It is relatively easy to build an organizational learning platform that can do all these things. Begin by asking whether your company wants to improve its organizational (not just individual) negotiating capabilities. Next, figure out the kinds of negotiation information, advice, and assistance your staff needs. Have you documented stories about the obstacles your organization inadvertently puts in the way of its own negotiators? If not, you’ll need to do this. To whatever extent your organization is decentralized, you can design an organizational learning platform that will make it easier for your managers and employees to win at win-win negotiation.
DON’T GET LOST IN TRANSLATION
AS THE BUSINESS WORLD becomes evermore global, the ability to skillfully navigate cross-cultural settings requires more and more attention. Organizational leaders must find ways to enhance the ability of their managers to work effectively in these settings. Even when negotiators on both sides of the table speak a common language, different cultural expectations can prevent messages from getting through. But with the right strategies, you can help your organization surmount cross-cultural barriers.
The evidence was building that there would be a significant market in Asia for the specialty office equipment produced by “Bullseye,” an American company. Executives at Bullseye contacted several large retailers of office equipment in Japan and Korea. One of the Japanese companies responded positively and sent a representative to the United States for a meeting.
The Americans at Bullseye had compiled a thick report about their company and its products, and they put on a glitzy multimedia presentation. In contrast, the Japanese representative seemed unprepared. The lawyer for Bullseye pressed the Japanese representative for information about his company’s structure and finances. Shrugging off the questions, the man turned to the Bullseye CEO and invited him to visit Japan.
“I could send one of our senior marketing people,” the CEO responded.
This suggestion seemed to make the Japanese representative uncomfortable. “My president was looking forward to meeting you personally,” he said. The CEO was not quite sure what to say.
Even with a common language and the best of intentions, negotiators from different cultures face special challenges. Had the negotiators on both sides of the table done their homework, they would have understood—and compensated for—these cultural differences:
• In Japan, a great deal of preparatory work is done behind the scenes, before contact is initiated. Had the American executives understood this, they would have found out much more about the Japanese company before the meeting, and they would not have showered the Japanese representative with information he likely already knew.
• In America, lawyers play a much more important role in business interactions than they do in Japan. Had the Japanese representative realized this, he would not have been so taken aback by the fact that the American company’s lawyer took the lead in questioning.
• Japanese businesses often rely on intermediaries such as trusted financial advisers or business partners to make initial contact. If it turns out that a business relationship is inappropriate or unwanted, conversations can end with neither side losing face. Not knowing this, the Americans probably misconstrued the mandate of the Japanese representative, who was not authorized to negotiate or make decisions but only to see whether further conversation would be fruitful.
• Once a Japanese organization is ready to establish a business relationship, representatives at the highest level usually begin by making personal contact with their counterparts before discussing any details. This is why the Bullseye CEO’s unwillingness to travel to meet the Japanese CEO was viewed by the Japanese representative as a lack of interest in exploring a business partnership and may have undermined any chance of the two companies ever striking a deal.
Trends in Cross-Cultural Advice
OVER THE PAST FEW DECADES negotiation analysts have suggested different strategies for surmounting barriers to cross-cultural negotiation. Not all of them have worked well. Here are summaries of these evolving strategies.
“To thine own self be true.” The prevailing view in the late 1970s and early 1980s was that Americans seeking to make deals overseas should negotiate in their usual style and let others adapt. While this strategy may have encouraged potential business partners in other parts of the world to learn English, it did very little to enhance cross-cultural communication. As long as American negotiators pushed their own style and remained insensitive to their counterpart’s culture, both sides remained confused by unspoken intentions and the meaning of symbolic actions.
“When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” It soon became clear that holding fast to one’s traditional approach to negotiation in cross-cultural contexts would not help parties overcome serious communication obstacles. The result? A pendulum swing in the opposite direction. A strategy that gained popularity in the mid-1980s emphasized the need for Americans to learn more about the negotiation styles of other cultures. American managers heading abroad to explore business opportunities, for instance, were encouraged to take seminars that introduced them to culturally appropriate communication techniques.
Unfortunately, this approach created new problems. For one thing, most people have trouble making a complete transition to new ways of negotiating. Such transitioning entails a greater commitment of time and effort than busy executives are prepared to make. The non-American partner is likely to be baffled by the American’s atypical negotiating style (adopted in an effort to be effective in the new circumstances) or to take advantage of the American’s adaptation mistakes. In either case, the outcome is usually quite discouraging for the American negotiator.
