Jason Patent » humility

Response to China Law Blog comments

Jason Patent — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 00:31:19 +0000

After seeing the volume and nature of the responses my three guest posts generated, Dan Harris, gracious host of the China Law Blog, invited me to respond. You can read the responses here, or below.

Audiences are often polarized by the claims I make about differences between Chinese and Western mindsets. It’s been no different here, in the comments left on my three guest posts. Most everyone falls into one of two camps: “This is great,” or “This is bunk.” The “bunk” camp has roughly four critiques, which I’ll address here.

Critique #1: (a) This abstract mindset stuff can’t possibly account for the dirty details of everyday business — (b) which makes it useless.

On (1a), absolutely. Mindset is one piece of a huge set of puzzles and challenges that have to be addressed in running a successful business anywhere in the world. Three brief blog posts are simply by necessity going to be somewhat abstract and vague. (And woe to the company that hires a consultant to write blog posts and do nothing else!) Any serious consulting engagement has to go way beyond mindset and into the organizational and operational nitty-gritty that real businesspeople face every day.

As for (1b), for the best chance at success you need both the abstract and the specific. To the extent that the day-to-day work of running a company can be informed by high-level principles like mindset, it is likely to be more effective. Unless one thinks the findings themselves are inaccurate, which is a separate conversation.

Critique #2: (a) Current political and social circumstances can explain all the relevant mindset differences. (b) Societies change over time (a form of evidence for (2a)).

I can’t do justice here to the volumes of statistically validated social science research that demonstrate the surprising stability of mindsets over time. For cultural issues generally, I’ll refer you to the work of Geert Hofstede and his team. For U.S. and China, pick up any of the 19th-Century works by U.S. missionaries in China (my favorite is Smith’s Chinese Characteristics. Or, better yet, read Lin Yutang’s 1935 classic My Country and My People, and see how well it’s held up over time.

Critique #3: Stereotypes may have some business use.

There’s a terminological distinction in the field of intercultural communication between stereotyping and generalizing. Generalizing is the act of making statements about a group of people, realizing that there is variation within any population. Stereotyping is taking a perceived characteristic of an individual and claiming, on the basis of this, that all people “like this person” share this characteristic (and probably other negative characteristics too). I simply don’t see the business value in this latter act. Generalizing, yes; stereotyping, no.

Critique #4: Don’t be too easy on the Chinese: they could in fact be out to mess you up.

True. No businessperson should act without a duly critical stance toward people with possibly competing interests. What I find disheartening is the certainty with which Westerners often attribute certain behaviors to this or that “Chinese characteristic,” which then often leads to broader, more negative generalizations, and ultimately to an unproductive, and ill-deserved, distrust.

There is no one best window through which to view the Chinese, or anyone. But the more possible windows we allow ourselves, the richer our set of cognitive tools for solving complex problems — intercultural and other.

Stereotypes and China Business

Jason Patent — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:14:58 +0000

Here is the last of my three guest blog posts on the China Law Blog. Again, I recommend scrolling down to see the comments if you read it on the China Law Blog site.

Human beings stereotype. It’s part of our wiring. There’s no getting around it.

In China you will be dealing with your own stereotypes of Chinese people. You could either pretend they’re not there and have them sink your business, or you can acknowledge them and re-frame them into more positive ways of thinking. It’s up to you.

Here are 9 common stereotypes you’re likely to have in whole or in part, and ways to re-frame them:

1. The Chinese are out to cheat me.

China has been through a lot of tough history, over thousands of years and even up to very recent times. Chinese people have had to make tough choices in a world of scarcity. This mentality has been passed down through the generations. No Chinese does anything a Westerner wouldn’t do if fighting for survival.

The upshot: Cross your T’s and dot your I’s. Be prudent, not paranoid.

2. The Chinese think they’re superior.

The Chinese are legitimately proud of their amazing cultural accomplishments. Think of the food, the monuments, the language, and on and on. Chinese give respect where it’s due: to Westerners for their advanced technology and social institutions, and to themselves for what they’ve done.

The upshot: Allow yourself to admire what there is to admire, while keeping your cool.

3. The Chinese lie.

People from every culture lie. What Westerners call “lying” in China is often just a more subtle form of communication than we’re used to. China is what’s known as a “high context” culture: information is assumed to be in the background — the context. The more you learn about the assumed context, the better you’ll get at seeing the meaning behind the words.

