N07: Finding and using Negotiation Power

 

            Power is the potential to have influence over another party during negotiations. However, power can also be used to level the playing field and create collaborative negotiations and solutions. Power may be sought to compete with or dominate another party or it may be used to minimize the other parties potential to take advantage of the situation. Sources of power vary and include informational, personality-based, position-based, relationship-based, and contextual power.

 

            The party with the most information may have power over the competitor: in common terms, knowledge is power. Personality-based sources of power include charisma but also psychological or cognitive skills. Some parties may rely on position-based power, or reverting to rank in negotiations. Relationship-based power depends on persons connections, and contextual power offers one party the advantage in a given situation such as being in familiar surroundings.

 

            Managing power: influence and persuasion there are two general paths by which people are persuaded. The first path occurs consciously and involves integration of the message into the individual’s previously existing cognitive structures. The other route to persuasion, the peripheral route, is characterized by subtle cues and context, with less cognitive processing of the message.

 

Question

1. How people acquire power?
            1. Information and expertise: information power is derived from the negotiator’s ability to assemble and organize data to support his or her position, arguments, or desired outcomes.

 

            2. Control over resources: people who control resources have the capacity to give them to someone who will do what they want, and withhold them from someone who does not do what they want.

            3. Power based on one’s position:

            (a) Legitimate power: There are times when people respond to directions from another, even directions they do not like, because they feel it is proper fro the other to direct them and proper for them to obey.
           

            (b) The location within an organizational structure: Which leads to either formal authority or informal power based on where one is located relatives to flows of information or resources?

 

2. Why is power important to negotiators?

            Seeking leverage in negotiation usually arises from one of two perceptions:
            1. The negotiator believes he or she currently has less leverage than the other party.

            2. The negotiator believes he or she needs more leverage than the other party in increase the probability of securing desired outcome.

 

3. What is the role of receivers?
            1. Attending to the other – there are three important behaviors: Make eye contact, Adjust body position, and nonverbally encourage or discourage what the other says.

            2. Exploring or ignoring the other’s position – Selectively paraphrase (ensures that both parties have understood each other accurately), and reinforce points you like in the other party’s proposals.

            3. Resisting the other’s influence -there are three major things that listeners can do to resist the other’s influence efforts: have a best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA), make a public commitment (or get the other party to make one), and inoculate yourself against the other’s persuasive message.