I think it’s both clever and relevant to our work; A commenter reacting to a post on ChinaGeeks has called Rein a tool. I like @JeffreyJDavis‘ Twitter response: “Tools get things done. Be proud.”
He spends most of his article describing “macro” China, particularly its recent ascendancy to superpower status:
It has just gotten its seat at the adults’ table and is trying to learn how to deal with other nations as not just a fellow G20 member but as a superpower.
I think this paragraph connects most closely with our work:
Like many teenage boys, China still has a few pimples. It needs a few more years in college to fully emerge as an adult. It has new muscles, but it also has much to learn from the U.S. and the rest of the world. It needs to vastly improve an outdated education system that doesn’t properly train its best and brightest for a globalized world. It needs a system more like the American liberal arts one, which focuses on analysis rather than rote memory and test-taking. It needs to learn to be less fearful. After all, its citizens are happy and support it.
[Nope, our clients don't have pimples 
That's not what I'm talking about.]
In my experience, Chinese professionals in many sectors may lack the appropriate training and experience to serve their clients to an international standard. Interacting with foreigners every day can be a new challenge. Entirely new industries have emerged, such as renewable energy and mobile gaming. Of course these new industries have also sprouted up in other countries too but here it might require a larger leap in terms of skills, for employees educated in China’s strict school system.
I also think that this strict school system means that Chinese employees respond particularly well to training. The Chinese people that I know value education so much and respect teachers. A large percentage of the individuals we’ve trained have spent their own money on English (or Spanish or Japanese) lessons.
In my experience, English training in corporate settings is a great point of alignment between the employees’ personal interests and the company’s specific needs. My colleague Drew Ross wrote here about how to use training as a staff retention tool. Along with industry-specific lessons like email writing, presentation skills, grammar, and vocabulary, I tailor my classes to individual requests. These have included topics as varied as Michelle Obama, cross-cultural anthropology, and tea parties in American history.
These conversations have been so helpful to my development as a teacher of skills and a student of China.
-Leslie
China as a Teenage Boy: How this Affects Corporate Training Shaun Rein of the China Market Research Group wrote a provocative post for Forbes comparing China to a teenage boy. I personally think it's clever; ChinaGeeks has called Rein a tool. I liked @____'s Twitter reponse to this: "Tools get things done. Be proud." I think Rein's analogy is a useful one for our field. Chinese professionals in many sectors may lack the appropriate training and experience to serve their clients to an international standard. Interacting with foreigners every day can be a new challenge. Entirely new industries have emerged, such as renewable energy and mobile gaming. Of course these new industries have also sprouted up in other countries too but here it might require a larger leap in terms of skills, for employees educated in China's strict school system. I also think that this strict school system means that Chinese employees respond particularly well to training. The Chinese people that I know value education so much and respect teachers. A large percentage of my clients have spent their own money on English (or Spanish or Japanese) lessons. In my experience, English training in corporate settings is a great point of alignment between the employees' personal interests and the company's specific needs. My colleague Drew Ross wrote here about how to use training as a staff retention tool. Along with industry-specific lessons like email writing, presentation skills, grammar, and vocabulary, I tailor my classes to individual requests. These have included topics as varied as Michelle Obama, cross-cultural psychology, and tea parties in American history. These conversations have been so helpful to my development as a teacher of skills and a student of China. -Leslie
2 comments so far...
Let’s be clear: we never called Rein a tool. Though a commenter later said that on our blog, saying “ChinaGeeks called him a tool” because one commenter said that isn’t really fair. What we said was that his argument is based on things that aren’t really true (there’s no poverty in China? What?), and that it was poorly written and rife with smug self-promotion.
As I said in the post, I don’t disagree with everything Rein says, but he conveys a potentially interesting perspective in a fundamentally incompetent way, and supports it with “evidence” that is at best extremely misleading and at worst just lies.
Thanks for your comment. I just amended the post to emphasize that a commenter used the word “tool,” not you.
I agree that there is still poverty in China. Rein’s article describes it then moves past it to describe opportunities in China. I actually used to work for a non-profit focused on poverty alleviation in rural areas, and I’m very familiar with China’s disparities in wealth.
-L
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