Understanding of different cultures!

This thirteen page article cleared the meaning of CULTURAL DIFFERENCES in my mind. I understood that how dangerous cultural differences can be. On the business level, a business can be easily ruined without compatibility and cultural understandings. In our LC classes for the last two to three weeks, we have been talking and discussing about the cultural differences and their pros and cons. Two weeks ago we read about the German and British cultural differences and how they worked together on the Chunnel project. Both teams had their own ways of working. Similarly, in the article "The Challenges of International Management Teams
How Different Cultures Affect Business Decisions", I came across several examples related to different approaches to a problem by different countries.
Lets talk about the successful small businessman from London(as mentioned in the passage), who wanted to do business with a German bank. As he had never done any business with the Germans before, he wasn't aware of the Germans way of working. When greeted by the foreign investment banker, Mark wasn't comfortable with the way he was greeted. So easily he thought that he wasn't being given respect. whereas Max thought that the other party was wasting time on useless talks. This clearly shows that Mark first wanted to know more about the bankers before investing money on them. On the other hand, Max(German), wanted save time. This time management might be a quality of the Germans, which wasn't understood by Mark.

I feel that the six important aspects of an International business are : Trust, commitment, success, working together, attitudes to time and decision making. Perceiving things in a right way is really important. One should be aware of the cultures and their way of working. In the end of the article, the technical meetings worked well. They addressed cultural differences in working styles. Many such things should be done to reduce the differences.