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Copyright © International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). All rights reserved. ( Source of the document: ICC Digital Library )
by Thierry Garby
Chapter 1
Where is the problem?
IN INTERNATIONAL MATTERS
International negotiation can be surprising. When we think that we are doing as well as possible, we see the other party react in an awkward way: They cut the conversation short or get angry and we had not seen anything coming. Most of the time that will be due to the fact that we may have mistakenly transgressed their etiquette. A move, a behaviour, which is normal to us, may have seemed insulting to the other party.
And we may see others behave in a way that will be shocking in our eyes.
We may be tempted to say that we should only negotiate with people whose culture is familiar to us and that when organizations from various countries must negotiate together, they should use bi-national negotiators.
This is not possible in practice and would make no sense in multi-national negotiation.
It is certainly important to know the culture of the other party, but it will not be possible to learn more than a few things to do or not do, to say or not say.
IN DOMESTIC MATTERS
When you negotiate with people of the same nationality as you, do they all behave the same way? Of, course not!
The national culture does not fully dictate the negotiator’s behaviour.
If we cannot expect a particular behaviour from someone of our nationality, why should we expect a foreigner to behave exactly like his fellow citizens? This question could be better formulated this way: What can we expect in particular from a negotiator due to his nationality?
Various National (?) Cultures in the Same Country
It happens that different cultures coexist in the sale country: Flemish and Wallons in Belgium, Russians and Ukrainians in Ukraine, Ashkenazi and Sefardi in Israel, etc.
These cultures look like different national cultures within the same country.
Sub Cultures
If you have a conversation between a farmer, a restaurant keeper and the president of a university, you can expect more cultural diversity than between an American, an Italian and a Japanese engineers.
Our culture is not only national. It also depends on our social origin, on our profession, on our favourite leisure activity (artistic, sport, collections, etc.),
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on our family, our religion, our political orientation, our sexual orientation, our generation, etc.
These subcultures are often predominant. Having been active in international associations of lawyers, it is clear to me that there is a lawyer culture that prevails over the national cultures.
The Dominating Culture
Throughout history we see some cultures becoming predominant in regions of the world where they were originally foreign and which thus serve as bridges between nations.
That was the case of the Roman culture, which allowed nations to speak together in Latin until the 16th century, then of the French culture until the 20th century and now of some kind of Anglo-Saxon culture.
The predominance of a language is only one aspect of the predominance of a culture. The passage from French to English is not due to a reflection on the respective merits of both languages but to the economic predominance of the USA. Through the English/American language, we do business in a sort of American way.
All leaders of the world acquired some elements of American culture.
This goes even further today as, due to the general globalization, it is not possible to separate the domestic and the international fields and that many multinational companies have adopted English as their working language all over the world even between people of the same non English speaking nationality. This is not so new as it has been so with Latin in the Catholic Church for 2,000 years.
WHAT IS MY CULTURE?
If I try to define my culture, I am going to describe intersections of ensembles:
These are all a series of more or less important cultural elements of my identity to which other factors should be added, such as genetics, my health, my personal history, etc.
Obviously, the national factor is only a small part of an individual’s culture and the more he will be used to dealing with foreigners, the more he will be
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able to take a distance from them. But in situations of crisis, we feel that our identity is threatened and we move back to the fundamentals. In the case of a crisis between individuals or organizations of different nationalities (dispute negotiation/mediations), the usual reflexes (including the national ones) will reappear even with individuals who are experience in international life.
Culture and Nationality in Negotiation/Mediation
Parties wish to feel culturally comfortable with each other and also with the mediator when there is one. Beyond the cultural and national differences: The usual practice of the International Chamber of Commerce is that the mediator will be of a different nationality than the parties.
How can we take the culture and nationality into account in negotiation/ mediation?
To explain the role of culture in negotiation and mediation, I like to use the definition of Geert Hofstede:1“The collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others.”
