hi welcome in this video during which I'm going to share with you five tips to
better negotiate with French people I've been working a lot with international
people and now I'm a teacher and a trainer but then people can keep asking
me what should we do to negotiate with French people so here are five tips that
you could put in place to better work with your French counterparts
And it could apply to management circumstances or negotiation circumstances.
Let's start with tip number one
The first tip for better negotiating with French people
it's all about time management.
French have very limited skills in time management
Everybody knows that they show up late at the meeting they take
more time than anticipated for anything to do and they normally do not respect
the schedule. I also noticed that when French people arrive late they don't
even apologize to give you an explanation why they are late and very
often it looks like : "yes you know I was doing something very important before I
joined" or maybe "I was on a phone call which I needed to finish" or "in another
meeting which was very important". So don't take it personally, as French people
don't even know how to apologize when they are late and normally they go
beyond the schedule. So the tip number one when you negotiate with French
people is anticipate much more longer negotiation schedule so don't tell them
in advance but book your time to go over the time which was anticipated and
prepare additional meetings to compensate the second element which we
are going to see about French people which is the fact that they are
extremely talkative
Yes they are extremely talkative They love speaking and for them
negotiation as well as management is all into the process more sometimes than
about the results. For French people the process is talking talking for a long
time and when I said talking I don't mean listening they are not necessarily
very good at listening to you but they are very good at listening to themselves
so it's a first step you know. The tip n°2 for you is that you are going to have to
be patient, take a lot of notes, be very patient and nod and answer their questions
and be prepared for a long long long discussion because again for French people
"the process is more important than the results"
The next element which is very specific to French
is that they absolutely need to feel like
you have been in confrontation with them
French people love confrontation. When you look at their history when you look
at their news today, French people they love to have tough discussion and then
they believe that the reality of the decision comes from the fact that it was
discussed heavily and it was discussed in a very confrontational manner.
The Tip n°3 for you is to express your feelings, express your disagreement, express your
difference opinion very straightforwardly because if you don't
do that, French people don't hear you that they are like deaf you know,
they are so used to yell at everybody and they are so used to listen to
confrontational discussion that the absolutely need to go through this
process to understand what you mean and to make a decision.
This is not personal offense. You could see to French people discussing in a very aggressive way
but they are still very good friends and at the end of the discussion they go along very well.
They just believe they had a very good discussion and they made a good decision.
In the same spirit, French people believe in direct feedback.
They need to give you direct feedback and they need to receive direct feedback
let's say the management discussion if you have a feedback for someone working
in your team and you tell the person I love what you are doing I love what you
did here I loved what you did there and maybe there is a way to improve
another topic you know the French person is not going to hurt the end of your
sentence it will just remember that you were happy with what he said what you
did and is not going to notice your indication to improve an additional
element because they need to have the information straight in their face you
cannot use this sort of sandwich shop introduction method where you softened
the message to help French people to understand what you mean don't soften
the message the last element I want to share with you in this video about
cultural differences and how to better negotiate or manage French people is
about the way that they have such a perception of their culture
I perception of themselves you know and which is very often associated with
arrogance for French people well indeed to give you an explanation of this trans
behavior you need to know that French people have been going to school for
more than 20 years and during 20 years they have learned history or geography
or literature everything is presented from a French point of view so the
history of the world is actually history of France France is in the middle of the
world in the center of the map France as a perfect perfect shape as a country and
it's in the middle of Europe although it's not in the middle of Europe and
it's not even in the middle of the world but French people become accustomed to
this vision and they believe that they have invented everything you know how
can you use that to your advantage in negotiation when you work with French
people you can use a tactic of flattery flattery is a tactic that consists in
making a concession contract read game in which you flatter the person in
exchange in return for some sort of an advantage well if you want to use this
tactic you will make French people so happy you can flatter them about their
culture maybe about their gastronomy or about their perfumes or fashion style it
doesn't really matter their preference is definitely about the glorious time of
their history but then if you do that you'd get something in return from them
and it's not manipulation it's just providing them some sort of recognition
for what is important for them so that's it that's what I wanted to share with
you in this short video French people believe in making exchange and they love
to do those kind of business discussion it is just that they have their own
culture to do it and sometimes it's very surprising I'm sure you had some
experiences with French people so please share in the comment what you had to
face with French people give me some ideas and feedback so that I can also
give you more videos about how to negotiate with French people and use
those cultural disease to the advantage of the party to come to terms come to a
better management style and come to better deals
if you love the video remember to put thumbs up and I'll do more and more
English video for the international audience thank you very much and see you
next time
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