Forks and knives as business instruments

These days, to make a good contract, it is not enough to take prospect partners to a sauna to relax. Business negotiations have moved over to restaurants while Russian entrepreneurs now build contacts with foreign companies. They have bought expensive suits and mastered some foreign languages but have not managed to impeccably use tableware or exchange business cards thus undermining their repute and loosing potential revenues. Invest Foresight discussed utility of business protocol with Marii Boucher, Director of Austrian Higher School of Etiquette.

– Marii, you once said that business etiquette is a way to augment a contract amount tenfold. Is it really so?

– Business protocol is comparable to hypnosis or neurolinguistic programming since it helps to influence your counterpart’s thinking. Once you realize how your partners should be best received, choose the right souvenirs for them and an adequate setting for your meeting, you in fact predetermine the negotiation result. Yet for Russian business people that is something beyond their comprehension. Regrettably, in this country, there is no established business etiquette. As a rule, the wealthier a person is, the worse is the person’s attitude towards employees, partners or civil servants. Exceptions from the generally accepted rules may be found anywhere, but on a general scale, Russians lag far behind. Business meetings in restaurants produce the poorest results.

– Russians seem to be well known for warmly receiving their guests, though.

– First, for a business meeting in a restaurant, knowledge of table manners is essential. Russians have serious problems with that. When a negotiator is focused on communicating with his or her partner, the discussion’s favorable outcome is more likely if it is not complicated by mental efforts to choose the right fork for the fish served. Second, our compatriots are totally unable to maintain social talk. Every foreign entrepreneur knows that no exact figures or contract details such as prices, discounts, delivery terms or deadlines should be discussed at a restaurant until coffee is served. Prior to that, small talk is to go on. That is the guarantee for signing a good contract with an extra digit in its amount, as exchange of civilities is the way of testing and getting to know a prospect partner. Many well known wealthy individuals abroad practice that.

Another example is, most Russian business people believe a business meeting is not suitable for telling about their children. In fact, it is, since it is a way to show your stability and soundness, especially if you have a big family with well established traditions.

– Many Russian business people are skeptical about business protocol per se.

– Certainly, entrepreneurs of the older generation, especially those who built their businesses in the 1990s, claim that the best setting for striking a deal is a sauna where the code of behavior is somewhat different. I believe such a view of a business communication will remain for another ten years or so, until entrepreneurs of younger generations become a majority. Until then, our fellow citizens will find it hard to engage in international projects.

– What knowledge of business protocol is lacking in this country?

– Let’s start with the most basic things such as greetings. Even in the 1990s there were people who could make huge moneys by being able to properly introduce themselves, put in touch the right people, or correctly present their business cards.

– That does not seem to be a great deal.

– It is. Business protocol is different from social etiquette. For instance, regardless of age and gender, the first to hold out a hand for a handshake is the individual of a higher status. In everyday life, people usually offer a hand right away thus willing to show their maximum respect. When two individuals of equal status meet, a dominating handshake is often essential. There is a trick for that. Immediately before a handshake, make a small step back with your left leg to make your right hand atop of your partner’s. At times, that is the way to settle the dilemma of whose status is higher. Whether consciously or not, but our gestures demonstrate our confidence or readiness to compromise.

Growing importance of body language has resulted in professionals being invited to be present at negotiations in order to help with understanding who, in the partners’ team, is the real decision maker, which topic is the most sensitive, in what respect extra points may be scored. If successful, such an analysis will generate extra revue which otherwise could not be ensured.

Say ‘yes’ to ‘no’

– Apart from greetings, what else is essential in business protocol?

– Business cards exchange ceremony is very important. Foreigners are punctilious about that process. When people meet and exchange cards, there should be in no hurry since that is a significative moment for establishing a contact. A good starting point for a business dialogue could be something like that, “Do I pronounce you name correctly?”, “What is the best way to address you?”, “I have heard you are a top professional in your sphere of competence”. Japanese are exceptionally meticulous about business cards since they perceive the cards as part of their personal environment. If you fold a business card or neglectfully put it in your pocket, that will be an insult to your partner and an epitaph to your expected deal. An entrepreneur whose personal organizer is full of falling out business cards, may not expect any respect since that is a sign he does not appreciate his business contacts. And the most offending thing one can do is leaving a business card on the desk after a meeting.

At some point, double faced business cards (with Russian and English versions of the information) became common in Russia. That is totally wrong, as the back side is intended for notes and should be left plain. Such notes may only be put down by the owner of a card.

– In new digital formats, are the rules as strict?

– The rules of business correspondence are the most formalized ones, even though they are less strict than protocol rules. Russians seem to have two main problems. First, they do not know how to say ‘no’. If an entrepreneur in Russia receives a letter with a proposal which is of no interest, such an entrepreneur would not usually bother to reply at all. In a Western country, any successful business person would say that one should never underestimate a clerk who has sent a letter, because good employees move from one company to another and make careers, so being polite to everyone is an investment in the future. So one should make oneself to always reply in a very polite manner even when declining a proposal. A sample letter for such replies may be drafted in advance.

