Reaching an agreement that everyone understands and a document that reflects a true meeting of the minds is always challenging.  Besides the implicit and explicit legal meaning attributed to certain words, there are the individual eccentricities, regional differences and international/ cultural differences that may make the job harder than you think.  Jared Sandberg’s recent Wall Street Journal article , for example, points out that some cultures value relationships more than contracts.  As a result, you may need to look beyond the 4-corners of the agreement to manage the legal risk effectively. 

Footnote: These cultural differences also present an interesting challenge when managing a diverse workforce. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 7:12 am and is filed under Business Blind Spots, Communications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.