We're now ready to look at another very important question that relates to preparing for a negotiation and developing your negotiation strategy. And that's the question of whether you're involved in a cross-cultural negotiation. In any negotiation, you start by analyzing your own interests, as we did earlier. And then, you try to analyze the other side's interests. Moving beyond positions, asking why they want what they 're interested in. With a cross-cultural negotiation, it's especially challenging analyzing the other side's interests because there are two hurdles that you must leap to find out their interests. First of all there's a question of their negotiation style. And second their underlying values and beliefs. Negotiation style is often referred to as the surface culture. Whereas the underlying values and beliefs are referred to as the deep culture. So obviously, in a negotiation, we all know culture can influence the results of a negotiation and the success of a negotiation. What might not be quite as apparent as you deal with the surface culture and the deep culture is that, there are many variations within a culture. For example, when I talk with people from northern Italy they explain that the culture in southern Italy is quite different from northern Italy. So, these variations can even occur within a country as well as cross country. Let me give you an example. For several years I was an Associate Dean at the Michigan Business School. And one of my responsibilities was a program that involved sending our MBAs to the Navajo reservation. And occasionally I would visit the reservation. Before my first visit, I studied the Navajo culture. I talked with Navajo friends. I read books about the Navajo culture. Because I wanted to be respectful of that culture during my visit to the tribe. Among other things I read that it is sometimes considered disrespectful to look another person straight in the eye. And also, a firm handshake is often not used within the Navajo culture. So I made my first visit to the reservation and met my very first Navajo on the reservation, a person name Art who was a tribal official. Art walked up to me, he was about six foot four. He was wearing sort of a cowboy outfit, he looked a lot like John Wayne. And Art walked up to me and he looked me straight in the eye, he slapped me on the back and gave me the firmest hand shake I've ever had in my life and said welcome to the reservation George. And here I am thinking that, expecting a weak handshake and an indirect look in the eye so I'm holding out my hand weakly and looking off to the side. So that was a lesson to me that there are many variations within a culture. Now, I discovered in dealing with other members of the Navajo tribe that, the indirect look and the weak handshake were very common. But the important message here is that there are many variations within a culture, and therefore the message is, try to be sensitive to culture, but, realize that there are variations. Now, in becoming sensitive to culture, there's a wonderful tool available developed by Geswald Solocus of Tufts University. This tool allows you to be sensitive to cultures while not stereotyping the other culture. And this tools is a ten part questionnaire that asks you a number of questions that you can use in not only assessing the cultural style of the other side, but also assessing your own style. And then you can do what's called a gap analysis. You can look at situations where there's a huge gap in your values as opposed to the values of the other culture. For example, maybe you are very time sensitive. Maybe to you time is money, you want to get things done quickly. Whereas the other culture is much more relaxed when it comes to time. That's an important cultural trait to be sensitive to as you enter a cross cultural negotiation. If you want details regarding this assessment, which I strongly recommend that you use in any cross-cultural negotiation, whether it's within a country or beyond the boundaries of a country. I strongly recommend that you use the assessment. And also, for details regarding the assessment, this is a very useful article in the Ivey Business Journal. So when you're involved in a In a cross-cultural negotiation, and you have identified through a gap analysis the major differences between your culture and the other side. Another question is, should you adopt the negotiation style of the other side? There's an old phrase, when you're in Rome act as the Romans do. Now when I teach negotiation around the World, I've discovered that this phrase is fairly universal in almost every country except in Italy. I teach in Italy every spring, and when I asked the Italians, hey have you heard about these phrase, when in Rome do as the Romans do, I often get a blank look. But it is common around the World, and so the basic question is, when you're negotiating in another country, should you adopt the other side's style? Why don't you ask yourself that question? Just think about it for a second, if you're negotiating in another country would you adopt the style used by the people from that country, yes or no? Basically, many people would say no or a qualified no. Because there are problems when you try to modify your behavior and act as the other side does. For example, what happens if you adopt the negotiation style of the other side and then they adopt your style. You're both going to feel a little foolish acting out the surface culture of the other side. Somebody told me once that they saw a picture of an American businessman meeting a businessman from Japan for the first time. And as they walk up to each other, the Japanese businessman reaches out to hug the American just as the American bows to the Japanese business person, and so the hug completely misses the American. So problems when both sides modify their behavior. Another problem is where you don't fully understand the local culture. You have to be very careful that if you're going to adopt the style, you're doing it in a respectful, knowledgeable manner, and most of us aren't familiar enough with other cultures to do this comfortably. And we don't want to do it in a way that would be disrespectful of the other