Negotiation Information

By Adrian Pepper

The other day, I came across someone who was resigned to be a victim, even though it was clear to me that they had been wronged. They had purchased goods with a guarantee but when they tried to claim, they were told the guarantee was void.

As a business coach, I work to improve my client's performance and to help them achieve their goals. So this is how we turned failure into success.

Influence arises from exercising power

So we reviewed their influence:

• Relativity - the perceptions of the source and the target often differ so we did a reality check to ensure we had the facts of the case.
• Balance - power is seldom one-sided and the balance of power is mostly a net sum. I can only be victim if I allow others to be powerful.
• Domain - most constituencies have limits and the challenges to power often originate at the boundaries. So we explored the power we might have over the defaulting guarantors through the people who set their boundaries.

Power comes from many sources

1. Physical power - money, effort, size, volume. We considered physically threatening the guarantors, but we did not really want to pick up a prison record.

2. Resource power - control on access, on usage, on monopoly, and on discretion. The guarantors were choosing not to be helpful at present and when we spoke to the local Trading Standards office, they were not hopeful.

3. Position power - linked to the role not the person, based on information access, the right to resource power, legitimacy of decisions. We felt we had a grievance and a story to tell.

4. Expert power - based on merit and demand, compared to and recognised by non-experts. We could pursue litigation and use an expert witness to testify on our behalf.

5. Personal power - confidence, popularity, personality, social credit. I knew people who had large windows on the approach roads to the guarantors’ offices and we have a good reputation for honest dealing in the business community.

6. Negative power - filters, blocks and distortions applied to information, instructions and requests. Few companies like bad publicity and my client is well connected in the local business community.

How we chose to assert power

Next we made large posters that stated the facts of the case and our opinion of the guarantors and their inaction. These posters we put in prominent positions so that all passing traffic would read about our opinion of the defaulting guarantors. We also talked extensively to our contacts in business and put the word out on the local grapevine.

And we got a result – in three days the guarantors were talking to us and in a week they had settled in our favour.

So what sources of power can you call on when you are negotiating, buying, selling or playing games?