3 tips on Successfully Working with Taiwanese

To celebrate 18 years in Taiwan this month, I'm sharing three less usual tips on successfully working with your Taiwanese coworkers and clients: 

1. Although 'guanxi' is important regarding developing successful relationships, 'ren qing wei' is equally essential. This can be described as 'the human touch' or friendliness, and if you can get ren qing wei 人情味 right, a lot of things will work smoothly in business and in your daily life. 

2. You're most likely not going to be as detail-oriented and as good as execution, simply because the Taiwanese are generally excellent at both. This may sometimes cause you frustration, as it may appear as your counterpart is overly risk-averse. Learn from their strengths, and communicate in a win-win way over any suggestions or requests you may have for improved collaboration.

3. This last one is a little unusual, but I hear this again and again from Taiwanese who I know and trust: don't take advantage of the kindness you're shown. Taiwanese people are generous hosts, and very gracious to international guests as well as coworkers. The contradiction is that if you take this for granted without making the effort to reciprocate, although they may still show you kindness at face value, this doesn't mean they'll respect you enough to tell you what they think or feel. So, make the effort to level the playing field and be an equal. 

I've often likened working in Taiwan to peeling an onion: there are many layers to pay attention to, and it helps to be both attentive and patient. 

Finally, learning Chinese and making an effort to practice will help with all of the above three points. Although you may not be required to speak it, being able to will open many doors that you otherwise won't even know exist. 

Contact me here to set up a Discovery Call on how you can develop your own CulturalEQ communication skills for leadership and team communication in today's VUCA world.