Morale was high at the US based contracting company. They had just been invited to join a consortium of companies that had pre-qualified for a big public works tender in Central Asia. The offer came via e-mail. After concluding the initial round of correspondence with their counterparts, a two man team made up of one senior engineer and one business development exec were sent to Europe to meet up with their potential partners and sign the consortium agreement.

The trip started well, as they were well received by their hosts at the airport, guided to their hotel and were pleased to see that a well planned itinerary awaited them. Two mid- level managers took them out to dinner that night, and a jovial relationship was established.

The next day, still dazzled by the late night and effects of jet lag the US team met with the senior execs of the consortium and gave a strong power point presentation as to their capabilities, past business performance and key deliverables. Everyone was all smiles at lunch, and things were very cordial in the afternoon during the contract negotiations. The US team e-mailed back the tentative consortium agreement late afternoon and was treated to a special evening of entertainment and fine dining "Asian" style by the corporate execs.

Next morning, they received confirmation from the legal department at corporate that the agreement was acceptable and that they could go ahead and sign. The agreement was signed, pictures were taken and small gifts were exchanged. After having generated so much good will in such a good time, it was decided that the new consortium partners should visit the government office which was organizing the tender in order to introduce the US company.

Up to that time, the whole process had been text book perfect. The meeting with the government authorities went ahead as planned, but it was not possible to gauge the results of the meeting from the US company's point of view. They had also received some conflicting news from the Government officials. The pre-qualification for tender had been cancelled, and the process would start over again.

Their new partners assured them that this was a normal occurrence for this part of the world. Other disturbing news started to trickle down as comments of the need to make facilitation payments arose. The US team automatically countered with their need to abide by the Corrupt Foreign Practices Act, but their hosts assured them that it would be they who would take care of things, not the American's, but that the American's should know that such a arrangement had to be entered into as they were a part of everyday life if you wanted to do business in this part of the world.

The trip was concluded with a lavish good bye dinner and further entertainment, "Asian" style. The team was in a jovial mood when they arrived back in the US and were congratulated by the CEO for their accomplishment.

Their Asian counterparts meanwhile prepared for the new pre-qualification process and asked for intensive documentation. A project team was established for the Central Asia project and earnest work began to supply their consortium partners with the necessary materials to win the pre-qualification bid. At the same time hints that certain facilitation expenses were being made to Government authorities were being relayed to the American company over the phone. But, never in writing. After a while, these vague remarks became very much clearer as their foreign partners started to talk numbers.

The US stance was the same. We cannot be involved, we don't want to know about it.

Two months after the signing of the consortium agreement, the new pre-qualification bid was held, and their consortium failed to qualify.

Their Asian counterparts blamed them in part for not assisting them in paying up the facilitation fees, and claimed that they would have won had the size of the payment been larger! They vowed to have the pre-qualification tender cancelled and the process renewed. Which they actually managed to do! But by this time, the American company had lost faith in their partners, and having allocated resources freely against the promise of lucrative rewards, decided to withdraw from the project.

The Asian partners accused the American's of being short sighted, inflexible, and shallow. The American's accused the Asian's with being untruthful, slow, and not results oriented. Both sides threatened each other with law suits and asked for damages. Lawyers wrote letters back and forth, but even they had problems communicating. The cost of litigation would have been too expensive, so both sides refrained from going to court, but wrote letters of complaint to their respective embassies.

The communication gap between the cultures played an important role in how this project went bad. Communicating across cultures can be extremely difficult. What is the beginning for one culture can be the end for another.

BTU offers "Cultural Leadership" coaching programs to bridge the gap between cultures and to facilitate effective communication with the aim of delivering results in the International arena.

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