Across the Pacific Pond

Abstract

For North Americans, business dealings with many Asians, generally, are challenging to conduct and sometimes difficult to conclude satisfactorily. The obstacles are cultural in nature.

What is negotiation? What do people actually do during a negotiation? Negotiation, as an idea, is unique, and culturally specific.

The Japanese tend to rely on generating solutions to problems from the information available, while North Americans use the idea of exchange (proposal-counterproposal). Also, the Japanese emphasize the relationships involved as well as specified goals during negotiations. They really want to know who they are dealing with, who sent these, and what the future of this relationship might hold.

The criteria which determine how negotiators are selected differ, and include such variables as: professional status, hierarchical status, negotiating ability, knowledge of opponents, and experience. Age can be an important factor in Asian communities.

There is far more reliance on non-verbal signals for the Chinese and Japanese in acquiring information than for North Americans. How much do people rely on verbal or non-verbal signals to communicate their messages? More nonverbal signals means a highly complex society; high context in nature.

Even when North Americans know about a particular set of cultural differences, they do not know how to use the information. It can take some time before they find out. There are two significant information gaps. One is a genuine lack of information about the other. North Americans do not know much about what goes on in Asian cultures; that seems to be changing very slowly, and it is changing. The other is a 'what to do with the information now that we've got it' gap. Confusion exists due to a real lack of experience in working with people having different values.

There are horrific traps in discussions about cultural differences; stereotyping is the obvious one. Making the assumption that any single person is going to reflect the group or even the group norm, can lead to terrible misunderstandings. There is also the danger of viewing a culture as a static entity instead of an evolving, fluid, environmental situation.

Strategies in negotiation are agree upon and ultimately selected; a critical agreement is co-participation. Both sides must recognize the other side as part of the process. Equality in attitude cannot always be assumed by each side.

The other is responsiveness. What you, as a negotiator do, should in some observable way, be responsive to what the other side is doing. There should be mutual movement--both sides must move from their original positions over the duration of the negotiation. This cannot be assumed either. Not every culture regards this as effective negotiation; it may be seen as loss of face, for example.

A Chinese negotiator can be a bit vague about his or her personal role or position and specific responsibilities in any given situation. They appear, to the North American sensibility, to be 'manipulative', using conflicting feelings, including: friendship, obligation, guilt and something resembling dependence.

The overt appearance is that they are trying to shame North Americans into making concessions. The Chinese, often, present a face that on the surface will not take risks, seems evasive, uses what appears to be delaying tactics, and use the claim of 'ignorance' as a vehicle for gaining information.

Frequently, they let it be known that they are negotiating with the competition, and most irritating of all, sign contracts and then do not exhibit any behavior that indicates they are bound by such an agreement.

They send more negotiators to bargaining sessions than North Americans tend to do, leaving Americans to feel outnumbered as well as somewhat out-foxed.

The Japanese are usually perceived as pressing for additional information with no corresponding offering gestures. They are very slow to make concessions (giving too little, and waiting way too long to do it). It is difficult to get them to reveal who the pivotal person is in the negotiation. They are also charged with being 'inscrutable,' and use 'confusing' tactics when communicating.

So, in summarizing these differences, North Americans, feel that both the Chinese and Japanese are deliberately difficult negotiators; they are not really sincere about wanting to come to agreements. They ask for information without offering anything in return. They push for concessions and never reciprocate as much or as often as North Americans expect.

Solving the 'difference' Problem; A Modus Operandi

There is a range of possible actions. These include culturally-responsive or sensitive strategies.

I'd like to suggest five possible individual approaches and three strategies that are combinations of ideas that can be implemented during negotiation. (Although the focus here is on two Asian countries, China and Japan, as perceived from a North American perspective, sometimes these broad suggestions may be usefully applied to a country, regional, or even an organizational culture.)

Individual options /strategies

Concepts 4 and 5 tend to change the strategies of the parties involved or change the process itself.

1. Use your own culture's ways. To be successful, it will be necessary to convince the other side to use your culture's ways. (This option is used very infrequently; it is perceived as totally arrogant, and, therefore, not productive.)
2. Use the others party's ways to negotiate; i.e., embrace their way of doing things. Difficult, at best.
3. One party modifies their ways; this lies between the first two. Adapt some of your ways brings you closer to the other's way of doing things. Workable, and not easy.
4. Find an advisor who knows the other culture very well and makes suggestions; like an agent who will negotiate for you.
5. Introduce a new way; something not typical of either culture involved -- something entirely divergent. Personalize negotiation methods and approaches. Don't ignore culture (impossible anyway!), try and treat it as background; focus on the capabilities of the specific individuals at the table. This is frequently successful because a new, mutually agreed upon culture is being created just for this effort.

