Asian product management
Whether you’re of Asian descent or you have friends who are, there is no doubt you would be familiar with typical Asian traits, stereotypes, jokes, and memes….
While most of them are of exaggerations, there is no denying that our cultural upbringing impacts how we handle conditions in our workplace, and this is no different in product management.
In today’s post, I wanted to highlight 3 common cultural traits I’ve seen relating to Product Management in this part of the world (and being Asian myself!). These are a traits I have seen within either from the product team or having to deal with other parties from a product perspective. These are from my personal experiences and is not meant to be broad strokes of every scenario, but having been around the block, I don’t think these are happening in isolation.
Reverence of Authority
A lot of fellow Asians attest to the fact that we grew up in a culture where respecting authority was pretty much law, whether it was your parents, your teachers or your elders. Unfortunately, this deference has also made many less inclined to voice their opinions, challenge the status quo and more inclined to taking orders in the working world. This is particularly crippling if in a product management function.
The harder part is also having product leaders who aren’t willing to fight for their teams or bite the bullet to protect the team, causing much discord and frustration within the team.
Feedback = Criticism
This is another tough nut to crack. Constructive feedback doesn’t seem to exist in many asian vocabularies, whether it is in the context of critiquing ideas, discussing proposals or just in general. Feedback given in a professional manner sometimes are taken personally, making normal conversations outside the scope of work a little awkward.
Passive Aggression
I can’t exactly pin point this one, but I believe this is usually a consequence of combination of conflict avoidance and or a negative reaction to feedback. I’ve seen this play out a when there is dissatisfaction with the way things are whether it be a decision made or how a discussion has panned out, instead of resolving differences, it comes back in the form of more hostility, less communication and a seemingly purposeful insolence.
I’ve definitely been guilty of these at one point in time, but I am thankful that I have had some really good bosses who have mentored me well, peers who have been honest and candid about their feedback and personally unlearning a lot of what I was brought up with. If it’s not the case, please feel free to give me feedback.
Just to be clear, this isn’t a guarantee that this will happen and I am also aware that this does happen outside of South East Asia, but this is my attempt at trying to highlight some of the nuances about doing product here, something inspired by my discussion with Kit Neoh in his Crazy Product Asia podcast a few weeks back. We actually had a lot of fun comparing notes about our “Asianness”.
What other traits have you noticed about product management here in South East Asia (or Asia in general)? I would love to hear your thoughts.
