East Meets West – Was Ray Dalio Right After All Regarding “Radical Transparency”?
Commentary: Chinese tech/business perspectives and how to own your performance improvement plan
Ray Dalio’s somewhat rambling “Principles” book adorns my shelf in my self-imposed exile, work-from-home recruiting office environment. Having chewed my way through much of it, I was never the less startled to come across a cross-reference in a recent 2020 article in Wired Magazine by Yiren Lu. Her American-Chinese (in this order on purpose in my review) heritage is on full display during her full, week-long immersion in Zhen Academy in Beijing. The purpose for her attendance was to better understand “China’s Tech Culture” from an American perspective, but what I took away was a more nuanced understanding of Chinese society, their professional class, and their perspective of self-actualization as leaders and managers in a corporate or entrepreneurial setting.
The course work was designed “to help entrepreneurs examine their own blind spots.” It was originally named the “Failure Clinic” – an unfortunate and less appealing marketing decision – and was geared initially to founders who lost at least $500,000 of investor funds in their startup. Launched in 2017 and well after the Chinese economy had made significant strides in establishing a middle class/middle income economy, the mission has found a more expansive following. The growth of the Chinese quest for self-improvement as their society and norms were rapidly evolving around them was fascinating to read about – in particular how the Chinese culture views giving and receiving (often very direct) feedback and how self-awareness leads to an expectation that you and you alone are expected to make the changes necessary to minimize your flaws so that your contribution to your team/company/family is maximized. The course has been broadened to now focus on this “improvement in self-awareness and how to avoid decision-making pitfalls.”
A couple of interesting take-aways that are in stark contrast to the American business world stood out:
- Know you are flawed – and you need to fix those flaws. Rather than solely focusing on playing to your strengths while downplaying or glossing over your weaknesses, this approach pushes you to make as many changes and improvements as possible because “society will not change so the responsibility is on you” to step it up and make it happen. There is no place to hide.
- Acknowledge your shortcomings openly – rather than avoiding them or ignoring them, own them. Instead of letting your insecurities build up, you can do something about them. That realization of your weaknesses no longer getting the best of you should be a freeing and productive feeling.
- Accepting open and direct feedback is vital – unlike in the US where you may think of yourself as independent of others around you, the Chinese perspective is that “your identity exists as the sum total of others’ perceptions of you.” In a way – its an instant and sometimes unforgiving 360. Finding that “equilibrium between your relationship with yourself vs. your relationship with others” is constantly adjusted by frank self-assessment and, when appropriate, that done by others.
The article left me pondering how and what we can learn from the Chinese model; much like Japanese Quality programs became the obsession of the 1980s in key industries, I wonder if Chinese performance management “best practices” will be imported and embraced by the increasingly diverse US workforce. Only time will tell.
As our global world becomes more global once again, it is imperative to think about your goals, your individual performance and how you truly need to own that yourself first and foremost. That is a common theme that both cultures can accept. Somehow – isn’t that how it’s actually been for quite some time?
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