Bring to mind a negotiation where the balance of power shifted. Perhaps someone introduced urgency, attached a condition to an offer or pressed for immediate agreement. Recognising that shift gives us choices about how to respond and how to guide the conversation toward a constructive outcome.
My own experience has shown me that one clear question can expose a power move and return a negotiation to its purpose. Power moves through authority, expertise, relationships, access to information, control of resources and the credibility each person brings into the room. A wise negotiator learns to read these dynamics clearly and use influence with care.
Recent work with Academy Global’s practical negotiation course brought the relationship between power, perception and negotiation choices into sharp focus, particularly in executive negotiation, stakeholder engagement and public-sector decision-making. The experience reinforced my view that negotiation is an essential skill for all of us. We negotiate in boardrooms, workplaces, communities and families. Each conversation carries choices about how we exercise power, create value and serve the wider good.
Negotiation should create shared value, expand the possibilities available to all parties and serve the greater good. Shared value gives legitimate competing interests a disciplined process to clarify priorities, consider trade-offs, and allocate finite gains on terms each party can understand and uphold.
This principle gives power an ethical purpose. Power becomes relational information that helps us understand the room, assess the available choices and shape an outcome with integrity.
Recently, I represented a community in negotiations before a commissioner of the Land and Environment Court in Sydney. The matter concerned a proposed building that could affect the community’s social connections, shared life, and strong sense of place.
During the negotiation, the builder repeatedly asked me to affirm the value of a small design change. The repetition carried significance. A public statement from the community’s representative would have increased the concession's perceived value.
One direct question brought the purpose into view: Why are you repeatedly asking whether this accommodation is valuable?
He replied that the accommodation could be taken away.
I called the move what it was: manipulation through a conditional concession and the threat of withdrawal.
The language changed the conversation. We could see the tactic, assess the proposed change on its merits and keep the community’s interests fully in view.
Power often draws its force from perception. Urgency narrows attention. A threat gains influence when we accept its framing, absorb its urgency or respond automatically. A clear question reveals the mechanism at work. Precise language restores our capacity to choose how the negotiation proceeds.
French and Raven’s 1959 framework, The Bases of Social Power, describes five bases of social power: legitimate, reward, coercive, expert and referent power.[1] Raven’s later work recognised informational power as an additional base.[2] In this case, the withdrawal threat represented coercive power, while the request for public affirmation sought informational and referent leverage. These bases help us understand where influence comes from and how it operates between people.
This relational view matters because power is shaped through recognition. Formal authority carries weight because others recognise a role. Expertise carries weight because others trust a person’s knowledge. Referent power grows through respect and identification. Coercive power draws its effect from the perceived consequences attached to a threat.
In my own work, I think about these resources as the durable and fragile currencies of power.
The distinction becomes visible in how each currency responds to scrutiny. Durable power stays credible under direct questions and open scrutiny. Fragile power depends heavily upon timing, ambiguity and social pressure. Its practical signature is urgency, conditionality and pressure for immediate agreement. Durable power can withstand questions such as: What evidence supports that position? What happens if we pause? Who else needs to agree? It is often grounded in expertise, trust, legitimacy, sound information and ethical conduct.
A chair can apply this framework by testing the durability of executive information and stakeholder commitments. Asking for the evidence, assumptions, dependencies and sources of agreement reveals which claims can carry the weight of a decision.
The withdrawal threat in the court negotiation functioned as a fragile currency. A direct question exposed its basis. Explicit language made its purpose visible. Once everyone could see the tactic clearly, its influence changed.
Reading power in this way creates practical choices. We can ask: What source of power is operating here? What perception gives it force? What interests sit underneath the stated position? Which response will preserve trust, probity and the possibility of shared value?
Power dynamics can activate the body very quickly. A tight chest, rising heat, faster speech and narrowing attention can signal that activation. In the court negotiation, my body was in fight or flight. The seriousness of the moment was fully present.
My capacity to hold my ground came from a well-trained mind, developed through 35 years of mindfulness practice, 25 years of teaching and 15 years of study and research. Regular training builds a steadiness that becomes available during live conversations. In that moment, it allowed me to remain present, ask a clarifying question and choose direct language.
Mindfulness, in this context, is a practical capacity for attention and discernment. Research reviews identify attention regulation and emotional regulation as core capacities cultivated through mindfulness training.[3] In my own negotiation practice, these capacities help me register physical activation, observe the dynamics in the room and respond deliberately. We can feel both feet on the ground, exhale fully, then ask one clean question. In the court exchange, mine was: Why are you repeatedly asking whether this accommodation is valuable? That pause creates space for wisdom.
It also supports ethical grounding. Awareness allows us to consider the purpose of our influence. We can use power to clarify interests, test assumptions, widen participation and create credible options. These choices strengthen trust and make collaboration possible.
Three practices are especially useful under pressure:
Interest-based negotiation, articulated in Fisher, Ury and Patton’s Getting to Yes, directs parties towards interests, options for mutual gain and objective criteria. Research on integrative negotiation also examines the processes that support joint value creation and agreement quality.
This approach treats the parties’ interests as material for thoughtful design. We identify shared aims, understand genuine constraints and develop options that expand the value available.
Cooperative motives support problem solving, integrative agreement and strong joint outcomes. In commercial and governance settings, these practices provide a sound basis for agreements that hold commercial, relational and community value together.
They have direct application to supplier agreements, strategic partnerships, workforce change, investment decisions and community consultation. Each setting depends upon agreements that people can implement with clarity and sustain through trust.
Wise negotiation holds immediate interests alongside relationships, community effects and the greater good. Power remains part of the process. Mindful attention gives us the steadiness to read it accurately. Ethical purpose gives us the wisdom to use it well.
At your next board or executive meeting, choose one live negotiation and ask:
What source of power is operating, what gives it force, and how can we use that information to create shared value?
[1] French, John R. P., Jr., and Bertram Raven. “The Bases of Social Power.” In Studies in Social Power, edited by Dorwin Cartwright. Institute for Social Research, 1959. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1959-15016-001
[2] Raven, Bertram H. “Social Influence and Power.” In Current Studies in Social Psychology, edited by I. D. Steiner and Martin Fishbein. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965. https://search.worldcat.org/title/Current-studies-in-social-psychology/oclc/133444
[3] Tang, Yi-Yuan, Britta K. Hölzel, and Michael I. Posner. “The Neuroscience of Mindfulness Meditation.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3916
[4] Fisher, Roger, William Ury, and Bruce Patton. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. 3rd ed. Penguin Books, 2011. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/305846/getting-to-yes-by-roger-fisher-william-ury-and-bruce-patton/
[5] De Dreu, Carsten K. W., Laurie R. Weingart, and Seungwoo Kwon. “Influence of Social Motives on Integrative Negotiation: A Meta-Analytic Review and Test of Two Theories.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2000. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.5.889