If you manage in China, you have to learn to do training and coaching. They are not the same thing.

Training can be done by you, an in-house specialist, or an outside specialist. It is teaching someone to perform a new skill or use a new process.
Coaching can only be done by you or a direct supervisor. Coaching is more about working with someone to improve their performance and help develop their potential.

Both are necessary, but serve different purposes in the China organization.

Training should be viewed as an operational and QC issue. It is required to complete the HR hiring & recruiting function. Even if you are hiring experienced people, there should still be a regular, systematic training program. You are probably going to want to attack the training challenge from 3 levels: 1 – Big picture and Vision stuff, which you should do yourself. 2 – Specific skills and job related things, which your managers and supervisors should be doing, and 3 – Basic, background or technical issues, which will probably require outsourcers.

Coaching should be done by a direct boss or senior managers. Coaching and mentoring are both extended dialogues between managers with the goal of improving performance over the long term. Western managers are always told that they have to be careful about building relationships with Chinese colleagues and staff. Coaching is a great way of doing just that. Done regularly and sensitively, it will form the backbone of a healthy long-term relationship with your team. It is possible to coach badly, however, which can make you look insensitive, condescending and mean. Timing counts. A few positive or helpful sentences every day is good; hour-long criticisms once a quarter are counter-productive.

Quiz: How much time do you spend coaching your top 3 managers every week? Be honest. Coaching is not chatting or criticizing – it must be intended to improve business performance. If your answer is somewhere between “none” and “whenever someone screws up, which is all the time”, then you might want to take a more systematic approach to your company’s coaching needs.

Build coaching into your management system. Use meetings and feedback systems to determine where your team needs attention, and schedule coaching sessions to diagnose and fix problems. Coaching is not criticizing or correcting – it is the foundation of your company’s management development program.

When you find a magic lamp that gives your 3 wishes, your first request should be for more wishes. When you hire new managers in China you should follow the same approach.

Look for managers who can train other (potential) managers. This not only builds stronger teams, but makes your managers more proficient at a key skill.

What’s that you say? You already have an ‘on the job training’ program? Well, it may be worth investing in a Train the Trainer program to make sure your middle managers aren’t traumatizing your new hires.

Train the Trainer programs divide the world’s knowledge into two categories.

1) Technical skills.
2) Communication skills.

Technical skills are the ability to sell, work the machine, find the inventory, collect the funds, or whatever else is involved in the job itself. You want your new hires to acquire these technical skills as quickly and cheaply as possible, and the easiest way for them to learn to have your experienced workers teach them. 2 problems quickly emerge: Your old workers may not have any interest in training their own replacements. Even if they want to teach the skills in question, they may have not idea how to effectively transmit the information.

Communication or teaching skills are COMPLETELY different from technical skills .This refers to your managers’ abilities to effectively and efficiently transmit their knowledge and successfully teach new people. This is NOT a natural skill or ability for most people, and requires learning and practice.

If you are depending on an “on the job” training program, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure that standards are high and that there is proper feedback. This is a great subject for coaching and relationship building between you and your managers. Discuss training methods, goals, benchmarks and feedback rules so that your entire team is delivering consistent, high-quality training within your organization

I’m calling a new demographic segment for the China market (which I hope doesn’t violate any kind of regulation or treaty): SMINT. Small & Medium International companies. Specifically, the US and Euros who have been waiting on the sidelines for confirmation that it was safe to come to China.

Well, they’re coming. And they’ve got money, and they don’t know anything about China, and they need EVERYTHING. This may be the next big gold-rush in China. Might be the last, too, but that’s for another day. So what are they like?

Well, these guys probably don’t have a lot of international exposure. Maybe they’re following their industry, or their clients. They view China as a business opportunity, not an adventure. If they’re sourcing, they want to set up their deals and go home. More and more will be staying, looking to establish operations, looking to access the markets. And that probably means that they will be fielding their own offices, shops & local companies. The JV is a dying art-form, and these guys are probably going to build something on their own.

