I’m still in that stuffing-induced dream state from last week, so here are my final five mobility wishes for that ideal world. Again, in no particular order…
5. The realization dawns: Money doesn’t solve all problems. Expatriate assignments can be expensive, which is why they are often cutback targets when budgets get tight. Unfortunately, sometimes companies have brought this on themselves. For example, in response to spouse complaints, some companies often toss in a payment of some sort, usually relatively nominal, to the spouse as part of the overall expat package. Of course, the spousal complaint is rarely actually about money… it usually is a manifestation of loneliness, living in expatriate housing with few community outlets, or not being able to utilize their skills in fulfilling employment. The payments to spouses add to cost but don’t address the underlying problem and the corporate attempt to minimize spouse unhappiness fails.
4. The importance of organizational leadership reinstates itself. Chinese organizations crave leadership and Chinese employees appreciate good leaders. But a good leader isn’t necessarily the one who shouts the loudest, has the biggest ego, has taken a Chinese spouse, tries to out-Chinese the Chinese by being an authoritarian leader, or tries to cultivate relationships by only being nicey-nice. It’s often more about when to adjust one’s leadership style to fit the situation. The world economic crisis has created a "hunkering down" atmosphere and hopefully as things improve, leaders will be able to focus less on survival and task completion and more on cultivating organizations and future leaders.
3. Knowledge transfer trumps localization. Localization in the Chinese context means turning over a position filled by an expatriate assignee to a national employee. It does not typically refer to the payroll on which a foreign employee is placed. One of the issues companies often face in China is a sense of urgency in turning over expatriate positions to nationals, often as a result of Chinese partner pressures.
However, making such changes often results in poorly trained employees being placed in those positions which, in turn, often has negative organizational consequences. Companies would often be better served by giving talented Chinese national employees some overseas experiences which would not only increase their capability for repatriation (and then localization of the expat position) but would enhance organizational knowledge transfer.
2. Bungee boss assignments lose their allure. The Dilbert® "bungee boss" series is one of my favorites. A bungee boss is one who is dropped into a new work area and then is quickly pulled out again, whether as part of a reorganization, a “high potential” program, or whatever.
The bungee boss never has an opportunity to live with the consequences of the changes implemented and so, if things go badly, someone else is left to clean up the debris while the bungee boss goes on to ever greater success on another bungee assignment. In the Chinese context, bungee bosses really, really don’t work well.
For technical or project work of defined duration, fine. For leadership positions… ugh. I keep harping on this relationship stuff as important for China, but I’ve never seen a short-termer be successful in building bridges to Chinese partners or staff here.
And the number one wish?
1. Everyone renews their Worldwide ERC® membership, introduces a colleague, and volunteers to help out a bit.
Yeah, yeah. I know, I know. Self-serving, brown-nosing the Worldwide ERC® staff, and so on.
What can I say? But there is a lot of organizational capability among our membership and the best way to benefit from that collective knowledge is by belonging and participating. Building a sustainable long-term business around the world in different cultures is not easy or for the faint-hearted. Best to pick up what you can where you can!