An American Manager in Hong Kong

When I worked in Hong Kong many years ago, I didn’t realize I was a manager from a culture with a Loosey-Goosey and Low Power Distance orientation managing subordinates from a culture with a hierarchical and High Power Distance orientation.  What I did realize was that my subordinates did not seem to be “thinking for themselves”, instead they seemed to be trying to guess what was going on in my mind.  They would tell me what they thought I wanted to hear instead of what they really thought!!

I spent several months “training” my subordinates to offer “there own researched opinions” rather than their guesses about my own opinions.

Today, armed with my newly acquired vocabulary of cultural differences, I understand what I was facing and  can assess the appropriateness and merit of my approach.

As someone who considers themselves to have reached the “Integration Stage” of cultural awareness, I believe the “right” cultural orientation to apply in any situation is based on the specifics of that situation.

When I worked in Hong Kong, I was working for a British-Hong Kong company with primarily British management and British style goals.  I also was in a position where I did not understand the nuances of the cultural preferences and etiquette rules of my subordinates and external customers.

Based on these specifics I believe I adopted the most effective strategy with my staff, which in this case was “domination”, that is, forcing, through repetitive training and constant mentoring their adoption of a more participatory style of cooperative decision making.

Use of the “domination” strategy was not all encompassing.  During meetings, where I was the only non-Chinese speaker, I often let my staff discuss issues in Chinese.  This had two beneficial affects:  First they were able to work through issues more rapidly; second and more importantly they were able to discuss issues without the stress of being seen to contradict their manager.