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intercultural negotiation

Game Theories and Conversational Leadership

© 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 

Elements of Negotiation Game Theory

The role of the leader requires a strong attention to the communicative games in progress, with the awareness that in organizations and in negotiation messages are not produced for poetic purposes but above all to manage power. As Tonfoni (2000) points out: On the other hand, considering the communicative model within Game Theory requires the prior clarification of the model itself, as well as of the objectives.

The actors, within the theory, as “players” precisely by designing and implementing sequences of actions aimed at achieving a pre-established goal. This end is constituted by the profit, since the theory is oriented to the behavior of a predominantly economic nature. The “actors” are also “verbal communicators“; as such, their actions must essentially be aimed at a prediction as exact as possible of sequences of actions and an explicit determination of the so-called “rules of the game“.

The actors operate through the implementation of appropriate strategies, aimed at achieving the goal or at opposing counter-strategies activated by the interlocutors, or by other individuals who take part in the communicative game.

The negotiator’s leadership includes the ability to:

  • Create specific thematic offers: throw non-random arguments on the conversation table, to see what the interlocutors’ reaction is; observe whether they pick up on the theme or let it go, and other possible moves by the interlocutor (diminish, accentuate, cling to the theme, enhance it, ignore it);
  • Manage the conversational format: which climate prevails during the negotiation? Are we facing a format of “interrogation”, of “search for a solution”, of “mutual confession”, or what else? If during a sales negotiation the seller notices that the buyer is adopting the “interrogation” format, the conversational leadership plans to point this out, with phrases such as “this conversation looks more like an interrogation than a search for solutions, we would like try to give our meeting a different, perhaps more productive cut ”;
  • Rebalance power relations: in sales, above all, there is an “unspoken” in which the purchaser holds the power to negotiate. This power is exercised through typical attitudes of those in power: control over content, deciding who speaks, what is spoken, and how it is spoken. Sometimes this results in unmotivated arrogance. Conversational leadership involves the ability to reformulate the games, rebalance attitudes, bring the two negotiators back to the same level, so as not to be crushed.

Tutorial: What game are you playing? Who holds the power?

Some communication situations of leadership and negotiation are presented, in which the leader implements a strategic communication game. Participants must evaluate what game is in progress and its intended purpose Some playable games:

  • Detection of theme offers (which topics of discussion the conductor offers);
  • Detection of the conversational format (which conversational climate tries to set the subject);
  • Detection of power relations (who commands over whom).
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 

For further information see:

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intercultural negotiation

Cognitive Economics of Communication in Groups and Prioritization Skills

© 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 

Deciding Priorities (What to Talk About) and Formats (How to Talk)

Cognitive economics deals with the efficient use of mental resources. An intercultural meeting poses high problems in the use of resources, since they must be divided and “absorbed” both by the debate on the contents and by the communication difficulties generated by linguistic and cultural differences.

The problems of cognitive economics therefore become even more pressing than intra-cultural meetings. We can therefore indicate that the use of time and resources becomes a meta-competence of the intercultural negotiator. Among his gifts are therefore the prioritization skills, the ability to set priorities, to be able to answer the fundamental question: what is good to talk about? How to manage scarce and limited time?

Each meeting has a high cost. Let’s simply try to calculate the hourly cost of many executives who spend a morning, arriving by plane from different countries, the cost of rooms and materials, the cost of preparation. Each group that comes together to achieve a goal may or may not give itself a strategy to optimize the resources deployed during the meeting. Intercultural prioritization skills require the negotiator to actively undertake to define which priorities to treat, thus also acting on the format of the negotiation, as well as to set the basic terms to be treated.

Defining which priorities to treat also means making very concrete choices: what to talk about first, what to talk about next. How to talk about it, with what approach, with what attitude. Other priorities concern the establishment of a positive conversational climate: without the right climate, any discussion on the contents becomes more difficult. For this, for example, it is necessary to understand that there is a precise relationship between climates and communication styles.

