Give and take can also be negative. The trade can be a loss of a benefit for lack of cooperation, or a cost that results from an undesirable response. Negative trades can be expressed as threats about what will happen in the future, or can result in both parties losing.
It is important to note, as Adam Grant clarifies, that almost everyone balances their exchanges by varying net giving and taking.5 At work most people balance them, and evidence indicates that those who don't create value for others end up losing, as we will discuss.
Exchange: The Art of Give and Take That Permeates All Influence Tactics
There are numerous ways of categorizing influence behavior. You can influence people by methods such as rational persuasion, inspirational appeal, consultation, ingratiation, personal appeal, forming a coalition, or relentless pressure.6
Although it is tempting to think of these methods as separate tactics, we believe that exchange – trading something valued for what you want – is actually the basis for all. In every form of influence reciprocity is at work and something is exchanged.7 For example, rational persuasion works because the person sees the benefits of accepting the argument; inspirational appeal works because the person feels part of a cause or thinks that something good will result; ingratiation works because the person receives liking and closeness for willingness to be influenced, and so on. No tactic succeeds, however, if the receiver does not perceive some benefit, a payment in a valued “currency.” Having a wide repertoire of ways to influence others is valuable. You should use tactics that will work in a given situation; the underlying principle is giving something the other values for what you want or need (or withholding something the other values – or giving them something they don't want – if you don't get what you need).
This kind of reciprocity is constantly taking place in organizational life. People do things and get something in return (Table 2.1).
Dr. Stanley Snyder, scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur, is an untenured senior scientist at a leading Midwestern university. As a maverick and self-described organizational outsider, Dr. Snyder learned to gain necessary influence through difficult experience. Dr. Snyder had long been an adjunct member of the biology department, a natural home for a PhD in molecular biology. There he had developed several patented technologies for the university and paid his own way through royalties and grants. However, he had been a thorn in the side of the assistant provost for research, who Dr. Snyder believed wanted any excuse to get rid of him.
The anthrax scare following 9/11/01 precipitated a confrontation. Dr. Snyder's work had principally involved biology, but the U.S. government needed a quick test for the presence of anthrax; a company approached Dr. Snyder to help develop it, and he “came to the rescue.” He worked with a colleague who had an anthrax strain in her research collection and could culture these bacteria. They rather quickly developed an inexpensive, practical way to detect anthrax. Dr. Snyder then went to the university provost to announce the good news and to help arrange a corporate license agreement, with royalties for the university. Instead of welcoming the news, the university administration, according to Dr. Snyder, “went ballistic,” prompted by the high anxiety over anthrax. He and his colleague were investigated by the university and then the local police and the FBI as if they were reckless scientists and criminals. They were placed on administrative leave (a very negative exchange!).
Dr. Snyder had liked working at the university with his colleagues and research collaborators. He did not wish to leave, and at first could only think of fighting the university. During this stressful period, a leading member of the physics department, Dr. Zelikoff, whom Dr. Snyder had previously helped with a patent application, met with him. As they discussed Snyder's employment problem, Dr. Zelikoff offered to explore having him join the physics department. A bit of an individualist himself, but skilled at working within the university organization, Dr. Zelikoff wanted to help both Dr. Snyder and the university resolve a difficult situation. He studied the policies and procedures and realized that he could invite Dr. Snyder (who would be self-funding anyway) to the department. Dr. Zelikoff would get a useful colleague and the department would receive a share of Dr. Snyder's royalties. Dr. Snyder would gain some protection and oversight as well as laboratory and office space. Resisting the efforts of the assistant provost for research to terminate Dr. Snyder, they worked out a deal with the provost (manager of the Assistant Provost) that benefitted Dr. Snyder, the department, and the university. Dr. Snyder is currently hard at work on applied research and new inventions, one of which is now a valuable commercial product producing large royalties for the university.
Table 2.1 Examples of Reciprocity at Work
The Cohen-Bradford Influence without Authority Model
For those times that need more systematic attempts to be influential and preliminary planning to help you determine what to offer that's attractive enough to gain cooperation, here are the parts of the model (Figure 2.1).
Figure 2.1 Summary of the Cohen-Bradford Model of Influence without Authority
One major challenge to influencing the uncooperative is to keep the view that they eventually might cooperate. We tend to prematurely write such people off, concluding they are impossible.
Instead you must think that everyone you want to influence could, with work, be a potential ally. That frees you up to become curious about their world and to assess a potential alliance by discovering where there might be overlapping interests. The view that the other will always be an adversary prevents accurate understanding, creating misperceptions, stereotypes, and miscommunication, perhaps even a self-fulfilling prophecy. Furthermore, treating the other person as an enemy produces adversarial responses. This same mind-set of assuming the other person is a potential ally also applies to your manager; if you assume that managers are partners in the organization with subordinates, then it is also part of your responsibility, along with the manager, to figure out how to make the relationship mutually beneficial. (Chapter 9 explores in detail how to do that.)
Knowing what you want from the potential ally isn't always easy. These dimensions affect your choice of how to proceed:
● What are your primary versus your secondary goals?
● Are they short-term or long-term objectives?
● Are they “must-haves” or “nice-to-haves” that can be negotiated?
● Is your priority to accomplish the task or to preserve (or improve) the relationship?
You need to think hard about your core objectives, so you won't get side tracked into pursuing secondary goals. Just what do you require, what are your priorities among several possibilities, what you are willing to trade to get the minimum you need? Do you want cooperation on a specific item, or would you settle for a better future relationship? Would a short-term victory be worth