A thought I'm stealing from cross-cultural negotiations.
It's not very American to say 'It is more about personal connection, trust, and respect--than about what the "deal" will exchange.' (But sometimes it is.)
I have a favorite cross-cultural anecdote from the book “Negotiating for Dummies.” (A book that I have found incredibly useful for reasons I’d rather not admit.) I just re-read said anecdote, and apparently it still makes my heart catch in my throat.
The author of the book, a lawyer who specializes in negotiations and contracts within Hollywood’s entertainment industry,1 wrote of a time when he was assisting with a negotiation between a producer from India and his more local client.
The tale begins with the frustrations of client and lawyer leading to “one last call” to the producer—they were planning
Michael C. Donaldson, the author recounts:
When I reluctantly put in the call to set the meeting, I had to listen to the producer complain about how curt my client had been to him. Then he complained about the last offer. I cut to the chase and set the meeting. In closing, he complained about how I had never accepted his invitation to have tea.
As I returned the phone to its cradle, I understood what he was saying for the first time. Unfortunately, that is often when inspiration dawns. In this case, however, it was not too late to fix a terrible mistake…
Donaldson saw it. He “got it”—he got that the suggestion of having tea with him wasn’t some idle side comment. In fact, it was close to the heart of the issue.
In one memorable story told by a leader in Christian ministry in Sri Lanka, Ajith Fernando, there wasn’t time to fix a similar mistake:
...a staff worker asked me to convey a message to a home in a village I was to pass by. When I went to the home, the family asked me to stay on to have a cup of tea. I told them that I was rushing to be on time for a meeting, and I left immediately. But in our villages it is impolite to leave like that without giving our hosts an opportunity to show us hospitality. The word went out that the Youth-For-Christ Director [that is, Ajith Fernando] had come to the village but was too proud to stay and have a cup of tea. I later realized that if I was not willing to stay for a cup of tea, I should not have gone there at all.
They felt jilted and disrespected by a (seemingly) self-important so-and-so.
One of my father’s favorite remarks for one sort of person he disapproved of was pretty telling: “They wouldn’t give you the time of day.”
Anyway, back in the “Negotiating for Dummies” author’s story, he met with the producer whom he was in a negotiation with:
When Amin arrived at my office, we sat on the sofas in the corner. My assistant brought hot tea—steeped, not from a bag. We talked of many things, but not one word about his film. I must confess to getting a little antsy when we hit the half-hour mark. Our time together was almost up. We had verbally visited India, but we had not advanced my client's position—or so I thought. As if to stir me from my fretful reverie, Amin said, “You know, Michael, I could accept the entire deal if it were for one year and not five.”
And THAT is what makes my heart laugh!
Just when the American lawyer worries that he has made no progress—he was suddenly jolted into the awareness that, actually, he has almost “sewed up” the whole deal—by taking no further direct actions.
But how can that be? Isn’t all “progress” in a negotiation indicated by clear, definite, on-topic statements made by each party? Straightforward information relevant to what goods, services, and commodities will be exchanged? What terms each party will accept or reject? That is what our Western-style assumptions seem to insist, but it is simply not true.2
Ah—but if you have been sitting here wondering, “But maybe the ‘one year and not five’ suggestion of the Indian producer was a gambit to suggest something impossible and ensure the deal would be dropped?” then sorry for keeping you in suspense, dear reader! I wondered that for a second too. But I had more context to confirm things worked out: it was fine. Donaldson continued:
I was stunned. I took a deep breath, thanked him, and explained why my client needed five years. We went back and forth a few times… [and Donaldson was able to come up with an agreement that satisfied everyone.]
I wish I could have an explanation legitimately rooted in “the culture of my childhood” to explain how I, too, always wish for some “chatty back-and-forth,” some social or personal dimension to mix in with each and every necessarily-transactional concern that comes up.
