Questions for Potential Leaders Out There

Work Working in Taiwan
1

I dont know what thread this topic might belong to, but Ill try this thread to see if this topic has any revelance to Living in Taiwan…

My company is working on a very important project. This project is probably the most important project currently going on right now for us. There has been some problems though. It seems like Taiwanese engineers have this habit of not admitting mistakes and taking responsibility. For example, Taiwanese engineers will be working on their portion of this project and problems/bugs will arise. The engineer would then not admit the problem, but instead accuse someone/something else of creating the bug. The engineer would say the problem would be within hardware or someone else’s code instead of admitting their own code might be the source of the bug. This then would cause a lot of bickering within the team. The project leader would bring the problem up in a meeting, and ask the group members on how to solve certain problems, but noone will really take responsibily. Everyone would then just sit there, not knowing really what to do. There seems to be a lack of communication within our team. To complete tasks and projects, members have to perform as a team. This in turn will create a much more efficient product. People have to be willing to work together and “fight” together to complete the work, but there seems to be an unseen split within the project team. The project manager would then ask “So now what do we have to do to solve this,” and noone really know what to do. They would sit there in uneasy silence. It seems like the engineers are afraid of taking resposibility. As a westerner, how would you solve this problem? What would you do in this situation if you were the project manager? A colleague of mine told me that during his college days, even as a masters student, he only had one, and I mean one, group project. That might explain the uneasiness and distrust within taiwanese engineers when working within a team. I am wondering about your views on this subject, and how you might be able to create a more efficient, harmonious team given this situation. My uncle once told me Taiwan has a much harder time creating big companys like AT&T and Motorola because they do not have the ability. I am beginning to see why.

P.S. I am not using this forum to solve certain problems with our company and will definitly not bring up any ideas (even good ones) up because I am a mere peon right now. I am just curious how a manager with a western mindset would think about this.

2

This sort of mentality is also seen in the Taiwan government agencies. Each have their own rules and procedures, and there is no cross-agency coordination. If an applicant (for some government services) is caught between the conflicting regulations of different government agencies, no one will help him . . . . . . in fact they will say that it is his problem to work out as well as, or in whatever manner, he sees fit.

When I wrote about this matter in a newspaper column here in Taiwan a few months back, I received email from several engineers working in Taiwan who talked about the same kind of issues that you have raised in your posting above. They spoke of paying attention to “feedback within a particular sub-system” and noted that there was no attention to “feedback over the entire system” or words to that effect.

My wife studied in Japan, and she had friends in medical school there. Formerly, when dissecting various dead animals, the students were required to locate various organs, veins, tissues, structures, etc. and when working on these projects as “five individuals in one team” it was found that students who found relatively hard to locate items first would hide them . . . . so that they alone could receive the score for locating that item.

Later, the teachers directed this issue directly, and the organization of these dissecting groups was changed to “one team of five individuals”, with the score being given on a group basis, based on group performance. So . . . . . if everyone has located and examined the left side heart valve (as an example), and sketched it in their books, then that is a passing score. If only four of the five have examined it and sketched it . . . . . . then the entire team gets a failing grade.

So . . . . . . . this sort of methodology suggests that there must be and incentive to work as a group, in order for these people to function effectively as a group. Normally, we think of an incentive as a monetary reward, which would be divided among group members, but one supposes that other forms of remuneration might be devised . . . . . depending on the company culture.

I also note that in the performance of Taiwanese students in the local schools there seems to be very little incentive to work as a group . . . . . . unless you count “copying each other’s homework” as a good example of coordinated group activity.

3

[quote=“thechu17”]

P.S. I am not using this forum to solve certain problems with our company and will definitly not bring up any ideas (even good ones) up because I am a mere peon right now. I am just curious how a manager with a western mindset would think about this.[/quote]

I would quit and not waste my time and energy with these clowns.

4

That problem is not unknown here, but I guess that you know. I have seen western managers handling it by firing the worst offenders, go ballistic at regular intervals, and finally quitting, as they got too frustrated. You are up against a deeply ingrained culture, and it’s very hard to change the way people act. You see that kind of behavior on an individual level, you see it on a company level (we don’t admit mistakes), and you see it on a national level here.

I would handle it by being straight to people on a one-to one level. Tell them that I wanted things done that way and that I needed their inputs. (Make sure to give a big amount of face). I would not do that on a group level, but on a one to one level. If things did not improve, I would use controlled rage during bigger meetings (but beware, has to be done very sparingly) - especialy when not expected by the employees, so as to shake them out of their set ways and concepts of handling errors and faults.

