FAREWELL ADDRESS BY MS JILL COLLINS
AUSTRALIAN CONSUL-GENERAL IN GUANGZHOU TO
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE SOUTH CHINA
“Eight Rules” of Commercial Diplomacy
28 January 2014
Thank you Chris (Roberts, AustCham Board Member) for the introduction.
Thank you Kevin (Li, President of AustCham South China) for your perceptive summary of AustCham’s recent cooperation with the Consulate-General in Guangzhou.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It’s great to see so many familiar faces. Tonight is my final opportunity to address you as the Australian Government’s representative in South China. It’s been an honor to represent the Australian community here in Guangdong, during a short, but sweet, time as Consul-General.
Over this time, it has been my overriding priority to work with our business communities to advance Australia’s substantial commercial interests in South China.
Working hand-in-hand with Australian business, we have achieved a number of milestones in which AustCham South China has also been a key player. Most notably, the establishment and first meeting of the Australia-Guangdong Business Cooperation Council last month, has given us all a powerful tool for ongoing advocacy of Australian commercial interests in Guangdong.
But there is still much work to be done, both collectively and individually.
Chinese Numbers
As many of you know, I’ve been a longtime student of Chinese language and culture. Living and working in China has been a significant part of my life. As it is for all of you.
So, let’s all think back to the first time we learned a foreign language. What were some of the first words that we learned? - ‘Hello!’ (你好!) ‘How much?’ (多少钱 ?) ‘I’d like a drink’ (我要买啤酒!)
Learning to count is also one of the first things you learn in a foreign tongue – essential for paying for a meal, exchanging phone numbers, or understanding a bus schedule.
In China, numbers carry even more cultural significance. And there is no better number than the number eight. Here are a few reasons why.
- Eight is considered lucky in business
- According to Chinese legend, there were eight immortals with eight powers
- Eight treasure sticky rice is one of the most Chinese famous dishes
- Xi Jinping announced eight rules of official conduct last year
- In traditional Chinese medicine, there are eight guiding principles doctors use to achieve wellness, keeping body, mind and spirit in harmony.
That’s why I’ve decided to put together my own list of eight ‘principles’ that can guide us in achieving business success. I loosely call this ‘commercial diplomacy’, pointing to not only the work that all of you do as international businesspeople, but also our diplomatic connections with other governments and businesses in representing Australia’s commercial interests.
Just now I mentioned the eight principles of traditional Chinese medicine. Indeed, the human body is a complex system, perhaps analogous to a business network. According to Chinese doctors, in a healthy body, Qi - or energy - flows through the system free from blockages, and in a state of balance between yin and yang.
In business and the global economy, healthy economies also rely on uninhibited flows of goods and services, in a state of economic equilibrium. Unimpeded by trade barriers, business transactions can flow freely and profitably as part of an interconnected, balanced system.
So how does all this apply to commerce in China?
All commercial organisations are run by human beings. And all people have physical attributes that can be used to achieve ‘flow’ and maximize our business potential. By using all of our attributes and natural senses, we can work towards a state of greater balance, just as a TCM practitioner would bring a person back to health.
As a layperson – and not a business practitioner or coach - I have come to understand a series of basic, organic principles that have long guided me in my approach to working within organizations, and in my practice of commercial diplomacy in China. I’d like to share a few of these thoughts with you.
Principle Number 1: The Eyes Have It
The first principle I would recommend to any practitioner of commerce is to ‘Use Our Eyes’. Our vision is one of the most important senses that we have, one we use every day.
There are many ways to achieve business success by ‘using our eyes’. These include:
- Reading widely to understand the market in your business sector – what are the global trends? How might this flow on to your company? Your eyes are your window on knowledge you need to maximize success;
- Our eyes can help us ‘look out’ actively for new opportunities: sometimes they’re on your doorstep – or just over the hill;
- Use both your short-sight and your long-sight - design a long-term vision for your business, but also a short-term plan;
- Consider how your customer views you – put yourself in their eyes, to evaluate the strength of your marketing strategies and customer service standards;
- Read the fine print and look for the detail. Take care with contracts and ensure any legal obligation you enter into does not carry a risk of ambiguity if you end up in a commercial dispute – reading the fine print can prevent unnecessary losses.
Principle Number 2 – Hear With Your Ears
While what we see has a major impact on how we experience the world, we could not operate businesses effectively without ‘hearing’ effectively.
- Our ears are our best tools for listening carefully to our business partners, clients and customers – through listening, you give others a voice to convey feedback. Can you hear what they’re saying? Do they know you’re listening? Being responsive through listening can help drive business success. Some ways to do this might include:
o being active in social media, conducting surveys, implementing complaints procedures, training front-end service staff, and rewarding customers who refer you. Then they’ll really know you’re hearing them.
- Also, ‘lend an ear’ to the people on your team - your staff are key assets. Knowing you’re listening to their opinions and ideas can make an enormous difference to morale, motivation and efficiency – translating into better performance and results.
