On September 21, 2007, Thomas A. Debrowski, Mattel’s executive vice president for worldwide operations, met with Chinese product safety chief, Li Changjiang, in a scene of extraordinary interest to the global business community. The scene had been initiated by Mattel five weeks earlier, when the U. S.-based company began a series of re-calls of what would amount to 21 million toys manufactured in China. A Chinese businessman whose factory had used lead paint on a subset of the 21 million re-calls promptly killed himself, sparing the world yet another class action suit by lawyers representing the Coalition of the Unwitting.

While it’s good to initiate strongly in a scene, Mattel made the improvisational mistake of ignoring realities which had already been established during its 25-year-long performance in China. Namely that China now manufactures 65% of all the toys Mattel sells. Namely that the difference between what it costs to manufacture those toys and what Mattel sells them for pays for some mighty nice cars in the parking lot of its El Segundo, California, HQ; and pays for the media budget that helps introduce Barbie and Hot Wheels to new generations of kids. Namely that only one product out of the “10,000″ that Changjiang claims Mattel manufactures in China had a true manufacturing snafu, and everything else, as it turns out — the loose, child-choking magnets and the bad Barbie hair and such — were design mistakes made by Mattel. Its own engineers and toy designers had screwed up. The company nevertheless publicly derided its Chinese manufacturers. In so doing, they inadvertently established what would be at stake in this game: honor.

China entered the scene righteously indignant, and the scene went from the fence-mending that Mattel had intended into a one of the more humiliating scenes in recent U.S. business history where someone wasn’t being hauled off to jail.

I was struck by the staging of the so-called apology scene, which took place in Beijing. In a very savvy improvisational move, the Chinese established an environment for the scene that tells the whole story, no words necessary. I can promise you it’s a different scene from the one the Mattel PR department tried to script.

Look how many ‘obstructions’ sit between Debrowski and Changjiang. Let’s count: Two (2) overstuffed chair arms; one (1) table; seven (7) design ornamentations on chairs and table; four (4) microphones; two (2) teacups; two (2) saucers; two (2) bottles of water; one (1 ) flower arrangement containing at least twenty-four (24) flowers; two (2) translators. That’s 47 obstructions placed by the Chinese between them and Mattel for the staging of this scene!

Note the juxtaposition of the round and friendly sunflowers with the threatening, spear-like stems of the gladiolas. And note the body language of the two players in the scene. The staging makes it impossible for them to face one another. They are barely close enough to touch. Changjiang is clearly ticking off the sources of Chinese unhappiness. These are two people whose organizations are NOT reconciling, at least not here, not now.

Very much by design, this is an impossible setting for a ‘Kiss and Make Up’ scene. No, this staging is more appropriate for ‘The Paddle in the Principal’s Office’. It is ‘Your Dad After You Wrecked the Family Car’. It is ‘Your Lover After You Cheated on Him’. If Debrowski were Chinese, he’d probably have been in a garage somewhere, hooking up the garden hose to the exhaust pipe.

Judging by the number of obstructions the Chinese government put between itself and Mattel, this scene has a ways to go before it achieves the objective of peace between two organizations. In fact, as part of the ‘apology announcement,’ Mattel promised to build a $30 million Barbie Store in Shanghai. I hope Changjiang has children. They’ll be in toy heaven.

Improvisationally speaking, Mattel set itself up for a bad scene by denying a previously-established reality. Denial by a player in a scene disorients the other players and the audience. It leads to confusion and contentiousness. China felt an understandable need to clarify the confusion in a forceful way.

You could also say that Mattel pimped China earlier in the scene with its re-call announcements, by — intentionally or not, doesn’t matter — putting its scene partner in a bad light. Pimping leads to pissed-off, confrontational scene partners. It’s one of the worst sins an improviser can commit. Mattel did it. They pimped China. Their performance will suffer because of it.