World Café

By Karen S. Walch, Thunderbird Professor

Working professionals from all over the world share their adventures in cross-cultural negotiations with us. Here are five tips we have picked up from our network of practitioners at the Garvin Center for Cultures and Languages of International Management:

1. Adapt your negotiation style to fit your counterpart’s cultural preferences.

“U.S. negotiators sometimes tend to delight in their bluntness – which doesn’t work well with the British,” says British management consultant Tim Wilson. “By contrast, U.S. negotiators may consider the indirect communication in some cultures difficult to follow and even deceptive.” Consult the Cultural Navigator for tips on cultural preferences.

2. Identify your own cultural preferences.

We have observed in our experience with international executives that preparation about the issues, settlement range and strategies is often straightforward. However, awareness of one’s own cultural preferences through the self-assessment of the Cultural Orientations Indicator (COI) can help to satisfy not only the desired strategic needs of a negotiation, but also the emotional needs.

3. Plan for a starting point for dialogue.

Swiss banker Steve Klemme, a Thunderbird graduate and J.P. Morgan managing director, says his clients in the Middle East (especially in Saudi Arabia) have an affinity for American culture and love to talk about things such as “Desperate Housewives,” the Super Bowl and U.S. politics.

4. Look for common self-interests.

One Thunderbird graduate named Rosaria said she focused on a negotiation outcome that would be good for her and her employer when she recently decided to work part-time in the Mexican subsidiary of her U.S. company. Before she made a proposal about part-time work, she learned as much as she could about her manager’s concerns regarding the next annual report and public filings that were due. She discovered many feasible alternatives to suggest to her manager, and she engaged in a productive discussion with her manager about flexibility in her annual schedule.

5. Practice, practice, practice

Read, talk with other negotiators and role play negotiation challenges. One executive declared recently during a Thunderbird Corporate Learning program that attendance at negotiation workshops helps him recognize the “thin slice” of opportunity to ask critical questions in negotiation situations.

Posted: 01|9|09 at 11:09 am.
Filed under: Karen Walch.
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