Cross-Cultural Leadership for Change Management in China

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CASE STUDY
Leading Change in Complex, Multicultural
Environments
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Harmonious Execution (Overview)
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Achieve financial target  (explicit)
Implement a Key Account Management (KAM)
strategy  (explicit)
Align PMS implementation with local commercial
sales activities  (implicit)
Achieve behavior change of local
salespeople (implicit)
Integrate and leverage expertise of internal
consultant  (implicit)
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Strategic Challenge
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The client is the China business unit (BU) of a
Dutch global business group (BG) that produces
raw materials (CPL) in a joint venture (JV)
arrangement with a Chinese state-owned enterprise
(SOE)
Our soft challenge was to persuade salespeople
who were transferees from a Chinese SEO with
deeply embedded Iron Rice Bowl mentalities to
learn new concepts and change behaviors
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The Iron Rice Bowl concept refers to the
Chinese mindset of having government granted,
lifetime employment where new ideas/behaviors are
neither beneficial nor rewarded
CONCEPT
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QUESTIONS
What do you do when regional participants
assigned to lead a project are not 100 aligned
with the global division that chartered it? How
do you bridge the cultural divides?
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Key Account Management (KAM) is an organizational
change, not a sales technique, used by
business-to-business (B2B) suppliers to manage
their relationships with strategically-important
customers for mutually beneficial long-term
relationships
CONCEPT
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QUESTIONS
How do you align milestones and deliverables with
normal client work procedures that are
out-of-scope with the project? How do you keep
the project on track when the client faces more
urgent priorities?
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Harmony, harmony, and more harmony
Establishing trust and credibility first
(building guanxi relationships)
Approach
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QUESTIONS
How do two independent consultants work
harmoniously within the same project? What is the
best approach when there are language and
cultural barriers?
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Chinese Guanxi refers to the nature of ones
relationship with another. It describes ones
personalized network of influencers and is the
cornerstone of all personal and business success
in China
CONCEPT
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QUESTIONS
How do you align multiple stakeholders with
different goals? How do you keep the project on
track when unforeseen disruptions occur?
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Keys For Success
Listen (to the client)
Flexibility (to adapt to the unique
characteristics of the clients needs)
Professionalism (stay focused on the goals
without emotion)
Diplomacy (giving all stakeholder face to
maintain harmony)
Execution (kept all activities on schedule in the
face of adversity)
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Win-Win Outcome
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Our work stream achieved its financial stretch
target
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All stakeholders were able to save face, and we
paved the way for the client to continue this
project for another year
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Read More
www.linkedin.com/pulse/case-study-leading-change-c
omplex-multicultural-environments-gene-hsu
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Gene Hsu
China Consultant Cross-Cultural Management
Instructor Executive Coach Career Mentor
Event Host
www.linkedin.com/in/emecareer/