The upshot: Get trained on Chinese communication style. Learn as much as you can about the Chinese mindset, so that you know what background assumptions people bring to the conversation.

4. The Chinese go back on their word.

Shaped for millennia by a fickle, resource-poor environment rife with natural disasters, the Chinese see the world as constantly in flux. Circumstances change, and it’s foolish to set a plan in stone now for an imagined future, when it might not be a fit for the actual future. It’s best to remain adaptable and flexible.

The upshot: Be ready for your counterparts to ask for changes to contracts. Understand that in China the contract is often seen as the beginning of a relationship, not a fixed definition of reality.

5. The Chinese are always stalling for time.

Like any business counterpart anywhere in the world, the Chinese have strategies for getting what they want. A common one is to use home court to their advantage. It’s easier on the Chinese if things take longer than it is on you.

Upshot: Be ready and set reasonable expectations that things probably aren’t going to happen quickly.

6. The Chinese are stingy.

The Chinese are thrifty. Again, over millennia the Chinese have often had to scrape together meager livings out of a hostile, overcrowded environment. Every resource is precious, and could disappear at a moment’s notice if not carefully guarded.

The upshot: Negotiation is not viewed as a win–win proposition. Be thrifty with your resources too, and meet the Chinese on their own zero-sum terms.

7. The Chinese don’t care about quality.

Everyone cares about quality. But when it comes to priorities, sometimes it’s more important to the Chinese to save some resources than to make something that fits Westerners’ high standards. See above about precious resources.

The upshot: Be fastidious and unrelenting in your QC. Get feet on the street and keep them there.

8. The Chinese don’t care about their environment.

The world of the average Chinese person is relatively small. People are focused — narrowly, from a prosperous Western perspective — on day-to-day concerns like having enough to eat and a roof over their heads. It might be nice to have a cleaner environment, but for many Chinese that’s a luxury.

The upshot: Instead of complaining about the awful air, imagine what it would be like if you didn’t get to leave it in a week or two.

9. The Chinese hate Westerners.

In fact Westerners are much admired in China. What Westerners perceive as “hatred” is usually more a vague sense of suspicion. Like everything else, this results from the thought habits of the past, especially the past century and a half, which saw Westerners exploit and mistreat China. All this means is that you have to earn their trust.

The upshot: Behave in a way that is worthy of trust, and trust will come. With time.

Categories can be useful. Reasoned, informed judgment can be useful. Stereotypes have zero business value. Get savvy about your own stereotypes and re-frame them. Not only will you feel better and get along better, but your business will do better.

Touch of Grey

Jason Patent — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 23:20:54 +0000

Here is the second of my three China Law Blog guest posts. If you read it on the China Law Blog site, I recommend scrolling down to the comments section — there seem to be some strong opinions about my claims.

Here’s the post:

A favorite critique by Westerners of China is that “the Chinese are unethical.” It is claimed that Chinese deceive, don’t stick to contracts, deliberately cheat. While few would deny that China can be a frustrating place for Westerners to do business, and while unethical behavior certainly occurs in China, claims of unethical behavior are often exaggerated, and result from Westerners’ own failure to understand the different background assumptions held by the Chinese. As such, claims of unethical behavior often amount to little more than excuses for poor business planning and practices on the part of the Westerners.

When it comes to doing business in China, the road to ethical harmony can be less than entirely clear. But that’s OK. In China as in business anywhere, understanding the terrain is critical to knowing where to place your next step. And with China, that first step is an understanding that we do view things differently. The “ethical roadmap” below — while brief and by no means a complete guide to potential conflicts — begins the process of helping you navigate terrain that may look unfriendly, but is in fact just different.

Humans throughout the world fall into a simple, yet immensely hard-to-avoid, trap: attributing ill intentions where there may be none. Each of us is the only one with access to our intentions. In the moment we might not always know exactly why we’re doing something, but when pressed to introspect we’ve still got an infinitely clearer picture than anyone else does. When we do something that upsets someone else, we can easily take refuge in our intentions: we didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings. If the people involved in this kind of upset are willing, dialog can happen, misunderstood intentions can be clarified, and relationships can deepen.

