Chinaís Emotional Advantage

By Frank Mulligan ñ Accetis International, Talent Software & Recruit China

A recent report by TalentSmart called Chinaís Secret Weapon just caught my attention.

The basic tenet of the report is that Chinese executive uses emotional intelligence in an intuitive way to manage staff, perhaps even as their primary way of managing. This gives them an advantage over American managers.

Specifically, Chinese managers have an ability to see talent management as a part of daily life and not as a separate intellectual ísystemí that HR is just allowed to introduce. HR is then allowed to walk the talk, as they say.

The conclusions are based on research on 3,000 top Chinese executives from the public and private sectors. Talent Smart gave them all an emotional intelligence (EQ) test and compared their scores to those of executives holding similar positions in the United States.

Their first finding was that the Chinese executive results for self-awareness and social awareness were a few points higher than the U.S. sample, but not statistically different. Both groups have a similar awareness of emotions in themselves and others and neither group had any specific advantage over the other.

But it appears that Chinese executives use their self-awareness and social awareness to their benefit. The more systematic and sequential Americans donít, to the same extent.

The Chinese executives averaged 15 points higher in self-management and relationship management, and these two EQ skills are thought to have the strongest ties to job performance. The logic of this is that they indicate an executiveís ability to use emotions to his or her benefit in managing time, making good decisions, and relating to people. Both groups took the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal.

Reservations
This conclusion is very important in China right now because the country is no longer just a source of cheap manual labor. The labor is just not that cheap anymore. Ask anyone trying to hire anyone. The country is in transition to a knowledge economy, and the skills and abilities of managers will become more and more important in that context.

The final conclusion of the report is that the Chinese executives are more disciplined than their American counterparts but may only be true if you accept a particular EQ-centric definition of discipline. What they appear to mean is that Chinese executives live their EQ knowledge while American executives tacitly accept its importance, but then relegate talent management to just another ísystemí. As a result Chinese executives are better at seeking feedback, better at working in teams, know their peers better, and actually follow through on their commitments.

Not having any contradictory research evidence to present I can only react instinctively. Previous experience with both Chinese and American managers suggests that these conclusions are a bit of a stretch, and the exclusive focus on EQ precludes important issues like face, task focus, approach to time or attitudes to hierarchy.

I would agree that Chinese executives know their peers better because work lives and personal lives tend to overlap in China. But ëfollowing through on commitmentsí in the politicized environment of most Chinese companies, I donít think so.

An equally valid approach to discipline is to look at the planning process and see if the end result of your efforts match the plan. This is a more intellectual approach to predicting the future and obviously does not fit into the more dynamic EQ model.

Using this definition of discipline you find that Chinese professionalís focus on relationships does not generally allow for good coordinated planning, with a shared understanding of what the plan is. Timelines tend to slip in China because professionals here take a more synchronous approach to tasks, and because meetings are meant to rubber stamp decisions that have been made behind closed doors.

This results in a definite need for more open, transparent systems to ensure the completion of projects, and foreign companies are providing this new type of ëdisciplineí. So, on balance, the Americans may truly need to live more of the EQ approach, but executives in China probably need to balance their superior EQ skills with more open, transparent planning; stronger processes; and commitments to timelines.

You could say that all we need to ask here is who is producing more goods and services. The answer is clearly the US, but a more valid question would be who will be producing more goods and services in the future? And which approach is more effective, the brain or the heart? If the ëflood of researchí shows that emotional intelligence (EQ) is the single biggest predictor of success, then clearly itís China.

Relationships as the primary basis of future economic success? Iím not so sure.

Email frank.mulligan@recruit-china.com
Frank Mulliganís blog - english.talent-software.com