Leadership Expert Explains Google and China
March 28, 2010
In a project years ago, I had an opportunity to talk with individuals who were recipients of recognition for bravery and leadership. One of the take aways for me was the insight that many of those with whom I spoke just did “the right thing.” I recall that a fairly significant number did not remember their brave action too clearly. When I meet someone whom I have heard described as a “leader”, I wonder if that person is acting in an instinct manner or if the behavior is calculated. After watching one episode of “Monster Garage” with some of my goslings, one person said, “Jesse James is a natural leader.” I found that comment interesting then because this gosling was no strutting, taciturn, tattooed person. The gosling was a math whiz. A leader in math club maybe but not in the Monster Garage where vehicles with big engines were assembled in a very short period of time.
The write up “Views on Google’s Refusal to Continue Censorship in China” tackles this subject of leadership with comments from different business experts.
The author of one “comment” is a “business ethics expert and senior fellow at Harvard University’s schools of law and government.” The passage that caught my attention was:
Bill Gates is quoted as saying that Microsoft observes the laws of nations where it operates. If so, he hasn’t addressed the other side of the equation: important company ethics and values that can trump national law.
What I find interesting is that the cold, math oriented culture of Google is acting based on ethics. Microsoft, the aging giant, is acting based on following the laws of nations in which the company operates.
I am an addled goose, but it seems to me that if one does business in a country, one has to follow the laws of that country. When I visited Zimbabwe and was asked to pay $20 for an exit visa, I ponied up the money. I don’t have to pay to leave the US for Paris, but it struck me that the phrase “when in Rome” was appropriate. The guards with weapons also motivated me, but I decided to follow the “law”.
The notion that a person or a company can ignore the laws of another country is an interesting one, and I have to confess that when I was working for a law enforcement group in another country, I followed the “laws” of that country.
The alternative for me was not to go to that country or not to work in that country. Once I made the decision to go and work, then I bought into whatever the “laws” were. The idea that I could ignore the laws and still work in another country seemed like a child who wants to control the make up of a playground basketball team because he brought the ball.
Companies that want to make their own rules when doing business in another country and continue to generate revenue within that country for themselves may find the path forward strewn with obstacles.
In my own experience, the problems and some representative examples include but are not limited to:
- Long delays when any government form must be processed (some African countries)
- Difficulties in getting telephone or electric service (France)
- Delays or red tape regarding financial transactions (Brazil)
- Denial of access to certain institutional services (Saudi Arabia)
- Legal actions taken against a property, person, or commercial entity (China)
- Inability to obtain medical attention or receiving appropriate medical attention (Estonia)
- Bad luck when submitting government forms which seem to get misrouted (Japan).
Companies who are practical find ways to deal with the laws of a country in which they are doing business. I have seen with my own eyes a government worker in one country accept currency folded inside an official form. The purpose of the sweetened government form was to speed the process of getting a driver’s license in the country. No big deal in my opinion because that was how one worked the system. I was in grade school at the time and I understood how a company could fit into the “laws” of another country. Fortunately I have not been in this type of situation, but I understood it was a practical response in a particular context.
I find the notion that Microsoft’s doing business is somehow “wrong” pretty darned silly. The flip side that Google’s approach is “right” even sillier. A company has to decide where to do business. The idea that a company can define the rules and expect to operate in an unencumbered fashion is illogical. Even more interesting is that in some situations that type of decision can get someone hurt or the person’s family hurt. Some cultures have long institutional memories. My view is that I expect publicly traded companies to do what can be done within the boundaries of the applicable laws to build shareholder value. Your view may be different and that’s okay.
So read the entire Washington Post write up. Draw your own conclusion. Then ask yourself, “Would I refuse to pay the exit fee to leave Zimbabwe?” Visit the country. Check it out. It is easy to intellectualize when you are far away from a teenager with an automatic weapon in my experience. You might be a brave leader. I am neither. I try to figure out how to cope with the “law” where I am working. Getting arrested, beaten, or shot is not high on my list of 1,000 things to do before I die. A company is not a sovereign nation state. If Google were a nation state, would it not have a seat at the United Nations?
Stephen E Arnold, March 28, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Because of the international flavor of the item, I will report non payment to the Department of State, where one motto is “Diplomacy is our business.”
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4 Responses to “Leadership Expert Explains Google and China”
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Hey, this is pretty awsome, just finished reading your post, and now looking forward to more, by the way how long have you been blogging?
Great post. I just saw it on Twitter. How long are you involved in affiliate marketing?
Great post, more information on this would be appreciated. This is the sort of post I keep an eye out for thanks.
Eric Schmidt in a March 2007 interview with Judy Woodruff of Bloomberg TV in a document created at the end of 2008 http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en//press/podium/pdf/20070310_Eric_Schmidt_Bloomberg_TV.pdf
says that , in going into China, Google “ultimately decided to bet on the Chinese citizen” and that by operating there Google would be doing its part in helping develop “a modern and safe and peaceful China”.
An aside. Re:paying the exit fee to leave Zimbabwe
I recall John Corey in “Up Country” not exactly paying the entry fee to Ho Chi Min City. Plus he insults Colonel Minh and he doesn’t follow local laws and regulations or does so only marginally just enough to succeed in his mission. I think a lot of people bought and enjoyed this book and like Corey for his spunky integrity.
I think John Corey might have been the model for Google behavior in China. And since reality is stranger than fiction, it is still unclear to me why John Corey Google aborted the mission prematurely, although the threat of torture, or in this case, total infrastructure lobotomy, may have been part of it. I am waiting for a sequel. So far China 1 Goog 0. And, let’s face it, couldn’t Google afford to invest in readying for exactly this scenario? I would, after all, expect them to understand the world better than the President.