One of the most aggravating situations which can happen in negotiation is when one party fails to understand the true intentions and the cultural nurturing of the other parties. This happens often when dealing with foreign negotiators from other nations who have different ideas of what a negotiation means.

For instance, perhaps you are dealing with a Middle Eastern businessman or an Asian company. Often your negotiating team will find themselves in a negotiation with another party with a Win-Lose approach, who wants to win the negotiation and would prefer you to lose. If you win too, well, that is okay with them, but they aren't working for a Win-Win, and would sincerely prefer to leave no crumbs on the table for you at all. If you find yourself in such a hostile environment you may find the negotiations drag out for months and you must spend your time on development of friendship and not just negotiating business.

There are also the negotiations where you try to assist the other party to make sure they get enough of what they want to insure performance and you get what you want as well. Yet as soon as the contracts are signed that is when the real negotiation starts, and you find the other party was totally uninterested in fulfilling their written contractual performance, but wishes to hold you fully accountable to your written promise and even things you did not say, which they conveniently misinterpret or term a "misunderstanding," and of course you know good and well that it would have been in the contract if you had promised to do it.

These and other difficult situations happen often in international business dealings. You must be careful to understand cultures, win/win, win/lose and after negotiated contract negotiations.