Talk about the importance of understanding the cultural differences. I’ve heard stories about how treating business deals the way we would in America can be a deal killer.
There are some natural business instincts that we all have, and those are all good. But in China, you can’t expect to immediately get down to business. There has to be trust and loyalty built first.
Here’s an example of what doesn’t work: One venture that I was involved with took a long time to put together. The people from the U.S. side had an old-school superiority attitude toward China. They would dictate that they were going to be coming to the city, landing at 1 p.m., expecting a meeting at 2:30 p.m., then at 6 p.m. they had a plane out. They expected that meeting to happen.
But it doesn’t matter whether you’re dealing with a government monopoly or a regional government that is powerful, doing things like that doesn’t sit well. That is really impolite in China — coming in and only expecting to have a meeting. Maybe (the potential partners) expect a dinner afterward, where you get to know each other. So that’s a little bit more of that cultural finesse that’s necessary so people feel good about building a relationship. You need to do that with several different groups as you go forward. It’s not something that once you do it, and then you do your deal, that you can forget about. It’s a commitment. And you need to keep coming back.
The most successful people in China from big companies are the ones where the CEO will come here multiple times a year. That’s the commitment you make.
China is very rigorous in terms of its matching of people that you do business with. If you are working in a city and you have the mayor of a small city — if your business is that size — the mayor will only meet with the CEO of the company. He can’t meet with the No. 2 guy. The No. 2 guy will meet with the vice mayor or someone of that stature. In China, it’s planned in a very socially appropriate way.
You mentioned trust. What does it take to build trust in a country like China, and how big a role does it really play?
It’s becoming more rule-of-law-oriented, but contracts do not mean the same thing here as they mean in the U.S. If a company doesn’t want to honor a contract for whatever reason, they can always find reasons to do so, and your choice is to sue. Suing actually has become more effective now. You can sue. It can be enforced that you can collect. Ten years ago, you couldn’t do any of that. But now you can.
That doesn’t mean it’s good to sue. You don’t want to get to that point. Still, you have to recognize that contracts are not meant to mean what they do in the U.S., and memorandums of understanding, MOU, don’t mean that either.
If you sign an MOU, we’ll say, ‘Wow, we’re going to get that deal done.’ But no, it really means that we had a nice meeting. That’s all it means. It’s a formalization that they can show to their boss, just like a call report — I met with this company, and I can report it to my superior
In that sense, there are different cultural aspects, though those differences are getting less distinct as China becomes more sophisticated. But some of those characteristics will remain a long time. Just as it takes awhile to build that trust, that trust is an entry barrier to others. If somebody else comes along and offers a tiny bit better price, if that trust is there, that won’t matter. Even that’s becoming less true in today’s China. Nonetheless, there is that benefit so that trust is something that can move a company’s ability to do business in China forward.
Everyone agrees that China is the next great superpower, but what does that really mean and what’s next in terms of the country’s evolution?
In every area of human endeavor — economics, business, finance, culture, science, technology, sports, media and military — China intends for its efforts to be among the best in the world. There isn’t a sector that they are not focusing on improving. In every industry of importance, any industry at all, China is going to be developing its companies.
Now, those companies are going to compete with each other, so there are opportunities to ally with some of those companies at whatever level you are working at, in order to help them on their rise. My favorite word in dealing with China is “alignment.” If you try to do exactly what you are doing in the U.S. just to compete and make your company as big as possible and as successful as possible, that ultimately won’t lead to true success in China. You have to think about alignment with government policy, the leaders with whom you do what is in their interest, so that you can align with that.
Sometimes, what seems to be suboptimal from an alignment point of view is actually far better. There are many situations in which getting a smaller percentage of the company will actually turn out to be a greater wealth builder for you, for your company, than if you had a higher percentage, because it incentivizes the other side. You always want to be a resource that that other company uses.
People have stereotypes. They say, ‘Well, how can you trust the Chinese?’ They come at it from the viewpoint that the Chinese were all one entity that gets up in the morning and has a conference call about how to fool the foreigners and get all of their money. That’s, of course, ludicrous. What in fact is happening is that the different Chinese companies within fiercely competitive markets will try to use you as a vehicle, not to cheat you in any way. They don’t care about that. What they care about is competing with their other mortal enemies in that industry.
So if you can help them compete with the other people in their industry, that’s what they are interested in. Even on a provincial or city basis, they compete with each other — cities within provinces, within provinces. All of that is much fiercer in China that it is in the U.S. There’s some competition between states, but nothing like there is in China. So the idea is that you want to be a resource in the right way to one of those main competitors so that they see you as a resource. Then you become valuable, maybe even more valuable than you would in the U.S. And in those situations, even if you have a smaller percentage of the deal, structured properly that can be worth a lot more.
How to reach: The Kuhn Foundation, www.closertotruth.com
