You will be able to adjust your pace and preparation for counterparts who build trust through relationships.
Kai Xin, a Singapore professional, is negotiating a packaging deal with a company in Jakarta (she and the details below are an invented example). The first time she dealt with them, she pushed to discuss terms in the first meeting, and the pricing discussion went less smoothly than she had hoped. She may have seemed untrustworthy to them because she seemed in a hurry, not because of anything she said.
In her book The Culture Map, Erin Meyer describes a trusting scale that runs between two ways of building trust in business. At one end is task-based trust: you trust someone because they do good work and deliver what they promise. It is built through the work itself, and it can be built quickly. At the other end is relationship-based trust: you trust someone because you know them, have shared meals and time with them, and have seen who they are outside the deal. It takes longer to build, but it tends to be deeper once it is there.
Meyer places many Asian cultures towards the relationship-based end of the scale and cultures such as the United States towards the task-based end. Singapore's position depends heavily on the company and the people involved. Many Singapore teams work in a task-based way, and many Singapore business relationships run on long acquaintance. With any counterpart, start by working out which way they build trust, rather than assuming it from where they are based.
A relationship-based counterpart may not be ready to discuss serious terms until they feel they know you. Pushing for the numbers early does not speed things up. It can make you look interested only in the deal, and relationship-based counterparts are cautious about that kind of person. Expect several meetings before anyone discusses a price, and don't push for numbers before then.
Many Singapore professionals are trained to get to the point, so relationship-building time can feel wasted to them, but it is part of the work. In relationship-based settings, the parts that look like time off, such as meals, informal conversations, visits and introductions, are often where the real work happens. They let the other side get to know you. They also let you get to know them and understand their interests, in the sense used in Lesson 1.2, "Questions that uncover the other side's interests". Use informal time to listen for what matters to them.
In practice, accept meal invitations where you can and join small talk with genuine interest. Avoid checking your watch or steering every conversation back to the proposal. You can come across as untrustworthy without saying anything wrong, simply by seeming in a hurry, as Kai Xin did the first time.
Kai Xin makes her next trip to Jakarta with her head of sales. The first day is a long lunch where nobody mentions packaging. Later there is a factory tour, where she meets a finance manager, and a dinner with the founder's son, who asks about her family and her university and talks at length about football. On paper, the trip looks unproductive.
Pricing is not discussed until the third meeting, two months later, and it goes far more smoothly than the first time. By then Kai Xin has relationships with the purchasing manager, the founder, the founder's son and the finance manager from the factory tour. Each of them helps her understand how the decision will actually be made.
In some cultures the formal meeting is not where decisions are made. They are made beforehand through quiet conversations with each person who has a say, so the outcome is largely agreed by the time everyone meets. Japan is a well-known example, where this groundwork is called nemawashi: talking a proposal through informally with each person involved, one by one, before any formal meeting. Meyer notes that Japan combines a hierarchical leadership style with a consensual decision-making style, so many people may need to be consulted even though there is a clear boss.
This has two consequences for you as a negotiator. The formal meeting may feel slow and scripted, because the real discussion happened elsewhere. And for your proposal to succeed, you need to be part of the earlier groundwork: share information early, answer questions from several people, and be patient while their internal process runs.
With a relationship-based counterpart, allow more calendar time: more meetings, more travel and longer gaps between steps. Count meals and visits in that time budget, because they are part of the negotiation.
Build contacts at several levels of the other organisation as well as with the person across the table. If your main contact leaves or the decision moves to someone else, you do not start from nothing, and each contact helps you understand how a decision will actually be made.
Being patient does not mean being passive. Keep the preparation, numbers and BATNA you worked out in module 3. The relationship changes the pace and the path of the negotiation, and your walk-away line stays where it was.
Now plan the timeline for a cross-cultural negotiation you expect to have, or one you can imagine. Mark each meeting, meal, visit and introduction, note who you will meet at each level of the other organisation, and place the first discussion of numbers only after those relationship-building steps.
Plan the timeline for a cross-cultural negotiation, including the relationship-building steps that come before any numbers are discussed.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).