Success in China will be earned by those companies (and managers) who can effectively hire, train and develop from the vast pool of young and inexperienced graduates (and dare I say it – even those young Chinese that never attended universities) that are ambitious, eager to work and hungry for opportunity.

I have been saying this for a while, but I reconfirmed my belief in hiring from among the “uncarved wood” of the China job market yesterday when I was buying electronics in Shanghai’s Metro City Shopping Center. That’s where I’ve learned most of what I know about Chinese business and management, because it’s the ideal laboratory. Hundreds of shops selling similar – but not identical items – all packed in right next to one another. At first it seemed like an undifferentiated mass of cells in a giant hive – each operating exactly the same way. But after a while, patterns start to emerge – and you can see three archetypical approaches to Chinese business and sales.

Say anything. One-off salesmen and hucksters still abound, and they would say anything to separate me from my cash. I couldn’t get out fast enough.
Say nothing. Ignore the customer and do anything rather than engage. These were usually people who weren’t being compensated for success, or didn’t have the training (or mental firepower) to explain their own products.
Listen first. Then say the right thing, add value, give good service, and make the sale.

That’s how I met Miss Lin. She was a tiny, polite little ball of energy who knew more about sales and customer service than the 20 hucksters and drones that I had met earlier that morning. She spoke absolutely no English, so we had to transact all of our business in my Chinese – which is rough on a good day. But Miss Lin managed to answer every single one of my questions, found me a quality product within my price range and bargained hard for a reasonable price. Vital Stats: Miss Lin is 21 years old, and comes from Henan Province. She’s been in Shanghai for 2 years, and likes living here because of the opportunities. She did not attend college. She speaks no English. She is paid a small salary with a commission on each sale. Miss Lin is honest, involved, ambitious and friendly.

Managers that can figure out how to find, hire and develop the MILLIONS of Miss Lin’s in China are the ones that will build successful companies and powerful brands.

Break the 30-30 Cycle
Ex-pat run companies and MNC’s tend to repeat the same HR mistakes over and over in an institutionalized cycle of frustration. They keep hiring from the familiar mold of white-collar wannabes – bilingual grads of top schools with 3 – 7 years of international or MNC experience. These people have the best resumes in China, which isn’t surprising since they spend all of their time working on them. I call them the 30-30s – thirty-something years old, earning 30 thousand rmb or more every month – who will start looking for new job after 30 weeks in your company.

Go West, Young Manager. And North.
Look outside of the big cities. Don’t hire people who look and act exactly like the ones who just quit. Look at the rough-around-the-edges candidate from places like Dongbei, Henan, Hunan and Szechuan. These are the people who want to work, hunger for opportunities and are brought up in environments where loyalty and honesty aren’t punch-lines.

If you don’t plan for success, you plan for failure
Oh my God, I’ve become my father. That’s exactly the kind of thing he would say. But when it comes to China HR, you really do need a plan. You have to turn your company into a training & development machine. Start with a manpower plan and a hiring strategy. Next you’ll need an orientation plan that introduces them to your corporate culture and mission. THEN comes skills & job training. (You can’t START with skills training and then try to slap a corporate culture on top.) Finally, have a plan for coaching, development, delegation and promotion. It all has to be systematic, consistent and tested. Oh – and having a manpower and HR plan “in your head” is about as valuable as having a best-selling novel or hit song “in your head”. Worthless.

Indoctrination and Propaganda
Bleak Orwellian nightmare – or an effective team-building strategy? Well, I think its time we all became a little more broad-minded about thought control. It works here, and you have to start making it work for you. Ok, so we’ll call it something nicer – like Corporate Culture or Team Spirit. But it has to be intentional, planned and pervasive. If you give your Chinese team something to believe in, then they’ll be receptive. But if you are cynical, opportunistic and detached, then they will be as well. Teams don’t usually just emerge by themselves – they have to be planned and developed. This is what leadership in China is all about.

