Why Do Chinese Employees and Western Managers Have So Many Misunderstandings with Jerry Grey

Are you a Western manager handling Chinese employees or is it the other way around? Do you want to resolve misunderstandings at your workplace but have no idea where to start with? Listen to this episode and you’ll know why misunderstandings are present at work and how you can act to that.

Difference in culture is indeed a huge factor of how people fail to successfully interact with one another. The boundaries and traditions not shared by people involved play a huge role in connecting workers, thus the importance of understanding the other side of the coin.

Jerry Grey has lived and worked in the UK, Australia, and China. Apart from business experience and qualifications, he knows China pretty well because he's cycled across it 3 times. He was once a teacher in China, and now, he’s helping people understand China in its real form. Jerry has the honour of being the only guest so far who has no desire to sell you anything.

In this episode, Jerry shares insights discussing why Chinese and Western workers usually go through a lot of misunderstandings in their workspace. He talks about the concept of cultural linguistic and the issues that surround that. Jerry also shares a resource and a good advice on how you can be aware of what China is really like, so you can be free from the misconceptions the media has made you think.

 

What you will learn from this episode:

• Know what cultural linguistic is and how it affects people in their workspace;
• Discover how important it is to have cross-cultural change management in your HR department;
• Find out where you could find genuine stories and experience of what China is really like and how that affects your perspective.

 

“Almost everything that you have ever learned about China from reading a newspaper is not correct. There's so much misinformation. China is a very safe place. China is a very stable place. China is a good place to do business.”

– Jerry Grey

 

Topics Covered:

02:12 – Jerry describes his ideal clients.

03:04 – Problems Jerry solves for his clients: The cultural linguistic issues present in a company or organization.

04:30 – The typical symptoms; How workplace psychology and national identity can clash sometimes and result to something catastrophic.

05:23 – The mistakes; Why trying to resolve an issue in the traditional way you'd resolve it in your own country is a big mistake.

06:45 – Jerry’s valuable free action: “Employ someone who has cross-cultural change management experience.”

07:26 – Jerry’s Valuable free resource: Go to https://www.hofstede-insights.com and be informed of the differences you’ll encounter in a different country’s workspace.

08:10 – Books alert: “Beyond the Chinese Face: Insights from Psychology” by Michael Harris Bond

09:11: Question that helps you understand Chinese people’s work culture better: Where should a potential investor or business manager go to get information?

 

Key Takeaways:

“If I say to a Chinese person, “Hey, what's the best holiday you've ever had?” they'll tell me about Spring Festival or National Day or one of the festivals that they have where they get together with their family and do things. If I asked yourself or somebody from Germany or Holland or a European manager, American manager, they’ll say it was two weeks in an island in the Pacific or something completely different. And this is what I call cultural linguistic.” – Jerry Grey

“Workplace psychology and national identity – these two things can clash sometimes. It could end up being production failures, legal problems. It could be all kinds of different things. It could be catastrophic failure of your business.” – Jerry Grey

“The manager is the most important person in a company because the manager needs to tell people what to do and how to do it.” – Jerry Grey

“If you're in a company and you have a human resource manager who is Chinese, managing Chinese people, even that HR manager doesn't understand the management philosophies. If you've got someone who's trained overseas and understands and has been trained in a management philosophy from overseas, they would do better.” – Jerry Grey

 

People / Resources Mentioned:

• Geert Hofstede
• Beyond the Chinese Face: Insight from Psychology by Michael Harris Bond

 

Ways to Connect with Jerry Grey:

• Medium: [email protected]
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-grey-ma-69375376?trk=people-guest_people_search-card
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jerry_grey2002

 

Ways to Connect with Howard Whiteson:

• Website: https://www.wealthwithoutborders.net
• Podcast: https://www.wealthwithoutborders.net/podcast/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/howardwhiteson