A bit late coming, but here it is: I am now working full-time as VP, Communications & Marketing at Orchestrall, Inc. It’s an exciting new company, and for me a thrilling opportunity to help build something from the ground up — something that promises to bring the U.S. and China closer, which if you’ve followed my blog, you know is one of my strongest passions. I may take on a blogging role at Orchestrall. If I do, I’ll post back to this blog. Until then, as always, please feel free to comment, write, or otherwise keep in touch. And to peruse the blog, of course. All the posts are still here.

My apologies to one and all for being absent for so long. I’ve been in a significant professional transition for a while now, which will continue through the Holidays. Early in the New Year I’ll have more about what’s coming next.

Meanwhile Happy Holidays to all who celebrate them!

On some level I have no right to complain about what I complained about in yesterday’s post. When I first went to China at 23, I was a roiling mess of self-righteous “concern” for China in its failure to be exactly like the U.S. It’s taken almost 20 years of learning for me to nuance my understandings to where they are today, and I’m learning more all the time.

That said, it’s worth looking at the cause of the annoyance. From a cultural standpoint, the quality in question is self-righteousness. It’s a fine line between self-righteousness and universalism, which I’ve discussed a lot on this blog. I think the link between the two stems from the conflation of two ideas: that there should be a standard worldwide, and that the standard should be our standard, where “we” are a particular cultural group: in this case the U.S. or the West.

When self-righteousness is present, it tends to take over. I become more concerned with how I’m better than you than I am with what you might actually be up to in your life. In fact, it becomes hard for me to hear about what you’re up to in your life, because in my eyes it doesn’t really matter, because you’re not really the kind of person whose actions and interests matter. After all, I’m better than you.

Whether or not this exercise in pop-psych is accurate, it characterizes what I see in much Western media coverage of China, and much of what China novices from the West are curious about when it comes to China. Few Western journalists and publications seem interested in the myriad, and quite concrete and difficult, actions taken by officials, businesspeople and other leaders all across China to improve the lives of the Chinese people. There is much to be learned and gained from a careful study of these efforts. And thankfully it’s not all deficit, as shown by this piece from Time. Here’s a teaser:

Could the world’s lone but weary superpower actually learn something from China? It’s a politically incorrect question, of course. China is an authoritarian nation; its ruling Communist Party deals ruthlessly with any challenge to its hegemony. It remains, relatively speaking, a poor, developing country with huge problems to confront, massive corruption and environmental degradation being Nos. 1 and 1a. Still, this is a moment of humility for the U.S., and China is doing some important things right. If the U.S. were to ask the Chinese what it could learn from their example, it might gain some insight into what it’s doing right and wrong.

Now if I wanted to I could complain about the shock the author seems to be expressing at the very possibility that the U.S. could learn from China, but I’ll refrain. Or not.

Now that I’ve written this thoroughly self-righteous post, feel free to let me have it.

In today’s online Wall Street Journal, this piece appeared. Reading it was an odd experience. The headline goes like this: “Obama, Hu Highlight Cooperation.” The first three paragraphs are right on point, with high-level summaries of the nature of Hu’s and Obama’s conversations. Then, suddenly, the fourth paragraph:

Mr. Obama’s statement also pointedly noted the U.S. belief in the importance of universal human rights that should be enjoyed by “all peoples, and all ethnic and religious minorities,” and called for the Chinese government to resume dialogue with representatives of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader whom Beijing considers a separatist.

Huh? I thought I was going to be reading about how Hu and Obama are working through their differences across a range of complex issues. Then, out of the blue, this. I expect this type of reporting from the New York Times, not the Wall Street Journal.

Don’t get me wrong. Of course human rights need to be respected. Nothing I write here should be taken to impugn the thinking or writing of anyone working to benefit human beings worldwide. The thing is, there’s no shortage of verbiage in Western newspapers about how China comes up short on human rights, and I expect something different from the WSJ.

I was reminded of a conference I co-hosted in Beijing in 2006. At the time I was directing Stanford University’s study abroad program at Peking University. We were welcoming Stanford students, staff and faculty from Stanford’s centers in Kyoto, Berlin and Washington to participate in a workshop on globalization. It seemed that every other question I got from our guests was something akin to: “What’s up with China and their failure to support freedom, democracy, and human rights?” Unfairly, I found myself annoyed by these questions. To me, there were so many other important topics our guests “should” be interested in. Why obsess about these old, tired questions?

