Negotiations:

( continued from last week)

The settings of negotiations, the environments under which they are conducted and the cultural influences that followed were shown in the previous article. In this paper what I will attempt to show again is the relationship between negotiation and culture. Of course, the reason for selecting negotiations as a topic is simple. Any country that is developing should discover the art of negotiation both at the national and the international planes.
Today, many businesses are going global before we know it, and the internet is busy disseminating information on the need of exploiting such opportunities. Thus, it is incumbent upon management and people in international relations to explore the dynamics of successful global business negotiations through research.
While my forthcoming article will be a continuation of the remaining part of this topic, I will dwell upon the steps that have to be exhausted before a business becomes global. Nonetheless, my present contribution touches upon the essential elements that negotiators have to know for effective outcome.
When we take off from this contextual understanding, one finds that negotiation passes through different cycles of exposure. In any negotiation, two or more parties are involved in common or conflicting interests with a process of interaction and with a view to reaching at an agreement leading to mutual benefit.
These processes of interaction are influenced by their environmental and cultural undertones and attitudes of the negotiators. It is the awareness of this background that leads both sides to a successful conclusion. Why do negotiations fail most of the time? A wrong selection of negotiators could be a straight answer, albeit failures are not ruled out even with the right choice of negotiators.
The success and failure could depend upon positive and negative ranges of outcome. If the resistance points are compatible, a mutually satisfactory agreement could be reached. However, if the resistance points are incompatible, both sides will leave the negotiation table empty handed.
Notwithstanding, selection of negotiators is vitally important. Without going too far, the Ethiopian diplomatic practices of today and of the past several years are resplendent in exciting experiences in this respect, despite the fact that some diplomats might not and may not be good negotiators.
Likewise, business enterprises, when sending negotiators to foreign lands, or when they conduct negotiations internally with foreign companies, should make sure that their people should be familiar with the interests, laws, customs, languages, or even geography of the country they are sent to, as no job is more involved and difficult than negotiation.
In brief, some scholars extend practical advice for negotiators. They divide the realm of their advice into four areas; before the negotiation; while beginning the negotiation; at the time of hard bargaining; and beyond the contract. To touch upon the most salient features of each area will be recalling our own strengths and weakness indirectly.
When we come and examine the first area, i.e., before the negotiation takes place, making sure what one is negotiating is negotiable is extremely important. In the same category, defining what “winning the negotiation” means, to be ambitious but to set a realistic walk-away, getting the facts, having a strategy for each culture and phase, how to position one’s proposal are equally important. Deciding whether to be competitive (win-lose) or cooperative (win-win), and setting one’s opening offer, as well as planning to control the concessions are inescapably vital.
Thus, sending a winning team, which is not alone, is advisable. What is more, having an own interpreter seems simple, but, it is a decisive fact. Because, in the negotiation, the presenters do not only use plain languages, but also use gestures and bodily movements as part of the process, which have to be transmitted correctly. Some organizations do not include lawyers and accountants on their teams, they use a go-between instead. That means, they seek advices from these specialists by placing them behind the curtain and not at the negotiating table. They exclude them from the negotiation team just to lessen confrontation on stark facts, which, in most cases figures and facts people have not the patience to tolerate when things go astray. In addition, changing negotiators mid-stream is not considered advisable. Allowing oneself plenty of time and more is allowed as a good practice, while never telling the other side when a negotiating team is scheduled to leave is kept confidential.

(To be continued).