Negotiating across Cultures Improve Your Capabilities

　　“In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees” – Francis Bacon (1561-1626) ‘Of Negotiatin.Negotiation is probably as old as mankind itself and was born out of Homo Sapiens’ early struggles for survival and dominance.
     During the last century or so, negotiation has become a science, dominated by the Americans. But anyone who has mediated at, for instance, a Japanese-US joint venture knows that the moment intercultural factors enter the equation, the landscape can change utterly.In international negotiation, cultural preparation to understand different worlds is central to successful strategy and tactics.
   Is your counterpart persuaded by logic or force of personality? Is price the key issue, or is there a broader more long-term view? Are they more likely to paint a rosy picture of the deal, and expect you to do so, or do they prefer to err on the side of caution, even pessimism? What is their reaction to concessions?
    How do they see you, and how do your assumptions colour your view of them? What is their notion of truth? Of ethics? And, most important of all, what builds trust in their eyes – the glue without which no negotiation is truly going to succeed?But where to begin?

    There are over 200 national cultures world-wide, and many other ‘cultural layers’, such as region, generation, gender, class, education, profession – in fact all the norms that we have learned through being members of a particular group.