IEDE Business School presents the book “Negociación Inteligente”

Madrid, 20 April 2009. “Negotiating badly is a waste of effort, time and money; it is as if the money is picked up and taken away by a ghost without anyone even noticing”. This quote from Andrés Senlle forms the opening words of “Negociación Inteligente”, a book that highlights the importance of corporate negotiation as the engine to “drive business into the future”, in the words of Moisés Ruiz and Cristina López-Cózar, authors of the text and professors of negotiation at IEDE Business School.

In the opinion of Professor Moisés Ruiz, it is essential for companies to reach mutually beneficial agreements in such times of crisis as those being experienced at the moment. “There is no time for long, drawn-out negotiations and the need to forge alliances is becoming increasingly stronger. However, acting in haste is not the answer. Agreements will always provide a greater degree of profitability than disagreements”, he says.

Professor Cristina López-Cózar insists that the training received by negotiators is absolutely crucial for enabling a satisfactory response to processes of this nature. “It is much easier to negotiate during the good times; the cake is bigger and dishing it out is therefore much easier. However, during economic cycles in which company profits are reduced, negotiation becomes complicated again. This is when the training received by negotiators, the information they have gathered and their capacity to be creative come into play”.

In actual fact, creativity has revealed itself as a highly useful asset among executives and managers when it comes to taking decisions. “Negotiation talks often break down because of a failure by the negotiators to be creative”, explains López-Cózar. “When both sides have closed the door on dialogue, the only thing that can save the situation is the ability of one party to be creative. Creativity helps avoid failure”. That said, it must be realised that “negotiation processes lead nowhere without the will of both sides to bring them to a successful conclusion; no matter how much one of the two sides is determined to be creative. Creativity helps and favours negotiation but it is not infallible”, explains Moisés Ruiz.

Professor López-Cózar defines a good negotiator as one who has a good level of training in communication skills. “He must be a good speaker, be empathetic and have a conciliatory, open and tolerant attitude, but it is equally important to know how to listen and stay alert to any external signals or clues”, she adds. Similarly, Moisés Ruiz points out that, in order for negotiations to conclude successfully, it is fundamental for the professional to have gathered “as much information as possible about the topics to be negotiated, to have examined the background and to have planned for all possible twists and turns that the negotiations may take”.

Negotiating on an international stage
“The fact that creativity is a weapon that, when used skilfully, can bring success to the negotiating table does not hide the fact that it must always be used with the utmost care”, above all when considering that, although we live in a globalised world where businesses have an important international image, “every culture has its own unique characteristics and professionals must know how to interpret them”, warns Cristina López-Cózar. In fact, misinterpreting cultural differences can frustrate an important negotiation process.

With that in mind, the authors of the book have included an interesting chapter that explains a few peculiarities from other cultures, conduct that could easily be misinterpreted but that is simply the product of ancient customs. For example, when undertaking negotiations with the Japanese, there is a strict protocol that must be followed when sitting down to the table; all attempts should be made for those of equal hierarchical stature from each side to sit opposite one other and avoid people from lower hierarchical positions sitting facing others of higher hierarchical importance. Furthermore, in Japanese culture it is also a discourtesy to blow one’s nose in public, talk about business straight away or remain close to the speaker for extended periods of time, as is the case, for example, to show the sole of your shoe in Arabic culture. Another detail to be considered is the cultural speed of negotiation. “Whereas the Americans are very fast, the Chinese and the Arabs are extremely slow because they base their negotiations on trust and empathy with their opposite number”, explains Ruiz.

“Negociación Inteligente” is aimed at all those professionals who wish to discover the tools that are necessary for reaching successful agreements. “Written in a clear, enjoyable and didactic style, it is very easy to read, which makes it a simple manual for those who wish to learn the basics of negotiation and it is an entertaining book for those who are curious to know what negotiation is”; as described by the professors of IEDE Business School. The book also includes a series of practical cases of “excellent” negotiation because, as Moisés Ruiz explains, “knowing how successful negotiation is achieved provides new ideas about how to handle oneself in real situations”.