Intel Lessons On China Business

The Wall Street Journal just interviewed Ian Yang, Intel Corporation's  Beijing-based co-general manager for Asia Pacific, on doing business in general and, a bit on doing business in China.  Entitled, "An Intel Leader Discusses His Lessons in the China Game: Region Co-Manager Yang
Works to Meld U.S. Ideas To a Very Different Culture," the article [subscription may be required] is part of the Journal's "Leading In Asia" series. 

Mr. Yang has been in China for Intel since the mid 1990's. Though most of the interview dealt with Intel and with general business issues, Mr. Yang's take on Chinese employees is instructive:

In the U.S., people tend to think longer term and strategically. They are very open and fast on their feet. I think a lot of time their challenge is in executing in a disciplined way.

In my last 10 years here [in China], my observation is that there are a lot of very hard-working, devoted employees. But they don't very openly share their ideas or thinking. It's not like they don't have it. But if they don't share it, a lot of times people will have the perception that "these people are not strategic."

But if you talk to them in their own language, a lot of times you're surprised about how much they know about the industry, the market, the issues facing the company, and what the company should be doing.

Basic stuff, but the kind of thing that bears repeating.