You will be able to protect face and work with hierarchy when you negotiate.
A negotiation in Asia can stall even when the price and terms suit both sides. Two things often explain it: face and hierarchy. They shape deals across the region. They also shape deals inside Singapore's own workplaces, where people from many cultures sit in the same meetings. If you misread either one, you can lose an agreement that was well within reach.
Face is a person's standing and dignity in the eyes of others. Losing face means being embarrassed or made to look smaller in front of people whose opinion matters. Giving face means helping someone keep or gain that standing. For more on how face works day to day, see Communicate at work, lesson 8.2, "Hierarchy, face and hearing an indirect no", which covers it in everyday team life.
At the negotiating table, face carries more weight than it does in team life. Once someone has lost face, they often can't agree to anything for the rest of the discussion, since saying yes would look like giving in to the person who embarrassed them. People everywhere dislike being shown up in public. In many cultures across Asia, and in plenty of Singapore offices, the cost is high, and people go out of their way to avoid causing it.
In an invented case, Kai Xin, an account manager at a Singapore packaging company, flies to Jakarta to see a family-owned food manufacturer that could turn into a large customer. Facing her are the purchasing manager and two of his team. An older man sits at the end of the table and says nothing.
About halfway in, the purchasing manager gets a figure from her own proposal wrong. Kai Xin puts him right, politely but firmly, with everyone listening. Nobody speaks. The meeting finishes early, and two weeks pass before a follow-up email arrives.
Her figure was correct, but she read nothing else in the room. The purchasing manager lost face in front of his team and, more seriously, in front of the older man. Accepting her proposal at that same meeting would have meant a second defeat for him.
She had a better option. She could have offered to check whether she had sent him the latest version, then confirmed the right number during a break or on a short call afterwards. That way the error gets fixed and nobody's standing suffers.
The habit to build is giving the other side space to change position where nobody is watching. Avoid correcting or challenging anyone in public. With a senior person, don't do it at all, even when you are certain you're right.
Concessions work the same way. Once a senior person has stated a position in a meeting, moving off it in that same room can be very hard for them. Offer a private route instead. That could be a phone call the following day or a quiet word over lunch. It could also be a revised proposal with terms changed enough that saying yes looks like a response to new information.
In more hierarchical organisations, the person across the table may not have the authority to say yes. The decision might rest with a director, a family patriarch or a committee that never attends. At Kai Xin's meeting, the silent older man may well have been the one whose view counted most.
Lesson 6.1, "The pressure tactics you will meet", described the "higher authority" tactic, and this can look similar. The difference is that nobody here is playing a game. The absent decision-maker exists, and that is simply how the organisation runs.
Find out the approval route early. You can ask directly and respectfully who else will be part of the decision and what they will especially want to see. You can also ask a contact inside the company, or someone in your own network who has dealt with them before. Then plan around what you learn. Your proposal may need to convince someone you never meet, so write it to be passed up the chain. Keep it clear and short, and build it around what the senior person is likely to care about.
Hierarchy also changes who you should send. Suppose the other side's most senior person attends and you send a junior manager on their own. That can come across as not taking them seriously. The people you bring show how much the relationship matters to you, and the other side will read it that way whether you intended it or not.
So find out who is coming from their side and match that level where possible. If they bring a director, ask a director of yours to join, even for part of the meeting. If you can't match their level, say so beforehand and make it clear that your senior people back the proposal.
When Kai Xin goes back for a second meeting, she brings her company's head of sales. He spends the first half hour in conversation with the older man, who is now known to be the founder.
Now take one negotiation of your own with a more hierarchical counterpart and map it. Note who decides, who influences, and how you'll give them room to concede without losing face.
Pick a negotiation with a more hierarchical counterpart. Write down who decides, who influences, and how you will let them concede without losing face.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).