leading and managing in Asia

 by Lawrence

Cross-Cultural Leadership and Professional Ice Hockey

Mike Keenan to coach Chinese KHL team

http://fw.to/Kjre29Q

 

This article caught my attention because it marries two of my passions:  Cross Cultural Leadership and professional Ice Hockey!

 

Years ago during his NHL career, Iron Mike Keenan had a reputation for being an old school coach; he worked his players until he developed a visceral hatred and fearful relationship.  Practices after a loss usually meant hard skating drills until players vomited into submission.  He toyed with the fragile egos of goaltenders, often pulling or switching them out multiple times in a game.  He was Master and his players served him.

 

He reappeared as a Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) coach in 2013-14 and earned a 35-11-0-8 record with Metallurg Magnitogorsk.  In the same season his playoff record was 16-5, earning him and his team the KHL Championship.

 

Obviously his Draconian coaching style resonated in the disciplined Russian/ Soviet sports culture.  But even so, Keenan consulted other former NHL coaches who had experience in the KHL (Dave King and Paul Maurice) and adapted his style to his new host culture.

 

Yesterday, Keenan was hired to lead an expansion Chinese hockey club in the KHL, Kunlun Red Star.  As the article points out, the aim is to develop Chinese hockey players for a national team for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

 

It will be interesting to see whether Keenan’s hard nose approach that found success in the NHL and in Russia will also succeed in China, where harmonious and collective team spirit is paramount.

 

There are so many interesting cross cultural leadership perspectives in this on-going story.  What take will Keenan have on the filial relationship between teacher/student, coach/player that still underlines Chinese culture?  Or is the Chinese Ice Hockey Association’s intention to change the cultural mindset of its hockey players as a means to compete on the global hockey stage?

 

Do leaders have a responsibility to adapt to the host culture in which they operate in?  Or does the host culture desire to adapt aspects of the foreign culture as a means, it believes, to be more effective on the global stage?  Global business executives have debated these questions … isn’t it more fun now that it’s in the ice hockey rink?!

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 by Lawrence

The Successful Expatriate has a High EQ

The fourth commonality among successful expatriates is a high EQ.  There is indeed a connection with humility and agility, but a high EQ reflects an individual’s level of self-awareness and general ability to recognize and manage their own behaviour and deliberately affect others’.

Humility allows an individual to be reflective and identify genuine strengths as well as blind spots.  The ability to pivot enables leaders to change their behaviour during an interaction in order to evoke a desired response.

A key distinction that separates EQ from the other success factors is that it can be developed; someone who either has low self or social awareness, the inability to regulate their responses or effectively influence others can work towards improving one or all of these areas.  Humility, curiosity and the ability to pivot are ingrained mindsets and more difficult to develop.  There are many effective ways to improve one’s EQ, including partnering with an effective coach.

We have seen in previous cases that behaviours such as an admission that a newly transplanted leader “has as much to learn from his new team and it does from him” (http://www.theexpatcompass.com/the-humble-expatriate-is-the-successful-expatriate/) and changing a pure metric-based management style to one focused on relationship-building (http://www.theexpatcompass.com/the-successful-expat-is-agile/) have resulted in garnering team support in a cross-cultural environment and success as an international leader.  Conversely, John’s inability to change his maverick management style ultimately led to his failure as an expatriate manager (http://www.theexpatcompass.com/the-successful-expat-is-agile/).

You would also rightly conclude that humility, agility and a high EQ are hallmarks of an effective leader … expat or not.  This is an important point for it also underlines the importance of having a meticulous and thoughtful selection process to identify candidates with the highest probability of effectiveness and success as an expatriate.

Organizations know the importance of an effective selection process – to realize their return on an international assignment, commercial success, and effectively manage talent.  Yet how many organizations truly have the rigor and objectivity to screen for expatriate success?  I suspect a very low number –

The four characteristics: humility; agility; high EQ and curiosity are vital starting points to determining expatriate effectiveness at the workplace.  The selection of expatriate leaders and the importance of a rigorous process will be the subject of future articles.

Lawrence Chi is a coach for expatriates and cross-cultural consultant.  His mission is to grow expatriates professionally and personally and to make organizations more international.  Visit his website www.TheExpatCompass.com.

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 by Lawrence

The Successful Expat is Agile

High performing expats have the ability to demonstrate both humility and agility.  In fact, these characteristics are absolutely interdependent.  When an expat is faced with a new or uncertain situation in international management, they have to be open to admit to not knowing what they don’t know, change longstanding mindsets, and quickly change tact or behaviours.

