NINE NEGOTIATION TRAINING TIPS TO OVERCOME THE "UGLY AMERICAN" ATTITUDE WHEN YOU NEGOTIATE OVERSEAS

By Jim Camp

If anything, we Americans are "uglier" today than ever. Back in 1958, when the famous novel was published, we had some competition from the ugly French (especially in Southeast Asia, where the novel was set), the ugly Russians, the ugly British -- at least those three. Now, though, it seems as if much of the rest of the world has decided to project all of its fears, jealousy and general anger onto just one target: Uncle Sam.

Brand America is still selling like hotcakes in certain industries and regions, but its image has definitely seen better days just about everywhere. With our corporations controlling assets abroad worth $2.5 trillion, we're too rich, too pampered, and our national debt is completely out of control. With our military able to brush aside any other army or coalition of armies almost overnight, we're too powerful. With our movies and mass market products taking root everywhere, we're cultural bullies who don't speak other languages, and we have a tin ear for other cultures.

Do I exaggerate? Not much. They find a lot of reasons to dislike us. As a result, the negative attitudes you may encounter in a multicultural negotiation meeting can be a real challenge. The respected negotiation "adversaries" sitting across the negotiating table may not see you at all. Not at first. They may see a George W. they don't like, a jack-booted Uncle Sam, a Bill Gates who could buy their entire nation, or a Ronald McDonald who's driving their local cuisine out of business.

That's the bad news. Here's the good news: all of the bad news is good for the American businessperson operating overseas today. The multicultural negotiation meeting is still a challenge, but it's also an incredible negotiation opportunity. You can actually have the upper hand, and with negotiation training and coaching, easily. Here's why and how.

1. In any negotiation, preconceptions are killers. Killers. If your negotiating rival overseas (or anywhere, for that matter) sees you negatively and addresses you with veiled accusations or insults, or assumes an air of disdainful superiority while dealing with the neuveau riche American, you are in a perfect negotiating position to respond with friendly reason, calmness, and complete mastery of the issues facing your industry and this negotiation. In fact, you want the team on the other side of the negotiation table to cop an attitude, because you simply take it all in and respond with negotiation training skill and discipline. Eventually those folks are going to realize that their preconception is wrong, that you are not an ugly American, but instead a highly competent professional businessperson (as surely you are). They're going to figure out that you can't be badgered or goaded into mistakes (as surely you can't be). Now who has the upper hand in the negotiation, psychologically?
2. In any negotiation, neediness is a killer. If your new foreign friends across the negotiation table feel the need to be antagonistic or disdainful, welcome it. Neediness is a hallmark of what I call emotion-based negotiating training (also known as win-win negotiation training). Meanwhile, I coach and train decision-based negotiating, and believe me, emotional negotiation games will be no match for your good, disciplined decisions. I'm pretty sure that if I polled my negotiation training clients over the years to name the one negotiation training idea that had the most immediate beneficial impact on their negotiating, a plurality, maybe even a majority, would name this simple warning about neediness. Let the other negotiation side have all the neediness. Meanwhile, you have none. You are calm, cool, and collected.
3. Remember the old "Colombo" TV series? As the L.A. homicide detective, Peter Falk wore the raggedy trench coat, drove the raggedy vintage Peugeot, stumbled through the investigation, always forgot to ask a key question -- but then remembered, just in time. This folderol was all for a reason, of course. He wanted the suspects to drop their guard and make the fatal error. In the lingo of the famous book I'm Okay, You're Okay, he seduced them into feeling okay before they incriminated themselves.

   Nothing controversial here, but now I'm going to raise your eyebrows, probably: the shrewd negotiator knows that only one team in the negotiation can feel okay, and that negotiation team must always be the other one. Why? To feel okay is to feel comfortable, at ease, and to feel comfortable and at ease is, for the untrained negotiator, to be vulnerable. You want to let the other negotiating side drop its guard and reveal the key piece of negotiation information they've been hiding for nine months of phone calls and document exchanges.

   In every negotiation, and definitely in every multicultural negotiation, there's always a fair amount of posturing going on. In the big global negotiation meeting, everyone will be perfectly barbered, perfectly coiffed, dressed to the nines, of course, and even the negotiators' assistants may have their negotiators' assistants on hand. Okay, fine, what does it really matter, but let me add one important point: do not be perfect. You want to be professional at all times, certainly, you must be knowledgeable and disciplined, but let the other negotiating side feel perfect. Dropping your pen wouldn't be the end of the world for you. A little joke at your own expense during the negotiation wouldn't be the end of the world, either. It might even help loosen things up, make the folks across the negotiation table more comfortable…more vulnerable.

4. Cross-cultural training, the darling of international negotiation training, is not the key to understanding your negotiation opponent. The key is asking questions and listening to the answers. Listening hard. This shows respect, which is always appreciated. Moreover, your interrogative-led questions will glean useful negotiation information, uncover hidden negotiation agendas.

   "Interrogative-led questions"? That's right, those Who?-What?-When?-Where?-Why?-How? questions that elicit specific answers that may contain useful negotiation information. It's amazing what people will say if only you ask them. My negotiation training clients ask them. My negotiation training clients take notes, observe carefully, and generally keep their mouths shut.

5. Stay focused on your negotiation mission and purpose. I know, M&P can be a bit of a cliché in business today, and even worthless, but a valid negotiation M & P that's set in the world of your "adversary" is invaluable in a negotiation. If you have a valid negotiation mission and purpose, and if your every decision in the negotiation serves that mission and purpose, tell me how you can go fundamentally wrong. This negotiation training principle is especially important when dealing with difficult people in a difficult setting, as the global negotiation meeting may well be. There are a lot of undercurrents surging through the negotiation room, different languages, different body languages that may be hard to decipher, all of it providing lots of opportunity for misunderstandings. You need guidance; your valid negotiation mission and purpose is that North Star.