Be sensitive to cultural differences. In the early 1990s the prescriptive advice from negotiation experts shifted yet again. Since then, Americans have been urged to be sensitive to cultural differences without sacrificing their own negotiating strengths. Many companies arm their new overseas staff with guidebooks outlining the do’s and don’ts of local negotiation:
• Don’t put your feet up on the table and show the bottoms of your shoes to your negotiating partners in the Middle East.
• Do haggle in certain parts of Latin America where unwillingness to do so would be misconstrued as a lack of interest in making a deal.
• In Japan, don’t put off an invitation to socialize until after you’ve reached a deal.
Setting aside the question of whether cultural sensitivity is just another version of cultural stereotyping, this approach fails to account for the fact that some negotiating partners, due to their education or cosmopolitan background, are more likely to be insulted than comforted by such mechanical efforts at accommodation. Accordingly, these do’s and don’ts should be applied on a case-by-case basis, rather than on a country-by-country basis.
In fact it may be that cultural norms are less of a significant factor in negotiation than we think. For a time during the 1980s, anthropologists tried to document specific cross-cultural negotiating barriers facing partners in international dyads (for example, Brazilians negotiating with Germans, Americans negotiating with Chinese, and so on). The effort failed when it became clear that the background, skills, style, and experience of each individual were more important than broad cultural tendencies.
Adding the Individual to the Equation
NONE OF THESE MAXIMS has proven to be a satisfactory approach to cross-cultural negotiation, in large part because they overlook the importance of individual differences. I recommend that you approach potential business partners not as cultural emissaries but as individuals with unique personalities and backgrounds. Try following these guidelines when preparing for talks with someone from a different culture.
Research your counterpart’s background and experience. With a little homework, you should be able to learn about your negotiating partner’s background and experience. If your counterpart has a great deal of international negotiating experience, you can probably assume that cultural stereo
typing (and any effort to modify your negotiating strategy accordingly) is likely to create new communication difficulties rather than solve old ones. If you have trouble getting information about your negotiating partner, ask an intermediary with contacts at that firm or organization to make inquiries for you. (Be sure the intermediary understands that he is not authorized to make any commitments on your behalf.)
Enlist an adviser from your counterpart’s culture. If you discover that the person with whom you are likely to be negotiating has little or no international or cross-cultural experience, consider enlisting someone from his culture to serve as your second during the negotiation. Rather than deferring to this adviser during talks, plan out signals in advance to indicate when you should take a break for additional advice. In this manner, your cultural guide can help you size up the situation, coach you as needed, and even interject if he feels you have made an egregious error or misinterpretation.
Pay close attention to unfolding negotiation dynamics. Listen carefully during talks. If you’re unsatisfied with the answers you receive, reframe your questions and try again. If you’re unsure about what the other side said, repeat what you think you heard. It’s safe to assume that people living and working in different cultural settings often view or interpret the same events differently. But in our era of globalization, it’s also true that we have more in common on the person-to-person level than you might expect. Don’t ignore your intuition, and mind your manners.
Most business professionals recognize when they need technical or legal expertise to proceed with a deal-making interaction. Similarly, cross-cultural negotiators should realize that they might well need help sizing up the situation in advance, as well as interpreting the signals and norms that could make or break a negotiation in a cross-cultural context.
THINK OF YOUR NEGOTIATION PARTNER AS AN INDIVIDUAL FIRST, NOT AS A CULTURAL EMISSARY:
• Research your counterpart’s background and experience
• Enlist an adviser from your counterpart’s culture
• Pay close attention to unfolding negotiation dynamics
Communicating Across Language Barriers
WHEN NEGOTIATORS who don’t share a native tongue enter into talks, they might rely on an interpreter or translator to make themselves understood. But are their meanings really getting across?
Researcher Raymond Cohen has examined the obstacles to negotiation created by semantic difficulties in translation. He cites the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which in its strongest form argues that language is a cognitive straitjacket that compels a certain way of constructing reality. An implication of this hypothesis, which was particularly influential in the 1950s, is that negotiators who speak different languages are limited not only by the language that they don’t know but also by the language that they do know.
Subsequent linguistic research has challenged the more extreme versions of this hypothesis. Most linguists today accept that language both guides and somewhat constrains our perception and cognition, without fully determining them. The lesson for negotiators: language barriers can be surmounted with patience and care.
NEGOTIATING FOR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
YOU’VE FINALLY CLOSED THE DEAL. Months of travel and seemingly endless meetings have culminated in an agreement that you and your company can live with—though, admittedly, it’s a little less than you had hoped for. You’re eager to get back to your daily routine and put the exhausting experience behind you.