Principle Number 3: Open Your Mouth and say ‘Aah’
The mouth is undoubtedly also one of our most important assets, as it gives us the means to communicate. It helps us to:
- Engage in dialogue with clients, customers, suppliers and partners;
- Negotiate effectively– an essential part of life in the business world;
- One of your mouth’s best assets is its smile! Keep smiling, even through the tough times – others will sense your good intentions, and in most cases, return to you the courtesy and trust needed for positive business relationships;
- But remember also, you’re not Superman - sometimes you’ll need to use your mouth to ask for help, because you can’t do everything yourself. Build networks that support you in your business goals, and ask for advice from successful people that you can learn from.
Principle Number 4: Let’s Not Forget the Stomach
It’s perhaps a cliché that wining and dining is the most important element of doing business in China, particularly in Guangdong. As a diplomat in southern China, I’d be the first to acknowledge that Guangzhou is one of the best places in the world to ‘exercise the stomach’ over business! Enjoying gatherings over food and drink is a great way to get to know professional partners and win business.
But let’s not forget that the stomach has other useful functions. Other ways our stomach can help us:
- ‘Chewing over’ important decisions and ‘digesting’ information carefully before taking a major step – the stomach tells us not to be rushed into quick or risky decisions;
- In complementary medicine, stomach problems are said to be caused by fear and anxiety. We all know that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of the stomach in a frightening or risky situation. Those little butterflies in our stomach are telling us to be careful and prudent in our business decisions;
- But on the other side of the coin, as we say in Australia it also takes ‘guts’ to make a change or carry out a tough decision. So when a great new business opportunity arises, tighten up your stomach muscles, get gutsy and get in there!
Principle Number 5: Use Your Head
Where would we be without the head? The centre of intelligence and logic, and the place we accumulate knowledge and memory. Using your smarts is essential to business success. Use your head to:
- Apply the knowledge you have about your industry;
- Think over important decisions;
- Keep your business ideas safe – understand the rules around intellectual property so that all of the great ideas you generated with help from your head, will benefit you;
- Take risks – but sensibly. Your head can help you calculate the opportunity costs and benefits of a decision;
- When you have time to sit down and think, reassess and write down clearly your objectives for your business. Then, using your mouth, eyes and ears, communicate these goals to others in your team. Business success requires clarity of purpose.
Principle Number 6: Open Your Heart
These days, it’s common in the business coaching sector to emphasise the value of the heart in business.
For me, it comes down to a simple principle that my mother taught me as a child – treat people as you would like to be treated. That is to say, show care and concern for others.
The principle of heart can be applied to any business. Here are a few ways:
- Ensure your business activities reflect your personal values and standards. Decide what your business ethics are and stick to them;
- Win hearts: Corporate responsibility programs that benefit the broader community are a sure way to attract positive attention to your company;
- Consider your impact on others: thinking about how your business outcomes will affect others in your local community, the broader international community, or the environment, is another way to ‘show heart’, reflecting your values in a positive way;
- Don’t be half-hearted: a job completed is a job well done!
- Your organisation is a living system, much like the human body. Be the heart of your organization. Set the direction you want your business to flow in. And look after all the working parts - your team members are the arteries that can carry forward your business success.
Principle Number 7: Be Hands-On
Where would we be without our hands? Hands are the body’s soldiers, carrying out the instructions decided by the head in consultation with the eyes and ears. A few ways to utilise them?
- Be “hands-on” – being practical and industrious is a sure way to results. Guangdong companies are legendary for their practicality - in difficult times, local companies that are quick to react and change can survive the ups and downs of the market;
- Our hands also help us to get in touch with our creative side. While the head - through the imagination - can design what we want to achieve, only the hands can do the physical work of making your business dreams come true.
Principe Number 8: Those Feet Were Made for Walking
Feet (and not just the boots on them) were made for walking. One Chinese friend of mine, now a successful businessman, told me that when he was young, he never missed not having a BMW. Every day, he happily took the ‘number 11 bus’. And recently, I met an entrepreneur who started his career walking the streets as a tofu salesman.
In business, everyone has to start somewhere, and that's where our feet can help us. So, it’s important to make full use of them:
- If you’re considering starting a new business, or moving into something unfamiliar, the principle of ‘crawl before you can walk’ is a powerful one – every new idea starts small, and grows.
- Explore every pathway: our feet were made to explore, which can lead to exciting discoveries. Experiment, let your feet take you to new places. Where would we be if the inventors of the telephone, wi-fi or the iPhone had decided to walk down the same road as everyone else?
- Take the difficult track: sometimes, the shortest or flattest road may not deliver the results. You might need to climb a steep slope or even backtrack. Here’s where your feet can help you.
- Feet were made for walking, but they can also run, jump and sprint. Let them be your running mate. As your business expands, your feet will run alongside it, but you set the pace.
- Go the extra mile: a piece of advice if you're not feeling motivated about how to achieve a particular business outcome – close your eyes and imagine your feet walking towards that goal!
- The most effective managers I’ve ever worked with spent a lot of time walking around the office every day – being highly visible in your organization, doing the ‘walk-around’, will maximize your effectiveness.
So there you have it - a lucky-eight series of simple concepts, from a layperson’s perspective, on bringing success, balance and ‘Qi’ into your business activities - with the help of a few of your natural assets. I hope some of these images might stick in your mind!
Once again, thank you to the staff, the Board and the members of AustCham South China for your ongoing cooperation and partnership.
I wish you all every success in the future.
Thank you.