I was prompted to put some thought into why I was bothered, and what this all said about key cultural differences between China and the West. I’ll take this up in the next post, and perhaps beyond.

A recent post on Dan Harris’s China Law Blog referred back to a 2008 post entitled “Chinese Cultural Awareness Simplified: Don’t Be an Asshole“. As a believer in, and blogger about, the business value of cultural consulting and training, I was intrigued. Essentially the post argues that as long as you avoid being an asshole, you can forget about messing up any deals. You don’t need any fancy intercultural training. Mr. Harris concludes the piece this way: “I would love to hear from people aware of a deal that failed due to an inadvertent cultural mistake NOT relating to someone being an asshole, as that word is defined in all cultures.”

I can’t offer any such stories, and I be surprised if many of these stories exist. At the same time, I think what’s missing from the piece is the flipside: what can Western organizations gain from a deeper understanding of Chinese culture? In other words, why stop at not being an asshole? Once we’ve achieved non-asshole status, how can learning more about Chinese mindsets help Western organizations reach their highest aspirations?

The case that I’m continually building in this blog is that if Western leaders are mindful of culture, and of what people bring to the table as a result of culture, the upper limit on their success is much higher than without such mindfulness.

“Don’t be an asshole” is great advice the world over, and will save your business time and money. What more can we do to help our organizations thrive in China?

Back from a week of consulting in China. The organization is a new company looking to implement a new model of outsourcing. For many reasons I’m optimistic about the company’s prospects, not least of which is that the leadership combines experience from the Mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the U.S. The multiple perspectives will play a key role in the company’s success. At the same time, intercultural issues crop up constantly. Any single one of them won’t sink the company, but it’s easy to see how, over time, if unchecked, they could add up to trouble.

The most common theme I witnessed was suspicion, on the part of some of the Americans, of the motives of the Chinese partners. I kept being reminded of the bugaboo of attributing intentions (usually erroneously) based solely on behavior. There was a particular kind of behavior observed by the Americans which made them uncomfortable, and it didn’t take long, as the Americans talked among themselves later, to create agreement about the (ill) intentions behind the behaviors. This is a savvy group of executives, though, and they were receptive to other interpretations of the behavior.

One thought that recurred frequently during the week was this: what about all the other organizations working in China, which either aren’t aware of intercultural issues, or which are aware but don’t want to invest in intercultural consulting? I thought of how intercultural misunderstanding grows over time, often without our noticing, until it’s too late. A former colleague once put forth the “fish poop” model of human relations: over time, a fish tank accumulates fish poop. From one day to the next, you won’t necessarily notice a difference. But over time you end up with a stinky, fetid mess of a place to try to live, let alone thrive. Human relations, like fish tanks, require constant attention to accumulating fish poop — especially in intercultural environments, where the poop is likely to come fast and furious.

My experience with this company left me with a profound appreciation for them and companies like them, who can see the importance of the intercultural piece for their future success.

Tomorrow I head to China for some consulting work. I’m hoping to have the chance to post but I may not. If I don’t, then I’ll resume posting the week of November 2nd.

Until then…

One of the most hackneyed Western stereotypes is that “the Chinese are inscrutable.” I’ve never really been clear on what that’s supposed to mean. I think mostly people have meant that it’s hard for a Westerner to know what a Chinese person is thinking, based on what they say. Which makes sense, given the high-context nature of Chinese communication and the low-context nature of Western communication.

It turns out, though, that it’s not just low-context Westerners misreading high-context Chinese. Chinese and English also differ fundamentally in how they structure information.

Linda W.L. Young’s fascinating book, Crosstalk and Culture in Sino-American Communication takes a deep dive into these differences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). She conducted several studies, recording and transcribing spoken language, to arrive at her conclusions. The main conclusion is that when presenting a case, Chinese move from the general to the specific, while Americans move from the specific to the general. For instance, where an American might say, “I think we should hire the guy. He’s right for the job,” (“the point” first, backup later) a Chinese person in a similar position might say, “I think the person is right for the job. I think we should hire him” (backup first, “the point” later). No problem for such a simple case, but in complex cases, when the reasoning can get intricate, Americans often get impatient, and wonder: will he ever get to the point? The American will ascribe evasiveness or indecisiveness to the speaker, leading to even more impatience, and impugning the character of the speaker in the eyes of the American. Little good will result.

