Welcome to Your Personal Buffet
Negotiation and international negotiation traditionally have been presented as different activities in books and training sessions as if it were possible to separate them in the global markets we live in today. Some international negotiation books often provide useful country-by-country descriptions of how to negotiate with locals, without really explaining the reasons for such differences in behavior and the consequent impact on how business is conducted in each country.
Every Negotiation Is International
This book is different. I believe today’s business negotiations are partly or totally international. Instead of artificially separating local from international negotiations, I use the cultural intelligence model to integrate them, presenting culture as part of—not separate from—the negotiation process. It is striking that negotiators still see culture as a side dish when it actually pervades and radiates meaning in every aspect of a company—and the whole field of business relationships (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 2006).
Negotiation at every level includes concerns about decision making, establishing goals, designing strategies, interacting with people, and communicating in other languages—verbally and nonverbally. It’s not my aim to make you understand each one of the existing cultures. Not only would that be unrealistic, it also could lead you to useless stereotyping.
Cultural norms are an average, and each individual is unique. Don’t expect to get a list of dos and don’ts that tell you what is right and what is wrong to do in some cultures. If you stick to that kind of advice, what will you do when you meet people who behave totally differently from how they were supposed to behave? Your preparation would have been misleading and would create—rather than avoid—a gaff.
You Can’t Be a Cultural Know-It-All
You may wonder, “How can negotiators know about all cultures?” They can’t: It’s not their job. There are the so-called interculturalists for that. The intelligent international negotiator masters pertinent tools, enabling him to work with all cultures. International negotiation is not about knowing a culture. It is about being able to work with any culture. Surprisingly, negotiators who know a specific culture very well tend to take it for granted, and they often do less preparation for their negotiation. This may lead them to take more risks than the person who doesn’t know a culture so well.
Countless books and seminars have been created to teach negotiators about culture, as if their job was to understand and accept cultural differences. All over the world, there are training sessions conducted about how to adjust to diverse cultural environments. During these one- or two-day sessions, participants are told how to behave, live, and work in a culture. And the first thing the trainers say is that culture is complex and that we cannot learn about it in such a short time. So what’s the point in attending these seminars?
Being an interculturalist is as much of a full-time job as being a negotiator. Negotiators take their lawyers, engineers, and financial experts to the negotiating table because they need their expertise. Think of interculturalists in the same way. Just as much you can’t make an engineer or a lawyer out of a negotiator in a two-day seminar, you can’t make an interculturalist out of a person with a simple training. We are talking about different and specific jobs.
Asia is a perfect example. Fortunes have been made by offering training sessions, conferences, and books to tell people about how to work with Asians. There are tons of publications about working with the Chinese alone. So you read all the books, take your dos and don’ts list, and fly to China to work with your local counterparts. How surprised will you be when you notice that they are totally Westernized because they’ve studied and worked abroad? Suddenly that cultural sensitivity list doesn’t apply. You can’t treat them as you were told because they don’t really behave that way. You can’t treat them as Westerners either because, after all, they are Chinese. So much for all of that time and money you spent on preparation!
As an intelligent international negotiator, you will know what to do. You take your toolkit to assess the people you will work with, and adapt the way you conduct your negotiation to that specific situation. It is much more realistic and efficient, because you will work with who they are, not who they were supposed to be.
Generalizations about cultures can be made, but you will always find exceptions. Think of your own country. Are all of your colleagues, clients, family, and friends the same? The aim of this book is to provide you with the awareness you need, the tools to understand the person you are working with, and which strategy would be the most effective. You will be well equipped to focus on your counterpart as a unique and specific person—rather than being trapped in stereotypes.
How to Digest This Book
This book is your self-service buffet. Everything is ready to be consumed. Help yourself and pick whatever you need when you need it. As a workbook, it’s designed to be easily used in your negotiations, offering simplified theoretical concepts and ready-to-use tools. As there is no magic recipe for a successful negotiation, this book provides a variety of ideas, examples, and models. Pick those that suit your specific situation.
The ideas here draw on scientific research, combined with my decades of international field experience. To make this book as useful as possible for you, and make real-life negotiations come alive, I simplify the concepts, sum up the main information to master, and provide practical methods and tools.
The main goal is to help you become a better negotiator by providing a structured vision of the main aspects of your work. This will reduce uncertainty and complexity and help you better focus on what is really important in a negotiation. In addition, you will find many examples and critical incidents that I personally experienced. I hope you will relate to some of these situations and picture yourself experiencing each of the stories. That will keep this book about you rather than me.
The information is organized into four main chapters. At the end of each, you will find a box with one frequently asked question and the main takeaways.
Chapter 1 responds to common beliefs and myths about international negotiation. There is a lot of talk about how tough, stressful, or amusing international negotiation is. Now it’s time to be realistic about it and understand this is neither rocket science nor an obscure, mysterious activity. It is negotiation that you practice by using the right tools and techniques in environments enriched by cultural differences.
Chapter 2 presents the main cultural dimensions and their impact on negotiation. You get insightful explanations about what leads to different behaviors across cultures. Understanding is the best way of not judging others and preventing stereotypes from getting in the way of your negotiations.
Chapter 3 provides an overview of the whole negotiation process. You will know how many dilemmas negotiators face, assess the role of trust and emotions in international negotiation, and be impressed by how much there is to be done during the preparation phase. This section includes everything you need to know about building relationships, bargaining, making decisions, and closing a negotiation. Negotiation styles, strategies, and tactics will hold no mystery for you anymore!
Chapter 4 will equip you with the ready-to-use International Negotiator’s Toolkit (INT). By then, you will have started to master the tools presented throughout the book and will get an easy way to apply the cultural intelligence framework to your international negotiations.
Enjoy reading this book. Then get your suitcase ready to experience negotiating everywhere with everyone around the world!
Chapter FAQ
Do You Have Any Social Life at All?
As an international negotiator, you often travel around the world, which means your personal and professional lives need to be organized accordingly. This involves negotiating with your family and friends, who frequently misunderstand what you do and why you are always gone.
After a while, you realize that your best friends are the taxi drivers. They are the people you can talk to about the weather, family, tourism, politics, and, of course, traffic.
Your family and friends back home no longer wait for you to organize parties and related activities. Your social life is limited. But you now have worldwide friends. Wherever you go, you have people to visit and spend time with.
Thanks to this job, you meet new people every day. Will they become friends? Some might, some might not. But the truth is that there is no routine in your life, and that each day is an opportunity to learn, to discover, and to create new links.