A lot of these people will be the founders of their businesses, or CEOs and Senior Managers making the China decision without much in the way of institutional support. These people aren’t hiring McKinsey or fancy consultants. A surprisingly large number will be flying by the seat of their pants, with little preparation or research. There will be broad gaps in their knowledge – and some will not be terribly patient with some of China’s idiosyncrasies. Others have been coming to China for years, but have been putting off the decision to set up offices here.

The SMINTs’ China
The SMINTs are coming into a different China than you had to deal with, and they’re going to ramp up quickly. What it took you 4 years to accomplish; they’ll be able to do in 1 year. A lot of the things you had to work hard on are now quick and easy. (Make sure you don’t turn into that horrible old fart who talks about China in the Old Days.) But the point is that these people are both opportunities and threats. They are coming for the China market – and the first market they try for may very well be yours. But, these people have money and will make great buyers, clients, partners and maybe even owners.

Selling the SMINTs
How do you approach these people as customers? These are cheap owners (or worse – cheap managers who THINK they’re owners) who know everything except what they want or need.

For this group, you’ll want to be the first guy they meet, but the second they do business with. Newcomers to China are going to get burned by local prices at least once. Don’t waste your breath trying to talk to them about quality and such. Position yourself so that you are close at hand when they decide to spend a little more for international standards.

What do SMINTs want?
SMINTs have another operation back home that is their true priority. The SMINT decision-maker is motivated by results and solutions. He just wants everything to work right so he can get back to Patterson or Boston or Moose Falls and take care of business there. SMINTs like high quality, speaking in English on Eastern Standard Time, outsourcing and schedules. SMINTs have ulcers and daughters and incomprehensible stress. They want you to make it all work, and then they’ll give you money forever.

What do you want from SMINTs?
Money. The China B2B market is about to get a jolt. These people have more cash-flow than free time, and they are going to learn that outsourcing is the way to go. Management is going to be a continual headache for these bi-market executives and anyone who can help them with transparency, feedback and data is going to be a pal.

Further out, SMINTs may make great partners – or fierce competitors. Take a look at your competitive analysis, and see if it includes a well-funded mid-sized US company setting up a branch office in Shanghai.

In an ideal world, your older staffers are freely volunteering their time and effort to younger team members to help them become successful. This world, as we know by now, is far from ideal. Your bright, shiny new hires may be getting great information and knowledge from their colleagues, or they may be drowning in blather.

Learning organizations and smarter teams requires a persistent, systematic approach to communications and transparency. It starts with you.

Orientation Program. Here’s a novel suggestion for senior China managers – YOU redesign your company’s orientation training program (or design it for the first time if you don’t have one). Just the table of contents or the agenda. Decide on the corporate culture, the goals, and the mission of the company. What is the common objective for your entire team? What are the standards? What makes your company different? Every new hire should go through a systematic orientation program that teaches them the basic rules and expectations of their new company.

Critical Success Factors. If you industry has 5 big buyers and a handful of smaller ones, your company’s CSF is going to be dealing with those 5 giants. If your industry has thousands of small buyers, your CSF is going to be about finding and filtering leads. Make sure your new hires AND your veterans all understand – and agree – about how your company views success. Everyone on your team must have the same goals and agree to the same basic set of rules and standards.

Delegate a team leader or trainer. Your old staff wants responsibility, recognition, and authority. Your new hires need training, guidance and help. Sounds like a marriage made in heaven, right? Hint – Invest in a “train-the-trainer” program for your line managers. Remember that delegation doesn’t mean you don’t have to worry about it anymore. You have to monitor the new hire’s progress AND your manager’s performance as a trainer and leader.

