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Leadership
How to handle a power imbalance in negotiations
Negotiation is hard at the best of times, especially when your counterpart may question your legitimacy. Negotiation experts Fiorella Erni and Francesca Giulia Mereu share three key pieces of advice on navigating a negotiation when the power balance isn’t tipped in your favor.
Imagine this scenario:
Terry, the chief technology officer of a clean energy company, is heading to meet a potential new customer to negotiate the terms of a contract for developing intricate sensors for solar panels. Upon arriving at the partner’s headquarters, he enters the office of the Head of Electronics and is surprised to find a woman, Laura, greeting him. Due to cognitive biases, it is conceivable that he might unconsciously question her competence and authority. Any minor misstep or hesitation from Laura could quickly confirm his initial bias. Had Laura been a man, Terry might have been more lenient, understanding the need to refer to notes during sensitive contract negotiations.
This experience of having your legitimacy questioned isn’t exclusive to women working in male-dominated fields – it’s a common feature of any asymmetric negotiation scenario where one party wields greater (perceived) power than the other based on hierarchies, economic, cultural, or social capital, or physical strength. In such situations, success often depends on the negotiator’s ability to even out power imbalances from the outset, but how do you do that without antagonizing the counterpart?
In our experience, rebalancing power effectively involves two key approaches:
- Avoiding common behaviors that can escalate unfavorable situations.
- Strategically sequencing key behaviors to turn these situations around.
“As obvious as it might sound, when we feel at a disadvantage, we end up making more mistakes and missing opportunities. This, in turn, confirms the other's feeling of superiority and further decreases our confidence.”
Here we outline three ways to tip the power balance back in your favor:
1 – Become aware of the power imbalance
The first challenge to address is how to regain your inner balance and remain calm and composed.
Self-awareness and empathy are important assets for any negotiator. These skills allow them to understand their counterpart’s reasoning, motives, and values and gauge the effect of their own words on the counterpart to immediately pivot if they see a change in the counterpart’s behavior. However, the self-aware negotiator is also prone to quickly detect hints of “contempt” when the counterpart questions the legitimacy. Spotting contempt, or even a dismissive attitude, can be very destabilizing.
As obvious as it might sound, when we feel at a disadvantage, we end up making more mistakes and missing opportunities. This, in turn, confirms the other’s feeling of superiority and further decreases our confidence.
TRAPS
- We might rush to provide unrequested information or exaggerate some facts.
- We might go into a defensive mode – showing tense body language.
- We might talk faster or allow our voices to sound unsettled or agitated.
TOOLS
Tool 1: Use your physiology to recover your mental focus
- Calm your body and physiology down to restore your ability to think clearly.
- Breathe out for longer and slower than usual (you can do it while talking), straighten your posture, and relax your jaws and your shoulders. These changes will slow down your heart rate and decrease the cortisol and adrenaline coursing through your body.
Tool 2: Evaluate your legitimacy
To switch your focus from problems to solutions, assess your five main sources of legitimacy. Reflect on which aspects might enhance or hinder their evaluation of you.
- Institutional mission and reputation of your employer.
- Your competence on a specific topic or context.
- Personal features (age, gender, religion, ethnicity…).
- Capacity to adapt to your environment and counterpart. For example, by wearing a veil when speaking to a religious authority or your ability to show empathy for your counterpart’s problems.
- Connection with the network of influence of your counterpart.
After evaluating these sources and how your counterpart views them, you can determine which aspects of yourself to emphasize or de-emphasize during the negotiation.
Keep in mind that cognitive biases about legitimacy and perception go both ways. For instance, someone who often feels underestimated may already expect their legitimacy to be challenged in a negotiation before they even meet with their counterpart. This tool helps you assess if the power difference is real or just perceived.
TAKEAWAY:
Let self-awareness and empathy provide insights to manage your counterpart’s negative emotions rather than undermine your confidence.
Let’s revisit Terry’s situation
Before meeting Laura, he’d had a tough week with long hours and back-to-back meetings, leaving him no time to prepare. On the train to the meeting, he tried to review the contract but kept getting interrupted by a colleague about another project. Arriving at the customer’s headquarters, he feels anxious and unprepared despite being the expert on intricate sensors in solar panels. From his viewpoint, the power balance doesn’t seem to be in his favor, which makes him uncomfortable and insecure.
