Divided Unity
By Ron Cune
When talking about meetings in the Netherlands people tend to think about a continuous flow of opinions and the exchange of thoughts about specific subjects. People have meetings to ventilate their own viewpoint, to inform one another about processes or to endorse each other with comments and suggestions.
The Chinese meeting culture operates somewhat differently. A meeting is often a one-sided flow of information, a top-down briefing from the management and an instruction for the work floor. The lively interaction and brainstorming sessions will occur sporadically in Chinese organizations.
When you, as a Western enterprise, join a Chinese organization at the meeting table, you are expected to demonstrate unity. When having an appointment with your Chinese partner it is important that you refrain from giving a presentation containing numerous diverging opinions of colleagues, or what is even worse: open discussions. The key is to come across as univocally strong and powerful.
During initial meetings it is recommendable to allot one speaker and only let your fellow colleague-expert to contribute where particular divisions or specific technical aspects are concerned.
Ron Cune, Dragondancers
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November 18th, 2008 at 2:48 am
It is very true about Chinese meeting which is indeed a one-sided flow of information or only the convey of the leader’s idea.
November 26th, 2008 at 5:34 am
Hello Ron,
While this is true of standard Chinese meeting practices, it really isn’t in a company’s business interest to completely acquiesce to the Chinese business culture completely. For multinational companies coming to China to build a joint venture or business partnership, the focus is on creating something of greater overall value by bringing to the table more than just a cash investment.
State Owned Enterprises (SOE’s) in China are desperately trying to build themselves by learning or adopting international management practices and skills. You as their partner/representative can contribute the skills and experience that they are having difficulty finding / hiring / or purchasing in their local talent pools. It is simply in yours and their best interest to infuse a bit of your own business understanding into a new venture in a developing market – that is one of the reasons why it’s still developing.
While it is true that you need to be careful how you present these opinions / styles / methods so as not to upset or embarrass the Chinese management team, to NOT contribute this type of value-added skill set and experience would actually be a real disservice to both them and the company you represent.
Sam Ritter
SSBG – IT Solutions
http://www.ssbg.com
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Hi Sam,
Thanks for your comment.
You might be right in some cases of a JV. Please note that not all JV’s have the intention of a win-win situation…
However, I wrote this for a supplier – buyer perspective. Which, I admit, is not clear from my article. I’ll pay attention to that.
Ron