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Many companies are setting up a company in China with expatriated employees working together with local employees. Is this challenging or a smooth ride? All our research actually shows that during the first 6 months most people have no considerations or reservations, whatsoever. On the contrary, most will consider this period to be surprisingly simple and smooth. Most employees actually do not understand what other expatriates talk and warnings is about. They feel their team work exactly as they are used to and most things are running well.

Another six to eight months down the road the story is usually different. Some setbacks have occurred due to lack of communication, pressure is getting higher and things seem to lose control and need constant supervision and micro management. This is completely normal and I will explain why this is repeated over and over for most foreign managers coming to China and for local employees joining an international organization.

Do you know that about 95% of all our decisions and actions during a day are not consciously made? They are made automatically with our automatic response system that all people have. Only 5% of all decisions and actions we take are actually brought to our aware attention and handled or carried out consciously. How is this possible? Let me give you an example: When we learn how to drive a car it is extremely difficult to do everything in the right order and keep the car moving in a smooth way and according to all traffic rules. This is mainly because we try to do everything consciously. After some practice we manage to do more and more things automatically, we do not need to think consciously about each thing needed to be done, we just do it. One day we find our self arriving at the destination not remembering any details of driving there, we were thinking of something else when driving.

50% of our Core Belief System is established at the age of 5 and 85% is in place when 18 years old. Most of our values and beliefs subsequently come from our parents and from experiences we have when we are young. When many people share the same values or beliefs this becomes part of a culture. It can be a corporate culture, geographically specific culture or even occupational culture. What an expatriate face when starting to work in China is work related and geographical culture differences and similarities. Similarly a Chinese employee will experience similar differences when starting to work in an international company, but from his perspective.

In the beginning, in a new environment, we do not let ourselves react automatically to the new or different behaviours we notice, much like when we are learning to drive a car. We know we are in a new environment, there are differences and we keep our selves alert and consciously try to understand and adapt to each situation. As time goes on we tend to revert back to our automatic programs and core belief systems and then the communication misunderstandings become more frequent. When communication fails and mistakes are made, pressure and stress makes us rely even more on our automatic programs. We have less access to our logical reasoning and conscious thinking when under pressure. Of course this makes communication even less adapted to the situation and even bigger mistakes can happen and a negative circle starts that can be difficult to get out of.

The general advices from all the Foreign and Chinese managers we have interviewed to avoid cultural differences to get in the way of success are:

• Keep your patience and stay open
• Do not jump to conclusions, ask questions even if you think you understand
• Do not try to change things too quickly
• Adapt as much as you can

-Peter J Karlsson