How to Use Power

This is Part 2 in a short series on Power in Business. Read the previous part here.

I feel a constant pressure to walk back the definition of power that I introduced in the previous essay. It is uncouth to talk about power so plainly.

A more polite way to talk about power is that “you want to be useful, or you want to provide value to your partners”. Something that closely follows such statements is the notion of “win-win”.

The following two assertions are ostensibly equivalent ways of reasoning about power:

1. You should structure deals that are win-win. You get something out of it; your partner gets something out of it. Ideally you get as much value out of the deal as they do.
2. In a stable relationship, you must control something that your counterparty wants, and they must control something you want. Ideally, the amount of need should be equal. If your counterparty wants the thing you control more than you want their thing, you have leverage. You have power over them.

The first statement is acceptable to say in public. The second is mildly Machiavellian. When I told a friend my formulation of power, she said that words matter; framing the topic in the second, negative way is probably not good for business relationships. It happens that I agree with her, if only a little — in many situations you do want to think in terms of prosocial, win-win outcomes.

And yet I believe it is important to have the Machiavellian version at the back of your head.

Why?