Negotiating in an Anti-American Environment

By Jim Camp

Consider these facts:

• U.S. companies have assets of $2.5 trillion abroad.
• 30% of the profits earned by companies on the Standard & Poor's 500 are from foreign operations.
• A recent Roper survey conducted in 17 countries found that foreigners now characterize the U.S. brand as arrogant, indifferent toward others' cultures, exploitative, corrupting and profit-driven above all else.

How do you negotiate with someone who hates you? Here are seven tips for American businesspeople facing mistrustful foreign opponents in global business transactions:

1. Don't react. The key to decision-based negotiating, as opposed to emotion-based negotiating (i.e., win-win), is emotional neutrality. If your opponent hates or mistrusts you from the get-go, don't try to impress or be friends.
   
   
2. Don't offer a compromise at the start. Once you do this, you signal to your opponent that you're ready to give something up in order to get to an agreement. Trying to make both sides happy is an emotion-based decision—the basic flaw with win-win negotiating.
   
   
3. Don't think about closing the deal. Despite everything you learned in business school, hoping or planning for the outcome is a deal killer, in Camp's system. Stay grounded in the present moment and what your opponent says and does next.
   
   
4. The greater their emotion, the greater your opportunity. If your opponent speaks through accusations or veiled insults, you are in a perfect position to demonstrate reason, calmness, and mastery of the issues. A businessperson with a superiority complex is an ideal opponent. Let him feel in control; stay focused on your position and expertise.
   
   
5. Talk little; ask questions and listen. Cross-cultural training, the darling of international negotiation schools, is not the key to understanding your opponent. Pose interrogative-led questions (who, what, when, where, why, how) to get him to reveal hidden agendas and positions. Take notes; observe; keep your mouth shut.
   
   
6. Respect is always earned. In Systematic Decision-based Negotiating, every decision is based on information disclosed right at the table. Once he sees that you are listening and asking insightful questions, he will regard you as an individual, not as an ugly American.
   
   
7. Stay focused on your mission and purpose. In every successful negotiation, set your M&P in your opponent's world, not in your own. Focus on how you can help him realize that offering XYZ to you will be beneficial to him.

Learn more about effective negotiation tactics at these AMA Seminars:

• Negotiating to Win
• How to Communicate with Diplomacy, Tact and Credibility

Author Bio: Jim Camp is president of Coach2100, Inc., a negotiation training and management firm and is the author of Start with No (Crown Business). His clients have included Motorola, Texas Instruments, Merrill Lynch, IBM and Prudential Insurance. His Website is www.startwithno.com.