Our goal is to help Western and Chinese negotiators learn to work together more efficiently with mutual respect and gain the ultimate prizes. Four thick threads of culture have bound the Chinese people together for some 5,000 years, and these show through in Chinese business negotiations.
These moral values express themselves in the Chinese negotiating style. Chinese negotiators are more concerned with the means than the end, with the process more than the goal. The best compromises are derived only through the ritual back-and-forth of haggling. This process cannot be cut short.
He is the co-author, with Lydia Lawrence and William Hernández Requejo, of Inventive Negotiations. N. Mark Lam is an attorney and business adviser specializing in East–West negotiations.
Deep cultural differences have created seemingly incompatible contrasts between Chinese and Westerners’ approaches to negotiation. Often, Chinese businesspeople see Americans as aggressive, impersonal, and excitable. Westerners may see Chinese negotiators as inefficient, indirect, and even dishonest. The consequence?
Shipwright, an oil industry sales executive, traveled to Shanghai to nail what he believed was already a done deal. He was well briefed by the team that had begun the negotiation, armed with a handy pamphlet about Chinese business practices and etiquette, and bolstered by friends’ advice.
All too often, Americans see Chinese negotiators as inefficient, indirect, and even dishonest, while the Chinese see American negotiators as aggressive, impersonal, and excitable.
Young, who had worked as a consultant to GM since 1983 and joined the company in 1988 as vice president of consumer market development, boasted an Ivy League education and a wall full of awards, including Woman of the Year for the Chinese-American Planning Council.