The rub is that we have no access to anyone else’s intentions. All we have to go on is behavior. We observe a behavior, and attribute an intention, whether it’s accurate or not. The result: we make a lot of mistakes, often assuming evil intent where intent was either good or, at worst, indifferent. Whether we like it or not, we are wired to judge those around us based only on their behaviors, while at the same time judging ourselves based mostly on our intentions. That’s a cold, hard reality — but a good one to know about.

This finding is not my own, nor is it new. And it’s a profoundly useful finding for intercultural understanding. Think of the staggering amount of miscommunication that happens every day among members of (roughly) the same cultural group speaking the same language. Now imagine a “typical” Westerner and a “typical” Chinese person. Both behave in ways deeply conditioned by their very different cultures; neither is familiar with the other person’s cultural habits; neither speaks the other’s language. How could they not judge each other? And what hope have they got of working things out, given the cultural and linguistic barriers?

My own answer is that they’ve got plenty of hope. What it takes, though, is hard work, commitment, and the involvement of experts with the tools to build the necessary bridges. It just won’t happen reliably on its own. It may happen here or there, but for most organizations that’s hardly what you’d want to stake your future on.

The truth is, there are ethical problems in Chinese business. As there are unethical practices in any business, in every culture. Who would claim that there aren’t ethical problems in Western business? Just look at the world economic meltdown. Plenty of experts have claimed — and many Chinese believe — that it’s due in part to ethically shady practices, mostly in the West. So while it’s quite possible you will encounter problems that are indeed unethical, don’t be too quick to conclude that it’s because of anything “Chinese.”

At the end of the day both you and your Chinese counterparts care most about the bottom line. It’s easy to cry foul on ethical grounds when it looks like your business is taking an unexpected hit. But there’s much more to be gained for your business by understanding that the Chinese are operating, just as much as Westerners, inside of an ethical system. Complaining about the system will only set you back. Understanding the system will ensure that you’re ready for anything.

Just don’t expect business in China to be absolute. Remember, your degree of willingness to deal with nuances and shades of gray will help make your China venture boom or bust.

Humble Pie

Jason Patent — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 20:45:37 +0000

Today, esteemed colleague and China Law guru Dan Harris posted the first of three guest posts by me on his multiple-award-winning China Law Blog. Please check it out, as he gives a nice introduction.

For archival purposes, I’m putting the post here as well.

Imagine for a moment that you’re going to set up a lemonade stand in Midtown Manhattan one hot Saturday afternoon. You know it’s going to be a tough sell, because New Yorkers are tough customers, and you have a lot of competition. So you want to take every step you can to ensure success.

Question: Would you neglect to bring, say, cups? Or a table? Or a pitcher? Of course not.

Why, then, do so many Western companies send their people to China without proper training in the Chinese mindset? Business is unpredictable wherever you go. Companies spend countless dollars on ROI studies and risk management, just for a vague sense of certainty. Yet one enormous risk factor, and threat to ROI, is staring them in the face: the possibility of investing precious dollars and hours in sending people to China unprepared to deal with the day-to-day muck of living and working in China.

In a recent report on failed expat assignments in China, executive coach Ed Britton wrote: “Western culture notices things if they are easy to see and measure. The effects of culture don’t translate easily to accounting records. But, start counting the number of expatriates who don’t complete their stay, and that number will go straight to the bottom line.”

One such example came to me through some colleagues with years of experience in China. They once came across an American executive whose entire, carefully planned, hard-fought-for China venture came crashing down for lack of mindset preparation.

The executive was an American businessman trying to hawk his wares in Southwest China. It was a major venture, and he felt prepared. After all, his firm had grabbed major contracts throughout the U.S. and Europe, and he was no neophyte when it came to doing the research, wrangling local support, and doing what he had to in order to succeed.

Investing significant resources in connecting with the right people, he managed to secure a personal meeting with the Governor and Vice Governor of one of the provinces in the region — no small feat. But he blew it. Despite all his business savvy and preparation, in one meeting — one meeting — he sent his China prospects down the tubes.

Here’s what happened. A take-charge guy, this American businessman knew what he wanted and never hesitated to share his thoughts with subordinates and colleagues. His direct style had been a major factor in his success. But in China it was disastrous. He began the meeting with the Governor and Vice Governor as if he were running it. After all, he had set it up; it was his show. They were there to hear what he had to say. Right? Wrong. Strike one.

