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.I would be interested to see if this way of doing things would be happily or profitably adopted by managers working in countries like China, India, and in the Middle East, where long-standing anddeep-rooted personal relationships are a prerequisite to doing business.In a situation like this, hard-headedbusiness strategists are faced with a dilemma: To achieve a pragmatic goal (to do business), managers mayactually be required to spend time getting to know and taking an interest in people they neither work with norare related to.Squaring that particular circle could keep them occupied for a while.LETTER 145How people get on together plays a vital part in how well their company performs.Business backslide Letter 145FROM NORWAY ABOUT SAUDI ARABIAOur company has had an excellent relationship with a Saudi Arabian customer for many years, but sincethe retirement of the last sales manager we haven t received any orders.The new sales manager isreally worried and is planning to go down there to see what s happened.What do you think has gonewrong?It sounds as it the change from one manager to another could have been better handled.Your previousmanager was obviously older and may have had personal contacts in Saudi Arabia for many years.In manycountries, especially outside the U.S., Canadian, and Western European cultures, personal relationships arethe most reliable way of doing business, and business is done largely between individuals rather than betweencompanies.If you do business with a trusted business contact, you have an unspoken guarantee that he orshe will take a personal interest in your business and take care of any problems that may arise.When your previous sales manager retired he should have introduced his replacement personally to his SaudiArabian customers, but as that obviously hasn t happened I suggest he write a letter of introduction that thenew manager can take on his first visit.Alternatively, he could ask the former manager to take a half houraway from the golf course or garden and phone his Saudi contacts for a chat and to explain the new situation.Otherwise your new manager is going to have to start from scratch to build personal relationships, and thatcan take time.LETTERS 146 147Certain patterns of behavior are encouraged or expected in different cultures.However, when practicedabroad they can result in disapproval.Too dependent Letter 146FROM THE U.S.ABOUT MEXICOI was in Mexico a couple of years ago and worked quite closely with a Mexican colleague, who was veryhelpful.Now he is working here in New York on a six-month placement, but we are not working on thesame project.He seems to be having some problems getting authorization for some of our systems, butI have a target to meet and if I spend time helping him I m going to end up behind schedule myself.Healso expects us to lunch together most days, but I usually just have a sandwich at my desk, and hewants to make arrangements for after work when I have other things to do.He needs to learn to standon his own two feet.The poor guy.He must be having a hard time adjusting to the pace of work at your company.I know that stress is the killer of empathy and you obviously have a lot to do, and if you are working toward a bonus or apromotion you are not going to take kindly to acting as mentor to a new employee.However, forget yourschedule for a minute and try to remember the inevitable adjustments you had to make to working in Mexico.Your friend eased this adjustment period for you, and you have a duty to do the same for him.In Mexico, andindeed in most Latin American cultures, long-term personal relationships are more important, both inside andoutside the work environment, than they are in the U.S.in general, and New York in particular.And if you don treturn his kindness you are going to confirm the preconception that U.S.Americans are opportunists who areonly interested in using short-term personal relationships for their own ends.So introduce him to your network,and if necessary have a quiet word with his manager to see if you can ease any authorization issues.Don t letyour belief that people should stand on their own feet stop you from offering a helping hand to a friend in need.The role of personality Letter 147FROM THE U.S.ABOUT THAILANDMy department has to send a representative to Thailand to see if we can do business there and I haveto decide who should represent us.We have one guy (U.S.American like the rest of us) who s had verygood results in Europe
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