Sri Lankan Engineering Society of Bahrain conducts international seminar on ’strategic negotiations’

Sri Lanka Engineering Society of Bahrain President Eng. Wasantha Kahaduwa presenting a memento to Ambassador Dr. Mendis after the Technical Seminar on International Strategic Negotiations

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” last week, at the Head Office of Bahrain Society of Engineers in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The Sri Lankan

Ambassador Dr. Mendis conducting the Technical Seminar on Strategic Negotiations at the Sri Lankan Engineering Society at the Bahrain Society of Engineers auditorium

Engineering Society (SLES), which 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, organised this Seminar as a prerequisite of the Kingdom of Bahrain to have a minimum number of hours of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) to engineers, quantity surveyors and related disciplines.

The Technical Seminar titled “International Strategic Negotiations”, conducted by Ambassador Dr. A. Saj U. Mendis under the auspices of SLES of Bahrain Society of Engineers, was attended by well over 120 carefully chosen participants. Over half of the participants were non-Sri Lankans and foreign expatriates, namely from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, UK, Europe and Bahrain, among others. SLES President Eng. Wasantha Kahaduwa, a Senior Chartered Engineer and Head of Design of Ministry of Works, Municipality Affairs and Urban Planning of Bahrain, stated in his opening remarks that today, negotiation skills, whether it is bilateral, trilateral or multilateral or national or international, have become an integral and intrinsic attribute and skill for advancement, promotions and marketability as well as value addition to an entity or organisation, not only for engineers and technical experts but also for corporate captains, CEOs/Presidents of large corporates, entrepreneurs, diplomats and political leaders and other officials in disciplines and trades ranging from finance and banking, manufacturing, services, education, shipping and aviation to IT and 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 such as Leverage Buy-Outs (LBO), Hostile Takeovers, negotiations with unions, contract negotiations and negotiations of salary, promotions and emoluments as well as negotiation process 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, thus fructifying and realising the respective objectives and goals. One of the paramount and principal factors that Ambassador Dr. Mendis accentuated and underscored to the audience, during the technical lecture on negotiations, was none other than the fact of conducting 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.

The members of the SLES of Bahrain Society of Engineers and other selected participants were pleased of the technical address of Ambassador Dr. Mendis and the floor was opened for question and answer session. There were a number of questions from the SLES members and other participants regarding the negotiations that they were already engaged or were intending to be engaged. 

Ambassador Dr. Mendis specialised on Corporate and Strategic Negotiations and earned his PhD in International Economic Policy from 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.