A miscommunicating manager-assistant pair get the couch treatment

-----By Kathleen Lau

If you have a relationship problem with a loved one that the two of you can't handle, you could go see a counselor. The counselor's job is not to take sides, but to create a place where both of you can say your piece in a neutral atmosphere. Hopefully, by listening and not reacting, you begin to see each other's perspective, and come to some agreement on how to continue living together. See what wonders it did for Mr and Mrs Smith.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were such a person for dealing with relationships at work? You spend the longest part of your daily life with the person you work with, so a good relationship there is paramount. I have a fantasy of being a fly on the wall listening to such a person give advice. In this scenario, instead of "he said" and "she said" it would more likely be ...

Session One

Expat Manager: She works well normally and is very friendly if I compliment her. But as soon as I question her about something, she becomes defensive. She looks at the table, or she gives me a blank stare. I know she understands my English because you should see the reports she has written. If we're with other people, she switches to Chinese even though everybody present speaks English. Hey, I ask the question and I'm sitting at the table, talk to me, not to everybody else in Chinese! How can I manage someone who won't respect to me?

Local Assistant: But he's the one who doesn't respect me! I do everything he asks for, and I try to explain when he has a question. But some things he just doesn't understand, I don't know how to explain it to him. Then he yells at me, slams the paper on the desk and walks away. When he raises his voice, I don't understand what he wants. I speak in Chinese because I want someone else to help me explain.

Counselor: Most foreigners don't think twice about raising their voice, slamming things or storming out when they are frustrated or angry. But the Chinese prize the ability to withhold emotions. When confronted with a display of emotions, locals don't know how to react. They either freeze up or some even laugh. Now it is the foreigner's turn to misunderstand - they think freezing up is obstinance and in the case of someone laughing, they are being mocked.

I suggest that both learn to decipher the other's signals. On the part of the manager, he has to remember to react less, no matter how he feels. On the part of the assistant, she has to learn to stop focusing on his physical reactions and understand what the manager wants. I suggest that unless it is an emergency, that she answers his questions by email. This way, she can be calm and think through what she wants to say in English.

Session Two

EM: A client did not make his last payment and I didn't know about it. We had to go back to collect after the fact, and that was not good. I wanted to follow up on how it happened so that we can correct it in the future. But I can't get a straight answer on what happened. It turned out that my assistant knew. When I asked why she didn't tell me right away, she wouldn't give me an answer. Finally, she said, I thought he was your friend. Well, no, he's a good client, but not a personal friend. Even if he were, that doesn't explain why no one collected the last payment. What is she saying?

LA (alone with the Counselor): I knew that the client was his friend. Everyone knew the last payment wasn't made but we all knew they were friends. Sometimes you don't know what a manager really wants. Maybe he wanted to give his friend a discount? No one wanted to point it out because no one wanted to get in trouble. Besides why didn't he do anything about it?

Counselor: This is a tricky one. Since local companies and state-owned enterprises are run on relationships, you never know whose toes you will step on by pointing out someone's dishonesty or mistakes. You keep your head down and pretend you don't know anything. In this case, the manager was friendly with the client so everyone, including the assistant, assumed there was more to the association than good customer service. When the client didn't pay, they assumed the manager knew. Even the assistant assumed that the manager was knowingly helping a client not pay. In a state-owned company, the one who points it out will be tagged as the nosy one and eased out of the organisation. There, nothing is ever lost in translation because no one ever talks.

I suggested to the assistant that perhaps she should have asked the manager if he knew that the client didn't pay, instead of assuming he knew. I explained in a foreign business atmosphere, asking questions are the best policy. This was hard for her, because in her mind, the manager must have known. In a society where asking questions is not encouraged, there just isn't the culture of questioning authority. So instead of being direct, most people weave stories based on broken pieces of information along the grapevine. Here, the staff saw the friendliness between the manager and the client and assumed a deeper complicity.

To turn this around, it is up to the manager to encourage a new atmosphere of welcoming questions, and even disagreements. If the manager in charge can encourage questions and disagreement from the staff, and from his assistant, over time it can be turned around. The staff will see that the management considers everyone's advice, and that each person can have a say, and question, final decisions.

?copyright 2007 by Kathleen Lau. No part of this may be reprinted - in any language or format: printed, electronic or otherwise - without expressed written permission from author.