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November 29, 2006
Excitement and American Business Culture
What is the value, if any, when executive management attempts to create excitement in the American corporation?
A Few Thoughts on Excitement in American Business Culture
Jack Welch opined on the essential nature of excitement to spur on the managerial ranks. Get your managers excited about globalization, he once said, because it’s a complex task of gargantuan proportions. Get them excited. It sounds like a worthwhile idea.
But is excitement necessary or even beneficial? Is there real and lasting value to creating a buzz inside the organization?
I don’t believe there is, especially when it is manufactured. But the American businessman feels the need to tell the world that he is excited by…what exactly? How about these stimulating events: The release of a mundane software application…the 20th anniversary of an international trade education credentialer...a new financing program for a hardware store (CLOSED SUNDAYS) in the Midwest. Now can you get more blah than that? In fact, you can. Read a few dozen corporate press releases and you will find the excitement word in virtually all of them. But are statements like these professing excitement in the least credible? Do your best teenager impression and shout out: NOT!
Take this pseudo-excitement cannoned out towards the world and throw it back into the organization. Pep rallies for the sales force might make sense, but in very limited circumstances. All but the novice salesman is skeptical about management hype intended to stimulate action. The more seasoned salesman is disinclined -- on the basis of experience -- to swallow the hot air emanating from the etheral regions of upper management. [Does that make sense? Hot air should rise, but this stuff sinks.] Commiserating over a second martini after work, I have heard salesmen often say “Give me a product I can sell and the tools to sell it with” rather than “Give me more of that hogwash promising the world.” Dilbert fans working in the corporate world know what of I speak.
And yet American business managers insist upon generating excitement within their corporate structure, imagining it an equal to Fairy Dust. Countless consultants concur. (Chinese executives do not care whether staff is excited and refuse to excite them for any purpose, with very rare exception.)
[One may dispute whether the evangelicalism that permeates American business mimics the missionary zeal of American populist preachers – a parallel perhaps worth exploring, given the concomitant rise to influence of religious evangelicals in American political life.]
In business, however, I consider the need for “created excitement” to constitute, at the very least, a flaw in thinking, a generous waste of time and an effort in deception, if not self-deception.
Business is generally dull and repetitive work. There it is, I said it. Call me a contrarian, but while I surely recognize the joy in being given a challenge to one’s wits and experience, the details attendant to its resolution are rarely more exciting than a collection of 19th century door hardware. And yet a job well done, personal growth and a paycheck may make the grind very much worthwhile in one’s eyes.
Manufactured excitement intended to spur on the faithless to greater faith can not change the objective fact of daily dreariness; it may, to the contrary, make staff less likely to plod through the muck of minutiae. Indeed, in my experience, Chinese, the most unexcited of business managers, are far more likely to stick through the really hard work with far less complaining than Americans. There, I said it again. Americans wax eloquent about how hard we work, but, frankly, we come up short in comparison.
The nuts and bolts of business requires commitment and focus over lengthy periods of time. Excitement is brief – sustaining it requires a constant flow of propaganda. How much time and energy will you devote to creating the fantasy that corporate life is one big Orgasm? How many on staff will see through transparent efforts to manufacture a buzz? Welch’s excitement appears to have been a natural result of an effusive personality. Having never met him, I can only guess. But I have personally worked with only one leader who exuded a natural and genuine excitement on the job that was comparably infective over a long period of time.
The rest of the American managing world would best set its sights on simple professionalism – a plain honesty that recognizes the task at hand for what it is and, despite manifest hardships, sets to its resolution. American staff understand the value of a straightforward approach to their daily work. If you want to be a role model for your staff, don't try pulling the wool over their eyes. Avoid the hype and simply get down to work.
Posted by Richard at 4:25 PM | Comments (1)November 27, 2006
Audio for Our Two Most Recent Posts
Click the little triangle to hear both of these posts: the Magical Mystery Tour to China and New Chinese Banking Regulations
November 23, 2006
US Officials To Embark on Magical Mystery Tour
American cabinet officials will travel to China to "press for changes in Chinese economic policies long criticized by the administration and Congress, officials said Wednesday."
At long last, another Magical Mystery Tour. The mystery is that they should believe in the power of their magic at all. Chinese can be awfully stubborn when asked to take actions they see running contrary to their interests. (Was that too subtle?)
You may remember that the film was panned with gusto. We await the film of this trip with bated breath.
Posted by Richard at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)November 10, 2006
Guess What? New Rules!
The Wall Street Journal reports on new Chinese banking regulations that will further delay Citigroup's China strategy.
The rules will "strengthen and improve the supervision and management of foreign banks and promote the stable operation of the banking sector," the State Council said in a statement Wednesday.
One would think, given the state of the Chinese banking system, that foreign banks require less supervision. But China can be -- how can I put it nicely? -- counter-intuitive.
