The art of continuous improvement
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2009
1
3
134
Trip End
Dec 31, 2009
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Guangzhou,
Guangdong,
China
Saturday, January 10, 2009
A little background: As you've been able to tell from some previous posts, things have not been going so well for the project here. The other night, it all came to a boiling point when the senior managers from the supplier were not available for me to discuss(argue) about urgent action items. And one of the regular workers(I'll call him Zhang for this story) refused to try to contact his managers. This made me angry and frustrated because it limits my ability to get the project complete. I raised my voice at the Zhang out of this frustration (I apologized afterwards). And we discussed after the "why" of him not wanting to call his boss.
Zhang explained to me that if he agrees with me, that the work that is happening is incorrect. But he is not allowed to tell his boss that he thinks it is incorrect. If he does so, he'll be fired (And you don't want to be "fired" by the Chinese government). Now this is completely foreign to the way I think of my interactions with my boss. If I think something is being done incorrectly, I can (and am encouraged to) tell him. Then we can figure out what is the correct way, and work towards that solution. In my eyes, this is the only way to have a successful project. I also encourage people to tell me when I'm doing something incorrectly so I can change it. I'm all for continuous improvement.
I know that all orders and directives are a "Top-down" thing...no problems there. But if no comments or suggestions flow back up the chain of command, how is the project and the manager supposed to continuously improve??
So back to the new perspective topic...
Zhang can't give any input to his managers...not without endangering his job. Personally, I could never work for a company with a culture like that. I don't understand how anyone could really. If you are not valued enough for your employer to at least listen openly to your input, then there's no reason to work for them. But if Zhang were to try to quit from this government-owned company, the government could block his attempts to find a comparable job anywhere else in China. Talk about being stuck between a rock and hard-place...
On another note, Jacqui and I are leaving tomorrow! We've got almost all our shopping done and we only need to pack up tonite and we head to Hong Kong in the morning. Man is it going to feel extra cold when we get back to Glens Falls!
