Culture negotiation

## Negotiation and culture

See Negotiation for more information.

If you have to negotiate cross-culturaly, do not try to be like them: rest assured that with all the practice they have had since they were small, you will never be able to match them. Nor should you act on your own to try to get them to adopt your customs and way of being: there will probably be a great deal of misunderstanding and it will be difficult for you to teach them your ways in such a short period of time. As you learn about other cultures, enjoy the differences and avoid misunderstandings. As a Latin American ambassador, I met in Tokyo said: in these modern times, it is not enough to be bilingual, you also have to be bicultural. .

### Chinese negotiation

4 culture threads underpin the Chinese's negotiation style.

* Agrarianism: an agricultural culture reinforce the value of familial hierarchy, cooperation, and harmony
* Morality: A strong commitment to hierarchy is supposed to bring harmony.  Taoism (Ying-Yang) encourages compromise. Chinese are more concerned about the mean than the end. The process rather than the goal.
* Pictographic language: Chinese tends to be more holistic, focusing on the big picture rather than details.
* Wariness toward strangers: mistrust of foreigners and cynicism about rules.

The eight negotiation elements:

1. Guanxi, personal connection. Pride in the relationship. Favors are remembered. Reciprocity is expected.
2. Zhongjian ren, the intermediary. create a connection between foreigners and locals. Settle the differences.
3. Shehui dengji, social status. The status of both negotiators must be equivalent. Low status can be an offense.
4. Renji hexie, interpersonal harmony. Friendship and positive feelings are necessary before negotiating.
5. Zhengti guannian, holistic thinking. Nothing is settled until everything is settled
6. Jienjian, thrift. Intense bargaining processes and huge expectations regarding concessions to be made.
7. Mianzi, face. broken promises or displays of anger or aggression cause mutual loss of face.
8. Chiku Nailao, endurance. Expectation of long due diligence and extensive bargaining sessions.

### Japanese negotiation

Negotiating with the Japanese will take time and clear, detailed statements. They will come to you in groups, the head of the delegation will speak less than his subordinates, and progressively you will come to negotiate with the upper levels of the other company. They will ask you for detailed information about the business and they will ask you a great deal of questions, so keep your word, do what you promised to do, and do not add any equivocations or lies that can definitely harm the deal.

In Japanese culture, a basic attitude of coming to a consensus has been developed. This is a culture where collectivism prevails over the individual and personal egos are not involved in discussions. The Japanese handle differences between the parties through extensive informal conversations. They would prefer that, when they formally sit down at the table, the conversations are already well along and that what is left is basically a harmonious and formal act consisting of following the protocol.

The Japanese negotiating process goes from the lower level to the higher-level personnel. The tendency of going directly to the upper levels to reach an agreement without “losing time” does not work well because no negotiations are done at this level.

They will invite you to dinner and other social events where very little negotiating is done but where they try to uphold harmony and good relations. This context is solely an informal occurrence that needs much more internal discussion by the Japanese parties.

Haggling does not always work well with the Japanese because they will respond with a series of detailed questions about the basis for the demand or criteria used to reach the demand or expectation. The questions will imply an exchange of information that will couch the negotiation in reasonable terms anyway.

In the Japanese culture, there is no wish for the counterpart to feel “shame” (feeling humiliated, being caught in a lie, etc.) and by using a great deal of courtesy; especially if they are the hosts of the meeting, they treat their colleague very respectfully, the party with whom they are solving the negotiation problem.

At the end of each day, a summary of what has been discussed is made up containing the commitments that each of the parties has made. This document is signed by all the participants and each one keeps its own copy. Keep in mind that these documents, although they have no legal standing, are the most important documents that you will sign. The agreement document or contract is generally vague: a declaration of the parties’ good intentions, but the real thing is in the daily minutes of what was said verbally in each round of negotiations.

