Communicate in ‘Clear’
Working with people always one major problem – communication. In the immortal words of Robert McKloskey, ‘I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant.’ This is only compounded now due to the ‘global’ nature of world interactions which bring in technical, language, cultural and attitudinal barriers.
A recent episode for me involved (in my opinion)
- Technical jargon and expertise
- Language barriers
What happened was that I asked my bank account relationship officer a question about a payment received. They duly reached out to the team that handled it, but when they reverted to me, all they did was ‘pass the buck’ – the message they had received from the team – without stopping to ask if the message as passed would be clear or not. I then went out to another officer who was clearly more used to this sort of thing and was able to provide the answers I needed in a form that I could understand.
It made me think: how do I sound to others? I may think I’m clear, but do they? When I think I’m using simple language (for me), is it simple for them? Have I conveyed the information they need in a way they can understand and pass on to others?
The more globalised and internationalised our world becomes, the more we’re going to find ‘communication problems’ arising.
How can we, as busines leaders, ensure that they really understand what we said and that what they hear is what we meant?
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Career, Customer Care, Leadership, Productivity, Selling, Strategy, Teamwork
Should Companies Step in Where Government Lags?
I was invited to comment on this question recently at a forum. It got me thinking as, quite often, my ‘gut’ tells me that this might not be such a bad idea. I was also flattered that I should be invited to comment, but decided that, in the end, preparing a well-thought-out comment amongst the volumes of others that would be pouring in was probably not the best use of my time ‘at that time’.
Had I contributed, it might have been along the following lines.
Governments, because they are composed of human beings, are fallible (trouble is, so are businesses). No matter what the political make-up of the governing party, it will be made up of humans with either socialist, conservative, liberal or dictatorial leanings to one degree or another. At times, they can seem mind-numbingly incompetent; at others, unbelievably perceptive and efficacious. The same applies to businesses - all run by humans.
Businesses and governments share some goals but are wildly separated on others. Free market theory suggests that businesses (we'll call them 'markets') are better users than governments of land, labour and capital (land/labour/capital) to achieve economic prosperity.
This is why, just as some countries have separated ‘Church’ and ‘State’, so ‘State’ and ‘Business’ should remain apart. We see at present the strong arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intervening in China’s businesses when it perceives they are challenging its power. Witness the recent fate of Jack Ma and Alibaba or China’s technology industry, and it is clear that China is clear that no one will supersede state control. Never mind any impact this has on global markets either. Is this an effective use of labour, land and capital? I would say not.
Similarly, centrally planned economies have proven, by and large, to be failures. One only has to look at post-Revolutionary Russia or North Korea and Venezuela of the present day to see the harm caused by too much central control. Again, this isn't an effective use of land/labour/capital.
So that’s government interfering in business; what about the other way round? Businesses have one focus: profit by maximising use of land/labour/capital. They’re under pressure from workers, investors and customers to ‘do right’ for said workers, investors and customers. The ‘robber barons’ of the early C20 USA showed exactly what happens when businesses and businessmen (who were usually the investors) pursued profit to the exclusion of workers and customers.
Say a company wants to do business with a regime that its domestic government deems ‘undesirable’. Should it be allowed to do so, it may make good money from that investment (capital), but the result may be the destruction of natural habitats (land) through the rape of natural resources, environmental disaster (land) or exploitation of those unable to defend themselves (labour) or all of the above. Equally, it might result in increased disposable incomes of the population, creating a new middle class that purchases goods and services (including education) from overseas and improves bilateral trade flows and diplomatic relations.
The solution? A balance of government, corporate and ‘popular’ pressure. Popular pressure forces politicians (who are constantly seeking re-election) to enact laws that govern corporate outputs. Popular pressure forced Barclays Bank to pull out of South Africa during the Apartheid regime. A government wishing to support another country could provide legislative incentives for domestic business to invest in that country, thereby rewarding that country for ‘good’ behaviour or ‘pressuring’ it into behaving better (but see below).
For business to negotiate with governments directly pre-supposes that labour/land/capital is the sole answer. First, pressure to do right by their investors (pension funds, hedge funds, insurance companies, especially) distorts that view. Second, despite the sanctions (legislative disincentives) on Iran and North Korea, these regimes continue with activities deemed undesirable any the community at large.