culture. Now of course there are exceptions. A few years ago I was teaching a negotiation course, one of the people in the course was the president of the country's subsidiary of one of the large automakers. And he mentioned in class that he did use the local style in negotiations. But in his case, when he first moved to the country where he served as president, instead of living in an enclave with other auto executives he intentionally took his family to a local village, they were immersed in the local culture, the local language, the local customs. And so he felt very comfortable acting in the local style. But for most of us that is a difficult challenge. So, the bottom line is probably moderate adaptation is often better than major adaptation. In other words, try to identify some key features of the other culture, some clear taboos that you want to avoid, rather than completely immersing yourself into the other side's style. Let me give you a quick cultural or cross-cultural test to see how aware you are of some major taboos in other cultures. Let's assume that you and I have just completed a negotiation, we're sitting side by side. And as we finish the negotiation I pat you on the back and I say good job. Great job with the negotiation. Now, stop for a second and think, have I violated any cultural taboos in other countries when I pat you on the back and say great job. You can probably think of a number of problems with the touching, maybe the touching alone is a problem. But notice the way that I touched you and specifically the hand that I used. In some cultures you do not touch somebody else with your left hand, that is your toilet hand, that is taboo. So that's problem number one. Problem number two is when I say, great job. In some cultures this is equivalent to a middle finger in other cultures, and so I have just done something highly offensive by using this signal in certain cultures. So that's what you want to be aware of. Moderate adaptation rather than major adaptation. One of my most successful students was from Japan. And after he returned to his country, he rose to the top of the largest life insurance company in the World, and we've become close friends over the years. We usually see each other at least once a year either in Japan or in the States. And occasionally we'll talk about negotiation, and once I sent him an email and I asked him the question about adaptation. I said Mikoto, should Americans adopt other country's styles when negotiating in those countries? Because I realized that he had negotiated around the World, as a representative of this life insurance company. And I think his advice is about the best I've ever seen. This was his email response. I definitely believe that Americans should stay within their own style. Of course it is important to respect the culture of each country. I believe that if we respect each other, the negotiation will be comfortable and constructive. When I negotiated with the people from the USA, including Jim Robinson, former CEO of American Express, Richard Fuld, CEO of Lehman Brothers, or the people of Europe including Dr. Breuer, CEO of Deutsch Bank, I felt very comfortable about their own negotiation style. Although they were more straightforward, more open, more aggressive, and their attitude was more relaxed, especially the Americans. I think that the success of negotiation between cross-national companies depends on respect of each other rather than style. And I think that's about the best advice that you'll ever receive. So, in conclusion, when you're involved in cross-cultural negotiations, start with a gap analysis to identify how your negotiation style differs from the other side. Try to keep in mind that there are variances within each culture. And conduct research so that you can avoid actions that are offensive in the other culture. Just let me add a final tip that might be useful as you prepare for a cross-cultural negotiation, and that is to try a role reversal. That is, once you identify differences in your styles, go through an exercise where you play the role of the person in the other culture. This is called a role reversal, and it's a very useful exercise because it gives you insight into the actions of the other side, and it might even provide you with some additional negotiation strategy and tactics to use in your own future negotiations. I use a role reversal in my courses, and in one role reversal, one of the sides is supposed to remain very quiet. And I've discovered over the years that the people playing that role, they're in a culture where people tend to listen rather than talk constantly. When they play that role, they learn that being silent can be a very powerful negotiation tactic. After the course, people send me emails and comments, and here are a couple of comments from people who participated in this role reversal. In my daily life, I tend to be one of those people who loves to hear the sound of his or her own voice. However, in reversing roles I was forced to keep silent as part of my role. This made me realize how much I can learn from the other party by just letting them talk. Additionally I found that when presented with periods of silence the other side will just keep talking. This can lead to revelations of information that I never would have sought in the first place. And here's another quick example. I tend to fill up empty space by talking, because of nerves or culture, I'm not sure. It was amazing to see the other side destroy their position by talking over themselves. Their interests were plainly clear to me, and my quietness unnerved them to the point that I think they were desperate to sign a deal, by being quieter and never interrupting, both of which are a challenge for me. I will much more quickly and thoroughly understand the other's interests and BATNA, and position myself better for the final negotiations. This exercise illustrated that if you speak little, your words carry much more weight. So, couple of benefits from the role reversal. Number one, deeper understanding of the other side. Number two, possibly introducing new negotiation tactics for your own arsenal. That concludes our look at cross-cultural negotiation.
