The state of affairs

Well, if there was ever doubt about why I am here (and there was), I may have finally found my place in the evolutionary process of Yanfeng China. 

The more I learn and the more I discover, the more I see parallels between this society and our society of the 1980’s.  I guess this should not be too surprising but it was to me.  When you survey the town of Shanghai it gives the outward appearance that it is one of the most advanced cities in the world; and from an architectural standpoint, it is. But upon closer investigation you notice that the intent is there, the materials are excellent, but they seem to stop short of making the most of these two elements.  It seems that the detail gets lost in the fury of activity. For instance, the buildings are visual candy but to work in one is another story.  It seems that they forgot to learn about insulation and sealing techniques.  In the winter, the buildings remain cold and drafty because they are not insulated and the wind blows through the gaps in the windows and floors.  But it doesn’t end here; this seems to be a cultural attribute.  We see it in the beautiful new metro system where the floors and walls and beautiful marble but before laying the stone they let them become water stained and it really spoils an other wise perfect execution of the subway station.  You see this flaw everywhere. 

And as you can guess, it doesn’t end with the construction trades; it permeates our organization as well.  Surprisingly enough, the company seems to have found ways to plug holes effectively enough to actually produce high quality products.  They seem to use a method of try something until you get it right.  They also have a good system of peer (or expert) reviews in which the experts point out flaws (over and over again!) and the team fixes them.  I assume this type of development process has evolved from the fact that the labor rate is low and the education process, until recent years, has not been up to world standards; So just throw labor at it!  This is what I call the “Trial and Error” stage of development.  It has only been in the past few years that management has had time to take a break from “expert reviews” and move into the prevention phase.    As Issac Newton said: “intelligent people fix problems, geniuses prevent them”.  So , although the company seems to have developed a way to “get things done” when it comes to a production program; the opposite is true when it comes to developing new innovations.  I attribute this to the fact that in a production program the deliverables and time tables are well defined and therefore some sort of process evolves to enable the team to deliver.  But unlike the production program, the development of new ideas does not come with a timetable nor deliverables to which people are expected to perform.  So maybe this is where I came in.

As I mentioned earlier in this ramble, I compare this state of evolution to the USA in the 80’s; before Demming’s design of experiments, before Kaizan, before Six Sigma and before process control.   So in the past 30 years the Japanese and the Germans have helped the USA move from complacency to world class competitors. They have forced us to do this by paying attention to the customers and to the execution of the details (or a focus on craftsmanship).  In order to do this, the US implemented what I will call “Process Control”  So I do I fit into this picture? 

So over the past three months I have struggled to understand the current state of development and figure out how I can be of the most help and support to my colleagues.  Although my ultimate task is to deliver innovations, my real task is to instigate an organizational culture change.  The problem here is that, as mentioned above, there are no rules and no guidelines as this happened naturally over time in the USA.  But like everything else, the Chinese are evolving at an un-natural rate (or trying to).  This is obviously enabled by the financially enabled culture (thanks to the USA).  So, where do you start?  For me, I decided to force evolution to happen.  I set up plans for development just to have a place to focus our efforts.  And so far, it seems to be working; but this is unfortunately because they were looking for someone to just tell them what to do (back to the normal state).  But one day recently it became obvious as to why I was really here:  During one of our many discussions, one of my colleagues hit the nail on the head when he said:  Please teach us how to do THINGS! Because you know how to do THINGS!  After delving into this statement a bit further, I discovered the real issue: They really don’t know how to DO THINGS!  What things you might wonder,,.. just things.  So this is where I am really helping the organization take the next step in the evolutionary process.  It has been great to see how hungry they are for this discipline.  So I gave them just three basic questions to answer before they DO ANYTHING! 

1) What do you want to learn?

2) How are you going to learn it?

3) How will you apply what you learn?

And remember: You don’t know what you don’t know!

So with these simple questions in mind, they are starting to create work plans to support there programs…… WA_LA!  We are off to a good start.

To Be Continued:::::::::::

The Lupu bridge walk

Fortunately we have done a pretty good job of sightseeing in Shanghai because the weather now is getting hot and making sightseeing more difficult. With that in mind we decided to take on our next adventure in the early morning, this way hoping to miss most of the crowd and the hot weather as well. 

Ever since we left Sydney for the last I had wished we had taken the time to take the climb across the Sydner Harbour Bridge, well it might not be Sydney but Shanghai harbor is not a bad second choice.  So after hearing about the possibility of getting  a birds eye view of the Shanghai waterfront area, I could not pass up the opportunity to climb the Lupu Bridge. It is the largest “arch bridge” in the world.  Actually in building the bridge, they had to build huge pillars in the middle of the river as until the arch is completed, it cannot support its own weight.  Then of course once the bridge is finished, the pillars are removed and the bridge settled 300mm to its final resting location.  Although the bridge is not located right downtown, there is a good view of the sprawling city from the top of the bridge.

