Marcela Hinojosa 917649

Chapter 7: Finding and using Negotiation power

Power in a negotiation is defined as “the capabilities negotiators

can assemble to give them selves an advantage or increase the
probability of achieving their objectives”. It is believed that power gives
advantage in a negotiation, so by this when a negotiator needs power o
thinks he has less power; they seek for more to counterbalance this.
There are two perspectives on power “power over” that is used to
control the other and “power with” used to work with the other.
Power has a variety of types: 1) expert power, coming from the
information known; 2) reward power) that comes from the ability to
reward others; 3)Coercive Power, coming form the ability to punish
others; 4)legitimate power, coming form hierarchy and 5) Referent
power, coming form the respect and admiration towards a person.
There are 5 main sources of power: informational sources of
power, personal sources of power, power based on position in an
organization, relationship-based sources of power and contextual
sources of power.
Informational power is how the negotiator is able to organize facts
that support their position or goal. The power based on personality and
Individual differences is weather the negotiator uses personal
orientation, it means the different psychological orientations they can
use: cognitive, motivational dispositional and moral. The power based
on position in an organization is weather it is legitimate, witch is the
level in the organization and power based on the control of resources
associated with the position. The power based on relationships witch
divides in tree types of power: goal interdependence that is how the
parties view their own goals, referent power that comes from the
admiration and respect, and networks that derives from the location in
the structure of an organization. Power is based also on the situation,
context and environment, this is the contextual sources of power, and
these can be BATNAs, culture, and agents, constituencies and external
audiences. BATNAs that is the alternative that the party will use if he or
she does not reach an agreement, the culture determines the “meaning
system” of a social environment and the agents, constituencies and
external audiences make negotiations more complex as it represents
other points of view.
There are times when a negotiator have to deal with others who
have more power, some advice of Michael Watkins is to never do an all-
or- nothing deal, make the other party smaller, make yourself bigger,
build momentum trough doing deals in sequence, use the power of
competition to leverage power, constrain yourself, seek out for
information that strengthens your negotiation position and case and do
what you can to manage the process.
Negotiators have to be prepared because most of the times power
will not be evenly distributed, weather a negotiator is in the side that
has more or less power, he or she must not get to the thoughts of
superiority or inferiority; it is very important to always remember that it
is still a situation that benefits both, and with a bad or no agreement
nobody wins. It is also very important to “do your homework” before a
negotiator, a great deal of power can come from having information
about yourself and the other party.