Study Abroad - Berlin, Germany

01-12-09 (Monday)

This morning we had a very cold walk to class at the Freie Universitat (Free University). The whole campus was covered in snow and ice, so the university wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing as I had imagined it would be, however I could see its potential. The link below contains pictures of the university (probably taken in the summer) that do it far more justice than my frozen hand pictures do.

http://www.fu-berlin.de/en/tour/galerie_neu/index.html
















The history of the university is quite interesting. In short, the University was founded by German students after the Second World War with the help of the United States. The link below contains the details.

http://www.fu-berlin.de/en/tour/geschichtsausstellung/index.html

We had four classes today including a class called German-American Negotiating. The class was taught by Prof. Dr. Rudi Bresser (the Germans are very formal hence both Prof. and Dr. titles) and was, in my opinion, the most interesting class of the day. Prof. Dr. Bresser discussed prevailing American stereotypes of Germans and vice versa and then talked about ways to overcome these stereotypes in order to negotiate more effectively with one another. The list below shows the main differences (according to Prof. Dr. Bresser) between German and American negotiating styles.

American Negotiating Style:
Informal negotiating style
Negotiate only with decision makers
Straight and to the point
Lay all cards on the table

German Negotiating Style:
Formal negotiating style
Have limited authority
Long winded
Tend to withhold information

In order to be an effective cross-cultural negotiator, Prof. Dr. Bresser discussed some helpful skills people should possess (see list below). For what its worth, I would argue that these skills apply to any cross-cultural situation, not just negotiations, and that we all should work to incorporate them into our lives.

Skills for Cross-Cultural Negotiation:
Tolerance for Differences
Open-mindedness
Non-judgementalness
Tolerance for Ambiguity
Flexibility/Adaptability
Communicativeness
Curiosity
Empathy
Sense of humor
Warmth in human relationships
Strong sense of self
Ability to fail

Our day in class concluded at 5:00PM and we then had the night to do as we wished. Brad, CH and I decided to try to find the remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall. Although we had a basic understanding of where the pieces were, we weren’t exactly sure. In addition, our track record of finding things over the past few days has been pathetic at best (it’s a good thing we don’t have to read maps for our classes). So, as you might have predicted based on my foreshadowing, we didn’t find it. We did however, get our first glimpse of the Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust Memorial and had our first real German dinner at a restaurant in the same area.