Relationships

A friend recently told me that the difference between doing business in the West and the in the East, could be summed up in three Chinese characters : - 情, 理, 法 or translated to English: Relationship, Logic and Law.

When business people met an obstacle in East, they instinctively first turned to relationships to solve the problem. If this could not do the trick, they would resort to engaging a third party to arbitrate, using logic. It was only when this could not be done that they would turn to the law.

In the West, the order was always the other way around.