Our adventure actually started before we got to the bridge.  As I scouted out our route, I noticed that an underground stop was located right next to the bridge entrance, so off went.  Once we neared the bridge we had only one more change to make from line 8 to line 13.  As we exited line 8 we searched for signs to line 13 but could not find any so we proceeded to the ticket booth to ask for help.  Fortunately there was a very helpful young woman there that spoke English and she informed us that line 13 was closed, and subsequently we found out that line 13 was constructed for the Shanghai expo in 2010 and had since been closed.  No problem we were close so we decided to set out on foot.  After exiting the subway station the route was easy; we were going to a bridge so just head for the water.  Well most of you have never been in Shanghai but you will come to discover that you can be less than 100 yards from the river and not be able to see it.  So we headed to an open area to see if we could get a better view and after 10 minutes we were no closer to finding the river so we decided to check the map and lo and behold we were travelling in the exact opposite direction and we were still quite a ways from the bridge.  So not wanting to use all our energy walking (before the strenuous climb), we took a cab and we were glad we did as it still took us 15 minutes to get there.  When we finally arrived we approached the ticket booth to find a note in Chinese taped to the door, our hearts sunk, after all we had been through we really wanted to enjoy the climb.  Fortunately the security guard saw how perplexed we were and lead us to the “real” ticket booth and after purchasing our tickets we were on our way to the top of the bridge.

 The climb is actually very safe as they have built stairs all the way up and over the bridge arch.  So our journey began by taking the elevator up 15 floors to the HEIGHT OF THE ROAD!!.  From there it was a mere 347 steps to the top of the arch and onto the viewing platform. The climb was not as strenuous as we had anticipated and we reached the top in about 15 minutes.  There we were surprised by the fact that there were only 3 other people there, now this is really rare for Shanghai.  We met a guy from Germany and enjoyed talking about our mutual experiences in Shanghai.  The views from the top were great and although it was hazy (which it always is), we enjoyed the sights of downtown Shanghai and the expo center.  The visit was great and should be a stop on your sightseeing visit to Shanghai as long as you are not afraid of heights.

It seems that every outing Shanghai is still an ADVENTURE!  But I guess that is what we came for!

Venice?

Well no not exactly Venice but a very interesting “Water Town”.  It is actually one of the many water towns in the Shanghai area.  Here we get a glimpse of a “real” Chinese town (as opposed to the “surreal” Shanghai experience).  Just after arriving in ZhuJiaJiao, we were greeted by this wonderful street vendor selling amongst other things; live chickens.  Although rarely seen in Shanghai, it is a common site in the more rural areas.  We do actually have a “wet market” just up the road from our place that also sells live chickens amongst many other live fish and other interesting meat sources.

Actually the town was very interesting, albeit very crowded.  It is about a 1 hour drive from our place into the country side.  This is a very ancient city which is now a popular destination for the local population (more than the expat community).  It is like a little Venice as it really is built on a small waterway.  There are many interesting shops selling everything Chinese and many restaurants but we opted for a nice place in a very up market country club in a nearby town. 

We were with our good friends (and boss) who speak pretty good Chinese so we were able to take a “Gondola ride” (Chinese Style), and visit a Buddhist Temple.  The weather was great and we really enjoyed a great day out in “Old China”.  It was nice to experience life in the “good old days”.

More pics on Picasa

Toys

Man cannot live without toys!  At least that is the case for me.  I have now accumulated enough toys to make life in Shanghai a lot more enjoyable.  It is also nice that acquiring toys enable friendships.  A great example of this is my car picture here.  It is a slot car and I was invited by a colleague at work to join his club.  We race once a week at a Japanese colleague’s house where he has converted his living room into a race track.  Last weekend I became a threat.  Although I have only two race days under my belt, last week I took second place overall and had the fastest lap time.  It was nice to be competitive in a new sport.

Making new friends has been slow and difficult as friendships with people at work are difficult and without kids this time, we do not have intimate contact with the international community.  But recently we have been to two dinners, a lunch and a BBQ all with different friends.  We are also starting to meet people at church so as you can tell, life is becoming a lot more fun.

We have heard a lot about the really hot and humid weather coming and so of course I had to get another toy to help cope with the hot weather (which I really don’t like).  So as you can see pictured below, I now have a “cool” way to get around town, an electric bike.  Cath does fit on the back and we have recently used it to go to one of our favorite stores that is just a bit too long of a walk.  I think we will make good use of it this summer.

And my last toy was actually my first toy, my RC car.  It is also a lot of fun and I regularly race it around our complex.  Actually I think I have spent more time repairing it than using it but that is part of the learning experience.  I have broken two wheels and the front steering mechanism but now I can actually have two or three good outings before I break something else.  All the kids in our complex want to try it but it is very very fast and even I have had a hard time controlling it so for now I have to be the “bad neighbor”.

It now feels a lot more comfortable here and I am now enjoying the experience.  The transition was hard but from those I have talked to, this is not uncommon.  Many times we have to remind ourselves that this “is not Kansas” and we now say “TIC” (This is China), and certainly we are not going to change the culture or the way of life here.  Accepting and coping are two key attributes that come in handy here. 

We hope that many of you will use our time here to come and visit because this really is a great country and we can help you experience the local culture and sites.