Culture of Transparency. This starts with you. Secretive, suspicious people make lousy colleagues and trainers. If you want to build smarter team, you need to encourage an open, trusting atmosphere. You may not know it, but you set the tone here. If you are secretive or private about your plans for the company or deals you are working on, then your team will judge that to be the norm. A great place to tackle this issue is at regular sales meetings. Get very specific in your discussions about the past week – who they spoke to at which company, where, for how long. Don’t make it an interrogation, but drill down to real specifics. If your team is keeping secrets from you, they are probably doing the same with others.

Lots of talking doesn’t mean lots of teaching. They’re in a big room speaking Shanghai-ese all day. You want to believe they are discussing the finer points of customer service or the latest industry development. You fear they are saying unpleasant things about you. It’s a tough call to make, but there’s a very real chance that they are NOT engaged in high-quality coaching and mentoring. Staff development is one area where things are best left to themselves. You have to be proactive and persistent when it comes to making sure that new hires are being properly trained and developed.

Smarter teams are a great defense against high turnover and rising compensation packages. If everyone on your team shares knowledge and information, it raises the quality of your team and makes your earnings more consistent.

Recently we published 5 rules for successfully managing a Sales Team in China, and rule # 5 was: “It’s not all about the money”. After many gentle corrections, we are amending that statement slightly. “It’s not JUST about the money”. You will have to pay a lot more than you think you should for good talent in China, but you’ll have to do much, much more than just write a big check to get outstanding performance. This is particularly true if you want that highly paid manager to lead a team.

If you are an overscheduled China-based manager, then this is probably not the news you want to hear. Well, when we hear of a better method we’ll pass it along. Until then, here are a few things to consider when negotiating compensation plans.

Cold hard cash and touchy-feely relationships. Chinese workers are just like all other workers in that they like to get paid. What sets them apart from their western counterparts is that they also like a strong company structure and lots of relationships – which includes you. Many western managers feel that once they’ve agreed to a high salary that their job is done, but this doesn’t work in China. You’ve got to work even harder with your highly-paid, up-and-coming young managers because they are still at risk. You cannot buy loyalty in this market, and there will always be someone willing to promise higher pay. Your management goal is to get your key people to turn down bigger offers to stay with your team. That includes paying more, but doesn’t end there. You have to build the relationship.

Pay more and get more. Have goals. Know what you want your people to grow into. They want more money, but they also want more responsibility. Many senior managers resent being “strong-armed” into paying key people more to fend off competitors’ offers, but they are not getting the maximum bang for their buck. If you feel you are forced to pay more, you can either get angry, or you can get even. In this case, getting even means getting more value from that paycheck by negotiating more value-added output from your rising star. Expand the “money conversation” into a “management conversation” and use the increased cash as a lever for improved performance AND expanded responsibilities. This is a great time to strengthen relationships by implementing a coaching program where YOU help him successfully grow into his new job.

Tie pay to performance. Similar to #2, but works best as a pre-emptive tactic. You and your HR people have to set realistic but ambitious goals for every department and employee at your company, and develop good metrics for measuring performance and progress. Start everyone – including new hires – on a performance-based incentive program. And if your salespeople aren’t getting at least 50% of their compensation from commission or other performance-based plans, you should consider restructuring their pay system.

Temporary incentives. Not every performance-incentive has to be permanent. You can run temporary plans and contests that will reward specific performance and build morale. For the month of December, 50 rmb every time a salesperson sells item X. Make it fun and public – and think of challenges that can reward everyone – not just front line salesmen. Customer service reps can get a bonus for every appointment they make, or referral they get. Be creative, but remember a simple rule: the higher their pay, the stronger the incentives have to be to matter. If your rmb 4,000/month customer service people make an extra rmb 1,000 in a contest, they might get pretty excited. If your rmb 15,000 / month sales manager makes an extra grand, he might not care much. So structure your contests & incentives carefully. Lots of small payouts to staffers build morale. A few big payouts to competitive sales pros build revenue.

