China Parent Company Culture

If the next century is set to be the Asian century, it seems inevitable that things will be dominated by China.  At Global Business Culture we can see how important China has become in terms of global trade simply by the number of enuiries we get from clients in the UK, Europe and the States who are increasingly finding that they are dealing with Chinese counterparties on a daily basis.

I was again with senior leaders from the London-based insurance company Chaucer today.  Chaucer have recently been acquired by the Chinese SOE China Re and are getting to grips with dealing with their new owners in China.  Everything about the process seems to have worked well but people in London are determined to ensure that relations with Beijing continue to prosper and so feel the need to get a much better understanding of the key cultural aspects of working with China.

Senior leaders are, obvioulsy, incredibly busy so the challenge for a consultant is always how can you deliver the maximum benefit in the minimum period of time.  I had only two hours today to run a China cultural awareness training programme and so decided to focus on four key elements:

• The issue of face in aChinese context
• The impact of hierarchy
• Attitudes to risk
• Effective communication with China

These issues also need to be directly linked to current and future strategic goals – so quite a challenge in a two hour time slot.

Hopefully I was able to add value……

---