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© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

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In the next lines we are going to observe how complex the dialogue between companies may be and how it is possible to avoid conflicts and to reach success during a negotiation by paying attention to our own conversational moves and to those used by the interlocutor.

The dialogue between companies is full of communication difficulties that arise daily. We can look at them from a concrete perspective by observing the following case of micro-dialogue between C – a consultant – and I – an entrepreneur – who are at I’s company one morning at the request of I:

C1: So, you were telling me that you would like to train your sales network team?

I1: Yes, I would like to do some training.

C2: Which problems would you like to solve? What are the main issues, that sellers are facing now?

I2: Well, you know, they are well trained people … with experience … highly qualified people…

C3: Um, well, have you already decided on the time frame in which you would like to do the training?

I3: Well, I think it could be done in a couple of days, right? Or we can use some afternoons. How many hours do you think it would take?

C4: Well, perhaps we should try to understand first what kind of approach we should use for this training. Are you more interested in a customized training on human resources, made only for you, or do you prefer having your sales team participate in a general course, in which your employees are mixed with other participants?

I4: Well, what’s the difference?

C5: Well, the customized training is certainly different.

I5: How many sales courses have you given to companies in our sector?

C6: Look, we’ve done lots of courses, but I don’t think it matters in which sector, because a sales training is a communication training and the topics that we are going to cover are related to communication psychology. Focusing on the type of product that is being sold isn’t really that significant.

I6: But, you know, I don’t want a very theoretical course. I need something applied to my field, do you have a list of your references?

Each passage of this conversation can be analysed as a set of conversational moves. Each move brings an enormous amount of meanings and signification systems.

In this conversation, C focuses on analysing the client’s needs, while I implements a conversational misdirection that shifts the focus to C’s curriculum, and distracts him from I’s training needs. C therefore tries to bring the dialogue back to the approach that must be given to the course, while I – in move I6 – continues in its manoeuvres to shift the conversation from the training needs of its sales network team to the analysis of the consultant’s CV.

Going on with the dialogue, the underlying cultural divergences will emerge with greater force, until reaching one of the possible conclusions: an open conflict of cultures, a stalemate, or an agreement.

However, without “dismantling” the communication (in this case by recognizing the cultural and strategic value of each move) the outcome will be a probable failure.

Intercultural negotiation therefore requires great attention to conversational moves, rather than to great negotiation strategies that can fail if badly applied. The negotiation between companies can be considered the real theatre of communication, which is the negotiation conversation.

Once again, we want to highlight how the negotiation success, or rather the probability of success, can only be increased by an adequate preparation on intercultural communication, which includes both the analysis of the mechanisms of effective communication, and its cross-cultural adaptation.

Every rule must be adapted to the context in which it is applied (space, time, place, situation, etc.) and from which it arose. Cultural changes today are so rapid that the new real skill do not come from last-minute behavioural rules, but from a wider competence of the whole communication process and from the ability to adapt our own resources case by case.

"Intercultural Negotiation" by Daniele Trevisani

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

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For further information see:

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

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Let’s continue with the conversation analysis. In this article we will focus on various aspects of intercultural conversation and its management, because a good negotiator must always have the situation in check, without leaving even the smallest conversational detail to chance.

Rules of Courtesy and Respect for Roles

Intercultural communication, both on a diplomatic and on a business level, requires us to pay a particular attention to rules of courtesy, to the respect for roles and to the recognition of others’ identities.

On an interpersonal perspective, western urban cultures tend to “reduce distances” and to treat people as equals. From an anthropological point of view, these cultures are defined as low-context cultures. Many business and diplomatic cultures, however, are generally high-context cultures; respecting distances and roles, while mantaining boundaries until the other party offers permission to move to a more friendly and less formal level, is very important.

Moreover, in high-context cultures more space is given to allusion, rather than to direct affirmations, as occurs in low-context cultures, which are more informal. In addition to that, high-context cultures use more parables, proverbs, understatements and antiphrases (negative statements), while low-context cultures prefer to create direct relationships, using high tones, overstatements, positive and explicit expressions.

