Question

Jessica, a 23-year-old American salesperson, travels to Mexico City as the representative of a British company that hopes to land a contract with a Tortuga, a major Mexican company. In initial talks, her company has received positive feedback from this company. However, when Jessica arrives for her 30-minute appointment with Tortuga’s CEO, Mr. Salazar, she is surprised to find several people already in his office. She wonders if he has forgotten about the appointment. She is invited in, and Mr. Salazar talks with her in English about the contract, while simultaneously talking with two other people in his office in Spanish. He also fields a phone call from Argentina during the course of their conversation. As she tries to make her sales pitch, he interrupts her several times to share some stories about his time in graduate school in Colorado. He also challenges her on some of her data, asking her to explain how it was obtained. She explains but feels stressed that her time is running out. Jessica has a hard time finishing her presentation and leaves the office feeling confused and annoyed. She calls her home office and tells them that Mr. Salazar is not interested and that her trip has been a waste of time. She withdraws her company’s offer and flies out the next day. Later, she finds out that another company has landed the contract.

Provide some advice to Jessica: Using concepts covered in the course, what are some possible reasons Jessica’s company lost this opportunity? Based on course concepts, what recommendations would you give her to do a more effective job in the future? What actions could her company take to have more success in international interactions such as this?

Cross-culture communication “

Communicating: low-context vs. high-context

•Evaluating: direct negative feedback vs. indirect negative feedback

•Persuading: principles-first vs. applications-first

•Leading: egalitarian vs. hierarchical

•Deciding: consensual vs. top-down

•Trusting: task-based vs. relationship-based

•Disagreeing: confrontational vs. avoids confrontation

•Scheduling: linear-time vs. flexible-time”

Excerpt From: Erin Meyer. “The Culture Map.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-culture-map/id1209985939

Answer 1

The reason for Jessica not able to estabish a connect with the Mexican decision makers lies in cross cultural competence. Unlike the US, in many countries like Mexico, the culture is high context, the societies are close knit in nature, the mutual trust and interpersonal relationships are valued more than business deals and sometimes the notion of punctuality and strict adherence to the schedule is not seen as a good gesture.

Here, Jessica was expected to come to the business only after establishing mutual trust and understanding with Salazar ( he tried to do it through being informal, remembering his days in Colorado) he tried to be socially at comfort with the new client ( which is why he might have called his associates in the meeting). He also wanted to challenge her on the data, which he probably did to assert the superiority of his position during the negotiation ( high context effect, which he wanted the other party to acknowledge). He was not partocular about the time, and first wanted to be at ease and in confidence with new party, which Jessica could not ujnderstand and went about her business withut thinking on these points.

In future, the sales person should do homework on the culture of the country in which the deal is to be negotiated. he /she should take a deep look into the people's lifestyle, their traditions, beliefs, style of communication, notion of good and bad actions in their opinion. He /.she must know how they do the business among themselves and schedule his efforts accordingly. He /she must understand and respect their style of working, and should make it a point to work the things the way they like ( unless of course it is against the ethics of business and the US law). The company needs to conduct a cross cultural communication training putting emphasis on the specific country's cultural aspects to ensure the success.