Asian Spotlight | October 2023
SASE NC Addresses the Performance Blind Spot Between Asian and Western Culture
Introduction
Over 800,000 blind spot traffic accidents happen each year resulting in 300 deaths according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). These occur when people move their vehicles into an area of presumed safety and unfortunately fall into a moment of their lives, they wish they could undo. Likewise, for many people of Asian heritage that work for companies of western culture, blind spot accidents occur all the time. This is where the SASE National Convention helps bring about awareness of this issue and why I dedicate so much of my time to volunteer and support this organization.
The Blind Spot
Unfortunately, it usually isn’t until their performance review that Asians feel blindsided. It happens when their hard work isn’t recognized and falls short of their expected “outstanding - 5” rating. They either get a “exceeds expectations - 4” or “meets expectations - 3”, which is the equivalent of an Asian “D+” or “F-”, both bringing shame to their family.
On the other end, the manager is not aware of what just occurred and goes about oblivious of the frustration and brewing resentment. The manager feels that the rating was fair, as the employee does good work and contributes to the team’s goals. Unfortunately, there are a few perceived instances that created challenging times of misunderstanding. The manager may wonder why the employee seems to disappear when assignments are given, and just before the due date, comes back with questions putting unnecessary stress on the rest of the team to recalibrate execution. There were plenty of team meetings to bring up these issues and everyone else took time to ask questions, why didn’t the Asian?
The Accident
This dynamic will usually repeat until:
1. The Asian employee starts applying for a new job elsewhere hoping to be valued for their commitment to company work and their subject matter expertise.
2. The manager puts the employee on a Performance Improvement Plan due to continued challenges in delivering as expected.
Like all blind spot accidents that occur so frequently, it does not have to end this way. In fact, this common career accident tends to result in interesting dynamics in corporate demographics over time.
The Facts
In a peer reviewed Ethnic and Racial Studies article, three researchers--Van Tran, Jennifer Lee and Tiffany Huang--from Columbia University, New York City pooled over a decade of data from the Current Population Survey (2008-2016), a monthly survey of about 60,000 US households conducted by the United States Census Bureau. Here is what they found:
• 83% of the country's Asian population is comprised of Chinese, Indians, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and Koreans.
• These 5 groups are more likely to have graduated from college with a bachelor's degree than white Americans.
• However, despite the educational advantage, Asian Americans are less likely to secure positions in top-tier professional jobs than white Americans with the same qualifications as them.
• Asian Americans are significantly under-represented in positions managing people.
Consider reviewing a few corporate diversity reports for yourself, and if the company is willing to be vulnerable, you’ll see data that shows the percentage of Asians in the overall employment pool are at less parity than that of Asians in people leadership roles.
Asian American employees come from a culture where values are expressed in diametrically opposite ways. Here are 3 examples to start with that tend to be challenging for Asians to display strong leadership in a western setting:
1. Western leadership practices tend to deal with challenging authority. Speaking up and sharing your own thoughts and opinions respectfully can show the ability to have authority and leadership. In Asian culture showing respect means silence and not speaking up. Growing up I thought my white friends were crazy to talk back to parents, as I would have been severely punished for it.
2. Asian culture tends to focus on collective achievement. Western culture promotes individual achievement where people share accomplishments and the work of superstars on the team through email blasts. Growing up, in America people talk about “my house, my car, my hometown” and in Asian when talking it’s always “our house, our car, our hometown”, even when talking to people outside of their family.
3. Western culture lives in an egalitarian setting versus the Asian culture in hierarchy. Early in my career, it was difficult to share about my personal life to people I reported to at work. When I saw my coworkers sharing about their weekend trips and have lunch with the manager, I saw that as favoritism and the reason why they got promoted. In Asian culture, you never treat your manager like a friend, they are treated like royalty. You tell them what they want to hear and make sure you do everything to meet their expectations, even if it doesn’t make sense.
The Conclusion:
There are opportunities from both cultures to practice clearer communication of intent through their actions, but it takes a culture of safety to challenge the status quo and established beliefs. By having a growth mindset to learn how to include practices of other cultures, managers can increase their leadership skills and the candidates they can hire from. Making their teams more resilient and capable of handling a wider range of challenges to solve. Likewise, Asian employees can be open to be comfortable - being uncomfortable and move into spaces that seem prohibitive, but through dialogue and conversation can help demonstrate their skillsets previously hindered by inhibition. Acceptance and trust are key. These elements of up-front conversation that assume the best in each other can become the company blind spot warning indicators that help prevent a loss in productivity due to employee churn and ultimately help realize the high performance and career growth expectations from the Asian American employees.
How we can help:
SASE in partnership with B-SPOKE offers programs to help train and coach National Conference attendees from both cultures through the workshops and the SASE XCORE Cohort program. This unique space is the only conference that addresses these soft skills challenges in a STEM environment where hard skills get people hired, but ultimate become a weakness that Asians index too much on. In 2018 B-SPOKE started a cohort program called Asian XCORE specifically to address these cultural blind spots and help create a leadership communication bridge between Asian and western values. The results have been phenomenal; by simply helping participants reframe thoughts and actions into western leadership principles, they were able to get a higher year-end review or even a promotion within the next year. Emphasizing that this is a cultural gap, we’ve seen these results consistently in every sector throughout the world where Asians are working in western companies. Whether you are an Asian employee that wants to be recognized, or a manager that wants to lead better, we can bridge that divide.
Contact B-SPOKE at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we would be happy to help provide guidance in covering your blind spots.