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During the last 3 years we have interviewed more than 250 managers on different levels. The research included local and foreign managers, all working for Western international companies in China. The most common challenge for Western managers in China concern their local staffs active participation in meetings, sharing of ideas, taking own initiatives and proposing solutions in daily work; in short - Western assertiveness. Managers with short experience in China, sometimes interpret this lack of assertiveness as indifference, laziness, arrogance or even lack of intelligence. This is jumping into conclusions. We will look into how this misunderstanding arises and why.

Our definition of Assertiveness includes common business definitions and in addition:

• To approach others, speak up, confirm understanding and take initiatives
• To express and showing confident belief in ones opinions, claims and ideas
• To bring up problems and presenting solutions in front of peers and managers
• To constructively argue for a recommended course of action even if not yet certain if this is the correct way to move forward

It is easy to see that Assertiveness is a cornerstone in effective business communication regardless of geographical location or position in any company.

75% of the Western managers report poor Assertiveness skills and 80% report lack of pro-active behavior among Chinese employees.

The most important factor affecting how Assertive your local staff acts is strongly dependent on how close relationship they have to the decision maker in a situation. Many experienced Western managers have adapted excellent relationship building skills and have established trust with their Chinese employees. We find a strong correlation between the foreign managers’ experience in China and how Assertive they perceive their Chinese employees to be. See Graph.

In the graph we see that the level of Assertiveness increases among the manager’s employees with time spent in China. The manager slowly adjusts his ways to the Chinese way and the local employees slowly adjust to the new expectations from their Western manager.

What is it that prevents expected initiatives and Assertiveness to surface among Chinese employees? One reason lies at the heart of Chinese cultural traditions. To speak up and be Asserive in Chinese culture is mainly perceived as being rude and not knowing one’s place; especially to a leader, manager or someone with more experience. In the more individualistic Western culture, Assertiveness is a required tool for effective communication and development.

The Chinese typically have great relationship building skills with people they face and interact with daily. However, even when necessary to solve a problem, Chinese employees do not feel comfortable to freely contact all work colleagues, within a large organization. This inability strongly hampers the Chinese employees; especially to become effective international team players in multinational companies. Local employees prefer to go through their closest boss, supervisor or keep struggling to solve any issue within their specified team.

To overcome the lack of healthy Assertive behavior in the organization, the direct managers’ relationship with their employees is the most important factor to instill the new and preferred behavior. By understanding the cultural differences the manager can make this change faster. He will then be able to understand the issues the local employees are facing when trying to adapt to working in an international company.

- Tomas Gustafsson
CONCHIUS Limited - Facilitating Excellence through assessment and training with measurable results.