Chapter One. Negotiation Basics

Negotiation is the process by which people with conflicting interests determine how they are going to allocate resources or work together in the future. Negotiators are interdependent, which means that what one wants affects what the other can have and vice versa. Because negotiation involves conflicting interests and interdependence it takes some skills to be an effective negotiator. One of the purposes of this book is to help you improve your negotiation skills. Another is to get you prepared to negotiate with people who do not share your cultural background, people who you cannot assume even think about the process of negotiations in the same way you do.

To get you prepared to negotiate globally we begin with the basics. If you are already an experienced negotiator, having closed deals, resolved disputes, and even taken a negotiation course or workshop, the basics in this chapter should be familiar. But if you have never negotiated in a global environment—or have and were not satisfied with the result—you need the overview of culture in Chapter Two to get up to speed. For those with a background in international business, Chapter Two will not so much be new as a new way to organize your thinking about your experiences working in an international setting. Whatever your background, the first two chapters of the book provide all the language and conceptual frameworks to get you ready for learning how to negotiate in a global setting. By the time you get to Chapter Three, which leads you through the process of analyzing a cross-cultural negotiation and preparing a strategy, and Chapter Four, which coaches you on implementing that strategy, you’ll be ready to negotiate globally!