   When I prescribe a "valid" negotiation M&P "set in the world of the negotiation adversary," what in the world do I mean? I mean you have a long-term negotiation aim, a continuing responsibility, and neither are worth a hoot if the people on the other side of the negotiation table don't understand them the way you do. Part of your negotiation mission is to entice them to see and decide that you are, indeed, the best widget-maker in the world and therefore the perfect supplier for them. You can't tell them this. They have to understand it for themselves. They have to have the vision in their own minds. Following your valid negotiation mission and purpose, you work at all times to help them see the issues in this negotiation as you do. In a multicultural negotiation setting, this is even more challenging than usual. The cultural hurdle can be real. Know this, never forget it, and work always to overcome it -- with the help of your negotiation mission and purpose.

6. While your negotiation M&P is your North Star, your negotiation agenda is your security blanket. In this global negotiation meeting, as I said, you may be dealing with a lot of guff, bluff and confusion. In a very fundamental way, you don't know what these people are all about, really. People are people, but cultures count -- a lot. It would be easy for the untrained negotiator to feel utterly adrift, clueless about what to do or say next. But not to worry, because you have your negotiation agenda, your point-by-point-by-point-by-point set of negotiation questions you need answered, problems you need to put on the negotiation table, negotiation decisions you need made by the other side. So there may be a million things going on and a million hassles, but it doesn't bother you, because you know everything you need to accomplish in this negotiation meeting.

   Negotiation agendas control every email my negotiation training clients write, every phone call they make. Maybe this sounds radical, but it's really not. Every email has a purpose, right? Every phone call? So what is it? The negotiation agenda makes this clear. Preparing for months for the global negotiation meeting, my negotiation training clients will have worked with probably hundreds of little negotiation agendas in the service of the larger negotiation agendas. But they have their negotiation agendas, and they stick with them, and they work.

7. Hand in hand with the idea that your negotiations must be guided by agendas is the idea, as I mentioned earlier, that good negotiation training is decision-based, not emotion-based. Emotions come and go, ebb and flow, but one point is certain: At the core of effective negotiation decision-making is emotional neutrality. Your adversaries across the negotiation table may hate you, distrust you, disdain you, but none of it really matters, not to you. Those emotions serve only to throw them off-balance. Meanwhile, you keep the steady state. You concentrate on making good negotiation decisions. For Americans who have been trained in win-win negotiation, compromise, and making friends, maintaining emotional neutrality is easier said than done. If you can master this key aspect of my negotiation training system, you will perceive a noticeable difference in your next business negotiation meeting with a foreign contingent. You may walk into the negotiation meeting as the Ugly American, but you won't walk out that way.

   But what if they hate or disdain you so much they can't get past the emotion? What if they just can't get themselves to do business with you? Well, if you have prepared well for this negotiation meeting, you should have already found out this is the case. If you've done your negotiation training and research, you know what their record is when dealing with Americans or with any other nationality. You also know where you stand in the market, and you know where they stand. If they don't want to do business with you and don't need to do business with you, you should know this already. If you don't, it's your fault, not theirs.

   In the novel The Ugly American, a U. S. Senator tours the fictional land of Sarkhan and in the course of a few weeks talks with a grand total of two or three real people -- the men and women on the street. Among the U. S. military, he talks only with the brass. This ignorance is ugly. Don't be guilty of the same thing. Know the other negotiators and their company.

8. The title of my book about negotiation training is "Start with No®." It's catchy, sure, but it also implicitly rebuffs a certain bible in the field, driving home the point that going into a negotiation with the idea of getting to "yes" by any means necessary is a fatal error. It is an invitation to negotiation compromise. Sometimes you have to compromise, and that's fine. Sometimes you don't, and that's better. The point is that when you are guided by your emotions, when you are needy for a deal, you make bad negotiation decisions -- among them, unnecessary negotiation compromises.

   In global negotiations, this urge to compromise will just get you killed, because businesspeople around the world know all about this win-win negotiation training credo in America, and they are lying in the weeds, waiting for the next victim. The negotiation training stories I could tell you -- American win-win trained negotiators taken to the cleaners by the Japanese, the Koreans, the Russians, the Saudis. The negotiation stories you probably already know!

   You think those folks want to be your friends? You think they give a damn about "worldwide partnerships"? Mainly, they think you, as an American, are probably another lackluster win-win trained negotiator. Now, it's fine if they think this, because you can make a lot of headway while they're operating under this misconception, but it must be a misconception. The win-win trained negotiator who steps into the negotiating ring with a shrewd adversary overseas who has also read all the win-win negotiation training books in translation (if not in the original English) does not have a chance. Not a chance.

9. Likewise, forget "closing." Despite everything you learned in business school, hoping or planning for the negotiation outcome is a deal killer. Stay grounded in the present moment and in what the other side says and does next. You cannot control the outcome of the negotiation, but you can control your behavior and your negotiation decisions. Those Japanese and Korean negotiators will manipulate your desire to close and before you know what's happened, you have your deal, alright, but it's a terrible one.

These nine negotiation training nuggets can be your keys to global meetings and global negotiating -- just as they can be your keys to any meeting and any negotiation. The global context presents certain negotiation problems all its own, but every negotiation presents problems all its own. The trained negotiator is ready, period. Because you are smart, informed, prepared, disciplined, and trained, no negotiation anywhere in the world is too much for you.

Jim Camp's Decision-Based Negotiation™ training system has been used successfully by over 100,000 people in business transactions totaling over $100 billion. Visit his negotiation training website at http://www.startwithno.com.

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