Multicultural and multi-geographical teams are becoming the backbone and building blocks of global companies. Most organizations do not have viable alternatives to virtual communication when managing their far-flung operations. Success will depend to a great extent on the global workforce’s ability to work and execute across differences in business practices and work environments.
With advances in communication technologies, distance has become irrelevant to business interactions. But ease of communication does not guarantee effective communication, and sometimes the ease and frequency of communication across borders creates misunderstandings and sabotages results. In many cases, these difficulties swirl under the surface and do not rear their heads until companies fail to launch a new product or implement global initiatives.
Companies in the United States and China must gear up for increased business interactions in the new decade. Although the Chinese prefer face-to-face meetings, prohibitive costs and the need for quick actions are making virtual communication a rule and face-to-face meetings an exception.
Success or failure of global organizations in China depends directly on an innovative approach to virtual communication. Before you and your company can identify the most effective tools for virtual communication, you must clarify the expected results:
- Sharing information: the aim is to create acceptance and understanding.
- Discussions and collaboration: the aim is to create a shared vision and ensure that everyone contributes their agreements as well as disagreements.
- Decisions: the aim is to get everyone’s commitment to follow through and work to execute the decision.
Understanding Basic Cultural Differences
To get results from virtual team communication, you must consider the underlying principles that impel the thoughts and actions of your Chinese counterparts. Although we cannot lump Chinese culture into a monolithic whole and work with them based on stereotypical descriptions, we must realize that there are fundamental and deeply rooted values that are shared among people with similar upbringings and life experiences. Understanding differences in basic business values is a powerful tool in designing successful communication strategies.
Following are examples of four unspoken principles that will govern your business interactions with the Chinese. These are real-life examples and are followed by winning strategies for success.
Accountability Vs. Bureaucracy
An American company ran into difficulty in implementing the terms of its contract with a Chinese supplier. Executives at the top of the American company had decided to enact a seldom-used stipulation that was clearly spelled out in their contract with the Chinese supplier.
The engineer in charge of the project was directed to contact his Chinese counterparts to implement this project. He made little headway in his communication with his Chinese counterparts; there were many questions and objections. Because he was put in “charge of getting things done,” he could not go back to his boss and say, “They don’t listen to me, please help me to do my job.”
Because he was told that the Chinese prefer face-to-face communication, he got permission to visit China. After getting the same run-around after face-to-face meetings, he became increasingly frustrated. His efforts to push harder and demand action resulted in alienating his Chinese counterparts who escalated their complaints to increasingly higher levels until they finally reached the president of the American company. The problem was resolved with renewed negotiations at the highest levels between the American and the Chinese companies.
The end result was that the American company organized a cross-cultural training program for its entire engineering department. At the end of the day, one of the engineers raised her hand and commented that “This was very helpful, now you should go and do this training for our top executives!”
Winning strategy: If this situation had been addressed from the beginning by the top-level American executives, the American engineer would have had access to decision-makers, and with the support of his management, he would have achieved positive results.
As this case indicates, virtual meetings with decisionmakers lead to far superior results than meeting face-to-face with people who do not have decision-making authority.
Team leaders or individual team members in the United States usually are empowered with decision-making responsibility within the scope of the project and are accountable for results. Unless you are dealing with the very top of the organization, your Chinese counterparts might not have the same decision-making authority. Generally, people who lack authority and real power make it up. This made-up power is bureaucracy. Your Chinese counterparts who do not have the power to say “yes,” feel powerful and in control by saying “no.”
On the other hand, in China, when people in authority decide that it is to their benefit to proceed, they can persuade others to get behind them and things will happen very quickly.
This is not necessarily true in the United States, where power is more horizontal and the top person must get buy-in from other stakeholders in the organization before proceeding.
Equality Vs. Hierarchy
An American organization was exploring a business project in a Tier- 2 city in China and a young employee, who spoke a little Chinese from his student days in Taiwan, was put in charge of the project.
It was identified that a director of a government organization in the Chinese city had the authority to initiate and facilitate the project between the American and Chinese groups.
After exchanging e-mails during the span of several months, the American employee was feeling very positive about his communication with his Chinese counterpart and decided to follow up his e-mail with a telephone call.
The American employee decided to greet and carry on discussions in Chinese to please his Chinese counterpart. But the Chinese director became very abrupt and ended the conversation in a brusque manner.
Although confused, the American employee decided to follow up with a cheerful e-mail. After several days of silence, he received an e-mail from his Chinese counterpart saying that he was greatly insulted by the familiar way that the American employee addressed him on the telephone. He pointed out that any future communication should come from the director of the American organization.
Winning strategy: To get results, observe and match hierarchal levels in virtual communication. While it is not always possible to perfectly match levels, some organizations might inflate the position of their employees (although this subterfuge could backfire). If this inflation is warranted, the title of employees must be updated to reflect their responsibility.
To pave the way for effective virtual communication with Chinese counterparts, executives at the highest level possible must initiate the process and introduce the designated employee as the person who has the knowledge to carry on the project. Young people, and especially younger women’s positions, must be bolstered with a good introduction from the highest level possible to establish their credibility.
