Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

The Price Of Success In The Middle Kingdom

2 years ago, I arrived in China for the first time. My spoken Mandarin was terrible and I could not read or write either. The mission entrusted to me was to (somehow) bring a large project to completion. Many regarded this project as almost impossible because China was ruled by 5 different warlords. Earlier attempts to go in by my bosses had been greeted with silence or frosty inhospitality. This is a problem faced by mega-sized MNC’s where power and influence is fractured over different regions and sites.

Since I had already completed similar large projects in Malaysia and Thailand, I was probably the best candidate. Therefore, I went in and found that our fears were largely true but success was not impossible. Bit by bit, I cracked China open slowly from a political, cost and strategic angle.

As of yesterday, my team and I finally achieved success. We had delivered the impossible country – China. To celebrate we had an expensive lunch followed by a karaoke session in the night.

Here is what I learned:

1. What separates a manager from a leader is vision, and the ability to share that vision with others. I kept a team of 5 people with me from start to end for 2 years (most people switch jobs after a year in China), because I had shared my vision with them and created a common goal.
2. The bosses who originally asked me to deliver China are no longer around. Their successors are also gone. I have outlasted 3 generations of senior management in these past 2 years. And yet the constant in this project has been me. So it doesn’t matter which VP or director leaves the company so long as the person with the vision has the commitment to continue driving efforts relentlessly. Without a constant leader, the team would have fell apart a long time ago.
3. GuanXi is everything in China. I built up working relationships with senior management in China so that they would support me in both good times and bad.
4. The only way to win the support and respect of senior management is to identify their problems and solve it for them. In short, be useful to differentiate yourself. Once you slay a few of their dragons, you have access to their thrones and can whisper into their ears at anytime.
5. Don’t expect any help from your bosses. If they could help me, they’d be in China helping me do my job – which is actually their job in the first place.
6. Treat everything as a chess game. Plan your moves in advance. Move your pieces and hope for the best. Flexibility is key when plans go awry.
7. Ensure the team is treated with dignity and respect. Reward them when they perform. Coach them when they fail you. Do not ask them to do anything you would not do yourself. Become the leader that people will want to follow to the ends of the earth. They will respond in kind by giving you their loyalty and sacrificing their personal time.
8. Stubbornness is a virtue. My success is shared by my bosses but failure is mine alone to bear. When I receive orders/instructions which I find to be of no value or harmful to my efforts in China, I simply refuse to obey. And I make it clear who is in charge. You got to let them know who is running the show.

So now I find myself in a pretty admirable situation. I’ve got a sweet office with a pretty large team. I have status and command respect. I can travel anywhere within the region at will. Politically, I’m in great shape with support from all four corners of the world. Life is good.

And yet, I should be but I’m not happy.

The original bosses that told me to go to China were the ones I admired greatly but they are no longer around. Success feels hollow because my current bosses don’t understand the tremendous effort and sacrifices made to deliver China. I feel very cheated because I wanted so much to scream out “Look what I’ve done, I’ve kept my promise to you” but the room is now empty.

Very soon, I will receive another promotion and be entrusted to greater things in my company. And yet that feels very irrelevant. There is nobody to mentor me and inspire me to do greater things. What I fear most is to become another impotent suit in an office.

I fear I must move out of my comfort zone and look for new challenges elsewhere. Soon.

congrats! will eat meepoktar later in honour of your success!

It was a great ride :) Thanks for sharing and congrats !!

thank you, Cowboy, for sharing this experience openly. it’s very timely for me to read too as i’ll be in some sort of a similiar position for my new job and HK + mainland is within the radar. what you’ve wrote will be a great manual for me to refer to in future.

i understand the loneliness you felt, that you’d like to show the leaders you admire of your achievements. i’m not in your position yet, but i’m thinking in another way…..

that the leaders you loved were most probably in the same position as you before, and therefore they moved on, to start afresh. but you’ve evolved, you may not need as much guidance as before already though i’m in no position to advice as i don’t know you. what i’m trying to say is, there’s a time where children grows up and leave the nest to be adults leading their own life and parents to release their grip. applying to a career stance, you could well have evolved into a leader, a “king” already so you no longer need a leader anymore. staying back in the company or not will be dependant on your career objectives, might it be good for you to talk it over with a career coach u trust or Jaywalk even?

i know tat u’ll know where to move on for your future, and i’ll continue reading your blog. keep up the great work, Cowboy! =)

congrats caleb!

=]

You earned it :-)

Congrats, on your survival. And yes, i agree of getting a new challenge, although the cushiness may seem more comforting, especially when you now have a family to provide for.

Its been great reading entries of seemingly dysfunctional lifestyle and wierd quirks. But we (your friends) know in real life, u are handling much more stress than what ur virtual namesake proclaims.

These are the struggles you would one day tell your grandchildren, in hope they too would be like you, to preservere (correct speelig?) and be humble.

Cheers bitch. =)

thanks for sharing. that’s an inspiring post. challenges can be addicting huh :P

Wow Cowboy… that entry tells me so much of you as a person, a manager and as man. You are certainly set for sainthood someday! And yes.. .you should be promoted and most certainly will move on to a new position with greater responsibility and better compensation elsewhere in the working world. You know I will do my best to help in any way I can.

P.S. what you can do is create a ‘roadshow’ presentation to explain what was unique about the project and lessons learned… a great way to advertise your accomplishments and your team’s.

Enjoy the celebration parties… you deserve it…

great post!! very inspiring..keep up the good work!! It’s great to see that you achieve success but not blinded by the successes at the same time. And only a handful of people really know how to communicate well with people and co-workers.

Cb has worked his way up from the lower levels, that is why he empathetic towards those below him. And i realize most people who worked up from the bottom tend to make better bosses than those freshly graduated and plunked into top decision making posts, they are generally blind to what’s going on at ground level.

Yeah I agree with Houdini. Hold some kind of seminar even? Heh heh.

One of your best posts so far Cowboy. Words fail to express the awe and admiration from this post, and for the man who blogged it.

I just might print this out and hang this somewhere.

Inspirational.

Looking for challenge, eh. You could manage Malaysia government. hehehe.

tis gg to inflate you bit
but you cowboy are someone i aim to be.

wow. This is truely inspiring. great article!

inprising and motivational. thks cowboy.