2 – The importance of establishing a common point of departure
A lack of time for preparation is a common challenge in today’s busy world. This often goes both ways. Help yourself and the other person by recapping and aligning the basic information. Feeling unprepared can make you act and talk in a way that makes the other side feel superior and doubt your credibility; humbly highlighting your expertise and goals can help you relate to them.
TRAPS
- Compensating the feeling of being unprepared by pretending to be overly confident.
- Focusing on what you don’t know both about your position and the other side’s position.
- Not asking clarifying questions to the other party because you assume you ‘should already know’.
TOOLS
Tool 1: Establish your basics
Go through your basics and write down the information you have. It will help you enter the negotiation more confidently.
In our experience, knowing your objectives and red lines is essential in such a scenario. You can further structure your thoughts, by answering the following questions:
- What is my objective?
- What is my ideal outcome?
- What is my red line?
- What is my mandate? What do I have the authority to agree upon?
- What is the counterpart’s position, objectives, and needs?
- What do we need to clarify in this conversation?
Tool 2: Take time to understand your counterpart’s basics
A negotiation with imperfect knowledge is likely to fail. To bridge the gap, ask your counterpart to explain their perspective on the situation. Then, clarify the information you have and where you lack understanding. Admitting your need for more information creates empathy and fosters clearer communication, rather than making statements that don’t add up. Furthermore, admitting weakness is more likely to be seen as a sign of strength than showing insecurity without labeling the problem.
In Terry’s case, he could say something like: “My objective for today’s conversation is to agree on the product specification and development timelines. Unfortunately, I have been given this assignment on very short notice, and I have not had the time to read the full contract in detail. Still, I am confident that together, we can find a solution that will also satisfy our respective legal divisions. Why don’t you start by telling me how you see our cooperation evolve?”
TAKEAWAY:
Instead of spiraling into what you don’t know and allowing yourself to be destabilized, first focus on what you know and what you want to achieve. Then start by asking questions to understand your counterpart’s perspective and then establish a common point of departure.
Let’s come back to Terry and Laura one last time. Could they both have sensed a power imbalance, each feeling the other questioning their legitimacy, but for different reasons? Laura, perhaps assuming Terry expected a man in her role, and Terry, possibly due to feeling unprepared? And what if they both want to discuss it but worry it might worsen the imbalance?
How to address the perceived power imbalance?
Lastly, we are often asked if it is better to voice out the legitimacy issue or to indirectly prove it as the conversation unfolds. Like in all complex situations, there is no clear yes/no answer; it depends on the situation.
TRAPS
- Acting to stop the discomfort of uncertainty instead of taking time to observe.
- Feeling disrespected or angry at the lack of consideration.
- Interpreting the doubts of the counterpart as questioning our worth.
TOOLS
Tool 1: Label emotions and put them aside
In negotiations, perceived power imbalances can stir up emotions for both sides. Through empathy, you will be able to detect and acknowledge someone’s feelings. By labeling them, you show understanding. This can ease tension and build trust and cooperation. Labeling emotions can encourage the other party to share more information, leading to a better agreement for everyone.
A way for Laura to label Terry’s emotion could have been, for instance, to say with a confident smile, “I can feel that you are surprised to see me but let me assure you that I oversaw the development of the sensors myself, and I am confident that we will find a mutually beneficial agreement.”
Terry on the other hand could have said something like: “I appreciate your patience. I realize that you must be frustrated that I am not fully familiar with the revisions in the contract you propose. Unfortunately, I have had very little time to prepare. How about we first go over the technical details we need to discuss, and then we work through the contract together?”
Similarly, suppose a feeling of insecurity overwhelms you because you can feel that your counterpart is questioning your legitimacy. In that case, you can also silently label your own emotions and put them aside to deal with them later.
Tool 2: Evaluate the value and impact of addressing a perceived power imbalance
These questions could further help you decide what to say:
- Adopt a third-person perspective and reflect on whether the perceived power imbalance negatively affects the negotiation or whether you feel like addressing it for personal reasons.
- Based on your perception, is addressing the situation mostly likely to embarrass or trigger the other person?
- Is there enough trust in the relationship with the other side to address the issue?
TAKEAWAY:
If you find yourself in a negotiation where a perceived power imbalance threatens the outcome, consider if addressing it would be beneficial – and if so, how and when. Alternatively, explore other approaches to alleviate the tension in the room.
Conclusion:
Success in negotiations often depends on how negotiators respond to power imbalances and manage their own emotions and perceptions. By employing self-awareness, empathy, and strategic tools, negotiators can build trust, foster cooperation, and ultimately achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.
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