One’s culture, based on all the cultural interactions that I just described, can be compared to a software program, which after the introduction of data in the computer will produce a specific result. Each of the above factors is like a small piece of software, which is a part of my full mental program.
All these factors together, including the non-cultural ones, create my identity. As we could see, this identity will appear in MM through empathic active listening.
One of the problems of empathic active listening is due to the time required to understand the various facets of the identity. As far as possible, we need shortcuts to understand the personality of the people we are speaking with.
It is rather easy to predict some reflexes of someone who had a career as a business lawyer. It is less easy to predict the consequences of the fact that I am a family father as the image and the role of the father varies a lot from one country to the other and because these two factors have evolved a lot in the Western world.
The most difficult to understand remains the national factor. The research work of Geert Hofstede and his successors helps us understand it.
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Chapter 2
The 6D Model of Geert Hofstede
Speaking about collective programming does not mean that all members of a community are programmed the same way; there are huge differences between individuals within the same community. Differences between individuals within a national community may be superior to the differences between all national cultures. We can still use such national descriptions, which are based on statistics and on the fact that most of us are influenced by social pressure.
Geert Hofstede’s ideas do not result from personal convictions but of very wide and sophisticated statistical research, initiated for IBM.
IBM had noticed that their working methods were more or less received and implemented in the various countries. They wanted to understand why. The idea was to discover, through a questionnaire sent to all the IBM employees throughout the world, the values, which determined their conduct.
The result of this study was that employees in all the countries were facing the same problems but that the solutions they adopted were different in four aspects.
This study was then extended to countries where IBM was not represented in the original study and to other types of populations. The four differences then became five and six. Hence the name of “6D”, like the six dimensions.
The authors of this study insist on the fact that it does not define culture by itself. It only allows establishing comparisons between cultures. This is due to the fact that there is no general referential that would be valid for the whole world. Each country has a country that can only be compared to the cultures of other countries. Particularly for us as negotiators/mediators, the important thing is the difference between the various cultures and their ability to work together.
The six dimensions are:
DISTANCE TO POWER
“Power distance can be defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that the power is distributed unequally”.
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This study shows that the most of the time people wish to obtain what they already have. Then in a very hierarchical structure, people expect their boss to make decisions and do not wish to make them or influence them; on the contrary, in less hierarchical structures people expect to be consulted.
In negotiation, this is very important.
In a hierarchical system, we know that the power to decide only belongs to the highest decision-makers. As a consequence, if we negotiate with somebody else than the highest decision maker, the negotiator will not be able to make a decision. His power will actually be limited, and you must expect him to submit the results of the negotiation to an authority, which will have to approve it before he signs.
In a non-hierarchical system, it is likely that the negotiator will not take a decision before having discussed it with other members of the organization, which may include people at the same or at a lower level.
This factor will also determine the organization of the negotiation team and the way it will operate.
In a negotiation in which there is a hierarchical difference between the parties (labour negotiations for instance), this factor may play an important role in the way the parties will communicate. The party on the lower level may feel inhibited. On the contrary, the party on the higher level may adopt a condescending attitude. In such a case, the lower party seems to be rebellious against the authority of the other one. This may generate some violence. Emotions management will be particularly difficult. In order to maintain the relationship between the parties, the emotions will have to be very carefully managed so that, on the one hand, the weaker party can express themselves and, on the other side, the hierarchical framework will not be violated.
In multinational companies and international organizations, difficult situations are encountered when managers and staff are not of the same cultural origin. A clash can be expected between a manager coming from a hierarchized culture and a team coming from a non-hierarchized culture. In the opposite case of the manager, coming from a non-hierarchized culture, who consults his staff about decisions to be made, you can expect that the situation will be paralyzed if the members of the team are used to seeing the manager make the decisions. The team members will not make any proposal and will feel extremely uncomfortable. They may despise the manager. In the best case, they will try to guess what he has in mind to offer that will please him. The whole profit, which is expected in the absence of hierarchy in terms of sharing ideas or creativity, will be lost and there will be a toxic atmosphere within the team.
INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM
This dimension can be defined as follows:
“Individualism pertains to societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: Everyone is expected to look after him or herself and his or her immediate family. Collectivism, at its opposite, pertains to societies in which people from birth onward are integrated into strong cohesive in-groups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.”
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This dimension will play an important role in termination of the choices of a party. Here is an example given by the authors:
Values in the choice of a job for an individualist:
Values in the choice of a job for a collectivist:
Obviously this criterion will considerably influence both the emotions, which gave rise to the dispute, the creativity for researching options and the choice of the solution.
MASCULINITY/FEMININITY
“A society is called masculine when emotional gender roles are clearly distinct: Men are supposed to be assertive, tough and focused on material success whereas women are supposed to be more modest, tender and concerned with the quality of life.
A society is called feminine when emotional gender roles overlap: Both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender and concerned with the quality of life.”
This dimension may have several consequences on negotiation. Obviously it will first influence the role of men and women in the negotiation team and the decision-making. Then, just like the previous dimension it will influence emotions, which resulted in the conflict, the creativity of options as well as the choice of the solution.
It will also determine the behaviour of the negotiators. A negotiator from a masculine culture will be assertive. He will set conditions and will see his services as a personal victory. His identity is at stake in the negotiation.
On the contrary, a negotiator from a feminine culture will have a greater distance from the object of the negotiation; he will concentrate on the quality of the result. For this negotiator, it will not be about making the other one lose but about getting the best possible result for both parties.
AVOIDANCE OF UNCERTAINTY
“Uncertainty avoidance can be defined as the extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations”.
There is a difference between uncertainty avoidance and risk avoidance. By essence, a risk is known as defined (I am afraid of drowning). On the
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contrary uncertainty cannot be defined (what shall I be after my death?). Fear is the answer to risk. Anxiety is the answer to uncertainty.
In a society, which wants to avoid uncertainty, one tries to foresee everything. It is less about being prepared against risk than to prevent the risk from happening. They do not try to heal; they try to prevent the disease.
Of course this dimension will influence emotions, options and the choice of the solution. Its main influence will be in the elaboration of the solution and even of each option. The agreement will have to deal with all possible difficulties and should find ways to prevent them from happening.
You can expect negotiators coming from an uncertainty avoidance to frequently ask for more precise formulations. They will thus bring the negotiators from another culture to deepen their ideas and make them more precise. This is how Anglo-Saxon law firms extended their influence throughout the world with the contract templates of an average of 80 pages where Europeans typically wrote no more than five pages. This certainly pleased the in-house counsels whose job is to avoid uncertainty and to ensure the security of operations.
Vague or insufficiently detailed ideas will be rejected by those wanting to avoid uncertainty. They maybe be attractive to those who are not disturbed by uncertainty, because they allow some flexibility. “As far as you can never foresee everything, where reality is always more surprising than fiction, let’s stick to general principles and we will adapt to the way things will turn out”. When it comes to options, those who accept uncertainty will have to make great efforts to make their options audible to those who want to avoid it, by going in to the precise details of each option and by warranting the implementation.
Going into the details of the options upon the request of those wanting to avoid uncertainty can drive those who accept uncertainty crazy.
LONG-TERM/SHORT-TERM ORIENTATION
“Long-term orientation stands for the fostering of virtues oriented toward future rewards — in particular, perseverance and thrift. Its opposite pole, short-term orientation, stands for the fostering of virtues related to the past and present — in particular respect for tradition, preservation of face, fulfilling social obligations.”
For us Westerners who are more and more long-term oriented, it is difficult to understand that short term can be a positive value. On the contrary, in traditional and particularly in Asian cultures, the preservation of the harmony established by the tradition has greater worth than progress.
The authors of the study show how this can even determine the evaluation of a person. They quote a sentence from one of the Chinese students:
“The biggest difference between the Chinese and Western society is that the Western society worships the hero and the Chinese worship the saint. If one is good in doing one thing, one can be a hero. To be a saint you have to be good in everything.”
