It is a mistake to assume everyone in the United States identifies with a single culture. Even though collectively we share many values and behaviors, there are several cultures within the country that may retain some unique ones of their own.
Regardless, might there be a dominant negotiation style shared by most Americans? The United States Institute of Peace convened thirty U.S. and foreign diplomats, policymakers, and scholars to identify key elements in the U.S. approach to international negotiation. The participants concluded that people from other cultures see American negotiators as sharing multiple characteristics.
They concluded that U.S. negotiators are perceived as blunt and legalistic, drawing on a diverse vocabulary from fields, such as labor relations, Christian theology, and Sports. U.S. negotiators appear to ignore body language and are uncomfortable with silence.
The report continues to explain how U.S. negotiators press for quick agreements by using facts and supportive arguments, linking pertinent issues, and comparing benefits of resolution to costs of the alternative. In summary, U.S. negotiators are perceived to exhibit a distinctive style—forceful, explicit, legalistic, urgent, and results-oriented.
Of course, there are fewer problems when both negotiators or participants in mediation share values and behaviors compared to when they don’t due to the difference in cultural backgrounds. And that problem usually leads to the simple question, “whose script do we follow?”
There are examples of international negotiations where U.S. participants became frustrated with their counterparts who didn’t “follow the U.S. negotiation script,” but instead, held positions that aligned with their culture’s beliefs and views.
The hope is to find common ground so conflicts can be resolved with compromises acceptable to each party who might have cultural differences, but a shared desire to coexist peacefully.