Some general rules of intercultural negotiation are therefore dictated by common sense, while others must be acquired by people who are informed about the local culture. The basic rules of courtesy are:

  • asking informed individuals how people want to be called
  • asking people directly how they want to be called (in the absence of informants);
  • avoiding nicknames or avoiding using first names without the direct permission of the subject;
  • using titles such as “Mr.” or “Miss.”, or other courtesy titles, especially with older interlocutors;
  • respecting roles (eg: President, Director, etc.) even with younger people who hold institutional roles;
  • avoiding interrupting.
Rules of Deference and Demeanor

The rules of deference and demeanor are expressed both verbally and through non-verbal communication – for example by bowing a bit while shaking hands – generally avoiding excessive manifestations. In any case, it is essencial to rember to inquire about which behaviors are normal and which are rather offensive in the other culture.

Taking cultural precepts for granted, without knowing how to understand the situation, can easily produce mistakes and misunderstandings. The rules of courtesy are therefore to be evaluated with extreme attention to the context.

The axes that connect two subjects engaged in conversation are called conversation lines.

  • To interrupt two people talking means breaking their imaginary line of conversation.
  • To let another person take the turn means establishing a line of conversation between yourself and that other person.
  • To give two people something to compare means establishing a line of conversation between those two subjects.

The lines of conversation can be both evident (through the verbal system) and subtly disguised (through the non-verbal system, like signals, gestures and nods).

Turn-taking Management

Speaking turns management mechanisms are extremely complex, although practiced by everyone every day.

The information flow that comes from the interlocutors is extremely valuable, and requires everyone to abandon a “strategy that floods information“, typical of aggressive sales, moving towards a listening strategy.

The turn-taking management training develops the negotiator’s skills in:

  • recognizing turn-taking management mechanisms;
  • knowing how to enter the conversation while respecting rules;
  • identifying moments and strategies, that can help you enter and leave the conversation;
  • creating adequate repair moves, while facing moves that can be perceived as offensive;
  • applying a conversational leadership, that consists in taking your turn consciously by becoming a “turn-taking” manager.
Content Management

The turn-taking concept mainly concerns the “person who’s talking”, while the content management mainly regards “the topic of conversation”.

First of all, we have to distinguish the skills of topic setting (fixing conversational topics), from those of topic shifting. Both strategies are part of what we call “content management conversation skills“.

Topic shifting and content management skills include:

  • the ability to recognize “what we are talking about”: details, visions, aspirations, requests, offers, datas, emotions.
  • the ability to create different phases in the conversation, for example by knowing how to produce an adequate small talk, or how to warm up the conversational atmosphere; or by knowing how to distinguish between the opening phase, used for gathering information, and the closing phase, when a conclusion is reached;
  • the ability to move the negotiation along desired or predetermined axes of content, following an agenda or a mental scheme;
  • the ability to change the conversational contents, based on what emerges during the interaction (contextual changes, situational adaptations, etc.).

Conversation re-focusing is a “hard” variant of content management and topic-shifting techniques. Re-centering consists of bringing the conversation back to a topic that the counterpart is not considering, or wants to avoid, or simply cannot grasp.

The act of re-focusing can be preceded and followed by appropriate repair moves (repair, apology, anticipation, etc.). In extreme cases, the act of re-centering can also take place without resorting to moves of repair, thus generating a pre-conflict situation that forces the counterpart to choose whether to accept a role of conversational submission or not, shifting to an open conflict.

"Intercultural Negotiation" by Daniele Trevisani

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

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For further information see:

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

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In the following article we are going to introduce the concept of conversation analysis, a fundamental study that can help you improve your negotiation skills. 

