night.
I can only hope that they would have danced rather than stumbled, because regardless whether anyone ever proves that anything they did that night was illegal, anybody with a brain and two eyes knows that the situation could have been handled better.
I want you to be able to dance instead of stumble, as I have learned to do, and I offer here a couple of case histories to show what kinds of results you might expect. Both involve people who have attended my seminars and have used the Verbal Judo techniques to great avail. While each has many stories of success in everyday dealings and negotiations, both have also soared on paper as little Davids doing written battle—one with a Goliath corporation and the other with a high-powered businessman. Both the corporation and the businessman tried to intimidate my protégés and might have scared off someone who had no ammunition, but you will see that Verbal Judo made my guys equal to the task in both cases.
THE WATER SYSTEM FROM HELL
My client, whom I’ll call Rick, and his wife needed a water-softening system and a drinking water purifier. They scheduled a meeting with a sales representative from a supplier, but the man who arrived was not the salesman. Rather, he said he was a sales manager in an executive position who had been forced to handle the house call because the route salesperson had had to cancel at the last minute because of a social engagement.
This sales manager acted rushed and perturbed that he had to handle such a lowly task but assured Rick and his wife that they would be the beneficiaries of the snafu. He had a personal vendetta against the salesman and would thus sell both the softener and the purifier at cost. That would result in no commission for the salesman, and the sales manager said he would use the sale as a case lesson for his staff. He bragged that this would prove to his staff that he could sell the company’s products under any circumstances.
He breezed through his presentation, apparently eager to get going, and was unable to produce documentation for his company’s claims of research showing that their system would eliminate the need for hair conditioners and fabric softeners, reduce the need for soap, produce a no-maintenance bathroom, and cut water bills to the bone. He used to carry such documentation, he said, when he handled house calls.
Rick and his wife expressed their reluctance at getting into the middle of an office-politics situation, but they could not ignore the huge price break. They had no reason to doubt the sales manager’s word about the research studies and the water bill savings, so they signed the contract. The sales manager stayed long enough only to gloat again about how he would use the deal to show his people how sales should be done, even in difficult circumstances.
When the system was installed it seemed to run for several hours, water gushing down the drains. Rick called to see if this was normal and was told a serviceman would come that night. No one came. Reddish beads turned up in tap water, toilets, sinks, and tubs. The next day Rick turned on the shower, only to be blasted with the little beads he eventually learned were from the resin system designed to infiltrate the system.
When a serviceman finally came to check, Rick learned that the system had indeed malfunctioned and had dumped its entire tank of resin beads into the water supply. As Rick had ingested some of these in his shower, he was naturally concerned with his health.
But that was not all. Clearly the installer had been inexperienced. He left a mess, including a gaping hole in the drywall. He left greasy tools on a piece of Rick’s luggage. The washing machine became so clogged with resin that the pump had to be replaced. The water heater had heavy residue from the beads.
Meanwhile, the system continued to malfunction. It would come on in the middle of the morning and shake the whole house, and the family noticed no savings in soap or conditioners. Their water bill increased sixfold!
When it became clear to Rick that the entire system was a disaster, he contacted the company, only to discover that the “sales manager” had misrepresented himself and had since been reassigned. Rick believed he was getting satisfaction when the company agreed to replace the system, promised to send documentation that his health would not be threatened by his resin shower, and urged him to try out the system (which would be fully explained at a later date) before paying anything.
Part of the original sales plan had included regular deliveries of salt. None came. The documentation regarding health-related issues and the chemistry of the resin was never sent. Rick did not receive any printed material or explanation of the system that would have told him what was normal and what was not, how the system best functioned, and what to expect.
What he and his wife did receive next was their bill, which had been turned over to a collection agency and was soon to be litigated.
I don’t know about you, but I would have been ready to go to war. Phrases like “How dare you?” and “Who do you think you’re dealing with?” would have come to my mind.
To Rick’s credit, while he was forthright and unequivocal in his letter, he did much more than simply recount the history of the case (which is always a good idea). He could have ranted and raved and made all manner of threats and accusations. Rather, he clearly stated his personal offense at having been contacted by a collection agency and having been threatened with legal action when it was clear to him that it was he who had the case against the supplier. Instead of leveling a written version of “See you in court,” he outlined how he thought he had been shortchanged, asked for restitution, and insisted on the company calling off the collection agency, using variations of the following language: “I await your earliest response. In view of our desire to avoid a court case—a feeling I assume would be shared by you and your company—I would ask that . . .” Later he added, “I trust we can work things out smoothly and professionally . . .”
In subsequent correspondence, when this approach seemed to be working, Rick looked for other areas of agreement. He wrote such things as “I feel you have taken some good initial steps in helping to alleviate the serious problems I outlined in my letter . . . My meeting with _____ was cordial and he proved to be a fine tribute to your office.”
While Rick continued to fear for his health, he even allowed, “I am neither a chemist nor a doctor, and do not want to suggest that the pains are linked to my ingestion of the resin beads. However, I would like to close the door to that possibility, and I will be able to do that by receiving the above-mentioned data from you.”
