Leverage or Power In Negotiation Preliminary Considerations

1. Leverage or Power In NegotiationPreliminary Considerations • What are power and influence? • Power: Source of direct or indirect pressure exerted to advocate interests or win conflict • Influence: Tactics to apply this pressure • Why is power important to negotiators? • Provides advantage or leverage to gain greater share of outcomes or preferred solution • Usually sought for one of two reasons: • Equalization: To counterbalance opponent power • Enhancement: To secure desired outcomes, to win

2. Power In NegotiationPreliminary Considerations, contd • Defining power • Simple definition: Ability to bring about desired outcomes (in face of resistance) • Alternative definition: Ability to satisfy purposes in a situation relative to that situation • Relational aspect is important • Not simply a characteristic of an actor or party • Stresses how one derives power from a situation or context • Definition leads to emphasis on sources of power

3. Sources Of PowerInformation and Expert Power • Information • Facts, evidence, viewpoints, data • Used to persuade the other to accept a particular view (perhaps a particular frame), solution • Expert power • Special case of info power -- person assumes importance apart from info • Interprets facts for us, makes them persuasive • Watch out for the “snow job” -- a variation of “good guy/bad guy”?

4. Sources Of PowerResource Control: “Whoever has the gold …” • Money: Cash, salary, bonuses, expenses, etc. • Supplies: Raw materials, parts, components • Time: If the opponent is under time pressure • Equipment: Tools, software, vehicles, etc. • Critical services: Installation, maintenance, technical support, transportation, training, etc. • Human capital: Labor, staff • Interpersonal support: Praise and encouragement, or criticism for bad performance

5. Sources Of PowerLegitimate Power • Authority is usually derived from the social structure (e.g., organizational position, one’s place in the hierarchy or network). Can be obtained through inheritance (tradition), election, or appointment • Derivative sources: Reputation based on past performance enhances formal authority. Conversely, people stop listening to ineffective authorities

6. Sources Of PowerInformal Authority • Derives from one’s place in the structure or network even without formal authority • Key characteristics lending informal authority • Centrality: Amount of information passing through the “node” • Criticality and relevance: The key info and its processing • Flexibility: Discretion they can exercise • Visibility: Is the function known to others?

7. Sources Of PowerPersonal Power • Credibility: Qualifications and expertise, trustworthiness and integrity, presence • Personal attractiveness (friendliness): Establishes personal relationship, showing warmth, empathy • Emotion: Appealing to passions, values, sense of what’s right • Persistence and tenacity: “Dogged determination” -- children are good at this!

8. Managing Information Power: The Persuasion Process • Traditional model emphasizes characteristics of the message, source (sender), and receiver • More recent model emphasizes two paths: • Central route: Conscious, cognitive (integrated with existing thought structures), e.g., “Our cell-phone service is useful if your car breaks down” • Peripheral route: More subtle, less conscious, less permanent as not integrated in thought structures, “Jamie Lee Curtis wants to party with you/Women are mechanically competent”

9. Characteristics of Messages: Three Main Issues • Content: Facts and topics to be covered, the “what” to be communicated • Structure: How the message is constructed, or form • Persuasive Style: How the message is delivered

10. Message Content: Making It Persuasive • Make the offer attractive: What do they gain? Defuse their objections in advance • Frame it for a “yes”: One yes leads to another (build cooperative and agreeable spirit) • Make it normative: People want to do “the right thing.” Make agreement the right thing that should be done. Even just saying it is helps! • Suggest agreement in principle as an interim step

11. Structuring The Message For Persuasion • Order: Not in the middle. Primacy and recency effects • Attractive, familiar, controversial messages at beginning • Uninteresting, unfamiliar, unimportant to receiver at end • Two-sided message: Recognize alternate view and preempt it in advance (I.e., anticipate objections) • Big ideas may be more digestible in small doses, especially if parts are known to be “tasty” (or previously accepted) • Repetition. Repetition. • Conclusions: Most effective if they’ve drawn them. Can you count on that? If so, leave it “open.”

12. Persuasive Style: How To Pitch The Message • Encourage active participation • Use metaphors, with due caution • Incite fears, possibly with threats • Create distractions to absorb energy they normally devote to building counter-arguments • Use more intense language, but there’s an optimal level that’s not always the most intense • Violate receiver’s expectations

13. Credibility Qualifications and competence Trustworthiness Self-presentation or presence Composure Sociability (friendly and open) Extroversion Personal attractiveness Friendliness: Establish personal relations (Ingratiation: Excess flattery, taking friendliness a bit too far?) Strategies: Compliments Attractiveness Helping the other Perceived similarity Emotion Characteristics of Sources

14. Receiver Characteristics • Attending to the other • Eye contact • Body position • Other nonverbal cues • Exploring or ignoring the other’s position • Selectively paraphrase • Reinforce points you like in their position • Resisting the other’s influence • Develop your BATNA • Public commitments • Inoculation against their arguments

15. Context FactorsCompliance Strategies • Strategies used to gain compliance • Reciprocity - normally expected in concessions • Commitment - let them sample, try it on, borrow it • Social proof - we look to others to guide us, e.g., celebrities, stars • Use of reward and punishment, or threats involving these (pressure tactics) • Scarcity - offer something unique and rare • These can be used to manipulate or deceive • We resent such use on us. Should we use them? • Stay tuned for chapter on ethics

16. Application of PowerStrategies of Influence • Persuasion: Using info and expertise • Exchange: Resources, “quid pro quo” • Legitimacy: Position in authority structure • Friendliness and ingratiation • Friendliness: Developing a relationship, showing support, concern, liking, appreciation, respect • Ingratiation: “Expedient friendliness” is often resented, but some can use it effectively • Praise or verbal reinforcement

17. Application of PowerStrategies of Influence, continued • Assertiveness: Strong, forceful style and manner • Inspirational appeal: Info with an emotional message and a vision of the future • Consultation (“ACBD”) -- Redundant? • Pressure: Using strategic info plus sanctions • Tends to be used by parties high in power, but also as a response by less powerful to power … escalation? • Short-term compliance, but alienates the other • Coalitions: Endorsement or coordinated use of other influence tactics

18. Power In Negotiation -- Summary • It’s important to negotiators for different reasons, depending on their intent • To neutralize a power disadvantage • To gain a competitive advantage • Power is perhaps best understood in terms of its sources • Various influence strategies can be used, separately or in combination, to apply power or exert leverage