The former congressman and U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, in a phone interview from Washington, D.C., said Americans benefit when they create diversity in their own lives and learn foreign languages that give insight into other cultures.

Jones will give a presentation Friday called “Diversity and Culture in Global Business” as part of the 10th annual Maurice Meyer Distinguished Endowed Lecture at Rogers State University in Claremore.

He is CEO of ManattJones Global Strategies LLC, an international business consulting firm that is a subsidiary of Washington-based Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP.

The No. 1 challenge of U.S. companies wanting to do business outside the country is understanding the culture of the market they are trying to enter and recognizing that the process of doing business is different, Jones said.

In some cultures, businesses have to go through a long process of developing personal relationships.

“It’s just a question of walking in another person’s shoes, understanding how they think, what motivates them, what concerns them and things like that,” he said. “Oftentimes, even sophisticated multinational corporations consider foreign markets to be just like American markets, and they’re not.”

Legal systems also can differ among countries, Jones said. He added that some countries operate under business ethics that are considered corrupt by U.S. standards, and companies need to recognize that.

A Muskogee native, Jones was elected to Congress from eastern Oklahoma as a Democrat in 1972 and served seven terms until 1987. He was ambassador to Mexico from 1993 to 1997, when the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect.

NAFTA has been a great success from a macro-economic standpoint, Jones said, noting that jobs have been created in the United States, Mexico and Canada as a result. Also, wages related to NAFTA commercial activity can be 15 percent to 20 percent higher than those not connected to world trade, he said.

“It has had a very stabilizing effect on economies, particularly with Mexico, which went through a very wrenching peso devaluation that almost bankrupted the country,” Jones said. “Because of the institutions that NAFTA put into place, they weathered the storm well.”

NAFTA opponents point to instances in which a factory closed or jobs moved, he said, but people have to look at the net result, which has been a “win for all three countries.”