Surprisingly, wisdom is a short-term value (it comes from the past), whereas science is a long-term value (it is permanently evolving).
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This dimension is very important in negotiation/mediation. It is the value that gives sense to the process. It gives it both its meaning and its direction to the action of each party.
Indulgence Versus Restraint
“Indulgence stands for a tendency to allow relatively free gratification of basic and natural human desires related to enjoying life and having fun. Its opposite pole, restraint, reflects a conviction that such gratification needs to be curbed and regulated by strict social norms.”
This is not about satisfying any need. It is about enjoying life and having fun. This places us at the top of the Maslow pyramid.
This dimension will considerably influence the tone of the conversation. The usage of humour, the perspective of a nice trip, the perspective of warm relationships, etc., all this will be appreciated or rejected, will allow or prevent moving forward in negotiation/mediation.
Two movies very well illustrated this difference: “Silk Stockings” with Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse where he is an American playboy and she is a Russian Communist political commissionaire and “Rush”, which describes the antagonism between two Formula One pilots: James Hunt and Niki Lauda.
The first movie caricatures the values of both cultures: Capitalism oriented toward pleasure and a form of ascetic communism.
The second one is more about the confrontation of two personalities.
Obviously, this dimension may create differences between two cultures but also between two individuals within the same culture.
In an intercultural negotiation/mediation, the negotiator/mediator must be ready to face the cultural characteristics of the countries of origin of the other parties but also to not find them or to find them at a low level.
COMPARING CULTURES
In order to compare cultures and to obtain information about the country with weights you should negotiate, you can visit this website: http:// geert-hofstede.com/countries.html. You can also download his application: Culture Compass.
Do not forget to look at your own country because this is intended to show you the differences between your culture and theirs: If you see that the country is very individualistic, see if you are not more. This may help you avoid misunderstandings and possibly misbehaviours.
NEGOTIATIONS/MEDIATION AND CULTURES
Obviously all this applies in mediation as well as in negotiation. In mediation, the culture of the mediator will have to be taken into account, if it is different from those of the parties. In this regard, the problem is the same as in multi-party negotiation. Hofstede’s website allows the comparison of more than two countries.
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CONCLUSION
I have been studying these negotiation and mediation methods for over 30 years. Each year I discover that there is more to learn and that the knowledge, which can be useful in negotiation mediation, comes from everywhere.
I also discovered that these methods need subtle variations to be efficient in various areas of the world or in various professions (politics, diplomacy, community, business, labour, etc.)
But the more we take the results of such research into account, the more difficult the method becomes for non-professionals.
In this book, I tried to synthetize the most important concepts to make them usable for anyone but I realize that my explanations might be both too long for practitioners and superficial from the theoretical and scientific points of view.
My dream is that this book would serve as the basis for two new open developments: a synthesis for practitioners and a thesaurus for researchers.
The furtherance of reflection on both of these themes seem fundamental to me.
When I meet people who took part in my trainings, most of them tell me about the use they make of it in their professional life but also how this changed their personal and family life.
Unfortunately these methods are little used in politics and diplomacy though it is evident that they could bring a brand new vision in these fields by replacing the challenges of power by the challenges of the conflicting interests of the citizens.
Though I limited this book to formal negotiation and mediation with a strong emphasis on dispute resolution and more particularly in civil and commercial matters, it seems obvious that the fundamental knowledge about human relationships, which is presently developing through so many different sciences will soon penetrate all sort of domains.
These sciences are brand new. Everything in this book is less than a century old and most of it was invented/discovered less than 50 years ago. We are in the prehistory of the understanding of human behaviour and relationships.
I know how negotiation and mediation techniques help people resolve their conflicts and thus improve their lives. I hope this book will contribute to their dissemination and to improve the quality of the services rendered by professional.
I certainly hope that they will help build a better world for the human race and its environment.
1 Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, Michael Minkov, Cultures and Organizations, McGraw-Hill, 2010