November 12th, 2006

HONG KONG

Chinese Leadership and its Challenges

Several nights ago I attended a leadership forum that featured business and political leaders from across Hong Kong. The guest list included business leaders and one of the primary contenders to be the next president of Hong Kong. Not only was I fortunate enough to have received an invitation, but two friends translated all of the night’s proceedings.

This was an excellent opportunity for me to develop an understanding of what Chinese culture views to be important in their leaders. In truth, it is much different from the west. This will tie into my previous post about the educational system in China, and how it develops self-focused individuals with less focus on team-oriented work.

Each of the speakers talked at length about the dedication and focus required of leaders. They also talked about making the most of opportunities, and never counting yourself out. While this is certainly valid advice for achieving success in life, it is only half the coin of leadership.

Indeed, the sole focus for the night was on what it takes to attain a position of leadership, rather than what it takes to be a leader.

To further clarify my point, there was only one speaker who said anything about working with others. It was very surprising because leadership by definition involves working with other people. It seems the culture focuses solely on the betterment of the individual rather than the betterment of the whole.

Such a mindset may be attributed to the poor social framework, and the gauntlet of examinations. The Chinese get ahead by looking out for themselves and maintaining an inward focus. Societal safeguards and support systems, all too typical in western countries, are virtually non-existent in China. Thus Chinese careers are built around working harder than one’s peers with an unparalleled work ethic.

This kind of strategy allows for a degree of success, but unless employees adapt a broader approach international companies will continue employing westerners as their top leaders. This is certainly the case right now, and it is a source of anxiety and frustration for many Asians who feel themselves superior in performance to their Western counterparts.

With regard to the politician, he was an absolute let-down. Completely lacking in the charisma that typifies American politicians, he was austere and altogether formal. Between forced smiles and a general look of disinterest (his only acts of engagement were to exchange business cards with the other speakers), it is obvious that he does not answer to the people. Instead, a “committee” (dominated by the Chinese Communist Party) appoints the president. Nevertheless, this sort of formal approach is the Hong Kong style when it comes to business. There is hardly any emphasis place on “taking your work seriously, but never yourself.”

November 10th, 2006

HONG KONG

A Quick Look Back and the Nature of Chinese Education

My six month anniversary in China has come and gone. Looking back, I never would have imagined I would be lucky enough to experience such a wild run of thrills. At the same time, I miss friends and family more and more as time goes by. In many ways, such fantastic opportunities have come at a price.

Of course, this will not stop me from studying in Singapore in the Spring. It will simply make me value the time I do spend with family more.

Nowadays, my life has leveled off somewhat as my studies have taken top priority. I find myself spending more and more time folded over textbooks in the library as I struggle to maintain the pace with the formidable Chinese students.

I am afraid I was unprepared for the difficulties of Chinese examinations. This is not to say that I have done poorly – I have scored well on 4/5 of my exams – but the testing technique is much different from the United States. There are only two tests for the entire semester, and the objective is to rank students rather than test their knowledge. Thus, doing well on an exam requires cramming as much information as possible and regurgitating it all for the test.

Additionally, I find that I must study everything twice. The first time is to remember all the useless jargon that will be covered on the exam, and the second time is to actually learn the material for the long-term. The tests concentrate on differentiating who has done the most studying, rather than who best understands the material. It is very frustrating because it is a classic example of storing information for a test, and then emptying everything afterward. It is little surprise Asian students are excellent at examinations, but relatively poor when it comes to analysis and application.

To provide more insight into the system, there is a severe shortage of academic facilities relative to students. Without an expansion of the educational system, which the communist party has been unwilling to do, examinations are necessary to determine who is able to continue studying.

As for the university scoring system in Hong Kong, all grades are based on a bell-curve. Hopefully the following example will demonstrate the negative results of such an approach:

Suppose Professor Einstein administers an exam to a class full of brilliant students. All score above 90% on the test, but because of the bell curve, the grade breakdown is the following: 10%A 25%B 35%C 25%D 5%F. Conversely, Professor Bush (sorry George) administers an exam to a class full of sub-par students. The mean of their scores is 60%, but because of the same bell-curve distribution, the grade breakdown is the same as Professor Einstein's class. Clearly, the students in Professor Einstein’s class deserved higher grades than those in Professor Bush’s class. There are many varieties of this situation, such as unequal student backgrounds because of different majors, prior education, and so forth.

Further, this type of educational system discourages cooperation between class mates, who must compete with one another for a finite number of A's and B's. There is no time to pursue extra-curricular activities for the students who want to be at the top of the class because the tests require an all-encompassing commitment to studying the most. Lastly, many students are “weeded out” at an early age (as young as 12) because they do not score well enough compared to their peers. I cannot imagine if I would have been subjected to this system – I did not start scoring well until I reached the age of 17 and began realizing what I wanted in life.

In line with my thoughts on the educational system, I will post again in several days about the leadership qualities produced in Asia. There is a lot of talk about how the United States will be overtaken in the future, but I hope to provide a more objective look at the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese leaders.