Understand yourself. Understand others. Build better deals.
People are more complicated than passports.
International performance starts somewhere else:
- understanding how you perceive the world,
- understanding how others may perceive it differently,
- learning how to work together
- turning those differences into better business.
Welcome to the Happy CEO Intercultural Business & International Negotiation programme.
A practical journey built around four simple steps:
YOU → THEM → TOGETHER → BUSINESS
01. YOU
Start with the most difficult person to understand: yourself.
Before trying to understand another culture, understand your own operating system.
How do perception, emotions, personality and cognitive biases influence the way you communicate and negotiate?
TO READ
- How Cognitive and Affective Processes Shape Our Emotions
Perception, emotions and the invisible mechanisms influencing our decisions. - Navigating the Johari Window
What you know about yourself and what everybody else may see before you do. - Mastering Negotiation Styles with the DISC Method
Understand your behavioural style and learn how to adapt without pretending to be someone else.
“Remember ! You don’t see the world as it is. You see it through your own filters.“
02. THEM
Different doesn’t mean wrong. Culture influences how people perceive hierarchy, time, trust, risk, disagreement, relationships and agreements.
The objective is not to put billions of people into cultural boxes.
It is to become better at recognising when your assumptions may be wrong.
TO READ
- Culture Matters
How cultural differences can create conflict or opportunities. - 10 Ways Cultural Values Influence Negotiation
Time, hierarchy, risk, communication, relationships and decision-making. - Understanding French Culture & Negotiation Styles
Before analysing everybody else, let’s have some fun analysing ourselves.
Remember ! Never confuse unfamiliar behaviour with irrational behaviour.
03. TOGETHER
Understanding difference is useless if you cannot work together. International business happens between human beings.
International business gets interesting when people have to work together. The same silence can mean reflection, disagreement or approval.
A perfectly clear email for one person can sound abrupt or confusing to another. A meeting can end with everyone apparently agreeing, only for everyone to leave with a different understanding of what was actually decided.
And Teams, unfortunately, has not solved any of this.
TO READ
- The Art of Non-Verbal Communication
- Cross-Cultural & Remote Communication
- How Contracts Vary Across Cultures
Remember ! Communication is not what you say. It is what the other person understands.
04. BUSINESS
Enough theory. Let’s make a deal. International business ultimately requires action.
Good negotiation starts long before anyone sits at the table.
You need to prepare, ask the right questions and listen carefully enough to understand what really matters to the other side.
From there, negotiation becomes a matter of managing power, exploring options, trading concessions rather than giving them away, and knowing when the conditions are good enough to close.
And sometimes, the best deal is the one you have the courage not to sign.
TO READ
- How to Effectively Prepare and Negotiate a Successful Deal
- Negotiation Traps: Mistakes That Can Cost You the Deal
05. LET’S NEGOTIATE. INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATION LAB
Theory only becomes useful when it survives contact with reality. The International Negotiation Lab puts the concepts explored throughout the module into practice through realistic business cases, incomplete information, conflicting interests and decisions with consequences.
Business Case 01
THE DEAL
Can you prepare, discover interests and create an agreement?
Business Case 02
THE INTERNATIONAL DEAL
What happens when assumptions, expectations and communication begin to interfere with the economics of the deal?
Business Case 03
THE DIFFICULT DEAL
Pressure. Deadlines. Power. New information. Concessions. Conflict.
Can you still create value?
05. FINAL
THREE THINGS WORTH REMEMBERING
- NEVER NEGOTIATE WITHOUT FREEDOM
Before entering an important negotiation, know what you will do if there is no agreement. Build alternatives, understand your limits and decide what you are genuinely prepared to refuse.
The ability to say no is not the opposite of negotiation. It is part of what makes negotiation possible.
- UNDERSTAND BEFORE YOU TRY TO CONVINCE
Great negotiators are curious. They ask, listen, observe and test their assumptions before trying to persuade anyone.
Behind every position there are interests, fears, constraints, pressures and sometimes things the other side cannot openly say. Your job is not simply to hear their position. It is to understand what is driving it.
The more you understand, the more options you can create.
- MAKE GOOD DECISIONS, NOT JUST DEALS
Closing is not the objective. Making the right decision is.
Sometimes the right decision is to compromise. Sometimes it is to create a completely different solution. Sometimes it is to wait. Sometimes it is to change your own position. And sometimes it is to walk away.
A signature does not make a negotiation successful. What happens after the signature does.
Prepare seriously. Stay curious. Keep your freedom. Make good decisions.
And enjoy the negotiation.
“The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway.”
Henry Boye
Happy CEO | Leadership, Strategy & International Growth 