Pacific Partners Weblog

I wrote previously about the need for Westerners in

Let me touch on Asian-style networking in this article.

In one of my recent consulting engagement in an Asian country, I had an awkward encounter that centered around what I term ‘a difference in cultural expectations’. We were recommended by Westerners in the HQ office to the local management to assess the local skills and benchmark them against a global standard. Being very objective, we did what was necessary and the results showed that the local skills trailed significantly below the global benchmark. During the executive meeting where we summarized the findings to both local and Western managers, one of the local VPs branded us ‘bananas’.

Asian-style Networking