An Observation

I just sent an old professor of mine an email with two observations I've made about the Chinese working culture.  I'm repasting it on my blog for anyone who might be interested in reading...

 

Just wanted to give you an update on what happened during the rest of the Shanghai conference: After I last talked to you, I had the opportunity to talk to 2 of the PR people who were at the conference - one from GM China & one from the states.  I talked to them about my feelings of the presentations - how it was very basic PR/communications knowledge.  Both their response were basically that they realize that as well, but they had to do it to present it for everyone else at the meeting (all public policy, tech people) - so basically, formalities.

 

One thing I realized about working in a large international corporation is that there are so much bureaucracy !  It seems like for even a simple decision, countless powerpoints have to be made.  After college, I thought my ppt days were over.  I was sorely mistaken!

 

There are two other things I picked up about the Chinese working culture, made more obvious by this meeting with the Americans.  For one, people seem so passive when it comes to making contributions or suggestions about anything.  For example, during the most crucial part of the meeting, when we were trying to start to establish a work plan for the project, most contributions were made by the Americans.  That's funny considering the fact that, after all, they are the newcomers who are relatively unfamiliar with China's situation.  Meanwhile, most of the Chinese colleagues were just sitting there, asking questions only when pushed to.  Mind you, most of the Chinese are very bright people in their own fields.  Even the big boss of the Beijing office mentioned this.  Similar occurrences takes place even in regular office meetings, causing many deer-in-the-headlight looks.

 

Another thing I noticed about China is how little people "think outside the box".  It seems like if employees here have done something that's been proven to work before, they're more keen to sticking with that than exploring other options which might be more affective.  For example, I am working on a ppt to present a new internal website.  Previously, they always had gif images of the website on the ppt itself.  I advised that it might be better to show them the website directly.  Needless to say, my idea was shot down.

 

I sat next to a Brit who worked for Volkswagen this summer on the plane to China.  He said that compared with Western kids, you'll find some of the most respectful, brightest, & diligent kids in China.  However, when it comes to finding leadership potentials, you'll be more likely to find that in Western kids their Chinese counterparts.  I remember reading an article a while ago on a very small minority of people are complaining that the Chinese school system stifles creativity.  I think that, combined with Confucian ideas of conformity, creates this current environment with problems like the ones I just mentioned.

 

I guess the moral of this email is just for you to tell your students how lucky they are to be brought up in an environment that promotes creativity, independence & individualism!  All this definitely made me realize that maybe an American education does kind of live up to its reputation - and that's why so many people in the world wants one!