Before he left China for the United States for a meeting in February, Sebastian Schmidt, CFO of WindMW, a joint-venture company that owns one of Germany's largest offshore windfarms, recorded a song that he wrote himself. Titled We Will Win, it was meant to cheer his colleagues in China who were battling the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The lyrics went, "Chinese, Germans stand united/There's no way to get divided./Help each other through the night,/We will win the virus fight.''

"Music is an international language… Every time we receive teams from China or visit China, we sing together. Nothing can break the ice faster than singing together," Schmidt told Beijing Review.

His ties with China started in 2016, when the China Three Gorges Corp. (CTG), builder and operator of the Three Gorges Project, the world's largest hydropower station and clean-energy base, acquired an 80-percent stake in WindMW. It was the first acquisition by a Chinese company of a mature offshore wind power project overseas. Since then, the Sino-German collaboration has deepened.

In February, the CTG faced an unprecedented challenge as nearly half of its employees were working in Hubei Province in central China, where COVID-19 was rampant. The CTG's two subsidiaries were providing nearly one third of the province's electricity and natural gas and the supplies had to be continued even when the province was under lockdown.

Schmidt, who got his mother to videorecord the song, hoped it would give his colleagues in Hubei and others confidence and hope as they battled COVID-19.

A reciprocal reaction

In March, there was another "version" of the song. It came from another employee, Li Keyu, who was supposed to be stationed in Germany this year. The outbreak led to her trip being postponed and as Li coped with a suddenly uncertain future, she heard Schmidt's song. She said she felt moved, and then "full of strength."

When the disease began to spread in other parts of the world, Europe became one of the worst affected regions. Li, who was following the situation in Europe keenly, thought it was time to emulate Schmidt and create a song to show support for the German colleagues who were struggling with the pandemic.

She had written the Chinese lyrics of her song in no time at all but the English version was a challenge as she had never tried writing songs in English before. After more than a week, when she read a lot of English poetry to help her with the song, it was finally ready. "Holding on, surviving every storm, I believe in you and me, we will win./Hand in hand, let's keep on trying."—that was her response.

On March 27, the I'll Be There music video was recorded and sent to Schmidt for his comments. "I was moved by it," he said. "She has conveyed the message that nobody is alone. After we overcome the crisis, we plan to do a song together."

The interactions reached Wang Yu, Board Chairman of CTG International Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of the CTG. He said the company, committed to long-term overseas operations, has been advocating and promoting exchanges and communication between different cultures. This example of employees in Germany and China spontaneously writing songs on the fight against the pandemic to encourage each other reflects the group's concept of cross-cultural communication and its effectiveness, according to Wang.

Transnational management

Established in 1993, the CTG is famed for building and running the Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River. The group is also the developer of four giant run-of-river hydropower stations on the Jinsha River, the upper reaches of the Yangtze, in southwest China. Two of these are already operational.

At present, the CTG's overseas investments and contracting services cover nearly 40 countries and regions.

In the business world, there is a seven-seven law: 70 percent of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) do not achieve the desired commercial value, and 70 percent of them fail due to lack of cultural understanding. Companies often overestimate indicators such as capital and markets but ignore whether the employees adopt the new values and culture of the after-M&A company. The CTG has to consider many important factors in its corporate culture, including the differences in the nature of the enterprises, as well as differences between Eastern and Western cultures and in social systems.

During the pandemic, cross-cultural management and stabilizing production while ensuring COVID-19 containment measures have become urgent tasks for the CTG. When COVID-19 was at its peak in China, the group took a series of extraordinary measures, such as implementing closed management of production areas. Not a single frontline employee was infected. And before the full outbreak of COVID-19 in Europe, CTG Europe had, via the board of WindMW, asked its management to adopt prevention measures by taking reference of the practices in China.

Based on the actual situation in Germany, other detailed regulations were made vis-à-vis employees' daily commute to work, meals, emergency duties and sea operations.

"We formed a crisis management group consisting of the management board, and health and safety as well as operation executives, who held video conferences every day. The measures were meant to protect people and ensure the necessary social distancing to flatten the infection curve," Schmidt told Beijing Review.

According to CTG data, most of its overseas employees are hired locally in developing countries such as Brazil, Pakistan and Peru.

In addition to ensuring power supply during the pandemic, some water conservancy projects under construction face the twin tests of pandemic prevention and flood control.

Currently, under the general situation of fighting the pandemic across the world, Li Yinsheng, CEO of China International Water and Electric Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of the CTG, said the company respects all countries' prevention efforts and will integrate them with China's successful experience of fighting the pandemic to create"true transnational management" from the crisis.

(Original Title: Shared Harmony)

Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar

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