China Has Changed; The Chinese Haven’t

From a pal in another network:

Has China changed? Companies bet millions on the answer, but it’s the wrong question. You should ask if Chinese have changed. China has changed; the Chinese haven’t.

Amazing changes! New politico/economic system. New laws, social structures, buildings and consumption patterns, different clothes. Sound familiar? It should—it’s happened twice in 100 years! (Three times actually.)

Go back 50 years. China’s 1959 changes (described above) were as amazing as changes today. But Mao and communism didn’t change the Chinese, and it’s naive to think MacDonald’s and capitalism will. China changes but the Chinese don’t.

Or don’t change in areas important for business. China’s changes are outside-in, important for what types of business can be done but not for actually doing business. That requires inside-out change, a harder thing.

China’s market is growing in two ways. First, more people with purchasing power, the new middle class. A few hundred million so far, with hundreds to come. Second, different consumption habits, coffee shops, convenience stores and beauty salons. Huge changes, yet neither affect how business is done.

Cultures develop unique ways of using language, their Rules of Communication. Chinese and Western rules are very different. Consider disagreement. Westerners believe state your honest opinion, even if you disagree. Chinese believe disagree in an indirect, discreet manner. Add the different ways each use to say No—Westerners say No directly whereas Chinese say No indirectly, if possible not even using the word No—and trouble is guaranteed.

Differences in building business relationships adds more trouble. Westerners feel the Contract determines the relationship, that differences are decided by referring to the Contract. Chinese think a Contract is a good place to start but if the situation changes then the terms and conditions should change. Meeting contract terms, doing the business, is where “Chinese haven’t changed” is clearest.

All business relationships must communicate and solve problems: success in both creates trust, failure destroys it. Misunderstandings are the biggest hidden cost in international business, eroding trust as well as causing mistakes and inefficiencies. Business without trust signals a “going broke” relationship. Westerners put faith in law, Chinese in relationships. “How can you ask me to lose money?” could only be asked by Chinese, “It’s not personal, just business” only said by a Westerner.

Westerners only see where China had changed and stay blind to where the Chinese haven’t, confusing what kinds of business can be done with the way Chinese actually do business.

How Chinese communicate, solve problems and build business relationships is changing, but slowly. Chinese control these changes, not Westerners, and fundamentals of culture don’t change easily. If communism couldn’t force Chinese to change it is folly to think capitalism will either. Use China’s outside-in changes to judge business opportunities, but let the slow change of Chinese inside-out “ways” determine how you actually do business.

One sure requirement to success is being able to see communication and business relationships as Chinese do. Westerners need to look at business through Chinese glasses.

For more: www.bicbiz.com

Can you see any solution in this post?

A friend passed me this video link. Its heartwrenching as it happens to more people all the time.

http://www.yahoo.com/s/1046721

How can we help our family and friends back up out of this global recession?

Regards,

Rick

No Meeting: Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Out of town on business

See you in April!

Next Meeting: Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Starbucks

Clarke Quay MRT Station/Central

10 am - Noon

Agenda

Intros/How Can the Group Help You Today?

Elevator Speech

Topic: How to dig deep with networking relationships to by pass the recruiter trap!

Open Networking

Everything must change! When the Global Market Contracts, Regional Markets are Needed. So is Hiring on Merit rather than "FIT"

Each day the global economic results set new record lows, market by market. The unemployment figures rise at the same time. Whether I am chasing consulting business or a "permanent" role in a corporate enterprise, I adjust my expectations to the market. Fact of life. During a recession, everything must change.

What amazes me is how many "Sales Prevention" questions I am asked by recruiters and hiring managers who are seeking a perfect local "FIT.". My age. My family situation, My real estate assets in Singapore and USA. None of these questions have anything to do with my ability to provide the very best sales and service to customers anywhere, anytime. It is time wasted in finding out about the business plan of the firm and how I can add real value from day one of the engagement or my hiring into the firm.

