With more and more business trying to get into the China market, understand the people and culture becomes an important subject of discourse.

When even a Chinese myself finds it difficult to understand the mainland Chinese people, it is not a surprise that Westerners finds it a puzzle.

The following quotes from the article are fruit for some thoughts…

… your own staff underperforms in the Chinese environment with a probability exceeding seventy percent

… will the biggest planet China orbit around capitalism or capitalism orbit around China?

It seems that all the time the Chinese operate as if they were living in the Brave New World. Parallel scenarios are being scanned to a very stretched extend and they play an important role in selecting the best options. In fact the Chinese language itself is at the root of this behaviour.

Read on…

Why you should take that call!

When you compare media reporting on China these days compared to a couple of years ago, it looks like China has never been hidden from the world. Only the mid century baby boomers that start retiring now might associate China with the Red Guards. The flame of sympathy for imperialist fighters gone, Mao’s red book has the same value on the flee market as a catechisms booklet. Nobody ever heard about the last message that Napoleon Bonaparte sent in a bottle from his prisoner’s island regarding the Chinese. Only a Chinese who manipulates our very own soccer competition triggers our attention.
Napoleon wrote: “allow her to sleep because when China will wake up she will shake the world”. Nearly one century later another Frenchman also got a message: “it will be China who will unite Europe” are word from Charles de Gaulle. A last message from a last Chinese Emperor Pu-Yi says: “like weather one’s fortune may change by the evening”. On a China-Europe think tank meeting in the Netherlands in December 2004, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao quoted: “we all need to become China experts”.

Change of fortunes is in the air, and the message comes from the Dragon which is the symbol of China. A dragon is even for the Chinese a mysterious creature which moves in waves or serpentines under the water and in the sky.
Change of fortunes is also something that easily affects business managers. When this happens so will Human Resources get the task to decipher the messages. After all they are the guardians of human assets.

The question: “what do Human Resources have to do with China?”, is the same as “what interest does your company has in her dealing with China?”. The chance is already there that you have been overlooking this point.
Ninety percent of the big global companies have trade in or with China.
Eighty percent of top multinationals have invested in Mainland China.
Seventy percent of counterfeit goods in the world come from China.
Sixty percent in the chance that today you walk in shoes made in China.
Fifty percent of Western companies operating in China plan to increase their activities there.
Forty percent is the growth rate of China’s foreign trade.
Thirty percent of Western companies operating in China are making profit over there.
Twenty percent is the share of China in the world’s population.
Ten percent or less of Western companies have trained their staff in training Chinese and Eastern culture in order to improve their business with this part of the world.

The West has called China’s economic growth during the last decade a miracle. In fact it has been more of a miracle for the West than for China. In fact in spite of many Western companies having shifted a lot of labour intensive jobs to China, India or the Eastern European countries, most firms could keep the level of employment and the net income of their staff reasonable stable. The Chinese have kept the cost of consumption in the West low by the flood of cheap consumer goods. In the USA has the ongoing consumption even been financed to a great extend by China who has balanced its huge trade surplus with the USA by buying US dollar bonds and debt. But this is not the reason why the West called the turn around of China’s economy “a miracle”, we give it this label because it happened without turmoil in the aftermath of the communist area and under another social, economic and political model than the holy Western model. What get less plaudit on the global scene is that China is the only nation that has substantially improved the income of the poor in their society. Where two decades ago sixty percent of China’s population had to survive on less than one dollar per day, currently this figure has dropped to fifteen percent, which is still 200 million people. At least China has globally been the best in class for this category of improving the fate of their very poorest people. That the category of less than two dollar per day has increased in the last two decades from 2.4 billion to 2.7 billion is less of global blessing or shall we call it: something that belongs to the original sin. China never has been waiting for miracles, here starts the deep split in culture between East and West. So reason enough why to take that call from China. Not only the chance that your company is getting more entangled in Chinese business but that your own staff underperforms in the Chinese environment with a probability exceeding seventy percent, from which half is due to the honey yellow fever which so easily infects the Western male once they are in China. Too many expatriate families living in China or even the frequent longer period travellers to China break up of that exotic infection. Let’s be happy that China has helped to keep inflation low in the West under the stabilizing or decreasing employment in the West. This coin also has two sides: more than one third of the huge trade deficit that the USA holds is in the hand of China which has converted its surplus in dollar bonds. A rumour alone that China is going to sell those dollars can trigger the US dollar to tumble and bring the world financial system in turmoil. Remember the previous collapse also started in the East. Lucian Pye who is a famous China expert expressed the position obtained by China in the global economy with a question: will the biggest planet China orbit around capitalism or capitalism orbit around China? So more could be at stake in our comfort within the Westernized global world order, not only economics are at stake.