To start a productive negotiation analysis, we have to distinguish between 3 different phases:

  • preparing for a negotiation” phase: briefing, data collection, interlocutors analisys, positions analisys, , preparing a list of arguments and agendas, role-playing, action lines development and testing;
  • comunication phase or front-line phase: face-to-face contact phase;
  • analysis e debriefing phase: negotiation results analysis and preparation to all next phases.

The preparation phase requires you to study the largest possible amount of information, so that you can start  the face-to face phase with a situational awareness (knowledge of the facts) and with a cultural awareness (knowledge of basic cultural elements).

The negotation phase represents the negotiating ground, the “moment of truth”, in which the most significant actions take place and, since they’re taking place during conversation, they are irreversible.

The debriefing phase is necessary to absorb information and it includes, at least:

  • a behavioral debriefing: our behaviours analysis, mistakes analysis, others’ behaviours analysis, and
  • a strategic debriefing: practical implications, results analysis, preparation of all next steps.

Negotiation usually requires different “preparation-contact-debriefing” cicles. For this reason we can assimilate it to a cyclical process.

The Conversation Analysis is one of the most useful branch of knowledge used in the communication field to understand how people interact during face-to face contacts.

From a scientific point of view the CA analyzes how people manage the conversational turns and how they try to interact, but from a practical perspective the AC possible applications are extremely rare. In fact the CA was aimed mostly at social and personal interactions and much less at dialogues between companies.

From a linguistic point of view, the ALM method, by using some concepts of the CA and numerous original additions, tries to “dismantle” the conversation by analyzing it as a set of conversational acts, to study its structure and apply it to the concrete problems of companies and organizations that have to negotiate effectively.

From the semiotic point of view, we can ask ourselves (1) what are the meanings and interpretations of meaning that each actor gives to the individual moves on a relationship level (relational semantics), and (2) what are the practical effects on the relationship itself (relational pragmatics).

Thanks to the analysis of conversational moves and of entire pieces of interaction, it is possible to help managers and negotiators (1) decoding the conversation, and (2) acquiring greater conversational skills. 

Furthermore, we can train and educate negotiators to produce a more efficient and aware conversational strategy, even within their own culture. 

The conversational moves can be defined as specific actions or “emissions” created by an interlocutor.

Some conversational moves are, for example:

  • to assert,
  • to anticipate,
  • to attack,
  • to give up a turn,
  • to ask for clarifications
  • to conquer the turn
  • etc..

Negotiation can be seen, then, as a set of moves. Each culture makes some of these repertoires its own and expands them, rejecting others, or relegating them to a few communicative areas.

In the Japanese culture, for example, saying a sharp “no” is considered a very rude act, but this does not mean that a Japanese manager can not learn saying “No” in a dry way. Relying on simple stereotypes and taking them as certainties is a mistake.

Each move is related to the subject’s previous moves and to the moves made by others.

In the intra-cultural field there are specific repertoires and coversational rules that are generally shared, while in the intercultural area the level of diversity increases, because in each culture the conversational moves are used differently.

During a negotiation, depending on the relational value, we must pay attention to:

  • approaching moves (signs of sympathy, friendship, affection, willingness to collaborate, signs of union, etc.) and 
  • distancing moves (detachment, antipathy, refusal, willingness to keep one’s distance, etc.).

If we look at the conversation contents during a negotiation, it is important to distinguish between:

  • opening moves (exploring new information, widening, broading of conversational field, etc.) and
  • closing moves (attempting to conclude, to concretize);

and also between:

  • listening moves (empathy, questions, data collection), and
  • propositional moves (statements, positions, requests).
libro "Negoziazione Interculturale" di Daniele Trevisani

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

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For further information see:

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

Clarify the Underlying Meaning of the Primary Negotiating Terms

Each word deeply rooted in social life – let’s say the word “educate” – carries with it an enormous variety of possible meanings: educate how to “shape”, how to “bring behavior back to the rules”, make the subject become “as I want it” , educate how to “regiment or educate how to” bring out personal potential “, and others. Even the phrase “business growth” carries with it a whole, enormous, spectrum of possible meanings.

