| The premier (Article I -in this series) left off with an | | | | The issue -was not only intoxicated in public- but |
| example from my Russia experiences and | | | | causing a car accident while driving in the same |
| observations of how not educating yourself in | | | | condition which sent one of the local people to a |
| history, cultures and manners could and will get you | | | | hospital with a serious injury! |
| expelled from a country! The two salesmen in the | | | | This accident should have never happened. Police |
| first story were real senior level people, oblivious of | | | | were called and once again certain US workers were |
| any international business education and responsibility | | | | expelled from a country, heavy fines, restitution and |
| for their failure. Their company hopefully learned from | | | | allowances were paid upfront and now qualified |
| the Russian expulsion and quickly instituted a change | | | | replacements had to be made to continue the |
| that would better prepare their management and | | | | project. The cost was over $600,000 to fix! The |
| employees for international business. Remember one | | | | three expelled employees action had a continuing |
| simple thing; "if it were easy...everyone would be | | | | effect on the firm and the mature business |
| doing it right!". You can not successfully perform | | | | responsibilities, between legal and binding parties, than |
| International Business (IB) without cultural preparation, | | | | the young technicians fully appreciated. If the incident |
| readiness education and practice...before...you go! All | | | | would have caused a death or permanent handicap, |
| of the stories presented in the six part series come | | | | the entire company would have been expelled after |
| from my direct observations and experiences while | | | | massive sums of money and restitution deemed |
| working on multi-company programs or significant | | | | appropriate was paid and jointly closed. If you think |
| business negotiations in each country. | | | | about it, for smaller companies this would have |
| Our next example comes from South Africa where a | | | | immediately shut down the firm or caused a |
| multi-company program was responsible for surveying | | | | bankruptcy. The eventual newspaper article |
| land to build an operations center, establish support | | | | reference worldwide alone would have caused |
| services and assure security measures. So what | | | | priceless long term damage. |
| went wrong in this seemingly simple task? Simply | | | | So, as you will come to learn over the final next 4 |
| --untrained, un-managed youth! More specifically, | | | | installments, International Business (IB) is a serious |
| young employees sent away for possibly the first | | | | matter, not to be taken lightly nor without the right |
| time in their lives, to a foreign country, without any | | | | education and assurances in place, and in practice, to |
| senior management, or corporate training, nor cultural | | | | make all your experiences a growing and rewarding |
| education or strict observances corporate policies. | | | | calling. It is always worth it to do things right! |