Some communication styles are deleterious to the achievement of a result, are diseconomic, dysfunctional, and must be grasped (in others), and avoided (for themselves). The subject of communication economics therefore requires:

1. Ability to recognize the (limited) attentional resources available for negotiation (resource awareness);

2. ability to understand the boundaries of time available (awareness of the times);

3. ability to move within these boundaries, deciding the most appropriate contents and recognizing the dispersive ones (awareness of strategic contents);

4. ability to manage the phases and times of the meetings (awareness of the interaction sequences)

5. ability to act on communication styles appropriate to the different phases, and on the attitudes underlying the styles of relationships (contextual awareness of communication styles).

The main themes of the economics of negotiation communication are highlighted in the following principle.

Principle 15 – Economics of communication and centering of negotiation

The quality of the negotiation depends on:

  • The ability to center the contents of the conversation;
  • The ability to manage one’s attention resources (attentional recharge and management of personal energies) and grasp the states of others;
  • Awareness of the time limits for negotiation;
  • The ability to segment negotiation times, distinguishing the negotiation phases and their specific objectives, in particular by mentally and de facto separating the listening time (empathy) and the proactive time;
  • The ability to modulate one’s own communication styles, breaking the communicative rigidity, knowing how to adapt the styles to the different phases, e.g. friend in the warming up and small talk phases (introductory chat), psychoanalytic in the empathic phases, assertive in the propositional phases, and other styles appropriate to the context.
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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intercultural negotiation

Interpersonal Motivational Systems (IMS) and Intercultural Leadership

© 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 

Conversation Analysis and Negotiation Communication Climates

In each of the different communication moments that occur in the groups, different communication systems can be activated. The exchanges of messages that we observe between people or in a group are only the tip of the iceberg of stronger relational processes, the Interpersonal Motivational Systems (SIM).

Some of the most recognized SIMs are:

  • attachment;
  • seduction;
  • competitive spirit;
  • cooperation.

The conflict and the malfunctions of the groups therefore start from the system of communication observable in the dynamics of the group. Intercultural leadership consists in taking the reins of intercultural encounters, and being able to direct them with awareness and cultural tact.

It absolutely does not mean domination over the other, but it consists in an attempt to voluntarily manage communication flows, seen from above for greater awareness. For example, it is possible to recognize which of the Motivational Systems is being generated in the negotiation, and try to modify it. The principle of cooperation acts as the main glue of the group, but other systems can also be activated to increase its dynamism.

The Qualitative Analysis of Conversational States

We can recognize the type of communication in progress within a group by carefully reading the signals. With adequate training and high natural sensitivity, it is possible to grasp in a few words which are the “conversational states” that predominate a communication. By “conversational states” we mean here a sequence of communicative moves attributable to prototypes, for example:

  • confession,
  • seduction,
  • reciprocal jabs (creeping conflict),
  • the “locker room conversation”,
  • self-celebration,
  • seeking help,
  • self-victimization,
  • the offer of help,
  • the accusation,
  • the scientific analysis of a problem,
  • “let’s try to understand”,
  • the “gossiping of the absent”,
  • the outburst,
  • the “talk of trouble”,
  • the “daydream”,
  • the quarrel,
  • the interrogation,
  • the game,
  • the joke,
  • “talking among the like”.

Conversations are constantly moving from one state to another, and we can have conversations that start in terms of “confession” and then move into seduction, and slip into self-celebration, then again into accusation.

During an intercultural negotiation, the negotiator must be aware of the fact that certain conversational formats – such as play and joke – are difficult to translate between different cultures, so it is very easy to make gaffes, be humorous or forcibly “nice”. Other conversational formats, such as the scientific analysis of a problem, or “talking among similar people” (eg: confronting “family fathers”) can bring out cultural differences but with less room for error.

