Sunday, May 15, 2016

Chai Latte Diplomacy


My Brit deputy and I have become adept at bringing in coalition donors for coffee or Chai to discuss and get consensus on one topic or another.  It’s a wonderful exercise as you get to know someone on a personal level and tease out positions that otherwise would never get said in a formal meeting.  It’s a great way to get things done, and we should do more of it back home.  What someone drinks, whether it’s at the bar or in the coffee house, says much about them.  This past week, I had four Chocolate Chai Lattes in just one afternoon, but what we gained from our counterparts was worth more than a month’s worth of meetings.  Maybe I need to set up a Chai account in the budget which will certainly be much cheaper (and more effective) than three Armored Vehicles, 15 Guardians on a trip to the edge of the Green Zone.

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