FOLLOW-UP: Readers of Chinese will find of interest this 金融界 special edition on foreign banks. As of November 28, 2006, 金融界's online reader survey reported the following results:
外资银行管理条例发布调查
共有790人参与
您认为外资银行是否会对我国银行业造成冲击
会，内资银行将倒闭几家 53.04%
不会，内资银行可以经得住竞争 33.04%
不清楚，现在不好判断 13.92%
作为个人，您更倾向于选择内资银行还是外资银行
外资银行 54.81%
内资银行 45.19%
November 8, 2006
The Cost of Free Trade in China: Corruption and the FCPA
The Cost of "Free Trade" in China: Corruption and the FCPA
Bloomberg reports that a Beijing court has fingered IBM in the China Construction Bank corruption prosecution of Zhang En-zhao, the bank's former Chairman and once winner of an"Economic Person of the Year" award. Zhang is now the Person of 15 Years, the length of his sentence.
Documents issued by the court state that the company paid an agent US$225,000, which sum was channeled to Zhang. (No, no, we're not talking about Wang Xue-bing, Zhang's predecessor, who was also forced to resign and convicted of bribery. This is the the new guy. Well, not any longer.) We must note, however, in all fairness, that the mere inclusion of this information in a Chinese court document does not necessarily make it true. Regardless, it is now in the public realm.
The idea that one must buy favor permeates Chinese society, even down to the lunch offered by a family member asking for assistance. But bribery and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act do not mix well. Since most commercial transactions can not be accomplished in China without the former, in one form or another, the latter tends to suffer when sales figures must be met. As to the actual payment of moneys, most corporations in China who fork it over do not do so directly, but instead make use of third (and fourth) parties -- often foist upon them by potential customers, but sometimes selected. Payments may be made within China or even overseas through a wide range of entities that may help mask the payment. One can be as sure of crisp US $100 bills in a satchel as often as numbered Swiss accounts.
An important note: the use of agents does not necessarily shield the American executive from prosecution. Actual knowledge that a payment or a promise to pay will be forwarded to an official is not required: constructive knowledge -- you "should have" known, given the facts -- can make the exec just as liable.
And is it even debatable that Zhang is an official for the purposes of the FCPA, when the CCB is a quasi-governmental organ of the state of China? The big spender [click this link if you want a good time] in China remains the state. How does the exec defend foregoing a big sale to a quasi-governmental organ and a payment to its key decision-maker in a market your headquarters believes will save the company?
(By the way, when senior management passes out copies of the FCPA -- with the notation in biro "read this and make sure you do not violate this law," as once happened to an American I know, it does not mean they care whether you violate the law, but just that they don't.)
The U.S. Department of Justice has grown increasingly serious about enforcement of the FCPA in recent years -- note the FIS investigation already in progress at the DOJ and in China, also stemming from the Zhang corruption case. But the acts of corporate bribery in China are so numerous, the proof for which is at best difficult to develop, that this the notation in Chinese court documents is an obvious anomaly. (Then again, when all the facts are known, it may be as much of a slam-dunk as might be attributed to George Tenet.) A squealer would seem to be the more common route to an investigation.
If you have not seriously considered it before, now is the time to give serious consideration to the value of risky behavior in light of the demands presented by the FCPA, the DOJ and, now, it appears, the Chinese government.
Posted by Richard at 1:50 PM | Comments (0)November 1, 2006
The Vast Chinese Archive of Unexecuted Judgments
Click the little triangle to listen to today's post.
The Vast Chinese Archive of Unexecuted Judgments
Don Clarke's, Chinese Law Prof Blog, heartily recommended for attorneys with an interest in China, takes note that 800,000 judgments -- the number given by Supreme People's Court president Xiao Yang -- have gone unexecuted.
While Don cautiously and with merit suggests that we haven't as yet the perspective to say if this is objectively good or bad, the gut tends me towards the position that it should not give much confidence in the value of a Chinese judgment.
Indeed, that a number was even publicized gives credence to the notion that unexecuted judgments have become a problem of major proportions in the eyes of the judiciary -- one need only note below the euphemistic phrase "“执行难”问题." Even granting the questionable perception of openness, supposedly fostered by government, the number 800,000, without a verifiable basis, is very likely itself under-reported.
Xiao Yang's remarks:
最高法称执行难问题未根本扭转 80余万案件积压
新闻来源：法制网 转载时间：2006-10-31
最高人民法院院长肖扬今天向十届全国人大常委会第二十四次会议作“关于开展规范司法行为专项整改报告”时说，经过一年来对执行积案的集中清理，人民群众反映强烈的“执行难”问题尚未得到根本扭转，有80余万件积压案件未能执行。
肖扬说，为缓解“执行难”问题，在专项整改中，各级法院采取多种措施：严格执行条件，解决暂缓执行、中止执行、终结执行、查封案外人财产和超标的查封的问题。此外，加强执行管理，将选定评估和拍卖机构的环节作为整改的重点，切断拍卖过程中不正当的利益联系，彻底杜绝拍卖中的暗箱操作；建立执行款专用账户，防止个别法院违法使用、截留、挪用、侵吞、私分执行款物。强化执行公开，解决消极执行、拖延执行和执行人员的违法违纪问题。
肖扬表示，全国法院执行案件信息管理系统正逐步扩大试点范围，力争明年起全面实施。通过互联网公开执行信息，加强与有关部门配合，对不履行生效裁判的被执行人实行财产申报、强制审计、限制出境、公布被执行人名单等措施，促使被执行人自动履行义务。
Posted by Richard at 7:46 PM | Comments (1)