For one entrepreneur it can mean “increasing turnover”, for another still “having a better organization”, for another “being a leader in your sector as the ability to put new products on the market”. Each word carries with it completely subjective mental evocations (mental images). In the case of the negotiation of a training course on communication to be held in China by Italian trainers, explained below, we can see that one of the first fundamental activities is first and foremost the clarification of what is meant by “communication” among the many meanings – example: advertising, or interpersonal communication, or organizational communication, and other possible nuances – and what a “trainer” is.

In culture A (Italy) compared to culture B (China), the underlying semantics of the terms hides enormous differences, which can lead to the failure of any project. In China there is no word equivalent to the term “communication” as it is understood in the West.

The exit from uncertainty and the comparison on semantics is one of the primary steps of each project that starts from different bases. The rule of thumb requires to “put on the negotiating table” the strongest and most meaningful words underlying the negotiation itself, and to clarify them with respect to their many possible meanings.

In the case of a leadership training project carried out in China by Italian trainers, we should clarify for example the meaning of the primary terms “training” and “leadership“. Nothing will be possible without this initial clarification. In the case of a production project in China or India of spare parts for a mechanical industry, in which the European manufacturer takes care of the design and final inspection, delegating the production in outsourcing, we should clarify the concepts of “expected quality “,” Verification “and” inspection “. Each negotiation brings with it the need to clarify the basic terms on which it is based and to compare the respective “semantics” (the possible meanings).

Intercultural Negotiation Arab Edition

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

For further information see:

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

The result of the lack of proper negotiator training is failure

As Zorzi (1996) points out, communication requires conversational cooperation and work on the negotiation of meanings: “Analyzing intercultural encounters, we have seen how the interaction between people from different cultures is marked by a series of moments of asynchrony, which manifest themselves in silences, overlaps, unexpected reactions, interruptions, etc. which show the difficulty of establishing and maintaining conversational cooperation due to differences in cultural background and communication conventions.

Participants, normally unaware of both socio-cultural knowledge and the communicative conventions that contribute to their interpretation (and, normally, also unaware of their own conversational conventions), have only the perception of a failed encounter, the causes of which are rarely identified. They explain what happened more often in psychological terms than in sociological or cultural terms, perceiving the other person as uncooperative, aggressive, stupid, incompetent or with unpleasant personal characteristics. Repeated unsuccessful intercultural encounters with different people over time lead to the formation of negative cultural stereotypes (Chick, 1990: 253 et seq).

Zorzi reports this excerpt of real dialogue taken from Blommaert: A is the Belgian, B is the African. They are in Brussels on a winter afternoon.)

A: Do you want a coffee?

B: No, thanks, I’m not hungry.

A: Do you want a COFFEE?

B: No, thanks. (short pause) I’m not hungry. (long pause)

A: Would you like to go for a drink? B: Sure, with pleasure, it’s really cold. A: Maybe a coffee?

B: Well, gladly.

As Zorzi points out, there are strong cultural and strategic implications at the base of this excerpt of communication difficulties: B reacts to the initial question as if he had been offered food, as in his culture (Haya, in northern Tanzania) guests are offered coffee beans to chew as a symbol of friendship, hospitality and wealth. Consequently, B’s categorization of coffee as “food” is entirely consistent.

The categorization of the Belgian, on the other hand, is “hot drink”. The first two bars of the dialogue highlight the difference between the two conceptions, which leads to a pragmalinguistic misunderstanding … Three phases can be identified in this exchange: a first of “observation” of what is happening, in which the participants become aware of the failure of communication: their contributions are perfectly consistent with their cultural assumptions, but do not work in that situation ; a second phase follows, the ‘search for a common ground‘ in which A avoids the problematic element (coffee).

