Why rapport skills are vital to the success of a new business venture
The Sunday Times business section of 1st October has a fascinating story of how Mervyn Davies, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, succeeded in buying Hsinchu bank in Taiwan for $1.2 billion.
The article tells of how Davies and his team got to work as soon as they caught wind that the bank was interested in selling. In what has been termed ‘wooing the Wu’, Davies began creating rapport with Wu and his family, such that they could be considered a possible buyer. Being an international businessman he was very aware of how the strength of family ties in Taiwan can make owners reluctant to sell to outside investors. He realised that any approach would need a good degree of rapport building.
For 3 months Davies lunched and dined with the Wu family, getting to know them, their values and how they run their business. He found common ground between Wu and himself in golf and Harley Davidson motorcycles. Such was the level of rapport created that Wu insisted a sale could only be finalised if Davies agreed to accompany Wu on a long-distance Harley ride! Of course, he agreed.
Davies believes that a successful acquisition is down to the pre-work of understanding the people running the business, not in due diligence, and he is a great example from which many can learn. At Quadrant 1 International we have worked with commercial organisations who are struggling to make their outsourcing business in India work because they did not do the pre-work of understanding the culture and working practices of the caste system. If you focus mainly on process you are likely to be tripped up by cultural nuances. We have even come across some senior management teams trying to change these cultural nuances – of course they can only fail. The culture of a country is the one thing you will not be able to change – it is much more powerful than any corporate culture. The key here is to understand the differences and find a way to work together. This may mean you have to modify your goals and processes to fit.
Whatever business relationship you want to develop, it always pays to understand the people you will be dealing with, and create rapport with them. When you make assumptions about the people, or perhaps don’t even give them a thought, and rely solely on processes and plans; there is a high chance of becoming stuck in a people-related problem. When people do not see ‘eye-to-eye’, or begin to avoid each other because working preferences are very different, then solutions take a great deal of work and time to bring about. It is always better to get the relationships working first, hence building the foundations upon which business can be conducted successfully.
Rapport is not just important for international ventures, but also for national change initiatives. We know of one national high street retailer who invested heavily in store re-design and branding, expecting sales and profits to increase. Unfortunately they failed to invest sufficiently in the pre-work of understanding and involving their staff who would be expected to bring in the higher sales. The result, after a great deal of hard work, was some smart looking stores, staffed by the same people who did not know how to increase sales. They were given training, but too little and too late. When you have a great rapport with your staff they will go much farther to help you attain your business goals. Training is not necessarily the way forward.
If you are about to launch into a new business venture with people who you know little about, how are you going to put a solid foundation in place? How can you successfully change your business using people who only know one way of working? We can facilitate meetings to ensure you pay attention to important aspects of the people you want to engage with. We can help to facilitate your senior executives and suggest ways to engage your people and have them looking ahead positively to the changes you want to make. Orange Circle Thinking (OCT) is just one of the methods we have used to facilitate this.
We can help you to build foundations with relationships that will withstand business turbulence and make the most of challenges in your new venture.
David Molden
