Connecting with China: Business Success through Mutual Benefit and Respect

Chapter Fifteen

CHINA-YOUR ESSENTIAL REPAIR KIT

Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy

- Lao Tzu

 

Despite having a firm template for success such as the one described in the previous chapters, things do go wrong in business. It’s no one’s fault, business is fallible because people are fallible and, despite the high standards, mistakes happen, contingences occur. So, you deal with it. If you are from a Western business culture, this will typically mean applying all your acumen and skills, calling out the nature of the mistake, subjecting it to robust debate, legislating against it reoccurring, and informing all concerned that you have solved the problem. This, typically, is how it is done. But not in China.

 

In a relationship-based culture, where the health of the business relationship is everything and the joint face it presents primordial, it is important to remember what the primary overarching value and goal is for the Chinese: harmony. When I was first presented with the starkness of this fact, I was incredulous - then I read an anecdote ²⁵ which brought the point home convincingly. The son of a major Chinese tycoon said that if he wanted to make a major business acquisition, he would not have to gain approval from his father, whereas the decision to sue someone, however apparently unimportant, would require consultation with him.

 

What this story illustrates is the need to be screened by new priorities and values in our mind in order to capture the mood of our Chinese ...