Getting Feedback From Chinese Audiences
hekaiwen
March 17, 2009, 01:41 PM posted in General DiscussionDuring presentations Western audiences ask questions, Chinese don’t. But you need audience feedback to ensure they understand your points. What can you do? Absent a weapon how can you get Chinese to ask questions?
An easy, if time consuming way is quite simple: don’t leave. Chinese will ask questions, even good questions showing exactly what they don’t know, they just won’t do it in a group. You have to find a way to let them come to you alone or in small groups to ask.
If at some function, a hotel or such, just standing alone in the lobby after your presentation is often good enough. Chinese will circle around, in ones and twos, waiting for their chance to get you alone to ask questions. At an office is a little harder, and takes longer. Keep your office door open and encourage visitors works, as does wandering around, giving many opportunities for staff to find you alone and thus safe to talk to. Sharing tea or lunch works too, but is harder to arrange 1x1 or a very small group.
…
A senior European engineer once fulminated at length against this Chinese tendency, alternating between the lack of intelligence shown and the enormous costs it caused. His solution: sermons to the almighty machinery god, logic. His sermons fell on deaf ears.
Chinese want to do a good job! Like all people, Chinese do not go to work in the morning hoping to make mistakes and to get in trouble. The difference between Westerners and Chinese is in how they want to be taught. Westerners are ready to be taught directly: you made this mistake, this is why and this is how to do it properly. Moreover Westerners accept, even expect, group learning, using one person’s mistake to teach everyone at the same time.
Chinese want to learn, just in a way that does not cause anyone to lose face. What does “face” here mean? It means “embarrassment,” as in “He was embarrassed when his mistake was pointed out in front of his coworkers.” Like in so many other areas, the Chinese rule, the how has to right before Chinese will listen to the what, applies.
The engineer hated this answer, believing that training the Chinese way was inefficient, thus illogical. I agreed with him, to a point, but then asked him what was most important, that the Chinese did the job properly or that they learned in the proper way how to the job properly. Which was more important, process or result?
I just spoke at a conference of Compliance Professionals in San Diego. During the reception a man told me about their Chinese brokers seemingly adding unnecessary steps to the import process. I asked him what his objective was, the goods clearing customs in an acceptable timeframe or a process that was efficient. Sputtering he started to say they were the same, but finally admitted they weren’t, and that the acceptable timeframe was most important. Exactly.
I often don’t like, and sometimes don’t even understand, how Chinese do things. So? I care about goals, not methods. So should you. Early in our careers we all heard a variation of, “I don’t care how you get it done, just get it done.” Sadly the way Chinese “get it done” is often so different than Westerners expect that it, the way, becomes more important than the what, the result achieved.
Your goal inside China is not to change the Chinese, it is to achieve your goals. Focus on your goals and let the Chinese worry about how they achieve them. Yes, of course there are exceptions, but this is a general principle. Worry about your own goals, not Chinese methods.
By Greg Bissky @ www.bicbiz.com | Bicultural Business
hekaiwen
May 04, 2009, 04:57 PMWow, henning, your words describe a very educated response, but how many Westerners look past the obvious? I have more evidence in one day from business networks, friends, etc. then your simplistic response to the Smith & Chen case.
It is true that those who have taken snippets of these videos, articles, etc make points, but how many have actually looked deeper? How many have worked with Chinese businesses?
I would only defend this guy if there was more "evidence" and intelligent reponse than what has been listed by some individuals.
Some "evidence"- search for Greg Bissky
- ChineseBusinessNetwork
- ChineseSuccessStories
- Amazon
- Companies worked with:
A few corporate clients:
- Mobil
- Jacky Maeder
- Sanofi
- Hoechst
- IBM
- Aetna
- Eli Lilly
- Procter and Gamble
- Hewlett Packard
- AT&T
- Avon
- Hugo Boss
- Saatchi and Saatchi
- Trane
- Shell
- Motorola
- Philips
- LCI
- Ciba-Geigy
- Ericson
Some government and semi-official clients:
- Canada Asia Pacific Foundation
- Vancouver Board of Trade
- China External Trade Development Council
- Trade Office of Swiss Industries, Taiwan
- American Chamber of Commerce, Taiwan
- European Chamber of Commerce, Taiwan
- British Chamber of Commerce, Taiwan
- OSEC
Challenge: Anyone with more experience than listed, show your evidence to make your statements.
BTW: I find it incredibly interesting that those who don't want some sort of commercial face would comment on my posts. You know what happens when you comment?
Good luck on all your Chinese language studies, and do not forget how language is used in different cultures. How Rules of Communication are more important than language skills. Even with an intrepreter you still run the risk of failure when two very different cultures meet and do business.
miantiao
May 03, 2009, 02:31 AM@rj
i don't think these adds belong here either. but the desperate sod has paid his money to be here.i guess the powers that be allow him to peddle his wares. cheap and cheeky form of advertising if you ask me. just over 100US a year for advertising access. a trip to the library or a surf of the net will get you more relevant info than the crap he is peddling.
i have one question;
if there is no relationship between his marketing co and cpod, then what the hell is he doing here? if there is a business relationship between them then i think the cpod community should be made aware.
what is going to stop others doing the same thing here?
direct access to his market demographic at the price of a packet of chips.
i'd like some answers. the last thing i expected when signing up to cpod was to have adversitements for such products thrown in my face.
reminds me of the snake-oil peddler in the good, the bad, and the ugly.
calkins
May 03, 2009, 02:48 AMI agree. These ads don't belong here. Groups are meant for group learning. You could argue that users could learn from this group, but it seems all too one-sided and swarmy.
