Negotiation Tip of the Week
“To combat a lying bully be willing to bully and lie to him.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert
“How To Negotiate With A Lying Bully”
#LyingBully
All negotiators lie (i.e. by omission if not outright falsehoods), but all negotiators don’t bully other negotiators when negotiating. To negotiate with a lying bully, you must be mentally prepared to thwart his efforts at every turn. After all, a lying bully is worse than someone that attempts to bully you. He’s someone that can inflict mental harm that can lead to negotiation paralysis.
Use the following suggestions the next time you’re confronted by a lying bully in your negotiation.
Be aware of how you’re viewed:
A bully may attempt to push you around and lie to you at the negotiation table simply to enhance his persona. If that’s his source of motivation, he may be using you as a reference for what he wants others to think he might do to them. If you sense that he’s using you as a negotiation sparring tune-up, show him that you’re someone to reckon with by posing as the biggest, baddest, most egotistical negotiator he ever came up against. The thought you want to leave him with is, you’re not to be pushed around, lied to, or bullied. You will have flipped his script and sent your own message to others about how you deal with bullies.
Be prepared to be deceitful:
There are times when bullies don’t know how others see them until others reflect what they see in them. As such, if you find yourself in a negotiation with a lying bully, be prepared to reflect his actions back to him. You can do that by mirroring his actions and lies. To be more effective when doing so, state lies as truths that he and you know are lies. Become more aggressive than normal and belligerent. Get him to question you as to why you’re engaging in such actions. Let him know that you’re reflecting his actions and see if he adopts a new stance after that. If he doesn’t become stouter in your actions.
Understand bully’s source of motivation/power:
A bully knows with whom he can lie and bully and with whom he can’t. Thus, he’s more fearful about lying and bullying some people. Those that he fears can be used as a source that you can use to detract from his efforts. To do so you need to present yourself as a source of power that motivates him. That means you should mimic his motivation source. It’s also akin to using his strength against him.
Use leverage:
You’re always more powerful when you have others join you against a bully. To use leverage more effectively, marshal forces that either strongly lean towards the bully’s demeanor or those that combine into a greater force of victims the bully has dealt with. In either case, they’ll be the intrinsic subconscious perception of the lying bully dealing with a greater force. That should allay his efforts of bullying and/or lying to you.
There are degrees in which a bully will engage you during a negotiation. The same is true as to the degree he’ll lie. Therefore, to win more negotiations when dealing with someone of that ilk, you must be prepared to do what is required to put a bully in his place … and everything will be right with the world.
#LyingBully
What are your takeaways? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com
Remember, you’re always negotiating.