The barking dog eventually gets tired

This is what I learned growing up just a chainlink fence away from a vicious Rottweiler named Rufus. The barking dog eventually gets tired. My basketball bounced off the rim, and rolled next to fence. Rufus jumped against the fence near my ball, roaring and salvating. He terrified me. 

For a while, this meant basketball time was over. I would go inside, or go play on the other end of the yard. Until one day I discovered that a barking dog eventually gets tired. When my ball bounced over to the fence, and the Rottweiler barked, I stared back at him. Eventually, Rufus got bored, seeing me stand there, motionless, looking back at him. He stopped barking, wandered away, and I picked up by ball and kept playing. 

When I started my freelance career, I encountered a few barking dogs. I still encounter clients and colleagues who press and push and puff up their chests as a way of getting what they want. A quote from Blair Enns helped me make the connection between these two kinds of barking dogs. He said, “You will save yourself from yourself by learning to just state the number and shut up.” 

I realized in order to win I didn’t need to go toe-to-toe with their barking. I didn’t need to bark louder or smarter. I could just wait in silence on a phone call, while they barked themselves into a corner. Listening is leverage. Every time someone barks, you learn something about their position and about their constraints. The ones who bark a lot can’t handle it when you don’t respond to their barking like everyone else. By asking them questions that force them to reveal their position, and waiting until they get too tired to bark anymore… you can walk right into a win without barking back.