WSJ Interview with Lenovo CEO about cultural differences

WSJ: What kind of cultural issues come up between the American and Chinese sides of the company?

Mr. Amelio: Every day there's something. On both sides, you need to have great trust in your colleagues to know that their intentions are good, even though the words might not come out right.

In the U.S. and Europe, we have highly opinionated executives who like to make their voices heard. The China team tends to listen more and express themselves more thoughtfully. The Americans and Europeans need to know that if a Chinese colleague is nodding silently, it doesn't mean they're agreeing. We also have a program in place to teach our China team better confrontational management skills.

The Chinese team also tends to be very, very thorough -- and sometimes when you want to get something implemented, it's important to have conciseness.

Sometimes it's great to rally the whole team around something that everybody is interested in. Last week, we had an event where we brought in the 1992 Chinese Olympic ping pong champion, and had him play our executives. Our chairman is the reigning champion [at the company].