Global Negotiations - no easy task
By Alice Arandia
If you live in Scotland, chances are you’ve heard of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26). If you live in Glasgow, it’s likely taken over your newsfeed, changed your travel plans and taken over your city. The news is full of differing opinions as to whether it is a success story or not. Realistically, only time will tell whether the right outcomes have been reached. What, I think, we can assume, is that some seriously good cross-cultural negotiations skills are being used during this event (at least I hope that is the case).
Reaching agreements within families and friendship groups can be challenging enough, imagine taking this to a world stage. Anyone who has worked even on a small community project will know how difficult it can be to reach a consensus on anything. Take that into the corporate world and it gets even more complicated, and that’s before you go to another level: political and economic negotiations between countries.
At FINCH Global the majority of our business involves working with people from different cultures, backgrounds and geographic locations every day. I love it. The basic fact that we are all individuals in this world makes each one of us wonderfully unique. We each have our own personality traits, beliefs, values, norms and behaviours. These are influenced over the years by so many factors including our parents, peer group, teachers, extended family and friends, our education, religion, and all that we experience as we go through life. We do however usually have a core culture which tends to be instilled in us in our early years. For many of us, it is something we rarely think about if we remain in a homogenous community however, in a modern global world that is unlikely, and I for one, am very glad it is. While this does admittedly create some challenges it also creates fantastic opportunities. Most importantly we can learn from each other.
We know from experience that diverse perspectives can make reaching agreements between companies in different countries difficult. Imagine, then how difficult it must be to get individuals from 190+ countries to sign an agreement.
It is important to acknowledge, appreciate and respect different perspectives in any negotiation. Some cultural groups, for example, value individualism, the need for individuals to “make it on their own”, recognition of individual success, while other cultures value group participation. You can have your own personal opinion as to your preference, but it doesn’t mean either group is better or worse than the other. Another factor that commonly influences negotiations is a groups attitude towards uncertainty. If you come from a cultural background that views uncertainty as part of life you may not see a need for control measures such as government interventions, whereas if you perceive uncertainty as something that needs to be mitigated, you may well embrace regulations. Similarly, cultures differ on whether they have a long term or short-term orientation.
All these cultural traits are also influenced by many other factors such as economic and political status. It is very difficult for example, to have a long-term orientation in business in an unstable country, or if your personal economic state doesn’t satisfy even your basic human needs of shelter and food.
Some strategies we use in business, when working across borders, is to always listen as much as possible, before talking. Take everything in, understand the other party, look for areas where you might need to clarify your communication to ensure that you mitigate misunderstandings and also acknowledge and respect that different perspectives exist, but that through discussion you may be able to help each other understand the distinct perspectives.
Language differences can be a great obstacle too. Generally, it has become an international norm to use English however that can put non-English speakers at a disadvantage. We therefore always work with clients to see which language they are most comfortable with, and if we need interpreters, we find them. Most of us are also fluent in more than one language so we try to find people who can speak to the client in the language they are most comfortable in rather than assuming English will be used. And don’t assume either that having a shared language avoids all misunderstandings. Within the UK we have numerous different dialects, before even crossing over to other nations that speak English, all with different terms and understandings imbedded in their language.
Most importantly never assume that your culture or personal perspective is superior to anyone else’s. To quote a well-known saying: Diversity is what makes us Unique, Inclusion makes us Stronger.
