Business Diplomat: Common Benefit

Diplomats and businesspeople share a daily problem: they work with parties whose interests differ. In this part of its interview series, Business Diplomat presents the view of Sherzod Abdunazarov, Consul General of Uzbekistan in Istanbul, a city where Uzbek and Turkish business communities meet. Asked what the name Business Diplomat means to him, he gives a definition in three parts. This article looks at the last.

Defining the business diplomat

First observation: the definition
Abdunazarov describes the Business Diplomat as a person who brings together the world of business and the culture of diplomacy. Such a person “communicates well, builds trust and develops relationships among different parties based on common benefit.” The first two qualities concern manner. The third concerns substance, and it is the one that gives the first two a purpose.

Why common benefit matters

Second observation: why common benefit matters
A relationship can be held together by sympathy, by habit or by obligation. Each of these is fragile. Sympathy fades, habit breaks, and obligation breeds resentment. A relationship built on common benefit has a different structure: each side has its own reason to keep it. When circumstances change, both can ask whether the benefit still exists, and both can adjust the arrangement to preserve it. That is why partnerships built this way tend to last.

Working with different parties

Third observation: the word “different”
The phrase “different parties” is significant. Abdunazarov does not describe the business diplomat as someone who works among friends. The parties may differ in culture, in size, in legal system or in expectation. Finding the point at which their interests meet requires understanding what each side wants. A consul, whose work is to help citizens and companies operate in a foreign environment, sees this daily.

The logic of the assessment

The logic of the assessment
Good communication opens the door. Trust allows the parties to enter. Common benefit gives them a reason to stay. The sequence turns a definition into a method.

The platform's mission

The role of Business Diplomat
The platform’s mission is to give young people experience, bring a diplomatic order to the business world, and benefit states by revitalising the economy. Common benefit links all three parts of that mission: the young person gains experience, the business world gains order, and the state gains growth. Business Diplomat can teach its members to ask, in every partnership, what the shared benefit is.

Conclusion
Lasting relationships between different parties rest on benefit that each side shares. Business Diplomat aims to teach young professionals to build on it.