A representative of a Canadian mobile phone accessory company was finishing up negotiations with a Chinese manufacturer over the purchase of 10 000 accessory sets, when he mentioned one final detail: all product labelling should be in English and French. This news caused the Chinese Managing Director concern as his company lacked French-language expertise and could only work with Chinese and English, but he did not want to admit this to the buyer. The Chinese Managing Director replied with a smile, "I am afraid that supplying labels in French and English will be a bit difficult," and continued, "This question will require further study." The Canadian manager politely repeated that bilingual French/English labels were required by Canadian import regulations. His counterpart replied with a smile: "We will give your request serious consideration. It will be quite difficult. We will do our best to solve the problem." Relieved to have settled this final detail, the Canadian manager signed the contract and returned home to Canada. Three months later, the 10 000 sets arrived from China with bilingual labels in English and Chinese.

If you were a culturally aware Canadian executive doing the negotiating here, how would you have proceeded to avoid the costly misunderstanding that occurred?