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Recently I met a communications professional with considerable experience in the Asia-Pacific Region, most notably with postings in Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai. He asked me about our work at Insidedge, and that led us to a conversation about how employee communications is “valued” in this region. Our experience in recent years has been that internal communications, like other disciplines in our field, has been perceived largely as a commodity in the East. The historic social, political and cultural practices of certain nations, and among their corporations, have led corporate owners and managers to be more “directive” and less transparent — telling employees what to do and investing limited energy in introducing campaigns designed to create engagement and two-way models for feedback and measurement.

The individual with whom I was engaging on this subject listened intently, looked away and said, “You’re right to an extent. But that’s changing now — and faster.” His response took me back to last October, when more than 200 Chinese and American business, advertising and communications leaders convened at the Intercontinental Hotel in Chicago to explore how China’s emergence as a world leader is affecting marketing, advertising, public relations, social and digital media — as well as employee communications. I moderated a panel of Chinese communications executives, and we tackled one of the more salient issues before us: As Chinese companies reach across global boundaries to acquire Western brands and gain access to their markets, how will this “new world order” alter corporate cultures and employee communications? Our panel was of a clear mind: The Chinese will look to the West for new talent to help them adopt American and Western models. Lenovo, the Chinese computer giant that acquired IBM’s personal computer business in 2004, is a classic case in point of East meeting West and becoming a heady blend of both, thanks to the infusion of new executives from North America and EMEA to help balance a slate of Chinese executives.

The Chinese have thousands of years of rich history, culture, knowledge and experience, but we know so little about it. Now the “Sleeping Dragon,” as this great nation is sometimes metaphorically described, has awakened. Napoleon once said that when the “Chinese giant awoke, the world would tremble.” For those of us in the West, this prospect may be unsettling because Eastern domination will require adaptation to what have been called “Asian values” — the most important  of which may be the precedence of the community over the individual. When East meets West, will worlds collide, or will we see yet another major movement on the axis of transformation? Time will tell.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 19th, 2010 at 7:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.