Both then agree on ‘have a drink’. At this point the ‘dialogue’ phase begins: the idea of ​​going for something hot is explicitly appreciated and a common basis has been created to accept the idea of ​​coffee as a drink. This example shows how intercultural competence consists in achieving mutual adaptation (and not just the adaptation of the learner to the linguistic and cultural models of the host country). The primary objective of intercultural pedagogy – consequently – is to find teaching strategies so that subjects of different cultural origins can learn to communicate with each other regardless of differences in language, cultural behavior and beliefs.

The focus therefore shifts from the work that the single learner does to the way in which two people from different cultures manage to negotiate meanings and relationships through a linguistic medium in which they have very unbalanced skills. There is therefore a linguistic common ground that allows negotiators to get out of the impasse of the lack of a shared vocabulary. Trying to share the meaning of the terms, to get out of “semantic indeterminacy”, “semantic confusion”, “connotative shadows” is one of the main tools of the intercultural negotiator.

interc

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

For further information see:

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

Negotiating Requires the Ability to Seduce.

A seduction not at all sexual, but in fact comparable to courtship: the proposal must contain “appeal“, must respond to the impulses and needs of the interlocutor. A forced proposal is not negotiation in the strict sense but imposition. A poorly digested condition, moreover, lends itself much more to being refused a posteriori, disregarded, or not applied.

For thousands of years, theorists of each discipline have encouraged people to adapt their art to the different situations in which they will have to operate, recognizing the need to calibrate the strategy towards the interlocutor, creating a communication centered on the recipients. Aristotle, in Rhetoric, deals with public seduction and persuasion. He invites the politician to dynamically use ethos (credibility), logos (dialectical art) and pathos (ability to arouse emotions), centering the audience in being more intimate than him.

There is a seduction component in every negotiation In the Kamasutra of Vatsyayana – a classic Indian treatise on seduction – a sequence of different types of bite is listed, designed to cause pleasure: the hidden bite, the swollen bite, the point, the line of points, the coral and the jewel, the of jewels, the unbroken cloud, and finally the bite of the wild boar. The good seducer will have to adapt the type of bite to the situation. Western managers often use the “boar bite” (whatever action it is) a priori, perhaps receiving sound slaps in response, where perhaps the “hidden bite” would have given the desired effects. We are using a joking metaphor to express a message that is nevertheless strong: the communication strategy must take into account the cultural traits of the counterpart.

Let’s see an example of a micro-conversation between the Italian area manager and a possible Russian importer:

Area Manager: What guarantees can you give us?

Importer: What guarantees do you need?

Area Manager: Well, you need to learn how to sell our products, however don’t worry because we will give you courses, if you can’t pay them we discount them from commissions.

The Russian interlocutor perceives a latent message (“you are incapable”, “you are poor”, “you need”) linked to the course offer. The sentence touches the interlocutor’s entire cultic system, stirs a wounded “Russian pride” and the memories of suffering of an entire people. The Italian area manager has been able to destroy the corporate ethos in a few moves (giving the image of a company completely unprepared to negotiate with foreign interlocutors), using a dialectic based on “a priori” conflict (humiliate them), thus arousing emotions of revenge and revenge (at a minimum) in the interlocutor. A strategy of total ineffectiveness, based on wrong assumptions.

The offer of a course, presented in this way, does not create added value and aims solely at the disqualification of the interlocutor. Both Aristotle and Vatsyayana would have rejected this area manager. In this micro-negotiation there have been several “judgment biases” or errors of judgment, and neither of them have achieved any results. As research on the accuracy of intercultural assessments shows, the error of judgment (misunderstanding who you are dealing with, or badly decoding a message) – an error already present at an intra-cultural level – is enhanced by cultural distances, and it is one of the most destructive factors in negotiation.

To overcome the judgment biases it is necessary to take action, to prepare. Intercultural communication requires commitment, at the level of:

  • understanding of the cultural system with which one interacts;
  • knowledge of the underlying values ​​and beliefs of the interlocutor;
  • social identification: what status does the interlocutor have in his membership system;
  • methods of non-verbal communication;
  • analysis and resolution of conflicts. Every intercultural negotiator should have strong expertise on these matters in their curriculum.

