If our world is to become a global village, the need for better understanding and communication among peoples from different cultures is crucial.

Most of today’s social and political issues transcend local or national interests and actions (Berman and Johnson, 1977). For example, common markets, resource shortages, ethnic conflicts, nuclear proliferation, natural disasters, drug and environmental problems, terrorism, and epidemics cannot be handled by individual nations.

I use the term “microcultures” to refer to the communalities in meanings, norms of communication, and behavior; the shared perceptions and expectations; the roles and relationships that can develop among individuals from different cultural backgrounds as they interact over time. If no microcultures are created in such sit­uations, major misunderstandings and breakdowns are inevitable. The largely unconscious expectations and assumptions that public and private negotiators bring to these encounters from their own cultures that are not shared by their counterparts from other cultures are the basis of these problems. Because each negotiator thinks that the others could (and should) share their expectations and assumptions (their mind-sets), they assume that the others are misbehaving or are not serious about reaching agreements when they do the unexpected. That is, they attribute others’ behaviors to their situational attitudes and goals rather than their cultural backgrounds.

Prior to this meeting between Secretary of State James Baker and Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad, the United States appointed a woman, April Glaspie, as its Ambassador to Iraq. The ambassador’s gender and her status as a “Westerner” made her a very weak representative in the estimation of the Iraqis. Her status and the ambiguity of the message she had delivered warning King Hussein against invading Kuwait signaled to Hussein that the United States was not con­cerned with his “retaking of Iraq’s territory.” To him, what the United States did not say was more important than what it did say.

The subsequent meeting in Geneva was plagued by cultural misunderstandings (Stewart, 1991; Kimmel, 1994). The two groups could not have done a better job of alienating each other had they tried. The Associated Press (AP) reported that Baker was “genuinely stunned” when Aziz refused to take President Bush’s letter, explaining to the king what the United States would do if Iraq invaded Kuwait. Aziz judged the Bush letter too explicit to be presented to Hussein. Although we do not know the contents, it is likely that they were blunt and unequivocal. Such communications are not acceptable in cultures whose officials expect room to maneuver so that they are not embarrassed (lose face). An explicit, written state­ment from one head of state to another was the wrong kind of message sent in the wrong way to the wrong person. As a result of their different cultural expectations and assumptions, Aziz and the Iraqis decided that the Americans were not seri­ous about negotiating and were deliberately insulting them.

Publicly humiliating officials from a face-saving culture can create enemies for life. Such humiliation will stiffen their resolve and reduce the possibilities for change. For example, after Aziz had been scolded by the U.S. delegation in Geneva, one Iraqi delegate said in a “quaking voice” as he left the meeting, “I never thought that you Americans could be so arrogant. Such a free and open country you have and still you refuse to see our viewpoint.” Here is a man who felt condescended to and accused of something he did not intend. Lacking the knowledge to create microcultures, representatives’ different levels of cultural awareness often lead to more destructive conflicts, as this example illustrates (Kimmel, 1998).