I was recently indirectly involved in a negotiation that went terribly wrong, and I think differing cultural norms may have played a role. It was a great example of what happens when small China-based companies fail to develop a strong and appropriate corporate culture, and instead allow everyone’s default social culture to determine outcomes.

Inexperienced negotiators often allow emotional arguments to surface when dealing with difficult issues of cost and price. When confronted with a request or demand to lower their offering price, some negotiators resort to a “cost plus” line of reasoning. They argue that since their cost is X, the final price has to be X+Y. This makes perfect sense when you are selling, but it is simply nonsense when you are buying – particularly if you are buying SERVICES or high value-added products.

Unfortunately, this line of reasoning can get very emotional very fast. The buyer tends to respond that A) he doesn’t believe the seller and/or B) he doesn’t care. “First of all, I think you are lying about your costs, and second – if you are really paying that much then you are a fool. Why should I pay for your mistakes?” is a buyer’s typical response to the cost plus approach.

Sophisticated negotiators can deflect these arguments through a series of counter-proposals and exchanges of information that focus on the true needs and requirements of both the buyer and seller. But here’s where we run into the inter-cultural dilemma in China. Chinese sellers are often slow to offer alternatives or creative options when they have hit what they feel to be their bottom price. This leads to a deadlock that can get very personal very fast.

If your China-based company uses young sales professionals or negotiators, make sure they are getting coaching and training on how to handle non-price negotiations. One area you should focus on is how to disengage from an unsuccessful negotiation. It is often an unfortunate fact of cross-cultural communications that when confronted with disagreements or refusal, people get emotional and close the door on the possibility of future business. Walking away without burning bridges is something that takes skill, practice and training.

Every China-based business that plans on doing international or cross-cultural negotiation should have a list of established best practices that serve as the framework for ALL business communication. If you don’t put a planned corporate culture in place, you are exposing your business to the potentially volatile clash of differing social or national cultures.

We’re all looking for the top of whatever market we are selling into. In the China consumer market, we’ve been looking for Mt Everest. That unique place where wealthy Chinese factory owners, successful HK real estate developers, gold collar overseas Chinese and free-spending MNC managers all come together and spend as one. A lot of business models are based on climbing Everest and selling to the “millionaire class” in China.

Not gonna happen.
Rich Chinese don’t spend like upper middle class Americans. Or like Europeans. Sure, there’s a lot of cross-over at the high end. But the top of the Chinese market is still developing, and will probably pull even further away from the western market.

Twin-Peaks of the China Market
Think of China like two peaks rising above a whole range of smaller mountains: You can climb very high on each of them.
But brining you near the top of one doesn’t really help you reach the top of the other.

Westerners will spend like westerners. They will spend the most money on things that replicate their lifestyle back home or reflect their long-held tastes. They tend to stick to familiar brands and styles.

Chinese spend like Chinese people with money. They may want a lot of the western stuff at western standards, but they have the money to insist on their own details. And they are going to continue shopping until people give them what they want. It looks like the people delivering this type of service are other Chinese entrepreneurs and start ups.

Approaching the twin-peak market:

Check your plans:
If your business plan or sales strategy is trying to cater to both high-end Chinese and high-end International, you have to be very clear about your marketing approach.

Are you talking to westerners but selling to Chinese – or vice versa?
Are you selling to a market that doesn’t really exist yet?
Are you waiting for the Chinese Middle Class to show up?
Are you talking to Chinese who work for MNCs?
What is your plan for dealing with the entire decision-making unit?

Approach the high end as 2 distinct but overlapping markets:

If you are really sure that your market is truly Chinese and International, then figure out how to approach each one as a separate market – then integrate the approaches.
Hint — translators are a last resort.
It’s also potentially disastrous to rely too heavily on your 25 year old Chinese speaking assistant.