Principle 9 – Training in intercultural communication

The success of negotiation communication depends on:

  • from the depth of communication training;
  • the ability to put into practice communicative skills of trans-cultural value;
  • the ability to identify communicative characteristics and specific cultural traits of the interlocutor to pay attention to.

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

For further information see:

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Consulting Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for qualified Publishers wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab. If you are interested in publishing or Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

Principle 8 – Details as Indicators of Worldviews

The company also negotiates on apparent details. The apparent details contain a different view of the world. When you have to decide which format to give to a training course – choosing to do eight hours in a full day or take the course in spare time – a culture of training and a culture of man is manifested.

We may have different opinions on whether a high-intensity training intervention in full-immersion is more productive (eg: five full days), or that it is better to do one day a month; we can discuss whether it is better to treat participants with gloves (“the customer is always right” cultural trait), or to act decisively to achieve profound change.

Of a possible project, we have exposed a small detail, but we can have different opinions on an innumerable amount of other details. These apparent details – it must be remembered – are not just details – but whole worldviews. Every detail is – from a semiotic point of view – a system of signification, an antenna that communicates the content of entire underlying worlds.

Principle 8 – Details as indicators of worldviews

The success of negotiation communication depends on:

  • from the recognition of the importance of details as indicators of world views (details as systems of extended signification);
  • the ability to manage details with strategic attention.

Returning to the example, the degree of “morbidity” of the training intervention is considered so much a detail that it is sometimes not even discussed in a course design, but behind the detail lies the more or less martial vision of education and life , people’s history and experiences, and their worldview. Behind the temporal concentration of an educational intervention, or its distribution in several phases, lies the philosophy of time, a philosophy of gradual change vs. a culture of immediate results.

The very way in which a course is communicated, prepared, ritualized – or trivialized – denotes a different vision of human resources and the entire culture of the human being who works. Each apparent detail contains a possible different view of the world. It is for this reason that negotiation – understood as “building something together” – requires commitment and science, starting from the basic issues down to the details.

There is also a different way of looking at trading. We can focus on the level of interpersonal negotiation or on an organizational level of negotiation (corporate, or between entities / institutions). In both cases, what matters is to grasp the different cultural and worldview dimension that the interlocutors possess.

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or in Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

For further information see:

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Consulting Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for qualified Publishers wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab. If you are interested in publishing or Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

The importance of working together

Two subjects who have identical visions and identical objectives, two mental clones, do not need to enter into a real negotiation and will not be able to build anything original and “more creative than the single“, working together, as their baggage is identical.

On the other hand, when different visions, different conceptions, different needs emerge, the negotiation comes into play, as well as the possibility of creatively building by drawing on different baggage. Negotiation means actively engaging in the search for a solution that satisfies two or more interlocutors who start from culturally different positions, bringing out (1) latent differences and (2) common foundations on which to rest.

We are negotiating while negotiating a price or a purchase – and this is evident – but also while discussing which movie to see (sentimental or action), or what to do on the weekend or on vacation (sea, mountains, rest, work, visits. family, sport) starting from different tastes and preferences.

Principle 7 – Negotiation prerequisites

The success of negotiation communication depends on:

  • the degree of commitment / willingness of each subject to actively seek a mutually satisfying solution (win-win approach);
  • the ability to accurately recognize the factors that make the starting position or the interests of the parties different (recognition of differences);
  • from the use of past diversities to the conscious state, as a driving force and creative;
  • from research and construction of common ground on which to gradually build a solution. In a family, a negotiation on “which vacation to take” will be largely unproductive if it starts with the discussion of specific details such as the name of the hotel or the location, and does not go into – first of all – the search for the experiential common ground: which type holiday do we want to do together? What kind of experience does one want and what does the other want? In our mind, what are the aspirations related to vacation (relaxation, adventure, exploration, leisure, care, safety, risk, closeness, distance, exotic vacation, ethnic, cultural, and other background elements), and where are our differences of bottom? Even between companies, it is inopportune and risky to start a negotiation on the details (price, times, dates, places) without having defined what type of relationship you want (even if only “want”, not necessarily “impose”). For example, in every purchase / sale negotiation it will be necessary to understand if we are talking about a “one-off” sale, a “product test”, the search for a “continuity supplier”, the search for a “scientific partner research and development “, and other basic connotations.

