Page 413 - Deception at work all chapters EBook

414 Deception at Work

Get the opponent to lose confidence in his position.

You might also try the dodge with his putter, referred to earlier, but don’t do both because
the opponent will smell a rat.

Be a little bit subtle

The usual dialogue on the first tee, like all openings, is key and you must get immediate
control. Forget all that usual Adult-to-Adult stuff because you want to get into the role of a criti-
cal parent as quickly as possible and stay there until your opponent has conceded defeat.

SELF DEPRECATION that should be. Have you been hitting the
bottle, or what?’ Whatever you do, don’t
If your opponent makes self-deprecating sympathise with him: let him sweat.
remarks like ‘I never hit my first tee shot
very well’ you must ignore him or respond
quietly as a critical parent. ‘I don’t know why

There is always one really dangerous aspect and that is betting on the match.

BETTING ‘Let’s play for five grand’, which after all is a
childish boastful thing to do, respond as a
If you have much more money than the critical parent: ‘I don’t play for money: that’s
opponent, try to make a bet that will hurt a sure way to destroy a friendship/business
him, not you. ‘What we playing for, Stan, relationship. If you must, I’ll play for 50
five grand?’ If this is half his annual salary pence or a Mars Bar.’
and one percent of yours, you have seriously
raised the pavement for him but not for
you. If the situation is reversed and he says:

The person with the most to lose, will

Lots of golfers are quite nervous before the game and rabbit on about when they played
with Tiger Woods last week in Cheam, how well they scored, or how they beat their boss into
a pulp.

The reason for this garrulousness, besides overcoming nerves, is to impress you and usually
what they say is an embellishment of the truth, which they don’t expect to be challenged.
So listen carefully and pick on something where the opponent may have over-egged the cake
and say something like:

‘Are you sure that’s true, Stan? You could not have played in Cheam with Tiger Woods last
week, because he was ill in bed, in Florida.’

Stan: ‘I didn’t mean I played with Tiger himself. What I said was that I played with a taxi
driver who looked like Tiger Woods.’

‘Oh,’ you say, ‘I thought you were bullshitting.’