Beware of internal price wars. You have 2 salesmen – Bob makes rmb 7,000 and Dan makes rmb 8,000. They both do pretty good jobs. You decide to hire a real shark away from a competitor, and end up paying him 12,000 per month. You expect a big bump in sales as a result of the new blood…but instead you get dropped like a stone. What happened? Bob and Dan, the core of your sales team, have stopped working while they refresh their CVs and look for better jobs. Your new hire has touched off a price war in your own shop, and if you don’t pay your old people to stay they are going to find a new company.

As the market for talent in China gets even hotter, plan on paying more and more. When you start budgeting, use both a calculator and a calendar. Devote the time to build healthy relationships with your own key people, or you will see your HR bill continue to spiral out of control. Remember – the cheapest way to deal with China’s HR problem is to get your staff to turn down higher offers, and that means building a work environment that they feel offers them a lot more than money.

‘Your way of doing things is too expensive, difficult and slow.’
‘That’s not the way we do it in China.’
‘It’s not going to work.’

You suspect your Chinese staff is thinking this about your management every time you discuss a new project. Well, you’re right. They do.

There’s a good chance that you haven’t sold them on your company’s mission and guiding principles. And until you sell your own people on The Vision Thing, you will have a lot of trouble building an excellent team.

Most of your employees have never seen anyone do things quite the way you do. The chances are that many of your local employees have little experience in an international environment. Others may have worked in a large corporation with unlimited resources and broad capabilities. They may have no benchmarks or they may have unrealistic ones – but one way or another, your methods seem strange and illogical to your own team.

You have to explain to them where you are going. Why you are doing the things you do the way you do them. What the Big Picture is about. Maybe you are assuming that the Vision Thing is obvious or intuitive or common sense. It’s not.

Start with the history of the company. Then the industry around the world, in your home market and in China. Tell them how you compare to your competitors and what your company values are. Promote your own company to your staff and managers the way you would promote it to a potential investor. Remember all of that business-school marketing class stuff about Mission Statements and Corporate Cultures? Well, here’s where you use it.

Your first big sale in China should take place within your own team – you have to sell them on your company’s vision and purpose. Your people want to be engaged and involved (often), but feel you are not providing the opening. This is a great way to start involving your local team in your global company.

Do you want to build and develop a strong sales team in China? One way or another, you are going to design a policy on training and development. Whether that policy is a well constructed, thoughtful plan or self-delusions about an “on the job training program” that doesn’t really exist, the choice is yours. But if you plan on growing your business and opening new locations, your best bet is to err on the side of caution and develop a plan.

Training plans aren’t that tricky. Decide on what kind of team you want, look at what kind of team you have, and train to fill in the gaps.

But like most managing, it gets more complicated when you get to the details.

Training:

Goal
Diagnosis / Audit
Delivery
Reinforcement

It’s about behaviors.

You’ll never train salesmen without understanding WHAT you want to end up with. What do you see them doing? What activities are they performing? Are the cold-calling? Are they closing deals with long-term holdouts? Are they getting more business from existing clients? If you could only train your Chinese sales team to do one or two behaviors differently, what would make an impact on bottom line?

Once you have an idea of where you want to go, take a look at how to get there. Training can take you far, but you have to work at it and get it right.

Goal – What behaviors do you want introduced, magnified or gotten rid of?
Diagnosis – What do you want the trainer to do? If the answer is, “fix whatever he guesses might be wrong”, then go for it. Then get a plan. This part should come from you.
Delivery – You or someone else deliver an organized training session.
Reinforcement – Coaching. You, or someone else important, have to follow up and make sure that stuff is staying on plan.

Ideally, you should treat training as a solution to a specific problem. It can be a big problem, but “just fix it” is not good starting point. Training and development programs are a great starting point for working on those all-important team relationships. Make this a group activity, and get your team’s input. You may be surprised at how well-considered their reaction to training and developing might be.

Western managers fit into two groups – the relationship managers and the results manager. Relationship guys are better at communicating and building bridges. Results guys like to see the numbers at the end of the month or the end of the shift.