Not long into the meeting, the businessman expressed some concerns about some problems he had encountered working with the provincial government. The Governor sought to reassure him, using a common Chinese term, fàngxīn, which in this context translates best as “don’t be worried.” Unfortunately, the interpreter used a different translation, appropriate to other contexts, but not to this one: “Take it easy.” Which might as well have been, “Relax, buddy, there’s no problem here.” One small misunderstanding led to another; tension increased. Strike two.

Feeling threatened and unsure of the situation, the businessman did what came naturally to him as an American: he dug in his heels. He restated his concerns with more vigor, laying the blame at his counterparts’ doorstep. The Governor, in turn, handled a clearly upset person the only way he knew how. Laughing nervously and trying to reassure the man, he used the same phrase he’d used before: “Don’t be worried.” But the American didn’t get it. Strike three.

The result? Inevitable, and predictable. A year’s worth of investment, preparation and research down the drain. His venture went nowhere.

This businessman was no Pollyanna. He was savvy enough to know the value of meeting with well-placed government officials, and to make the meeting happen. That’s already further along than 99 in 100 Western businesspeople in China. Yet it wasn’t enough.

What makes this story even more painful is how predictable the entire affair was to anyone with on-the-ground experience in China. It would have taken a minimal investment of time and money for this executive to be properly prepared.

Sadder still, stories like this play out every day in China. So very many opportunities are missed, and so very much time and money are wasted — and all for something completely predictable and avoidable.

Business is not just business, despite our American insistence to the contrary. The only way to succeed in China is with the curiosity to examine our own beliefs and practices, and the humility to see other ways of doing things as equally valid. And the good sense to spend a bit of time and money now to save, and make, much more down the line.

The Art of Noise

Jason Patent — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 01:43:49 +0000

We’re back. What an adventure.

Much to share. At the moment I’m kicking myself a bit for not having my audio recorder running while out and about.

Year after year one of the running jokes among China-weary expats I’ve known has been about the decibel level everywhere you go in China, or at least urban Han China. TVs in hotel rooms, loudspeakers on buses and subways, music blasting outside beauty salons. A constant assault, and hard to get used to for Westerners. The joke goes that the noise provides comfort of a sort, like a security blanket.

Once, back in 1993, an American friend, living in Beijing, was visiting me in Guangzhou and crashing in my room. In the cluster of high-rises I was living in, one morning the noise started earlier than usual (sappy karaoke music wafting from someone’s window), and I was particularly impatient and spiteful. I dug around my tapes for NWA’s Straight Outta Compton, popped it in, and played the first (title) track, at maximum volume, with the box pointed straight out the window. I immediately felt guilty, and confessed my guilt to my friend. He joked: It’s nothing to them. Like the buzzing of a fly, or maybe even soothing. True or not, by the time the track was finished, the karaoke music had disappeared, and I went back to sleep.

The joke is rooted in cynicism and condescension. Yet even if the spirit isn’t right, I now think that in content the joke is dead on.

The first of my two weeks I spent with the YingHua-in-Beijing Summer Language and Leadership Institute, where, like last year, I was guiding 8-to-15-year-old Americans and Chinese through the bewilderment of being thrown together as roommates. Colette had already been in Beijing for three weeks, co-directing the program, while Mariette, our older daughter, age 8, participated, and Francesca, age 6, was tagging along in a pseudo-mascot role.

We spent the week in Huairou, near Beijing, at the National Mountaineering Training Center (a scene in its own right, and pictured here on the kind of clear day that was sorely lacking while we were there). Over four and a half days the Center’s “coaches” led the kids in a series of team-building exercises. In so many ways the coaches’ treatment of the kids was jarring to me (and, I suspect, to the American kids). There are many reasons for this, but I think first and foremost is the EXTREME DECIBEL LEVEL.

Whether yelling “Line up!” or shouting “Can you do it?” or counting down from 10 to get everyone to listen, the noisy episodes just kept coming. Often they’d come after a period of relative silence, making them all the more startling. There’s a harshness and an edge to the noise, which can’t help but encourage the development of a counter-harshness and counter-edge in the children — a tangible, physical manifestation of the harshness and edge of Chinese society writ large.

