When my family arrived in
Shanghai in August, 2005 I was firmly planted in the third quarter of both my
expat and work life. China was in the midst of its historic rise to economic
might and I was wondering what I was doing there. Per standard operating
procedure, my wife assessed our situation and made a “to do” list. She got on
with the task of getting our home life up and running. At least one of us
understood what they were doing. I had a “big picture” idea of my goals but seemed to need a lot more help than my better half. The devil is, as
they say, in the details.
My first office was rented
from a serviced office company which meant that I was, for the most part,
surrounded by people who had come to Shanghai to work on a short term project, start
their own business or, like me, worked for a division of a large foreign
company that was just beginning operations in Shanghai.
On my third day in Shanghai a
smiling middle aged American woman appeared at my door and introduced herself. As
it turned out, she worked for a testing company that wanted to introduce their
personality testing products in the Chinese market. I became her first
customer. Actually, she tested me for free in the hopes that I would use her
service to help assess my local hires. I took the rather lengthy test that
afternoon. I would get the results later in the week when I was back in the
office.
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| The test I took was a little more complicated |
Personality test results were
not high on my mental list of concerns as the days passed. The life I had in
systematic Japan was a memory in the “wild-west” environment of China. Rules
were more like “nice ideas” but not necessarily something you needed to follow.
For a foreigner, the first test was figuring out which rules needed to be
followed and which were “conceptual”. It would more than six months before I
would be chastised by my driver Philip for stopping at a red light the day I
got my China driving license and decided to get behind the wheel. “Why are you
stopping?” said an eye rolling Philip. “The light is red” was my reply. “So
what, nobody is here, just slow down but no need to stop – it’s a waste of time”.
Our first three months in China would have been much easier if Philip had been
with us from the beginning to provide his unique perspective on how the locals
behaved.
One benefit from life in
Japan that did transfer to China was that I had already learned to ask for help any
time government bureaucracy reared its ugly head.
The government was holding my
passport (never a comfortable feeling) pending a work visa being issued and my household goods clearing customs.
A customs officer requested a meeting at my office to “discuss” my shipment
which sounded a bit ominous. I wanted a local and native Chinese speaker with
me during the meeting so I requested the GM of the serviced office company help
me out.
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| There were a lot of little tests getting settled in Shanghai |
“Janifer” was the name on the English side of
her business card. I think she intended to be Jennifer but a typo got in the
way. She became my hero in short order as she guided the man in an ill-fitting
customs uniform into my office. The unsmiling bureaucrat began in rapid fire
Mandarin and seemed to have some sort of complaint with my household goods
shipment. Janifer locked eyes with the guy and took on the appearance of a
Shaolin warrior monk. She listened, nodded, deepened her glare and nodded some
more. She seemed to struggle discerning what the complaint was but finally
figured it out. She turned to me and said “he wants to know why you have 57
teddy bears and other toy animals in your stuff”. My response: “I have two daughters – they like
teddy bears”. Janifer went on to say that he wanted to disallow them because I
didn’t “need them”. Feeling relieved that the issue was minor; I took the
offensive and said that toys were not on a list of banned articles so I didn’t
feel he had the right to complain. It seemed to me maybe the guy wanted the
stuffed animals for his kids. Janifer said she “completely agreed” with me and
unleashed a torrent of high decibel verbiage at the suddenly squirming
official. Long story short – Janifer apparently told the guy to “get out and
clear the shipment by tomorrow or else”. That was exactly what happened. I never
found out what “or else” was. The experience of watching Janifer take on the official was important for me.It showed me a lot about how China "works” and paid dividends later on.
I would never have thought a young lady could challenge someone in an official
role and win but I saw it time and time again. First China “crisis” averted.
Later in the day still
basking in the glow of Janifer’s victory over customs; I went down the hall to
get tea and saw my American friend - Anne. “I have your test results. They are
quite interesting. If you have a few minutes we can discuss them”. Her use of the word “interesting” got my
attention.
A few minutes later we met in
my office. Anne started by revisiting my current situation – wondering aloud
how long I had worked for worked for a “big company”. I told her that I had
been with the same company for 16 years, had worked in multiple locations and
been promoted on average every 2.5 years. She smiled and said she was very
surprised that I could survive let alone thrive in a corporate environment. By
now I was curious to hear more details about results and her conclusions. She
explained that normally someone with test results like mine had trouble
functioning in a big company. I told her I wasn’t necessarily convinced that
the kind of testing her company did was a great predictor of success. She
suggested that I spend a few minutes reading my results and then we could
discuss what they “normally” meant in more detail.
After reading the results and
conclusions – I thought most of them represented my personality and mindset
reasonably well. We reconvened to continue the discussion. “Well normally someone
who shows the combination of an extreme need to get things done and a very low
tolerance of bureaucracy has trouble functioning in a large organization
especially at a senior level”. “Your profile looks more like someone who
prefers entrepreneurial activity.” I smiled and said “Well Anne – I think the
test results are valid.” She gave me a quizzical look. I continued: “Well, my
boss is 7,000 miles away and cares more about my results than the details of
how I get them.” “Most people in my company think Asia is all ‘third world’ and
couldn’t imagine living here which created an opportunity for me.” She looked
surprised at my candor. “Honestly, as a young man I was very risk averse, clueless
and too chicken to start my own business. My first job after grad school was
with an oil company – I wanted security. It wasn’t until I had been in the corporate
world a few years that I began to feel like a ‘drone’. I targeted assignments
that gave me as much independence as I could have and still work inside big
organization. The ex-pat assignment gave me maximum freedom plus a higher pay
package because of the perception that living in Asia was a sacrifice”. We were
silent for a minute. Finally I said: “I knew when I left the US for Japan that
the odds of me successfully repatriating were slim. The company pushed me hard
to come to China and I leveraged the situation to maximize the benefit to my
family”.
I spent five wonderful,
frustrating, complicated and interesting years in China but in the first week I
was there my interaction with Anne validated the belief I already had in the
back of my mind that my corporate life was not going to last long after I
repatriated.
I was fortunate to hire
several people that taught me invaluable lessons about doing business in China
and learning to think outside my comfort zone. Learning to operate in China was
great preparation for what I am doing today.
This week is the third
anniversary of getting fired by my employer of almost a quarter of a century.
My experiences getting things done in Japan and China with limited support from
my employer plus the relationships I developed overseas gave me the confidence
to do in my 50s what I wished I could have done in my 20s – start my own
business. My daughters are in their 20s and both seem to have the same desire
to work independently. I hope they can do from the beginning of their work
lives what it took me until late in the “3rd quarter” to accomplish.
