Faceless in China: How Foreigners Can Gain Respect in Chinese Business Culture

 

By William R. Dodson

I met an American manager recently who has been posted to build a subsidiary of his company in a relatively small Chinese city. He was concerned about his relationships at the company. Actually, he had no substantive relationships in the country. “The first two months I had no Face. Now, two months later, I have some Face. I think, though, it’s more because I’ve been around for four months and am somewhat familiar than from anything I’ve said or done.”

 

The Chinese president of the subsidiary had given the American Manager a management structure though: a Chinese operations manager who had spent time at the American headquarters and a woman who would serve as the General Manager’s translator. We’ll call the General Manager Tom.

 

Tom described to me that he would sit in meetings with Chinese staff and conversation flow remained in the stratosphere for him. Five or ten minutes of discussion would go past, after which his translator would give a perfunctory translation of all that had transpired. He knew intuitively, though, that more had been said and decided upon that he was not privy to. I think his feeling of inadequacy was compounded by the fact that he was supposed to be the boss. Instead, he felt like the awkward foreigner who was propped up like a figurehead with no substantive use, no real role to play.

 

Somehow, he felt, there was a connection between how the meetings ran and the lack of performance of the manufacturing teams.

 

Tom returned to the States for vacation and cultural re-orientation. He invested in studies about Chinese culture and society he had never considered when he first set out for the China market. “I’ve worked in France and England, and had no problem working with the people.” Now, he knew, in China culture mattered.

 

One of the things he learned about was that geopolitics matters in most of the world. He realized he didn’t have to become a Henry Kissinger to impress his foreign counterparts; however, he did begin to understand that he would need to learn why Taiwan mattered so much to the average Mainland Chinese citizen, and the impact China’s accession to the WTO would have on Chinese society. This would help him be able to respond to queries by Chinese hosts like the one who took him to have his feet massaged after inviting Tom to dinner. The host asked as the masseuse cracked the knuckle of the host’s big toe why America felt it so important to interfere with China’s relationship with “a rogue province” like Taiwan. Tom claimed ignorance of the situation, much to the host’s displeasure.

 

Tom also figured out during his hiatus that he would have to engage the teams he was managing from a distance. “The President wanted me to work through my Chinese ops manager and translator. I felt it wasn’t natural; it wasn’t me.” He decided that when he returned he was going to begin, “Management by walking around.”

 

He realized through his new culture studies that the Chinese will only care about someone to the extent that someone cares about the Chinese. “I would ask for a report to be on my desk by Monday; and it wouldn’t appear when I needed it. Then, I’d have to follow-up and find out when I could actually get it.” Tom had an epiphany when he returned to America: in American corporations managers TRUST that if an employee has a problem, the employee will come to the manager before the deadline to discuss the problem. In China, though, managers show they CARE about the report they’ve asked for by showing interest in the progress of the report itself and in the employee’s well-being. Chinese companies run along the lines of family structures, in which the patriarch “follows-through” with the request instead of “following-up.” In America, managers that have to “follow-up” a request feel they are wasting precious time and coddling employees who should know better.

 

Tom returned to China from his re-orientation in America with a plan and with renewed energy: he was going to begin talking with his Chinese employees; he was going to find out more about them, and through showing interest, begin to build the relationships he needed to gain Face in the company. He would start learning Chinese formally, as well; not so much to become expert as to be able to navigate more easily around the society and to show the Chinese with whom he worked he cared about the culture in which they lived.

 

Now, Tom believed he had a chance to contribute to the company and to a culture he found perplexing, stimulating, frustrating and the greatest challenge of his life.

 

William R. Dodson is Managing Director of Silk Road Advisors, L.L.C., which develops and positions people and products for success in international markets. He is the contributing editor on international business to the American Management Association’s (AMA) MWorld Journal of Management, and writes the weekly column “The Cultured Business”, found at www.silkrc.com and at the Global Perspectives section of the AMA’s member website. He can be reached at sradvisors@gmail.com .