You will be able to adapt a negotiation plan for a counterpart from a different culture.
Kai Xin is back at the table with the Jakarta food manufacturer you followed through lessons 9.1 to 9.3, this time for a renewed contract. Before her first meeting, she adds a new section to her preparation worksheet. She then changes several other parts of her plan to fit it.
The standard worksheet from lesson 3.4, "Complete your preparation worksheet", has sections for interests, alternatives, numbers, issues, criteria, opening, concessions and tactics. That is enough for most negotiations. It is missing a section when the other side comes from a different culture, or from an organisation that works very differently from yours. This exercise adds that section and then adjusts the rest of your plan to fit it. Allow about 25 minutes.
Pick a real or likely negotiation with someone whose way of working differs from yours. That could be an overseas client or supplier, a regional colleague in another office, a new manager from a different background, or a landlord or contractor whose style you've found hard to read. If nothing is coming up, use a past negotiation that went badly and plan how you would run it again.
Start from your existing worksheet for that negotiation. If you don't have one, first make a short version using the lesson 3.4 sections.
The culture section has four parts: face risks, the decision route, relationship steps and indirect signals. Keep each part to a few lines.
Face risks are the points where someone on either side could lose face. Look for corrections, refusals, concessions made in front of others, and anything that might make a senior person look uninformed. For each one, note how you will avoid it. Kai Xin notes that the purchasing manager may have to explain a higher price to the founder. She plans not to challenge his figures in the meeting and to send any corrections privately. She will also give him a revised proposal he can present as his own improvement.
The decision route records who decides, who influences, and in what order. Lesson 9.1, "Face, hierarchy and who really decides", is the basis for this part. In Kai Xin's case the founder decides. His son influences, especially on suppliers. The purchasing manager prepares the recommendation, and the finance manager checks the numbers.
Relationship steps are what must happen before any numbers are discussed. Use lesson 9.2, "Build the relationship first, then the deal", as your guide. Kai Xin plans lunch with the purchasing manager on day one, a factory visit, and dinner with the son if she is invited. She will discuss pricing only in the second or third meeting.
Indirect signals are the phrases and behaviours to watch for, along with what you will do when you hear them. Lesson 9.3, "Hearing no when nobody says no", has a starting list. Kai Xin reads "We will study it" with no date as probably meaning no. When she hears it, she will ask the person, one to one after the meeting, what would make it easier to approve. She will also confirm every next step by email the same day.
The culture section affects three other parts of the worksheet, so go back to each of them.
Pace: your timeline may need more meetings and longer gaps between them. In her example plan, Kai Xin originally had pricing agreed in one meeting. Her new plan spreads it over three meetings, with her opening offer in the second and concessions in the third.
Opening: the first offer may need to come later, after the relationship steps. It may also need more room for concessions, because the other side may expect to see you move as a sign of goodwill. Kai Xin keeps her target the same but opens slightly higher. That gives her more to concede without going below her target.
Concessions and hierarchy: plan who makes which concession. Some concessions are better offered by your senior person to their senior person, so that their senior person can be seen to have won something. Kai Xin arranges for her head of sales to offer the final concession, on delivery terms, directly to the founder.
Your numbers stay where they are. The BATNA, reservation point and target you set in module 2 are the same whatever the culture. What changes is the route, the pace and who says what.
Lesson 9.4, "Use culture as a starting guess, not a stereotype", recommended getting your plan reviewed by someone who knows the other culture, and ideally the specific organisation. Ask them which of your assumptions they would question, and whether anything in the plan would cause offence or confusion. Then make changes based on what they say.
Kai Xin asks an Indonesian colleague in her company's regional office. The colleague confirms most of the plan. They suggest that the purchasing manager, and not the founder, should receive the revised proposal first so he is not bypassed. Kai Xin changes the order to match.
You've finished when your worksheet has a culture section covering face risks, the decision route, relationship steps and indirect signals. Your opening and concession plan must reflect them, and one person who knows the other culture must have reviewed the plan, with at least one change made after their review. Add this section for your own negotiation, adjust the rest of the plan, and get that review.
Add the culture section to your worksheet for a real or likely cross-cultural negotiation, and ask one person to review it.
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