Relationship managers tend to see the results-directed bosses as unfeeling, simplistic and a little brutal. Results people look at the relationship manager as a bit of a wussy. Always talking when action is required.

Bad news for the Results Managers in China: You’re losing ground to those touchy-feely relationship people. A few years ago when the branch was being set up and the bottlenecks were getting cleared away, you were the heroes of HQ. Now, however, as high staff turnover and missed sales-goals become the rule, you are looking like the problem and not the cure.

What can you do? Start getting a lot more sensitive to the needs and aspirations of your Chinese team. No clue about how to do that? Here are a few ideas:

One of the few things that western and Chinese managers agree on – Chinese staff prefers more & stronger relationships in the workplace than their western counterparts. That sounds fine at first, until you realize that YOU have to be involved in those relationships.

Good news – you already possess all the requisite skills. You don’t have to make toasts or sing songs or play badminton. The bad news? You have to invest time and energy – and you have to really give a damn. They know when you’re lying about caring, and no — it’s not earning you any bonus points for trying. When you were younger, what did you think of those fake, disinterested, condescending bosses? Well, now you are in danger of becoming that guy.

What does your team want?

Involvement. They want to know WHY they are doing theses things they do. Your methods seem expensive, cumbersome and ineffective. What’s the point of these systems? Explain your ideas about business and goals.

Responsibility. Working for an international company is still a big deal, no matter how jaded Shanghai or Beijing workers talk. They want to learn, and that means doing more complex, responsible tasks. Well, delegation doesn’t mean sending someone to pick up a client. This is where coaching and mentoring come in. Do it.

Training & Development. You see the budgets for trainers and materials, and you think that training is going on non-stop. In fact, your team may feel neglected. Talk directly to your workers – not just your department heads or HR staff – about training and development. This is a very sensitive area for Chinese staff, and you can really boost morale by increasing your T&D activity.

Face time. They want to spend time with you and other senior managers, learning about business and culture. When you breeze by them or seem to busy to help out, you are sending the wrong message to your workers.

Building Better Relationships with your Chinese Team

You have to take the first step – You tried and it failed? Well try again. And keep trying. You may have to take the first step 99 more times – particularly if you’ve got some damage control do to. Don’t expect an after-work happy hour to suddenly melt away the tension and suspicion in one night. Your staffers probably don’t drink as much as their counterparts back home, and may not be comfortable at the Long Bar or Malone’s. Look for events or activities that will draw in the widest possible cross-section of your team, and keep at it.

Make high turnover work for you — Sometime damaged relationships can’t be repaired – but they can be replaced. One of the few benefits of high-turnover is that your HR troubles and mistakes may be heading out the door on their own soon. Whether you promote from within or find their replacement from the outside, make sure you are hiring the right person the next time ‘round. If personality issues are becoming a problem, then make sure you get involved in the process and hire someone you can work with. This is your chance to influence your company’s culture and morale. Don’t miss it.

Structure is best – It would be great if your team grew into a well-integrated, tightly knit machine all on its own, but the chances of that happening are pretty slim. When it comes to building strong teams in China, the calendar is your only ally. Regular scheduling of highly structured events works. Once you establish a rule or routine, however, you have to honor those commitments. A weekly meeting or a quarterly outing have to happen on schedule.

Mentor and Coaching mean a lot here. Back home, your young hires were all experts on climbing the career ladder. They studied it at business school, read the books, visited the websites, gotten advice from parents and older friends, and are generally well-versed on the mechanics of advancing in the work world. Your new hires are getting more sophisticated, but they still have many questions and insecurities. You and your top people have to get more involved in the lives of your Chinese staff than you would back home. Chinese look at their older managers as uncles with job experience. There’s a good chance they see you as some scary, irrational invader who is already planning on going back home as soon as you can. Take the time to control how people see you.