Surface Agreement Vs. Implementation
A U.S. multinational company was sued by its software vendor for improper use of its products and had to pay a huge penalty. To prevent future fines, the IT director at the headquarters in the United States was assigned the job of changing and overhauling related manuals and procedures at several of the company’s Chinese subsidiaries. The IT director immediately formed a team of IT employees who worked in different locations in China. E-mails were followed by regular conference calls and everyone was very agreeable. But after eight months of communication, nothing of substance had happened. The American IT director was losing hope of accomplishing her objectives.
Winning strategy: When you are assigned to any task, regardless of domestic or international location, you must line up the resources that you need to do the work.
The IT director assumed that her Chinese team members had the time and the motivation to allocate the extra time needed to work on the IT project. Because they were busy (and sometimes the subsidiaries are bombarded with requests from headquarters to participate in implementing tasks that are not of the highest priority to them), the Chinese subsidiary assigned several of their least-effective employees to the team as placeholders. To avoid frustration, get the preliminaries in order:
- Ensure your project has buy-in at the highest level and that Chinese team members allocate the resources needed to complete the project.
- Keep the top people in authority involved in your project by inviting them to be guest speakers during your conference calls and by sending them progress reports.
- Follow up closely with your team and keep the lines of communication open by providing relevant information and keeping the status of your project current.
Task Vs Relationship
The engineering department of an American high-tech company was working very closely with its Chinese counterparts at its subsidiaries in Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu. American engineers were the drivers of projects and several of them led virtual teams of American and Chinese.
The Americans started their conference calls with a bit of humor to create a friendly environment and put everyone at ease. But they were not sure if that tactic was working because the level of engagement was in doubt and the Chinese did not readily participate in discussions. Although they tried to work with the Chinese the same way they communicated with their dispersed American colleagues, the results were not the same.
On the surface all was well, but the American engineers felt unsure about how best to communicate work issues such as quality and timeliness of reports, performance and quality of work, and engagement and participation during conference calls. Discussions about the quality of work ended up with a comment or a behavior they could not understand. American engineers grumbled about the Chinese by the water cooler or at meetings: “It is so hard to understand them and I don’t know if they understand me?” “They stay quiet at conference calls and act surprised if we ask for their opinions,” or, “Sometimes, they sound abrupt and pushy and we are taken aback about some of their comments.” “Do I tell them directly or I tell their boss about the screw ups?”
Winning strategies: A relationship of trust and confidence is the main ingredient of effective and productive communication. We interpret e-mails and telephone conversations based on trust and the relationship that we have with the other person. Misunderstandings are the main cause of conflict and breakdown in communication, and strategies for addressing them involve both communication and relationship-building:
- Communicating across language and accent barriers is the most difficult aspect of virtual communication across borders. The bad news is that you cannot do anything immediately to improve accents and language capabilities. The good news is that you can apply virtual communication tools that will increase understanding and remove language barriers to a great extent.
- Start your virtual communication process by accepting and expecting that it will take more time.
- Slow down and explain concepts more thoroughly and allow non-native English speakers more time to understand the concepts. Impatience kills virtual communication; your Chinese counterparts can turn you off mentally and disengage from the conversation.
- Remember that non-native English speakers, especially those who recently have been immersed in speaking English, have just a basic, unvarnished grasp of the language. Because non-native English speakers are unfamiliar with the nuances of the words, their communication could be very raw and they might use words that could have negative connotations. Also, their communication by e-mail or telephone might lack the softening language that makes conversation more palatable. Thus, your Chinese counterpart might sometimes sound too direct and rude. For example, writing “you are confused,” instead of “there is a misunderstanding.”
- Work to establish a relationship at the very beginning of your interactions. It is hard to change first impressions after they are formed.
- American culture is very taskoriented and forms relationships around task accomplishments. The Chinese respond better to working relationships when both sides have established a personal rapport.
- Show your sincerity by demonstrating that you have their best interest at heart and you are not just looking out for yourself in pushing to get the work done. Show that you are working to create value for both sides, and paying attention to the human side of the equation will demonstrate this point.
- Allocate some time to get to know your counterpart as a person. First, share some information about your background by e-mail and then follow up with a light one-on-one telephone call.
At the initial stages of working together in the virtual workspace, share the project’s background information with your Chinese counterparts, specifically as it relates to them and their boss. Let them know the reasons for starting this project and its importance to the organization. Most important, let them know the executives at the highest level who are supporting the project. But be aware of giving too much information and pay attention to material that must be kept confidential.
- Take conflict offline. If there is an issue, set up a time to speak to the person one-on-one.
- Do not correct people on the conference calls as they could lose face and resent your action.
Effective Virtual Communication
In virtual communication, lacking the benefit of an emotional context, we must pay more attention to values and business styles to develop trust. There is the belief that to build trust with your Chinese counterparts, you have to spend face time to entertain them or give them expensive gifts. Of course, in any culture, face-to-face communication is preferable to e-mail, telephone calls, and even video conferencing. However, meeting in person in itself is not sufficient; sometimes the more we meet with a person the less we like and trust them. The Chinese, the same as their American counterparts, are very busy and to build trust with you, they want to know:
- Your company’s established brand (They want to do business with reputable companies and people.).
- Your level of authority and expertise and your ability to implement and execute the required tasks.
- Your connections at the highest levels, and the background of your dealings with other associates and customers in the past.
- Your commitment to them and to know that you have their best interests at heart as well as your own.
Sheida Hodge is director of cross cultural services for Hodge International Advisors, Mercer Island, Washington. She can be reached at +1 206 420 7980 or e-mail sheida@hodge-ia.com