Deceive the Dragon: Negotiating to retain power

By Leonie McKeon

With over three decades of experience as a China-Educated Strategist and business owner, Leonie McKeon has helped hundreds of business owners and executives understand how to do business with Chinese people and to be better negotiators.
Based on The Art of War, Leonie shares her deep understanding of the 36 Strategies used in Chinese culture and business. She provides invaluable practical tips for any business person looking to improve their overall negotiation skills, as well as become better negotiators in China.
More Control, More Success, More Wins!
Deceive the Dragon: Negotiating to retain power contains ancient Chinese negotiation secrets that are part of everyday Chinese business practices. Discover how you too can use this ancient wisdom so you can have More Control, More Success, More Wins!

• Understand the rules of the game of negotiation
• Become a great negotiator anywhere, any time
• Learn how to respond when Chinese negotiation tactics are used on you
• Master the ancient secrets of negotiation so you remain in control
• Implement culturally appropriate strategies for doing business in China
• Avoid the traps of classic Chinese negotiation strategies
• Take more control of every negotiation
• Get more success in business
• Win more in business

• Language: English
• Publisher: DoctorZed Publishing
• Release date: Aug 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9780648131434

Leonie McKeon

Leonie McKeon is an Australian China-educated strategist and author who is passionate about sharing her knowledge of the rules that drive business success in the China market. Leonie has lived, worked and travelled in the Greater China Region for several years where she learnt Mandarin, and observed the mastery of Chinese negotiation tactics in business and daily life. Leonie is a workshop presenter and a keynote speaker who teaches business people how the 36 Chinese Strategies are used in the contemporary business world. Leonie enables people to feel confident and therefore able to enjoy being part of the game of negotiating whether in China or in any other business environment...

Book preview

Deceive the Dragon

Negotiating to retain power

Deceive the Dragon

Negotiating to retain power

Leonie McKeon

Copyright © 2018 by Leonie McKeon

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

www.leoniemckeon.com

ISBN: 978-0-6481314-2-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-0-6481314-4-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-0-6481314-3-4 (ebk)

A CiP number for this title can be found at the National Library of Australia.

Cover image © Trish Pollock

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author. The author does not dispense financial advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of guarantee for financial or business viability without the advice of a qualified financial advisor, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your business. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself or your business, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Printed in Australia, UK and USA.

rev. date 28/06/2018

Contents

Acknowledgements

Leonie’s Journey Continues

What does Guanxi mean

Opportunistic Strategies

Strategy Seven

Strategy Eight

Strategy Nine

Strategy Ten

Strategy Eleven

Strategy Twelve

Your Next Steps

Acknowledgements

As I continue to write The Dao of Negotiation , I realise more and more the rich subtleties that distinguish one strategy from another, and how multiple strategies can be simultaneously at play. As anyone who has engaged in a complex project like writing a book will know, it is crucial to have someone to bounce ideas off. It has been a pleasure to work with Organisational Psychologist Shelley Rogers, who assisted me in thinking through some of the examples. Shelley has had her own experiences of China, which has made her insights valuable. I would also like to thank Jennifer McKeon who continues to read and re-read the drafts and has provided much needed support and belief in the project. Finally, many thanks to Cassandra Heffernan for her wonderful research skills, and to everyone else behind the scenes who has made Deceive the Dragon possible.

Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Leonie’s Journey Continues

After being advised to go to Taiwan by an English guy, my travelling companion and I met at the youth hostel in Hong Kong, we arrived in Taipei, Taiwan, with limited money. The piece of information we were not told was that if you wanted to teach English in Taiwan you had to speak with an American accent. We discovered this after reading several noticeboards in the hostel we were staying at in Taipei. Of course these were the days of no internet – yes a world without the internet – so we relied on pieces of paper pinned to noticeboards for information about employment, accommodation and things for sale. The notices with advertisements for English teachers all said ‘American English teacher wanted’. You did not need a teaching background, nor were you required to speak Mandarin Chinese; you just needed to speak English with an American accent. I was aware that in order to get work, we would have to change our accents to sound like Americans.

After a couple of days in the hostel, and patiently calling English schools to be interviewed for English teaching jobs with no luck, I saw an advertisement ‘Voiceover wanted’. It sounded interesting, although I had no idea what doing a voiceover involved. The money was very good. For four hours they would pay the equivalent of eighty Australian Dollars per hour. This was a small fortune as far as we were concerned. These were the days of no mobile phones, so I used the public telephone in the hostel to enquire about the job. The people recruiting for the voiceover position told me to meet them in the Hilton Hotel lobby. This seemed easy, as the Hilton Hotel was on the main road and was therefore easy to find. In the early days of arriving in Taipei I could not speak any Mandarin, so the easier a location was to find the better. My travelling companion waited for me at the hostel and I assured him I would come back later that day with some cash. We were both very excited.

I went off to the Hilton Hotel in my best clothes, which were drawstring pants and a cheap silk shirt which I had purchased in India, accessorised with pointy-toed leather sandals, which had also been purchased in India. The outfit looked good when I was travelling in India, but somehow did not translate when trying to impress for a job. I was met by two Chinese men at the Hilton Hotel. Two American men arrived for the meeting, who were obviously also being recruited for the voiceover position. I still had no idea what I had applied for.

The two Chinese men instructed us to follow them. The American men walked with confidence as though they had done this before and knew what the job entailed. I pretended to feel the same and did my best to also walk with confidence. When we were led down small Taiwanese alleys. I could not conceal my amazement because I had never seen anything like this. After about thirty minutes of walking through these fascinating streets – which unbeknown to me would