It’s about YOU. You can’t task the HR manager or hire a facilitator to build strong, healthy teams. Your people are open to different kinds of leadership, but they do expect you to be present, engaged and conscientious about running the company. If you constantly tell your people that you are too busy for them, then they will get the message that they are not really “on the team”. And then they’re ripe for a competitor’s offer.

Sales Management in China is tricky – and it seems that the situation is getting worse instead of better. International managers sometimes shoot themselves in the foot when they treat Chinese salesmen like their more aggressive, unruly counterparts back home. The next step is to try to get results by throwing money around, but that can cause even more problems.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Relationships count.
2. Sell your team on The Vision.
3. Structured delegation works.
4. Build smart teams.
5. It’s not all about the money.

A quick overview now, with more details in future articles:

1. Relationships count. That means YOU have to build the relationship with your team. I know you tried. I know it didn’t work. I know that you tried again (sort of). Yup, got it. Now go make it work.

2. Sell your team on The Vision. They don’t get the point. You have explained the process and the method and the product – but they still don’t have an integrated view of why you are doing things in this weird, expensive way. Sell them on your vision – on the big picture strategy. There’s a good chance that’s why they came to work at your business.

3. Structured delegation works. American managers are power-grabbers. Chinese managers aren’t. Don’t delegate the same way you would back home. You have to structure new responsibilities carefully, and manage closely at the early stages. Delegation is a VERY successful training and development tool in China, but takes time.

4. Build smart teams. Teams here do a lot of communicating, but not always about the right things. You need to make sure your younger team members are learning useful things about business. Again – don’t assume anything. You may have to initiate a lot of simple processes. Your new hires aren’t errand boys, so make sure they are getting training and guidance from older employees.

5. It’s not all about the money. If you want to get into a bidding war, then go in with a full understanding of what you’re dealing with. If you have 3 guys making rmb 10,000 and you hire away a competitor’s guy at rmb 15,000, you just set off a price war – IN YOUR OWN SHOP. Now your 3 other guys all want more money, and they’re going to do crappy work until they get it.

One of the few things that successful Chinese and international managers agree on – The best results are not driven SOLELY by money. You also have to find a way to involve your people in your vision. They have to believe in the company and the team. If they aren’t emotionally involved, then they can’t be professionally involved.

A consultant in Shanghai asked about his growth options. He was getting too much business to handle on his own, but doesn’t want to hire a staff. Did he have any other choices?

Yeah. Raise prices.

Experienced consultants, freelancers and small business owners know to adjust prices to control the flow of business. There’s a good chance your service-providers are doing the same thing. That means your better suppliers are getting more expensive and your weaker ones are getting busier.

What can you do to control the cost of your experts and sources? Your best strategy may be to stop negotiating about money and start bargaining for more services. Another great negotiating point is repeat business and longer-term schedules. Get creative when bargaining with service providers – here are a few suggestions:

Key supplier — Identify your most important sources, and make sure you pay more attention to them. You or someone else at the top of your organization should meet them and discuss goals and processes.

Planning session – Have a regular sit-down with important consultants or suppliers to discuss your goals, budgets, and expectations. Get their input early on big projects.

Long term schedule – Consider an annual contract where payment is only triggered by specific actions. It doesn’t even have to be a real contract – just a written agreement. As long as it mentions a price, a job, and the relevant dates, then it serves an important negotiating purpose. Usually not considered legally binding.

Expand his job scope—Earlier, wider, or later. Get him involved in the planning, expand the scope of his activities, or have him do more follow-up, maintenance or assessment after the sign-off. You’ll pay more, but if you negotiate carefully you can get some real bargains here.

Have a back-up. Nothing helps your negotiating position like a strong Plan B. Your organization should constantly be searching out new sources and suppliers. You might not be the one placing the ads and interviewing contractors, but you should have some system of oversight. Signals get crossed and messages mangled, so you may want to have a system of written job descriptions for all outsourced work.