Harper's Rules (14 page)

HARPER'S RULE
The “Take It Away”

If done correctly, the “Take It Away” will identify who has the upper hand. It must be succinct, matter-of-fact, and with no qualifiers. Deliver the “Take It Away” and get off the phone.

The “Take It Away” only works if you hang up. If you don't, you
dilute
the message and you lose. Done correctly, the “Take It Away” is jarring to recipients, making them realize they have waited too long or negotiated too hard, and now will lose what they suddenly realize they
must
have.

Harper would call me on this in a second. Here goes, Leena . . .

“Leena, I'm not comfortable. Mr. Avery said the 17
th
, and Harper knows my credentials are impeccable. If they can't commit to the date they asked me to reserve, I withdraw my candidacy. Please tell Harper.”

And I hung up. I hope you're right, Harper.

I decided I was on a “Take it Away” roll. I went to the gym, after a very minor makeup prep of just over an hour.

I envisioned a saunter. The area where the personal trainers take their clients through their paces with things like Bosu balls and body bars is adjacent to the cardio area, and if he was in there torturing someone in the name of fitness, I would acknowledge him with my eyes but not smile, and then “saunter” by him.

My plan unraveled immediately. Peter was on his knees on one of the yoga mats and leaning back as if he were in a game of tug of war. But instead of a rope, he was pulling the leg of a woman lying on the mat below him. Then he pushed her bent leg back toward her chest, fully stretching her hamstring and exposing her glutes. Not a trace of cellulite. My saunter, which had begun so promisingly in the parking lot, came to a screeching halt.

I turned away, smiled as brightly at his slutty client as I could, and as I sat down on a LifeCycle, Leena's number flashed on my cell.

“Hi, Leena.”

“Ms. Matthews, just wanted to get back to you. I couldn't get ahold of Mr. Scott, so I took it upon myself to call InterAnnex, speak to Mr. Avery directly, and formally withdraw you from consideration.”

Damn! It backfired! Enjoy yourself, Casey, when you have to sign up for unemployment.

“You did?” I managed, meekly.

“Of course I didn't. I just had to get back at you for using the ‘Take It Away' on me. By the time I realized you were using my own training on me, I had completely freaked out and called Mr. Scott.”

“Leena, did you just punk me?”

“Maybe a little.”

Okay, I love her. I started to laugh, which made her laugh, and the moment would have gone on a bit if Peter hadn't come around the corner.

“Uh, sorry, I'll talk to you when you're done.”

“No you won't. I'm going to be a while, and then I'm going to work out. I'm going to tell you one of the great rules of business, but I've been convinced recently that the rules of life and love are no different. Here's the rule: ‘Time Kills Deals.'”

I settled back on the LifeCycle and gave Leena my full attention.

“Whoa, that sounded cold,” she said. “Can I ask?”

“A guy I went out with Friday. No contact since. Just ran into him.”

“Ouch. But maybe something happened. Maybe he couldn't reach out. Maybe he had a family thing—”

“Leena, listen to me. ‘Yes' is great. ‘No' is fine. ‘Maybe' doesn't work. Understand?”

“Um, hold on. Mr. Scott is on the other line. I'm going to conference him in.”

“Casey,” Harper said, “I hear you're abusing my staff.”

“I didn't say that,” Leena interjected.

“The ‘Take It Away,' by the way, was well played.”

Harper didn't sound right; he was slightly hoarse.

“Harper, I'll ask you what I asked Leena, who incidentally, is great: What is the concern Wallace Avery has about me that is jeopardizing me getting that job?”

“Who says there is one?”

“Leena, are you recording this call? I'm about to help your boss write one of his chapters. Ready, Harper?”

He sighed. I'd never heard him sound tired before.

HARPER'S RULES
Time Kills Deals

This theory is based on some simple notions:

When we truly want something we act.

The longer we wait the more “life variables” we allow.

There is no such thing as ‘I don't have time' in the modern world.

“You want to do the honors on the first one, Casey?”

I was happy to jump in. I believed in it utterly. If I had waited passively for my customers to call back when they promised they would, I would never have made my quota, let alone become a top producer.

“Leena, you just found out you have a formal party to attend tonight. You go right to the mall because this is the only window of time you have to buy a black dress. A woman comes up to you in the store, sees you browsing and says, ‘Can I help you?' What do you say?”

“I would say, ‘No thanks, just looking.'”

“Right. And that would be a lie. You are, in fact, desperate to have a black dress as soon as possible. Why don't you admit your situation to the salesperson? Because resistance to being persuaded is a given. We push back, even when we want or need something.”

“Every time I call people who have résumés on Monster,” Leena said, “and tell them about a job, they tell me they're not sure they're really looking for a job, even though their résumé is on a job board.”

“Every time I get asked out,” I said, “I always say I'm busy for whatever night they first suggest, and I make them find a different night.”

“Luckily,” Harper said, “resistance is no match for desire. When we want something or someone, our senses begin to work sporadically. We think about the object of our desire. Our resistance reminds us to go slow, but all we can see are the possibilities.

“Leena, you and Mark bought a house recently, right?”

Leena is married? She sounds like she can't be more than twenty-four. And they have a house?

“When did you know you wanted the house?”

“Oh God, the first walk-through. Once I saw the chestnut floors, the wallpaper in the baby's room . . .”

And she has a baby? Mark Junior at twenty-four . . . I am a total loser.

“And even though you told the realtor you were going to think about it and look at some other options, you and Mark began crunching numbers in the car.”

“Actually, I begged the realtor not to show it to anyone else until I had a chance to work on Mark.”

“Your resistance was being told by your desire that ‘Time Kills Deals.' And when did you make the offer?”

