To meet or not to meet...(2)

It's Saturday, the second day of this fiasco. I'm with Cliff in Makati for the weekend and I receive a text message on my phone from VG confirming the Monday meeting. I reiterated that the meeting was to be on Tuesday and that Freddie had already promised to attend. The reply came back after a few minutes: There was no need for Freddie's presence at the meeting. I replied: The issue concerns the entire committee and, thus, requires the presence of the entire membership.

The exchange gets interesting from this point onwards:

VG: The problem concerns only a few of the members. Freddie doesn't need to be at the meeting. Let's just have it on Monday.

Me: I don't feel comfortable limiting the discussion to a small group within the Committee. I really think all the members should be present, including the chair.

VG: It doesn't have to be so formal, just the members concerned. Don't worry, we're not looking for a fight.

Me: Interesting that you should think I'm worried about a confrontation. I'm simply saying that if this is really a committee issue, the entire membership should be involved in resolving this.

VG: I just don't want you to be bothered by all this. Ok, I'm not arguing about this anymore. See you at work.

All this time, Cliff was coaching me on how to handle the situation. Valuable lessons learned:

1. Persist. Use your opponent's arguments against him.
2. Never introduce new threads of arguments as they can be used against you and diffuse your power over your opponent.
3. Use fear to gain an advantage over your opponent.

To be continued...