What should we in the first place try to understand of that country of entrepreneurs where everybody is a kung-fu fighter?

Some backgrounds of cultural differences.

In the West most Human Resource managers and key staff have a background or qualification in psychology, law or sociology. Here already we have to make a first adjustment when we deal with our Chinese colleagues. Psychology is only a very recent academic subject at the universities and also law is very much underdeveloped;, something that is understandably when the word “truth” in fact does not exist in Chinese, at least not in the way we understand it. Psychology was introduced by the British in Hong Kong only half a century ago and it arrived in the mainland only a couple of decades ago. In fact Chinese never liked the idea of being analysed as an individual. In education the aspects of law and social behaviour are mainly covered under family values or group ethics and the teaching of the ancient philosophers. Our word “law” when it is translated in Chinese gets the meaning of “order”. We in the West we have been educated to analyse first, then we will organise the elements in a logic way and categorise them in a concept or framework. In this way we will describe for example “cultural differences” in a model of quantified masculinity versus femininity, collectivism versus individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance etc. We can make it simpler: the easiest way to compare East-West is to reduce it to one simple equation. For the West what counts is: the Self-versus-Order, for the East what dominates is the Order-and-Self. But watch out, in both equations the meaning of Order is different. Simplified in the West order means “Law and Politics” and in the East the word Order will be translated as “Bureaucracy and personal Network”. In the West the individual has to make choices ‘or-or’ in a sequenced time; in the East the individual person will need to balance his choices all the time. So far this is a first major behavioural difference in the society.

On the individual scale the classical psychometric tests done on several groups of Chinese people have not revealed big differences. The Chinese who live on all corners on the world are not so different from the Westerners. One remarkable thing is that despite they adjusted well to modern values, Chinese preserved Chinese culture very well, wherever they settle down. One deeper characteristic of Chinese-ness is that they are strongly polychromic oriented, which means that the Chinese do more things in parallel compared to us monochromic Western people. Chinese also score better in memorising which most probably is linked to the many characters they have to learn in order to master the Chinese language. In learning there is not much difference despite the fact that English texts are on an average thirty percent longer than a Chinese text; but the Chinese reader needs more time to interpret the condensed sign characters. One area where a big difference has been measured is in “achievement motivation”. Mainland Chinese even score much better than the Diaspora Chinese. That motivation is even outspoken when it is in the interest of Chinese society as a whole. Effort will always rate higher than ability and another difference with the Westerners is in the communication: Asians communicate much more in a non-verbal way, in this way Western people will miss more than half of the messages most of the time.

This does not explain yet the prominent characteristic of entrepreneurship.

In order to better understand this we have to look somewhat deeper. The first point of connection is to look at the attitudes towards uncertainty. In the West we have been living under a religious bias where certainty can only be obtained in the after life. The Chinese have to earn their certainty day after day. One common way that can help here is to have a personal network which is called guanxi. This network will replace the final reward that Christians and Muslims have gained in life and that only can be cached in once you enter the other life after death. The Chinese moral and ethic behaviours are embedded in Confucianism, which is a cultural and ethic code of conduct topped up with a flavour of Buddhism and Taoism. In this code is also explained how to handle fate and opportunities. Both have a personal aspect and a time component. They come and go in waves. It is up to the individual to recognise them. That is why the mind of a Chinese is continuously scanning the radar screen of opportunities and treads.

Well known is Geomancy of Feng Shui which is a guideline to evaluate situations. Eighty percent of business decisions, constructions of a building or home, making of a business deal etc, will be subject to the consultation of the ancient rules and beliefs.