 

This ability to pivot and change leadership styles may prove initially difficult in cultures that exhibit high power distance or strong uncertainty avoidance.  Teams in these situations generally prefer leaders who exert themselves over those that are unsure or flip-flop in a management situation.  This is when humility again plays an important role.  A leader who is open and transparent about their uncertainty and in fact, solicits advice from their team seeks what is best for the group and builds trust and relationships.

 

An effective expat has a high level of self-awareness and confidence to change their behaviours to adjust to their host culture.  A culture steeped in 5000 years of history such as China’s won’t change for foreigners’ preferred styles and losing sight of this often derails expatriate executives during international assignments.

 

International hotel executives are highly transient; their postings usually last a couple of years before they get promoted or posted to a property in another country.  One Food and Beverage Director, John, was selected to move from the United States to a hotel in China because of his long track record of success in the United States.  He had a brashness that served him well in past postings but his style was counter to all the mentoring and coaching he received during his on boarding.  John’s exact words were that “his job was to lead and to take the hotel’s Food and Beverage to the next level”.  He was blinded by his previous success and his American employees’ positive response to his maverick style; his Chinese staff didn’t know how to respond or were inadvertently offended, resulting in low morale and costly turnover in his team.  His inability to pivot and change his style eventually lead to his forced resignation six months later.  John had false underlying beliefs and wasn’t able to pivot these beliefs; he didn’t believe he was the one who had to change.

 

In another case, Steve, was relocated to China to save a business that was neglected for the longest time.  He is an American who had a long list of accomplishments and experiences with multiple consumer products companies in the United States and Europe but he had never been to, let alone operated in, China.  His remit was to save the business, so he was bold with his business goals and strategy and his team.  The initial implementation was bumpy and not well received by his team or his business partners.  He received coaching to deal in this new foreign business environment.  His big learning was to manage through relationships, not objectives.  This was a major paradigm shift for Steve as he was used to working in organizations that were driven by achieving goals.  Though it took time and with a couple of stop/starts, Steve heeded the advice and adjusted his style successfully.

 

Lawrence Chi is a coach for expatriates and cross-cultural consultant.  His mission is to grow expatriates professionally and personally and to make organizations more international.  Visit his website www.TheExpatCompass.com.

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 by Lawrence

The Humble Expatriate is the Successful Expatriate

Successful Expatriates have these Four Mindsets:

  • Curiosity;
  • Humility;
  • Agility and;
  • High EQ.

 

The second theme, humility, shares a number of behaviours with curiosity.  Humble individuals recognize that knowledge is infinite and an open mind is a prerequisite to understand different perspectives.  Humble individuals also seek first to understand before making themselves understood; they listen and ask questions to learn rather than pontificate.

 

There used to be an assumed practice that hiring Mandarin-speaking Asian nationals to serve as expatriates for organizations in China was the most effective.  This was predicated on the assumption that Asian cultures were similar to China’s and that speaking Mandarin made communication and management easier.  While this generally can be a predictor of success, the element to increase its probability still lies with the individual.

 

I was in a position to observe and work with a number of successful Asian nationals but also coach and mentor Asian nationals who were not effective.  The overseas Chinese who were most successful in their careers in China were extremely humble.  They saw themselves as part of the host country’s team, not as an outsider parachuted in to lead.

 

Ineffective overseas Chinese leaders separated themselves from their Mainland Chinese coworkers and business partners.  These individuals came from Asian countries that, at the time, had a higher level of commercial development than China.  On multiple occasions, these Asian expatriates operated under the notion that their Chinese counterparts did not know any better.  In our conversations, these professionals would be heard asking, “what can I learn from the Chinese?”.  The judgment behind this question blocked them from endearing themselves with local teams and business partners.  The majority of these Asian expatriates were unable to release these underlying beliefs or it was too late for them to do so; their careers in China never recovered.

 

The theme of humility reminds me of a highly successful senior executive that I recruited to China from the American Midwest.  Peter had travelled and worked elsewhere in the world, but had limited experience in China.  He became recognized as one of Shanghai’s most effective executives and was highly sought after by executive search consultants during his 15+ year tenure in China.  His success could have been foreshadowed in his first meeting with the executive team, when he declared early on, “I have as much to learn from you as you have from me.”  He admitted to me that he asked this question to all of his new teams, that it wasn’t intended for his China team.  He was quick to admit to his new team that this was his first assignment in China, that he was fascinated by the what he had heard about doing business in China and was eager to learn everything he could during his assignment.

 

The example of the transplanted executive illustrates both curiosity and humility.  His initial interactions with Chinese employees and customers were geared towards listening and learning rather than speaking and persuading.  His approach ultimately was the first important step to prevent judgment and towards establishing trust.  While this was clearly an expat success story in China, the lesson can be translated to success in other host countries.

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