Q & A Table of Contents
Learning Negotiation in a non-English
speaking environment; Internet or What?
From: JJ, Seoul, Korea
Question: How can we practice the negotiation skills through the internet? What is your advice in learning negotiation skills for non-English speakers like me.
Response: Dear JJ,
Practicing negotiation skills through the internet is most likely to be rewarding if the negotiation is real, rather than an exercise. Negotiation is a low-tech activity; we can use high-tech means of communication (email, fax, etc.) but will only do a good job if we have developed the kind of skills that work well in face-to-face situations.
The danger of using 'high-tech' tools to learn negotiation skills is that videos, cd-roms, and other so-called 'interactive' electronic media are limited by their nature. Those mechanisms cannot reflect the wide variety of choices one can make regarding strategy, tactics, and techniques in a 'real world' negotiation. Negotiation is not like an airline pilot's pre-flight checklist in which only one answer is correct for each element of the process. The dynamics of negotiation change all the time, even with the same person. People who are married find that their spouses are not always predictable; the same is true in business and other negotiations.
I do not have any fast answers regarding learning negotiation in languages other than English. It is possible that the book 'Getting To Yes' by Fisher, Ury, & Patton has been published in Korean. I recommend that book very highly.
Good luck with your learning process, Steve.
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