Doing Business in the Balkans

Doesn't the phrase go something like 'the devil is in the details'? Well I'm afraid unless I take a moment to record the everyday occurrences of what I experience in most business meetings, I will forget how NOT ordinary things really are out here.

Take for instance the fact that you can't actually really schedule meetings (in advance). People will just refuse to allow you to open up your calendar and get them to commit to a date and time unless it is either that day or the next. Even if someone is gracious enough to humor our western mentality, it will be imperative to reconfirm that morning. And not to mention that the meeting will very easily begin late and be interrupted routinely with a series of cell phone calls to anyone in the meeting (which they WILL answer), a communal pass the cigarette box around to all light up all at once, and at least two rounds of tea or machiato. Forgot to mention that before anyone actually says anything of substance, there must be the token and obligatory thankyou's and complements about anything that one can think about.

Amazing though that all of this has almost faded into white noise which has allowed my attention to be drawn to other such matters which are a bit more disturbing. How about the fact that (at least Albanians) either appear to posses an uncanny ability to be able to listen and speak at the exact same time as the person they are conversing with OR they don't care enough to listen to what the other person has to say. I have sat in on meetings where this verbal arm wrestling match lasted for almost a solid minute before one gentleman final stopped talking to allow the victor to complete his sentence. Of course the conversation had to continue four times longer than it should have since neither was listening to the other. Also common (with many other cultures as well) is the fact that they will often raise their voices to the point that you are certain things will come to blows, until it just turns out they were talking about the best texture of coffee beans to get the deepest aroma.

And how about putting on a training or a conference.? I can't say that RSVPs mean a whole lot since you will often times be lucky to just get a couple folks to listen to what you may have to say. Never mind the translations required for most meetings since my Albanian is no where near a business vocabulary. If the next time I speak with any of you and you find me omitting articles from my sentences or using very basic vocabulary, it is part to the training to keep things as simple as possible for both translation and those that do speak English.

Aside from all these peculiarities, most our clients are warm, good-intentioned and very receptive of the assistance we provide. Who knows, maybe there is something to always talking over others. At least this way it's hard to lose an argument? ;-)