I am not a great world traveler, nor have I had a tremendous amount of global leadership experience. However, the experiences I have had to date are all unique and have helped to mold me into the leader that I am today. My experience in Mexico City was no different.
Let me start off by saying that I was leery of going to a meeting in Mexico City. Despite being a man of large stature (I’m 6’4 and look similar to an NFL lineman), Mexico City isn’t known as the safest place to visit. In fact, it is so unsafe that my organization would not allow me to leave the hotel by myself. We had to travel in a pack. Added to that pack was security that was hired by the company. When that type of security is required for low level Senior Manager, as I was, the prevailing thoughts in my head were not positive. We were also told to dine in at the hotel nightly, to ensure that our health was not compromised. While I understand that parts of Central America may not have advanced water filtration and food handling practices, Mexico City is highly developed. I took this as a security measure more than I did as a health measure.
The city itself is as massive as any I have ever visited. When I drove into Toronto, Canada a few years ago, I thought I would never see anything vaster and spread out. It felt like we could place two Toronto’s inside of Mexico City. The city sprawled for miles and miles. In total, there are 20.4 million residents in Mexico City, five times the number of residents of the next largest city in Mexico. In fact, Mexico City houses 17% of the population of the entire country (Central Intelligence Agency, 2015).
The first day of doing business was awkward at best. We pulled up to a large office building that was surrounded by a compound gate, with armed guards at each of the stations (there were too many to count). This did not help with my trepidation on personal security. Once inside, the facility was beautiful, and there were many members of management lined up to meet our small group. We were each given to a group of three counterparts (there were three of us on the trip) and we were somewhat separated besides being together. In the States, it would have felt like a divide and conquer tactic to business.
We did not talk business much, except for our personal backgrounds and experiences, at all the first day. In fact, we were not together as a group at all, except for lunch. Instead, we stayed in our small groups and just spoke. I did not know what to make of the situation at first. We were in town for four days, so I understood the business may be spread throughout the week. But I found it odd that we avoided the business discussion at all.
Looking back, I now realize it was done to ensure we got to know those we were doing business with. In the Mexican culture, leaders want to get to know those who they will conduct business with prior to doing, or discussing, business further. While we had communicated with this group, we really didn’t know them very well. And while we were a significant revenue opportunity for them, if they didn’t like us, they simply would not do business with us. Years later, looking for information on the subject of doing business in Mexico City, my thoughts were confirmed by experts:
“Most business people concern themselves foremost with their products and services and the ‘pitch’ they will deliver to convince the Mexicans to buy from them, or perhaps to persuade the Mexicans to provide vital supplies or support services which are essential to their commercial success in Mexico. And yet, long before you consider how you will sell to or work with your Mexican business associates, you need to develop the relationship. If Mexicans don’t like you, they won’t work with you. “ (Mexexperience, 2015)
The bond we build that first day was important to the rest of the week. It allowed us to break down barriers that we might have had otherwise, with our cultures being so different. Regardless of how much homework is done on doing business in another culture, language barriers/gaps and other cultural differences can sometimes be challenging to overcome. That was limited by the approach this team took with our group, and looking back I gain more appreciation with the approach.
In the end, we had a successful week in Mexico City. Despite my concerns, we ran into no security issues while we visited. We ended up starting a contractual 5 year relationship with the group and while I am not longer with that organization, I am told that they renewed the relationship recently for another five years.
I also gain more perspective on how to take unique approaches to business. Being part of large organizations, there is many times an approach of over, aggressive selling business service offerings in order to win the deal. However, I changed my approach slightly after my Mexico City experience, to one that builds the relationship prior engaging in the business aspect, and it has proven to be extremely successful.
Despite my fears, my trip was one of the more professionally impact experiences I have had in my short career.
Works Cited
Central Intelligence Agency. (2015, March 28). The World Factbook: Mexico. Retrieved from CIA Wrold Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mx.html
Mexexperience. (2015, March 28). Business Etiquette in Mexico. Retrieved from Mexexperience: http://www.mexperience.com/business/mexico-business-etiquette.php
Peter Joseph Santiago says
I found your article very interesting. Some parts of Mexico still remain to be very unsafe. It is good to hear that your company took precaution to make sure that your team was safe. At the company I work at, we are required to travel in armored vehicles when making any visits to our facilities at border towns. In some cases this may be overkill, but it is important that companies look after their highest asset, which is their people.
In the Mexican culture it’s important to establish a relationship before you conduct business. I found your comment “If Mexicans do not like you they will not work with you” very true. Mexican’s work as groups, they are not a individualistic type of culture (Penn State World Campus, 2015). I am from Mexican background and have seen first hand how important it is to establish relationships when doing business. In order to be successful one must be strategic and establish relationships that will create advantages.
References
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2015). OLEAD 497B Lesson 9: Central America and Mexico. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/olead497b/001/content/09_lesson/01_page.html
Rachel E Maddux says
Learning about Central American culture it is nice to read a real life example of a working situation. Mentioning not working at all the first day proves that they people need to get to know you before doing business with you and even though your trip was so short lived, they still took the time to get to know you first. Your experience supports the point, “Mexicans prefer to work more in groups for the benefit of everyone rather than for each person to make his or her own way (PSU, L9, P4)”. Your post points out numerous items about the Central American culture that is different than ours. Your approach to doing the work appeared to work although I am sure it was hard to not fully understand what was going on before walking in. When you mention, “Once inside, the facility was beautiful, and there were many members of management lined up to meet our small group” were any of those members of management women or were they all men? If they were all men it also supports their masculinity score.
Work Cited:
Pennsylvania State University. (2015). Lesson 09: Central America and Mexico. Angel, Lesson 9, 1-6.