中国管理人才教育

There are many talented mangers in China. So what is the problem with the current shortage in capable managers? Many have analyzed this topic. Here’s my view, forwhat it’s worth.

The problem is two folds. The primary roadblock to the current shortage is obviously the Chinese education system. This system is run and executed with a military mentality. The system believes that the ones who have the highest scores (or the ones with themost strategic people connections) will most likely to succeed. This system is also meant to effectively filter out many people in one cut, hence the term 快刀斩乱麻. However, this system may work, only if the intension is to foster pure research work. China is not ready to commercialize(on a broad scale) industrial research. The education system is producing the wrong people for the wrong environment. The current environment demands for original and creative thinkers and effective leaders. It is a rather daunting task to come up with and implement a practical policy or solution that reforms the current system. The inflexibility in education reform spawned many privately operated schools/institutions to educate/certify students. But the problem with this solution is that this industry is becoming too much of a cottage industry, the model aims to make a quick profit, not help students. Maybe successful engineers or businessmen should consider mentoring at least three(3) students a year and ask them to do the same whenever possible. This form of altruism may generate a smallchain effect to ripple a change in our education system. 

 

From my own experience, the grade in school is not everything. I have interviewed many jobapplicants in the past for software engineering position in the U.S. Most of the resumes that I flipped through have very impressive academic records. But the engineers that I end up hiring were often not the ones with the best grades(some even have below average GPAs). Sowhy did I hire them? I hired them because of their personality and their motivation. I look for technical competency in an interview, but also look at how the engineer will grow in my organization and what will motivate them to do their best and strive. These are no qualities that can be extrapolated from a simple resume. In some of my interview sessions with fresh college graduates (B.S degrees), I often make it clear to the interviewee that a correct answer is not necessarily what I’m looking for, but rather, I’m looking to see how they think and what path they take to solve a problem. This also allows me to evaluate their communication competency. Again, this is not something you would have just by having good grades.

 

The other side of the management talent problem is directly related to the traditional Chinese family mentality toward education. The Chinese parents often spent too much timeand too much money in educating their kids by sending them to extra-curriculum tutoring classes. This in part is due to the parent’s own lack in education. But the parent’s should not pressure the kids to always get the best grade inschool, but rather, they should guide the kids to exploit their own talents. Talent is not something that can be taught, it’s the innate ability on something you are good at with out much effort. The parents, with their experience, should be able to point out different ways to try and let the kid figure out what they are good at. Pushing them to get a good grade is not necessarily going to make them more successful later in life. My philosophy is that ifyou know your own limitations and know your own talents, you can be a top performer. That’s why in a typical jobinterview for fresh college graduates would be a question like this: “What are your weaknesses?” This question is really asking, do you know your own limitations, and do you know what you are good at?