Someone once asked me, and I quote:
“Sylvain, what about the behavior of 'losing face'? Do you see that? Do employees conceal their mistakes to avoid losing face and not admit them despite being told that mistakes are allowed for the learning process. What do you think? “
From my experience in China, there is one thing I have observed (and talked about) regarding “face”, and “concealing mistakes”. When an employee is facing a difficulty (obstacle, not able to solve a problem, can not find needed resources, etc) they will ask friends for advice.
In China (like many areas in Asia..), circle of friends; network of contacts, DEFINE an individual in China.
No connections = an individual is almost non-existent.
Helping each other is not only crucial for maintaining relationship, but it’s expected by everyone.
Those friends are most of the time outside the company, but sometime it's a friend within the company.
Remember what I wrote about MSN, QQ, and online chatting?
(in Part One) Well, this is one important use = for asking contacts for advice for problems they are facing at work.
Oh, and Chinese employees aged over 30 use MSN a great deal too, by the way…
So, to answer your question more specifically, in general, when an employee made a mistake, he/she might conceal it on a temporary basis, just to get some time to ask friends for advice. The hope is to try to repair that mistake, make things better, so that the end result is the one that was expected. Sometimes with some delay..
For us it sounds like concealing, for them it’s temporarily holding information until the mistake is solved, the goal is achieved.
So two pieces of advice here:
1. Tolerate the use of MSN, QQ in most cases. I’m repeating myself here, I know.
2. If a Chinese employee is not delivering results on time, then just sit down and talk about it PRIVATELY (make sure it is not done publicly). You will be surprised at how opened to discussions they will be, the great ideas they might have, and sometimes they just need a little more time to get the advice from friends.. Two heads is better than one! Just agree on pushing forward the due date to a reasonable time.
So, Chinese learn a lot from their network of friends and online contacts, a lot!
Sure, there is the question of face, reputation, image, and all that. But it all boils down to one thing, secure their position, secure what they worked for, secure their future.
Hope this will be useful to some of you, good luck!
Sylvain
