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STEFAN AARNIO

36

Reason to Study Negotiation #2:

Why We Are Not Taught to

Negotiate in School

T

he schools in the Western world are designed to create subordinate, compliant workers for their industrial factories and militaries. Schools operate Monday to Friday from roughly 9 AM until 5

PM, much like the factories, and that the students must be at their work station when the bell rings much like an industrial factory. Creativity and innovation are not rewarded in this system; instead compliance and subordination are. These student factories—schools—churn out a very specific product: compliant people who wait in line, show up on time, and follow directions. These people are the product of the factory and the by-product of the factory is a society of terrible negotiators. Canada, the United States, Britain, and other Western countries are home to some of the worst negotiators in history because the populations of these countries are conditioned and trained to be compliant to do as they are told. Other countries like China, India, Mexico, Brazil, and Israel have different cultures that are not so compliant, so for the non-Western countries, negotiation is a way of life.

In Western supermarkets, American and Canadian consumers are purchasing meat, fish, bread, and produce at the sticker price—or the adverised price as is socially acceptible in the local culture. On the streets of Mexico, street vendors and Mexican consumers are negotiating for the same meat, fish and produce, and they pay wildly different (and much lower) prices.