What's your CQ ? Are you Glocal ?

Everybody, who’s anybody, is a management guru. Yours truly included. No wonder airport book shops are filled to the rafters with all sorts of business books. I’ve often wondered who reads all of them. Most of them are boring ego trips, or say the mind blowingly obvious in obscure jargon.

This mini tirade has been triggered by a book review I read. The review introduces two pieces of jargon I had never heard of. Cultural - intelligence quotient , CQ for short (after all any self respecting jargon has to have an abbreviation) . And “glocal” presumably short for “globalised local”.

This is all about how in this globalised world, you need to understand local cultures, know how to much to bow, know where to point your feet, and such stuff.

I have been around a bit; so can’t resist appointing myself as a guru and expounding on this “culture thing”. Methinks, this is grossly over emphasised. Yes local culture is important but its nowhere near as important as its made out to be.

Human beings the world over are the same. They have roughly the same needs and roughly the same expectations in a corporate setting. In most nations, people have become used to dealing with foreigners. And when they deal with a foreigner, they don’t expect her to be a local and adopt exactly the same practices ; they are usually fine if she’s different. Unless you give offence deliberately, you are usually OK.

Take China. Much was made of the “culture” here of drinking. When you take government officials out to dinner, you are supposed to drink yourself to death. Nonsense. I am a teetotaler and I just say politely that I don’t drink and nobody has taken offence to that. Similarly the ritual of exchanging visiting cards – two hands, small bow and all that stuff. Again, nobody has yet taken offence if I have forgotten my card or given it with one hand – they are usually more interested whether we deal professionally and fairly. A lot of these so called practices and symbols are all quite unimportant and it really doesn’t matter if you don’t follow them. Much is written about the Asian need for “saving face” and how a “yes is often a no”. Please tell me if there’s a single culture that thrives on losing face or on public humiliation. Rubbish. People world over have the same needs –nobody likes being told off in public and a direct message delivered with sincerity and kindness is well received everywhere.

What is important is genuine sincerity and respect for the country you live in and its people. Giving the card with both hands and then rubbishing China’s internet policy will give offence. Making the absolute correct bow with the Japanese and then making fun of their camera clicking habits won’t win you friends. Being curious about the country, trying to learn its language, traveling a bit around, being respectful of its strengths, not mentioning its perceived weaknesses, never comparing your own country with it are all sensible things to do anywhere. Being respectful to people and being sincere and kind to colleagues will get you far everywhere. Even if you do culturally the wrong thing, if people perceive that you are sincere and respectful, they usually take no offence.

Its all just common sense, really.

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Much ado about nothing

People get very worked up about their job titles. It seems to be a matter of life and death whether you are an Assistant General Vice President or a Deputy Senior Group Executive. On this gloomy Sunday, a typically dreary , foggy, day in Guangzhou, I decided to do a learned treatise on job titles .

Some people lay great store on the words in their job titles. Vice President is a very commonly coveted title. In some banks I know, you join as a fresher with the title Vice President! But then how do you differentiate yourself from the hordes of vice presidents around ? (Its an interesting aside that in politics the least desirable post is that of the Vice President, but in business, it seems to be a coveted title). So you become a Senior Vice President or a Group Vice President or preferably a Group Executive Senior Vice President.

Another fixation is “General”. You want to be a “General Manager”. As opposed to a “specific manager”, I presume. You can have the choice of Deputy, Chief, Senior, etc etc to embellish your being a General Manager. And then you get stupid acronyms such as SDCGM.

Lower down the totem pole, the salivation is over the simple “manager”. People are willing to kill to become a "manager". You have the choice of Executive, Associate, Consultant, etc etc as stepping stones with the usual variants of senior, vice, etc etc. You can also be an Executive Associate Consultant, if you wish.

Some companies try to impose global job titles without regard to how they may be perceived locally, often to much amusement. Many years ago, I was a lowly flunky and I was taking my boss's boss to a very senior official in a bank. Our worthy was designated as “Treasurer”. I was pulled up in no uncertain terms by the bank honcho for bringing a cashier with me for such an important meeting !! More recently we have “Engagement Managers” around. One visa official was so intrigued by this title that he spent the entire visa interview with this person enquiring who she was engaged to !

You know you have gone too far in embellishing job titles when your secretary is “Head of Verbal Communications” , the window cleaner is “Vision Clearance Engineer”, the ticket inspector is “Revenue Protection Officer”, the maid is the “Crockery Cleansing Operative”, and the teacher is “Knowledge Navigator”. No kidding; these are real job titles – I didn’t make them up.

