Mini Case Study : Persuading Scandinavian team members Juan, the new Latin American project manager, was leading a change management project which targeted a new sales approach. When he met his Scandinavian team, he spontaneously decided to introduce this new concept without having prepared any slides. He was still fired up with a lot of new ideas he had come up with during his discussions with senior management. Of course, the concept had to be developed further and more systematically. Instead, he just shared his ideas with the team and colorfully pictured the great results that could be achieved with the new concept, agitating wildly. As he did not get any questions or comments, he raised his voice and described how happy and enthusiastic the customers will be with the new approach that was best in class, unheard of, and just great. Speaking freely and using all his best rhetoric, he was puzzled by the Scandinavians who continued to listen with stony faces, showing no reaction to what they were hearing. The Latin American project manager was desperate: why did his team ignore him? What an awful project start ...

Question:

Analyse the root cause of the problem from two perspectives: verbal communication styles and negotiation styles. Additionally, you can refer to nonverbal language (cf. the companion website