Chapter 15 — Exercises

These exercises rehearse the chapter's central reflex: stop treating the formal meeting as the place where you win the argument, and start asking where the real deciding actually happens. Several drills aim straight at the hardest physical habits to break — filling silence, hearing "difficult" as a yes, and pushing when you should give a graceful exit. Work them with a pen and a tolerance for sitting in discomfort; the discomfort is the lesson.

Selected answers and sample responses appear in Appendix: Answers to Selected Exercises. Exercises marked with ✍️ feed directly into your Cultural Intelligence Portfolio.

Part A — Check Your Understanding

Short answers in your own words. If one stumps you, reread the matching section before moving on.

  1. In one sentence, contrast the Western "forge" meeting with the Eastern "ceremony" meeting. Where, in each, does the decision get made?
  2. Define nemawashi without using the words "roots" or "tree." What problem is it designed to prevent?
  3. Japanese decision-making is summarized as "slow to decide, fast to execute." Explain why the slowness produces the speed.
  4. Name the three soft phrases in the stalled-Japan negotiation, and state plainly what each one actually means.
  5. Why does pushing harder — a virtue in Western negotiation — actively damage a deal in Japan? Be specific about face and harmony.
  6. In a Chinese negotiation, what is the function of a long silence, and what is the single worst Western response to it?
  7. Give the one-line rule for where your "real work" lives in a ceremony-style meeting culture.

Part B — Check Your Assumptions

Each statement below feels like obvious good practice to a Western professional. For each, decide whether it is a human universal or a WEIRD cultural preference, then write one sentence describing a culture in this chapter that would handle it differently.

  1. "A good meeting ends with a decision and clear action items."
  2. "If nobody pushes back in a meeting, the discussion was a waste of time."
  3. "Persistence closes deals — if they haven't said no, keep going."
  4. "Springing a new idea on the room and seeing how people react is a fair way to test it."
  5. "When there's an awkward silence in a negotiation, someone should break it."
  6. "A signed agreement settles the terms; reopening them later is bad faith."

The point is not that the Western view is wrong. Each statement is a coherent local optimization — usually for speed and the best live argument. Noticing the feeling that it's simply correct is the whole skill. Every one of these defaults misfires in at least one room in this chapter.

Part C — Decode This

Each item is a real cross-cultural moment from a meeting or negotiation. Write (a) what the Western professional probably assumes it means, and (b) a plausible alternative meaning inside the other system. Practice generating the alternative, not the single right answer.

  1. You make your final proposal in Tokyo and the most senior person says, "This is very interesting. We will study it carefully." Everyone nods warmly.
  2. You fly to Riyadh to close a deal, and the entire first meeting is coffee, family, and conversation — your contract is never mentioned.
  3. In a Seoul meeting, a sharp junior engineer clearly disagrees with the director's plan but says nothing and nods along.
  4. In Mumbai, the agreed start time passes, the agenda you sent gets reshuffled live, and a "settled" point from yesterday gets reopened.
  5. In Beijing, after you name your price, your counterpart lets fifteen seconds of silence pass before responding.
  6. Three weeks after you signed what you thought were "final" terms with a Gulf partner, he calls to revisit two of the numbers, warmly and as if nothing is amiss.
  7. Your Japanese partner's team asks the same detailed clarifying question, in slightly different forms, for the third meeting running — and still hasn't given you a decision.

Part D — What Would You Do?

Real situations, each with several responses. There's no single correct answer — pick the one closest to your instinct, then write why a culturally intelligent person might choose differently.

1. The flat Tokyo meeting. You flew in to "win the room" and the meeting is polite, quiet, and decides nothing live; they'll "take it back internally." Do you (a) push for a decision before you leave — "we've come a long way, can we agree today?"; (b) read the flatness as failure and lower your offer to spark interest; (c) accept that the deciding happens offstage, and pivot your energy to private, one-on-one pre-wiring and a trusted intermediary; (d) demand a livelier debate to "get real engagement"? What does each option signal, and which fits what you learned about nemawashi?

2. The soft no. Your Japanese counterpart responds to your proposal with "That might be a little difficult." Do you (a) treat "difficult" as a solvable objection and restructure the offer to overcome it; (b) push harder to show commitment; (c) hear it as a probable no, stop pushing, and offer a graceful, face-saving exit; (d) ask them point-blank, "So is that a no?" to force clarity? What is each choice optimizing for, and which protects the relationship?

