This Week's "CULTURE QUIZ©": Negotiating Across Cultures.
Match the country most likely to behave this way in a business negotiation.
Many of you have let me know that you’ve been missing my weekly Culture Quizzes over the last month or so, and that you’ve enjoyed trying to guess the correct answers to the many CultureQuizzes in the past (they are all still right here on my Substack, if you’ve missed any). Thanks for playing along, and I am happy to report that, after having taken a break from them recently in order to introduce my new “Culture’s Consequences” column, I’ll be introducing new Culture Quizzes each week again. It’s lovely to be wanted!
Now that my Culture’s Consequences column is connecting all sorts of cultural dots with the daily headlines, it’s time to return to CultureQuiz© fun and games. In celebration of the anniversary of the publication of my first book, “Bargaining Across Borders” (where I talk about how business negotiation styles differ around the world), I thought it might be fun to see how many of you could connect the business behavior at the negotiation table with the correct culture. So, are all of you global business negotiators ready?
Below are five little negotiation scenarios, specifically around the different ways that cultures behave in a business negotiation. When you understand these differences, you can prepare your own strategies and tactics for successfully managing them…at the negotiating table, at that global meeting, or when you’re planning a project with your colleagues abroad.
Below are this week’s five CultureQuiz© questions, with four possible answers (a., b., c. or d.) But only one answer is the most correct one! (The correct answers for paid subscribers follow the quiz,, so if you haven’t already subscribed to deanfosterglobal.substack.com, you can do so right here).
NEGOTIATION CultureQuiz© questions:
You are prepared to reduce your price once the hard bargaining gets going at the meeting, so you begin by proposing a price significantly higher than you actually expect to pay. You also expect the other side to demand a price much lower than your initial offer. But to your surprise, your colleagues don’t seem to want to bargain at all, and instead are asking you to please justify your high price. You are negotiating with…
a. Russia.
b. The Netherlands.
c. South Africa.
d. Brazil.
Being on a very busy travel schedule, you have limited time for this first meeting, so you jump right into the details of your proposal, foregoing any time-consuming pleasantries. Your colleagues look disappointed, and resistant to making any decisions at the table. You are negotiating with…
a. The USA.
b. Mexico.
c. Switzerland.
d. New Zealand.
Trying to avoid getting bogged down in too many small details, you decide to present a series of bullet points that summarize your conclusions right up front in your presentation. However, your audience immediately starts peppering you with questions, forcing you to dig up all the details you were hoping to avoid, and then having a lively debate about their merit. You are most likely negotiating with…
a. Turkey.
b. Chile.
c. Thailand.
d. France.
“What do you think of the terms of this agreement?” you ask your colleague across the table, after having made your offer. But instead of telling you his thoughts, he glances around at his team, and then thanks you for an interesting meeting, and suggests everyone get together again for drinks and dinner later that night. You are most likely negotiating with…
Scotland.
Korea.
Japan.
Tunisia.
Having put considerable time and effort into building a close working relationship with the lead manager of your client’s team, you are surprised when you ask them for their decision and they inform you that they will be forwarding your request on to an individual with whom you have not been introduced, who has never come to any previous meetings, and whom you did not know would need to be involved in the decision. You are likely negotiating with…
a. China.
b. Saudi Arabia.
c. Sweden.
d. Colombia.
Easy? Hard? So, how many Negotiation CultureQuiz© culture questions did you get right? Here are the correct answers below…and the reasons why!
Here are your correct CultureQuiz© ANSWERS:
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