5

It is my opinion that Taiwan has an ongoing management crisis. Efficiency and effectiveness are all to often lower priorities than face and personal interest.
The fact that low wage income workers are now imported and given nearly slave status only intensifies the problem.
If I were you I would do the same as hundreds of thousands of the most competent and capable locals have done.

6

what would the uberclass do?

create and get it running by the world’s best. when all the bugs are out and things devole down to repetion ad nauseum, ship the work offshore. use taiwanese for what they were created as: competent factory hands.

have you read the dilbert book about the future?

7

I think that this in not a problem endemic to Taiwan. I have noticed this problem many times in the States. It’s management’s job to get people to see the big picture and work for the common goals. Make sure people know that they won’t be fired or censured for minor mistakes.

8

I saw some issues in your post. And sorry, this is from a Taiwanese mindset.

  1. Someone has bug in his/her code and no one wants to admit it. And the project manager can’t do anything about it, namely, (s)he is not able to find a solution to detect (or have it detected )where the bug belongs to and therefore not able to find out the person who is responsible for it. Are the engineers discouraged or encouraged to admit their own bugs in that office?

  2. The project manager asks about possible solutions from his/her engineers but no one knows what to do, and he can’t encourage the engineers to talk or brain storm.

  3. All the engineers are probably newly employed, so they don’t know how to solve problems or work as a team.
    Otherwise how the company is able to survive till now? But then again, is the project manager capable enough of pushing and leading such a team?

  4. Or, as opposed to the above point, the engineers somehow don’t like the project manager, so they don’t want to contribute their ideas. Why? Is there anything that the project manager can do or try to change the situation and hostility?

I’m not in the engineering field, so know nothing about the bug detecting process. I just speak out what confused me in you post. Also, I think if a manager tries to look at his/her engineers in different perspectives, like to see their individual strengths as well as their individual weakness, then it may partially help him/her to know better how to make most of his/her engineers to accomplish a goal. My guess is the project manager is not well-experienced. But it doesn’t matter, everybody has his/her firt time.

9

Good questions B.B. Here are the answers to your inquirys.

[quote]1. Someone has bug in his/her code and no one wants to admit it. And the project manager can’t do anything about it, namely, (s)he is not able to find a solution to detect (or have it detected )where the bug belongs to and therefore not able to find out the person who is responsible for it. Are the engineers discouraged or encouraged to admit their own bugs in that office?
[/quote]

When a person writes code, the person will write their segment of code and then test their code with other components of the product, such as hardware or other segments of code. This process is done in many intervals. Therefore if things go smoothly, then the project will proceed to its next step. If a problem/bug occurs within a particular segment, the manager obviously cannot debug this problem by himself because the manager did not create the code that may have caused the bug. Engineers are definitly encouraged to admit their own bugs. If they do not, there could be potential for serious problems and inefficiency. Communication is key.

[quote]2. The project manager asks about possible solutions from his/her engineers but no one knows what to do, and he can’t encourage the engineers to talk or brain storm.
[/quote]

Yes that is true. There is a lot of bickering and finger-pointing that goes on instead of productive brainstorming.

[quote]. All the engineers are probably newly employed, so they don’t know how to solve problems or work as a team.
Otherwise how the company is able to survive till now? But then again, is the project manager capable enough of pushing and leading such a team?
[/quote]

The engineers are not newly employed. Like I said before, this project is probably the most important project currently going on for our company. These are the senior engineers with the most experience in our company. The funny thing too is that the same team worked together on an equally important project a couple years ago having the same manager. These people are our best and brightest.

[quote]Or, as opposed to the above point, the engineers somehow don’t like the project manager, so they don’t want to contribute their ideas. Why? Is there anything that the project manager can do or try to change the situation and hostility?
[/quote]

The project manager is a very respected figure in our company. Have you heard of the Apple XRaid Server? Our company is the brains behind that product. The manager is the brains behind the team that created that product.

I hope I answered some of your questions. [/quote]

10

The project manager would have to work with the engineers on a one to one basis, making sure that they understood what the goal was in a setting, where the loss of face would be small. If Taiwanese lose too much face (IE being yelled at too much), they are going to walk out on you.

11

In our company, we keep telling people that it is a BIG loss of face for them when we get problems with the customer because they didn’t do their job right. But it doesn’t account to loss of face when they admit little mistakes or ask us when they haven’t understood something. Maybe you could remodel that concept for your purposes?

