CREATING A POWER BASE
The study of power and its effect is important to understanding negotiation and the relationships (or commonalities) that emerge from any negotiation. Every interaction and every social relationship, inside and outside organizations, implies an exercise of power.
Gibson et al. (1991: 329) see power simply as the ability to do things the way one wants them to be done. For example, the power of the manager who wants more financial resources is his ability to obtain the desired resources.
Power implies a relationship between two or more people. Robert Dahl, a political scientist, captures this important relational focus when he defines power: ‘A has power over B to the extent that he can make B do something that B would not otherwise do. A person or group cannot have power in isolation; power has to be exercised or displayed, or has the potential to be displayed in relation to some other person or group. The power is similar to a currency exchange; it is meaningless unless it is linked or compared as a commodity of exchange. Power is never tied to price, but always to value.
PARITY IN POWER:
The concept of power parity is important in any relationship, since in negotiation power parity is the perception, on the part of one of the parties, that the other party has the ability to counteract any form of power with a form of similar or different power that would render the further escalation of power useless. As stated, power parity refers to the balance in the deployment of power. Power parity is a key factor in the behavior of a successful negotiator.
In literature, a distinction is made between power and authority. Authority is considered as the formal power that a person has due to the position that he occupies in an organization (Gibson et al. 1989: 330). Directives are orders from a manager in positions of authority and are followed because they must be followed. Therefore, people in higher positions have legal authority over subordinates in lower positions. Power resides in a person’s position, is accepted by subordinates, and is used vertically in organizations.
Influence, on the other hand, is simply the potential for display of power, and is therefore the minimum amount of power that a person can display. Executing a karate punch on someone would demonstrate relative power; however, advising the other side that the person has a black belt in karate would simply show the resource, i.e. the potential that is unfolding. However, when power is used as a threat, it is important for the negotiator to remember that a threat retains its power as long as it is never carried out. Once delivered, a threat loses all its value.
INTERPERSONAL POWER:
French and Raven suggest five interpersonal bases of power that are important to negotiators.
- – Legitimate power
- – Reward Power
- – coercive force
- – Expert power
- – Referent power
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We’ll examine only legitimate power in this edition of Winner’s Circle and cover the basics of remaining interpersonal power in later editions.
LEGAL POWER:
Legitimate power derives from the ability to influence due to position. A person at a higher level has power over people below. However, each person with legitimate power uses it with a personal touch.
Subordinates play an important role in the exercise of legitimate power. If subordinates see power as legitimate, they comply. However, an organization’s culture, customs, and value systems determine the limits of legitimate power. In other words, there are times when people respond to another’s instructions, even instructions they don’t like, because they feel it is right and legitimate for the other to tell them and appropriate (obligatory) for them to obey. This is legitimate power.
Legitimate power is used in many ways during negotiation. People with a lot of legitimate power might use their positions of authority to ‘instruct’ other parties to follow certain procedures. Depending on the individual’s authority, the other players in the negotiation may follow what is decided, fully relying on the abilities of the individual in authority.
Sometimes one party will use legitimate power as a tactic against another party by:
1. bring in someone who has the influence to make important decisions and who has credibility with the other party or by
2. assigning too much legitimate power to an individual or individuals within the opposing parties in order to use the need for power and status that exists in all individuals to extract significant concessions from them. This is sometimes called ‘ingratiation’ or petting.
It is important to recognize that legitimate power can only have influence if it is recognized by other individuals because it occurs only in a social structure. Some negotiators may attempt to deny the other party some of their legitimate power by:
1. deny them the opportunity to speak;
2. prefer to make reciprocal offers while insisting that the other party continue to make concessions;
3. ignore prior agreements on how to proceed; gold
4. deny that any of the other party can have a legitimate position of importance
In such situations, a negotiator may find it necessary to establish some minimum legitimate authority before proceeding, and in some cases may be advised to refuse to proceed until the other party demonstrates by their behavior that authority is in place. Once a small, secure base of legitimate authority is established, a skilled negotiator can extend it.
To learn more about:
– Reward power and personal power
Go to my ezine.com article titled “The Use of Power in Negotiations – Intermediate”
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