Google and China. Somewhere between the yelling and the yawning, there is a real business issue that will impact on international managers in China. The fracturing of the global internet into Chinese and Western territory - and the growing effectiveness of state censorship - are undermining the notion of a common global experience. The danger for international business leaders is not just that they (and their counterparties) do not know as much about one another – it’s that ‘they don’t even know what they don’t know’. That’s were dispute and conflict are born.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m as sorry as anyone that the dream of a global community is rapidly devolving into a starkly competitive G2 reality, but let’s set aside our feelings and look to the deeper business implications.

If Google can’t reconcile their business model with the realities of China Inc, is it reasonable to think that YOU can?

Maybe – but the challenges are growing.

The common belief among open-minded thinkers was that peoples tend to converge as we rise. That as we climb Maslov’s hierarchy of needs, we naturally develop an affinity and greater understanding for one another. Many expats in China could attest to that – they saw both the good and the bad of globalization and development over the last 5 years.

Now as the pendulum swings in the other direction, Chinese and Western worldviews will develop along diverging lines that don’t offer most people opportunity to share experience and common views. In the past divergent viewpoints were considered interesting and beneficial, but we are entering a world where difference is deficiency that must be corrected. This is not an accidental by-product of censorship and propaganda – it is the main goal. And it works.

International managers and owners in China need to be aware of the impact that media controls will have on fundamental business functions like management, marketing and negotiation. Commerce depends on a meeting of the minds, but censorship attacks the roots of common understanding and empathy. It becomes harder to find common ground, establish trust and weather even minor difficulties. Westerners and Chinese will agree that their way is the only sensible way and that the other person is clearly wrong. The danger for Western managers in China isn’t that local staff and managers will argue and disagree. That kind of honest exchange would be great. The problem is that your staff will take pity on you for basic lapses in common-sense and sanity and ‘correct’ your mistakes without embarrassing you by pointing out your stupidity. This was common 5 years ago, but we are likely to start seeing a whole new generation of highly educated, engaged local managers who operate under the basic assumption that you are working without a clue.

Smart international managers in China (especially the experienced ones) know to assume nothing, ask naive questions and be sensitive to their own blind-spots.