Routes to Influence

Your Lecture Notes page and the related Power Point presentation for this week discuss two routes to influence and how to increase leverage in a negotiation.

Leverage is defined as the process of gaining or using various sources of power in order to obtain and use temporary advantage over the other negotiating party. There are many different sources of power, these include: information and expertise, control over resources, and the location within an organization structure (which leads to either formal authority or informal power based on where one is located relative to flows of information or resources).

The ability to influence (leverage) is one of the tools that one could use in negotiation. These tools are considered in two broad categories: influence that occurs through the central route to persuasion, and influence that occurs through the peripheral route to persuasion.

Effective negotiators are skilled not only at crafting persuasive messages, but also at playing the role of skilled “consumer” of the messages that others direct their way.

You recently received an offer from a bank to start as an entry-level loan manager. Employment would begin after you graduate with your MBA. You have several years of management and technical skills that are transferable to the profession and you are very interested in this bank.

Develop a letter or “message” negotiating with the personnel director for both a higher position and a higher salary. Keep in mind you want to gain an advantage in this situation.

You later find out that the personnel manager is extremely busy, is under a directive to fill the position immediately, and has over 100 applications for the position. You have been told you can have 15 minutes of her time to present yourself to her as a viable job candidate, but you realize you will have to use other routes of influence, because the letter just wasn’t read. What tactics of peripheral routes of influence would you use and how?

Your assignment should be written in essay format and should be approximately 1 page in length.