Solution? Look for Local Heavyweights

If your ex-pat sales reps are heavy hitters with 5+ years of experience and decision-making authority, then you need local reps with the same punch. A bunch of well-fed westerners giving orders to Chinese clerks isn’t a sales team – it the 1920s. Don’t expect your Chinese VIPs to be satisfied with lightweight local salespeople. You’ll have to hire experience or develop your own team.

Bottom line – the Chinese market is growing and developing fast enough for a wide range of solid business models to succeed. But if you are piggy about it and try to be all things to all people, you are likely to get slaughtered and served up in a pot. Focus on your market strengths and develop competitive advantages that will help you secure the best market segment for your business.

To be a successful China manager you must figure out a way to get your best people to turn down better job offers – on a fairly regular basis. If you are JP Morgan or Citibank, then you might be able to play the ‘prestige’ card. But what if you are a small startup or SME that doesn’t have huge brand-name recognition?

Turn a weakness into a strength by building a family-type atmosphere at the office – particularly if your staff includes 20-something ex-pats who aren’t getting huge salaries.

The Western Approach
I used to work in a typically hard-driving NYC investment bank. Two or three times a week, we’d all go to drinks at a nearby bar –often for several hours at time. It wasn’t difficult to either get the MD to pick up the tab or figure out a way to justify expensing the binge on someone’s company plastic. It was considered a perk of the job. We didn’t think of it as “team-building” or a corporate retention policy – it was just a few Masters of the Universe going out for some well-earned beers.

The fact is that in the US, Britain, Australia and Japan, boozing it up with the colleagues is often considered a legitimate part of office life – and most experienced managers know it. But in China that doesn’t work as well. Young Chinese don’t drink the same way as young westerners, and while the prospect of teaching them to do so may appeal to YOU, local colleagues might not share your enthusiasm.

Instead of making half-hearted attempts to get your Chinese staff to join you and your middle-aged white-guy pals at the Long Bar, try some different approaches to team building that stand a better chance of success in the Chinese work environment.

Different Options
Here are a few low-cost, high-impact ideas that you can try out to try to build a bit more of a family-feel into your office. I know it all seems a bit Silicon Valley, but it worked there for a while. Remember, though, that in China this stuff only works if SENIOR MANAGERS participate. If you are bundling your group off to a day of paintball or a new Thai restaurant while you stay behind, they are going to have a great time bonding with one another and planning their group departure to a new shop with a more clued-in management.

At the office:

Snacks & soft-drinks (probably the most bang-for-your buck of anything on the list. Don’t underestimate it.)
Ayis that cook lunch (preferably ones that actually know how to cook)
Weekly group lunches at restaurants (Location decided by vote or some other form of non-boss decision-making)
Communal areas at the office – couches, NICE lunchrooms, open conference rooms
Think about the Ping-Pong table. You might not like the idea, but your colleagues will.

Professional development:

Training & Classes
Language class
Career coaching
Membership to professional organizations
Outside networking events and business functions

Leisure:

Wine tasting
Golf lessons (possibly at a driving range)
Rock climbing
Paintball
Trips, day-cruises & Outings
The dreaded KTV

I thought he would be moving up to Shanghai, but it turns out he’s staying in HK. My high-powered friend in the finance industry has decided to stay with the big-name international bank instead of joining the sexy little VC fund here in Shanghai. Why? He said that the VC was just too “local”, and went on to discuss examples of sloppy management, weak follow-up and unanswered questions.

Oh – by the way; he’s Chinese and the VC partners are all Western.

He summed it up by saying that they had probably been in China for too long.

We talked about the variance in standards between HK and Shanghai. The banker – let’s call him Bob - concluded that in Shanghai ‘85% done’ is considered good enough, but in HK and other developed commercial centers it simply isn’t. He wasn’t talking about researching potential deals or doing due diligence – he was referring to general management practices. Apparently he had asked the partners to look into some basic questions about things like taxes, insurance, visas, and medical care – which as anyone undertaking an international move can tell you, is crucial stuff. In a US or European house, he would have been introduced to an HR expert who would either go down the list and give definitive, up-to-date answers, or would have gone out and gotten the data with all due speed. Apparently, that didn’t happen in this case. My friend ended up deciding that the sloppy attitude towards his issues might carry over to the work environment, and he opted to stay put at the safe HK job.

