I am spending this week in Kuala Lumpur, my first time back since I closed a deal here in 2011 with one of the country’s technology providers. Malaysia is a fascinating country because it is a mix of its own culture, and so many other countries’ cultures, particularly India and China.
That deal was one of the most complex “cross-cultural” deals I had ever faced because the client’s team was, itself, cross-cultural. My counterpart had moved to Malaysia from China to work for this client. She previously had been in procurement at IBM in China. To say she was a hard bargainer would put it mildly. Ultimately, I was able to achieve enough collaboration with her to get to a good outcome for both of us.
Much is written on the cultural differences in negotiation when people from different countries are doing a deal. Many offer good advice, but where some writers get this wrong is suggesting change in how one negotiates in order to match the other party. They echo the notion of, “When in Rome, do what the Romans do” as a way to reduce potential friction in styles and behaviors. Having negotiated across many different cultural gaps, my practice is, “When in Rome, do you.”
The reason is, as my boss Paul Cramer said many years ago, “You’re not a Roman! You’ll never be a Roman. So don’t try to act like one because the other party knows you’re not them and it appears disingenuous.”
A successful negotiator always tries to maintain integrity and provide as much transparency into their own issues as possible. Trying to be a “native negotiator” in another country has a high risk of potential missteps. What Cramer advised instead, and I agree, is research the other side, their culture and practices, and be aware of those. Don’t step on any toes. Modify your processes to accommodate any potential differences with theirs, and call out something if you see a problem.
I have found, for example, that some cultures are much more consensus driven in making decisions. Spreading the decision across stakeholders allows for a wider range of input, and also helps spread the blame if the decision is the wrong one. When working on a deal with a hard deadline, getting a consensus from all of those stakeholders can create a real bottleneck. So when my research indicates this is a client team that may be slow to make decisions, I try to establish a firm close plan, detailing milestones for decisions to be made, and clearly stating the impacts of missing them: delays in getting started; increased costs or unavailability of resources. I don’t try to change the consensus behavior, but I do try and create some rigor about when people have to say yes or no.
I am not saying you can just “be yourself,” as Tom, one of my former colleagues used to do. He spent a decade in various countries in Asia and when I asked how he dealt with cross-cultural issues he said, “John, it’s simple. I’m from Philadelphia. I show up. They just have to deal with me.” That worked well for Tom, but there is a middle ground of high awareness to check where “who we are” and what we do may clash with what we’ve learned about the culture. The goal in negotiation is always trying to influence the other party to say “yes.” The higher the level of comfort, collaboration and trust you can establish with an international counterpart, the better your chance of success.
