before recommending reading list, i think i would like to share a few thing to further expand on the subject for a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of this

what has been a deception is that in america the management won’t accept chinese ethinic background team members into leader roles because of the discremination

this is in most cases not fair:

who are the leaders and what skill set should they possess to qualify? if you are in a postion who would you promote?

when you are interviewed for a job, they look at the job requirement skills and credentials, and looking at your resume, you qualified and are hired. but all the others on the team may have the somewhat same baseline or they would not have been hired.

why promote on over others? simply because this one is perceived to have better leader quality. now that is that leader quality?

i would say: vision, ability to create tools to fix prob and knows how to put all team members working together.

missing any of the above three would not cut it for me when i decide who to promote.

so by improving your skills and getting the attention is a very important many new immigrants need to learn, but once you have the attention, what are you going to do with it?

what is your vision to have the current process improved with higher efficiency at lower costs that leads to higher profits?

OK you have formed a vision, then what is your plan to make it work?

have you demonstrated that you can mobilize the team to achive a common team objective task yet? otherwise, just by offering you a hat with a title may not help you much.

21st century’s managerial theory is all about learning enterprises: company culture must change to learn how to compete. it does not matter what worked well in past decades, what counts is today: is your company the industry leader yet? the global economy is putting a severe competition at your door. you aim high but may just merely service. if a product is manufacturered at the same market by others with costs of goods sold only at 50% and your company is doing at 60%, then not only you lose 10% profot margin, but also you are taking a chance eventually to be phased out. your company cannot afford that chance.

many established corproate consultants, in their corporate management trainign courses, have a list of big companies
on the watch of fading away from industry leader or even as a sound company: kodak, ibm, gm…a long list that among which many were in the MBA courses in my times case studied as successful management model.

now do you have a vision? how to go about? this is no bullshit. GM just negotiated with union to cut employees benefits fro profit margin, so did Continental. the corporate world are in desperate positions today. you think you can bullshit and get promoted?

are you ready for a leader postion? are you sure you even want a leader position not just the title and pay but the responsibilities coming with those glories?

if so, act like it, stop complaining, do some for real. otherwise you are nothing but a bullshiter

two months on the job, i still try to put all names to the faces. i do not need to nor supposed to work directly with all the employees in the departments under me, since there are layers of differences on the chain of command. it is not right to bypass and go direct.

but if i am not aware of how the current work flow process
is set, and where it is up for improvements, then there is no way i can contribute value. to get there, i need to work on process, protocol, and people.

so after speaking with their supervisors that i would have to talk to people on the floor, i went to ask them to tell me the following

their current work flow process
communicating internal/external rpotocl
documentation goes
prob identified in a pattern
what is done to address
what supports needed if more to do
what is their typical work capacity doing specific tasks
is there a metric to measure
what does not make sense in current process, if they are to change what and how would they change…

by going through this, i got my understanding of how they conduct business today, and thus to find out where seem to be the parts reform start, also it became clear to me who has vision, who invented tools to solve problems for their own convenience or efficiency…who can pull supports from toher members of the team to make a collective work result happening…

now if a promotion comes along, i know who will go up on my list

i would also find out who is only sitting their to collect pay check, not really in position to understand his/her own job requirements or care enough

when the lay off is coming up, i know who will first go down on that list.

i may not take any actions on that just yet, not until it accumulated, and became highly visible….

now, my boss would not care how i clean up, he only care if and when i could implement the clean up and to show with a documented result.

the guys working for me cannot get away with bullshit, not could i before my boss. people got in certain positions for good reasons, take them as stupid would not really be a smart career atitude.

today, the severe competitions are changing corporate cultures. those who are better prepared for their leader postions will get what they deserved. otherwise, just try to locate a position for job security and see how long you canhold on to. there are less and less of that in china or america today.