Chinese Negotiating Styles

5 Chinese Negotiating Styles
ChinaSolved
Spring 2013
Property of ChinaSolved. All Rights
Reserved. Copyright @2013

All negotiators, Chinese,
Western or any other, fall into 1
of 5 categories, or TYPES.

5 Types of Negotiators (Universal)
• Competitive
• Compromising
• Accommodating / Yielding
• Avoiding
• Collaborating

Reading List Recommendation
• G. Richard Shell’s
Bargaining for Advantage

Two dimensions:
• How important are YOUR goals to you?
• How important are HIS goals to you?

Your Benefit / Goal
• High
• Mid
• Low

Your Benefit / Goal
• Maximize value of this transaction• High
• Mid
• Low

Your Benefit / Goal
• Maximize value of this transaction
Unique asset
Strong bargaining position
Confident
• High
• Mid
• Low

Your Benefit / Goal
• Professional sales
• High
• Mid
• Low

Your Benefit / Goal
• Professional sales
Moderate value transaction
Retail / commodity
• High
• Mid
• Low

Your Benefit / Goal
• You NEED this sale
• High
• Mid
• Low

Your Benefit / Goal
Low regard for your own goal?
Imagine you have a warehouse full of
ice cream in August and your freezer
just broke.
If you don’t sell it – you have to clean
it up.
• High
• Mid
• Low

His Benefit / Goal
Low Mid High

His Benefit / Goal
You feel that time or
circumstances are in your favor.
You have non-economic
considerations.
Low Mid High

His Benefit / Goal
Normal business.
Professional sales.
Low Mid High

His Benefit / Goal
You really need this client.
Strategic relationship
Few buyers
High value transaction
Low Mid High

Now let’s combine these two
dimensions into a matrix of 5
negotiating types or styles…

Negotiating StylesYour Benefit
His Benefit

His Benefit
Competitive
AccommodativeAvoiding
Compromising

Competitive Type
• Typical Win-Lose aggressive negotiator.
• In the US, this is the arch-typical “used car
salesman” personality.
• 99-1 in his favor.

His Benefit
Competitive
AccommodativeAvoiding
Collaborative
Compromising

Accommodative Type
• He really needs to make this sale.
• It is a buyers market, and he needs to unload
his goods before they go bad.
• 1 – 99 (not in your favor) is OK.

Collaborative Type
• Win-Win
• Let’s enlarge the pie and create value.
• 2 + 2 = 5

Avoiding Type
• Wins by not playing.
• He doesn’t gain from transacting – but may
have to work harder or take a risk.
• Bureaucrat or reluctant buyer.

Compromising Type
• Some call him “win win”, but others call him
“lose lose”.
• He transacts often, but doesn’t maximize
value.
• Both sides leave the table feeling they could
have done better.

Part 2:
The Chinese Negotiating
Personalities

Competitive Type: Chinese Edition
• Competitors will often appear to be very
accommodative – offering to bend over
backwards to help you.
– May even be very flexible on certain issues –
particularly schedules, timetables, sales targets
and other things that can’t be easily enforced
later.

Competitive Type: Chinese Edition
• Don’t fall into the trap of negotiating solely
on price with competitive counterparties.
– Technology
– Intellectual Property
– Assets
– Customers & Client lists
– Deal terms

Accommodators: Chinese Edition
• Accommodators exist in China, but you have
to be doubly careful here.
– Beware of counterparties who look helpful but are
really gathering information, methods and IP that
they can use against you later.
– But wolves in sheep’s clothing aren’t your only
problem here…

Accommodators: Chinese Edition
• In China kindness can kill as passive colleagues
and counterparties smile and nod as you
blunder into disaster.
• Accommodators often put a very high value
on their own knowledge and contacts.
– They expect to be paid for helping you – but you
have to know what to ask for and how to ask.

Compromisers: Chinese Edition
• Compromise is an integral part of China’s
consensus-oriented culture and your
counterparty may look like he’s really
searching for a fair solution.
– It’s possible – but he also may have anticipated
your naïve willingness to sign a deal and will
employ the meet- in-the-middle” technique more
commonly seen at one of China’s many ‘fake
markets’.

Compromisers: Chinese Edition
• Here they set a price 400% above their real
target, and will try to compromise you down
to a mere 200% overcharge.
– Don’t start negotiating as soon as they call out a
number.
– Learn the market and control the parameters of
the discussion at the start. (I.e.: Just because they
say 500 doesn’t mean you are required to shout
back a counter offer.)

Avoiders: Chinese Edition
• Avoiders are common in China, and are most
likely to show up in government
bureaucracies, mid-level managers at
corporations and the heads of State Owned
Enterprises.

Avoiders: Chinese Edition
• China’s Imperial legacy lives on in its
bureaucracy, and you may find it extremely
difficult to meet the real decision-maker face-
to-face.
• Beware: if you can’t get a satisfactory answer
to basic questions before you sign a deal
you’re probably going to have a lot more
trouble afterwards.

Collaborators: Chinese Edition
• Collaborative negotiators are your greatest
hope and your worst fear in China.
– On the one hand a true value-adding partner can
open doors and supply vital market information.
– The problem is that lots of Chinese counterparties
like to talk like the boss even if they don’t have the
power to back it up.

Collaborators: Chinese Edition
• The result is a lot of big plans that don’t ever
amount to anything.
– Newcomers to China have been known to build
these optimistic notions into internal business
plans – and later face disappointed senior
managers who want to know what happened to
the budding China JV.
– Beware of partners who move too fast when
negotiating in China.

Relationships Precede
Transactions
• China is a relationship-oriented negotiating
environment.
• Anyone who moves too quickly may not have
your best interests at heart.
• Beware of the Chinese talent for building trust
early and then manipulating your new
relationship to their advantage.

About Andrew Hupert - Author
• 10+ years in China,
– 3 in Taiwan & HK
• Principal at Best Practices China ltd
– Specialist in US-China Negotiation
– Corporate training, consulting, and
project management
• Publisher of ChinaSolved.com and
ChineseNegotiation.com
• Author – Guanxi for the Busy
American and The Fragile Bridge
Full list of publications and
slideshows available on
www.AndrewHupert.com
Reserved. Copyright 2013

Guanxi for the Busy American
• A professional’s guide to
building relationships in
China.
• Written for the Western
negotiator who needs
to transact and execute.
• Available on Kindle,
iBook and all major e-
formats.

The Fragile Bridge
• Conflict Management in
Chinese Business .
• Building relationships is
easy – maintaining
them is hard. Learn to
do it right.
• Available on Kindle,
iBook and all major e-
formats.

Contact
www.ChinaSolved.com
www.ChineseNegotiation.com
Linkedin: ChinaSolved
YouTube Channel:
www.youtube.com/Chinasolved

About Andrew Hupert
• 10 years in mainland China,
– 3 in Taiwan & HK
• Author of “Fragile Bridge –
Managing Conflict in Chinese Business”
• Co-Founder of China Training
Institute
– Teaches Western professionals to
be more successful in China.
• Publisher of ChinaSolved.com
and ChineseNegotiation.com
www.AndrewHupert.com
All Rights Reserved. Property of
Chinasolved, LLC. @Copyright 2013

Chinese Negotiating Styles

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Chinese Negotiating Styles

Similar to Chinese Negotiating Styles (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Chinese Negotiating Styles

Editor's Notes