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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: why chinese people have a lot of meeting with no results?
10 years 11 weeks ago in Business & Jobs - Beijing
because non of them can give a straight answer
Paulberger:
they really can't they can sit around for hours asking the same questions and getting a useless response... its quite funny to watch though.
i think those random meetings are more for face value. they sit around, talk about something they think is necessary, and feel like they are important. my first school i worked at in china had this principle that would hold random meetings about useless information. it was a waste of time meant to make him feel he's important and we need him. as for those horrible business meetings we've all had to go to, i think they are an excuse to get drunk and use company/government money to pay for it.
Errr, it's not a Chinese thing, it's a large company/institution thing. Do you read the Dilbert comic ?
its surely the same reason why companies employ so many people that are just playing with their phone during working hours.
seriously i could fire like 80% of the people here and it would still run with the same efficiency
Being Chinese, perhaps you could shed some light on the issue. I'd be interested to hear your opinions.
If I were to guess, I'd say most meetings in China are held in order to make a department look like it's doing something, or arranged by the department head for purposes of personal ego stroking.
Meetings should involve people putting forward ideas or drawing attention to problems. But Chinese people aren't known for having ideas all by themselves, and never draw attention to problems for fear of being punished.
I'd say "Why bother?", but useless people in official positions gotta get paid, right? How else will they buy each other presents and pay for those visits to the "sauna"?
Actually, these meetings are for the dept heads or whoever 's in charge to get a feel on how everything's going, the general mood etc. There may not be a specific reason or topic to discuss. Chinese bosses do this very often. The few companies I worked with here all do the same thing. So if someone really have issues, sooner or later they will table it. Bosses will then realize whether there are problems. In China, people aren't that straightforward or direct as we would like them to be. There's a whole lot of useless conversation just to get to one point. That's just how it is here. Cultural difference thing.
"Meetings: the practical alternative to work"
I have been at meetings that were pure ego stroking for the manager involved. both here in China and at home.
I have also been at meetings where there was a specific agenda and problems to be solved within a particular time-frame: very productive because ego's were left at the door.
I tried having the productive meetings here in China and all i saw was rabbits looking in head-lights when i made practical suggestions
DrMonkey:
Amen to that. I love those moments, where everyone is sitting around the table, with the nice company-provided notebook, the pen and the poker face. Nobody talk or take notes (despite having the pen and the notebook), the boss goes on and on and on... Meanwhile, I doodle. So the guys next to me try to have a look to what I'm doodling but also try to keep the poker face to full nominal power.
... I can get efficient meeting here. I go to see the guys to their cubicle one by one, I ask the status of task X and Y, we have a look, etc. Then I might introduce more task, they ask some questions. It's quick and get the job done most of the time. For the team part, no worries, they talk with each other when they need ^^
I agree with the above answers. Its for egos and making people look like they are doing work.
At my company I have meetings all the time with the other foreign staff. We generally sit down in someone's office and go through whatever we need for 10-15 minutes and call in others if we have something we need them to know after the details are quickly sorted.
Then there are the chinese managers who schedule meetings in the training room with HR (to look like they are productive), and then give long winded speeches, and sometimes bang a drum (not kidding, one guy does that with this massive drum as they hold a sales pep rally). Never once in any of this style of meeting are any actionables given, no direction, just the brouhaha of those who dont know how to just get things done.
I know that in every country there is this problem in corporations, but here thee is the added pinko/nationalistic rhetoric that was drilled into their heads in school.
Definitely not a Chinese thing. You should see some of the meetings we have over here. Total bunch of forking jokers whose heads I want to smash through their own faces for being so utterly incompetent. I want to drop-kick them in the head while screaming "RONALD REAGAN!!!!!!!!!!!!"
I want throw them off a cliff and let them... sorry, I have to go take my meds again.
My wife says it's to show the boss that they are working or doing something. She says you know they always want to do the fake thing.
Agreed it's not just a Chinese thing. My version of a popular idiom...
Those who can, do. Those who can't, hold meetings.
Meetings! I attend quite a few over the year in both my jobs. Pretty dam formal, but i like going because the food is free. Do i join in, yup! does anything happen, nope! I just use it as an excuse to network. Wonder if the Chinese guys and girls do the same.:) If so, sign me up.
I came to China 5 years ago, hired to train staff at a large International Contract Research Lab on the technical aspects of conducting pre clinical research. I was 1 of 2 foreign experts along with a half dozen returnees that made up the management team. Within a month of arriving I found myself scheduled to an ever increasing number of meetings. I was spending 5-6 hours a day in meetings which frustrated me enormously. I was at lunch one particularly frustrating day and I had an epiphany as to why I was being requested to attend these meetings, most of which had little to do with my area of responsibility.
I listen to the facts, make rational decisions, and take responsibility for those decisions. This realization actually helped me cope with the situation and eventually lead to a series of promotions and opportunities within the company.
I have found most of the management want to be vague. They fail to give direct instructions to there staffs. This enables them to then misdirect blame if something fails.
Example:
Boss, "We must improve quality" The boss can then say it is the staffs fault because, "I have instructed them quality must improve".
Essentially it boils down to this, most people want to be a "big boss" when what is actually needed are leaders.
The difference is:
A boss tells you what to do.
A leader shows you what to do.
The world is full of bosses, not so many leaders.