In all the speaking and writing I do about negotiation, power comes up more frequently than any other topic.
People constantly ask about the role it plays in negotiations, and wonder what they can do about it.
Asking who's more powerful is not useful, since it often leads to a discussion that disempowers you. If you view yourself as more powerful, you may become arrogant and fail to prepare adequately, or you may seek to force others to do your bidding. But if you think of yourself as less powerful, you may feel that you cannot win and so fail to prepare or to negotiate firmly, and thus create a self-fulfilling prophecy. The only useful way to talk about power in negotiations is to think about it as the ability to persuade another person to do something, and then find ways to marshal and direct your resources in a focused, purposive way to achieve your goals. If you want to persuade other people to change their minds, you have to begin by discovering what they really care about.