Attended the joint meeting of the Indian Society for Training and Development (ISTD) and National Institute of Personnel Management (NIPM) at the Maple Hall, Hotel Savera. The speaker was A Natarajan. 
He spoke on "Chinese Management."
Having headed the Chinese operations of the TVS group for more than three years he brought with him a lot of insights into Chinese work culture and behavioral patterns. If some one had come to learn about the secrets of Chinese productivity, the event would have been a sad disappointment. But as an opportunity to learn how the chinese psyche works, it was a great learning experience.
A Natarajan had a disarming and self-mocking delivery methodology that kept the narrative flow going strong in spite of its extremely autobiographical content. But on the whole what was shared was one perspective of Chinese society from the point of view of a typical conservative, quality concsious Indiam manufacturing-centric group!
The mild mannered speaker did react a bit nvehemently to the last question (Or was it the lost question!) which insinuated that TVS had gone to China only to take advantage of the cheap and exploitable Chinese labour force. A Natarajan strongly disagreed to this and went on to show that TVS was actually paying more than double in manpower cost to operate in China. The reasoning was strategic. They wanted to be nearer to their European customers, like GM and othrers, most of whom had an IPO (International Purchasing Office) or production facility in China.
Some new information I got from this speech:
He spoke on "Chinese Management."Having headed the Chinese operations of the TVS group for more than three years he brought with him a lot of insights into Chinese work culture and behavioral patterns. If some one had come to learn about the secrets of Chinese productivity, the event would have been a sad disappointment. But as an opportunity to learn how the chinese psyche works, it was a great learning experience.
A Natarajan had a disarming and self-mocking delivery methodology that kept the narrative flow going strong in spite of its extremely autobiographical content. But on the whole what was shared was one perspective of Chinese society from the point of view of a typical conservative, quality concsious Indiam manufacturing-centric group!
The mild mannered speaker did react a bit nvehemently to the last question (Or was it the lost question!) which insinuated that TVS had gone to China only to take advantage of the cheap and exploitable Chinese labour force. A Natarajan strongly disagreed to this and went on to show that TVS was actually paying more than double in manpower cost to operate in China. The reasoning was strategic. They wanted to be nearer to their European customers, like GM and othrers, most of whom had an IPO (International Purchasing Office) or production facility in China.
Some new information I got from this speech:
- Most of the Chinese are single children! These single children are irresponsible and therefore genearlly attrition is high in China.
- The Chinese rarely lose their temper.
- The Chinese are sticklers on rules and regulations. If it is not told or written in their contract, it doesn't bind them.
- They are not intelligent and are poor in quality consciousness.
- They cannot multiskill. They are good only for routine mass production type of work. Difficult to retrain or redeploy.
A useful evening spent in understanding another country and its culture through the eyes of a man whose been there and done it!
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