I sympathized and supported his decision, but I had to admit that I have been a victim of the Slipping Standards Syndrome myself. I explained that hard-driving perfectionists were the ones who washed out early in China – because they go crazy trying to achieve that last 15% that no one else bothers with. This is, after all, a boom-town with socialist roots. They are constantly being bombarded with images of vast Chinese wealth and commercial might – why should they do anything different? This is a very satisfied populace – and they simply aren’t looking for advice about how to improve from westerners (or overseas Chinese) who are perceived to be too 20th Century.

So Banker Bob is going to stay in HK and continue coming up to Shanghai and Beijing for business every couple of weeks. He’s happy and so is his family. The VC partners won’t have too much trouble attracting another Big Gun who isn’t as particular – or savvy – about Mainland operating systems. And the gap between HK and Shanghai services seems more entrenched than ever.

This post was originally published in January, 2006 – and one of the first articles published on ChinaSovled.com. During that interval, the shortage of competent local managers has intensified. One of the greatest challenges facing senior international business leaders is to find a way to “unlock” the potential of inexperienced new grads and develop them into excellent managers.

Originally published in ChinaSolved.com on Jan 30, 2006:

A big issue for China-based management issue is the challenge of helping get Chinese managers and workers to “own their job”, or take personal responsibility and a proactive approach to managing tasks. This is one of the critical aspects of the “localization” trend in China, and one which causes ex-pat managers and owners a great deal of grief and frustration.

The problem is that Chinese workers and managers are better at executing tasks and following instructions than they are at formulating solutions and reacting to new situations. For multi-nationals and international SMEs operating in China, this can be a real obstacle to growth since it makes expansion much more difficult. Micro-managing a staff of 10 from one office in Shanghai may be possible, but it simply isn’t scalable. It becomes increasingly ineffective as the organization grows – and that is precisely the situation many China-based managers are finding themselves in now.

International managers are trained to compete by taking on more and more responsibility. We are power-grabbers. Young, ambitious western managers stay up nights thinking up new ways to expand their authority and power. Chinese managers, on the other hand, try to demonstrate their ability by being steady, reliable – and by not overstepping what they believe to be the limits of their authority.

The problem for overseas managers based in China is that good execution doesn’t really help you expand your business. You need that next crop of managers who are waiting to step up and assume more responsibility. In other words, you need for managers to “take ownership” of their jobs and grow into new responsibilities later on. As more and more multi nationals companies add branches and new locations, the pressure on senior managers to develop new leaders is growing.

International managers in China must focus on management development techniques that will insure they have a sustainable pool of potential leaders to support their organization’s growth plans. Here are a few ideas that may help China-based managers adjust to the local situation:

1) Get the phrase “I’m too busy” out of your vocabulary. This is managerial poison. I hear this all the time among ex-pat and “returnee” managers in Shanghai, and it is one of the most counterproductive things you can possibly say. It is belittling, embarrassing, and demonstrates your inability to manage your own time. Furthermore, it gives your staff carte blanche to do low quality work, and worse – it encourages them to look busy at the expense of quality and planning. If you can’t make time to manage your staff or business properly, then I congratulate you on recognizing your own shortcomings and thank you for getting the hell out of the way. If you plan on sticking around and being successful, then learn to use a clock and a calendar.
If someone else told you that they were too busy doing low-level tasks to select, hire and train their own assistants and managers you would probably laugh at them. Don’t be that guy.

2) Learn to delegate. Delegation isn’t just assigning someone else the crappy jobs that you don’t want to do. There has to be a goal, a plan and a system. Delegating authority won’t save you any time in the beginning. It’s not supposed to. That’s not why we delegate. We delegate so that we can manage more efficiently. It takes effort, thought, planning and practice. You have to follow up and stay involved. You may have to answer questions – you may even have to answer the same question many times. It’s ok. Before long your managers will be able to take on a larger share of the heavy lifting and decision making. No, it won’t be easy or quick – but it is the only way to develop your team.

