Doing business is Guatemala is strikingly different from the business world of the United States. In the United States there is a well known phrase that rings true day in and day out: “time is money”. In the United States business culture timeliness and promptness is a prerequisite for doing good business. We calculate delays by the money that it costs us. This is where Guatemalan culture differs the most.
Time is not a currency in the Guatemalan business climate. Within companies that contain both United States and Guatemalan workers there is a running joke revolving around “Guatemala time” and how it is so different from the cut and dry planning times that United States workers are accustomed to. In the company that I’m working for we will often set up appointments for meeting with different persons, but we don’t schedule these meetings by a time to meet, but more so a day and time of the day. When we plan for meetings we will talk about whether the other party is more free in the morning or the afternoon. Even then when we have a time of the day planned out we’ll go to visit them at their house or wherever we are meeting and about half the time they’re not there, so we would come back later or the next day, and it’s never seen as strange or rude. In this culture when someone is walking somewhere, it is normal to stop with everyone that you pass who you know and talk to them and catch up. I’m convinced this cultural difference is not only due to the Latin American culture generally but also the socio-economic state of the market that the organization I am with works in.
The company that I’m working for, Students International, works in impoverished communities with the mission of developing these communities by empowering individuals through education and access to financial services that are otherwise unavailable to them. This lends itself to a unique business climate where the focus is not on contract-based production, but rather on relationships with individuals in the community. So our “business” interactions are more often than not very personal, where we are going to the houses of the people we work with. In the towns that we work in, there is a very strong emphasis on community to a point where it’s common to visit others unannounced. A lot of the visits that I’ve made with staff members are going to the houses of the community in order to plan and do business with them. One day I was assigned to work with a staff member who teaches music and art classes through after-school programs for kids in the community to keep them busy after school and learn different ways to express themselves. The day that I was with Eddy, the music teacher, we went and visited several of the houses of students that are enrolled in the program. We were visiting one of the houses because the student had been doing poorly in school and his mother was going to pull him out of the music program so he would study more. Eddy visited the house of his student unannounced to tell the mother of the student that he was willing to spend extra time with her son to help him focus on his studies and succeed in school like Eddy knew that he could. This kind of business practice would be very out of place in the United States but it was a very normal and
welcome thing here in Guatemala. The family received us so warmly and invited us to sit and they made some drinks and food for us so we could sit down and share time with them. In the United States I believe this interaction would’ve taken place over email, if it ever would have occurred in the first place. I think this cultural difference is most likely due to the community-centric culture that is common in these lower socio-economic neighborhoods where technology is not the main conduit for communication.
While I haven’t worked in any of the richer parts of the country like the capital, I am told that the business culture becomes more and more impersonal in higher socio-economic circles. The reason that this very personal and slow culture dominates here in Guatemala therefore would be largely due to the shockingly uneven distribution of wealth in the country.
The Guatemalan people that I have talked to about the state of wealth in their country have openly shared that there are about ten families that own nearly everything in Guatemala. If you are going to a coffee shop that isn’t in a rural area, it’s almost guaranteed to be owned by one of the elite families in Guatemala. Additionally, this extremely exclusive elite group of families in Guatemala are protected by the corruption that is plain in the courthouses of Guatemala. If any serious competitor begins finding momentum in Guatemala, they are bought out by one of the families or they find themselves brought to court by the elite for whatever reason they can come up with. Many of the courthouses here operate the same as auction houses. The highest bidder will typically win the ruling. One of the staff members that works here, we’ll call him Pablo, was very successful in welding and metal casting near this community in Magdalena, Guatemala. While driving around the area you can see a lot of cell towers that provide cell phone service, and Pablo had provided the parts and the welding for most all of those towers. He had been approached about his small but successful company being bought but he refused. He was then approached about a really big contract with one of the bigger companies in Guatemala. This was an amazing opportunity for him to grow his company, so he took out a big loan with the bank in order to purchase the equipment necessary to complete the job. While he was doing the job the company he was working with was acting strangely and he was afraid that they weren’t going to pay him based off him not meeting their standards. He couldn’t afford to not be paid for this job because he extended beyond his normal means in order to complete it, so he had to sue them to try and get payment for his job. He brought them to court only to realize very quickly that they had bribed the judge and there was nothing he could do to get justice, so he had to accept the loss and watch his company disappear. It’s very likely that this was a predatory plan to reduce competition in Guatemala by abusing the lack of justice in the court system. Many have qualms with the justice system of the United States but this kind of widespread corruption is not
found in the United States business world. The United States government has many checks and balances to protect people like Pablo.
The business climate that I’ve had the opportunity to work in is very different from the United States in many ways. I have been so thankful to be able to experience a differnt culture for these two months and broaden my worldview of the ways that business can be done. I have learned that time doesn’t have to be a currency, and that we can’t take justice for granted in this world. I think that this experience will inform and enrich the rest of my time in the business world.
Isaiah is completing a internship abroad through Students International in Guatemala for summer 2019.
International Business Experience 