Dear Friends,

I read this piece of write-up from an individual at one of the human resource groups and was quite impressed to share with you the same. There were 32 curious faces that we encountered on day 1 of the ‘values orientation to leadership’ in a multinational manufacturing organization with one of their factory in Shanghai, China. My co-facilitator Tay Chinyi is well versed in Mandarin but for me it was all Greek and Latin! I was wondering as to what kind of a role I should play?

So we started the program in the Chinese language and gradually started interspersing English to test the waters. But to my astonishment they replied in English and that was a welcome surprise. Throughout they made an attempt to speak English and if any of them had challenge with the others started chipping in by translating on our behalf. To me it shows that China is fast changing from Mandarin (the highest mother-tongue language) to the English – the most spoken language in the world today.

I found the young graduate Engineers very keen and wanting to learn. Their grasp and understanding was very quick and their commitment to time was amazing indeed. They actively participated in various behavioral games and activities and shared their observation and learning. What impressed me most was their ability link the game to their workplace behavior.

Even when they took the psychometric assessment, they demonstrated their eagerness to learn and adopt their learning to implement at the work place. They agreed that the value driven approach is the key to enhancing performance and productivity in the organization. At the end of the training they voluntarily gave a commitment to implement the new learning and fight their old mindsets and bad habits. We shall change our attitude for the better and thereby demonstrate our gratitude to training gurus – they seemed to say.

As trainers, we realized that people are the same everywhere. They have challenges but the need to grow is intense. No doubt then, China is growing at over 10% for the past decade or so. The Shanghai city with a population of over 16 million is far ahead of Mumbai. The city’s infrastructure is awesome with well connected roads and thousands of high rise buildings and ultramodern offices and large industrial complexes. I had a American from Colorado (population 50000), who shared as to how he felt lost on his first visit to this large city and took him time to get used the urban life of a large city.

We also had the wonderful opportunity to share the different dimensions of coaching with their senior management team and set them on a road to establishing a coaching culture in the organization. They agreed they need a process approach to developing the coach in them as it extensively deals with self change.

To continue with the path to improvement we also had the pleasant experience of conducting a Train the Trainer workshop for their technical trainers. Many of them echoed what we hear in different parts of the world from most technical trainers – ‘ we always thought content is everything but only now we understand other more important aspects like voice modulation, body language, participant needs, skills, attitudes etc.’.

It was a very satisfying training experience indeed! And about food, I must confess that they went out of their way to make us comfortable and taste enjoy their specialities like steam boat, clay pot, wonton, horfun and other wonderful stuff.

So now do you want to train in China too, I would suggest go for it – it is a great place with good people.

Warm Regards

Donna