CROSS
CULTURAL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT: ZHENG HE/CHENG HO AND THE ART OF COLLABORATION
A good friend of mine is doing a course on Cross
Cultural Business Management at a well-known university in Asia. It made me
think of the interest spiked by globalization of recent years. The Online
magazine Strategy+Business occasionally has articles of cultural interest to
Business students/people. There is a parallel rise to in objectifying these to
the tremendous rise in our understanding of how our brains function. One
example would be Prof Ramachandran’s work on why and how are people attracted
to Art, whether a Picasso or Miro or the proliferation of “naïve” art brought
by backpacker tourism.
(what makes us think of Divinity when you look at the face above?)
The role of the anthropologist is to observe and
what my friend is doing is participant-observation. She can observe, analyze;
but that analysis is based on her experience in the field of business. Thus she
can advise people in “business” about cultural awareness to enhance the milieu of
transactions.
She is perhaps unique in her approach because of
her capacity for collaboration. In my field of Medicine, collaboration has
become the benchmark of quality, doctors are not judged as carpenters or
plumbers, orthopedic and urologic surgeons fell into the category in the past,
but are judged by their capacity to collaborate.
On my flight today I was reading an article
about changes in workspace. The new concepts of work spare in the innovative
world, does away with individual offices, If concepts like WeWork spread
through the corporate world, since they are darlings of Silicon Valley, a
presence would be formidable such as shown by their presence in Manhattan.
The writer had this to say:
What it means to work in this world today can be
summed up in one word: Collaboration
That brought forth thoughts about a mutual
friend, Dr. Ta Tan Sen, a tireless humanist entrepreneur from Singapore who
propagated the ideas of the greatest Chinese Admiral, Zheng He or Cheng Ho. He
has published a book (written by a professor of Business from Singapore
University): Zheng He and the Art of Collaboration. It is amazing to think that
600 years ago when the current business titans of the west were foraging in
forests, the Chinese Admiral Cheng Ho backed by his Emperor practiced Collaboration,
with the many cultures and kings and courts he came across. The cultures were
many and he was in the commanding position, much like the Business
Conglomerates of today. From small kingdoms and sultanates in Indonesia to Kenya,
from Indian Subcontinent through Straits of Hormuz, he was humble and offered
not to conquer or dominate but to collaborate and show them the gem qualities
of the Culture he represented. The objective was exchange and gifts and not
profit but the profit was not individual gain but a great contribution to
humanity, as he is remembered everywhere he had visited and to this day his
contributions, such as the Chinese Fishing Nets provide employment to many!
This after 6 centuries!
In my travels through poorer and developing countries
makes me realize how philosophical and forward looking was Fidel Castro when he
pronounced years ago that the Globalization would bring on poverty to many and
wealth to some. The gifts to the poor has been cheap polyester clothes and
latest style haircuts and to the rich, holidays in the west To this day the
rich from the poor and developing countries spend their money and time and
holidays in the richer countries of the west! Rather than the poorer sister
countries.
Like Zheng He, our Jefe Comandante, a latter day
Revolutionary was adamant about the negative aspects of globalization without
collaboration. To mark his 89th birthday, just recently, Fidel
said: Cuba is committed to goodwill and
peace in our hemisphere but added, “We will never stop fighting for the peace
and welfare of all human beings, regardless of the colour of their skin and which
country they come from.”
If you listen to the current presidential
contenders of the USA, any intelligent person would embrace Fidel’s view of
collaboration with the world, especially the developing nations, rather than
the conservative philosophy expounded by the politicians at the hopeful Presidential
level who want ME, much more than the WE approach to the world...
Just one example. The medical schools in the
USA, reflecting the conservative and capitalist philosophy of its graduates, do
not educate a single poor student from a developing country with the specific
intention of returning him back to serve his or her people. All foreign medical
graduates are kept for services in the USA. In contrast, Cuba a poor country
educates more than 20 000 poor students in Medicine alone so that they can go
back and serve their people. Just recently I was told that a native Ticuna
Indian had returned to his Amazon River home to serve his people, after his
studies in Cuba! 14500 dedicated Doctors from Cuba are working in Brazil,
serving people who have never had easy access to Doctors. I was told of a young
lady doctor who will work at the Indian community at Torrentins along a
tributary of the Amazon River which is 9 hours by boat from the remote small
town of Tabatinga in the Brazilian Amazon!
That is collaboration with a large dose of
Humanism
(travelling along the Amazon River under an overcast sky)
So, as the flight is about to land, I thank my
good friend MC and this romp through the Asian business and collaborative mind.
And Dr. Ta Tan Sen and his work to further the collaborative
work of the greatest naval admiral ever lived, the Chinese Navigator, Zheng
He/Cheng Ho
This photo of Tay Kak Sie Temple is courtesy of TripAdvisor
This photo of Tay Kak Sie Temple is courtesy of TripAdvisor
