MANAMA: The Ambassador of Sri Lanka to the Kingdom of Bahrain, Dr. A. Saj U. Mendis, was invited by the Sri Lankan Engineering Society of Bahrain to conduct a three-hour Technical Seminar on “International Strategic Negotiations”, at the Head Office of Bahrain Society of Engineers in the Kingdom of Bahrain. T
The Sri Lankan Engineering Society (SLES) has a membership of well over 100 Sri Lankan Engineers, IT Experts, Quantity Surveyors, Project Managers, Senior Managers in Technical and Manufacturing sectors and other Engineering related disciplines, employed in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
The Technical Seminar titled “International Strategic Negotiations” was attended by well over 120 participants with over half of them non-Sri Lankan foreign expatriates namely from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, UK, Europe and Bahrain, among others.
The President of the SLES, Eng. Wasantha Kahaduwa, a Senior Chartered Engineer and Head of Design of the Ministry of Works, Municipality Affairs and Urban Planning of Bahrain, stated in his opening remarks that negotiation skills, whether it is bilateral, trilateral or multilateral or national or international, have become an integral and intrinsic attribute and skill for advancement, marketing and promotions, as well as a value addition to an entity or organization, not only for engineers and technical experts but also for corporate captains, CEOs/Presidents of large corporates, entrepreneurs, diplomats& political leaders and other officials in disciplines and trades ranging from finance & banking, manufacturing, services, education, shipping and aviation to IT & ITES, among others.
Ambassador Dr. Mendis, in his technical address on “International Strategic Negotiations”, touched upon and broached a myriad of negotiations including international negotiations, negotiations with unions, contract negotiations and negotiations of salary, promotions and emoluments, as well as negotiation processese and progression, strategies and techniques of negotiations and a number of factual examples on negotiations, among others.
Dr. Mendis, also, quoted a number of examples of globally renowned and expert negotiators and the manner in which they negotiate including their respective strategies, techniques and tactics, One of the paramount and principal factors that Ambassador Dr. Mendis accentuated and underscored at the seminar, was the need to conduct extensive Research and Analysis, before commencement of any given negotiation.
He also added that most negotiators including some of the well trained and judicious negotiators do not, necessarily, conduct a sufficient quantum of research and analysis before commencing negotiations. Dr. Mendis also highlighted and pronounced a number of mistakes, fallacies and miscalculations people make during negotiations, including some of the most critical and telling negotiations, and how to identify and discern them
Ambassador Dr. Mendis is specialised in Corporate and Strategic Negotiations and earned his PhD in International Economic Policy from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and is a Visiting Faculty/Guest Lecturer, including on Strategic Negotiations, at a number of universities and academic institutions of repute including NTU of Singapore, Boston University, Graduate Institute of Policy Studies of Tokyo, Indian Institute of Finance of Delhi and Harvard, among others. Dr. Mendis is also a Senior Fellow at Harvard.
