The Latin American negotiator is basically a friendly and informal bargainer, who is not very precise in his terms. He prefers to negotiate among friends, This is the central basis of his trust in his counterpart. He does not sacrifice the short term to obtain advantages in the long run; he prefers immediate satisfaction in every deal.
It is not noted for its punctuality and compliance, but is very impatient when the other does so; it is very flexible in the use of time; it comes from a polychronic culture. Decisions are centralized at the highest level, and are made by the boss as an individual; advisory or technical groups participate in meetings, but the only real spokesperson is the boss.
These conclusions were reached in an extensive study on intercultural negotiationconducted through qualitative research based on face-to-face interviews with open-ended questions. A total of 1,500 interviews were conducted with people who recounted their experience of a specific negotiation.
The study began with negotiations between Japanese and Colombians; the Japanese interviewees indicated that in general there were similar negotiation patterns among the various Latin American countries, a hypothesis that was explored and confirmed during a semester of research in Tokyo with the Institute of Developing Economies.
Subsequently, interviews were conducted on negotiations in Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and other Latin American countries. Likewise, Colombia's negotiations with the United States, France, the Middle East, Germany, China and other countries or cultures of the world were also studied.
The essence of negotiation for Latinos is bargaining; confronted with cultures that use other processes to reach an agreement (such as the Japanese), he feels perplexed and almost disillusioned: "Well, I did go to Tokyo, but in reality there was no negotiation: they asked 450,000 dollars for that machinery... and two weeks later we closed at 450,000 dollars!
There was no negotiation. In other words, if there is no bargaining there is no negotiation, if there are no concessions (or rebates) the process is a waste of time.
Another key element is that Latinos prefer negotiation to take place among friends, in a cordial atmosphere. This is identical to the Japanese preference, the aspect that builds the best bridges between the two cultures, but it does not work so well everywhere. Anglo-Saxons, for example, find this peculiar and even embarrassing, as they prefer an impersonal atmosphere (even if the protocol and treatment are informal) in which to negotiate, as a representation of interests and not as the personalized process preferred by Latin Americans.
Compared to other cultures, the Latino thinks in the short term, in the realm of the immediate, the spontaneous, the improvised, the sudden brilliant idea, the priority of the moment over the planned. They are more oriented to the present than to the future, and their Latin experience of time is polychronic: several things at the same time, a mixture of the personal and the business.
By contrast, Anglo-Saxon cultures have a fragmented sense of time, they do one thing at a time, negotiating point by point. For Latin Americans it is easier to negotiate en bloc, the whole package of points at once and exchanging one for another, which is the international trend in negotiations.
How do they develop trust? They believe in their intuition about others, especially influenced by personal closeness and similarity: they trust the one who can be a friend, negotiations are cemented by friendly relations.
This is very strange to other cultures, such as Anglo-Saxon (which relies on written contracts and the legal system), Japanese (which develops trust slowly through experience), or even French (which tends to view negotiation as a debate or confrontation, in which trust is distrusted from beginning to end). Arab and Middle Eastern cultures share some of this attitude toward friendship as the basis for trust in negotiations.
