Secrets of cross-cultural communication transcript

in all the exuberance associated with negotiating new business relationships between China and the West too little attention has been paid to managing conflict in those relationships and conflict is inevitable as the story I'm about to tell you illustrates confronting Conflict by which I mean how do you tell a person there's a problem that needs to be fixed is handled very differently in the west than it is in the state Jeff one of my Executive Education students told the story of the rattling bicycles he had a contract with a German buyer for bicycles that he was having manufactured in China shortly before the bikes were to be shipped to Germany Jeff went to the plant to check on them when he got there he and the plant manager took a couple of the bikes off the line rode him around in the countryside and Jeff's Spike rattled he thought the plant manager's bike rattle too so when they got back to the plant Jeff handed over his bike and then he turned to the plant manager and commented I think my bike rattled and then he went back to Hong Kong when Jeff ended his story there was a stunned silence in the room and then a flurry of questions you just went back to Hong Kong you didn't check all the bikes you didn't tell the plant manager that the Germans wouldn't accept rattling bikes no said Jeff finally someone asked well why not and Jeff explained that he knew the plant manager knew why he had come he was afraid that if he confronted the plant manager directly the plant manager would lose face he would feel disrespected and he would feel embarrassed and in Revenge he might ship the rattling bikes but Jeff thought if he was respectful the plant manager would get the job done fix the bikes and ship them on time to Germany Jeff understood the difference between direct and indirect confrontation of conflict in the west when we have a conflict we tend to identify the problem assign blame and assign responsibility for the fix and even tell what we think needs to be done in East Asia it's done much more indirectly there's a signal that there's a problem and an assumption that the responsible party will take take responsibility and fix the problem so if you're a western manager working in East Asia my advice to you is to be aware of subtle signals about problems and conflict you might hear for example the term that would be difficult or when you ask a question you might get a story back in response or you might hear a metaphor it's okay to probe what was the protagonist in the story thinking about what you say or how's this metaphor interpreted in China but what you don't want to do is point fingers because in East Asia people take roles and responsibilities very very seriously if for your peace of mind you really have to make clear there's a problem that needs to be fixed State your problem in tentative terms don't be definitive engage your counterpart in defining the problem and in defining the solution now if you are an East Asian manager working in the west I advise you be prepared for confrontation try not to take it personally try not to be defensive try not to withdraw instead engage the other party in understanding what the problem is don't take the problem to the boss in East Asia it's very common to involve the boss very early in the the conflict but in the West managers are supposed to resolve conflict themselves so instead engage your counterpart work together collaboratively to identify the problem and fix the problem just a little bit of cultural sensitivity to direct and indirect confrontation of conflict can really pay off it did for Jeff those German buyers not only accepted the bikes but they reordered e