Each conversation (negotiation and otherwise) proceeds along one format anyway until another and different format takes hold. The role of conversational leadership is exactly to move formats and direct them where it is most productive. In the following diagram, we can visually grasp the concept of “layout of the conversational format”, which expresses a possible course of the conversation. What is productive, for intercultural negotiation, is therefore the ability to understand how the conversation is evolving along the path, and the ability to move the lines within more productive communication spaces.

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 

For further information see:

Categories
intercultural negotiation

Interpersonal Motivational Systems (SIM) and Intercultural Leadership

© 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 

Conversation Analysis and Negotiation Communication Climates

In each of the different communication moments that occur in the groups, different communication systems can be activated. The exchanges of messages that we observe between people or in a group are only the tip of the iceberg of stronger relational processes, the Interpersonal Motivational Systems (SIM).

Some of the most recognized SIMs are:

  • attachment;
  • seduction;
  • competitive spirit;
  • cooperation.

The conflict and the malfunctions of the groups therefore start from the system of communication observable in the dynamics of the group. Intercultural leadership consists in taking the reins of intercultural encounters, and being able to direct them with awareness and cultural tact.

It absolutely does not mean domination over the other, but it consists in an attempt to voluntarily manage communication flows, seen from above for greater awareness. For example, it is possible to recognize which of the Motivational Systems is being generated in the negotiation, and try to modify it. The principle of cooperation acts as the main glue of the group, but other systems can also be activated to increase its dynamism.

The Qualitative Analysis of Conversational States

We can recognize the type of communication in progress within a group by carefully reading the signals. With adequate training and high natural sensitivity, it is possible to grasp in a few words which are the “conversational states” that predominate a communication. By “conversational states” we mean here a sequence of communicative moves attributable to prototypes, for example:

  • confession,
  • seduction,
  • reciprocal jabs (creeping conflict),
  • the “locker room conversation”,
  • self-celebration,
  • seeking help,
  • self-victimization,
  • the offer of help,
  • the accusation,
  • the scientific analysis of a problem,
  • “let’s try to understand”,
  • the “gossiping of the absent”,
  • the outburst,
  • the “talk of trouble”,
  • the “daydream”,
  • the quarrel,
  • the interrogation,
  • the game,
  • the joke,
  • “talking among the like”.

Conversations are constantly moving from one state to another, and we can have conversations that start in terms of “confession” and then move into seduction, and slip into self-celebration, then again into accusation.

During an intercultural negotiation, the negotiator must be aware of the fact that certain conversational formats – such as play and joke – are difficult to translate between different cultures, so it is very easy to make gaffes, be humorous or forcibly “nice”. Other conversational formats, such as the scientific analysis of a problem, or “talking among similar people” (eg: confronting “family fathers”) can bring out cultural differences but with less room for error.

Each conversation (negotiation and otherwise) proceeds along one format anyway until another and different format takes hold. The role of conversational leadership is exactly to move formats and direct them where it is most productive. In the following diagram, we can visually grasp the concept of “layout of the conversational format”, which expresses a possible course of the conversation. What is productive, for intercultural negotiation, is therefore the ability to understand how the conversation is evolving along the path, and the ability to move the lines within more productive communication spaces.

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 

For further information see:

Categories
intercultural negotiation

Power and Conversation

© 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 

Management of Conversational States

As the language “segments the world”, the conversation “segments the group” bringing out the relationships of strength and leadership. If language helps to build the perception of the world, conversation helps to create the relationships of power and leadership within the groups.

It is sufficient that a recall is ignored, to generate an immediate perception in the group on the type of power relations existing and generate a drastic drop in points in the leadership score (degree of conversational leadership of the subject). Let’s imagine the case of A (manager) and B (official), in which A states “I prefer that we do not continue further on this topic”, while B replies “yes, but …” continuing exactly on the subject.

