Managing Cultural Differences in Your Negotiations Workshop

Your clients and negotiation partners may come from nations all around the world. Your abilities to understand your own negotiation style, to handle barriers as results of cultural differences, to gain trust from your partners and create joint gains make an enormous impact on the outcomes of a negotiation. This workshop uses a research-based and scenario driven approach to unravel the skills you need to learn to become a successful negotiator in a multicultural setting.

Date, Time, Venue

Date: 28th  September, 2017 (Thur)

Time: 9:00am – 1:00pm (Total 4 hours)
*Complimentary light refreshment is included

Venue: Admiralty Learning Centre

Language: English supplemented by Cantonese

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the workshop, the attendees should be able to:

• Understand individual negotiation styles versus other cultures’;
• Manage cultural differences in the negotiation process;        
• Acquire skills to win trust, gain insights, and create joint values for business outcomes;
• Decipher which strategies to use for business negotiations in a multicultural setting.

Programme Curriculum

Session One - Identifying Your Negotiation Style (Pre-Workshop Activity)

• Participants receive the Thomas Kilman Questionnaire one week before the workshop;
• Following instructions, participants self-administer the questionnaire and score their answers to identify individual negotiation style;
• Participants will bring the result to the workshop for discussion.

Session Two -  Why knowledge and skills of managing cultural differences are important in negotiations?

• Provide real life scenarios showing the consequence of not being able to handle cultural differences;
• Elicit personal experiences of participants for further illustrations.

Session Three -  The true color of 'Negotiation' and 'Cultural Differences'

• Definitions of ‘Negotiation’ and ‘Cultural Differences’;
• Invite individuals to share on prior knowledge of the topic;
• Discover together the various aspects of the negotiation process and of cultural differences. Use exploration, teamwork and KWL strategy;
• Write on easel papers participants’ inputs.

Session Four -  Two Dollar Game

• Organize participants in groups of two to play this game;
• Explain the goal, process and rules of the game;
• The whole group plays the game in pairs for two to three rounds depending on time availability;
• Participants share out findings on partner interests in big group;
• Debrief with the negotiation theory, the nature of competition, and the secret instructions on negotiation styles.

Session Five -  Negotiation Styles and the Cultural Dimension Chart

• Based on the results of the pre-workshop activity, ask by show of hands the distribution of styles in the group and collaborative findings from the game;
• Use PowerPoint to discuss scenarios of the 5 negotiation styles and the Cultural Dimension Chart;
• Discuss in large group how to make the most for each negotiation styles in a cultural diverse setting.

Session Six -  The High Context and Low Context Cultures

• Use PowerPoint slides to present research findings on cultural patterns of communication norms and the role of trust in inter and intra-cultural negotiations;
• Introduce the dichotomy of high context and low context cultures and the concepts of insights and joint gains;
• Provide examples and invite participants to share those light bulb moments of cultural awakening from personal negotiation experience;
• Present on how to strategize the substantiation, offers, questions, and answers skills in cross cultural negotiations.

Session Seven -  Negotiation Scenario Study and Applications

• Based on authentic business negotiations with American, Japanese, and Chinese partners, illustrate how the cultural context and individual style can influence the outcomes and how to manage it;
• Participants practice in groups on how to adapt negotiation strategies in their industries to create insights and maximize outcomes;
• Participants report what are working and what are not.

Who should Attend

• Directors and senior managers who have to conduct negotiations involving partners from a different culture (Mainland China, US, Europe and Emerging Countries in particular)

Statement of attendance

A STATEMENT OF ATTENDANCE from HKU SPACE will be issued to all students who have successfully completed the workshop.

ONLINE REGISTRATION

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DOWNLOAD Enrollment FORM

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