3) Appoint leaders, train them and support them. Stop waiting for natural leaders to emerge. They might not ever step forward on their own, and if they do they may possess the wrong traits. This might require a more activist approach to managing than many western managers are accustomed to. Back in NY, we wait for the biggest dog in the pack to assert leadership. In China, that isn’t always the way things work.
Look for the skills and competencies that you will need to meet your goals. Then work on developing the managerial know-how he will need. Don’t make assumptions that someone will automatically understand your end-to-end business earnings model China has a long history of meritocracy, so use that to your advantage. It is your responsibility to make sure your junior managers can see a clear career path within the organization. Reward your strongest managerial assets, and don’t be afraid to cut the dead weight. This will cause problems and lose you friends – but you are not in the business of making friends. You are here to build and profitable business.

4) Teach your staff to follow up, and to complete specific tasks. This is about training – not personal integrity or conscientiousness. You must educate your managers to reward results – not just hard work. It may be obvious to you that doing a job once the right way is superior to doing it badly three times — but that might not be obvious to your local staff, who may have never been assessed on the results of their actions. China is rapidly developing an orientation towards profit-driven enterprises, but it is not yet second nature. If your staff doesn’t understand how their individual efforts are supposed to contribute to the success of your organization, then they will find it difficult to focus their efforts.

5) Its about Product, not Process. Make sure your staff and managers see the big picture. Explain your company’s goals and priorities. . There is a tendency for local managers to focus on process over product. Help your new managers understand the whole picture, and put together a compensation plan that rewards results. Take the time to develop good goals with concrete milestones. Develop a systematic plan and make sure that your new managers are 100% clear on it. Don’t try to save time on planning. It will be very expensive in the end.

Experienced ex-pat and multinational managers report that managing HR is the biggest single challenge faced in China. This includes training your managers. Don’t fall into the trap of being “too busy” to develop the team that will execute your management plan.

By Guest Author — Barak Paz-Tal, Marketing VP and Founder of Meijob.com (See Profile)
Originally posted at Meijob.com on March 30, 2007:

We chose to open the editor column with a question. A question that includes many sub-questions, each of which demanding a thorough discussion. Let us present those questions to you, inviting you to reply and refine our observations. Our question – and it is a question, rather than simply an admonition – deals with what many foreign business men working in China experience as a lack of integrity and credibility.

There are, for sure, misunderstandings in any intercultural exchange. These arise many unanswered questions on both sides - mainly regarding the other’s intentions and motivations. These questions must be answered or they will transform into discriminatory suppositions or even generalizations of a racial character. The following is a question of that kind. It is a question raised by foreign colleagues, brought to their Chinese partners for their input, and now presented here – again, as an open question waiting for suggestions and not as a remonstrance only demanding to be heard.

Let us open with a first hand story:

“About 9 months ago, when we setup our Beijing office, we were looking for a recruiter to help us build our team. One of the candidates I interviewed, though missing the relevant experience, seemed to have a potential and I decided to give her a chance to prove her capabilities and gain experience. We agreed that she would start working from the beginning of the following week, on Monday, 9:00 AM.

I arrived to the office at 8:30. Forty five minutes later, the new recruiter still didn’t knock on the door. I decided to call her to make sure she is ok, but ooops, there was no answer. At about 9:50 I received an email from her saying: “I am sorry, but after I have considered, I have decided to take another job opportunity…”

There were many ways to behave differently in this situation, and which I would have appreciated much more:

1. Informing me during the interview of having other alternatives and delaying the final answer.
2. Letting me know sooner of the final decision - at least a day before the date agreed upon.
3. Not choosing the above, at least contacting me by phone to personally and respectfully decline my offer.

