Riassunto esame Mediazione Inglese 3, professoressa D'Antonio, libro consigliato "International Business"

International business

You have to learn skills in order to negotiate. There are basic cultural attitudes and values, but culture generalizations provide only an orientation, a frame of reference. Americans find it more appropriate than Germans to make small talk with strangers: they view negotiation more as a process than an event. Americans will look more closely at the strengths and weaknesses of the people they are dealing with rather than just focusing on substantive issues: they look to maximize the benefit to themselves rather than trying objectively to assess the best/fair solution for all parties.

American vs German negotiation styles

It’s very important to create a friendly and personable atmosphere. Americans will open a discussion to learn what the real interests of the other side are, and to assess how much flexibility the other side may have. The goal is to gather as much info as possible before making a conditional offer. Germans spend a lot of time to convince the other side that their offer is the best thing to do: they perceive the situation as a joint problem-solving exercise.

Americans perceive their role as one of furthering the interests of their particular business unit and themselves. Germans presume a cooperative situation, a joint effort to find the best solution for the entire company. Americans see it as a question of power and influence and maximizing gains for themselves and the company or business unit they work for. There is a lot of conflict between Germans and Americans because of their different style: Americans are both warm, personal, friendly, polite, cheerful, humorous, positive, and tough or demanding on substance, so that this confuses people from Germany, where you are supposed to look, sound and act both serious and tough. Americans like to talk about creating win-win situations but they’re very success-oriented. While in Germany, being in the same team means cooperation, in America it means also competition.

Comparison with UK and Asian negotiation styles

The UK style is similar to US because of the same basic legal situation (case law rather than code law) and similar language. But the division between private and public life is different: Americans talk more about their family and hobbies, and they smile a lot. If you negotiate with Asians, you have to pay attention to details because it’s very difficult to get older Japanese to say anything at all, and you should do research on who’s important and what personal relationships are involved.

Training and negotiation approaches

Americans are taught on how to handle resistance, deal, tactics, a process thanks to the law school training in the US. Germans rarely had any formal training at university. The Harvard interest-based bargaining approach helps you to view negotiations as an opportunity to strengthen long-term relationships rather than undermine them, as it happens with the more confrontational positional bargaining approach. The Harvard approach is based on four principles: separate people from the problem; focus on interests, not positions; develop a variety of possibilities before deciding what to do; when no option is acceptable to all parties, insist that alternatives be based on some objective standard.

If you are dealing with a commodity-type situation and you clearly hold the power, use a tough bargaining approach. If the long-term relationship is important, begin by assessing the relative importance of relationships to each party and the relative power of each party at the negotiating table. The buyer is always in the strongest position. The Germans should view negotiation as a process rather than a single event, and should focus on the “people aspects”: atmosphere and tone are as important as substantive issues. Be more indirect with criticism, allow more room for give and take, prepare well for negotiating before flying to the USA: understand who people are, what the corporate values are, and what their key strengths and weaknesses are. Put yourself in others’ shoes.

Understanding cultural nuances

Airline magazines and airport bookshops (Knigge – etiquette manual) contain the most important dos and don’ts about various cultures, that help the business for negotiations. But they can never be complete because even if they’re true, they don’t consider in which case things happen and the motivations. They can reinforce stereotypes (there are jokes like heaven vs hell): they are fixed images of what a particular type of person or thing is like, and can get in the way of effective communication, acting as a basis of discrimination. Concentrate on facts, take an interest in others.

But dos and don’ts, even if used by people to avoid pitfalls and make things clearer, don’t reflect specific people and can be dangerous. They’re not enough: you must use practical issues as a basis for analyzing the interplay between cultures, organizations, situations, and personality. Intercultural training can reinforce stereotypes if being run without any quality control, without thinking about consequences. Cross-cultural trainers have a big impact on how people think and behave after they have attended a seminar. An ethical approach is essential for people working in this field.

Rapport

Working life is built around relationships with many people (colleagues, managers, customers, consultants), and managing them is critical to the efficiency of both individuals and organizations. We build such relationships at different speed and to different levels of intimacy. But establishing rapport – a form of interpersonal chemistry based on trust or understanding – is often seen as the ultimate goal. A rapport involves a positive relationship in which there is a deep understanding, and in which forms of behaviour and thinking become similar and somehow shared (being in “sync”).

Styles of rapport building

There are two key styles of rapport building:

• Reactive style, of northern Europeans: authentic, honest, open, reserved, with relationships developed naturally in time
• Proactive style, of US: flexible, change behaviour, adapt to others, get close to people, with relationships developed as quickly as possible

Reactive people may feel proactive people are superficial, pushy, adapting their behaviour to gain trust quickly, or appearing friendly for other reasons. Proactive people find rapport people cold, inflexible, and arrogant.

Face-to-face meetings

When face-to-face meetings do take place, they are extremely important for creating a positive atmosphere for future cooperation. Helping rules, that however won’t apply in each situation:

• Optimize your body language: move towards your partner positively with enthusiasm
• Welcome positively: smile and have a good eye contact with positive words
• Be a good host: offer to take your visitor’s coat, something to drink, to take a seat
• Be curious: ask questions to show interest
• Be knowledgeable: show you’re prepared and you know something about the new contact
• Build a bond: find common points to begin the process of being similar
• Balance the relationship and the task: try to tune into your partner’s style

Many international managers are now expected to coach and give feedback to their personnel: building a rapport is an essential part of this process. Five key ideas:

• Be curious: make questions, an indicator of interest
• Be an open-space listener: create space to answer questions, give time to think and reflect
• Be a flexible mirror: mirroring or copying aspects create the impression of a familiar and safe environment (speed of speech, body language, breathing patterns)
• Be focused: concentrate on listening to and reacting to others, switching off one’s own interests
• Be understanding: repeat, clarify words to show coaches that you understand their views/feelings

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is an approach to communication that is very proactive: it uses a series of techniques that involve controlling one’s own verbal and non-verbal behaviour. Two of them are:

• Mirroring: by mirroring the behaviour of the people you are talking to, it is possible to give them the feeling that you understand them and are on their side, and that you are someone who can be liked and trusted. You can mirror what people say but also gestures, facial expressions, eye contact and movement, and breathing rhythms
• Modelling: using positive ideas and behaviour that you hope the other person will copy. It involves behaving the way you want other people to act and saying the kinds of things you would like them to say, or using appropriate questions to move them to a certain frame of mind. Modelling is recommended when you are trying to create a common framework of positive and enthusiastic thinking or to convince someone of something. When the other person picks up on your cues and follow your style, rapport has been established.

Concentrate on what people are saying to you, present a positive attitude, listen carefully, take responsibility.

Communication styles between men and women

There are also different communication styles between men and women:

• For women, conversations are about establishing connections and negotiating relationships. The emphasis is on finding similarities and matching experiences – proactive form
• For men, talking is primarily a way to maintain independence and to negotiate and maintain status in a hierarchical social order. They focus on competing to hold centre stage, demonstrating knowledge and skills, or simply giving important information – reactive form

Clear danger when men and women communicate. Home, too, for men is seen as a chance to relax from work, silence means a happy state of rapport; for women, the home is the ultimate opportunity for intimate conversation: talking means showing involvement, listening is a way of demonstrating interest and caring. Areas of potential misunderstanding that can lead to frustration on both sides: asking for help, women ask questions when they need help, men...