The Communist Effect- Why an MBA is Useless in China

Being a normal businessman, I always assumed that for a business to thrive it only needed a good business model, willing customers, some sort of value for the money and a hardworking team. In B school they talk to us about the importance of cash flow, corporate responsibility and increasing shareholder value. One of the most important things, I was told at a ‘stellar US ‘B’ school that is ranked at the top of its field” is that in addition to the afore-mentioned, culture is the key to success in international business. Working in China has taught me the fallacy of all these notions. For me, all that I learned in my masters classes is relatively useless for my business endeavors and could have been substituted with lessons on Communism, communistic philosophies and ideals. The reason is that in China, it is not about your business plan, it’s not about your ability to speak Chinese, nor your knowledge of their culture. Doing business in China is about first and foremost, finding the local official (read as communist) who will benefit or be harmed by your idea and placating that person. In china you will find a market, that is not your concern. The real issue is to find out what communist official you need to placate so that you are allowed onto the playing field first and foremost. If it is in their best interest to allow you to play, then you will. While this seems like a gross over generalization, then you have probably not done business in the center of toxic air, or have limited experience doing business within the confines of the communist lair. For instance, Amway had to convince the communists that their sales people would not in reality be proselytizers for the FG, that prohibited Chinese religion. In order to avoid this, the communist party had a heavy involvement in the approval process. At a personal level, I was involved in a start-up that ran into snafus at the local governmental level due to the product. Where it not for guanxi on the part of your humble author, we would not have gotten a patent. In my normal job, one of our most important roles is to ‘lobby’ certain people to assist us to have success- read this as you wish. Thus, after coming to China, I feel frustrated for having spent so many hours attempting to understand the relevance of the culture and its impact on the people. In reality, I’d of been better served by reading the works of Marx. I guess its much easier to design E-MBA programs diagramming the importance of Chinese culture and commanding people to accept business cards with both hands then to tell them the truth. To achieve success in China, suck up to a local official.