On 2010-9-3, I will leave Microsoft Shanghai and pursue a new career in Dell Dalian. What makes me feel sad the most is not saying goodbye to my good old team mates or leaving Shanghai, but the experience of witnessing several highly intelligent & smart people being utterly corrupted by honors, gains, fame, and power and had chosen to dwell on that path of no-return and traded off their consciousness.
I have seen so many wrong-doings by some highly capable people in Microsoft Shanghai such as (all seen with my own eyes in my team):
- Manipulating data in order to please the upper management including
- manipulate own property/program/project data
- forcing others to change their data or directly changing them
- persuading others to remove unpleasant data points
- Downplaying others in order to raise own status quo or raising bad images of the other team
- Wipe off all responsibilities off own shoulders to others
- Stealing credits from own team members or others
- Arrogance & tyranny
- Setting up others for personal gains
- Backstabbing
These leave an incredibly bad experience for me. My partners in Microsoft Beijing used to urge me to go to Beijing instead, as his own past experience in Microsoft Shanghai echoed similar experience.
Is Microsoft Shanghai that bad? As far as my experience goes… there are some really good & nice people, but you do encounter some that seriously lack personal integrity. The biggest lacking in these people is the lack of shame and fear of wrongdoing. You would want to be very careful with the Shanghai locals… I don’t mean a generalization here, but statistically speaking… you just should.
The biggest irony is perhaps… one of the talented people that walked on the wrong path has a Fudan University MBA degree. I guess it’s needless to prove that educational achievement has little or nothing to do with personal integrity again.
All in all, it’s quite unfortunate to see such gifted people misuse the brilliant brain they were born with to do & pursue these things with all the wrongdoings… I suppose it’s not uncommon in China… where many people take shortcuts to get what they want by doing most of the above.
Jun Tang and his offspring in Microsoft Shanghai… farewell to you all. And… farewell to those good people who have kept their good consciousness in Microsoft Shanghai – hat off to you… keep up your good morale & heart, and beware of the wolf in sheep’s cover. Don’t ever be corrupted with honors, gains, fame, and power… dwell free here & now~!!
The ancient Chinese Kung Fu is widely known as an art and a tradition of the Chinese people… after thousands of years, what we see more in China is the skill of “Kung Foo.” What is Kung Foo? I define Kung Foo as the following:
Kung Foo is one’s ability to lie and fool others without others knowing or finding out. The practitioner uses various techniques to achieve this so its subject’s attention is diverted from the truth and believes in whatever the practitioner tells. It’s also a subtle hypnotization technique.
The Chinese people have been debating among themselves regarding Jun Tang’s recently exploited fake educational backgrounds, fake patents, fake companies, etc. There are many fools in China who believed in money, achievements, gains, honors, fame, and praises as being more important than one’s integrity. Some people even began to argue about China’s education system is flawed and people only cared about educational backgrounds.
Clearly these people’s minds are quite disoriented and misguided by the overall Chinese social system and views. They seriously ignored some of the most important factors of a human being… honesty, integrity, and virtues.
Nowadays, most Chinese people only care to practice “Kung Foo” so they can acquire gains, honors, and praises. It is very sad indeed.
Who cares if a person has more money? Who cares if a person has such & such achievements? Who cares if a person is famous & has high educational backgrounds?
If a person does not have virtue, he has nothing indeed!
There is a beautiful princess. She is beautiful, adorable, and gentle to all around her. Others view her as noble & perfect, and always appears with great looks. She is also smart & clever.
However, she is corrupted from within. When she gives, she is not giving out of heart, but in pursuit of fame, honor, and gains. She pursues names. Her priority is based on fame, power, and own gains. Just like Cinderella’s sisters.
Her corruption & malformed heart is not revealed when things please her or done in her favor, but as soon as something goes against her will, while being tested, she is possessed by anger & leading forms of misdeeds.
Such is what I call… the Princess Psychology or the Princess Mindset.
There is an increasing number of people in China with a mind imbued with Princess Psychology… particularly in the Fortune 500′s.
Many foreign companies or managers believed that they can manage China just like how they manage westerners or they simply believed that people will be responsible for what they do and up to the job.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case in China… even in Fortune 100 companies. If in an office, the boss doesn’t sit there, a few things may happen:
- Another Chinese manager will try to take over and be in control of the entire office
- You can’t expect the team to perform well… they may still be able to do basic things, but sometimes even the basics cannot be done
- You find your employees in game rooms more often than on their seats
- Increase in political conflicts & personal fights in the team
Having been in China for over 5 years as foreigners and been in many multinational companies… I have not seen an office in China that can work or perform well when the manager doesn’t sit in China office. Do you witness the same?
Functional organizations are known to put people of particular specialization into a team, and it is known to project managers that they have little to no power over the resources of a particular function.
In China, it is quite common to find functional managers who delude themselves of having absolute power over something. And in a functional org setting, it is not hard to find Chinese managers either:
- Abusing his/her power
- Corrupting/taking bribes from vendors
- Making really harsh rules for the team
- Do not treat fellow team members as people
- Do not work well with peers
Not everyone is a team player, particularly in China. With China’s one-child policy for most people, many children do not know how to “share” since little. When they grow up, their ego is often bigger than others’ as well. Selfishness and thinking of only own welfare are widely seen.
Having such kind as a functional manager in the org is a disaster. Do you spot one in your org?
