Good assessment. Shanghai is certainly rocking along.
I'm in Chengdu these days at perhaps China's fastest growing software community...not the biggest yet, but its the up-and-coming place to do software. Its next to impossible to get Chinese devs to share and collaborate in ways we're used to in the U.S. Frustrating to see so much held back. The culture of not willing to informally present/collaborate in front of others, even small groups of three to five co-workers, is a huge barrier.
There are exceptions. I hosted a start-up weekend last year in Chengdu and was pleasantly surprised at how well around 60 people collaborated and presented.
Perhaps some enterprising Chinese could come up with a form of "rejection therapy" that some software devs in the West like to use to get into selling their wares. I'm not sure what this would look like. Anything that would get people to practice informal/ad-hoc openness to learn that you won't lose face, not in a friendly environ, of which there are quite a few these days.
For those not familiar with what most Chinese experienced from the moment they set foot in grade school and prepped for from birth: You're praised for getting the answer "right and fast". Not only does nothing else count but is possibly counted against you. Your classmates laugh at you for being wrong. Your teacher scolds you for not quickly regurgitating the reams of facts and quick calculations you are meant to memorize. You're measured by test scores only. This "institutional" problem is compounded after college where they find themselves in rigid work environs. Again, measured for getting correct exactly what you are told to do and only that.
In my recent struggles, I've had to "join the system". My Chengdu employees are only used to being dictated terms and measured. So I'm trying to hack the system. I put in this quarter's performance measurement worksheets that they get negative marks for not participating. Don't speak up and volunteer some idea when I ask a question, lose points, which equates to losing money. You don't lose points for being wrong, but for not speaking up at all. Just having quarterly performance worksheets is foreign to me. But its not to them. So I'm turning it on its head and measuring behavior I need them to exhibit.
What to do when you're a progressive software shop in China that wants your bright and good-hearted Chinese developers to accept "Your free, fly as high as like. Experiment. There is no punishment for getting the answer wrong! Collaborate! Iterate!"
Its changing. Mostly for the better. From 2000-2002, with my first dev shop in Shanghai, it took me two years to get my developers to come out of their shells. 10 years from now, this assessment will hopefully seem foreign to a 20-something Chinese programmer. But until then, it ain't easy.
I'm in Chengdu these days at perhaps China's fastest growing software community...not the biggest yet, but its the up-and-coming place to do software. Its next to impossible to get Chinese devs to share and collaborate in ways we're used to in the U.S. Frustrating to see so much held back. The culture of not willing to informally present/collaborate in front of others, even small groups of three to five co-workers, is a huge barrier.
There are exceptions. I hosted a start-up weekend last year in Chengdu and was pleasantly surprised at how well around 60 people collaborated and presented.
Perhaps some enterprising Chinese could come up with a form of "rejection therapy" that some software devs in the West like to use to get into selling their wares. I'm not sure what this would look like. Anything that would get people to practice informal/ad-hoc openness to learn that you won't lose face, not in a friendly environ, of which there are quite a few these days.
For those not familiar with what most Chinese experienced from the moment they set foot in grade school and prepped for from birth: You're praised for getting the answer "right and fast". Not only does nothing else count but is possibly counted against you. Your classmates laugh at you for being wrong. Your teacher scolds you for not quickly regurgitating the reams of facts and quick calculations you are meant to memorize. You're measured by test scores only. This "institutional" problem is compounded after college where they find themselves in rigid work environs. Again, measured for getting correct exactly what you are told to do and only that.
In my recent struggles, I've had to "join the system". My Chengdu employees are only used to being dictated terms and measured. So I'm trying to hack the system. I put in this quarter's performance measurement worksheets that they get negative marks for not participating. Don't speak up and volunteer some idea when I ask a question, lose points, which equates to losing money. You don't lose points for being wrong, but for not speaking up at all. Just having quarterly performance worksheets is foreign to me. But its not to them. So I'm turning it on its head and measuring behavior I need them to exhibit.
What to do when you're a progressive software shop in China that wants your bright and good-hearted Chinese developers to accept "Your free, fly as high as like. Experiment. There is no punishment for getting the answer wrong! Collaborate! Iterate!"
Its changing. Mostly for the better. From 2000-2002, with my first dev shop in Shanghai, it took me two years to get my developers to come out of their shells. 10 years from now, this assessment will hopefully seem foreign to a 20-something Chinese programmer. But until then, it ain't easy.