Yet, local recruiters and hiring managers tell me its all about "FIT". In the USA those questions are illegal. The so-called "Fit" questions are really nothing more than "Sales Prevention" questions". If you fill your head count based on those questions, your enterprise will be bound to fail at meeting its performance/sales goals, globally or regionally.

Local government and business leaders acknowledge an over-reliance on trade from the EU, USA, and Australia, and point toward new markets that are regional in nature. To make that change, recruiters and hiring managers will need to be more tolerant and inclusive of expats (including regional expats) to move beyond local "FIT" questions and to rid the office of "Sales Prevention" techniques.

The recruitment process here is handicapping itself using its "FIT" profiling rather than real accomplishments of each candidate. To imagine that 20 to 30% of annual salary is paid to the agency by the hiring manager for this "service".

If you do what you did, you will get what you got....

Job Lead

Accounting Manager at Thai Beverage Can Ltd.

Qualifications -Bachelor' s Degree or higher in Accounting -At least 5 years experience in accouting function -Responsible for overseeing all aspects of accounting activities ( A/P, A/R, G/L, inventory, tax, VAT and monthly close ) Send your resume to recruit@ yourtbc.com

You may also want to view my friend Ben Thaiaporn's profile on LinkedIn.com who sent this lead to me from Thailand Connection.

14 things to do if you are laid off from a tech job

by Rafe Needleman

I saw a great piece of advice in a recent story on U.S. News & World Report called 10 things to do on the day after you're laid off: "Write a thank-you note to your former boss." I like that. It can't hurt, and if your boss hears of openings elsewhere, you're now that much more likely to get the referral.

Geeks and other tech employees are a little different from the vanilla workforce, though, so I wanted to put together a list of specific things that people in our part of the economy might want to consider if they're let go. Here's the rundown.

Quoted passages in this story are from other CNET employees, many of whom, like me, have spent time among the alternatively employed.

1. Get involved in an open-source project- It's where the most interesting and influential products are being developed, and more importantly, many open-source projects are filled with people who are also connected to companies that pay their engineers. Plus, obviously, working on a development project will keep you sharp and expand your skill set.

2. Go to start-up fairs- Wherever people are pitching new businesses, be there. They're all hiring. If not now, then soon. I am partial to the Under the Radar series (I helped start them and moderate at many of them), and there are several a year. Update: I just talked with the organizers of the next UTR event, which focuses on mobility startups, and they've created a special pink slip discount: $200 off admission, includes entry to the opening night reception for even more networking. There are 20 tickets at this rate.

3. Get project work - You may not have a daily gig, but you still have your skills, and there are people who need them. Head over to a project marketplace like oDesk or eLance and pick up some work.

4. Update your profiles - Go to your pages on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc., and let people know you are available for new projects. While you're at it, proactively send out notes to your trusted associates that you are looking for work. As we say here at CNET: "duh."

5. Learn some new skills - No, I don't mean to learn Rails if you're a Java guy. That's obvious. I mean cooking, rock climbing, riding a motorcycle--something that you didn't have the time to do while you were an FTE.

6. Answer some questions - Scan Friendfeed and Twitter Search for people asking questions in your areas of expertise, hang out in message boards on things you know stuff about. You'll see what's going on in the industry, you might be able to help people out (always worthwhile), and you might also land a tip for a gig.

7. Get a girlfriend or boyfriend - Don't let the fact that you have no job, per se, slow you down. You can still earn some dough. You will have more control over your schedule. And you can spend some of your newfound time with your new friend, assuming this friend doesn't have his or her own 18-hour-a-day engineering job.

8. Campaign in a swing state - Hurry up, though.

9. Take some time off - Invest a little and travel to a seaside town in Mexico, even if it's just a few days. Mexico is easy to get to, it might be cheaper to live there, and lying on a beach is certainly not a bad way to contemplate what you want to do with the rest of your career. At the very least, you'll see people who get by on a lot less than we make."