If you’ve ever felt this way, you’re not alone. Managers involved in complex negotiations typically want nothing more than to turn their backs on the experience once it’s over. Unfortunately, this tendency results in serious organizational losses because a great deal of negotiation experience is wasted.
Negotiation isn’t a skill that can be acquired overnight. Rather, it requires constant refinement at the individual level and a strong commitment on the part of your organization. What can you do to make learning about negotiation a continuing process in your organization? I offer four suggestions: monitor and assess each manager’s negotiation skills, use a negotiation preparation worksheet, provide ongoing negotiation coaching, and report the results of major negotiations—both good and bad—to your entire organization. These steps can help each manager take away appropriate lessons from each negotiation experience and leverage this knowledge for your company’s or organization’s benefit. Winning at win-win negotiation is not just a one-time concern.
Monitor and Assess Negotiation Skills
MANY ORGANIZATIONS SUBJECT their executives to rigorous performance reviews, yet few companies include negotiation effectiveness as one of the core competencies they track. Instead, negotiation is usually subsumed under categories such as “emotional intelligence,” “interpersonal effectiveness,” or “persuasiveness.” The negotiator-related questions posed in most 360-degree assessments don’t measure the right skills and abilities, such as preparation. When evaluators do assess negotiations, they typically rely only on post hoc accounts and overlook the details of the bargaining experience.
To accurately track improvements in a manager’s negotiation capabilities, someone must monitor how that person is doing—before, during, and after several key negotiations. Before a negotiation begins, it’s useful to review how well an executive prepared. Did she spend enough time thinking not only about her own interests but also about those of the other side? Did she clarify her organizational mandate, including her authority to make commitments? Did she identify options for mutual gain to be put on the table at the appropriate moment?
When it comes to assessing the negotiation itself, you should strive to find out how well the employee listened to the other side’s concerns and how nimble she was in revising her sense of the other side’s priorities in light of offers made. What kind of relationship did she build? How effective was she at creating value? Following the negotiation, did the manager coordinate adequately within the organization to ensure implementation of the agreement? Was she able to deal with surprises—changes in the business environment not covered in the agreement—when they occurred?
Even if a company ensures that its managers receive formal negotiation reviews and timely feedback, the more basic question of how to measure performance can be perplexing. Did the executive create enough value to warrant high marks for performance? Upper management should set explicit benchmarks internally before putting any performance system in place. Bristol-Myers Squibb, for example, not only instituted such benchmarks (spelling out milestones for particular high-value negotiations) but also offered senior managers the training they needed to assess the negotiation performance of their direct reports and to give them constructive criticism. The key: reward self-criticism, don’t punish it. Negotiation performance reviews should help managers become their own best critics.
Use a Negotiation Preparation Worksheet
TO DETERMINE AT WHICH POINT they ought to walk away from the table in an upcoming negotiation, executives should check in with their back table beforehand. If senior managers are unwilling to invest time in such a conversation—or if they offer less-than-helpful advice, such as, “Whatever you do, don’t lose that account!”—an executive can’t be held responsible for poor negotiation preparation.
One solution is to use a negotiation preparation worksheet (see an example at the end of this section) that will engage the entire organization in the necessary preparation and can be used to gauge executive performance after the fact. A preparation worksheet not only obligates a negotiator to account for all the factors that ought to be included in a negotiation strategy, but it also requires high-level sign-offs on all relevant estimates. This provides a concrete basis for performance review once a negotiation is over; negotiators and their superiors can both check intentions against results.
Keep in mind that bonuses and other rewards should be linked not just to negotiation outcomes but to outcomes in light of initial expectations. That is, review agreements in light of the va
lue created above and beyond the targets set in the preparation worksheet. It’s too easy to be a Monday morning quarterback and judge every result as insufficient.
Offer Ongoing Negotiation Coaching
HOW CAN AN ORGANIZATION capitalize on its own negotiation experience? Through reflective practice: the process of considering the results of each negotiation in light of what the initial expectations were and then discussing what ought to be tried next. While each negotiator should take the initiative to reflect on her or his own practice, to truly learn from experience, most negotiators need continual coaching from mentors.
Negotiators and coaches should be carefully paired. Not every senior manager is cut out to be a negotiation coach, and not every coach will work well with all the managers who report to him. Ideally, senior managers would provide negotiation advice and feedback to all their direct reports. However, this is unlikely to occur for several reasons: senior managers are unlikely to make enough time available for this task; they may not be skilled coaches or negotiators themselves; and their direct reports are unlikely to be candid about their weaknesses. When past interactions have undermined trust, negotiators are likely to fear that a manager will hold the negotiators’ self-evaluations against them.
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