The speech act of A “I prefer that we do not continue further on this topic” is a conversational move that fits within A’s line of communicative action called “assertive management of content and setting my role”. The linguistic act of B “yes but …” is a relational counter-move that can be framed in B’s communicative line of action “I don’t recognize you in the role of content manager and I continue on my way”.

If this mechanism is not resumed and sanctioned, A will immediately lose de facto leadership. The stratification of speech acts, conversational moves and related repercussions produces real leadership not inscribed in company or group documents, a leadership that is created in the daily reality of conversations.

Principle 14 – Management of conversational states

The quality of life in the work groups and the performance of the groups themselves are correlated:

  • the leader’s ability to grasp the ongoing conversational state (general recognition);
  • the leader’s ability to grasp dysfunctional conversational states (negative specific recognition), and practice negative reinforcement, intervene to restore functional states
  • the leader’s ability to grasp positive conversational states (specific positive recognition) and reinforce them.

The leader acts as coordinator, internal animator and controller of communication flows and conversational states, expressing his or her consent or dissent in key moments, for each team member, and exercising assertive control over them.

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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intercultural negotiation

Negotiation Meetings, Conversational Leadership and Conversation Styles

© 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 

Linguistic Acts, Communicative Lines of Action and Conversational Leadership

Each “issue with meaning“, within a negotiation, constitutes a linguistic act. Linguistic acts are always inserted within lines of communicative action and help to establish the type of relationship in progress (conflictual, collaborative, and others). Collaborating, keeping low tones, or clashing, arguing, are lines of action in which specific linguistic acts (such as attacking, or collaborating) intervene. Other communicative acts also take on meaning, for example emissions using non-verbal (body movement, gestures, looks) and paralinguistic (tones, pauses, silences, intonations) systems.

Intercultural Education for a Broader Perception in Negotiation

Let’s look at the more general point first. Within the research on psycholinguistics, Linguistic Relativism has shown how each language segments the world and allows us to see particular aspects. What does it mean that a language “segments the world”? In essence, linguistic categories guide perception, focusing the human mind on specific layers of reality and taking the attention away from others.

Eskimos have over 10 specific words for as many types of snow, and this guides perception through preset categories. Where this linguistic distinction does not exist, snow becomes a unique mental object, leaving the composition of sentences with a description of different types of snow. But still, in the Navajo language there is no word equivalent to the concept “late” (the perception of time is always relative), just as in the Amazonian languages ​​there is no word “snow”; in Mandarin Chinese, a single word (qing) represents various shades of both blue and green.

Linguistic accuracy therefore also depends on the availability of specific categories and vocabularies. Thus, a first work emerges which consists in educating the interlocutor to perceive differences. If an Eskimo wants to be able to make the European understand the difference between the ten types of snow, he will have to associate the word (verbal label) used with some recognizable representation (a photograph, or practical demonstration).

At the same time, in order to be able to negotiate, it is necessary to make the other understand the diversity between his or her culture and our culture. Each of the intercultural negotiators must be available to learn, available to train thanks to the encounter with the other. Negotiation on new products or on projects never implemented before requires a phase of acculturation, which enables the counterparty to orient, understand, and consciously choose within differences that they could not perceive before.

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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intercultural negotiation

Tools and Methods for Intercultural Negotiation Effectiveness

© 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 

The Basic Techniques Useful in Any Intercultural Context

Given the vastness of the field, we prefer to provide a first view of the areas and tools for solution, and then go into the examination of the different tools. Applying the tools to each individual intercultural situation (three of the over twenty listed) would require an entire book dedicated only to the specific situation. This volume lays the foundations for each general situation, leaving the consultancy with the tasks of adapting them to individual cases.

