19
SWEAT FOR IT

I was participating in a client meeting in an off-the-beaten path city in China. My colleagues and I visited the client's offices in the middle of a sweltering hot summer. Since their office facilities were quite large, each meeting room had its own air conditioning unit that could be turned on with a remote control. In case you were wondering, the restrooms did not have air conditioning or Western style toilets, so the ladies' room was an experience in itself. Aside from the climate control situation, the customer's team was pleasant but unique. It was a mix of traditional near-retirement age men and young professionals, and the older crew was a bit erratic in their negotiation strategy. Some days, they were prepared to close off issues and then some other days, they'd introduce new, seemingly impossible items for discussion.
On the latter kind of days that happened to be the hottest day of the extreme heat wave, the leader of their team made incredibly difficult demands and started screaming at nobody in particular to convey the importance of his most recent requests. After his half hour-long shrieking session was over, my colleague asked if we could have a private meeting room to discuss the issues amongst our own team. Between the heat wave and tense situation, we weren't sure if we were figuratively or literally feeling the heat. The conference room we were given had an air conditioning unit that was partially operational (meaning it faintly recirculated the stagnant air for a few seconds before breaking down). Thankfully, I had a short-sleeved dress under my blazer, but my colleague had a long-sleeved dress shirt on. As we sat in there, it got so hot that my colleague's shirt was completely drenched from collar to sleeve from sweating. When we emerged from the room, we all literally took a breath of fresh air with beads of sweat rolling down our backs. I'm sure we smelled great too!

As we reentered the original conference room, I noticed that the air conditioning had also been turned off. The client offered my colleague a single tissue to wipe up his sweat when a roll of paper towels wouldn't have been enough. I then figured out that they obviously were trying to make us physically uncomfortable to get their way, which was an innovative negotiation strategy. We managed to survive being literally put in the hot seat and talk them off of a few of their steep demands, but boy oh boy, did we sweat for it!