Error culture in Chinese teams: how managers strengthen responsibility

The study asked about 37 competences. For each one, companies stated how important it is and to what degree young professionals bring it to the job.

Four competences that concern dealing with mistakes, criticism and conflict reach a fulfilment level of only 50 percent: the courage to admit one's own mistakes and the courage to name mistakes in organisational work processes (82 percent importance each), the ability to handle conflict (80 percent) and the ability to accept criticism (77 percent). For comparison: across all 37 competences, average fulfilment was 58 percent.

The study counts all four as social competences. In this cluster, the gap between importance and fulfilment is the largest, at 25 percentage points (81 to 56 percent). In its comparison of strengths and weaknesses, the study explicitly lists the courage to admit one's own mistakes, the courage to name mistakes in work processes and the ability to handle conflict among the weaknesses.

For managers, it is worth distinguishing between the two kinds of mistakes. Anyone who does not admit their own mistake prevents it from being corrected in the individual case. Anyone who does not name a mistake in a work process prevents the organisation from learning from it. Companies saw both fulfilled equally rarely.

The gap in dealing with mistakes does not stand alone in the study. At 92 percent, the sense of responsibility is the most important of the 37 competences, and companies see it fulfilled to 58 percent. For the sense of quality, 88 percent importance compares with 56 percent fulfilment. Decisiveness reaches only 49 percent at 78 percent importance, making it one of the two least fulfilled competences in the entire survey. Analytical and decision-making skills stand at 85 to 51 percent.

In everyday work, these values are connected. Quality requires that deviations are noticed and that someone names them. Responsibility means standing by one's own result, even if it contains a mistake. The study relates social competences, among other things, to a sense of responsibility in teamwork and to communication skills.

Anyone who wants to strengthen the error culture in a Chinese team therefore does not start with openness alone. It is just as much about responsibility for tasks and about decisions that employees make and stand by themselves.

This explanation seems obvious, but the study supports it only to a limited extent. As a reason for an employment relationship ending within the first two years, companies cited intercultural problems least often, at 7 percent. Where poor performance was the reason, a lack of specialist and methodological knowledge (23 percent) and a lack of social skills (14 percent) ranked well ahead.

The competences for working across cultures also show smaller gaps than dealing with mistakes: the ability to work in an international environment stands at 78 to 57 percent, understanding of the culture and customs of other countries at 73 to 55 percent.

The study sees the cause in the education system. Its character, traditionally geared strongly to examinations and recitation, has been criticised in China itself for years. Examination-oriented education, it argues, robs pupils of creativity and initiative through constant memorisation, and preparation for the university entrance examination, the gaokao, begins as early as kindergarten. As a result, graduates lack key social, personal and methodological competences to keep adapting to a changing world. The study calls for a shift from examination-oriented education to holistic quality education.

The study does not examine dealing with mistakes separately; its explanation applies to social, personal and methodological competences as a whole. For managers, the finding still matters: a competence that was neglected in education can be developed at work. How culture, institutions and relationships shape business is described in the article on business practices in China.

transformis describes the consequences for practice as follows: many graduates memorise quickly, pick up work steps fast and have very good theoretical knowledge. Because of the strongly theory-oriented education system, however, they often lack practical knowledge and decisiveness. Many also find it difficult to address shortcomings openly, actively ask questions or take on project responsibility independently.

At the same time, the study shows what leadership can build on. Companies saw learning competence fulfilled to 68 percent (against 88 percent importance), commitment to 71 percent (against 90 percent) and resilience to 68 percent (against 84 percent).

Overall, 77 percent of companies were partly to very satisfied with the graduates they had hired. Willingness to learn and commitment are a good starting point for practising how to deal with mistakes. Which other competences are lacking and where onboarding starts is shown in the article on onboarding of Chinese graduates.

The study addresses its recommendations to schools and universities: teaching should be more action- and process-oriented, based on the model of the complete action, so that social and personal competences are trained without neglecting subject content. transformis transfers this approach to work within the company. Its development programme for managers and junior staff in China draws on action-oriented learning models from business education and elements of the German dual vocational training system. In this understanding, the ability to think and act proactively is taught in the workplace.

In the concept on the coaching competence of Chinese teachers that transformis developed in 2013 for its cooperation with ECNU, learning assignments follow the complete action: inform, plan, decide, carry out, check, evaluate. For dealing with mistakes, the last two steps are decisive. When checking and evaluating one's own result is a fixed part of every task, finding and naming mistakes becomes routine rather than an admission. The decision step also trains decisiveness, which at 49 percent is among the least fulfilled competences in the study.

The same concept describes three roles for the person providing support. In modeling, they show how a task is carried out and make the reasoning behind it transparent. In coaching, they motivate, analyse performance, give feedback and encourage reflection. In scaffolding, they provide temporary support that enables learners to master tasks that are still beyond their abilities. Applied to leadership, this means: the manager makes their own approach transparent, gives regular feedback and gradually withdraws support as employees' responsibility grows.

In transformis' approach, developing these competences becomes a leadership task. The research cooperation with ECNU produced a concept that enables managers to identify the potential of junior staff. transformis enables managers to build on this a development plan aligned with the requirements of the organisation and to evaluate its effect regularly.

The programme combining leadership development and the development of junior staff is based on the neuroscientific findings underlying the Zurich Resource Model (ZRM®). Certified ZRM® coaches enable managers at the first, second and, where necessary, third level to develop the self-management competences of employees and especially of young professionals. A key aim is to continuously strengthen initiative and independence. In action-oriented workshops, managers learn to link the passing on of knowledge closely with the work processes that specific tasks of the organisation require.

This is complemented by elements of sùzhì, a holistic educational approach derived from Confucian educational teaching that differs clearly from education geared purely to examinations. They open managers and young professionals to interactive workshop methods and train social competences for everyday work. At the same time, working together improves the relationship between managers and junior staff.

The study was carried out by transformis and East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai, with support from the German-Chinese Business Association. From 7 September to 2 October 2015, 3,500 German companies operating in China were invited to an online survey, and 218 data sets were included in the analysis. The report was published in 2017.

The figures are the companies' assessments of the young professionals they had hired and describe the situation in 2015, not today. The study measured the importance and fulfilment of competences, not the attitudes or values of employees. Methodology, definitions and all 37 individual values are presented in the article on the employability of Chinese university graduates.

transformis has had its own office in Shanghai since 2011 and has worked with ECNU since 2013. For companies in China, transformis offers the analysis of junior staff potential, the programme for leadership development and the development of junior staff, and a dedicated onboarding concept for young professionals. The full offering is described on the page China consulting.