The basic techniques useful in any intercultural context are:

  • empathy and active listening: understanding in depth the behaviors, attitudes, emotions, thought systems of the interlocutor;
  • multi-level listening dynamics: the ability to disaggregate the multiple components of the message, to keep the communicative distance – and therefore the margin of misunderstanding – between the interlocutors “short“;
  • search for sharing of values ​​and results, win-win approach: evaluation of the “impossibility of not understanding each other” on some issues to build a win-win approach, in which both interlocutors can benefit from the negotiation. Starting from the consideration that in order to ask for a lot, one must worry about giving a lot;
  • grounded, experimental and role-playing approach: to test in the field, experiment and refine one’s communication strategies before putting them into action in situations of no return;
  • macro-cultural awareness: understanding the macro-foundations of the culture with which one interacts;
  • analysis of the context: understanding the intentions and goals of the interlocutor, the desired arrival point, the scenario in which he moves and how this affects him;
  • flexible negotiating platforms and adaptive lines of action: building flexible negotiating spaces in which to be able to move;
  • micro-cultural awareness: understanding the cultural dimension hidden and not very evident in the manifestations of the culture of our interlocutor;
  • diagnosis and stratification of the communicator: disaggregate the multiple components of messages to understand which messages are attributable to the culture of origin of our interlocutor, which to his individual personality, which to the role played and which to other contextual factors;
  • emotional centering and removal of the psychological background noise (Mental Noise): prepare to negotiate with a spirit of analysis, attention, free from prejudices; knowing how to free oneself from physical and psychological stress, in order to give the best possible negotiation performance.
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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Categories
intercultural negotiation

Areas of Application of Intercultural Negotiation

© 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 

The Effects of Globalization

Intercultural negotiation is an increasingly pervasive phenomenon due to globalization and the intensification of inter-ethnic, inter-religious, international, business, cultural or social relations. Remaining in the business field, the cases in which intercultural negotiation becomes more evident are:

  • 1. Selling abroad in neighboring cultures and distant cultures.
  • 2. Buying abroad or building supply management agreements, negotiating with foreign suppliers.
  • 3. Business agreements for the distribution of goods or services abroad
  • 4. Joint ventures (construction of companies managed by several partners of different nationalities) for production facilities abroad.
  • 5. Mergers between companies and acquisitions of companies in which the organizational cultures of origin are substantially different (as occurs in almost all cases, both at an intra-national level and at the level of international acquisitions and mergers).
  • 6. Manage the workforce in third countries.
  • 7. Manage the foreign workforce operating in your company.
  • 8. Do multinational training, training programs involving human resources operating in different countries.
  • 9. Intercultural training: cultural diversity between the trainer and the participants, or cultural diversity within the group of students.
  • 10. Coordinate international working groups.
  • 11. Diplomatic negotiation and international agreements.
  • 12. Peacekeeping, peacekeeping, conflict prevention and resolution.
  • 13. International contracts, cross-cultural legal negotiation.

On the mediated communications front, we see the urgency of an intercultural approach whenever problems arise in:

  • 14. Information communication campaigns in distant cultures.
  • 15. Advertising communication spread in different cultures and on international markets.
  • 16. Creation of persuasive and promotional messages on an international scale.
  • 17. Development of product concepts of international significance, destined to operate on global and different markets.
  • 18. Concept development of products aimed solely at a linguistic-cultural area, whose design takes place in a different starting culture.
  • 19. Build distribution and sales structures in different countries.
  • 20. Create personnel incentive and motivation systems appropriate to the local culture. On the social front, instead, we see an urgency of intercultural negotiation and communication skills when addressing the following issues:
  • 21. Scholastic integration of foreign children.
  • 22. Intercultural psychological therapy and intercultural counseling.
  • 23. Dynamics of ethnic adaptation.
  • 24. Interreligious dialogue.
  • 25. International development projects.
  • 26. Social communication campaigns (public health, disease prevention, nutrition education, drugs, and others) conducted in culturally diverse areas.

Over twenty areas of strong and urgent problematic characterize the field of intercultural communication. The vastness and severity of the underlying problems – in this incomplete list – highlights the urgency of a high level of attention to the dynamics of intercultural communication.

