The Negotiation Guru

“With great power comes great responsibility”
- adapted from Spiderman II

Power is a way to get from one place to another. It enables you to achieve what you want. You feel powerful when you are able to control the other party. Power is not a bad thing. It’s the abuse of power that makes it bad.

Power gives you the ability to influence other people. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using power. We all have power and have used power in one way or another (though you might not have noticed).

Power is dynamic and neutral. It is based not on logic but on perceptions. When the other party feels that you have power over them, it simply means that they perceive you have the ability to help them or hurt them.

Here are the 8 elements of power:

#1 : Power of Reward

The perception that someone has the ability to reward you, gives him the power over you. Your boss has the ability to reward you by giving you a raise, a promotion, approve your leave and so on. This ability to reward gives your boss the power.

If you give someone the tremendous ability to reward you, you are giving him too much power. We often believe that a particular someone can give us huge rewards. Such assumption can be blown out of proportion in our head and upset the power ratio in our negotiation.

Here is how you counter it: Be mindful of it.

When you are aware of it and understand it, the effect of such power will diminish. It will start to go away. With that, you will be able to deal with such power and be more self-confident as a negotiator.

#2: Power of Punishment

The Power of Punishment is the opposite of the Power of Reward. Anytime you perceive that someone has the ability to punish you, he/she will have power over you.

The biggest power of punishment is the power to humiliate and intimidate. People do anything to avoid being humiliated. Notice how your teachers have such huge power over you. They have the ability to cause pain to you and even embarrass you in front of your class.

If you are aware of your perception and needs, and know that the other party has power to punish you, he/she loses the power to control you.

#3: Power of Competition

Competition creates value. Whenever there is competition for something that you have, the value of that thing (can be anything) will increase. With competition, the thing which you have becomes much more desirable and valuable.

Scarcity effect is a very powerful social-influence principle that people use to increase the subjective desirability of products. The more scarce your product, the more value it has. And scarcity can be a perception concept.

People wants what they cannot have and wants what other wants.

On the reverse side, if you feel that the scarcity is affecting your negotiation, find other options . Having options is the antithesis of scarcity. The best thing which you can do for your negotiations is to have options. When you enter a negotiation with options, you will have huge power over the party.

#4: Power of Consistency

There’s a need to appear consistent. Everyone feels the need to appear consistent in front of others. Similarly, being consistent can be very appealing. Having an inconsistent behavior i.e acting differently from what you have communicated, is one of the fastest way you lose trust and power.

By being consistent with a set of values, people are naturally drawn to you and in awe of your power. It is very critical to have a consistent set of values. Play it straight with people and have a reputation that you do not cut corners. Reputation goes a very long way.

Even if people do not agree with you, they will still follow you if you are consistent. Being consistent is the way we should conduct our business today.

#5: Power of Expertise

Noticed how you always listen to people who are so-called experts in a certain field. If you project that you have more expertise in a particular field, you develop power over the others.

This is what you can do to make use of the expertise power: Establish yourself in the early stage of the negotiation.

Be wary of people who try to abuse this power. This can come in many forms. They might start throwing jargons and use language that you do not understand. Somehow or rather, you get convinced that they know more than you do.

When you are faced with such “experts”, do not be awe-struck. Neutralize such power. Play the fool. As intelligent questions and be ready to admit that you do not know everything. When you use such a stance, the so-called “experts” will change their attitude towards you. The more clueless and defenseless you appear to be, the more readily they will help you. Do not come across as challenging them. You will only cause them to play up their roles as “experts”.

Understand that in every negotiation, participants will lack the knowledge on a particular area somehow. The lack of knowledge in a certain aspect make us feel powerless. When you are caught in this situation, identify why you feel this way. Counterbalance the power.

#6: Power of Legitimacy

Legitimate power comes with a title. Such power has tremendous ability to influence people and get them to do what you want. In our society today, we tend to associate title with power. If you have a title, use it to your advantage. However, never over play your authority. You will lose credibility.

Similarly, if someone else uses his title as a source of power on you, ignore it. Do not let it affect you. You are allowed to challenge the legitimacy. Challenge the authority when you have to.

#7: Power of Situation

In different situations, people have different power. People who don’t have power in other areas in life, but in certain particular situation, they have huge power. The gate keeper is an example. He might not have power over you in other areas of your life. However, he has the absolute power to refuse your entrance.

People with situational power have the power to accept or reject you. They have power over you and they love to use it. When people have power in a certain situation, they are usually very anxious to use it.

Similarly, we can get such cases in our negotiations. Understand it and move on. Transit to another area where you have more control and power.

#8: Power of Information

In ancient warfare, information is king . Today, it has not changed a bit. Information is power.

We fail at negotiation sometimes because we are unable to get adequate information. To have huge power over your the person you are negotiating with, do this: Find out what he/she wants, needs, limits and deadlines.

When you have information about the other party, you have power over them. Being able to find out what their needs and desires are, you will be in a better position to negotiate.

Similarly, withholding of information can be intimidating and powerful. A level of secrecy will put control over the others. When you realize that people are keeping information from you with the intention to control you, the ability to control you will go away.

Conclusion

When you are in your next negotiation and you feel that you are losing control, find out what is causing that to happen. Is it any of the above elements of power or combination of them that is causing you to feel that way? Being able to identify the source of your powerlessness, will help you with your negotiation.

Conversely, these elements of power can give you the power that you want. Use them to your advantage. It’s an art. Do what you can to improve your power. Everyone has the ability to have the power and control people in your negotiation.

However, to achieve the highest level power is to have the power and not use it.

—————–
Jens Thang
Negotiation Skills for Everyone

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Email: jens@thenegotiationguru.com

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Tags: adr, business, conflict resolution, influence, mediation, negotiation, psychology, strategy, tips

This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Others, Psychology, Tactics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.