Similarities and Differences in Business Culture between China & Morocco (Part 4/6): A Practical Perspective on the Negotiation Phase
Finally! The main course! My favorite part: the negotiation phase. But before you start reading about how similar and different Moroccans & Chinese behave in negotiation, please give a “mental round of applause” to Soukaina Imani whose work helped me a lot in writing this part of the current series of articles.
Similarities
Greetings and Preludes
Handshakes
Small-talks
Small-talks are important for both Moroccans and Chinese.
Verbal Communication
We both don’t say “no” in a direct way. In China, it’s because of the prevalence of the concept of face (面子, mianzi) while in Morocco it’s h’shouma (حشومة, shameful).
Stages and Phases
Ross & Long developed a model that pretty much sums up how Chinese and Moroccans are likely to break down the Negotiation stages into.
The PRAM model divides the Negotiation process into 4 phases: Planning, Relationship, Agreement, and Maintenance.
I like to think of it as the “one call away” business negotiation conflict management approach. (should I start thinking of an abbreviation?…OCA BusNeg CoMan ? No?…)
The advantage here is that whatever conflict arises during the negotiation process, the relationship that you started to foster during the pre-negotiation stage will help you go through it smoothly and without giving rise to other conflicts.
Signing the Contract
In both cultures, written contract is usually used for big or official contracts. While an oral form of a contract is predominant for small and familiarity based contracts.
Differences
Greetings and Preludes
Hand-shakes like mentioned above, however, in China you may get a small-bow using the head from more traditional people; but not a 90 degrees Japanese style bow from the waist :-)
One more thing, in Morocco, when it comes to veiled women -just in case- you may want to wait until she extends her hand first for a hand shake… You don’t want to start on an awkward moment, if she doesn’t go for your handshake… Well in worst cases you can still try to smoothly switch to a: “Your Majesty!” and go one knee…
Gift Giving
When we deal with foreigners in Morocco, traditional handcrafts are usually the standard gifts. A lot of time even between Moroccans themselves, however it has to be the high-end kind of traditional handcrafts… and let me say this: we love colors!
In China, there is a predominance of the Red Color, it stands for luck. Yellow is also a good choice sometimes as it’s the symbol of majesty. They like it bling bling here!
Usually the gifts exchanged in China can be either pottery, jade or wood handcrafts; but food, wine (not just red wine, but specially Baijiu 白酒 that ranges from 30 to OVER 60% in alcohol volume) and tea (…expensive tea, someone offered me a box of tea worth $60).
Small-talks
In Morocco, we will stick with the general topics; the mundane: family, health, work,…etc.
In China, they want to know EVERYTHING.
NOTHING about you should be taboo, the questions can range from your income to what did you eat today!
Drinking and Smoking
Let’s say, generally speaking in Morocco, you never bring alchol in a business environment or smoke indoors in a business meeting.
But man! Let me tell you something.
The moment you step into a Laoban’s office (老板, Boss), you get offered a cigarette.. then another, then another..
(P.S.: People can smoke inside trains!)
And to get straight to the point, here in China, business is done between toasts of Baijiu and around a round table full of food.. so get ready to Ganbei (干杯, literally: 干clean 杯cup = “CHEERS”/ “drink it all”).
Non-verbal Communication
Morocco, a Sunny Mediterranean country… Hot-blooded people with unlimited use of body language, hand gestures and eye-contact.
In China, if you can’t get micro-expressions and non-verbal clues, all you get is a smiley poker face in front of you.
So pay attention to micro-facial expressions, and even slight changes of the voice tone and the posture too!
And don’t be alarmed with the lack of eye-contact from Chinese… Although, it did alarm me when I tried to date a Chinese guy… It was very alarming to be honest! (‘was like did I lose my charms or what?!)
Negotiation Tactics
Simply, we Moroccans DO NOT consider that any decision is final or unchangeable even if it is written on a piece of paper; there is always space for bargaining =D
… Okay! In China, and this is maybe the main reason I love Chinese Business Culture:
Since primary school, kids learn idioms that embody the Chinese great philosophers, leaders and thinkers along their history. Among these great leaders is Sun-Tzu.
So of course, among the idioms that they learn in school and grow up with within their families is the 36 stratagems inspired from The Art of War.
They use it! All the time without being conscient of the fact that they are using it. Because it is simply embodied in their culture, it’s from nurture.
Conflict Management
On this last note, the 36th stratagem stipulates that “if all fails retreat” (走为上策, Zou wei shang ce).
So Chinese usually avoid conflict either by complettly withdrawing from negotiation, staying silent, or not giving a determined answer to an issue at hand (“I don’t know” / “I’m not sure” may sometimes mean no actually).
We, Moroccans, are the complete opposite!
But there are 2 kinds of people: The one that will confront emotionally (not the smartest kind, in my opinion); the other kind is the one who will adopt what I call a “sneaky non confrontational attitude” and use hardball tactics.
This doesn’t end here!
Stay tuned for more in the next 2 upcoming weeks and drop me line on Twitter or on Facebook if you want more details about one of these aspects ;)
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