Life in a china-man company

We’ve all heard china man bosses as the butt of many jokes, which as long as I remember, had never come across in any positive tone … like very stingy, greedy, bad English, poor customer service, bad dress sense, lots of gold on them & other stuff.

The last time I worked for a china-man company, I had a lot of bad vibes but still no bust up with management … sure the way they did things were very profit driven & pushed us hard but then again, employees had good benefits & rewards.

As of now, I cannot say the same for someone else. When, where & who, remains to be disclosed.

Employee are the robots & tools of the company … the moment I hire you, you are to do what I want, when I want, how I want & I do not care if you are sick, you die or whatever, the dateline is sacrosanct … should you fail, you shall be subjected to all kinds of company action … officially or unofficially … mwahahaha (please imagine the most evil tone of laugh to go along with my sentence)

What does that mean? Officially means they document every little puny mistake you make, send you a warning letter & hope to scare you off into submission so that you will repent & be a good girl/boy the next time round, hopefully that you will meekly submit to any pressure that is piled upon you.

Unofficially means … you kena abuse la … they’ll say everything & anything to intimidate you for the same objective of turning you into a mouse.

The thing is, there are more china man companies in Malaysia than multinationals … and rightful to say, there are more people working in china man companies than MNCs. It’s therefore deducible that there are a lot of people subjected to ‘torment’ (perhaps this is harsh, but cannot think of any other word) by majority of the china man styled bosses (of course not saying all, but possibly most of them).

Why am I writing all this? Cause I’ve worked for MNCs with western style management before & also for china man boss … and they are worlds apart when it comes to management style. Of course a business is still a business where the main aim is to make money, but from then onwards, they both digress greatly.

The MNC, has more of a delegated approach, the trust given to individuals, the respect & empowerment given out … with lots of focus on development, benefits & rewards, for the simple fact that most of them see workers, not as tools of machines but stakeholders & assets to the organization. It’s not the money, the hard assets but people who drive organizations. It’s people as the forefront of the business.

A classic china man company takes pole position in the opposite dimension … they hoard power at the top, they micromanage, they tend not to trust so much, they focus on datelines & efficiency than effectiveness & results … and in a very simple way to sum it up, the workers are simply machines, everyone is treated the same, the moment I hire you means you belong to me … you are expected to work late with no OT, you are not an asset … but more of a liability where you might slack … you as a worker cannot be trusted … you might join a competitor one day, so I should not train you so hard & teach you so much …

And while we sing praises for the rich china man tycoons & take them as role models, let us not forget that for every Uncle Lim, there are millions of small time kuchee-rat china man bosses. So, not all china man bosses are visionary & successful and like the normal graphs, these top dogs constitute only say … 1%?

Sounds depressing huh? But for all we know … people who are working in them might not feel it, in fact they are probably oblivious to the fact that they are in a hell hole simply because they’re frogs with no idea what’s outside their coconut shell. They probably think it’s normal & that’s the way life should be. They could possibly also acknowledge the fact that there’re not enough places in MNCs for all Malaysians, so why bother being bothered? Life goes on.

I’m not one of those guys who ape the white man mentality & management approach totally, but there are good practices to be taken in & in a holistic view, I’m a hybrid kind where … I am quite kiasu but at the same time, treating competent people as assets is paramount for building the competitive organization of today. In view of that, it’s safe to say that while dollars & cents are the building blocks of organizations, being penny wise & people foolish is often the harbinger for the streetwise china man.

Ps. It’s good to have china man companies also cause that’s how MNCs can attract the best people. We can’t have great people everywhere can we? We just don’t have enough brains for everyone (unlike Singapore who just keep importing brains) … it’s a classic case of Malaysia Boleh!