Chapter 57

Situation Power

The seventh element of personal power is Situation Power. We’re all familiar with this one. This is the person down at the post office, someone who is normally powerless in any other area of his life, but in this particular situation he can accept or reject your package; he has power over you and loves to use it.

It’s prevalent in large organizations or government agencies where the people don’t have much latitude in the way they perform their jobs. When they do get some latitude, when they have some power over you, they’re eager to use it.

Don’t They Love to Use Situation Power!

I remember speaking to a huge sales rally in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The night before I got there, this group had put on the party to end all parties. These people all got bombed out of their minds. One of them got undressed to go to bed at 3 in the morning and then decided he’d like to have some ice in his room. He was standing there in his dazed state, trying to figure out whether it was worthwhile getting some clothes on to go get the ice. Finally he thought, “It’s 3 in the morning. The ice machine’s just around the corner from my door. Who’s going to see me? I’ll slip out the way I am.” Forgetting, of course, that the door would lock behind him the minute he got into the hallway.

Soon he’s outside his door with his bucket of ice and nothing else, mentally debating his options. He finally decided he didn’t have many options, so he set his bucket of ice down and headed down, across the lobby of the Halifax Sheraton, and up to the young woman behind the desk. He asked for another key to his room. She looked straight at him and said, “Sir, before I can give you another key, I need to see some identification.” That’s Situation Power and don’t they love to use it.

The key issue in negotiating is that sometimes you get to a point where people have so much Situation Power over you that you’re going to lose this one, regardless of how good a negotiator you are. If you’re going to have to make the concession anyway, regardless of what you do, you might as well make the concession as gracefully as you possibly can. It doesn’t make any sense to get so upset about it that you lose the goodwill of the other person—and still have to make the concession.

How many times have we been into a department store to get a. refund on something and the clerk says to us, “All right, we’ll do it this one time. But it’s not our normal policy”? What sense does that make? If you’re going to have to make the concession anyway, you might as well make it as gracefully as you possibly can, so that you maintain the goodwill of the other person.

Many years ago, when I was a real estate broker, our company built four new homes at one location. In California, we typically build with poured slabs. Just as we finished pouring the slabs, the city building inspector pulled up, walked over, and casually asked, “What are you doing?’

That seemed self-evident to us, but he wasn’t known for his sense of humor, so we simply replied, “We’re pouring the slabs.”

“Not until I’ve signed off on the plumbing you’re not,” he said, and we could swear that he was enjoying every minute of this. What followed must have looked like a Keystone Cops routine. Everybody was running around trying to find the signed off building permit card. With growing horror, we realized that he was right. Somebody had goofed, and the inspector had enough Situation Power that we were going to have to get a crew out there with shovels, digging out the concrete before it set, so that the building inspector could glance at the plumbing and sign it off. The point is, don’t let it upset you. Power Negotiators recognize Situation Power for what it is and move into an area where they do have some control.