Acting like she did, what would your behavior during the job seeking process reflect on your behavior during work itself? Would you respect your own promises? Can your boss trust you?”

Two more cases would serve as adequate examples in this context. The first deals with a small scale factory in one of China’s cities, whose manager preferred to commit oneself to a task he knows he could never deliver instead of admitting it is way out of his league, while misleading a potential costumer. The other evolved in an encounter between a foreign company and a local recruiter who concealed important information about a candidate – details that would have probably interfered with his chances to win the job and were doomed to be revealed sooner or later. The result was a loss of time and money on the part of the employer, and a greater loss – that of professional integrity – on the part of the recruiter.

Now here comes the question: Why? Is it about “losing face”? Is it considered to deliver some kind of benefit to the agent choosing this kind of path? Here are a few possible answers, a result of a modest brain storming we conducted (among Chinese and foreigners alike), to which we are inviting all of you to add, refute, or suggest solutions.

First, our attention was directed to the popular guiding principal of benefit seeking. One commentator related the discussed phenomenon to China’s phase as a developing country: “The Chinese focus on economic development, on benefits. At the same time, our system and economic development are not mature. People work hard to make life better, while unemployment rates and competition become higher and fiercer. Although our country dedicates a lot of efforts to those aspects, it is still a process and it will take time. The same goes for the business environment created therefrom.”

Another remark traced the reasons not only to China’s economical condition but also to its historical and social circumstances: “Not only foreign employers have this kind of problem. Chinese companies too find the 80’s generation hard to trust and self-centered. For them, the concept ‘信’, instead of trustworthiness, means ‘believe yourself only’. The fact that the bulk of this generation is made of only-child families might have a connection to its self centeredness. Cooperation, communication and thoughtfulness are something they don’t know. So, they either don’t understand or don’t care to understand the other’s point of view.” This might also be a depiction of a generation that was born after the popularity of communal values had faded, not to mention traditional values, he adds.

The above may still have some relation to the known “losing face” concern. Numerable examples, too many to narrate here, demonstrate many Chinese employees’ preference to refrain from asking questions or saying “I can’t”, “I don’t know”, “I am not sure” when entrusted with a task. The question hanging in the air is why an employee would not say “I don’t know how to do it” or ask for help, preferring to just do a bad job. How come giving poor results is less “losing face” than asking for help?
It seems that many Chinese employees/suppliers/candidates stop at thinking about their short-term loss –- whether this of “losing face” or that of losing a business/employment opportunity — not considering the long-term loss they risk in grasping to the immediate opportunity with their teeth. The evasive candidate preferred to first say she wants the job so the employer would stop looking for other candidates, and save her real answer to the last minute - not considering her self integrity. The factory manager preferred to say he can deliver and not loose face in the immediate situation, and then vanish - risking in harming his business’ reputation. The recruiter preferred to earn 3 months commission knowing his lie will eventually be known – thus losing an important client (and many other potential clients who are the disappointed client’s acquaintances). Why? Might the reason for those choices be the size of the Chinese population - the size of the market - that creates the feeling opportunities will never end, even if you burn some bridges now and then? If that is indeed the case, which is a question to debate about in itself, can self integrity fight and bit self benefit?

See the original post HERE

Those ancient American philosophers, “Abbott and Costello” used to do a classic bit called “Who’s on First?” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEaKjRyPjVY ) which many of you have seen. Two people think they’re talking about the same topic using the same words, but they misunderstand each other completely. It’s absolutely hilarious – until you realize that your company department heads are performing the same skit every day.

Operations people like to control costs.
HR people like to have a fully manned, contented staff.
Sales people like to satisfy clients.
Finance people like to control costs.
Marketing people like to build brands.

Now, here’s what sometimes happens.

Salesman Stan approaches Customer Carl and proposes a business transaction. Carl asks for certain terms – including customizations of the product, quick delivery, special service and a lower price. Stan says, “no problem”.