Chinese New Year or Spring Festival is for every Chinese the moment of making the balance and to have his personal review. At this period in the year many Chinese will change job or make a major decision in their lives.
For most of the Western people this is all pure esoteric stuff, but in fact the core of all this is going much deeper and it is a pity that we in the West even are completely blind to many things that happen around us at all time. Because we are so deeply dichotomised and encapsulated in logic, we even do not consider any alternatives nor options any more. Unconsciously we put all subjects in a hierarchy. Mr is first and then Mrs. Our views follow a causal trajectory and our sentences are constructed along a logic tree: if…then, and…?-or. The reasoning patterns in the East are more correlative formulated along patterns “because?…so”. Another strength that the Chinese have in relation to the consideration of more options is demonstrated in what is called: “double thinking”. It seems that all the time the Chinese operate as if they were living in the Brave New World. Parallel scenarios are being scanned to a very stretched extend and they play an important role in selecting the best options. In fact the Chinese language itself is at the root of this behaviour. The many graphic characters are very much subject to interpretations and the reader has always to find out the best fitting meaning in the given context. The characters and the words will only release the full meaning after a kind of negotiation with all alternatives.

In this sense we now also can better understand why the worth “truth” in fact has no translation in Chinese. It is never something absolute; it has the meaning of something that gives a better insight, or what has been formulated in a proper way.

This kind of continuously scanning of meaning leads in business to very long negations. In fact a deal is never done, along the realisation it will always be further negotiated as a never ending process. The options and best opportunities will be chased all the time and you should not be surprised that suddenly things go in the total different direction, what we most of the time will interpret as “those unreliable Chinese”.

Beside these adequate operational skills there is also a approach which is of great value in complex organisations or situations: the power of balancing. Chinese always will start with an overview of the situation or the content of the issue and then approach it from different angles just to better understand the object. All aspects are of equal importance at the start.
That is why any negotiation with Chinese will start with a dinner first. This is not intent to open the business talk, just to get familiar with the other side. Your adherence and respect for the etiquette will tell the Chinese that you are prepared to listen to their side of the business.
Your body language during the dinner helps to fill in your personal psychological map and the relations in your team. In this way the Chinese have a female mode of approach where you will have to show patience and tact in the first place. Even when you think you have a deal, be prepared this is not the end. In fact there is never an end, you will have to earn your next day again. The daoist flavour in Chinese culture says that everything is in a changing flux, never fixed. You will have to see the waves, try to influence and find out if obstruction is better than following. Waiting is sometimes the smartest way of acting.

Remember that the symbol of China is the Dragon, which is even for the Chinese a mysterious creature which moves in waves or serpentines under the ground, in the water and in the sky.

Copyright Mentognost Ltd.
Organisations or Companies who like to copy or replicate this article can do this freely under the condition that they mention its source:

Extract out of the book: “Navigating through Chaos in China:
A Cultural and Business Compass for Managers and Business Leaders.” Mentognost Ltd. 2006. ISBN 0-9552147-0-X . www.mentognost.com

The storyline is simple and the ending predictable. But if nothing else, the film gives us entrepreneurs a jolt and reminds us that “it is possible” and “do not give up yet”.

Whenever I stand infront of people and introduce my service, I think of Will Smith selling the bone scanner.

I wish I will one day meet some bosses that give me that break. Yeah, every entrepreneur probably wished that too.

But think about it, what enhances the chances of you meeting a boss (an angel), sitting stressed at home or going out there meeting people?

The fact is you can’t change luck, but you can do whatever in your ability to influence luck. That’s I believe is the key.

Is there is real Chris Gardner? Apparently yes!

Take a step back, look at the roads you took and the things you did. Compare with the visualization I am going to describe.

The imagery is that of building a jigsaw puzzle.

How do you build your puzzle? I can think of 2 ways

1. Start from a familiar piece and build around it until the whole picture is complete.
2. Put many separate pieces in place and try to build each island until they join together to form the whole picture.

In the first way, the entrepreneur starts with a core idea. This could be something he/she knows, has experience or an idea. It is like picking up the first piece of the puzzle.

Next he starts looking for pieces that fits and put them together, joining to the starting piece. In business, we start putting together pieces like looking for partners, suppliers, distributors, customers, staffs, office, paperwork.