The week after Huairou we vacationed as a family in Qingdao — the sunny, breezy coastal city of Tsingtao beer fame. Having emerged into the blinding sunshine from the impressive depths of Underwater World, we ambled about in search of a lunch location. As we passed a stall selling fried seafood, a speaker belted out: “Fried seafood! Fried pork! Shishkabob!” Over and over again. Then, as we rounded a corner, we heard something baffling: next to a lady selling a variety of toys sat a speaker. Out of the speaker, at typical volume, issued what couldn’t have been, even to native speakers, anything more than a watery, humanish voice saying…something, over and over and over. As grating as the fried-food bit might have been, at least it had some modest informational value. But the informational value-add of this was nil. The noise was obviously and undeniably serving no purpose but to simply be noise.

I chuckled and commented to Colette, who also chuckled. In light of what had struck me at YingHua it all suddenly made perfect sense. And I recalled how our daughter Mariette, at age 3, not long after we had moved to Beijing in 2004, and having spent much time out and about on the streets of Beijing with Mom and Dad, would at odd times hold up a toilet paper roll to her mouth and start shouting quasi-verbal inanities at high volume, reminiscent of the sorts of noise I’ve been describing throughout this post.

From the perspective of my own personal growth, what had once been nothing but pure annoyance to me now fit inside of a completely coherent framework: adaptive human behavior. Being annoyed is understandable, but by itself annoyance is ultimately fruitless in our species’ quest for genuine understanding. With the distance from it that I now have it all seems quite obvious, but the bodily fact of culture makes it tough to see beyond our own immediate reactions. More on this next time.

Two quotes

Jason Patent — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:32:02 +0000

In earlier posts I’ve quoted from Jack Perkowski’s Managing the Dragon: How I’m Building a Billion-Dollar Business in China. I haven’t yet finished the book. I’m enjoying it a lot, because it’s chock full of wisdom for the Westerner who wants to make a go of it in China, and much of what he writes resonates with themes I’ve addressed in this blog. Below are two gems. The first brings to mind the qualities of the culture-savvy leader:

…even under the most favorable circumstances, China isn’t always transparent, and if you’re not careful, disagreements can still occur. Instead of overreacting or leaping to conclusions, the best policy is to take the time to listen and to understand. (p. 179)

Humility, empathy, equanimity.

90 percent of the mistakes made in China are due to misunderstanding and miscommunication. (p. 177)

It’s a good idea to take figures like this “90 percent” with a grain of salt. At the same time, it’s worth some reflection: What if it’s true? What if we could reduce our mistakes by up to 90 percent by dedicating ourselves to minimizing misunderstanding and miscommunication? What leader wouldn’t want that return on investment?

The Culture-Savvy Leader: Humility

Jason Patent — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:22:05 +0000

Leaders face all manner of obstacles in culturally complex environments. Our home cultures provide us with many resources for overcoming obstacles — including a sense of self, born of belief in the values of the culture. When confronted with different values, though, that sense of self can feel under threat. Humility is a powerful antidote, because the reactive sense of self — the ego — is quieted down. Reactions will happen, but the humble leader is able to remind himself of the enormity of the world, and his insignificance in it.

By “insignificance” I don’t mean smallness or inability to affect the world. Those could be disempowering. I mean a sense that the world is a large and complex place — a rich place — and “my” way is but one way. This nourishes in the culture-savvy leader an abiding sense of abundance. While those more susceptible to arrogance tend to feel they’re being robbed when things go wrong, the culture-savvy leader’s eyes bend toward gratitude. The “strange” and “maddening” habits of “others” that are unfamiliar are transformed into a smorgasbord of options for solving problems. Problems might even cease to be “problems” in his eyes: they are, instead, opportunities to learn, and to expand his repertoire of ways of seeing and responding to the world.

Perhaps ironically, the culture-savvy leader’s sense of his own insignificance allows him to play big in the world. The voices of hubris in his mind reduced to a whisper, he is able to listen to his colleagues — those from his own culture and those from other cultures — with a genuinely open heart. Around him, people feel understood. Even if they don’t get what they want in the end, they respect his decisions, because they sense that he is serving a purpose larger than himself — a purpose which they share. The culture-savvy leader is thus able to accomplish more.

In our most difficult cross-cultural moments, when the “other” culture seems most bizarre and just plain wrong, our egos will try their hardest to inflate themselves. Westerners in China face this all the time. Western leaders in China, given their organizational reach, run the risk of creating and perpetuating a reactive mindset among a large group of people, subtly sabotaging the organization’s efforts. In this setting the importance, and power, of humility is magnified. By cultivating humility in yourself, you will cultivate it in others, and improve your chances of success in the challenging cultural environment that is China.