But Oscar the Operations manager looks at the order and says, “No Way”. He says he can provide the standard product in 6 – 8 weeks.

Then Fran from Finance gets a look at the deal, and says that a customized production run of a rush order is going to require a 75% increase in the price that Salesman Stan has already negotiated.

Halley the HR Manager is short-handed, and doesn’t want to stress-out the already overworked administrative staff with a rush job, and says it will take at least twice as long to do what the client wants.

And Marketing Marge is putting together another advertisement that touts the company as having great service and fast delivery.

Stan goes back to Carl and tells him the order will be late, expensive and not to the same specifications that they had originally discussed, and Carl promptly threatens to take his business elsewhere. Stan spends the rest of the week and LOTS of expense money convincing Carl to give them a reduced trial order.

Not so funny now, is it? Who is to blame? Well – YOU, the senior manager are. Because you allowed your department heads to work out their differences on a live client instead of in a series of regular meetings.

Make sure all of your department heads are on the same page, and agree on the MEANING of the words they use. “Quality”, “Value”, and “Service” mean very different things to each individual department. It is up to the senior managers to make sure that the company has ONE voice, and ONE set of standards.

I used to work for an international investment bank called W.I. Carr. So many of their hires went on to run other banks and hedge funds throughout Asia that we came to call it Wico University.

Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of it. W.I. Carr went out of business many years ago. The managers that they DID end up holding on to ran it into the ground – despite its great reputation and impressive list of alumni.

Managers, managers everywhere –but no one to Lead.

The moral of today’s story – decide who you want to keep and develop a plan to do it.

Deciding which managers to hold on to really IS up to senior management. The danger is that some top bosses can’t understand why they should make the choice. They feel that loyalty is such an important trait that trying to get people to stay is somehow counterproductive – like a teacher helping a student to cheat on an exam.

That would be a charming and admirable point of view – if we were running a 19th Century British counting house and Bob Cratchett had just signed on as an apprentice. For those of us in 21st Century China, developing a deep bench of capable managers is going to make the difference between success and failure. You are expected to work hard to secure clients, suppliers, partners and investors – it is silly to think that you won’t have to lift a finger to attract good managers.

Replace the boss
Start the process by developing a succession plan – for yourself. Oh, don’t worry – we’re not planning for your retirement just yet. But the day may come when you decide to open another branch, expand to another city, or devote more of your time and energy to strategic planning. If you do, you’ll need a strategic decision-maker who can fill your shoes.

What traits are you looking for in a new you?
A good way to focus is to write a job description – for yourself. What are your 5 most important functions? Skills? Characteristics? Take a moment and give this some serious thought. Now look at your present team. Do you have anyone who can grow into this role in the foreseeable future? No? Didn’t think so.

Delegation and Discussion
You can teach people to be leaders – or at least give them structured opportunities to grow and develop. Are you still training new hires? Negotiating with suppliers? Supervising daily ops? Recruiting and interviewing? These are all perfect tasks for a program of structured delegation. Assign your up-and-coming senior managers to a specific task – put follow this procedure:

1) Discuss the concept of delegation and management development.
2) Discuss your goals for this particular situation. Ask for questions. They won’t ask you anything (yet) but it was worth a shot.
3) Let them have at it.
4) Debrief. Discuss the outcome and their performance. Be supportive and constructive.
5) Repeat.

Wasn’t that easy?
Actually, this is a real pain in the neck. It’s time consuming, frustrating, inefficient – and at times quite frightening. Remember to observe steps 1 & 5, because they are crucial. Explain to them WHY you are doing this - that you have your eye on them as a potential leader of your company. And then keep doing it until you see the results you want. Eventually you will – or you’ll have to find another candidate.

The bottom line is that in China, if you wait for the perfect managerial candidate to walk in the door unannounced, you’ll be waiting a very, very long time. You have to build your own, and a structured, transparent system of delegation and debriefing is the only effective way of doing that.

