Carol A. Watson 

The client assignment that I participated in was Shanxi Huasheng Fruits and Vegetables Drinking Co., Ltd headquartered in Datong, China. The organization is a privately owned manufacturing company primarily engaged in the production of tomato drinks and paste sold domestically as well as in 20 foreign countries. The systems involved are the inter-organizational departments of production, product innovation and foreign sales and marketing departments. Externally, the farmers, government and foreign distributer systems contributed to the trans-organizational systems evaluated in the assignment. The CEO was interested in exposing his senior management team to American business management practices.

 

The initial assignment was a case study, which turned into five questions initially submitted to our team from the client contact focused on talent and performance management. Our initial project plan was for client relationship building followed by an engaging dialogue of core challenges to develop a meaningful approach, intervention and greater learning about the organizations business approach and culture. The results that followed included a client experience that often contradicted the expectations of Block Flawless Consulting process and the relationship building expected from the China business culture. The action plan was to elicit organizational discovery of the culture, values and business approach. We engaged with the leadership team on the strategy, processes, talent management, leadership styles and external stakeholder relationships based on the STAR model. We delivered a presentation on the change management processes, tools in response to the questions in the discovery and incorporated an intervention around goal setting.

 

The role that I played in the project was initial client lead. While we anticipated more of a dialogue and opportunity for relationship building the focus on the initial questions and expectations of the client of immediate responses to the questions rather than our anticipation of a linear, deeper dialogue intervention experience.

 

My personal evaluation of my performance included a test of an assumption about cultural expectations of gender and ethnicity in a hierarchical culture that is thought to be extremely relationship driven. Experiencing self as instrument in managing and leading the client lead discovery process reinforced the value of questions as interventions while learning and uncovering how companies name values and culture and the underlying understanding of the culture values and norms. For example, the company described the two most important motivating factors as spirit and material. How those two motivators actually show up was not what we assumed. The description of leadership was another example of discovery and learning to gain cultural clarity.

 

The client project reinforced the value of responding to my intuition. Reading a need to adjust the process and build greater confidence and courage to pivot in the moment with a client will be crucial to my practice point of view. Adjusting in the contracting process and experiencing contracting as a continual process rather than a linear and conclusive process shifted my view. The expectation of an open dialogue of discovery in a hierarchical organization limited our creativity and perspective in how discovery can be gained. We learned a more intentional and creative intervention process might have better achieved that discovery. Planning and inserting interventions for continuous learning in the discovery process rather than a linear discovery and delivery action plan would have resulted in greater results.

 

The team work process exposed planning and group dynamics that could have been managed better. Establishing group expectations, roles or shared leadership and an agreement to pivot and adjust with a dialogue of trust early in the team project will be crucial components in future client projects.

 

The assignment continued to refine my practice point of view. Valuing courage in the midst of potential unconscious cultural bias, courage to inspire and lead preliminary and continuous group dynamic adjustments and the courage to pivot in the moment by reading the client dynamics and intuitively building meaningful dialogue and understanding of cultural and organizational differences for meaningful transformation refined my view. The experience of testing and refining what is true in other cultures and what is effective in organizational theory and practice reinforced a practice point of view of being open to the unique and varied organizational cultures, personalities and dynamics inherent in every client engagement. Approaching engagements with curiosity, anticipating complexity, uncovering the trans-organizational dynamics and engaging in the humanness and personalities of both project team members and client participants regardless of level defined my greatest learning on this assignment.