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or in Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

For further information see:

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Consulting Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for qualified Publishers wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab. If you are interested in publishing or Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

Where our Ideas Come From, How They Enter the Company, and Our Attempts To Make Them Survive

A healthy life (personal but also corporate) requires awareness of what beliefs, values ​​or teachings we are putting into practice, and above all recognizes the fact that they have been acquired by acculturation, have been assimilated by the surrounding environment – from family to school to religion – have “entered” and the subject himself is impregnated with it. Human beings are full of “memes“, of mental traces, ideas, beliefs, learned from other human beings (face-to-face) or from mediated sources. Even companies are full of “ideas” or “mental traces” often suffered rather than built.

Memetics – as a new discipline in the social sciences landscape – deals with how ideas or “memes” are transmitted from person to person, from group to group, as well as how genetics deals with the transmission of genes and hereditary heritages . The ideas that each of us carries have been learned by someone (in large part), and we ourselves have partly modified them, becoming bearers of memes. Who brought these ideas within us? Who brought them to the company? How did they spread? Who is a healthy carrier? Are they all good or are some of them harmful viruses?

As soon as two cultures meet, we discover that our memes are different from those of others, but in “reproductive” terms we try to replicate our own rather than accept those of others. At the center of intercultural negotiation there is not only the question of who “is right” about the details, but even the attempt to make their “memes” survive, to reproduce their own vision of things, sometimes to impose it. This behavior from the ethological point of view of the “human animal” is normal, it responds to the principles of conservation of the species. Like any animal being tries to reproduce its genes, the social being tries to reproduce its ideas (“memes”) and pass them on to others.

The concept of “memetics” (expressed by several scientists) lends itself well to studying how ideas are transmitted from person to person, from group to group, as does “genetics” with the transmission and replication of genes. Intercultural negotiation does not consist only in an encounter between different positions in detail, but in the clash between subjects carrying a different “memetic”, a different “cultural genetics” or personal heritage. There is therefore a first strong awareness that makes the intercultural negotiator more effective: the awareness of one’s own culture, of one’s active “memes”. This awareness does not mean rejection and must not automatically produce rejection of what has been learned culturally, but only and simply awareness of what has been learned (what), of the sources (from whom), and of the history of one’s learning (when).

The analysis is carried out on several levels. – On the general level of one’s own learning and acculturation. Ex:

  • What did they teach you in the family, as basic values, openly or by example? § And, in the company: what are the circulating ideas?
  • What are the dominant currents?
  • Who is its spokesperson?
  • Who entered them, since when?
  • Which are to be maintained, which are harmful?
  • Which are firm? Which do you apply occasionally?
  • Which ones do you adhere to unconditionally?
  • Which ones do you find deleterious and would you change?
  • In terms of specific behaviors and actions. Ex:
  • (for a commercial) who did you learn to sell from?
  • what did they teach you, what values ​​did they transmit to you, how were you “set up”?
  • For any manager: Has anyone taught you to relax, to think from above? What orientation towards time have you absorbed? A long-term or a short-term thought? who gave you examples from which you assimilated something? How aware are you?