In the new world, some companies have taken to unusual titles. I have met a “Valued Member” of XYZ Inc whose boss was “Most Valued Member”. Without a doubt, in 5 years there will be a Executive Senior General Most Valued Member ! A very famous leader himself adopted the rather unusual title, Gardener. In fashion is becoming a mentor. One nanny country even has a Minister Mentor.

In reality the correct and true designation must be Employee No 12345. That’s exactly how companies treat their employees – as a number. Despite all the pious and hypocritical blah blah of how people are the most valuable resource of a company, the reality is that you are a faceless number. That’s the sad truth of the industrialised world.

Yours truly
Lao Ming Zhi
Employee No 50001.

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Ni Hao Great Britain

A crying shame, it is. This blog is not meant to be political in nature and is (usually) not prone to hyperbolic hand wringing. This post does both, unashamedly. I just could not believe that the Digital Economy Bill was “passed”, or rather rushed through the British House of Commons. Actually what took place was the ‘Third reading”, which is not the same thing as passing. But we won’t get into quaint British parliamentary traditions where worthies have to yell “Hear Hear” when they actually are meaning &^%$ @#$. They effectively passed that bill. See the photo in this article to see how vigorously attended this debate was.

I am not a British national; I do not live in the UK and have no business commenting on British policy or laws. But I am a self confessed Anglophile. I hold great fondness for all that is good and great in Her Majesty’s kingdom. That paragon of virtue, fair play and freedom, passes such a thing as the Digital Economy Bill - that is difficult to stomach.

95% of the bill is all good and fine, even though it will never achieve the objective of making the UK an IT power house. You cannot make an IT powerhouse when one third of the population reads The Sun, one third drinks 75 pints a night at the pub and one third’s religion is called Manchester United !!

It’s the 5% that is horrible. It gives the power to the government to block internet sites. Read that again – block internet sites. They can block sites that “is being, or is likely to be used in connection with an activity that infringes copyright”. Read my lips – Blocking any website, whatever be the reason, is just wrong. If you believe a website is violating copyright, go to a court of law ; prosecute the site owners; that’s the correct process. Not blocking their site.

This bill has all sorts of provisions on copyright. They can get ISPs to disconnect people who are supposed to be violating copyright. The bill seems to have been lobbied for hard by the old world news and music dinosaurs. A certain old man with big interests in the UK media comes to mind, but we shall refrain from going in that direction.

These dinosaurs are just flailing around as the internet is destroying their old cosy models on copyright. Remember how the music dinosaurs forced you to buy an expensive CD full of rubbish just to get at the one good song you liked. Remember how the music labels forget that the world is global and restrict stuff to certain countries. Remember that if they sensibly priced it and offered reasonable terms, a la iTunes, people will pay for them. Remember that declining costs and profitability are a factor to be tackled in all industries and there is no God given right to media that they should be exempt from it. Remember that content creators on line do succeed if they have appropriate business models. But then dinosaurs are not adept at adapting, as we all know.

Instead they go and get a law such as the Digital Economy Bill. I would expect such a bill in the country which the title of post alludes to. Not in the land of hope and glory.

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ICICI Bank is a foreign bank !

This blog started life a year and a bit ago with the very first post titled “What is 'American Goods' anyway ?" . Now I return back to the same theme after reading a news item that the Reserve Bank of India has declared both ICICI Bank and HDFC bank to be “foreign banks”.

For those unfamiliar with the Indian banking environment, throughout the socialist days of the 70s and 80s India lived with a nationalized banking environment. Government owned banks were the only choice. While they had their strengths, technology and innovation were not among them. They were forced to give out buffalo loans to “poor farmers” and then write them off (collecting buffalo tails as proof of death).

Two banks changed the landscape in just 5 years – ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank. Both were private banks and they revolutionised banking in India. Sure, they have their faults (many actually), but they were a completely different experience to the government banks. In no time they shot up to be market leaders.

They are listed in the Indian and US stock exchanges. Probably 90%+ of their business is in India. Most of their branches are in India. The management is entirely Indian. They are headquartered in India. But apparently more than 50% of their equity is now held by foreign entities, as they are freely traded on the stock exchanges. Voila – the country’s central bank has declared them to be foreign banks.

