The Global Entrepreneur as Ambassador

The Global Entrepreneur as Ambassador

by William R. Dodson
Conference Transcripts (published by AIDemocracy.org)
January 23, 2006

(Note: This paper is based on a presentation delivered at the conference on “Entrepreneurship in a Globalized World,” hosted by Americans for an Informed Democracy, Northwestern University, 13 November 2005.)The entrepreneur that strikes out into the international markets has more than just a responsibility to make money. She also has a responsibility to represent to other peoples the best parts of her home country’s society, language and culture. Being an ambassador to other countries though, is more than just an exercise for the savvy entrepreneur; it is a means to learn more about the societies into which the entrepreneur wants to develop markets. Realizing the Global Entrepreneur is as much an ambassador to other countries as a businessperson is simply good business sense.The realization is especially critical for American entrepreneurs, many of whom have yet to venture beyond the boundaries of the continental United States. At this critical juncture in globalization, when the competitiveness of developing countries is growing by leaps and bounds, it is important that American entrepreneurs seek to tackle the international markets at a time when the brands of American multi-nationals are on the decline due to foreign rejection of American foreign policy actions. Brand America: A Gap in Perceptions America and by extension Americans have a distinctive personality citizens of other countries readily identify. Many people around the world consider Brand America to include characteristics such as entrepreneurship, a kind of pioneering spirit, a wholesome, almost simplistic optimism. On the flip side, many people also think of Americans as being insular about world affairs to a fault, arrogant, loutish, and interested solely in their export of American products to the rest of the world without a quid pro quo.The Financial Times newspaper in its 31 June 2005 article “World Turning its Back on Brand America” opens with the statement, “The US is increasingly viewed as a “culture-free zone” inhabited by arrogant and unfriendly people, according to [a] study of 25 countries’ brand reputations.” The survey was carried out by The Anholt-GMI Nation of Brands Index. The author of the study, Simon Anholt, cited, “The US is still recognized as a leading place to do business, the home of desirable brands and popular culture. But its governance, its cultural heritage and its people are no longer widely respected or admired by the world.”Indeed, only about five cents on the dollar of the American federal budget is spent on public diplomacy. Public diplomacy is a government’s pro-active effort to communicate with other citizens of the world about a country’s core values. Further, educational exchanges between countries are fewer and farther between, in part because of tougher American visa restrictions and in part because of a prickly bunker mentality America has presented to the world since 9/11. American embassies around the world – typically the most visceral medium through which the residents of other countries interact with Americans – have restricted contact with foreign nationals. A former ambassador to the Middle East recalled once being asked why American women sleep with at least six men at lunchtime. Eventually it was revealed the Arab asking the question was an avid viewer of Baywatch and other US TV dramas. He had few other alternatives in the way of media portrayals of the way Americans really live.In conjunction with the evident ignorance for and attributions to Americans is the gap in perceptions Americans have for themselves in contrast with the rest of the world. The Anholt-GMI Study also cited, “…that the world takes a dim view of the US people will surprise most Americans themselves: the study’s American respondents consistently placed the US at the top of all six categories polled.” Categories included cultural, political, investment potential and other criteria. Enter The Global Entrepreneur “Right now the US government is not a credible messenger,” Keith Reinhardt, president of Business for Diplomatic Action, said in a Financial Times interview. “We must work to build bridges of understanding and co-operation and respect through business-to-business activities.”Curiously, the Global Entrepreneur does not have to actively do anything to be an ambassador of his country. He already is an ambassador, whether he likes it or not. It is human nature to take an individual from outside one’s group or tribe or nationality as representative of the outsider’s group. Governmental ambassadors have merely formalized a highly visceral form of interaction between groups with different interests and values; that is, governmental ambassadors have codified a rarefied language they use between themselves because over the last couple hundred years countries understand that most people do not know how to behave in front of others of another group. Also formalized is the natural response members of a group have toward individuals from another group; that is, to take the behavior of the one as representative of the behavior of the collective to which the representative belongs.So, as long as the global entrepreneur understands this fundamental human response while she travels to other countries hawking her wares, she will naturally fall into the role of ambassador; albeit not of the Foreign Services type.However, the accidental ambassador can be one of the most potent in building bridges of trust and understanding across societies. It is by dint of her informality