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Reason to Study Negotiation #2: Why We Are Not Taught to Negotiate in School

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As a world traveller myself I notice that a three-taco dinner in Canada is $15 whereas three street tacos in the United States is $3, and in Mexico they can sell for even less. Why do the Canadian consumers pay more? Very simply, Canadians are some of the worst negotiators in the world. The Canadian culture is a culture that values being “nice” and paying what people ask. Very seldom in Canada do consumers negotiate the sticker prices of the goods and services being sold at Walmart. Ironically, Walmart has built its economic success on the fact that they have some of the best negotiators and the strongest negotiating process with suppliers in the world. On one hand, Walmart is an excellent negotiator; on the other hand, the American consumer is not!

In reality, everything is open for negotiation—even the groceries on the shelf at Wal-Mart—but we do not negotiate because it is not in our culture. In reality, negotiation is in our nature; just look at a young child or baby before he has been socialized into the public school system. If the baby is hungry, he cries for mother’s milk, and his mother gives him her breast. You are reading this book today because you won your first negotiation—you cried for mother’s milk, and she gave it to you! If you did not win that negotiation, you would have died. Children go to the store with their parents and kick and scream for a toy they like. Parents, being the hostages of children, will very often yield to this style of negotiation and will give the crying baby the toy that he wants.

Absolutely everything in life is open for negotiation, but first we must ask. As a world traveller, I often find myself checking in and out of hotel rooms many times a year. Many hotel rooms have two bottles of water on the dresser that have price tags on them that say, “If you drink this water, we will charge your room $8 per bottle.” Of course $8 for a 10-cent bottle of water is outlandish so I will call the front desk and ask “Where can I find the complementary bottles of water in my room?” The front desk will reply “Sir, we don’t provide complementary water at this hotel.”

I will say “I understand. Where can I find the complementary bottles of water in my room?”

There will be a long silence, and finally I will say, “Can you send me four complementary bottles of water to my room? I am very thirsty, and I don’t think these two bottles will be enough.” There will be another si-