Ignorance, Arrogance, Judgment = A Wall

My mandate at PPI was to develop a self-empowered Chinese management team and staff to run the day-to-day operations while the owner of the company was in Hollywood directing and producing two feature-length movies.

PPI had 60 Chinese managers, supervisors and staff in the Beijing and Shanghai production studios.

Naturally, I judged their culture and business sense, seeing it through the filters of what I had been conditioned to believe: that our way was the right way, the only way, the truth and the light.

I was ignorant of their 5, 000 year history, culture and tradition. I viewed them as backward, their ways inferior. I had a mental swagger perpetuated by my belief that the West was superior and more advanced. I believed we were right and they were wrong.

I had built a wall in my mind that separated instead of bridging two people, two companies, two cultures and two countries.

This didn’t cause fisticuffs in the boardrooms. No, no. We are too civilized and the Chinese are too polite to tell it like it is. However, more than 90 per cent of communication is non-verbal, and that part neither side can hide. I was behaving and believing like a true gweilo.

What happened?
Nothing!

Just smiles, gifts, dinners, meetings.
Nothing happened.

Zero.

No progress.

The hot shot, know-it-all, we-are-the- good-guys, let-me-show-you-how-we-do-things-in-the-West consultant was not getting the job done, was not getting anything done.

My two-year contract had a three-month probationary clause.

Dan told me he would be watching to see how the staff accepted the “foreigner,” which was a direct reflection on how effective I would be in completing the assignment.

Nothing was happening. How could it, with my wall up? The wall was my mind, my perception of the Chinese and all things Chinese.

I was running out of time. The pressure was on.

Results were needed.
My China adventure was in jeopardy.

My wife was with me. What would our children back in Canada think?

Dad returning home an international failure.

Woe is me.

What could I do?

Forty per cent of top foreign executives and managers don’t complete their contracts, returning home with their families; broken men, burnt out, often with the family in tatters. I worked as a volunteer at a Shanghai crisis line for ex-pats and heard first hand the difficulties some executive families experienced dealing with the culture shock of integrating into this new world. These were successful people with many other successful foreign postings: Japan, Singapore, Australia, etc.

But this was China and I was on my way to joining that forty per cent.

The global consulting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, with its worldwide constituency and a large client base in China, had conducted a study of internal burnout at high executive levels and arrived at the forty per cent number.

A more recent and more comprehensive study conducted by the global search firm Korn/Ferry International found that while China is among the most attractive places for executives to take an international assignment, it’s also the most difficult place to succeed. Most leave before the end of their stint. The most common reason for failure was not fitting into the local culture. Other reasons were family or personal and not getting enough direction and support from head office.

This was a delicate topic that wasn’t discussed in polite company.  We are talking about the mental and emotional states of men leading large organizations under extreme pressure. They were dealing with Chinese cultural issues, with management and general staff, a wife and family caught in a strange land, strange language, and strange culture. They traveled a lot, had crushing workloads and the endless, tedious meetings with clients, government and suppliers made it worse. Bosses back home were unsympathetic and only questioned costs, time delays, lack of profits and market share. That’s the life of corporate leaders, but it’s magnified in the stressful, cross-cultural, high profile China situation. 

The personality profile of these individuals usually is of a strong willed, dominating person with a drive to achieve. They aren’t right-brained individuals prone to introspection or overly concerned with feelings. Personal and corporate image, and pride keep these matters hidden. One of the few places the problems were aired was at the Long Bar, at the Shanghai Center, where all the hard-drinking executives sought solace with beautiful Shanghainese women offering respite from their hectic schedules.

The men would never phone a crisis line. The macho, male ego doesn’t need that. These guys don’t think they need anything. Many HR directors are frustrated that their key executives think their staff needs training, but they don’t. And if they don’t need training, they certainly don’t need cross-cultural coaching. Hard-driving bosses don’t do soft, fuzzy stuff.

As a volunteer on the Shanghai Ex-pat Crisis line, I took many calls from the wives adrift in an unknown society, their man always at work, on a trip or too tired when he came home. The wives worried about the lovely, smart, female executive assistants their husbands spent so much time with, including traveling. The wives worried about their children with all the normal stages of puberty and adolescence, except in a strange country, thousands of miles from home, family, friends and support group.

Alcohol, drugs, sex were the same as back home, only magnified because of the isolation in the middle of millions of strange people they didn’t understand.

That was what the danger pay with the comprehensive, ex-pat packages was for. I wasn’t in their league, but I was dealing with my own cross-cultural stress.

My moment of truth came when my wife, Lovy pointed her finger in my face and gave me my wake-up call. I realized I had to change because going home was not an option. When I got the finger pointing, the cursing, and the frustration out of the way, I took a look in the mental mirror. The focal point for all businesses and business people is results. A glimmer appeared in the form of my question about results.

If these people were so backward, so behind the times, how come their economy had been growing nine to twelve per cent consistently for the last twenty-eight years?

Not one democratic capitalistic economy has shown that growth rate consistently for the past twenty-eight years. We get excited about two to three percent growth and that’s sporadic.
Hmmmm? How come?

So began my business and cultural odyssey into how and why the Chinese system gets results. It is all about results. With my Western mind creaking open, I was exposed to the delightful history, culture, traditions and values of one of the world’s oldest, most fascinating cultures, the most populous country, the world’s biggest market, the world’s largest manufacturing center.

I changed my mind about China.
I changed my paradigm about life and peace.
I began to understand the people.
I accepted them.
I adapted to their philosophy.
I adopted their values.
I fell in love with China, its story and its people.
I changed.

And, I started getting results.

My two-year contract turned lasted five and one half years.
The walls of ignorance, arrogance and judgment came crashing down and were replaced with new learning, respect and understanding for others different from me.

When I returned home, I again had to make it back across the bridge to re-enter and accept once again the culture and society that I had grown up in, but had been absent from for seven years. This is a common challenge for returning ex-pats.

Life is about bridges.
Success in the global market is about bridges.
Peace in the world is about bridges.
It is about bridges, not walls!

Next week: Chapter Two: Communists get things done too.

Ernie Tadla  www.odysseychina.net