He continued, “With that in mind, I would ask that you take additional action and waive all charges on this transaction. I challenge every dollar of this account.” And then Rick concluded with what I often encourage as a solid Verbal Judo technique. He painted a word picture that allowed his target audience to envision exactly what was going on:
“I feel not unlike a gentleman farmer who buys what he thinks is a prize cow but is shipped a raging bull. After the buyer has been gored, some immediate concessions are made by the seller. The shirt with its gaping hole will be replaced and all cosmetic repairs will be covered at no cost. Bull food for a year will also be covered. But then the farmer is slipped a bill for the bull itself.
“Sir, I am grateful for the bull food. But can you do something about the bull? Please take another look at the figures and previous correspondence. I’d be appreciative if we could come to a meeting of the minds by the end of the year.”
Best of all, once the matter was finally settled to Rick’s satisfaction, he followed up with a note of thanks. It would have been easy to shoot a stinger back, gloating about the victory. But the company had eventually done the right thing, and Rick wrote:
“Thank you again for your assistance in resolving these matters. We are well aware that in any business, problems occur. What sets companies apart is how such problems are dealt with. Despite advertising claims about service, too often the customer loses. And so we have been encouraged to see our case handled in such a forthright manner. The professionalism displayed by you and your assistant has been refreshing indeed.”
MANO A MANO
The other success story from one of my satisfied students (I’ll call him Chris) is this: Chris, a businessman, ran into a real buzz saw in the person of a businessman who apparently used intimidation as a common negotiating tactic. Chris had simply requested business references from him, standard practice when you’re about to enter into an agreement with someone.
He wrote the man, whom I’ll call Frank, “I was able to reach two of the business references your office provided, but they weren’t of much help. The first wouldn’t take my call or call me back; the second gave me a minute to ask a couple of questions, and then offered to negotiate the deal if I needed help. The only help I need is for somebody to stand up and say, ‘Frank’s a great guy. He cuts a fair deal and I’d gladly do business with him again.’ Please let me know if you can provide any references that will assure me. It’s a fair thing to ask.”
He then clearly challenged Frank’s unfair-deal terms, stating, “These are basic questions that perhaps you’d prefer were left unasked, but not asking them would be an irresponsibility on my part . . .”
Chris expressed his willingness to meet face-to-face but added, “However, perhaps it’s fortuitous that we haven’t met, in light of your earlier threat, ‘Don’t mess with me, I’m Sicilian.’ Or maybe it wasn’t a threat. I honestly have trouble differentiating between what you say and reality as I know it.”
(I gotta tell you, if that happened to me, I would have to be reminded to stay in my Verbal Judo mode to keep from placing a few calls to my friends and having fifty thousand cops land on Frank’s doorstep. In this case, the student handled it better than the teacher would have.)
In the letter, Chris then moved to humor, in an attempt to counterbalance Frank’s sweeping denigration of a group of people. “Either way, I can assure you that I don’t want to wake up with a horse’s head in my bed, if that’s what you mean.”
He concluded: “All of this is to say, Frank, I think it would be prudent to start trying to mend fences. And I think your attorney would advise the same if you gave him a copy of this letter. We’re all pretty decent people on the other ends of these telephone lines. We also have solid reputations, simple values, a distaste for being ‘messed with’ which we apparently share with Sicilians, and wouldn’t you know it—even a readiness to grab hold of an olive branch . . . if there’s one anywhere in sight.”
That letter, because of its tone and its expert use of Verbal Judo techniques, took Chris from an acrimonious situation to harmony overnight. One day he was receiving threats and charges and ultimatums—from Frank’s insisting that he would not do business with anyone if Chris was involved to his telling Chris that Chris’s clients would go broke when Frank sued them. The next day after that letter arrived in Frank’s mailbox—whether he showed it to his lawyer Chris isn’t sure—he called Chris with a laugh in his voice. The tension was gone. He even offered Chris a writing job, telling him he had no idea Chris could put words together on paper like that! They got together for lunch, continued negotiating, and eventually inked a lucrative deal for all parties.
FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE
My memory is full of testimonials from seminar attendees who have borne witness to the benefits of Verbal Judo. I hear from them all the time. There’s the woman from Southern California who was sent to the seminar by her employer and who saw a huge decrease in complaints about her department. But even more important, she believes Verbal Judo saved her marriage. She began talking to her husband the way she wanted to be spoken to by him. He was surprised, bemused, and suspicious at first, but as she stuck with it, he grew to like it. Her ego was in the background. She was practicing the Golden Rule.
Eventually he felt conspicuous being the bad guy in a marriage with such a wonderful, loving wife, and his behavior began to change. She says she has taught him to be a Verbal Judo expert without his even being aware of it.
I’ve heard from cops who had been estranged from their kids, either because of divorce or separation or just because of the demands of the job. With Verbal Judo techniques they were able to say things they had never been able to say before, and they’ve seen friendships formed and relationships healed. They think it’s magic and that I’m some sort of a family-healing guru.
But Verbal Judo is just common sense. I admit I have the right background for this type of a thing. I needed Verbal Judo myself, being a Difficult Person. I became a student of rhetoric and literature. I overcame a speech handicap. I worked in the trenches, where you have to be able to communicate to stay alive. And I perfected physical martial arts skills which I found transferred beautifully to this program.
Yet I maintain there is no magic to it, no deep secrets. Learn the principles so that even when the myriad techniques don’t come immediately to mind, you’ll know the general objective.
Make Verbal Judo a way of life, and watch yours change for the better.