Managing Cross-Cultural Teams in China

Welcome to our third episode of Season Two in the Live Lounge Podcast Series and today we bring you a fascinating broadcast about the benefits and challenges of Managing Cross-Cultural Teams in China. Together the panel discuss the obstacles encountered when working in China under international corporate structures and the uniqueness of Chinese working practices versus other Asian regions. They offer stories and advice that will be of benefit to anyone hoping to succeed in China working with cross-cultural teams.

Mini Lounge panel:
Steven Proud, Global Marketing Director of Brandigo; Member Marketing Focus Group, The British Chamber of Commerce Shanghai (Host)
Peter Bomer, Founder & CEO The China Hack; Founder & CEO e-power Investment; Former Regional Marketing Director, Johnnie Walker
Bessie Lee, Non-exec Director Electrocomponents plc; Non-exec Director United Communications Group; Founder withinlink; Former CEO WPP China

Chapters

• 1:20 What are the challenges managers face in China?
• 2:00 Challenges and the importance of relationships (Peter)
• 3:00 Taking a different approach to recruiting teams (Bessie)
• 5:45 How important is to recruit local teams versus bringing in home country talent?
• 8:00 Powerplay between the international headquarters (HQ) and the China team brings unique challenges (Steven)
• 12:08 People who succeed in China have a fascination with China compared with those stay only for a couple of years because it looks good on the CV (Peter)
• 16:02 Mindest of the CEO and corporate culture plays a big role in the success in China (Bessie)
• 17:48 China's method is to move fast using 'scruffy innovation' and the methods are not like how they are done in London (Peter)
• 19:37 How does operational structure help or hinder the productivity of the teams in China? (Steven)
• 22:15 Those who survive economic slow-down are those who continue to quietly adapt. Being flexible is important. (Bessie)
• 24:37 What's the main piece of advice you can give to those wanting to work in China or launch a team in China? (Steven)
• 24:57 My biggest failure is about assuming the back-end support was solid, when in fact we had a RMB40 billion mismatch of financial records. (Bessie)
• 27:40 Most of my time was spent finding and building relationships with people to sustain better teams (Peter)
• 29:00 It's very hard to find the balance between personal and business relationships in China (Peter)