Common options/tactics

Three shared strategies are listed below. I'm calling them 'shared' because they require very specific coordination and agreement with an individual counterpart.

1. Use a mediator; an intermediary both sides decide to use and who can moderate the discussions. Can be useful and productive when the 'right' person is found; must be someone who can remain 'neutral.'
2. Coordinated adjustment; applies in situations where a strategy is explicitly addressed and the sides decide to use some aspect from each cultures. This is a shared version of adapting.
3. A personalized procedure which transcends cultures. In collaboration, the negotiator puts culture in the background and concentrates on the particular individuals involved. E.G.:, a third culture is accessed or a special subculture created to carry out negotiations effectively (a virtual culture).

In selecting a scheme, consider feasibility. Some strategies involve a high degree of knowledge of the other culture. Consider your level of knowledge as well as your counterpartUs knowledge of your culture.

Additional considerations

1. The unique relationship you have with your counterpart.
   • Do you have a history? Long/short term?
   • Have you negotiated with each other before? Recently?
   • If so, how? Successfully?
2. Consider your counterpart's values, inclination, and probable strategy.
   • What is this person likely to do?
   • Think about capabilities, including staff readily available, actual financial resources, genuinely useable networks, professional and personal contacts, etc.
3. Consider your own values and capabilities, as above.
   • What actions are you willing to give up/embrace?

   Implementation of any responsive, successful, plan requires an ongoing respect for the counterpart's culture and a sensitivity to feedback. Monitor all feedback. If the strategy chosen is seen as not working, modify it, or change the arrangement. The only way to successfully approach cross-cultural negotiations is to understand that you must develop a relationship with the other side. This enables an outcome that is comprehensive to both sides.

   The single most important factor in communicating with Chinese and Japanese is acknowledging the difference in our cultural contexts: our low context culture versus their high context culture.

   North Americans rely on conveying what we mean through actual words, whereas the Chinese and Japanese convey much of their meaning by what is not overtly said, by saying things subtly, and relying a great deal on the context of how the information is delivered, and by who, to supply meaning.

   When presenting information in your native language with fluent counterparts:

   1. use firmness selectively and only when necessary
   2. refer to the relationship (as opposed to ones self)
   3. be VERY sensitive to your nonverbal signals
   4. be COMPLETELY consistent across channels and media

      In presenting in your native language, with non-fluent speakers

      1. use an interpreter that both parties agree to
      2. if not understood, NEVER speak louder or repeat the same words
      3. explain information in more than one way; use agreed upon images
      4. ALWAYS avoid jargon and idioms

      Presenting in a non-fluent second language

      1. do not translate word for word (communicate ideas and concepts!)
      2. use the foreign words and grammar you do know resourcefully: (frequently, there's more than one way to get the meaning conveyed)
      3. beware of "false matches" between languages (words whose similar appearance [spelling] leads to thinking meanings are a match)

      Presenting via interpreters

      1. request sequential or serial translation, as you see fit
      2. speak slowly, with frequent pauses
      3. employ your own; or a mutually agreed on person
      4. remember common sources of differences in interpretation

      Listening tips

      In discussions with Chinese and Japanese:

      1. respect the counterpart's views
      2. the statements and actions you actually hear and see may be very different from your initial interpretations and assumptions
      3. consider intended, as well as, literal information
      4. recognize the counterpart's high communicative context, and watch for non-verbal cues and messages contained in the context
      5. remember the translators may have limitations

         Summary

         There are two major reactions North Americans (NA) seem to have when working with and negotiating with the Chinese and Japanese:

         1. we (the NA's) are inexpert and clumsy
         2. being 'taken' - the perception that the process is unfair, as perceived by the NA

         Three ideas to balance those reactions may prove useful

         1. no substitute for cultural knowledge of your own culture and your counterparts'
         2. pursue goals consistent with the cultural context in which you both find yourselves
         3. recognize the possibilities of options when selecting a strategy, and when possible, list them for all parties to consider.

         Good luck and Bon Voyage.

         

         ©1994 Elaine Winters. This article was originally published in Global Talk, a publication of the Society for Technical Communication. Elaine Winters, a work in progress and still under construction, is an award-winning Writer, Instructional Designer, and Curriculum Developer.
         

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