When I was starting my career, there was a management cliché that ‘tough’ bosses used to bark out when employees showed too much ambition: “Promotions come fastest to those who don’t ask for them”. In 21st Century China, promoting employees who don’t ask may be a winning strategy – but you have to accelerate the process. Staffers in China don’t wait around 2 years for a new job title – they’ll probably leave you in 18 months.

What can you do? Try planning to promote your key staffers every 6 months – and let them know about it in advance.

2 years to a vague promise is too long and too little
The average length of employment in China is 18 months. The first time most ex-pat bosses get wind of worker dissatisfaction is when they are given notice that the employee is leaving. If you follow the accepted western standard of promoting after 2 years, you probably won’t have anyone to promote.

Here’s a better option – Take what you think of as a standard promotion to a new level of responsibility and break it down into 3 or 4 discrete steps. You’re going to promote each employee gradually – through several small advancements spaced out over 6 month intervals.

What’s a promotion?
A real promotion is made of up 3 things: an increase in responsibility (Power), more money (Money) and a better title (Prestige). All three have to go together. If you think you’re being clever by giving a better job title but no money (B.S.) or more responsibility but no title (Resume Builder), you are kidding yourself and helping your staff find better jobs. All three have to come in a package.

Plan on it from Day 1
Some managers treat promotion plans like some kind of deep, dark Masonic secret that no one is supposed to know about. Stop doing that. Shine a spotlight on your promotion plan. Make it part of every conversation you have with that employee – and with his supervisor. Use it to gauge his progress, strengths and weaknesses. When management experts talk about “Coaching”, this is exactly what they mean. That upcoming promotion is merely the focus of the career planning that you and your new hire are doing together.

6 – 24 months is your sweet spot
For the first 6 months, new employees are still figuring out systems and getting to know your team and your processes. After 2 years, employees are good at their jobs but might not be bringing many new ideas to the table – and in China that’s when they are probably looking around for a new job. The ideal staffer has been with your company for between half a year and two years. That’s when they are at their most productive.

Make training part of the process.
Chinese workers consider training to be part of their compensation package. They expect it. But you wouldn’t just throw cash around and call it a compensation plan –don’t just throw money at HR and call it a training program. Make training for special skills (and specific behaviors) part of the promotion process. And be sure to make the link between increased training and the new job responsibility CLEAR and DEFINIITVE.

Management Intensive?
But ChinaSolved, surely you must have forgotten that I – the hard-driving, fast moving ex-pat manager — have other things to do besides hold the hands of my junior managers? Yes, you are quite busy – hiring replacement staff, training new hires, and re-doing the work that your inexperienced newbies or distracted job-seeking staffers have made a mess of. The methods we’re talking about may not SAVE you much time, but they will make the time you are spending on staff development more effective and profitable.

Sample:

In the west, you might promote a sales associate to sales manager after 2 years or so of stellar performance — and add key account management, training, new territories, and supervisory responsibility at the same time. In China, you’re better off breaking those things down and doing them in increments.

Promote your ‘associate’ to ‘Sales Specialist’ and give him a new territory or product – along with new cards, a new compensation plan and some formal sales training. 6 months later, promote him to ‘Sales Supervisor’, send him to a Train-the-Trainer workshop, give him responsibility for training and managing a team of 2 or 3 new hires – and pay him a 1 or 2% commission on THEIR sales. After another 6 month interval make him ‘Senior Supervisor’ or ‘Assistant Manager’, send him to a seminar on leadership, give him a few key accounts to look after and increase the number of junior salesmen he’s paid to supervise. Now you’re coming up on the 2 Year mark, and you can start thinking about moving him up to Sales Manager, sending him and his staff to a team-building workshop, and tying his compensation to the performance of the department or the company.

You’ve gotten to the same place in pretty much the same amount of time as that western manager – but you’ve just managed the process in a much more intensive, orderly fashion. Sure, it’s a pain and a drain – but far more effective and less nerve-wracking than hiring someone new every 9 months.