Iris

12

[quote=“iris”]In our company, we keep telling people that it is a BIG loss of face for them when we get problems with the customer because they didn’t do their job right. But it doesn’t account to loss of face when they admit little mistakes or ask us when they haven’t understood something. Maybe you could remodel that concept for your purposes?

Iris[/quote]

Did id work for you, Iris?

13

I’m not sure about the mistakes :? But for the not understanding something, most of them grab that after some time. It’s usually very obvious when something hasn’t been understood, so we’ll confront them in the end, anyway, and they know that.

Iris

14

Hi there,
I think I have a good idea of what your problem is. In short … lack of process. Process refers to all the rules and procedures of developing your product, from document templates to coding standards to meeting schedules, bug tracking, progress reporting and so on. Here’s why I think your team might be lacking some of these:

[quote=“thechu17”]Taiwanese engineers will be working on their portion of this project and problems/bugs will arise. The engineer would then not admit the problem, but instead accuse someone/something else of creating the bug.
[/quote]

Herein lies your biggest problem. If there were sufficient process in place, an engineer would never have to admit to his bugs or accuse others. The design documents would contain a clear record of how things are supposed to work. The testing procedures would identify what is not working as it is supposed to. The bug tracking system would assign the bug to an engineer, not because he is necessarily the one who caused it, but because he is the one responsible for a certain functional area.

It is the nature of engineering to create bugs. Not just some engineers do it, ALL do it. Conversely, if an engineer is not producing bugs, he is probably not doing anything. Talking about bugs should not be a witchhunt, and it should not be focused on pointing out who caused them. It is rarely the case that a single bug will bring a project to its knees, so if the talk turns to singling out problems and trying to find the culprit, this is usually a sign of problems elsewhere, namely with lack of process.

Another major issue. Problems are usually not solved in large group meetings. They are solved in small groups, with an engineer consulting with his peers (read: other geeks, not management), often over lunch or during a coffee break. You said that your project manager is a big-shot veteran of a US company. If he uses this to create a cult of personality around himself and earn respect, then it might work against him, because the lesser engineers will be intimidated to speak up and share their ideas. Regardless of that, trying to solve problems in group meetings will not work. He should instead realize that the real purpose of group meetings is to (a) raise team morale, (b) talk about process.

I have these suggestions to improve your process, if you already do some of these, great.

  • Hold design reviews, code reviews & bug reviews with clear goals. They should be as small and short as possible, with minimal management to reduce the pressure. The project manager can but doesn’t need to attend all meetings. This fosters team work and sense of responsibility.

  • Make sure you use a good bug tracking system, to track all issues and assigns them based not on who’s to blame, but on who’s responsible.

  • Restrict large group meetings to morale building (rewards, birthdays …) and to talking about process.



15

That was a damn good, informative reply, Mangalica. Just to clarify a little bit, the project manager is also an engineer who is involved in the building process. Also, the Apple XRaid Server Raid Controller, or the “brain” of the Apple XRaid Server, is created by our company. The manager is not a bigshot engineer, but rather part of our company’s family. He is a manager because he is a damn good engineer. I just think he needs work on his management skills.

Damn good advice Mangalica.

16

[quote=“thechu17”]

[quote]
. All the engineers are probably newly employed, so they don’t know how to solve problems or work as a team.
Otherwise how the company is able to survive till now? But then again, is the project manager capable enough of pushing and leading such a team? [/quote]

The engineers are not newly employed. Like I said before, this project is probably the most important project currently going on for our company. These are the senior engineers with the most experience in our company. The funny thing too is that the same team worked together on an equally important project a couple years ago having the same manager. These people are our best and brightest. [/quote]

Actually I was just being sarcastic about that. In your first post, you said it like it’s all the engineers’ fault, and like that the manager is not a bit responsible for those situations at all. That’s why I said they must be newbies, otherwise how can “irresponsible team players” like those engineers you referred to can help a company survive for long, assuming your company is not a start-up.

But your sincere reply made me a bit guilty being sarcastic!! Darned!!

17

I think management and social skills are in short supply here. Anybody who expects Taiwanese to be vocal at a meeting without alcohol present is somewhat clueless in my opinion.

You don’t have to be in a management positon to have effective management skills, but you need those skills if you are going to be an effective manager. This is where social skills come into play. It can be worthwhile to take time out of your busy schedule to chat up someone on your team for no apparent reason. This is called building social rapport. The problem is a lot of people see this as a waste of time and in some instances it is. The thing you’re looking for though is to increase comfort levels so that information is shared in a non formal manner. People let things slip that they might not say in a larger gathering.