I've replied to this group's posts in the past, stating that it doesn't belong here. I did that mainly because hekaiwen kept reposting the same thread (ad) over and over again. Oddly, the few posts I left are nowhere to be found in this group...he must have deleted the post and reposted it clean. A sign of ethical characteristic perhaps?
tvan
May 03, 2009, 03:52 AMI wonder if this guy speaks Chinese? Haven't seen any sign of it so far; I don't mind a commercial (too much) if it contributes to learning; but, I already understand English.
miantiao
May 03, 2009, 04:01 AMi like this juicy piece of wisdom the best:
'Like in so many other areas, the Chinese rule, the how has to right before Chinese will listen to the what, applies.'
太深刻！！！
tvan
May 03, 2009, 04:27 AM哇， 我现在会做生意！
bodawei
May 03, 2009, 09:38 AM@tvan
I think he speaks Canadian (I ｈａｖｅ ｓｅｅｎ ｈｉｍ ｏｎ ＹｏｕＴｕｂｅ ｂｅｆｏｒｅ.）
Ｔｈｉｓ ｉｓ ａ ｌａｍｅ ａｄ （ａｓ Ｍｉａｎｔｉａｏ ｓａｙｓ ＇ｄｅｓｐｅｒａｔｅ＇）． Ｉｔ ｈａｓ ｕｎｆｏｒｔｕｎａｔｅ ｅｒｒｏｒｓ ｏｆ ｅｘｐｒｅｓｓｉｏｎ ａｎｄ ａｌｌ ｔｈｅ ｃｈａｒｍ ｏｆ ａ 九龙 ｓｕｉｔ ｓａｌｅｓｍａｎ．．
－ ｓｏ ｉｓ ｈｅ ｌｉｋｅｌｙ ｔｏ ｄｏ ｂｕｓｉｎｅｓｓ ｈｅｒｅ？
Ｉｆ ｈｅ ｈａｓ ｐａｉｄ ｈｉｓ ｓｕｂｓｃｒｉｐｔｉｏｎ ｍａｙｂｅ ｗｅ ｓｈｏｕｌｄ ｂｅ ｇｒａｔｅｆｕｌ ｆｏｒ ｈｉｓ ｓｕｐｐｏｒｔ ｏｆ ＣＰ ａｎｄ ｗａｉｔ ｆｏｒ ｈｉｍ ｔｏ ｒｅｔｉｒｅ？
hekaiwen
May 03, 2009, 09:41 PMI am not Greg Bissky.
miantiao
May 03, 2009, 11:13 PM@hekaiwen
i don't give a rat's a@#$ who who are mate, but you come in here peddling your so-called 'knowledge' of china and you couldn't even understand what i wrote you in my pm.
i'd appreciate it if you just took your snake oil wagon elsewhere.
RJ
May 02, 2009, 10:44 AMmiantiao
Dr. Phil makes a lot of money selling the obvious to idiots. Do you have Dr Phil in Oz? I hope not. My question is do these ads belong here? I dont think so.
chanelle77
May 04, 2009, 04:26 AMSpeaking of donations, time for me to also do some shameless promo HERE *wink wink*
urbandweller
May 04, 2009, 05:16 AMi wish that i had some snake oil to promote...
i got nothing!! 哈哈哈哈！！
chanelle77
May 04, 2009, 05:25 AMI accidently pasted the wrong link so I am doing it AGAIN! More shameless spam from me!
*passes the snake oil bottle to urbandweller*
Can someone tell me what a snake oil wagon is？Is it related to bogan？
RJ
May 04, 2009, 09:40 AMChanelle,
"snake oil" refers to tonics sold in the old american west that made ourageous health, healing, and/or longevity claims. Truth is, most of them made people feel better because they were 50% alcohol. Sometimes they would do things like miraculously cure a boy on crutches to convince the crowds.The guys that sold this stuff traveled from city to city in wagons loaded with their wares. We still have similar crap today but they use infomercials and paid shills that sell new "scientific" products.
chanelle77
May 04, 2009, 10:14 AMAah I see, thx for that RJ!
henning
May 04, 2009, 02:45 PMSuperficial, information scarce, imprecise, snake oil.
Take the Smith&Chen case. A series of platitudes in sucession. No concrete example, no real case study, no statistical data, no interesting scientific results. When you communicate, both sides must understand each other, no matter what language is used. Wow.
Recently, this Forum has been increasingly abused as an advertisment board and I am tired of it.
hekaiwen
May 04, 2009, 03:37 AMDude you need to chill out. I'm "peddling" a man's 14 years in China. I'm peddling someone who is married to a Chinese woman, author of a book, and trained in over 30 countries. I don't need to go on. Best wishes, mate.
BTW: I have donated plenty to ChinesePod. I created the second most popular language set.
-Kevin
miantiao
May 02, 2009, 04:05 AMfor christs sake! How to sell th bleeding obvious to the gullible 101.