Preparing To Deal With Major Cultural Differences

As I get ready to depart on this trip, I am faced with the fact that I have virtually no meetings scheduled. Up until last night i was really freaking out about this. I had made two strong contacts as a result of my efforts communicating with and following up with Rotarians in Accra. This seemed as though it would have led to a number of meetings when I arrived. But nothing of the sort occurred.

As a fall back tactic, I decided that I would immediately start hitting up Rotary Club meetings in an effort to drum up meetings. Then last night I did something I probably should have done months ago. I searched information on business etiquette in Ghana. Guess what I found out?

Well for one, evidently in Ghana they don't like to use electronic methods for scheduling meetings. They prefer to do things over the phone. For another, there is a need for people to understand you on a personal basis before they want to do business. One of my main two contacts has invited me to her home for dinner. The other has been extremely helpful but not so quick on setting a meeting...until we started to talk about food and chile sauce and possibly sharing cooking for each other.

Aha, okay, I am going to have to adopt a completely different approach. The idea of going to the Rotary Club meetings is correct because if I meet people in person, I will be more likely to have that personal connection needed to get meetings. And I am going to throw myself into getting to know the two existing contacts on a personal basis and trust the business aspect will naturally follow.

There was lots more about listening and not filling in silences with conversation ... going to be very hard for me. Remember to hand out your business card with your right hand. Lots of respect and deference to elders. Does that apply to the outsider coming in?

This is going to be interesting and a learning experience to the max!