“CULTURAL” AND “CONVERSATIONAL” AGREEMENTS
K. Sankaran
It was a particularly difficult day for me at work. I had made six visits to several of my clients, and at the end, I had achieved nothing. I reflected my days in the US where I was in Insurance sales for nearly two years.
It seemed that the difficulty a salesperson faces here in India is of a different nature when compared to the west. The uncertainly that dogs you here in on account of people going back on their words for no apparent reason. Over there it is different. When things are going well and clients promise to buy, there is certainty that you will close a sale very soon.
I am not suggesting that people there are more honest and that they never go back on their words etc. They do. The point is they have a reason for what they do; what appeared as a great sales prospect is a non-starter because of a sudden change in the market condition, uncertainty in the economic outlook, presence of a new competitor who offers a better product etc. When the going gets bad you have to do something new, like make changes in the product you offer, or altogether wait for the current economic mood to change.
Here it is different. There are no trends. There are no macro issues. You simply have people who act differently from what they say!
That evening I couldn’t take my mind off the day’s disappointment. I shared it with Ronak, “Why do people go back on their words so unpredictably? Isn’t it better if they do not, in the first place, promise you at all?”
“Are you sure they agreed in the first place?”
“Yes.”
How do you know?”
“Obviously through what they say.”
“Did they unambiguously agree to buy from you?”
“Yes, they did.”
“My friend, I suspect they did not.”
“Well, I have only what they tell me to go by.”
“Interesting. You have to use other means of knowing besides what you hear.”
“What do you mean?”
“Culture.”
“You are assuming that agreements can be worked out through a single conversation alone. It’s more complex. Agreements here are culturally formed.”
“I don’t understand.”
He explained, “Agreements are not formed through a simple process of conversation, but through a complex process of culturally defined process of acceptance.”
“What complex process are you talking about?”
“As I said, cultural process of mutual acceptance.”
“What? That is no excuse to go back on a word.”
“A word is a contract. In older cultures like ours, contracts have less meaning. Something else has more meaning.”
“What is this something else?”
“Whether you are being accepted as a person by the group.”
“Ron, this is gibberish. Either you give a word or not. And that is it. And if you do, stick to it.”
“That’s a western masculine way to look at human interactions.”
“What? I really do not understand you.”
“If a person were to honor his own word it comes not out a conversational agreement with you but through an overall acceptance of the person. Viewed this way, you do agreeable things to a person, including enter into a mutually beneficial arrangement of buying and selling, because you accept and respect the person, not because you have given him a word.”
“But why did you mention the thing about “masculine”?
“Just ask yourself. Do hard-nosed contracts work with your wife?”
Suddenly I was beginning to see what Ron was saying. I said, “Very interesting, Ron, They never do.”
“Now, my friend, you are beginning to see. What really works with your wife?”
“Certainly not cut-and-dry listing of things.”
We paused and I continued, “I-do-this-you-do-this listing of things certainly do not work with my wife.”
“Then what works?”
“I suppose a more leisurely and lingering protocol of to-and-fro that finally gets both to do things for each other.”
“Extremely well said, my dear friend.” He said.
“Now let me propose to you that for the same reason, our countrymen appear less constitutional.”
“I see the connection, a statement of mutual agreement, and that includes the constitution, is only a parchment of paper for most without any cultural connection to it.”
“Once again very well stated, my friend.”
I smiled in satisfaction.
He went on… “For the same reason, we take more time to come to befriend a stranger.”
“I see what you are saying, I said understandingly, “When you talk to a new guy, you are less concerned about what he or she is saying than with the an internal murmur for checking out cultural congruity. And that takes time”
“Absolutely.”
In seeing the bigger picture my selling disappointments vaporized into nothingness.
