There has been ample media coverage in the United States about American companies receiving contracts to help rebuild Iraq. But few reporters have addressed the economic effects of the ongoing military action on neighboring countries. To learn about the war in Iraq's impact on regional businesses, Fast Company contacted Istanbul, Turkey-based reader and Company of Friends coordinator Tayfun Demiroz, an independent management consultant and partner for Lego Serious Play. Here are some highlights from our conversation:

Far from the Front?
Istanbul is in northwestern Turkey. To get to the country's nearest border city with Iraq, Hakkari, you need to drive 1,814 km. Apart from concern for human life, wars in Iraq rarely impact daily life here. For us it is not a matter of bombs and soldiers, but of bulls and bears and investment dollars. Instability in the region brings uncertainty for the Turkish economy and prevents local and foreign investment.

What has made the war in Iraq such a burden for Turkey has been its timing. The wheels fell off the Turkish economy in early 2001. New and drastic measures were drawn up with the International Monetary Fund to get our house in order. Just when confidence was returning, we had an election. A strong one party government emerged late in 2002, but the U.S. rhetoric on Iraq started getting tougher. War was imminent, and many investors adopted a "Let's wait and see," attitude. We were lucky the war was short lived, but now there is another albatross hanging around our neck: the U.S. asking for Turkish troops in Iraq.

In the Company of Friends
In the Istanbul CoF, we strive to bring diverse business leaders together to share insights for a brighter personal and professional future. Turkey suffers greatly from misconceptions and prejudices in the international arena. We are seen as a Middle Eastern, feudal, third-world country with a human rights problem. This is a constant source of frustration for the intellectuals in this country. In the information economy, however, each and every person has the power to change the world.

When we have CoF meetings in Istanbul, I personally invite someone if there is the likelihood that they will benefit from meeting a certain person. As a result, one of our 50 members who was preparing a proposal to do corporate brand management work for Unilever has teamed up with another member in the human resources field to give his proposal more breadth. Their meetings with Unilever are progressing well. In addition, I partnered with another member to do a two-day workshop for Turkey's leading GSM operator, Turkcell, on creativity techniques. I brought Lego Serious Play to the table, and he brought his facilitation methodologies. The result was a highly effective workshop that has lead to new work for both of us. I even used a recent Fast Company article on Nokia ("Calling for a Renewable Future," May 2003) as a case study in creativity. We discussed the ideas -- and whether they could be translated into Turkcell's environment.

Wide-Ranging Change
My background is in banking. After 13 years in the industry, I decided it was time to diversify. By the time the bank I was working for in Turkey went belly up, I had accumulated enough experience in knowledge management to work as an independent. The fact that Turkey was experiencing one of its worst ever economic crises while I was doing this was unfortunate. I am just now gradually getting return on my invested time in marketing.

The determining factor here is trust. The people in the CoF group get to see how each person thinks and operates. Not all alliances continue. Values are very important. Few people can bring Fast Company's ideas and ideals to life. There is constant talk, but hardly anything tangible to speak of. That is why we are so focused on application in the Istanbul CoF. The more managers we can attract to the Istanbul CoF, the more we can search for ways for them to actually implement the ideas and ideals within their organizations.

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