Europeans' biggest challenge in Asia

What is the biggest challenge Europeans face working in Asia? I recently posted this question on LinkedIn to check on people's assumptions. And I compared these with my opinion, being shaped after more than a year spent working with teams and individuals in China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Kazakhstan. If you go on reading, you will know what I think I know after this year. But getting to the end of this article, you will know what is for sure the biggest challenge our local colleagues face working with us Europeans in Asia...

Someone thought food will be a challenge. But this is hardly to be the case. Asia is full of great European restaurants if you are not really into Asian food. Most people though thought it would be culture, different cultures, so many different cultures. Accepting the differences, maybe embracing them makes things easy, someone says. But I think this is still too generic and is not hitting the nail on the head.

I believe, the main challenge we Europeans face when going to work in Asia is building effective working relationships with our local colleagues. I have worked with hundreds of managers, expats and locals, maybe close to hundred teams as well. From my conversations with both locals and expats I learned this: there is a chain of learning phases that the most successful go through and shortcuts only work for few.

Observe and Listen

We are really coming to a different world. There is no better way to learn than observing how people communicate, how they work, how they queue, how they eat and socialise. And when we get the opportunity, then listen...and ask questions, and listen more, be open and nonjudgemental. We have to be genuinely curious, interested, willing to know as much as we can. We want to know more about their beliefs and ideas, habits and choices, their dreams and worries.

Understand and Respect

Understanding is maybe one of the most difficult parts. Language is going to be a significant barrier here. I was once in Changsha, a city in Southern China, walking in a park and I asked my daughter (studied Chinese at the time) to translate me something that looked like a warning sign on the grass. And she did so: "Plants and flowers are beautiful. People love beauty." How would this warning sign preventing vandalism be written in the park of your neighbourhood in a European city?

Understanding is going to be challenging and my advice would be to make understanding easier by simply respecting some things are different in Asia. We will not always be able to understand. It is going to be less demanding to respect that people here have their own semantics, make their choices and the have the right of self-determination. After all, we are coming to countries with amazing financial growth, globally successful corporates come from this region, so we just have to be humble and respect there is more than one way to heaven. Remember, some years ago we could not even accept there can be more than one religion...Maybe this time is over and we can simply embrace our differences and learn from them...

Accept and Adapt

Acceptance is this state of mind when we do not try to change your colleagues. And this doesn't mean we can't say things we don't like or prefer to see differently. But we need to learn how to provide feedback, polite and helpful, effective and to the point without hurting and demotivating people. We understand that is easier to change ourselves. In the role of a manager, shaping might be one of the most effective ways to get more of what we want to see from our people. Choose, out of random attempts, the one behaviour you like the most (attitude, analysis, report etc.) and praise for it...Trust me you will get more of it. Honest, respectful conversations, interest and willingness to help our colleagues will be appreciated, we will gain higher openness on return and better work results. People need space, give them time, be patient.

All the above and more than that is part of the adapting phase. You might need to forget things that you believed worked well in Europe. Find more effective alternatives. Look for expats/colleagues who managed to have great working relationships with local colleague and ask them to mentor you. We should be humble and recognise this is for us, who got the chance to be in Asia the greatest learning opportunity. Delivery of our own goals and targets or KPIs is to a large extent depended on our ability to adapt.

Someone would say we just need to simply build trust...

Sure we do. But is there an other way to build trust rather than respect the learning path described above? Do people in these countries have many reasons to trust Europeans by default? Looking back into history of these countries and the experiences they have had with Europeans, I would not be so sure. Many of them were colonies in the last century.

Good leaders start the above learning path by letting go the feeling of our superiority first...All the great leaders I have met in Asia (and I met quite a few or them) recognise the above described phases. And passed them all, even if in a different pace.

The alternative some will easy fall into is ignorance, which often leads or is experienced as its twin sister, arrogance...

And this is indeed the biggest challenge our local colleagues face working with us...And yet we often try ...(most companies have plenty of initiatives to better connect and integrate people) ...we need to try harder.

This is what I learned so far and there is more to learn I believe, the journey continues...