10. Move out of the Bay Area- Just a thought: This is a very expensive place to live, and the economy is heavily tilted to tech. If you have other skills, you might find a better market for them elsewhere, and it will be less expensive to maintain your lifestyle. Plus, you can continue to do project work.

11. Buy a new rig- Yes, you're going to have to do the obvious and odious task of taking a financial inventory and cutting back on your expenses, but you will also need current tools to pick up projects. You'll be more positive about working on those projects if you're doing it on a shiny new system configured just the way you like.

12. Take pictures- Put your $1,500 dSLR to use by selling stock-art pictures of household objects to Fotolia, ShutterStock, iStockphoto, StockXpert, etc. "It's cheap for people to buy images compared to the traditional stock (photo) market, but it can be lucrative over time because images sell over and over. I've made money without trying too hard. But quality standards are going up, so you can't just upload any old crap. Brush up on your model releases."

13. Volunteer- "It can build new skills (like leadership), a new portfolio. Someone capable of making their kid's Boy Scout troop turn a profit suddenly looks a lot more proactive than the shlub who catches up on reruns while waiting for Craigslist to pay off."

14. Start your own company- If you have some savings and can afford to work for peanuts (or less), it's a great time to start a company. Without the annoying distraction of a booming economy, you can focus on building a product to solve a problem you know people will have again when the economy loosens up. There is still funding, even, for early-stage companies. What should you build? We leave that as an exercise for the reader.

A Leadership Exercise from Phil Johnson, Leadership Lecturer and Coach

As a metaphor of an Authentic Leader’s journey you might want to try this exercise ...

take a piece of paper and calculate the result each day of a penny doubling for 31 days. The Authentic Leader has a passionate vision to reach day "31."

Watch how the results increase along the way. Each day represents a "lesson" that will be repeated until mastered.

Once mastered, the next lesson appears and the lessons never stop. At some point along the journey the leader's actions begin to "appear" and are seen by others.

Note that it does not take any more effort to go from day 1 to day 2 than it does to go from day 30 to 31 but you must stay the course to achieve those results and reach the vision.

Some of us become managers but I would suggest we all need to be Leaders. Whether conscious or unconscious we make this choice in every moment of every day. In the space in between stimulus and response is where these choices are made.

Using Twitter for Job Postings

Tweet about job postings

The flip side to actively searching for candidates is to also tweet about job opportunities at your company, which will have many users finding you through keyword searches.There are more than 124 million keyword job searches on major search engine sites, each day, noted Doug Berg, co-founder of Jobs2Web, a company dedicated to improving recruiting strategies through the Internet.

Unless your company is extremely SEO-savvy, chances are job hunters aren't finding your post.Twitter is a smaller arena for job hunters to search through and a free tool for companies to take advantage of."We've had thousands of people visit our Web site from links on Twitter," Berg said.And many find it more appealing to respond to a Twitter job posting, rather than a job board because it allows users to associate the posting with a real face and get to know the recruiter."Twitter puts the humanity back into recruiting," he said.

One outfit that does this well is Mayo Clinic, a Web site featuring health information and research. The Clinic uses SEO techniques to help users find them.For instance, they have an individual page for nurse jobs, which helps nursing candidates find their pages through a Twitter search.There are currently scores of recruiters already on Twitter, Berg said, so it is important to add a categorization, such as "finance" or "IT" to your profile name or bio to make sure the right types of job-seekers are finding your profile and job postings.But Berg warns against posting only job information. Businesses need to develop their online identity by posting company information, new projects, or employee promotions so candidates get a holistic view of the firm.And he encourages companies to get creative with Twitter. "Why not post a link to a YouTube video with an office tour or employee testimonial"

It is also a great tool for keeping in contact with laid-off employees, he said. "Stay in touch and continue to grow your relationship with company alumni and keep them up to date on corporate news. When the economy picks up – you may want these people back."