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Hidden Interculturality in the Company: the Negotiation Between Different Professional Cultures

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

Example of Recognition and Modulation of Sub-Languages ​​in a Sales Negotiation.

Each administrative communication session can be destroyed by the use of dysfunctional styles and jargons, words, and inappropriate attitudes. In the case we present below, we can see how two corporate cultures can collide when one (or both) don’t care 1 – to take into account the comprehensibility of one’s own language, of the terms used, to explain the terms that allow understanding of the speech (terminological metacommunication capacity); 2 – of the precision of the language.

How communication style choices increase negotiation distances In a business meeting between an IT company and a mechanical company, the conductor (owner of the IT company) mainly uses two repertoires and related communication strategies:

  • the use of a dense repertoire of English-speaking terminologies even where it is not necessary (Anglophone managerialese);
  • the dressing of terminologies with phrases that obscure the meaning and create connotative penumbra (smoky meanings), with the function of “softening” the image and workload that the adoption of the program provides (diminutive style).

Tab. 3 – Elements of repertoire, managerialese-diminutive style (A)

Repertoire used for the “Anglophone managerialese” componentRepertoire for the “diminutive style”
1 – Make a forecast
2 – He is a staff user
3 – I have seen the account
4 – Get the Function Description
5 – If you want to contact the trader
6 – We need to address the target setter
7 – You want to do a tracking
8 – If it overdues
9 – We have a visit
10 – We must give a reason
11 – We work on the field
12 – Make a pricing
13 – I take a sales call
14 – At the front end
15 – To the backend
16 – I do the query
17 – It is an activity report
18 – Take a survey
19 – A little more friendly
20 – The Repository
21 – To activate the click-stream analysis you need the BW
1 – It seems to me that they are satisfied customers
2 – We need to think about it for a moment
3 – Let’s take a very quick tour
4 – The version for the handheld
5 – A little like on the internet
6 – A small graph
7 – We are seeing a little concrete application
8 – Let’s see if it’s possible for a moment
9 – Let’s do a little check then let’s see
10 – I think it can be done

In four hours of meeting, we can witness the Collision of conversational states, in which a team (sales team) uses repertoire A (“diminutive English-speaking computer managerial”), while the purchasing team uses a repertoire similar to the following:

Tab. 4 – Elements of the pragmatic-concrete style

Terminological repertory (words)Pragmatic questions
1 – The market
2- Customers
3 – Internal staff
4 – The workload
5 – Ease of learning
6 – Integration with existing programs
7 – Hours
8 – Days
9 – Cost of licenses
10 – Limitations of use
11 – Skills  
1 – On this project, who does what in our company and who does what in your company?
2 – Can we use the program we are down using to produce the website or do we have to switch to another program?
3 – Do we have to change the program?
4 – Can we continue to use Macintoshes or should we switch to Windows?
5 – What are the internal skills of the company needed to make the system work day after day?
6 – Who needs to know what to do?
7 – How long can a training course last?
8 – Who should participate?
9 – If I want to change a data entry screen, can I do it from within or do we have to make a request to you?
10 – How many days will it take to start and set up the program?
11 – Can we personally visit a company that has already adopted this system?
12 – Do you need a license?

Meeting styles tutorial Reproduce through role-playing the progress of a possible meeting between team A (“managerialese-diminutive” sales team composed of owner and shoulder) and team B (“concrete-pragmatic” purchasing team composed of owner and shoulder

Intercultural Negotiation Arab Edition

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

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