Room with a pheeew!

We can do it by fax or email, by telephone or across a table. However we do it, negotiation is two-way communication; talking and listening. When we talk it is essential to get the correct message across to the other side. When we listen we have to understand precisely what the other side is saying. Sometimes this is hard to do, and it can be even harder if circumstances make it difficult to listen.

We've all struggled talking to someone else at a noisy party. In negotiation, 'noise' is not just loud sound. It is everything that gets in the way of listening or disturbs concentration. The room may be too hot or too cold. You may be feeling tired or ill after a dubious curry the night before. In an international negotiation you might be talking through an interpreter.

Whatever it is, noise is your problem. Of course it's the other side's problem too, but that is no excuse. So don't blame it on the other side – or try to use it as a reason for failing. Whatever the noise is, it's your job to make sure that it doesn't stop you understanding what the other side says to you, or getting your message to the other side in a way that they can understand as well. If the room is noisy, shout. If the room is too cold wear more clothes. If it's too hot take them off. If you are feeling ill have some pills in your briefcase. If you're tired, drink strong coffee. If you're using an interpreter think very carefully how you explain things, and if you are uncertain about anything he has said to you, question him until you are sure that you do understand.

If you can't beat 'em
One of the problems of negotiating contracts in Eastern Europe during the 1970s and 1980s was that the negotiating "season" was during the winter, between October and May. In Warsaw or Berlin the temperature, without even considering the wind-chill factor, was regularly well below freezing. In Moscow or Leningrad it was down to -25 degrees Celsius, and in Siberia or the Ukraine as low as -40.

Whatever the distraction is, don’t let it stop you understanding what the other side is saying

The consequences were that people lived and worked in warm buildings. Then they went outside, into serious cold, back into warm buildings, out into the cold and so on. It's murder for the mucous membranes, so everyone catches colds. And if you were an ordinary Russian living in Moscow during this period it was sometimes difficult to get hold of remedies that we take for granted, like paracetamol or Lemsip. So people turned to folk medicine – and the folk remedy for a cold is garlic, eaten raw or cooked. So if in the middle of January or February you were negotiating in a small room with a group of Russian or Polish purchasers, and two or three of them had colds you very quickly realised that there was a serious 'noise' factor to contend with.

When you negotiate with someone who has a cold and only rustic remedies to use it is still your problem. So what's the solution? Simple. If they are eating garlic in large quantities, then you eat it as well.