Cross-Cultural Communicators Key to Successful Business Negotiations

By Park Myung-seok

Contributing Writer

Richard R. Gesteland, who gained hands-on experience doing business in various cultures, established two principles for international business.

•First, when doing international business, a seller is expected to follow the practice of a buyer.

•Second, when doing international business, a visitor is expected to observe local customs.

These, however, do not mean that sellers or visitors should blindly follow the customs of buyers or locals. Rather, they suggest sellers or visitors should understand other cultures and respect local traditions.

Communication paradigms can be classified by first, the way of problem solving; second, communication patterns; third, the way of associating with other people; fourth, the concept of time; and fifth, the way of expressing emotions.

① relationship relationship-focus versus deal-focus

② indirect versus direct language

③ formal versus informal cultures

④ fluid time versus rigid time cultures

⑤ reserved versus expressive cultures

Let's briefly look at each one of these paradigms and go over different business practices associated with them.

1) Relationship-focus vs. Deal-focus

How people solve problems differs based on what kind of culture they are in. People in a deal-focus culture (DF) focus on work itself, while people of a relationship-focus culture (RF) try to build close ties with their business partners before working with them. The work plan of a DF group is precise and concerns measurable and reproductive outcomes.

On the other hand, the work plan of a RF group is flexible, taking various possible situations and changes into account. Therefore, if DF marketers work in the RF market, they will inevitably face culture clashes. RF people find DF people pushy, aggressive and rude, while a DF group thinks that a RF group is dilatory, too ambiguous and unclear to understand.

The vast majority of the world's markets are relationship oriented. When doing business in those markets, the relationship with business partners comes before principles or rules. For example, a contract consented by both parties is just a guideline that can be revised whenever necessary, rather than an agreement that must be strictly followed to the letter. People in this culture prioritize their family above the rest of society. In addition, they do business only with the people they know. So, when they have to work with strangers, they want to make sure that they get close enough to the new business partners before sealing the deal. Countries in the Arabic region, Africa, Latin America and Asia are in this category.

In contrast, the deal-focused approach is common in only a small part of the world. Northern Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, in particular, have the distinctive deal-focused markets. People in these areas are quite used to doing business with strangers. Let's take the U.S. as an example. Perhaps because they are raised in a highly mobile immigrant society, most Americans are open to discussing business possibilities with people they don't know.

The success of telemarketing clarifies this openness. Each year Americans buy about more than $5 billion dollars worth of goods and services from total strangers, and a half of it is through business-to-business selling. No wonder America is called the home of the cold call, where doing business is possible without connection. In this deal-focused market, information about or connection with a particular business partner would be useful, but not necessarily required. Britain, South Africa and Southwestern Europe have a moderate form of deal-focused cultures.

Korea and Japan have relationship-focused cultures. This means that cold calls do not work in these markets. Therefore, doing business with Japanese enterprises normally involves contacting them through trade fairs, government agencies or other reliable business brokers. Businessmen in China also tend to have prior meetings and negotiations before signing up for a contract, as they do not wholly trust people they do not know. This is also true for the Arabic region, Africa and the Muslim world.

2) Indirect vs. Direct Languages

DF and RF groups are also different in terms of how they converse. DF people believe that, when negotiating or making conversations, they should be clear and direct about what they think. However, RF people are circuitous and indirect. They consider various situations and use a politeness strategy to avoid disagreement and disputes. Such different styles of communication often cause misunderstanding.

Difficulties confronted when communicating across cultures often lead to a lot of trouble in the sales activities, negotiations, performance assessment or teamwork of a company. People who use indirect language prefer to avoid possible conflicts or confrontations, and delegate a third party to act as a mediator. In contrast, direct language users talk about the problem upfront. The nature of the two different problem-solving approaches can be summed up as harmony versus clarity.

Instead of saying a direct "no" Asian people usually say, "That will be difficult," "We will have to give that further study," or "Maybe." Direct language users such as Americans, however, misunderstand that their Asian partners are deliberately misleading or confusing them. Such expressions might be seen as an attempt to hide their intentions in negative situations. For people in a relationship-focused culture, however, the indirect language is a polite way of delivering bad or disappointing news. They are being considerate, hoping not to hurt anyone's feelings in order to maintain a good relationship.

In contrast, people in a deal-focused culture believe that honesty and truth is the only and reliable way to resolve the issue. Therefore, they give negative feedback, express objection or deliver bad news as it is.

Anthropologist Edward T. Hall classified Northern European countries, the USA, Australia and New Zealand as low-context cultures, where the context in which something is said is not as important as what is said. He defined what is referred to as relationship-focused society here as high-context culture, where contextual cues are key to understanding what is being said.

In low-context cultures, what someone says is usually what they mean. Almost nothing is left unsaid. They are not familiar with understanding non-verbal clues.

In high-context cultures, what someone says often has hidden meanings. Much depends on the context and many are left unsaid. Facial expressions, tension, gestures and mood are used more effectively in high-context cultures than they are in low-context cultures.

In the U.S., one of the low-context countries, verbal communication is very important. Americans talk openly about what they feel, what they think and what they know. Most of the well-educated, high-income professionals or senior government officials in America are good public speakers.

Singapore and Hong Kong have experienced a more rapid acculturation as foreign business people have brought their deal-focused cultures into the hubs of international trade in Southwest Asia. As a result, they are different in communication patterns from their neighboring countries.

Germany, Denmark and Britain are considered to be low-context cultures, but with variations between their ways of doing business. While the British are clearly more low-context and deal-focused than Koreans, Japanese, Arabs or Mexicans, at the same time they are also more high-context and relationship-focused than their Danish and in particular German counterparts. Such a difference is one of the factors that create intangible cultural barriers in international trade.

3) Formal vs. Informal Cultures

The way of doing business differs between formal and informal cultures. In an informal culture, people believe that inequality of social status or class should be minimized. So, the hierarchy in an organization is simply based upon differences in roles. In other words, everybody has equal rights and someone's power is based only on his expertise or competitiveness.

In contrast, in a formal culture people are treated differently in accordance with their social status, class or age. A power hierarchy is established by these elements, and it is justifiable for a person to have power and privilege based on his family connection, personal charisma or influence.

In formal cultures, formalities are viewed as part of the protocol, while they are seen as something inconvenient in informal cultures. Such difference sometimes leads to the breakdown of an international trade negotiation. People from formal hierarchical cultures may be offended by the breezy familiarity of counterparts from informal, relatively egalitarian societies. On the other hand, those from informal cultures may regard their formal counterparts as distant, stuffy, pompous or arrogant.

Most European countries are considered to be formal societies. For example, Germany is one of the societies with a formal culture, although it has a deal-focused culture at the same time. One must call someone whose last name is Muller, Herr Dr. Muller or Dr. Muller, and call his wife Frau Doktor. This formality may be uncomfortable for a young man from the United States, one of the world's more informal cultures. In the case of France, one calls someone whose last name is Dupont, Monsieur Dupont, as a way of showing respect for him. In Italy, one always places "Commendatore" before another's name, until they become close friends. In Australia, however, a business meeting would normally begin with casual greetings, for example, "Good day, mate."

As such, social status, power and hierarchies are valued in formal cultures like most European and Asian nations, the Arab world, the Mediterranean region and Latin America, while ability and performance of an individual is more important in informal cultures like the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway and Iceland. In most countries in Latin America and Asia, age is one of the major factors that social hierarchy is based on.

Foreign visitors are expected to follow local business practices and social custom in formal cultures. In such societies, traditions are highly cherished, hierarchy is well-established, and rule and procedures are respected. In addition, how to dress, greet, talk, eat, drink and throw a party is all based on local tradition or custom. In informal cultures, however, change and progression are more valued than tradition. Treating people differently based on social status or power is considered unnecessary in such societies. Instead, a casual and comfortable mood is preferred. People from informal cultures make their best efforts to meet the deadline or stick to their schedule, as people who do so are viewed as diligent. In order to work on the international stage, one should first understand such cultural differences.

4) Fluid vs. Rigid Time Cultures

The concept of time is also affected by culture. Some people in the world try to manage their time well and do their jobs as scheduled. But others are more relaxed about time and scheduling and focus more on people. Members of a rigid-time culture are likely to find people of a fluid-time culture lazy, undisciplined and rude. On the other hand, people with fluid time concept consider their rigid-time counterparts as impolite and arrogant, ones who set schedules or deadlines as they want and force others to work according to them.

People who do one thing at a time strictly following their plans are considered to have a monochromic concept of time or M-time. Others who do multiple things simultaneously and care more about relationships between people are deemed to have a polychromic concept of time or P-time.

Time concept and time management vary from culture to culture. People look at time and scheduling differently in different parts of the world. In fluid time cultures, relationship between people is more important than getting things done. Therefore, even in the middle of a meeting, a person takes his calls or receives his visitors. One carries out multiple tasks at the same time. Countries in the Arabic region, most of Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia are considered to have fluid time concept.

In direct contrast are rigid time cultures, where people are expected to be punctual and perform one task at a time. They set plans and schedules in detail, and are obsessed with deadlines. Deal-focused cultures like North America, Nordic and Germanic Europe are in this category.

Industrialized countries in Asia, including Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore have relatively a rigid time concept, although they still put much significance on bonding with others. Edward T. Hall invented the term "monochronic" for the clock-obsessed, schedule-worshipping cultures and "polychronic" for a society where people spend less time worshipping the clock and more time attending to strong interpersonal relationships. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan-which were classified as polychronic about forty years ago-have become more clock-conscious and moderately monochronic. These countries are proof that culture does change, albeit slowly.

Sensitivity to time can vary within a given country as well. For instance, in Brazil, Sao Paulo is relatively monochronic, whereas Rio is strongly polychronic. Similarly, people living in the more industrialized and Southern coastal areas in China are more time-conscious than those in the less-developed interior. And people living in Seoul are more clock-conscious than those in other parts of Korea.

In northern Europe and Germany, someone being ten minutes late for a meeting is as inappropriate as a product delivered ten weeks later than it is supposed to be. Tardiness signals a lack of discipline. Arriving five minutes ahead of time shows that you share your counterpart's commitment to be on time. P?nklichtkeit (being punctual) and zuverl?βigkeit (reliability) are closely related concepts in this most monochronic of cultures.

In direct contrast is the more relaxed, fluid time culture in Indonesia where people have a delightful expression for polychronic time. They call it jam karet (rubber time) --- flexible, stretchable meeting times, schedules and agendas found mostly in fluid-time cultures located primarily in hotter climes. Most Indonesians place a higher value on human relationships than on arbitrary schedules and deadlines.

Such a difference might cause trouble in international business. One Malaysian businesswoman who was four hours late for her meeting in America had difficulty finding the meeting location, and thus she had to return to her country, unable to conduct a business meeting with her American counterparts. The Americans complained that they had been kept waiting for hours. For this reason, some experts provide the following guidelines to those from rigid-time cultures.

First, find out if the country you are visiting has a fluid time culture. Second, do not just complain about those who keep you waiting. Bring some work you can do while waiting. Third, be patient.

5) Reserved vs. Expressive Cultures

The communication patterns of in a reserved culture are very different from those of in an expressive culture. Reserved people tend to hold back their feelings. In their culture, keeping composure is highly respected, while physical contact, exaggerated gestures and too much eye contact are avoided. Expressive people, however, communicate what they feel as freely as they want verbally, paraverbally or nonverbally. How much a person reveals his feelings is determined by the culture he has grown up in.

Culture shapes not only verbal language, but also the paraverbal, such as the volume of the speaker's voice and the meaning of silence, as well as nonverbal behavior such as body language.

Varying degrees of expressiveness in paraverbal and nonverbal behavior cause unexpected problems for international business people. In Japan, Thailand, many other Asian countries, Nordic and Germanic Europe, speaking loudly, revealing true feelings upon the face, or gesturing excessively are generally avoided. Therefore, people from the Mediterranean region, Latin Europe and Latin America, who feel comfortable about expressing their feelings, might have trouble doing business with those from Thailand, who are more self-controlled.

On the other hand, in Egypt, a speaker generally likes to talk in a loud voice to make sure that a listener understands him. The speaker gets louder or even pounds the table when he wants to stress certain points. Otherwise, he might be ignored by the listeners. Those from North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe are relatively expressive.

Myung Seok Park is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Advisor of the World Communication Association.