It’s a familiar pattern. And once again, it’s brought about by the human tendency to imagine (usually incorrectly) the intentions behind a behavior, when all we really have to go on is the behavior itself. If the American listener were aware of the information pattern Young discovered, it would go a long way to taking the charge out of the conversation, and to keeping everyone’s eyes where they should be: on making the right decision for the organization.

What does it mean to trust someone? It means at least that:

1. You think the person has your best interests at heart, i.e. has good intentions toward you.
2. You think the person generally says what they believe.
3. You and the person share some set of values and/or objectives that are independent of either of your own personal agendas.

In earlier posts we’ve talked about #1 (intentions) and #2 (truth). Today we’ll talk about #3.

Nandani Lynton, a world-renowned business consultant and China expert, distinguishes between “personal trust” and “formal trust.” Personal trust is what we commonly think of as trust: trust between individual human beings, based on some kind of relationship built over time. Formal trust is based on shared goals and values that stand outside of the personal relationship, and are independent of any individuals who might happen to be part of the group that holds those goals and values. In the West, for instance, it’s easily assumed that a new colleague shares certain goals and values based solely on the fact that she’s an employee at the same company.

Formal trust is a rarity in China. Again we turn to Frank Gallo, who quotes a Chinese business leader:

In China, we are very slow to trust others. Do you know how hard it is to make close friends here? If you did not go to school with the person, you just don’t know them well enough to have strong trust right away. We go out together a lot. We drink together and tell stories about our lives. Sometimes we laugh and sometimes we fight. Over time, we begin to have trust.

Westerners usually will not do this. They want to get right down to business. We have a saying, “Xiān jiāo péngyou hòu zuò shēngyì.” (First make friends then do business.) (先交朋友，后做生意)

— Gao Yong, President, Career International, Inc., Beijing. Quoted in Frank Gallo, Business Leadership in China, Singapore: Wiley (Asia), 2008, p. 91.

It’s safe to say that by default you won’t be trusted by people in China whom you’ve just met. It’s nothing personal. It’s a deep cultural pattern that you’ll have to deal with. The best way to do this is to demonstrate trustworthiness in your actions over time.

American notions of truth and trust are founded on an underlying faith that more information is better, and that information, all things being equal, should be made available. This follows from Americans’ universalist perspective on the world, and also from our “Layer 1″ and “Layer 2″ perspective.

Information is treated differently in China. It tends to be closely guarded. If it is shared, sharing generally happens within one’s “in group”: close family, plus colleagues and friends known for a long time. As with so many resources, information tends to be viewed through a lens of scarcity: it won’t be shared unless sharing it has a clear value-add for the person doing the sharing. And it’s not just scarcity: information is often viewed as a weapon, which can be used against people.

And finally, even though “face” is hardly specific to China, concern for courtesy over truth, in order to save face for someone, can mean that the truth isn’t shared in China to the extent it is in the West.

The result for business leaders is that the “truth” can be nigh impossible to discover. Frank Gallo quotes a Chinese leader:

Westerners can be a bit more direct than the Chinese. We tend to keep some of our ideas to ourselves. Therefore, it is sometimes more difficult to understand the true meaning of what a Chinese person says. For 5,000 years, this has been a family-owned and family-run country. Now that it is so much more complicated, people are afraid to say too much to others. Other families might have secrets that they don’t want to share. Very few of us are very direct and open. We have to be careful in our choice of words.

— Gao Yong, President, Career International, Inc., Beijing. Quoted in Frank Gallo, Business Leadership in China, Singapore: Wiley (Asia), 2008, p. 85.

It’s easy for a Western leader to fall into the trap of assuming that colleagues are openly sharing information just as they would in the West. This leader is in big trouble: s/he will be making key decisions based on, at best, insufficient information or, at worst, false information. Leaders need to build solid relationships with colleagues, find intermediaries, and create novel ways of sussing out information. Patience and a healthy skepticism help too.