Meetings in China Are About Relationship Building

Personal relationships are vital in China and they are built with meetings. I’ve found that working with unknown people or organizations a tiring process that is rife with suspicion， scams， delays and failure. China is still in its Wild West stage of capitalism where ambition is king and many shortcuts are taken and contracts broken at the first opportunity. Most meetings in China are just formalities and a huge waste of time but a necessary due-diligence tool that discourages scams and reneged agreements.

Don’t be put off if your meeting doesn’t go according to plan. Often times you’ll meet at the conference room but then immediately head out to a restaurant or massage parlor. Chinese are remarkable at speaking in length about a subject without actually stating anything definitive. I’ve sat in on long meetings where was actually discussed should have taken 10 minutes or could have been done with an email. Be prepared to talk about your chosen issues but do not be disappointed if they never get resolved or even addressed. The only guarantee is you are going to meet people.

Given the casual nature of meetings， you’ll find yourself in an uncomfortable position if you’re concerned about professionalism. I am usually asked awkward but well intended questions about my sex life and other topics. Don’t make it unnecessarily awkward by getting defensive if this happens. Asking a question like that implies comfort with you and should be viewed positively.

Don’t worry about getting drunk as it happens more frequently than you’d imagine. I was once trying to meet with some officials on a business trip and they passed me off with entry level people. The next day， those I met with returned to the office with hangovers and stories of our night out on the town and suddenly the senior officials were making personal introductions. Being the person who drank too much and said or did all the wrong things is far preferable to the being the person who spoke cautiously and just exchanged business cards and handshakes.

Localizing your persona for China is essential having a successful business trip. If your official job title doesn’t infer you have a lot of influence within your organization then it may be beneficial to order a new set where Sales Rep is changed to Vice President of Sales and so on. The real potential problem of having a pedestrian title is that China is very hierarchal and they may be hesitant to waste time with someone who is perceived to be powerless. Taking on a Chinese name is very common advice but not at all necessary and it’s quite easy to choose a name that has negative connotations.

Most importantly， you shouldn’t be concerned about making a faux pas due to language and cultural differences. Nor should you worry about learning a basic phrase or two. It will be viewed as cute rather than honorific when you garble out those words. People often do it and get complimented afterwards so they put it in their guidebooks but you will literally be complimented when you fart as well and oddly nobody is advising that. Foreigners are given a free pass in China and the only expectation they have of you is that you are different – mission accomplished! Even the most dedicated practitioners of stringent business behavior will not hold you to the same standards they’ll hold other Chinese businesspeople.

Most common business advice about China is dated to another era， hedges on the side of conservatism and no longer exists nor applies to foreigners. Everything you do is going to earn praise so some people literally think they did things perfectly， label themselves an expert and wrote highly misleading guidebooks. Just relax， be yourself and go in with no expectations other than to try to get to know the people you are meeting. Meetings will often seem like a waste of time and resources but without them you’ll find yourself working with people and organizations that don’t care about you or any agreements you’ve made together. Without the personal interaction you are just a paycheck that will be exploited at the first opportunity.