Teaching Chinese R&D Managers

Letter from Shanghai The culture that defines effective and ineffective R&D management practices is universal and to a great degree independent of country culture, at least as far as managing R&D in China is concerned. I base this conclusion on my recent experience in teaching four groups of industrial R&D managers in Shanghai, China, in December 2005 and June 2006. When I was first approached to put on a workshop, I had several concerns. The main one was how much of the R&D management best practices that I teach in North America would be applicable in the Chinese culture. Another was the language barrier. I don't speak or understand Mandarin. Thus it was with some trepidation that I accepted the invitation to teach. The language barrier did not prove as difficult as I thought it might. A majority of the workshop participants had a working knowledge of English and I was provided with two-way simultaneous interpretation. Thus when participants were asked to post on flipcharts the results of their group discussions in response to the open-ended questions posed during the workshop, it was not uncommon for the answers to be written in English. The biggest surprise, however, was the answers to those questions. To a great degree, they were identical to the responses I hear from my American and Canadian participants. After a while, I had to keep reminding myself that I was in China, not North America. Thus my primary concern over the transferability of North American/Western European R&D management best practices to China did not prove to be a problem. The following are some of the flipchart questions and answers from the Chinese R&D managers: What gives you the greatest satisfaction on the job? * Having a new product you worked on be successful in the market place. * Being rewarded for working hard. * Receiving recognition and respect from leaders and subordinates. * Receiving promotions and salary increases. * Doing a job you like very much. * Making friends at work-having good relations with co-workers. * Having the right to make decisions. These responses more or less match the answers to a 1999 survey by R&D Magazine on the satisfying aspects of a researcher's job, which they reported to be: * Solving challenging problems. * Quality of the people they work with. * Doing interesting work. * Doing what they are good at. * Ability to work independently. What are the factors that discourage idea generation and creativity? * Organization is too bureaucratic, with a strict hierarchy. * Not enough recognition for the development of intellectual property. * Top management focuses too much on key performance indicators that don't take creativity into account. * People are not given enough time to be creative due to work load. * Company focuses too much on short-term return on investment. * Culture is to always say yes to the boss when the answer should be no. * Fear of failure is too high. * Customers prefer safe solutions, not creative ones. * Motivation system does not support creativity. These answers are clearly in line with the many research studies conducted in North America and Western Europe on what inhibits creativity. The only distinct difference is the difficulty that many Asians have in saying no, when no is the appropriate response to a request to do something. Describe the most effective R&D manager you ever had who motivated you to work to the best of your ability. * Was a good role model. * Was involved, appreciated good work and provided rewards. * Was fair, and open in his dealings with subordinates. * Understood the nature of R&D work (e.g., risky, uncertain). * Fought for subordinates' benefits and compensation. …

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