We Are Different…Or Are We?

When leaders in Asian companies are comparing their working environment to Western firms, they often say, “We are different.” That is, the culture is different, the structures are different, the expectations are different…you get the idea. While there are certainly cultural differences between Asia and the West (and you really need to look at individual countries here, as each is different rather than following some common Asian culture), a lot of things that people say are different actually may not be.

When it comes to performance feedback, for instance, people in Asia may say, “We don’t like to give negative feedback; that’s just not the Asian way.” Guess what, folks: nobody likes that. Nobody enjoys creating conflict or making other people feel bad. That’s not an Asian thing, it’s a human thing. Saying that your performance feedback systems will never be truly effective because you’re “different” is a cop out; any performance feedback system, no matter where, needs to overcome the natural human inclination to avoid giving bad news.

Then there’s the concern about hierarchies vs independent thought. Many business leaders in Asia might suggest that flatter or less centralized structures won’t work here because there is a tradition of being part of a hierarchy and following authority without question. Well, you know, that’s pretty much what we saw in the US, too, up until about the 1990s. Any industrial economy is going to experience that sort of organizational culture because manufacturing requires coordinated efforts as part of a process far more than a creative endeavor does. As the US shifted toward a knowledge economy it had to be open to new structures, and if Asia wants to be successful in that same economic setting, it’s business leaders and employees need to be adaptable, too. What’s unfortunate here is that many of those leaders who push back against new ways of doing things seem to be trying to cling to whatever sense of power and authority they currently have, not realizing that the rewards for their business, and for them, might be far greater if they do things differently.

Many of the differences that leaders discuss often sound more like excuses for not changing. There also may be a point of nationalistic pride here, the idea that they don’t want to simply adopt what others have done. Countries in the West, though, have certainly adopted Asian styles of doing things, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. The most commonly read book in US business schools is Sun Tzu’s Art of War. The concept of Total Quality Management, a popular concept in the 1980s, was brought to the US from Japan. It seems like many people don’t want to admit they can learn from non-Asian cultures, while ignoring the fact that those other cultures have often been influenced by Asia.

“How different are we really in Asia, and how different do we really want to be?” Those are a couple questions that are worth asking.