and the true nature of her visit – ie, commerce – that the global entrepreneur can have a far greater impact on individuals and even institutions of another society as any professional ambassador. And it is precisely because the global entrepreneur does not move in as rarefied circles as governmental representatives that businesspeople can have a potentially greater impact on the perceptions of average citizens of a country.It is more than occasionally I hear in countries in which I have lived and worked, “oh, you are not what I thought Americans to be: arrogant, ignorant of our ‘Ways’”. Fully mindful I am an American, yet respectful and inquisitive of the culture and sensitivities of those who live in other societies helps me to build personal relationships with individuals I would not have an opportunity to otherwise. Personal relationships are important for the global entrepreneur since it is through personal relationships in most countries around the world – especially in the developing economies like China and India – that intentions are realized in government and in business. Personal relationships in the countries in which global entrepreneurs do business are also a key to gaining fresh perspectives on products and services that serve or promote local values and customs. The most knowledgeable buyers of a society are the citizens of the society. All societies around the world are molded by the specific geographic and economic necessities of survival and value fulfillment. Outsiders move into these well-honed organizations without the support of “insiders” at their peril.Listen and Learn The key to being an effective business diplomat – that is, more than just an accidental ambassador – is to actively listen to others of cultures different from one’s own. Then learn. Learning here is more than just taking up a book about the more eccentric aspects of another culture; instead, in this context, learning is a vocational activity. The global entrepreneur needs to shed his pre-conceptions about other cultures, and allow herself to be led through the culture. The entrepreneur needs to shed his pride and its distorting effects on the perception of another culture. The entrepreneur then must stand side by side the members of the other culture to listen, watch and then to practice for themselves – very much like the apprentice who learns his craft by working shoulder-to-shoulder with others.Most markets and societies in the world are not as rationalized as the American and Western European. Many of the societies – far older than that of the first world – are bound tightly by historic and linguistic ties that are difficult to fathom at a distance. Many of the same social and historic eccentricities leach into the workings of local economies, as well. It is nearly impossible, then, to penetrate the markets of most nations in the world without some semblance of internalized understanding and even identification with local customs and habits.An integral part of understanding the way of a culture is to learn and even to follow the way its members use various products. Here, a product may be something as rudimentary as the way citizens of a country clean their clothes. In China, Western clothes detergent makers realized a new market for soap bars when they understood that the vast majority of Chinese that live inland from its vibrant coast do not have washing machines. Instead, they scrub their clothes by hand in a wash basin: they rub soap bars on the clothes to help scrub away the dirt and stains. The consumer products company would have lost a huge opportunity to sell its product to millions of Chinese if the company had stayed with a product it felt was tried and true – in America and in Western Europe. However, by respectfully following local residents through their daily lives, by observing, listening and learning, the company was able to get a jump on Western competition in China.Another kind of product that can result from listening and learning the ways and means of citizens of another society is one that increases cooperation and communication across cultures. The global entrepreneur that represents his own country and then learns the ins-and-outs of another country is uniquely poised to bridge the two societies with products that facilitate commerce between them. A case in point is our own company’s recently released internet product: The China Industrial Park Online Directory. The Directory maintains information on scores of economic development zones throughout China that Western companies can search by region, type of zone and even industry. The product was the result of a team from the company traveling throughout China researching and learning about investment opportunities in towns and cities throughout China. It was actually Chinese government officials in several locations that independently suggested just such an online product!When the Global Entrepreneur understands the inevitability of trade and technological barriers coming down between nations, she is able to see beyond the walls that had limited business’s scope of activities. Now, with the make-up of staff of companies more multi-ethnic than ever before, with the lowering of barriers to travel and to communication, it only makes good business sense for today’s American entrepreneur to accept responsibility for his own society by becoming a welcomed friend in others.William R. Dodson is Managing Director of Silk Road Communications (SRC), a China investment research and development company. SRC has offices in Chicago, Beijing and in the Suzhou Industrial Park, near Shanghai. He lives in Suzhou, China. He can be reached at contactus@silkrc.com.