This just goes to show the devilish difficulty in trying to decide nationalities of corporations. Many companies today are truly global. Their shareholders are from all over the place. Actually which nationality do you ascribe to ICICI Bank. More than 50% of the shareholding may be in “foreign” hands, but that is many nationalities put together. Almost certainly the single largest shareholder nationality will be Indian. So if ICICI Bank is not “Indian”, then what is it ? Stateless person ??

So what IS the nationality of a company ? Does it indeed have to have a nationality at all ?? Usually in law, the place where the company is registered is deemed to be its nationality. To determine whether its “foreign” or “local”, its usually the % shareholding that is considered. Some countries, most notably Britain and France, value heritage. Cadbury is always a ‘British” company and Danone always a “French” company, no matter what. Some value where its headquarters is – HSBC is a prime example. Its name says Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation. Its listed in Hong Kong and in the UK. Its boss is British, but he recently moved to be based in Hong Kong. What about companies which have split personalities – companies like Unilever, Royal Dutch Shell and Reed Elsevier which have two headquarters, two parent companies, etc ?

Actually it doesn’t matter. Except when you have clauses like ‘Buy American” and “Buy Chinese”. Except when you discriminate “foreign companies” from domestic ones. Companies are the truly global manifestation of the human race. Companies have gone where the species should go – being truly global and one – but where societies and nations will never go.

Here’s an aside. You may recall the post about a company standing in the US elections. Presumably only “US companies” are entitled to stand. But we come back to the old problem – what is an US company ? Imagine Osama bin Laden floating a company with majority holding by his US followers, registered in the state of Delaware and standing for the office of the President of the United States. That would be something !

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The wedding photography business

Where there is a human need; there will be a business. Welcome to the highly specialized world of wedding photography.

Not the Indian variety. The Indian wedding has now become a video occasion of the silliest sort. Bright lights are shone at all and sundry, and in the hot Indian clime, it is a virtual torture. Most people are unused to being videoed ; so they put on their most solemn expression and look fairly miserable – a smile is not to be seen within a million miles. I wonder who watches these videos ; I bet certainly not the bride and the groom.

The market leaders, by far, in wedding photography are the Chinese. The whole wedding photography business is a fine art, unlike any other. Firstly wedding photography has been completely separated from the wedding itself – it could take place weeks before. These photos are always shot in fancy places – parks, beaches, gardens, whatever , depending on how much you can afford. Both the bride and groom are dressed in elaborate western costumes ; she in flowing white looking like a princess and he in dapper male finery looking suitably love struck. The shoot can take hours and is exactly like a model shoot. They are clicked in all sorts of poses, carefully choreographed , including the obligatory groom lifting the bride – it helps that most Chinese women are amazingly slim. Hard to imagine that happening in India !!

The capital of the wedding photography business is Taiwan, where its apparently a $200m business. Because they are the best, couples from Hong Kong, Singapore and further afield go there for their wedding shots –the sets, the locales, etc are , I am told, the best there. Average prices are some $10,000. Mainlanders don’t find it easy to travel to China ; so the Taiwanese companies set up shop in mainland China. But now there is fierce competition from the local companies who have learnt the tricks of the business and prices have crashed. The Taiwanese are venturing further abroad – in Europe and in the US, all targeting ethnic Chinese.

Might be an interesting line of business to get into. Its one of the few workspots, I suppose, where you are surrounded by happiness. Not bad for a career choice.

This is a creative field and perhaps not very different from model photography. Creative types may be keen. Now there is one blogger we know whose blog has the most amazing photographs. He had some familiarity with the Chinese diaspora and has recently entered the creative field. Seems to be a good career choice for him !

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Three cheers to the Beeb

This blogger is a complete, total, unabashed , fawning admirer of the British Broadcasting Corporation, affectionately called the Beeb in Her Majesty’s realm. There is simply no media organization in the world that comes anywhere close to the BBC. Period.

Yes, the BBC is the most trusted news organization in the world. Yes, the BBC’s radio and TV programmes are produced with a professionalism that few can even aspire to match. Yes, the BBC is usually amazingly neutral and presents all sides of a picture that to really appreciate this, you only have to watch Fox News or China Television ! Yes the BBC is truly the only global media organization – CNN comes close, but still cannot match the BBC in global reach.

The jewel in the BBC Crown, to my mind, is BBC World Service Radio. Not television, but radio. In the good old days, the crackling short wave transistor radio glued to ear was the only way to listen to it. Now, short wave transmissions, that virtually defined BBC World Service for a 100 years , are being phased out. The Internet is the new medium – you can listen to the World Service (minus the crackles) any time of the day or night, on line.

