Global Negotiation: The New Rules

Citation

Zhu, L. (2009), "Global Negotiation: The New Rules", International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 420-421. https://doi.org/10.1108/10444060910991093

Global Negotiation: The New Rules, written by William Hernandez Raquejo and John L. Graham, teaches new rules of negotiation in the context of globalization. The book provides a practical guide to people who are or plan to be involved in international negotiation. It explores cultural differences, discusses why culture matters in negotiation and teaches people how to take advantage of the global context to remain successful. Even though the book has a clear business focus, it has valuable insights for people in other fields of international sphere as well.

The book begins with two examples of international negotiation. One involves a flying chair and another involves billions of dollars in the Amazon jungle. This sounds like scenarios taken from exciting fiction movies, but the setting of exotic foreign lands did not make these negotiations any less real. The failure of the US American negotiation teams in the two cases demonstrates that the old rules in negotiation no long apply in the context of global negotiation.

The authors, who work as consultants for international corporations as well as business professors, proposed ten new rules of negotiation. In Part I of the book, they reviewed the old rules of negotiation, including “being independent”, “informal”, “direct”, “aggressive” and “persistent”. However, the book revealed the inadequacy of these rules and their damage to creativity in international negotiation. The authors laid out the structure of culture and explained cultural differences between North America and other parts of the world. According to the book, there are two types of culture ‐ information‐oriented culture and relationship‐oriented culture. John Wayne's “I can go it alone” style which serves North American business people well simply does not work with negotiation partners from relationship‐oriented cultures. In Chapter 2 of the book culture is decomposed into different elements and Chapter 3 illustrates how different parts of culture impact people's communication and management styles. A special contribution of the book is that it made a clear distinction between different parts of Asia and North America instead of lumping countries together and making unwarranted assumptions. At the end of Part I, authors alert readers to attend to factors beyond national culture, such as industries, expatriate experiences, age, regional differences, race and gender.

Part II of the book focuses on innovative solutions, including information gathering, designing negotiation, reaching agreement and finally implementing negotiation results. The authors constantly challenge their readers to think out of the box. Useful tools are provided for people to do innovative thinking. This is consistent with the purpose of the book: teach people how to fish instead of being content with giving people fish. The fish metaphor appears more than once in the book. Interested readers should read the book and find out why negotiation is like fishing and how proverbs in each chapter all fit the fish metaphor. The advice provided in this part is relevant to previous discussion in Part 1: With knowledge about other cultures, innovation is made easier. For example, knowing that most Asian teams do not tackle tasks sequentially will help negotiators reorganize priorities. Knowing that people from relationship‐oriented cultures emphasize relationship will help negotiators to be more patient and spend more time in initial stage to warm up. The authors pointed out that the disadvantage of lack of bilingual skills and knowledge of other cultures cannot be offset by talking to foreign business partner's interpreter. In Chapter 7 specific tips are given that will be helpful in various aspects of negotiation preparation.

Part III of the book focuses specifically on negotiation in India, Mexico and China. Readers interested in these nations or cultures would be delighted to learn about their history, underlying cultural values and governing social rules. The last part of the book reiterates the purpose of the book: promoting a “revolutionary style of global negotiation” (p. 231), which features collaborative creativity. The book is finished with prescriptions for companies in business negotiation.

An ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu asserted in his Art of the War “knowledge of self and of your opponent guarantees success in the battlefield.” The rule can be applied in the business world. William Hernandez Raquejo and John L. Graham applied this philosophy very well in their book by providing knowledge of US American culture and cultural ways from other countries. Furthermore, they proposed a new way of framing negotiation: an emphasis on cooperation and a de‐emphasis on competitiveness, which comes from recognition of the interdependence of world business and trade. This perspective is not only refreshing but also revolutionary. To William Hernandez Raquejo and John L. Graham, innovative solutions are not split of profit; better than that, it represents an increment of profit on both sides of the negotiation table.

Global Negotiation: The New Rules draws from both qualitative and quantitative research. Statistics and personal stories go hand by hand. It could be used as textbook for negotiation or business courses, but it is also a good‐afternoon past‐time. In addition, the language used in the book is easily accessible to readers from non‐native‐English background. As the authors asserted, this book is not only for business people from the US, but also for business people from around the world. Furthermore, even though Global Negotiation: The New Rules has business people as its target audience, diplomats and other practitioners of international negotiations and conflict management will find this book equally valuables and enlightening.