### How Do They Negotiate in the Middle East?

For cultures in the Middle East, negotiating is a psychological act carried out within a friendly climate where personal information is exchanged so it may lead to a satisfactory solution to the problem. Openings can be very high if they think the other party has that sort of ability, or very low if they think you do not have much money. The negotiation climate involves a certain magnificence that heightens both parties. This comes from a tradition of verbal agreements where your word is part and parcel of family honor. They are negotiators who take on high levels of risk, who pledge to do things that they know will be difficult to meet, who “bluff” (as in poker), who manipulate information and who think that being sharper than the other party is very valuable. Negotiations may lose their happy face and become intimidating, with personal pride coming into play if they feel cornered or humiliated. They are frequently deeply religious and will restate any problem in those terms, which may lead to intransigence. Negotiators from the Middle East will bargain up until the last minute with a great deal of perseverance and friendliness.

In the Middle East, cordial personal relations are an inevitable part of negotiating. A person has to be ready to speak about his country, family, and personal history in friendly, very close meetings that can lead to a very special relationship involving familial hospitality.

The range for bargaining in the Middle Eastern cultures is very broad. They ask for twice what they expect to agree to in the end, such that offers for one-fourth of the opening price from the other party are not unusual and do not imply any offense. In the Middle East, you have to be prepared for the bargaining ceremony, which includes pressure implying that no deal will be made, giving in very little and very late, a dramatic display of lack of interest, indifference, friendship, wailing, commiseration, “let’s split the difference,” “offer something,” and the indefatigable pressure to close the deal.

The cultures in the Middle East conceive of negotiations as a psychological field where inevitably emotions, sentiments, and a purely personal relationship between the parties come into play. In addition to the opening bid, in this culture they will try to convince you at the end of the negotiations that you made a great deal, they will be flattering about your abilities and thus will try to maintain a cordial relationship. Good negotiations are when the two parties end up happy and feel fine.

When choosing negotiators in the Middle East, they rather send someone with a very respected social standing in the community. Since there is no hierarchical position, the results may be seen as just a suggestion for mediation. These cultures place a great deal of value on secrets in handling information, which is a typical weapon in bargaining but not in the new theory of negotiation.

The Middle East places a definitive value on verbal agreements, on keeping your word, a matter of honor. Nevertheless, a person must be sure that the deal has really been made explicitly, since these are cultures full of ambiguity where the context of communications where conversations are held is important (the tone, the form, and not just the words spoken, are all valid). Otherwise, the next day negotiations may begin from scratch again, since the word was not really binding.

Be careful of behaviors that bring down the other person, of exercising all the power that you may have (just as in the pragmatic style of the Anglo Saxons), to go from an intimidation about the negotiation itself to making the problem a personal one. We abuse the other party but we are not willing to accept the same thing being done to us. This leads to conflicts that are accentuated and break open at the negotiation table, breaking up relations where the negotiator’s personal being is not differentiated from the interests that he represents.

When the religious component appears, it is difficult to deal with the differences because this is not negotiable to them. In some cases that have been studied, the religious component became overriding and defined or explained almost all of the behavior by the countries in the Middle East.

Negotiators from the United States prefer to go straight to the point and to make deals with the idea of maximizing profits (their own, but it may also be for both parties). If they have the power, they will use it openly to their own benefit, but they prefer to not go overboard with these tactics or involve themselves in strong emotions during negotiations. They want an informal climate but do not want to personalize the relationship and the content of the conversations. They do not lose sight of their needs and interests, the largest source of flexibility and accommodation for others. They prefer to negotiate point by point instead of negotiating everything all at once, and they live under pressure to obtain results as quickly as possible. They believe in being unambiguous and do not want to get tangled up in their counterpart’s verbal subtleties. When there are misunderstandings, they turn to the court system, which is why they prefer agreements written by attorneys. North American authors have contributed notably to international literature about negotiations, with a cost-benefit approach oriented toward achieving better results. Despite the strong Anglo Saxon influence on the world, they are very different from other countries, which is the source of the misunderstandings and problems in their international negotiations.

