Othella Blog: Our July Guest Blog @TheFireside Garry Lea Global Triangles

Understanding culture and history is more important than speaking the language

From childhood I've always dreamed of traveling the world, and the universe!

I haven't done the latter, yet, but I've been fortunate enough to travel to many countries all over the world for both work and pleasure.

One of the first things I enjoy doing when I first arrive in a country is to visit the local supermarket. It's an excellent starting point to understand how people shop and what everyday life is like. What do people eat? What kind of electronics are sold? How much do things cost? When is the supermarket busy and who shops there? Additionally how do people dress when they aren't at work or presenting themselves to tourists and business travellers?

Above: Business trip to Beirut around 1998

I've always been interested in culture and history and even when I went to University so many years ago I was fortunate to meet and live with fellow students from all over the world. Sharing a meal and talking, well communicating, with them about their countries and the world in general was always a fascinating and inspiring experience.

I've never been good with languages but even if I was able to master one, or several, it still wouldn't be enough to speak to everyone on the planet and I have a great thirst to meet people from all over the world.

I've seen people that speak the same language perfectly yet be completely ignorant of each other's point of view or way of thinking due to a complete lack of understanding and respect of the other person’s culture and history.

It's pretty easy to hire translators when you need them but not speaking the same language hasn't ever stopped me from being able to make warm and wonderful friendships and business relationships with people from other countries. You can say a lot to each other without ever uttering a word.

My first foreign assignment was to manage a factory in South Korea, I was very young for the position and responsibility I was given. Especially for older people in South Korea, a Confucian society, where seniority by age is very important.

I'll freely admit I made many mistakes due to my desire to stamp my authority and the pressure from HQ to change the mentality of the 'locals' to work and think like 'us'. I did however read an excellent book on the history of Korea and try to respect the local culture and traditions whilst also trying to persuade and cajole the local workforce to respect the traditions and needs of the foreign owners.

Above: Celebrating 'Baek-il' of my son with friends and work colleagues, Korea, 2001. 'Baek-il' is traditionally celebrated 100 days after the birth of a child since historically when there was little medicine or medical knowledge this was the most difficult period to survive for both mother and child.

I became good friends with a young guy that worked for LG and I remember him once telling me a story about jobs LG gave to young graduates in the marketing department. The company sent them to the United States to live for two or three years. That was it, they received a salary to just live there!

I couldn't comprehend it at the time but looking back now it makes complete sense. South Korea, with the exception of the large American army base in the middle of Seoul, is quite a homogeneous country. LG wanted the future leaders of the company to shop in American supermarkets. LG wanted the future leaders of the company to understand and appreciate the culture and traditions of the most important market in the world.

Unfortunately, as living standards raised in South Korea, it was becoming increasingly uncompetitive to assemble there. Eventually I was tasked with researching the possibility of manufacturing in China.

Just 8 months later a location had been approved, staff hired and trained, equipment installed and the first container of goods left our new factory based in my new home of Qingdao in Shandong, China.

I believe that the biggest key to our success, and believe me it was an unbelievable success by all measurements with, as reference, my Italian neighbour having been there two years already and still not operating, was my team.

I chose Qingdao because the city was much more affordable than Shanghai but as a popular beach resort of Beijing residents still a desirable place for expats and highly skilled Chinese to live. It is the home of Chinese conglomerate Haier which meant a rich supply of local talent was available and a strong local supply chain. With over 3,000 Korean companies based there we had many direct flights to Seoul and a strong Korean community to make the location appealing to the Korean management I wanted to bring with me.

Above: Opening ceremony of factory in Qingdao, Shandong, China. March 2004

As one of the few 'Western' businesses setting up there we were attractive to local government who worked hard to get us to choose Qingdao and also a desirable company for locals to work for.

The first thing I did was hire local Managers and convince an extremely hard working and ambitious Korean that was my right hand man and friend in Korea to join me. The local government representative assigned to me was also young, intelligent and hard working.

With the right people everything else seemed easy.

In China it's common for factories based on the coast to recruit workers from inland that then live in factory dormitories. I chose to hire locals and I think we managed to achieve stability and be closer to the community by doing this. The proof is probably the very low turnover of staff we had during my time there and even now over 10 years later I know that many people I hired are still working there.

Choosing the right local people to work for you, or with you, is essential to be successful.

In 2005 I relocated to Mexico, the birth place of my wife, from where I helped the company I worked for to make two acquisitions in the United States and then integrate them into the group. It was around 2007 when I made a life changing decision to make my roots and set-up on my own.

With two young kids I decided that I would like to be able to spend more time at home with my family and, to be honest, I felt my children could have a better childhood growing up in Mexico than if we returned to the UK

The very reasons that I love living in Mexico are probably the same reasons that can make it so challenging starting and running a business here. But they are also opportunities.

Above: Here we go again! Aguagente, www.aguagente.com, my second startup in Mexico

(this time with a co-founder, Jean-Paul Ciantar)

To be successful in global markets you sometimes need to accept and even embrace the realities of doing business in different markets. You cannot always make people live and work the way you think they should because that's how it's done where you come from. It's easier for one person or organisation to adapt to the business culture of a country than to try and make an entire country change to the way you think they should.

But you also need to understand what your strengths are and what the local market perceive the strengths of your country of origin to be and use them to differentiate yourself from the local competition.

In my case I was able to build a small but successful business in Mexico based on quality, reliability and service. These strengths helped me to overcome my weakness of not being fluent in Spanish and my initial handicap of not understanding local business regulations, customs and practice.

Living here and making many great friends also helped a lot. I completely immersed myself in the local community and, in truth, made no effort to meet or become a part of the expatriate community that lives here.

In February of this year I sold my business as a going concern, after 9 years of operations.

I have recently co-founded a new business in Mexico and I am providing consulting services to several companies that have asked for my help. With my children now much older I am looking for opportunities in the UK or other parts of the world as I continue my journey of discovery of our exciting planet.