All too often, media organizations today have become a chronicler of the world’s woes. Tragedies and scandals dominate reporting. Everybody does that, even the BBC. But its only the BBC, that does more. Human interest stories, stories that warm the heart, tales from around the world, that can make you chuckle, that bring a lump to the throat, that makes your eyes swell with tears, that keep ringing in your ears long after you have finished listening.

These days, BBC radio puts out a number of podcasts that you can download and listen to at leisure. They are all uniformly brilliant, but my absolute favourite is From Our Own Correspondent. A recent episode I heard triggered this post. Adam Mynott was covering the boring sounding Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Doha in Qatar. And what a lovely report he presented – click here to go to the podcast and click on Chapter 4 to listen to his piece which is only a 5 minute piece. Here is an extract from the podcast to whet your appetite

“ Countries vote electronically; they press a button to record their votes. To satisfy everybody that the system is working properly and that there are no gremlins in the software, the Chairman tests the system periodically. On Day 9 of the conference, after everybody had been in Doha for some two weeks, he did a simple test. He said to test the system, he was going to ask a simple question and asked delegates to vote yes or no. The question was, Is Doha the capital of Qatar ? To say Yes, press button No 2. The delegates reached forward to vote. After they had finished, there was however a surprising result. Two nations – Croatia and Cameroon had voted no ! And perhaps from force of habit long established from voting at the United Nations and other forums, China abstained. Croatian and Cameroonian delegates did not explain why they had learnt so little about the city where they had been staying for the last 10 days. The Chinese were inscrutable and said nothing. Perhaps they thought it would be giving too much away if they stated unequivocally that Doha was indeed the capital of Qatar".

Wow ! Three cheers to the Beeb, Hip Hip; Hooray . Hip Hip; Hooray. Hip Hip; Hooray !

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Now you can't sue me

Well, almost. You can sue me, but your chances of winning have considerably diminished. In a landmark ruling yesterday, the British Court of Appeals ruled in favour of the science writer Simon Singh in the libel case brought against him by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA).

Simon Singh is a British science writer. In a column in The Guardian in April 2008, Simon Singh criticized the BCA making these comments

“You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything. And even the more moderate chiropractors have ideas above their station. The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments”

The BCA objected to this. The Guardian offered them the chance to write a rebuttal. They refused this and instead brought a libel suit against Simon Singh.

To any sane man, this libel suit is strange, at best. However the British libel laws, being what they are, apparently the burden of proof rested with the defendant. If I say that in my opinion you are an ass, then it means that I am implying that factually you are an ass and if you bring a libel suit against me, its up to me to prove that you are indeed an ass. The original court upheld that an opinion Simon Singh expressed, was actually an implied statement of fact . He went on appeal and has now won. But in the process his career as a writer has been ruined and he has been financially compromised - having to spend some ₤200,000 in legal costs, although others have contributed. And the story is not over. The BCA has threatened to appeal against the current ruling.

Apparently hundreds of cases are brought against people expressing opinions that somebody does not like. Faced with ruinous legal costs of defending, they simply capitulate, back down and censor themselves. Somewhat similar to the strong arm tactics employed by a number of gentlemen sharing the surname Thackeray.

A significant angle to the libel laws in the UK is that it promotes “libel tourism”. It does not matter if you live in some other country and publish something there. If it was capable of being read in the UK, you can bring a libel suit in the UK. The community it affects the most are bloggers. If a blog is capable of being downloaded in the UK, then the libel case can be brought in the UK. With such libel laws, the UK has become the capital for libel tourism.

This is actually a strange position. Anybody even remotely familiar with the UK knows that its newspapers hit abysmal lows every day in scandals and sleazy journalism. And yet it seems to have the toughest libel laws around. I simply don’t understand this.

This blogger is notorious for being highly opinionated and expressing them freely, sometimes passing them off as fact. For example, here’s a tip for Gils. A few days ago, this blog featured some comments about his sartorial colour preferences. He has every right to claim to have been libeled. Now this blog is definitely capable of being read in the UK, although nobody really does. However there is at least one reader who has commented here in the past and she lives in the UK – clear proof that what is written can have ramifications in Her Majesty’s land. So the logical course of action for Gils would have been to sue me in a British Court for libel. Unfortunately he is a bit too late – he should have done so last week !!

Bloggers beware !!

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