Slowly but surely the picture becomes more complete just as the picture of a company becomes clearer and clearer as more pieces come together.

I’m not sure if this is typical to many entrepreneurs because this is not what I do, I’m more like the second way.

With the second way of putting together a jigsaw puzzle, we start by putting together a few isolated “island” of pieces.

In the case of business, it is like doing a few things at the same time. Some gurus would caution against this as being too stretched. But I think many entrepreneurs try out a few things. Not all the things work especially well but do the few things together enable them to bring in enough income.

Over time the “islands” grow. Some are larger, some smaller but all are viable. At this point the entrepreneur may start to think “How do I link all these islands together?”

For a jigsaw puzzle, linking is a matter of finding the pieces that join the islands together. For a business it could mean packaging the different services or products. If the entrepreneur is using different identities for each service/product, a holding company or a group identity may be useful.

In my case, I’m at such a crossroad. I had been doing a few things and each of them had been successful to a certain degree. Now I’m thinking about how I can link them or cross-market them.

Of course imagery is never a perfect reflection of reality but an interesting way of looking at things. It is the same here, the two methods certainly do not exactly dissect entrepreneurs into 2 groups but represent different approaches.

Further intesting thoughts:

• Things evolve and the 2nd way could evolve into the first as islands are joined.
• We can imagine the final picture as a vision and build of the puzzle as steps towards the vision.
• In the real world, the puzzle has no boundary so in theory you could build on and on.
• Imagine a puzzle where the picture changes over time, so if you do not find the right pieces fast enough, you may find what you had done become invalid.

I have not come across this analogy anywhere. If you know any author that mention it before, let me know.

I knew immediately from past scenario that it is a cycle that I had to breakout. Of course it was easier said than done.

Even taking a break and going back Singapore didn’t help. The general negativeness presisted until this one day last week. It felt that I had done something right. As I was walking back home, suddenly I was bouncing up as if springs were attached to my feet!

Not to sound like some guru but negativity seriously affects an entrepreneur’s allround ability - thinking, working, and people around him/her.

So how to get out of a negative spiral? Here are 4 ideas I had distilled

• Stop what you are doing. Try something new for a change. In the process you may discover thing that overcome the negativity.
• Take a break. This did not work for me this time but certain can help you to get our of the spiral. Take a bold step away, you may find thatthe problem don’t reall need your attention.
• Share with your loved one. I was very blessed to have the support of my wife. She switched job and came to Shanghai few months back. All these while she had been helping me in one way or another.
• Talk to someone. Talk to a business partner, customer or even competitor. You may find they have the same problem, already solved it or there are some creative solution between both of you.

What do you do to get out of a negative spirial?

For me 2006 had been a year of ups and downs. Mainly downs unfortunately. Funny that we often make plan around the year but that exactly what I had done.

Hope to share more of that later, I’m back in Singapore for a week.

Happy New Year!

This episode greatly impacted those that host their Internet services outside of China (usually in the US). In my case I can’t get to my emails and website.

Events like this would spur the development of local Internet and to move business critical Internet service locally instead of housing them across the Pacific. But still, with the regulatory environment in China, some may be hasitent to put content in China. It is a far-fetched fear but fear nevertheless.

Business was challenging and that leave me with little time or energy to update. Good things are happening though … Hope to update soon.

Same goes for Wikipedia. This happened as I was browsing! One moment loading, the next moment, connect was reset.

Just like many rules, regulation, enforcement in China, they are changed and re-interpretated regularly.

This may sounds simple until you try to untangle all the strands of detail in an idea and hand them out in manageable bits to different people.

A business idea typically consist of massive interaction of different business functions. So an entrepreneur not only has to wear different hats, he/she also must be able to help other wear their hats.

Taking this a step further, how can I get the ideas out of the head of individual employee and disseminate to the other employees? This falls into the domain of Knowledge Management.

Is knowledge management a big, fancy term only for big companies, MNCs? Can entrepreneurs successfully leverage knowledge management to their advantage? How?

An area that I’m exploring, implementing and testing.

This constant, unproductive preoccupation with all the things we have to do is the single largest consumer of time and energy.
– Kerry Gleeson