Another common mistake of Russian business people is their inability to reply in due time. Under the generally accepted rules of business protocol, that is to be done within three days. Even in case you can not give a definitive answer, you should write that, noting it will hopefully be available within a week.

Chinese, the harsh negotiators

– In business protocol, how essential national specifics are?

– China is one of the countries hardest to do business with. The figure Chinese name at the outset of negotiations, will be the one in the final contract, even if Chinese have washed the feet of their foreign partners to show their utmost respect. They are most unusual negotiators and one will never know who is the main decision maker, that is why the meetings with them are those where people who can understand the meaning of gestures are frequently invited to. It is hard to enter Chinese business world without a guide. If you want to deal with Chinese but do not know how to do that, they will simply use you. Serious discrepancies are felt in dealing with representatives of other countries of the East and of other faiths. Russians may wholeheartedly give a big bottle of vodka accompanied by salmon caviar and Matryoshka dolls as presents to representatives of the Muslim community, but that will be the end of negotiations.

I have some personal experience in that regard. In late 1990s we had a family business selling equipment of a well known brand. To develop out company, we had to get funding from a European venture fund. We spend six months arranging the deal and restyled out outlets. To sign the deal on behalf of the venture fund, a lady of about 70 years came from the UK. When out CEO met her, he kissed her hand. The old lady said she had to make an urgent call, went down in an elevator, took a taxi to the airport and departed from Moscow. She later noted she would not deal with gangsters. In her business environment, the people who do not know it is not permissible to kiss a hand of a lady at a business meeting, are not regarded to be reliable partners. So for us that was an extremely expensive mistake, but we understood that big business has serious rules, so to deal with big business you have to learn the rules first.

– In Russia, are there many people willing to know such rules?

– Young people tend to become part of the global paradigm. A business protocol training course is most frequently of interest to companies managed by CEOs aged 30 to 35 years who clearly see the added value of such a course. They have no illusions and train their personnel, investing money in its potential. Our services are also of interest to companies operating in IT, construction, and private medicine sectors. Not long ago, we signed two sizeable contracts with government agencies, including Justice Ministry. I therefore believe we all are moving in the right direction along a promising path and there is abundance of work ahead.

Playing aristocracy

– How long does it take to lean etiquette?

– It does not take long. Out longest training course is 42 hours, and it covers everything from the skills of negotiating to easing stressful environment and resolving a situation which has reached a deadlock. For corporate customers we can offer on-site seminars, but training can also take place at Austrian Higher School of Etiquette in Saint Petersburg where we also have a subsidiary to teach women being stylish through mealtime manners, social etiquette, classes of haute cuisine, movement aesthetics, speech practice.

– What generates your main income?

– We have three areas: distance courses of various etiquette specifics, business etiquette intramural classes, and courses on clients’ requests. Distance courses are certainly in the lead. Then goes B2B, while B2C is a neat showcase, a sort of a boutique which also brings some money and hence we plan to open schools in various regions. That is quite a lengthy process since etiquette is a delicate matter which requires more than just substantial investments, to launch a school. One has to be truly fond of etiquette oneself. As a rule, it is a family business where wife or daughter can be fully involved with the project whereas husband or father thus gets his first lady and recognition of his business or political ambitions.

– What about Moscow?

– In Russia’s capital, we are in no hurry since we realize that for a good start we need an ambassador, a personality of a good repute who could head our Moscow school. Some offers keep coming, but those are nothing else but self-promotions. Besides, a Russian school of etiquette must be well-graced and luxurious. In London or Paris such institutions are commonly located in small office buildings or in large business centers. In Switzerland they may be found in the suburbs. But a Russian national will want it all at once, bread and circus, as in this country etiquette is only understood as something you can play, some sort of a theatrical performance which requires a stage, a costumery, and an audience. In Saint Petersburg, we are located in a palace building.

– Your customers see themselves as part of elite then, while in Europe etiquette is merely a school course.

– That is correct. It is a hundred years now since the fundamentals of etiquette were lost in Russia. Local Bolsheviks introduced their own tough traditions. The proponents of those traditions can until now be easily distinguished at major international receptions where they feel awful, constrained and misplaced. Meanwhile the very first feeling one gets once educated in etiquette, is the feeling of freedom. It may look like one confronts a ‘no’ wherever one turns, but as soon as one knows where a ‘no’ is, one is absolutely free and able to meet the president of Russia, the owner of Apple, or a Japanese yakuza. Once one knows the rules of the game, one is comfortable and able to gain one’s point.

By Anna Oreshkina