Negotiating Teams

What are the most important considerations in selecting a negotiation team? Give examples. Why is time an important consideration in international business negotiations. There are four steps that lead to more efficient and effective international business negotiations. The first step is to select an appropriate negotiation team. Successful global business is dependent on a skillful international negotiator. A good negotiator should be mature, flexible, empathetic, emotionally stable, knowledgeable, optimistic, team player, good listener, influential, and have stamina.

Probably the single most important quality needed for a negotiator is listening. A good negotiator must also be aware of cultural differences with whom they are negotiating. It is important to know the negotiating differences between people involved like their language, values, non verbal behaviors, and decision making process. For example, the American culture is based on independence and individualism. Americans need to learn how be part of a team and use team assistance to be a successful negotiation team.

Another example, in regards to being a good listener, would be that someone on the negotiation team needs to collect information by taking good notes during meetings. It is very important that they listen carefully without speaking and interpret the needs of the people that they are negotiating with. Generally, experienced negotiators say that there is never enough time to prepare for negotiations. Lots of time is needed to assess the situation, assess the people you are negotiating with, gather facts, plan an agenda, think about possible agreements and strategies, and assign the team their responsibilities.

Different cultures think differently on how their time is spent during negotiations. Some cultures like to structure negotiation time tackling all the issues at once and other cultures like to split up the issues and tackle them one at a time. Making sure that enough time is spent on each step of negotiations can vary from country to country. Time is an important factor to make sure that all four steps: nontask sounding, task related information exchange, persuasion, and concessions and agreements all receive an appropriate amount of time dedicated to each step.

Certain cultures are more sensitive to time, like Americans, and if others involved in the negotiations don’t keep appropriate timing to the start, during, and end of negotiations it may cause misunderstandings. Time is involved in all steps of international business negotiations and is very important consideration during the planning, during the process of negotiations, after the negotiations and related to cultural awareness.