Working in China and learning to manage a Chinese team has got to be one of the most challenging thing I have to do so far in my career. It's challenging because in addition to the issue of lacking good talent I faced in Africa, the organization in China has grown to a size where chaos is much more difficult to get under control. Moreover, culturally speaking, the Chinese are much more delicate and sensitive than Africans to deal with. Perhaps it's because of years of evolution, I find that the Chinese pay much more attention to the "intention" behind the words rather than taking the words literally. The danger of this is that these "intention" is derived/speculated based on one individual's experience of another, and there is no way to validate if one's speculation is correct or not; so if one is not careful, he/she can be quickly misunderstood and a rift could be built between 2 people. Lastly, the one child policy seem to have create a generation of young professionals that (1) believe they are the best and smartest, even though from many perspective, there are still much room for improvement, (2) doesn't take criticism very well since they've been praised by parents and grandparents growing up, and (3) has a very different work ethic, having grown up pampered by 3 sets of adults. For the good talents, the abundance of job opportunities in China seem to perpetuate these beliefs; and for the not-so-great talents, there seem to be a way to simply refuse to accept the truth. Case in point, more than one incident have I heard cases in China where employees refused to get fired even though they were dismissed for proper reasons and in accordance to the labor law. People may still show up at the office to protest in silence, send threats to their supervisors, and sometimes policemen need to be involved. Sucks being a boss in China, right!?
Although I grew up in Taiwan, from a professional stand point, I am quite blunt and direct with my opinions - in another word, very American. What's worse is that I have a pretty high standard and require a significant amount of details to be convinced. This, combined with the cultural reality on the ground, is a lethal combination. Even though my comments are pointed towards the issue, part of me is pretty sure people are taking my comments quite personally. Slowly, my days begin to be filled with passive-aggressive conflicts, alignment and realignment, yet despite of my best effort to push things through, not much progress seem to be made.
So, what to do? How might I make the best out of a sub-optimal workforce and make them 'work'!? How could I find better people to work with me or make them better? A wise Taiwanese colleague responded to my challenge with an intriguing question: "which of your five fingers is the best one?" As he expected, I couldn't answer the question. "They are all different!" I said. "That is the point. Each finger has its purpose, and they cannot substitute the other. It's the leader's job to figure out when to use the index finger, when to use the thumb, so on and so forth." So, instead of trying to make everyone perfect, the best thing to do, might be to figure out what each person is good at, and instead of improving their weakness, utilize their strength. For example, some people are great presenters. Then make them present, but be sure you check what they're presenting if they are not good thinkers and can't come up with good contents. Others are great thinkers but cannot put their thoughts down on paper, then give them tasks to think, but coach them on writing skills. This theory makes perfect sense! It reminds me of books like Strength Finder, which I have reference in my past for personal development, but in this case, it's also quite applicable for managing people!
In fact, as leaders, it's not possible to be good at everything either. So we should leverage resources around us to supplement areas we're not good at. These resources could be our subordinates, but it could also be external agencies, people from other departments...etc., smart leaders get creative about how and where they get their resources and are quite strategic about it. Also, a good leader doesn't necessarily have all the answers, but he/she is good at mobilizing resources around him/her to maximize results. And to gain these skills, it requires one to spend time with people, and develop broad experience and "database" of different types of people and when they work best (similar to how many large corporations utilizes Myers-Briggs). For someone like me who are so accustomed to spending time dealing with "issues", while this is an obvious point, it requires a shift in mindset and focus that is still a work in progress.
Another interesting idea prompted by the "five finger" question is the idea of hiring a team vs. hiring the top talents into the company. Having a hand with 5 middle finger wouldn't be very helpful even though you've got 5 of the longest fingers. Perhaps sometimes mindfully hiring a team where each member complement each other would yield better results, especially when there is good dynamic between them.
I suppose at the end of the day, running a team is a bit like playing chess. Each chess piece has its function, and the player must decide how to use each piece to win the game. For the most part, a game is not won by a few super star moves, instead, a game is won through a series of moves carefully plotted by the player and executed by a "team" of chess pieces. It seems to me that having a true understanding of the strengths and weakness of the team and figuring out a way to organize them in an effective manner is half the battle to an organization's success.
Although I grew up in Taiwan, from a professional stand point, I am quite blunt and direct with my opinions - in another word, very American. What's worse is that I have a pretty high standard and require a significant amount of details to be convinced. This, combined with the cultural reality on the ground, is a lethal combination. Even though my comments are pointed towards the issue, part of me is pretty sure people are taking my comments quite personally. Slowly, my days begin to be filled with passive-aggressive conflicts, alignment and realignment, yet despite of my best effort to push things through, not much progress seem to be made.
So, what to do? How might I make the best out of a sub-optimal workforce and make them 'work'!? How could I find better people to work with me or make them better? A wise Taiwanese colleague responded to my challenge with an intriguing question: "which of your five fingers is the best one?" As he expected, I couldn't answer the question. "They are all different!" I said. "That is the point. Each finger has its purpose, and they cannot substitute the other. It's the leader's job to figure out when to use the index finger, when to use the thumb, so on and so forth." So, instead of trying to make everyone perfect, the best thing to do, might be to figure out what each person is good at, and instead of improving their weakness, utilize their strength. For example, some people are great presenters. Then make them present, but be sure you check what they're presenting if they are not good thinkers and can't come up with good contents. Others are great thinkers but cannot put their thoughts down on paper, then give them tasks to think, but coach them on writing skills. This theory makes perfect sense! It reminds me of books like Strength Finder, which I have reference in my past for personal development, but in this case, it's also quite applicable for managing people!
In fact, as leaders, it's not possible to be good at everything either. So we should leverage resources around us to supplement areas we're not good at. These resources could be our subordinates, but it could also be external agencies, people from other departments...etc., smart leaders get creative about how and where they get their resources and are quite strategic about it. Also, a good leader doesn't necessarily have all the answers, but he/she is good at mobilizing resources around him/her to maximize results. And to gain these skills, it requires one to spend time with people, and develop broad experience and "database" of different types of people and when they work best (similar to how many large corporations utilizes Myers-Briggs). For someone like me who are so accustomed to spending time dealing with "issues", while this is an obvious point, it requires a shift in mindset and focus that is still a work in progress.
Another interesting idea prompted by the "five finger" question is the idea of hiring a team vs. hiring the top talents into the company. Having a hand with 5 middle finger wouldn't be very helpful even though you've got 5 of the longest fingers. Perhaps sometimes mindfully hiring a team where each member complement each other would yield better results, especially when there is good dynamic between them.
I suppose at the end of the day, running a team is a bit like playing chess. Each chess piece has its function, and the player must decide how to use each piece to win the game. For the most part, a game is not won by a few super star moves, instead, a game is won through a series of moves carefully plotted by the player and executed by a "team" of chess pieces. It seems to me that having a true understanding of the strengths and weakness of the team and figuring out a way to organize them in an effective manner is half the battle to an organization's success.
Interesting blog. Here you have discussed the facts of the fingers on our hand. Thanks for sharing. Apart from this article, I learned about hammerhead shark which is the largest of all hammerhead species.
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