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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The Clarification of Concepts and the Precision of Language

© 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 

The Four Descriptive Filters

On the intercultural level, as we have noted, even relatively simple and taken-for-granted concepts (eg: “home”, “work”, “friendship”) are misunderstood. It is therefore advisable to carry out activities of setting the semantic boundaries (setting the meanings) that allow to specify the language. Building the common linguistic basis requires clarification on several levels. Each keyword, each word or concept in general, can be read through at least four descriptive filters. Let’s create an example on the Italian word “gondola”.

The possible attributes are:

  • Perceptive: it is long and narrow:
  • Functional: used to transport tourists;
  • Associatives: it makes me think of Venice;
  • Social-Symbolic: recalls a romantic experience, for classy people;
  • Encyclopedic: it is made of wood, it has been used since the year ….., it is built like this ….

The same problem occurs on the business level. Let’s imagine that we are carrying out a “marketing consultancy” on behalf of an Indian, Korean or Chinese client. We should first compare the two mental images of the word “marketing”, understand which of the two different concepts of marketing the customer is thinking about. For example:

Concept A (marketing as an operational tool). Analysis:Concept B (marketing as a strategic tool). Analysis
Perceptual: marketing is equivalent to advertising and promotion, sales, advertisingPerceptual: Marketing is the search for new or better products to satisfy human needs
Functional: used to sell moreFunctional: used to better design products and services
Associative: it is an instrument of capitalism and consumerismAssociative: it is a research tool
Socio-Symbolic: it is for advanced, large, technological or very managerial companiesSocio-Symbolic: it requires respect for the customer and the will to satisfy him, it can be used by anyone
Encyclopedic: deals with concepts such as the marketing mix, customer satisfaction, promotionEncyclopedic: deals with concepts such as marketing mix, customer satisfaction, promotion, but above all market research, creativity, customer orientation

Starting an intercultural negotiation means first of all clarifying semantic concepts, the latent meanings of words, mental associations, and not taking them for granted. Through associative techniques, it is also possible to search for the “stereotypes” that people possess with respect to the concepts dealt with.

For example, dealing with the training of a salesperson means first of all clarifying what the mental image of our interlocutor is, understanding what is behind the word “salesman”.

Tab. 1 – Different conception of two sales cultures: the seller …

– He has to talk a lot
– He has to be a bit stupid and work hard, no matter he is a graduate
he doesn’t have to do strategy, we make the strategy
– He have to be around all day
– He has to bring us results
– He has to listen a lot he has to be intelligent and creative
– He has to be a strategist of his territory, respecting the guidelines
– He has to act with targeted appointments
– We have to put him in a position to give the best results

Without clarifying these points, any action risks being based on wrong and misunderstood concepts.

negoziazione interculturale
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 

For further information see:

Categories
intercultural communication intercultural negotiation

Intercultural Negotiation. From Incommunicability to Constructive Communication

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

The role of communication

Tracing a path that leads from incommunicability to constructive communication is a titanic undertaking, difficult to complete in a single life, a visionary goal, but also an engine of inspiration. But, however difficult, it deserves a commitment. In decades of scientific research and consultancy in the field, I have been able to experience the difficulty of people in communicating their thoughts, in understanding that of others, and the consequent difficulties of companies in cooperating.

At the same time, I have been able to see (like all of you) that, when communication works, the fruits immediately emerge. On the other hand, when communication is blocked or malfunctioning, conflict is created, interpersonal relationships suffer, common projects between people or between companies do not take off. We can trace with a good degree of precision the problem of incommunicability in cultural diversity – a “by-product” of the encounter / comparison between different cultures – an encounter that is as productive and full of opportunities for growth as it is open to risks and problems.