3. The weaponized pause. In Beijing you name your number and your counterpart goes silent, watching you, for an uncomfortably long time. Do you (a) fill the gap by justifying your price; (b) offer a quick discount to break the tension; (c) hold the silence calmly and wait for them to speak; (d) ask whether something's wrong? Which choice avoids negotiating against yourself — and why is your own discomfort the real adversary here?

4. The surprise proposal. You have a genuinely strong new idea and a big formal meeting tomorrow with a Japanese partner. Do you (a) save it as a dramatic reveal in the meeting for maximum impact; (b) email it to everyone an hour before; (c) spend today pre-socializing it privately with key stakeholders, folding in their concerns, so the meeting can ratify it; (d) raise it casually mid-meeting to "see how they react"? Which respects how the decision actually gets built — and why is the dramatic reveal the worst option?

Part E — Cultural Translation

For each blunt Western negotiating move, write two versions: the direct/low-context version (how you'd naturally say it to a Western peer) and a face-saving/high-context version (how you'd reshape it to fit a Japanese or Gulf room). Notice how much content survives, and how much relationship the second version protects.

  1. "No, that price doesn't work for us."
  2. "We need a decision today — we can't keep waiting."
  3. "Your proposal has a serious flaw in the timeline."

Then, the reverse skill: you are the one who needs to decline a counterpart's request but want to preserve the relationship. Write a soft, face-saving "no" — the kind you'd want to be able to hear and deliver.

Part F — Try This / Script Practice

The chapter argues that your real work lives before and after the meeting, and that several disciplines are physical, not intellectual. Rehearse them in writing now, so they're available under pressure later.

  1. The pre-wire ask. You need a trusted insider to socialize your proposal before a Japanese meeting. Write, in your own words, the message you'd send to enlist them — asking who to talk to first and what to adjust so people are comfortable, without making it sound like you're asking them to do your job.
  2. Holding the silence. Describe, concretely, what you will physically do with your face, your hands, and your mouth during a fifteen-second negotiating pause in Beijing. (This is harder than it looks — write it as if coaching yourself through the moment.)
  3. The graceful exit. Write the exact words you'd use to give a Japanese counterpart a face-saving way out after you hear "that's a little difficult" — words that let them decline with relief and leave the relationship intact.
  4. Confirming without forcing. You suspect the nods and "yes"es in the room aren't reliable. Write a low-pressure way to confirm what's actually been agreed after the meeting, privately, without implying you didn't trust them.

Watch your own reflex. For each script, notice the instinct you're overriding — to pitch instead of ask, to talk instead of wait, to push instead of release, to assume instead of check. Naming the reflex is half of being able to override it in the room.

Part G — Match the Tempo

Below are five negotiating moves. Match each to the culture whose style it best fits (China, Japan, India, Korea, Arab world), then write one sentence on why — and one sentence on how a Westerner most commonly misreads it.

  1. A long, comfortable silence after you name your price, with no objection stated.
  2. An extended first meeting of coffee, family talk, and warmth, with no mention of the deal.
  3. Three meetings of detailed, documented questions and no live decision, followed by fast, smooth execution once they commit.
  4. A senior figure who frames the discussion first and closes it last, with juniors deferring throughout.
  5. A lively, improvisational session where the agenda wanders, terms reopen, and a warm personal rapport unlocks real flexibility.

Part H — Reflection & Extension

  1. The hardest discipline. Of the chapter's three "do nothing" disciplines — don't fill the silence, don't push the soft no, don't force a live decision — which would be hardest for you to hold under pressure? Write a page on why, and on what your impulse to act is really trying to protect.
  2. A reverse mirror. Describe the Western "forge" meeting — fast, argumentative, decide-in-the-room — as a Japanese observer might describe it: as a slightly reckless, even inconsiderate, way to make decisions. Write it neutrally, with its internal logic, the way this book tries to describe Eastern practices.

✍️ Portfolio Builder. In your Cultural Intelligence Portfolio, create a section titled "Where the decision really happens." For your chosen culture, map a real or expected meeting: Who decides (consensus / a senior individual / fluid)? Where does the deciding happen (in the room / offstage / through a relationship)? What does a "yes" reliably mean there, versus a soft, vague, or time-buying response? Then write one concrete change: before my next meeting in this culture, I will do ____ offstage that I used to try to do in the room. Revisit this entry after your next real meeting and note what you got right and wrong — it will become one of the most practical pages in your portfolio.