What thoughts pop into your mind when you hear the term ‘management consultant?’ Now imagine that your boss has just told you and your colleagues that she’s hired a whiz-bang management consulting firm to partner with you on XYZ challenges over the next 12 months. This is not just a strategy I coach leaders to use it’s one I’ve relied on personally for a very long time. Giving voice to their concerns before they do, is a powerful strategy to disarm and defuse that concern, and turn it to your advantage. You will, however, regularly be in some form of interaction with colleagues, clients or counterparts, who harbor some unhelpful assumptions about you. Now, you’re not likely to be taking part in a heated rap battle, running for the office of President, or trying to disarm a hostage taker anytime soon. He then adapted it to the world of business negotiation, labelling it an ‘accusation audit.’ Like Eminem and Lincoln, the basic premise is the same defuse a difficult situation by articulating all of the negatives, concerns or potential issues your counterpart may have with you, before they can do it. Facing accusations from political rivals of being duplicitous and ‘two-faced’, Lincoln famously said “If I had another face, do you think I’d wear this one?”įormer FBI Chief Hostage Negotiator, Chris Voss, applied this strategy to disarm hostage takers quite literally. Abraham Lincoln used it more subtly to defuse criticism. The crowd goes wild, Papa Doc is left speechless, and B-Rabbit is victorious.ī-Rabbit used the strategy to defeat his opponent in a highly confrontational situation. B-Rabbit goes first, using a rather innovative strategy he articulates all of the negative things that Papa Doc is likely to say about him, before his opponent can do it. In the movie’s crescendo, B-Rabbit (Eminem) is up against his more fancied opponent Papa Doc (Anthony Mackie) to become rap battle champion.
So begins the final rap battle in 8 Mile, the 2002 critically acclaimed movie starring rapper Eminem, based on his early life in Detroit. I do live in a trailer with my mom.” B-Rabbit Dre invited ‘Em to the recording studio at his house and played him a sample, over which the Detroit rapper spontaneously spat: “Hi / My name is / My name is / Slim Shady.” You know what happened next.“This guy ain’t no MC, I know everything he’s about to say against me. Dre, who was on the look-out for a protégée. The producer made sure the tape found its way to Dr. A wise investment, Jack.Įm’s killer blow: “You wouldn’t sell two copies if you pressed a double album” The freestyle that changed rap historyĮminem was discovered by an Interscope intern, who saw him astonish the audience at this Californian battle and passed on a tape to head honcho Jimmy Iovine. So you owe me like 4 quid.” The video is now on more than six million views. The YouTube user that uploaded the video, Jack England, described the clip as follows: “Awesome battle rap I had to buy off some shitty site so you cunts could have for free. It’s like watching Mike Tyson rain down blows on Mr. It’s unbelievable how much better he is than his competitor, Juice. Here we see Eminem on the cusp of stardom, just two years prior to the release of breakthrough album ‘The Slim Shady LP’. He was never cool, though, and when Em compares Doseone to Wahlberg, it is not a compliment.Įm’s killer blow: “ You look like a fake-ass Marky Mark with dark hair” When Eminem made pulp out of Juice Prior to becoming a major Hollywood star, Mark Wahlberg was a rapper whose group achieved a number one hit on the Billboard Chart with ‘Good Vibrations’. Remember Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch? You do not remember them, and that is absolutely fine. He moves at a pace comparable only to, erm, Eminem himself. Here Em goes to-to-toe with Doseone, a fast-talking rapper from Idaho who’s pretty stunning in his speed of his delivery.