Culture – in the common sense – includes above all the artistic manifestations of a people, but in the social and managerial sciences it means much more. Culture, in a broader sense, above all means a way of perceiving the world, of categorizing reality, giving meaning to things, relationships, and life. Each of us is a unique individual in his personal culture, in the way of categorizing the world, assessing the importance of objects and people, setting up relationships. What is important and fundamental for me can be a detail for someone else, or for others something that doesn’t even deserve attention.

Each of us has assimilated the pressures and patterns of the groups to which they belong (ethnic, national, professional, family) into their own mental processes, and assimilates part of the models they come into contact with. Culture, according to Shore, can be considered a “collection of models”. In building a new relationship, in negotiating, what are the models I use? What models does my company use, often unconsciously? What are the models of others? The negotiation, even before a meeting between “positions”, of divergences / convergences on the details, is a meeting / clash between models.

With this volume I intend to offer a contribution that lays the foundations for both scientific and operational work, aimed at increasing the ability of people and companies to communicate with each other, aware of their differences, in order to grasp the best of the encounter between cultures. different without having to suffer the dark side of incommunicability and avoidable conflict.

Communicating aware of diversity – communicating in diversity and despite diversity – is a significant step forward. Having dealt with the basic themes in this volume, we will examine advanced techniques in future publications. Moreover, towers are not built without having first laid the foundations.

The repercussions of the “fundamental” tools shown here are potentially very strong, for those who work in companies (entrepreneurs, area managers and export managers), for the managers of projects and international relations, in the management of Human Resources (HR), but also for those who work in the social sector (therapists, counselors, educators), in an increasingly multicultural society.

The Four Distances Model for approaching Intercultural Negotiation

The model is based on the concept of relational distance: how people from different cultures can interact effectively or instead generate interactions based on conflict, incommunicability and misunderstandings, is strictly dependent from the feeling of “closeness” or “distance” that emerges in the interaction patterns between intercultural communicators. The 4 Distances Model, originally developed in the area of intercultural semiotics [1] defines the four main variables that can determine relational distance. Each variable has a subset of more specific hard-type (more tangible) and soft-type (more intangible) sub-variables:

  • D1 – Distance of the Self. Defined by D1A – Hard Distances: biological differences, chronemics-timing differences between communicators emissions/decoding/feedbacks; D1B – Intangible Distances: identity/role/archetype/personality differences;
  • D2 – Communication Codes Distances (Semiolinguistic Distance). Defined by D2A: communication content (hard variables); – D2B: codes, subcodes, signs, symbols, language communication styles (soft variables)
  • D3 – Ideological and value distance: differences in: D3A core values, core beliefs, ideologies, worldviews (hard variables) and D3B peripheral attitudes and beliefs (soft variables)
  • D4 – Referential distance (personal history); D4A – experience with external world objects, physical experiences (hard variables); D4B internal sensations world, emotional past and present (soft variables)

Each of these “Distances Factor” can be determined by means of observation, psychometric measurements, nonverbal content-analysis and verbal content-analysis. The model has proven to be useful in the analysis of intercultural communication critical incidents, incidents due to intercultural communications misunderstanding, as in the International Space Station case[2] and in reducing misunderstanding in Intercultural Research & Development Engineering Teams.[3]

  1. ^ Trevisani, D. 1992. A Semiotic Models Approach to the Analysis of International/Intercultural Communication; published in “Proceedings of the International and Intercultural Communication Conference”, University of Miami, fl., USA, 19–21 May 1992
  2. ^ Stene, Trine Marie; Trevisani, Daniele; Danielsen, Brit-Eli (Dec 16, 2015). “Preparing for the unexpected.”. European Space Agency (ESA) Moon 2020-2030 Conference Proceedings. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4260.9529
  3. ^ Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania, by Gudauskas, Renaldas; Jokubauskiene, Saulė, et. al. “Intelligent Decision Support System for Leadership Analysis”, in Procedia Engineering, Volume 122, 2015, Elsevier. DOI link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2015.10.022 – Pages 172-180

 

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© 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 language except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or in Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com 

For further information see: