Leadership

Summary

Eagerness to explore my opportunity, when I find out that the General Manager position at my company was opened in the China factory location. Without hesitation, I recommended myself to this position. With my ego, I convinced my manager that my experience oversea and past track record in sales management, I believe I have potential and that I would be a suitable candidate for this role in aligning the company’s objective for internationalization. The consequence was positive. But in this one year and a half, it did change my paradigm about China. In the beginning, holding the western mindset in the Chinese society has in fact been holding me back to progress. This paper reflects my experience in adjusting to an environment with a different culture. My journey was a cultural shock and paradigm shifter.

My Background

I was born in Hong Kong raised in Canada. Having spent half my life in Canada, I still adopt Confucian principles into me from birth. I believe that one should respect ritual, cultivate wisdom, be trustworthy, and strive to do the right thing in any situation. Talent alone is not enough to achieve greatness. Hard work and self-discipline can make the difference. I speak fluent Cantonese, can read and write a broken bit. However, I am labeled as a “banana,” yellow on the outside, white on the inside who has little Chinese value.

Like regular kids, growing up in Canada I tried my best to fit in and hang out with the cool people. I only hang out with non-Chinese, Canadian born Chinese or “Banana”. I was ashamed to be categorized as part of the “Chinese community” and chose to attend high school in New Westminster, a “white” dominated community, rather than Richmond or Burnaby. In fact, I have never fully adapted to any of the countries I lived in. Carrying a dash of culture here and there, I sometimes struggle to finding what it is that makes up my identity. I am termed as a “Third Culture Kid” (TCK).    

After completing my tertiary education majoring in Economics, I returned to Hong Kong and started my career in the manufacturing industry, working for a small and medium enterprise (SME), selling LED light to overseas market. The firm is Hong Kong based, with factory located in China. The primary language used at work for daily communication with customers and my colleagues were English and Cantonese. From time to time, my job also required me to communicate with the factory side, to checking production schedule or other issues that might rise. I speak basic Mandarin, but luckily the advent of technology using email has resolved many problems I had in conversation and dialogue with my colleagues in China. And it did get frustrating at one point that I was receiving hundreds of email per day. The protocol was used like QQ, China's largest instant messaging service. I refused to install QQ, because whatsapp is the dominating app in Hong Kong and North America. I believed this was my status and I refuse to give up.

At that time, I was doing exceptionally well in my job achieving every sales target and optimizing customer satisfaction. Soon after, I was promoted to a sales leader position, assisting the management team to execute business plan and setting an example to other team members. My ego grew overtime. In particular, I was the only one at that time with an international background. I was so proud to be the only HK Canadian with a western mind; I believed that was what defined my success.

It was a small company. I understood that I had limited opportunities to move further up. Eagerness to take on new challenge, I immediately applied to the General Manager Job posting when I receive the email via intranet. The job position overall responsibility was to oversee the firm’s marketing and sales function as well as the day-to-day operation of the business, stationing in Huizhou. Prior to my application, this GM position in the past has high turnover rate. I have constantly been hearing people talking about how making business in China is hard. My approach was to assimilating the Western management concept in the Chinese working culture; it will bolster performance in China. Even with my lack of experience, my hard work will make up to it. The CEO, who I have met couple of times was very interested in my international background. After few meetings, he was convinced that maybe bringing someone in with a different diversity would lead to improvement in decision making. However, he also had doubt, as this would be the first time, to putting a young female with a Western background in such an important role. He was willing to give me a probation period. I was given the job as an Assistant General Manager, directly reporting to the CEO.  

Cultural Shock

I was so excited about the opportunity. But the cultural shock I was experiencing was inevitable. Huizhou is a newly developed industrial area like Shenzhen twenty years ago. I was happy to explore the Austria village on the weekend and try the special local product tofu pudding. After one month, the “honeymoon” stage was over. I was struggling in the new environment. The cultural environment in the factory was like a gated community with their own housing, grocery store, internet bar, restaurants and etc. Everyone shares the same lifestyle, working from 8am to 6pm, with two hours sleeping break in between and was expected to stay overtime after work. There were rules to the uniform should be worn. White collar worker in the assembly line must wear a yellow color shirt. Others were those of a blue-collar worker in the office with blue colored shirt. Managers were not required to wear any uniform. But to entering and exiting the factory site, everyone was required to obtaining a pass. Lunch and dinner were provided in a buffet style with meal plan varied according to your title. Everything becomes odd. Nobody really understands me, because my Mandarin was not good enough. I like my egg poached instead of boiled. I like my bread buttered and toasted instead of steamed. I like to dress to impress. Nothing was the same. I was arranged to stay in a VIP dormitory with hot water restricted. Wifi was just too slow.  There were hierarchy rules heavily imposed in the system and everywhere. Holding my Western pride and coming from a liberal country, the feeling of anxiety creeps up. I was homesick. The second week I started bringing my own food from Hong Kong in a suitcase. I was hiding in my room to avoid eating in the crowd. I felt alone.

Meeting my New Team

I remember during the first meeting, when I was introduced to the group. I was expected to make a speech, to tell them about myself and my experience. I told the CEO that I cannot speak Mandarin, so I made my speech in Cantonese instead. Although I was not sure how many people understood me, but I clearly remembered that my script was approved by my superior and rather rhetoric. In the second meeting, I was very stressed that the meeting was eight hours long. And most of the time, the CEO was doing the talking. Sadly there were a lot of things I did not agree. I tried to give my input, but was asked impolitely to keep quiet and accused that I was being disrespectful. After the meeting, my colleagues were all talking to each other, trying to clarify what was being told and that most of the assigned task did not make sense to them. I was frustrated. But through observation after meetings, I understand that the problem was that they were very used to the “parenting style” of management, being told what needs to be done is the culture. They were an implementer.