Getting Your China Company Culture Right
Being in China, we need to deal with the good and bad of this culture as a basis to work from to form our own compamy culture.
However, we can develop your China company culture right with good thinking and work.
Many have noted that Chinese people tend to respond poorly to correction. If you do not consider this as you hire, then you will have many people in your business who will not be teachable. Given the Chinese labor law, it will also be harder and more expensive to let them go. Be sure that teachable people exist here.
Someone asked Sam Walton, and I paraphrase some here, how he got his people to be so happy and helpful. He said, “Well, I hire people who are that way.” You need to hire teachable people if you want them. Let’s think step by step though.
Your China Company Culture Can Be Planned
Here is the first step in developing a company culture. Think what your company stands for and cares about and what it really needs culturally, then find people who are like that. Cross culturally it is hard, but even more important. Naturally, you want a team that is diverse, but has real harmony found in shared values. Determine your values and then get people who have those values. SHI Group specializes in knowing what you need even in values and making sure you get that. You may also want to read Think Clearly What Values You Want.
The second step is to talk about this culture you are building all the time. Every meeting, every event, every floor discussion can all become a values builder. When you make decisions, get the values out to follow. Gradually, you build a culture.
Third, have a system to measure the success of your workers and make sure they know what they need to do to be successful. Those measures must include performance measures around the values.
Fourth, give people feedback often on what they are doing right. Find examples of right behavior and trumpet them. Check here for more on company culture.
Recently, I had an important hire, and I told her 6 words to remember. I told her that if she lived by those 6 words here that she would never have trouble. That is what we should all do. We should give workers a picture of what we are looking for and then encourage them down that path. See also How To Have a Great Company in China.