When I needed to write to a family member about something that was purely about money or related responsibilities, I always itched to include something personal—but fretted about how much to include. Writing a 3-paragraph note about subjects of interest with one line at the end to say, “I just cashed the check yesterday” seemed most appropriate. But I could never do it within a reasonable time frame: I kept procrastinating about cashing the check, and also was far too nervous to think of what to say. (Now, much later, I have concluded there were other, odder undercurrents rippling under the surface of those interactions.)
That was only looking at it from one side: “What do I do for them?” The other side is “What do I want them to do for me?” and that was an area where I’ve been notably blind. I’ve finally admitted that when the personal and the transactional get tangled up together, I’ve so often been the prideful party ready to take offense. I want the friend or loved one to “slow down” and show me they will carry on a non-business-focused conversation with me; drop everything if necessary. Reassure me that whatever the pressing business of the moment is right now, it’s not the apex of our relationship: there’s also the personal dimension, and that supersedes it. Which is a thing I’m “just supposed to know” by now, by all normative standards. And so I couldn’t speak it, couldn’t even think it, really, until lately.
Well, that was a lot of words about me.
What I’m trying to say is that there are good reasons for the tradition that the Indian producer had “in his bones.” Maybe “taking tea together” seems crazy out-of-place in the fast-paced world he entered. (It certainly confused the people who he needed to negotiate with!) But I can think of quite a few good reasons for it.
Good reasons? Yeah. Reasons like assessing character, verifying reputation, and testing the communications channels. You can have lots of money and a total chokehold on an industry that some guy cares about, but if you can’t be trusted, why should he make a deal with you? (“Negotiating for Dummies” says as much elsewhere!)
In an even more sensitive negotiation—one between an American who wanted information about a young person who went missing in war-torn Syria, and “the Sheikh,” a local power broker in one corner of the Arab world, it’s made even more clear:
“You look so dejected, Daniel,” Jamil said softly. “Don’t be. I will fill you in on everything we know, and hopefully you will be able to find Mr. Blocher.”
Above, just like in the lawyer’s negotiation, we have the surprise moment where he learns he’s succeeded. He immediately asks the question most on his mind—why on earth did I have to risk life and limb to come out here:
“I don’t get it, Jamil,” I said. “Did you have this information all along, or did you find it all out from the Sheikh today?”
Jamil didn’t answer immediately. “Hussein and I were the ones tasked by the Sheikh to get information after he had the conversation with Khalid last week.”
“So you could have just filled me in when we met in Istanbul?” I asked, increasingly irritated that I had been forced to fly to Beirut for no apparent reason.
But his interlocutor will not tolerate Daniel’s confused view of things—especially the idea that there was no reason for the recent interview, and all its troublesome inconveniences to Daniel:
Jamil shook his head in mock disappointment. “By now I would've expected you to have a better sense of how things work around here.”
"What do you mean?”
"The question was not whether we were able to find out something,”Jamil said.
“It wasn’t?” I was confused. “Then what was the question?”
"The question was whether we would share that information with you. And whether we would give it to you for free or whether we would ask for something in return."
And that could be a line out of a movie. Information is not cheap; sometimes the ways the costs are paid play out according to the logic of a given culture.
This last anecdote is from “Proof of Life: Twenty days on the hunt for a missing person in the Middle East,” by Daniel Levin—a very riveting work of non-fiction, which I highly recommend.
And the point of that story is that sometimes people explicitly work by the logic of relationship and reputation. It’s there—even if 21st-century America seems to think it’s irrelevant—no, it’s always there.
The author, Michael Donaldson, is like, a former marine, and a father who raised two daughters as a single dad, and a really down-to-earth sort of guide and mentor towards his reader—all but that last one are less-relevant to the story at hand, though!
I want to add “You can even argue against it with Game Theory!” but laying out that argument would take more time.
Very well put. EVERYTHING stands or falls on relationships, and if we don't invest the time to cultivate those relationships, what, really, are we doing? "If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."