Slides from Neil Payne's presentation for UKTI and Business West on 12th June 2014 entitled "Building Relationships in the Middle East".

1. Building Relationships in
the Middle East

2. What do I know?

3. Cultural Awareness
Islam - National Cultures – Politics – Communication
Building Relationships

4. Relationship Driven Cultures

5. Would you
lie?
Plenty would

6. WHO
is more
important than
WHAT

7. Hierarchy

8. Honour & Face

9. Communication

10. Business & Pleasure

11. How do I build a relationship?

12. Patience

13. Get Personal

14. Get Physical?

15. Wasta

16. Keep faces the same

17. Gender

18. Where are you working?

19. Status

20. It’s not easy

21. Working Virtually

22. Thank You
@neil_kwint
www.kwintessential.co.uk

23. • Where is ME?
• Who am I?
• Cultural awareness spans many areas – relationship for me is #1 priority when
working with ME as its hardest to break
• Why relationship driven culture? Theory.
• Who is more important than what
• Seeing it in practice – honour, communication (indirect, polite, no/yes, inshaallah,
mixing biz + personal, shisha, paying food,
• How to build/what to do – patience, give 100% to small talk (its doing you good),
get personal, frequent contact, wasta, remember if ppl change you need to start
again,
• Gender considerations – remember attitudes to women vary from state to state,
Prophet’s wife worked, in Gulf women achieve status through nationality and
profession, in places like Saudi you need a mahram (see if you have local contacts),
reality is also that it can be tough
• Working virtually –