Violating expectations
during negotiations can
kill the deal

Traveling to the United States to investigate investment possibilities, two Japanese investors contacted various state agencies that assisted small businesses.

The investors asked people in the agencies about entrepreneurs who were willing to share their business plans. In one state, the agency official contacted several businesspeople and asked them if they would like to make a presentation to the Japanese visitors. The official also invited various local investors to attend.

After introductions and a warm welcome by the agency's executive director, two of the American entrepreneurs began a joint presentation that described their plans for a software development organization.

Several of the people in the audience knew the speakers. These audience members asked lighthearted questions and kidded the speakers concerning their use of an old version of Power Point.

"If you are proposing the latest in software, why are you using the technology of three years ago in your presentation?" one asked, in a humorous effort to keep the meeting pleasant.

During a break in the presentation, the people who knew each other discussed their golf scores and their favorite baseball teams.

The two Japanese visitors were silent during the second half of the presentation. Afterward, they left the meeting and the agency officials never heard from them again.

The officials thought that the entrepreneurs had made a good presentation, and they wondered why the Japanese had not responded in a more positive manner.

One reason for the poor reception is that the Americans violated a cultural script. Based on research by Yale University's Robert Abelson, "scripts" refer to collections of behaviors that people use to accomplish their goals. Scripts have a beginning, a middle and an end, and involve sequences of behaviors that become familiar to members of a culture.

In Hawaii, part of the script after arriving at someone's home is to take off your shoes. At an business organization's meeting of employees, executives present guest speakers with leis. When a child turns 1 year old, part of the celebration script is to hold a luau.

These behaviors in Hawaii are not often part of home visits, wedding receptions, and 1-year old birthday parties in other states.

The Americans at the meeting were unaware of the Japanese visitors' expectations. In Japan, meetings where entrepreneurs present business plans are serious matters. People behave in very reserved ways and there is no place for humor or lighthearted remarks.

In contrast, the Americans knew each other prior to the meeting, and felt that a few jokes and kidding remarks would be appropriate.

In disagreeing, the Japanese worried that the Americans were not serious about their business plans. They asked themselves, if the businesspeople joke so much, would they be careful and diligent with investments that we might make?

When dealing with people from other cultural backgrounds, it is often wise to ask, "What script am I in? Do people in other cultures expect a set of behaviors that might be different than those I intended to demonstrate?"

People who have lived in other cultures, such as Japanese nationals who have had overseas assignments, are often good informants when such questions are posed to them.