For a company to invest or disinvest in any country is a massive undertaking requiring years (sometimes decades) of ‘payback’. To pull out of a country (as some are currently doing in Myanmar) results in the loss of valuable jobs, tax income, goodwill and credibility as well as huge write-offs to profits and disenchanted investors (but hopefully not customers and governments who deem that regime odious). It may also arise in beneficial tax write-offs…
Companies can play a part in supporting governments and vice-versa. What is required is clear dialogue, incentives and appreciation of priorities on all sides. Businesses (land/labour/capital) are not necessarily the solution to government-created structural problems.
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Crisis Management, Leadership, Regulation, Risk, Selling, Strategy
ASEAN, China and the USA
The issue of ASEAN vis-a-vis the US and China is complex on a number of levels. As many have pointed out, former US President Trump’s ‘blundering’ set relationships back with more countries than any US president to date.
Personally, I feel it goes back to the ASEAN Summit in October 2013 at which Barak Obama was due to be the ’Star Attraction’. Some will remember that he had to return post-haste to the US because congress couldn’t agree on the federal budget debt ceiling. China made hay out of this situation, which was the first intimation ASEAN would have that perhaps the US might not be that reliable a partner.
Then came Trump and withdrawal from:
- The Open Skies Accord (US signed in 2002) w.e.f. November 2020
- The Iran nuclear deal (US signed 2015, left 2018)
- The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, signed 1987
- The Paris Climate Accord (2015)
- NAFTA (but replaced with the USMC)
- The Kyoto Protocol (US signed in 1997)
- The Tokyo Accord
- TPP
- The WTO (effectively by refusing to ratify new judges)
- Not to mention trade wars with:
- China
- The EU (tariffs on 100 items, e.g. whisky, cheese)
Biden has yet to build/rebuild any bridges with ASEAN after well over 100 days in office. The closest he’s got is a meeting with Japan and South Korea, but given ASEAN’s population and economic power, he really SHOULD be doing more.
If the ‘Leader of the Free World’ is simply going to repudiate any agreement it likes (ignoring its trumpeting of the ‘rule of Law and Order’), one can hardly blame others for wondering whether it’s worth following them. Iran, waited a full year before moving ahead with its uranium enrichment in order to give the US and its allies a chance to sort things out. Australia seems to have recently repudiated an agreement with France (although I don’t have all the facts on this).
Now we come to China. The reality is, China’s HERE and the US is ‘over THERE’. No one knows if the US could (or would) sustain a drawn-out campaign (say to defend Taiwan). There are signals that this is the case, but talk is cheap. China, Korea and Japan (two of which are the US’ allies) are at each other’s throats still (mainly for historical reasons). Japan as well is now settling in under a new Prime Minister. North Korea is clearly testing Biden with both missiles and rhetoric, which Biden is quite rightly ignoring for the time being.
I suspect ASEAN would welcome more overt US intervention and leadership in the area, but the twofold risks are that China then puts the squeeze on anyone that does so and/or the next US president changes tack.
ASEAN is too fragmented and consensus-driven to be able to face China as one. China is a major trading partner for all, with Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia in particular benefitting from its largesse to prop up ailing economies and dodgy regimes.
On the IT/AI side, China is catching up with (or is streets ahead of) the US and again is on ASEAN’s doorstep. I suspect many who have Huawei tech in place will keep it (can’t antagonise them, after all). Whether they get US expertise in to help secure their data etc is another issue and they may be open to this. The US has a habit of asking awkward questions about human rights though; China doesn’t and none of ASEAN’s members are paragons of virtue in this respect.
There remains the question of whether a future US government would pull the proverbial plug on any support.
In short, a tricky diplomatic game is in play for ASEAN. We’ve seen what China does to anyone who annoys them too much (e.g. Australia and the Philippines over their ICC ruling). The US will have to work hard to convince ASEAN that it is serious and committed after the October 2013 debacle, the tantrums of 2016 – 2020 and (more recently) the Franco-Australian spat over subs. The US remains a divided country after the 2019 election and the storming of the Capitol, which lost it much of its moral authority.
In short, I feel that ASEAN is open to, but a lot more wary of, the US and will need a lot of convincing to back this horse again. As was said about Afghanistan, ‘America may have the watches, but Afghanistan has the time’.
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Leadership, Risk, Strategy
