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China Business Book Giants Weigh In
They’ve penned two of the best-selling books on doing business in China. Tim Clissold is the author of Mr. China, the true story of a Wall Street attempt to leverage Chinese SOEs in the 90s that reads like a mystery-thriller. James McGregor wrote One Billion Customers, a seminal book on navigating the twists and turns of Chinese deal-making. Together, they faced a packed house at the Bookworm last night to address the macro-economic and cross-cultural issues facing China and all who wish to profit there.
Clissold, a thoughtful, soft-spoken Brit, offered balanced and careful commentary. It was McGregor’s deadpan, dry humor and brilliant sound bites that stole the show, however. Thus the lion’s share of the following quotes belong to him.
On the right attitude to have towards China:
Clissold: “I look back now at when I came to China and wonder at the missionary zeal I had for changing things. A much better approach is not to be so uptight, to accept and enjoy the differences that seem irksome.”
McGregor: “Whether we know it or not, we’re preconditioned to view the Chinese and China as a big mystery. Your first, best step is to realize there’s nothing that mysterious about China, and that people here put their pants on one leg at a time, too. However, don’t expect a Chinese man wearing an expensive suit to think just like you.”
On adapting your business to a changing China:
McGregor: “The Central Committee puts out five year plans. They’re blueprints for China’s development. Read them carefully, and explain how your business follows, or pretends to follow that line. And remember that simply making money is not good enough if you’re a foreign business man. It’s OK for the Chinese businessman. The foreigner should also be contributing to the good of China.”
On China’s need for innovation:
Clissold: “There’s no reason the Chinese shouldn’t be fantastic innovators. After all, they’ve done well recently at innovating on a macro level. That is, there’s been reform, and it hasn’t necessarily been hampered by ideology.”
McGregor: “The greatest innovation Chinese businesses show right now is getting around and avoiding the restrictions of their own system. But scientific innovation will take a revolution in education, at the business level. We may be in the midst of that revolution right now.
For example, in the 90s, Taiwan and Hong Kong came to Mainland China and revolutionized the inefficient SOE manufacturing industries. Now, with international companies like Microsoft and Pfizer coming here to do R&D, we could see the same effect in five to fifteen years.”
On China competing globally:
McGregor: “Local Chinese companies, almost without exception, are run by inspired dictators. They answer to no one and make all the important decisions. To go global, they have to learn to follow rules and build teams which can exercise authority. Because they’re not, there aren’t any major Chinese brands doing well overseas.
The China company model is also hampered by the tradition of being first and foremost a family company, with all the fencing in and nepotism that implies. Ironically, communism has helped introduce dispassionate management, an antidote to family company melodrama.”
On cross-cultural relations:
Clissold: “We have to learn that the Chinese aren’t obsessed with the abstract ideas of linear progress and perfectionism, as we are. The China approach is more about balance and accepting than changing.”
McGregor: “China has to come to grips with the concept of treating people as equals. In the last two hundred years, it has been in the throes of a simultaneous superiority/inferiority complex, which is also evident in the way the Chinese treat each other. Now that China is in the ascendant, the superiority complex is holding sway. And it’s troubling that the most anti-foreign Chinese are also the richest. They want you out of the way on the golf course, and also in business. The attitude seems to be, ‘Thank you. We don’t need you anymore.’
Of course, China owns a piece of everything globally, so we have to be nice. You look at this Australian backlash against China, demonstrations against public Mandarin use and pro-quota enforcement, and you see that China understands the outside world better than the outside world understands it.”
On how China changes a foreigner:
McGregor: “I realized I was OK last week after a red-eye flight to Shanghai. I was exhausted and grumpy, but I stood in line admiring the queue-jumpers’ skill and dexterity. So I know I’ve learned to accept what I can’t change.
I only wish I were 25 again. There’s no way I’d be hanging around in Shanghai or Beijing, drinking at Sanlitun [* A Beijing foreign bar street]. I’d go to Dalian or Qingdao, or a third tier city. There are millions of adventures in China still to be had. There are so many exciting chapters of China still to unfold.”
Related posts:
- Book Review: Mr. China
- China Briefing’s China Business Guides
- South China Business Events for June and July
- Western China Business Events for June and July
- Northeast China Business Events for June and July
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