SUBTEXTate a price. They wouldn't understand who we were as a company
and they really didn't care to understand. They were more interested
in my understanding who they were.
"While we were talking and getting nowhere, in an attempt to
make small talk, I asked about the sauna, a national phenomenon
in Finland. No other Scandinavian country had it to any degree.
"For the first time in our talks they seemed to come alive,
and they explained that since their country was so bitterly cold,
the sauna was a good place to keep warm and to discuss business.
When I told them I'd never been in one, they tentatively invited
me to have our next meeting there. I realized they weren't sure
how I'd take the invitation. How do you invite an American to
get undressed to come to a business meeting? I began to understand
that a lot of their business is actually conducted in the sauna!
"When I accepted the invitation, they were pleased. We went
into the sauna, stripped to the buff, and they began to discuss
business. There was a lot of joking, and an easy camaraderie
developed. All of them spoke Swedish for my benefit. To my
delight, I got through just what I wanted to. It was a totally different
relationship!"
The subtext, John realized, was obvious: "We don't trust you
until we understand that you won't laugh at our ways or look
down on us as many foreigners do." But there was another, more
subtle, subtext in the sauna meeting: "When you are naked, you
have nothing to hide! You are willing to expose yourself. There
was a sense of equality among us. Dress, position, even aggressive
boardroom moves were forgotten. We were definitely on the same
level."
John found that getting into the sauna established trust. "Once
I realized what was going on," John explained, "I accepted other
elements of their culture. They believe that Americans eat only