Anglo Americans want to do one thing at a time; thus negotiations are done sequentially, point by point. Efficiency for Anglo Americans consists not just of doing more with less money; rather, it really means doing it in less time. They do not want to waste time with social gatherings, leave a decision for later, or talk about other issues.

Anglo Americans prefer an informal negotiation setting, because it is more effective for breaking the ice and getting to the point, but they feel uncomfortable if the situation becomes excessively personal or involves too many emotions. They are oriented toward obtaining work results – interpersonal relationships are not part of those results.

The legal system is extremely important to Anglo Americans and agreements must be written by attorneys with all the customary legal contingencies. Appealing to the legal system is normal to them and it is not the last resort after relations breaking down; on the contrary, during the lawsuit, conversations are supposed to continue to reach a mutual agreement in place of waiting for a judge’s decision. In the United States, approximately 92% of lawsuits end with a negotiated settlement.

Another difference from Latin American culture is the fact that negotiation language is concrete; with no subtle vagaries or implications that may be extracted from a way of speaking or from non-verbal communications. It is unnecessary to infer anything from the tone or place about what they want to say. Unequivocal precise language characterizes an Anglo Saxon negotiator, who understands any subtlety with a high communicative context, which is normal in many other cultures, as being “deceitful.”

The way Anglo Americans handle power is very realistic and they lay it openly on the negotiation table as one of the factors in a decision being made. In particular, when they have the most power, such as in international political negotiations, they can even be arrogant and openly intimidating. Anglos offer their counterpart a way out commensurate with their power, without worrying too much about any humiliation that it may cause.

Anglo Americans have a relative facility for making deals that maximize reciprocal profits by emphasizing calculating the costs and benefits of an agreement, due to their utilitarian and fixed orientation. This enables them to be integrative, to join with the other party to solve the negotiation problem instead of considering it to be a win or lose situation.

Unlike the Arabs, the bargaining range for Anglo Americans is relatively narrow. If you offer an Anglo American more than 30% less that what he asked for, you run the risk of offending him. It turns out to be much more efficient to appeal from the beginning to an objective standard or criterion that can resolve the problem instead of personalized bargaining.

### The culture of Negotiation in France

French negotiation culture is the most contradictory in the world. In negotiating, the French perform a balancing act to counterpoise opposing trends: logic and passion, formality and informality, aggression and seduction, mechanistic and organicistic views. Watching them negotiate is interesting, although understanding their inner logic is hard. French negotiators first of all try to find a logical, optimal, reasoned solution to the problem at hand. They have learned Cartesian logic in high school and have inherited the values of order and formality as a reachable ideal. Their concept of “negotiating” consists of discussing to reach an agreement, where both parties lay down their arguments, reasons, and considerations until they reach an optimal solution; this is found or built through debate, not through bargaining, as preferred by Latin Americans. “Consensus seeking” (a concept in fashion since 1968) is preferable to “negotiating”, a word sounding to them as contrary to logic. From the outset they proceed in a reasoned, impersonal way, as if it were a verbal controversy.

The French prepare negotiations carefully under the direction of a hierarchical superior, who will subsequently be the only actual negotiator. They will try to start with a very high demand supported by sound technical arguments. They will hold on to that position for long, unless they receive good arguments to the contrary.

It is considered poor taste to talk about the negotiation during meals among the French. There’s a time for negotiating and a time for eating. Many perceive French culture as the most formal in the world, with detailed and precise rules for every occasion. During dinner they will like to talk about something else, but they might be able to get very personal like Latin Americans. When the negotiation reaches a standstill and does not move on, neither formally nor informally, frustration may lead to the emergence of another aggressively confrontational character that will try solving things through power and intimidation. The importance of power and hierarchy is huge in French society, where social and business conflicts are usually solved or mediated by “papa” government, and where the boss often solves subordinates’ conflicts. Resorting to power means taking the risk of winning or losing it all, assessing each other’s external capabilities and choices, using theatrical tactics, and openly displaying emotions.