English For International Negotiations

This innovative case study approach puts students in the center of the action where they can practice communication skills, the art of negotiation, and the cross-cultural aspects of negotiation.

English for International Negotiations is built around the case-study method, and covers a variety of negotiation situations set in more than twenty countries around the world. The Instructor's Manual explains the case-study method, makes teaching suggestions, and provides an answer key for the exercises in the book.

International Negotiations is an exciting new short course (15-20 hours) for Business English learners who want to excel at negotiating. Drawing on inspirational advice from leading experts in negotiation, International Negotiations takes students through the entire negotiation process, from preparing to negotiate to closing the deal. The ten modules give learners the essential language, skills and techniques needed for successful negotiations and cover topics such as relationship-building, questioning techniques, decoding body language, bargaining and the powers of persuasion. Challenging role-plays and skill-building games further develop key negotiation and language skills, while the Key and Commentary provide valuable insights into all aspects of negotiating, including the importance of understanding cultural differences when negotiating.

Intended for professionals who work internationally, the booklet addresses the cross-cultural communication process that is involved whenever persons of widely differing backgrounds attempt to reach agreements. Three countries (Japan, Mexico, and France) are compared and a line of questioning and analysis that a negotiator might find useful, whatever the national identity, is suggested. The first of six sections presents a broad overview of the social psychology of cross-cultural negotiation; the next five sections each deal with a particular "consideration" involved in the process. The first consideration involves understanding the way that negotiators view the negotiation encounter itself (the session's social meaning, who should attend, what kind of conversations should take place, with what courtesy, and with what expected style of debate). The second consideration is concerned with ways that cultural background affects decision making style. The effect of "national character" on the negotiation process, a third consideration, involves the effect of national self-image on negotiation, specific values and implicit assumptions of negotiators, and cultural differences in styles of logic, reasoning, and persuasion. The fourth consideration, "coping with cross-cultural noise," covers the background distractions, including noise, the presence of other people, and habits or idiosyncracies that bother one party or the other. A fifth consideration, "trusting interpreters and translators" is the topic of the final section. This section examines actual limits in translating ideals, concepts, meanings, and nuances; the subjective meaning on each side of a translation; and built-in styles of reasoning that resist translation. (LH)

This volume guides you through the general legal and cultural issues that can arise during international business negotiations. It contains a combination of general theory, practical strategies and guidance to help the reader in dealings with 24 different jurisdictions around the world.

Tony English wrote Tug of War for negotiation experts and others who might be interested in a fresh analytical method which draws on the literature of negotiation but delves into many other disciplines, including international relations, fine arts, philosophy, management, anthropology and psychology. The book focuses on international negotiation but is relevant to negotiation in general. Tony interviewed many veteran negotiators in diplomacy, hostage release and business. He weaves the rich character, skills and experience of individual veterans into the book, and presents two cases in fine detail. The informants include: Hugh Davies, lead British negotiator for the return of Hong Kong to China; Sir Alan Donald, British Ambassador to China and several other countries; Terry Waite, of Beirut kidnap fame; Meg McDonald, Australian Ambassador for the Environment and team leader for the greenhouse gas negotiations at Kyoto; Malcolm Lyon, Australia's lead negotiator for the Torres Strait Treaty with Papua New Guinea; Don Kenyon, Australian Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the European Union, and former Chairman of the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body; Doug Anderson, Managing Director of P and O Ports; Sam Passow, Research Director of London's Centre for Dispute Resolution; Geoff Goon, a major exporter of fruit and vegetables from Australia to the Middle East; Steven Hochman and Kirk Wolcott, dispute resolution advisers to President Jimmy Carter; and a few others who needed anonymity. Tony also draws on his own experience in several countries. At the core of the book is the tension, which comprises complementary phenomena, both physical and abstract, that compete for influence over our behaviour. Profuse forces generate tensions. Tony presents a model of negotiation context that comprises tensions and the forces generating them. Expert negotiators are expert tension managers and therefore have high 'contextual intelligence', a variation on Robert Sternberg's concept of Successful Intelligence in cognitive psychology. Tony links contextual intelligence with seven traits identified in his veterans. Some writers refer to the tension but neglect its nuances and miss its generic value in analysing negotiations and other human activity as people try to impose manageable order on chaotic information. We are all tension managers, whether or not we are aware of it.