China imports self-help - Market Horizons - adopting Western business ideas

Chief Executive, The, Jan-Feb, 2003 by Des Dearlove, Stuart Crainer

Last year we were traveling in China, riding the overnight train from Xi'an to Luoyang. It was crowded and loud. The only quiet person was a young man engrossed in a book. It took us awhile to recognize the Western face on the book's cover. The man looked vaguely familiar, with his old fashioned horn-rimmed spectacles, receding hairline and respectable suit and tie. Then we realized he was Dale Carnegie and the book his perennial self-improvement classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Later, on the chaotic streets of Luoyang, we noticed an ad featuring a man with a beaming smile. His face expressed the insincerity of the worst car salesman stereotype. Translation revealed him to be an up-and-coming Chinese self-help guru: Professor Du Yuen Sheng promises to change your life.

China, the keeper of the communist faith, is embracing self-help, on the street and in the workplace. Little wonder Asia experts predict China will become the largest market for management education in the next two decades.

Evidence abounds of China's thirst for Western business thinking. English-speaking management gurus have become regulars in China's major cities. Bookstores sport the latest business texts. American business schools like Rutgers and Michigan have mainland branches.

China's westernization acquired new momentum when the country joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. The price of admission included open trade and liberal markets. China agreed to eliminate, or at least ease, restrictions on foreign companies by 2004. For purveyors of Western management techniques, the opportunities are alluring.

Training companies are already moving in. The Centre for Effective Leadership, Achieve Global and Training Solutions all have Chinese operations. Indeed, the export of Western business ideas to this communist outpost would appear to be the final lap of capitalism's worldwide victory parade.

Upon closer inspection, however, China still has a way to go. China has yet to make the leap to a market economy. Bureaucracy remains as stifling as the air pollution in China's great industrial cities. And any visitor to rural China will attest to the poverty and the reliance on people rather than machines to do the most basic jobs.

It is generally assumed that Western management strategies will help China modernize and commercialize. Our own experience suggests that although the demand is there, the big question is how to export the best of Western management to China.

Research by Harold Chee of the UKbased Ashridge Business School suggests that the current flurry of activity is deceptive. Chee interviewed Chinese managers who had been through some form of Western-style management training. The managers recognized the usefulness of much of what they learned. But they found it difficult to apply back on the job. Respect for older managers makes younger managers reluctant to challenge traditional ideas. Political correctness is sometimes seen as more important than organizational effectiveness. Often it is still preferable to be a good communist than an efficient capitalist.

In addition, some things taken for granted in the West -- data about customers, for example -- are simply unavailable. You can memorize marketing books, but try marketing without data.

The reality is that exporting Western management en masse simply won't work. But individual ideas may seed Chinese culture where they find fertile soil. Chinese business still centers on relationships and the exchange of favors --what the Chinese call guanxi. This makes them more open to some concepts than others. When we spoke recently to Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence, he was optimistic about his reception in China, where people have always valued the contacts and networks he recommends.

China's managerial skills gap has no quick fix. China will have to learn business best practices in the same way as do managers in the Western world, through trial and error, picking up good ideas from an array of sources and disciplines. Ultimately, Chinese management is likely to be as pragmatic, confused and complex as the models we export.

Des DearLove and Stuart Crainer are founders of U.K.-based Suntop Media. Send comments to markethorizons@ chiefexecutive.net.