Mongolia, land of contrasts

Mongolia is a country about which we know little or nothing in Europe. Yet many large global companies do business there. Eric de Sèze lived and worked there as director for Orano (formerly Areva). He agreed to share his experience and took us on a journey to the borders of Asia.

Mongolia, an extraordinary country

Before staying on post there, I had the opportunity to make several trips to Mongolia. My first impression came to me of a color, brown. It composed the landscape in a surprisingly uniform and homogeneous way. At the end of autumn, as grass becomes scarce, it is the color of the earth that stands out. And the blue too, that of a pure sky where planes seem within arrow distance.

Three times the size of France, populated by 3 million inhabitants and fifty million heads of cattle, Mongolia is an extraordinary country.

For example, the cliché of the yurt is authentic: 40% of the population is nomadic. A yurt is easily dismantled and transported on camelback, it retains heat in winter, coolness in summer and its interior represents a universe of culture and traditions.

Ulan Bator, the capital where the majority of expatriates reside, still bears the urban planning mark of the long Soviet presence. Since then, it is rather the absence of urban planning which has predominated: the 21st century rubs shoulders with neighborhoods of yurts.

All international products can be found in town. The luxury boutiques (Hermès, Dior, etc.) in the city center coexist with the wholesale markets. McDonald's is well established and chic restaurants are multiplying.

With the help of globalization, the entire young population is connected. Nightclubs transport you to London or Paris as soon as you walk through the door. Korean cinema is omnipresent. The opera offers concerts and ballets for ridiculous prices. Horse riding, golf, fishing, hiking, dog sledding and skiing ¹depending on the season: nature in its purest form, landscapes as a bonus.

^1stsnow: early October. Last snow: end of May. That is practically 8 months of winter and 4 months of summer, with very short inter-seasons. And it’s cold in Mongolia! But it is a dry cold, very bearable with a few simple dressing techniques (superimposition of thin layers, like onion skins and good insulation of the feet by a judicious choice of insoles). Despite the harshness of winter (-50°C in certain places, -40°C commonly and -25°C in cities), the speed at which all vegetation reappears within a month, in June, surprises. The meadows are then covered with the entire catalog of the most distinguished herbalists and edelweiss abounds in certain valleys.

Mongolia is also one of those countries where you wonder when you get out of bed what will happen to you during the day; it is the land of all surprises, the good ones, with outcomes quicker than you would have imagined, or the less good ones with low-level tangles. If you are patient, even very patient, everything will happen eventually!

Mongolian language

Ancient Mongolian writing is very beautiful and technical; it was the writing of the elites. Soviet colonization, wanting simple writing to disseminate its propaganda, introduced the Cyrillic alphabet in the 1920s. Alongside the tragedies of Soviet persecution, widespread literacy among the population was established, reaching a rate of 98% today.

The Mongolian language, far from Chinese or Russian, is available in Cyrillic in everyday life: you just need to learn the alphabet (which is easy) to be able to read Mongolian. More difficult is knowing what we are saying. If making yourself understood is relatively easy because the Mongols are very lenient, understanding in return what you are saying is much less so, and speaking well turns out to be much more technical, requiring long hours of learning.

It is interesting to note the excellent ability of the Mongols to speak foreign languages, even without an accent. I had colleagues who we could not identify on the phone as being Mongolian, because they were so fluent in French, English or German.

Traditions that endure

The Mongols are simple, welcoming people (nomadic tradition of the steppe) and cheerful (everything ends with songs).

They do not chase material wealth and live happily with few needs.

Mongolians in a professional environment

It is essential to properly integrate the cultural component and traditions to manage and advance your business. Everything is culture in Mongolia. Usages and customs are found in all aspects of everyday life, including in the professional environment with its own employees.

Surrounding yourself with a senior Mongolian adviser, known and recognized among your peers, opens many doors in the political sphere. It contributes to the permanent decoding essential for finding one's way, including in local networks (such as Chinese guanxi) which govern relationships between decision-makers.

Patience

Patience and pedagogy with its Mongolian collaborators produce certain results on the younger generation, especially since they are eager for knowledge, humble and aware of their level of learning.

Listen

Respect in listening and speaking: everyone in turn presents their arguments and points of view calmly, without interrupting each other, even if opinions differ. It’s still more practical than our French free-for-alls!

Decision making

No knots in the brain, guided by visceral common sense and without excessive intellectualization, the Mongolian interlocutors are capable of making decisions very quickly and moving on to implementation in the next moment.

The political world, on the other hand, is different: debates are practiced more for the art of debating than for deciding, and the best decision would be precisely not to make any. Patience, I told you! keyword in Mongolia.

Management

Dominantly paternalistic, tight management at the beginning with its youngest colleagues, then delegation of responsibility fairly quickly, with the establishment of mutual respect and trust guaranteeing the loyalty and dedication of its teams. It sounds old school, but this style should evolve very quickly with the return to the country of young Mongolians trained in foreign universities (mainly Korea and the United States). Change to come therefore in the professional world at least, because nomadism and life in the yurt still have a bright future. Mongolia, land of contrasts!

Mongolia, the Eldorado of courageous people

The “new country” side opens the way to any professional initiative. A growing country par excellence, it is the El Dorado of courageous, hard-working and volunteer people who will only have their imagination as their limit for success (and a little that of the local administration all the same, but be patient – ​​you know the refrain).

An authentic people, like their nature, very beautiful but with whom you cannot cheat, because it imposes its laws on you, the Mongols seek to live in harmony with those around them. Respect for people and traditions is the best guarantee of lasting relationships and the sustainability of one's professional activity in Mongolia.

Which does not prevent us from being sometimes severe. But if you are fair, you will be even more respected, because the real “Chief” (there is a real cult of the boss) must also know how to be tough. Managing then only becomes more subtle.

¹Ulan Bator acquired a ski resort in 2009, very well designed by a Frenchman, at the edge of the city.

²The common name for “desert” in Mongolian is “gobi”, hence the proper name.