Chinese have everything decided before the meeting takes place, bringing up something different just pisses them off. The meeting is just to let you know how things were decided and to give you a chance to agree with it peacefully. I would see you as painfully naive if you asked questions that you really wanted answered at a meeting with a majority of Taiwanese. I’m not slagging anybody, but you have to know how people operate. I go to great lengths to avoid situations where my fellow employees are asking for me to be fired(like they did with the guy I replaced).

I find strong-arm tactics can work, but build up resentment thereby reducing future effort on the party being strong-armed. Fellowship and an ability to get things done are important. I would suggest a reading list for your manager of the following:

The Prince by Machiavelli(sp?)
Thick face, black heart
Chinese local elites and patterns of dominance
Influence: Psychology of persuasion
Art of war
36 strategies
24 filial stories
Stillwell: The American experience in China
Men who hate women and the women who love them

These books will help you better understand what you are dealing with and how to get things accomplished.

I would also go with the clear system of rules that are fair and clear. To avoid the lack of process that Mangalica brought up these need to be addressed up front clearly and explicitly. Nobody screws up badly when they can be held accountable for it. Gettting to do something then becomes the hard part. This can be accomplished by the social rapport that I mentioned earlier.

Okami

18

Tha chinese won’t admit responsibility? :shock:
I never noticed.

Has anybody ever tried to get someone to admit liability in the USA?

Here’s a story I’m fond of telling:

I neede to make a call to my bank in New Zealand from my home in California. The bank provided a number that I could call ‘collect’, so one evening I picked up my phone and dialled the code for a collect call, followed by the number.

The response was an automated voice telling me that my call could not be connected due to problems with my account.

Start stopwatch. Call the local phone company (Pac Bell) and learn the following:
a) They are routing my LD calls through my old LD company
b) Yes, I have told them three times that I have changed LD company, and they have failed to reprogram their computers accordingly
c) My old LD company has closed my account and can no longer carry my calls.
d) My old LD company cannot re-activate my account in less than 24 hours.
e) The local phone company can put in an order to change my LD company, like they have done 3 times already, and I can try again tomorrow.
f) NOBODY can carry my call right now because my call MUST be routed through a company with whom I no longer have an account.
g) The fact that my bank will be billed for the call, not me, is of no matter.
h) I can go outside, find a call box, and make my collect call no problem - but I can’t make a phone call from the comfort of my own home because someone else has repeatedly failed to their job.
i) My new LD company cannot carry my call because it is not routed to them by the local company.

And on, and on, and on. I refused to give up, out of sheer bloody-mindedness, and spent 54 minutes being transferred from one ‘customer care assistant’ to another. Everybody was very keen to pass the buck and get someone else to deal with this ‘impossible’ situation.

I managed to remain (fairly) calm and polite throughout, until the miracle happened. *** I got connected to someone who didn’t know or care who was at fault. *** Why I should be speaking to a telephone operator in Alabama I will never know, but she cut me short when I started with my story and asked me which LD company I wanted to use for this call. I told her I didn’t care, and she connected me.

Simple as that. The solution, which I had proposed a dozen times already, was not implemented because of, well you tell me.

Oh, and my bank took 30 seconds to solve the problem that had been wreaking havoc with my life in the USA for several weeks. I didn’t have to deal with any of the crap or lies that Washington Mutual were feeding me to disguise their own inadequacies.

19

Taiwanese / Chinese not taking responsibility… :unamused: The scourge of my professional life… although personally I perhaps have a slightly different angle on this “cultural undercurrent”… i’m the director of international sales for a large company that does OEM manufacturing of mid to high end mountain bikes, freestyle, touring, racing, trekking bikes, etc. and our market is worldwide, specifically n.america, europe, Australasia, Latin america, china, etc.

The problem is that our 1,500+ employees in Taiwan/china/hong kong are all overseen by two general managers who are both Taiwanese… queue massive problem, enter stage left… both of these guys are constantly making decisions about purchasing, production schedules, acquisitions and internal policy and with alarming regularity these decisions turn sour, and create “problems”… the critical issue is that both of them react by finding the closest sub-ordinate, place absolute blame squarely on his/her shoulders whilst claiming absolute amnesty themselves, and consider the problem well dealt with… they give new meaning to the phrase

20

You could also find a western company to work for.

That sounds familiar to me - I am in a similar position and find it fun to watch, but hard to stay our of, when the blame is to be shared out.