Creating Leverage in Negotiations

What does it really mean to be a ‘power negotiator’?

Perhaps you think of the Hollywood image -- Wall Street types in Armani suits pounding on tables in back rooms thick with cigar smoke. Or maybe you think of the strong and unmovable silent type sitting hands folded at the table with a no-nonsense, take-it-or-leave-it expression on her face.

You know who I think of? My four-year-old daughter, Jessie. Jessie is the most successful negotiator I know. She gets me to stop work and play with her for twenty minutes. She gets a piece of chocolate even though she hasn’t finished her dinner. She gets a ride to Mid Valley even after I’ve told her she has to stay home. How does she do this? Is this 42-inch little girl a ‘power negotiator’?

Well, maybe not in the Wall Street sense (after all, I don’t let her smoke cigars), but she is powerful in that she knows where she’s got leverage. She knows that if I don’t play with her, she’ll shuffle sadly from my office and sigh, “All right," and that will melt my heart. She knows that if asking for chocolate didn’t work the first time, she’ll ask a second time -- and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth… She senses that I was bluffing when I told her she had to stay at home while I went off to Mid Valley, so she’ll put on her shoes as I put on mine.

Power negotiating, you see, doesn’t mean bullying or stonewalling your counterpart into submission. It means applying the right influence in the right amount at the right time. In many situations, I have more power, but Jessie has more leverage.

In business negotiations as well, one side may be more powerful. The other side, however, may know how to leverage their few strengths better. They may also know how to leverage the other side’s weaknesses better. They may also know how to leverage time better.

In short, the side that knows how to leverage best can come out ahead despite being in a less powerful position.