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or in Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

For further information see:

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Consulting Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for qualified Publishers wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab. If you are interested in publishing or Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

Principle 5 – Awareness of One’s Own Cultural Sources

Successful communication depends on awareness:

  • personal sources (individuals) who have made significant imprints on their own system of beliefs and behaviors;
  • mediated sources (media, books, readings, films) that have affected one’s personal culture;
  • the times of assimilation and its significant phases and milestones;
  • the depth of assimilation into the Self of the different cultural rules, norms, guides, laws and teachings that are adopted;
  • the ability to recognize the factors and people from which specific skills, attitudes and behaviors practiced today at work and at a professional level have been assimilated (e.g. where and from whom the styles and behaviors of negotiation and relationship used today have been learned) . You can accept to keep a cultural rule with you, or you can consciously decide to try to eliminate it from your way of being, but only after having become aware of its existence (cultural self-determination). In the ALM method, the individual is seen as a cell capable of applying positive osmosis (exchanging flows of knowledge and experiences with the environment). As in any cell, without exchange there is neither nourishment nor elimination of toxins. Thus, even in intercultural communication it is necessary to know how to eliminate the cultural toxins that prevent the proper functioning of the Self, and to know how to open up to the introduction of new elements.

Principle 6 – Cultural self-determination and internal cultural locus-of-control Successful communication depends on:

  • the subject’s ability to choose which cultural rules and cultural traits to keep in their personal baggage (cultural set);
  • the subject’s ability to choose which cultural rules and cultural traits to eliminate from one’s set;
  • the subject’s ability to choose which new cultural rules and new traits to acquire in his personal baggage;
  • from the basic awareness of the fact that it is possible to carry out an analysis of discovery and awareness of one’s own culture, to regain control of the cultural rules that apply.

This achievement depends on the revision of the sense of control over one’s destiny, events, and even one’s own culture, seen as something on which the subject can act (internal locus-of-control). The intercultural negotiator is alive – like a biological cell – when open to his own change and exchange with the environment.

He is dead and produces disastrous results when he refuses to accept that differences exist and must be understood and analyzed. The greater its capacity for exchange and osmosis with the environment, the greater the level of psycho-physiological fitness. The intercultural being is just as dead when it does not possess its own identity, unconditionally accepts the “memetics” of others and rejects its heritage, dispersing the good it has to offer to the rich relationship.

As in many human activities, a successful outcome requires the ability to find a balance between (1) a tendency towards unconditional acceptance of the culture of others (cultural hypocrisy) and (2) a tendency towards the unconditional imposition of one’s own culture on the other (imperialism cultural). States of consciousness feed cultural identities. Being Italian and having been raised in Italian culture produces a vision of the world that can be assimilated to a state of conscience, and some behaviors – for example, all sitting at the table in the family – enter the sphere of normality of that state of conscience.

It is normal to eat together in Italy, just as it is normal for an American university student to do homework and exercises in the canteen and carefully avoid talking to diners. It is very rare to see an Italian university student sitting at a table with other friends not talking, and closing on the book with paper and pen. It can happen, but it is not part of Italian culture. Just as it is strange for an Italian to think that the most popular place in an American university town on Sunday evening, around midnight, is the library.

Arriving at the table late and leaving earlier is not culturally correct in standard Italian culture, but it is normal in American culture, spending the night at the computer center is good for an American student, horrible for an Italian. For a certain “clever” Italian culture, spending a night studying is something you don’t want to let anyone know, so as not to be pointed out as “geeks“. For the American student, copying is reprehensible, for the Italian it is cunning. These are different “memes” that circulate: “if you copy you are smart” vs. “If you copy you are a failure”. Each intercultural negotiation brings with it different “memes”. The problem with cultures is that their unwritten norms come in “without knocking”, by osmosis, and these norms become tangible only when there is contact with a different culture.

For example, an Italian student who offers an American colleague to copy his homework, to make him a friend, instead of strengthening a bond will be pointed out, rejected and relegated. Companies also have different cultures, just as corporate areas (administration, sales, purchasing, production) have their own and distinct cultures. Due to the great variety of inputs to which one is exposed, there is no creature that reasons with the exact same mental patterns as another. In this context, people find themselves negotiating and communicating.

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or in Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

For further information see: