Negotiation Styles

Your communication skills will be put to the test during negotiations, especially if those negotiations include people with different personalities, approaches, and comfort levels. In international negotiations, differences in culture and communication styles become even more apparent. Read this article, which gives an example of Chinese and Brazilian companies negotiating an agreement and highlights the importance of finding a common understanding.

To Relate or Not to Relate

For example, people from certain cultures, including Asia and Latin America, place great value on creating deep personal relationships, even – or perhaps especially – in business, says Orlando Kelm, an associate professor of business and Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas at Austin. In cases when there has not been enough time to build a bond of mutual trust between business partners, negotiations tend to be more difficult, says Kelm, who has interviewed many international business executives about how culture influences negotiations.

Juan An, a participant in the Sinopec program, found this to be true. "I have to admit, the two companies do not know each other much due to the totally different culture and management mechanisms", he said.

Looking for common ground can help speed up the relationship-development process. "Brazil and China are in the same situation: Both of the two countries developed very quickly", said Frank Zang, another Sinopec participant. There are also similarities between the corporate strategies of Sinopec and Petrobras, which are both steadily expanding their international presence. "Our group and the Petrobras group also have the same background – we are all executives", Zang added.