“How do I deal with dominating people?”
Acquiesce! That’s right! Just let them have their way, and they’ll stop dominating you!
I learned this lesson during my first news reporting job for a small town Florida newspaper.
There were only two of us at the newspaper, and the publisher was also our boss and editor-in-chief.
Every morning, the boss would come over and hastily read through our stories we were in the process of composing and absolutely explode at both of us!
“This is not right!” he yell. “What kind of a stupid lead sentence is this!?”
Tom, my colleague, would fight him all the way!
“What!!??? That’s a great lead! I don’t know why you have a problem with it!!!”
And now they’d be eyeball to eyeball.
The boss couldn’t say enough bad things about Tom’s stupid, idiotic, childish, moronic, dull-witted, retarded, asinine, boorish writing. (You get the picture? Yeah, he was the kind of boss who would use those kinds of words while shouting and throwing spittle on your glasses.)
Me? I’d just remained calm. Asked him for suggestions of how to improve my lead or the story.
I’d scribble some notes.
Now get this: Sometimes I’d do what he suggested, but 99% of the time, I didn’t. I didn’t do anything differently. I’d just leave the story as is.
Then, he’d come back around and look over my shoulder.
“How’s this, boss?” I’d ask him.
“Much better! Much, much better!!”
(I’d smile up at him, chuckling inside, knowing it was the same, identical story.)
“Thanks, boss!”
After a couple weeks of this, he stopped critiquing my stories. He assumed I now knew how to write a good lead, his style.
Tom, on the other, still butting heads with our editor-in-chief, finally gave up and resigned.
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