“Later that day.”

“And did they accept it?”

“No. They counteroffered. After a long, excruciating day.”

“One day is not long, but it seemed long because you wanted it. And how long before you countered successfully?”

“Oh, God,” Leena laughed, “twenty minutes. Thirty years of payments decided in twenty minutes.”

“You did nothing wrong. When we want something, we act.”

Peter was at the juice bar counter munching on a Power Bar. If he wanted me, I wouldn't have had to humiliate myself and come to the gym to show him I wasn't interested. His natural
resistance
to being hurt would have been no match for his
desire
.

Harper was still going:

HARPER'S RULES
Time Kills Deals, Part Two

The longer we wait, the more life variables we allow. The excuses we all make seem harmless:

‘I just want to think about it.'

‘It's a big decision, so I want to be sure.'

‘If it's the right thing to do, it will be right next week.'

It takes guts for us to see this for what it is: fear of change. In my career as a headhunter, as well as in my entire existence as a friend or colleague to people making relationship choices, the thing that is most astonishing to me is how often—

“—we continue to do the things and stay with the people we already know are wrong for us. Sorry, Harper. I've heard you say this before, and I get it now.” He continued:

The real problem is when we feel we
will
make the change, but we just need some time ‘to get used to the idea.' Let's look at the life variables that can occur while we're mustering the courage to act. Here's what happens in my office all the time. We get a candidate an offer that pays him twelve percent more than he currently makes. The benefits are better, with a better match on his 401(k). He goes in a controller, but the VP of finance is retiring in two years, so his promotional path is clear. What does he do when he gets his offer?

“You're saying even this guy says he wants to think about it?” Leena said.

“You say that now, Leena, but you've been out of school for less than two years. He has been with his company for ten years. His boss hired him; he admires the man and dreads disappointing him. He complains about the commute, but he has gotten used to having time to unwind after work before coming home and dealing with his young kids. He has friends at his job.

“And deep inside, despite all the obvious reasons why he should and probably will act, he is worried that he will be exposed as not being the excellent performer he has
sold himself as, and he has nightmares about being called in two weeks into the job and being released for being an imposter.”

“That is so sad,” I lamented.

“An editor of
Parade Magazine
said the one question he could ask any celebrity, no matter how arrogant, that nails them instantly, was, ‘What are you going to do when they figure out who you really are?'”

“But ultimately he takes the job, right?” Leena said.

“Perhaps. But he's rolling the dice with the life variables in the interim.”

Harper was right about Leena: at twenty-four, life was black and white, and the people wallowing in grisaille seemed craven and sad.

I jumped in. “During the week he is mustering up his nerve, his own company could get wind that he has been interviewing and fire him on the spot. Now he has lost leverage to negotiate his offer higher, and his benefits won't pick up on the new job for ninety days: one health crisis away from potential financial ruin. Or he might get calls from companies he sent résumés to a month ago asking him to interview. Should he? Does he ask for more time? Maybe his wife has gotten used to their schedule the way it is, and she starts working on him to stay where he is and not take the risk. Meantime Harper here is calling every day. Don't deny it, Harper, you've done it to me!”

“I not only don't deny it, I take pride in it. It is my duty as the client's agent to get an answer. And that brings us to another life variable: me. Say you don't accept the job right away and I assume you are going to say no. That means I start sending other candidates in right now to protect the client and myself. Sometimes they're strong candidates, they cost less, or they're prepared to accept the job right away. And the client is tired of waiting for you.”

Had Harper sent other candidates to Wallace? He wouldn't do that to me, would he? Unemployment, like loneliness, makes you paranoid.

“And it is not always that Machiavellian,” he said. “Sometimes during your decision making, companies lose budget monies and impose hiring freezes. Most offers are accepted within forty-eight hours in successful deals in my firm.”

I thought about the offers I had received over the years, and Harper was right. The jobs I took, I took immediately or within a day.

“Can you remember when Mark first told you he loved you, Leena?”

“Of course.”

“How long before you responded?”

“Immediately. I felt the same way.”

“But if you had told him you needed a week or so to consider your options and that
you were confident, given your feelings, you probably would come back to him with an affirmation, how do you think that would have gone over?”

“I think I'd still be trying to write pithy wall postings on Facebook to every cute guy I knew.”

“Right. So here's what we know: a company has interviewed a series of people and then selected you. They not only want you, but they want you to feel the same way about them. Every day you think about it, their feelings for you are diminished. Accept in a day and the emotion is matched and a career is launched. Accept in a week and they can't help but feel you took the job because your preferred options didn't work out. You ‘ended up' with them.

“Offers are how companies say ‘I love you,' and they need to hear it back. Have either of you ever said ‘I love you' and not heard it back?”

“Yes,” Leena said. “It was horrible.”

“Me, too. And it sucked.”

“Really? That was rhetorical. It's never happened to me. What is wrong with you two?”

My Blackberry buzzed, and the familiar red light started flashing—a text from Peter: “Are you going to be much longer? I have another client soon.”

Is he joking? He is aware and respectful of his client's time but couldn't text, call, or email in three days?

Harper continued:

HARPER'S RULES
Time Kills Deals, Part Three

There is no such thing as ‘I don't have time' in the modern world. Technology has stripped away many of the classic excuses, so when people cling stubbornly to them, they can cause frustration and even hostile action that both parties come to regret.

If you are like most people, you probably check your email twenty to twenty-five times a day. And you probably either read or write email or instant messages up to three hours of your day. And it's likely that at some point you've had a Blackberry or some other smart-phone to stay connected to the office or clients. And you obviously have voice mail, which you check after seeing the indicator light go on. How soon do you check your voice mail after seeing you have one?