Patience: a virtue?
15th January 2008
As someone looking to identify and promote potential stars within your company, what’s the second-most important quality you should look for? Patience.
That’s according to Ben Wang, president and CEO of Beyondsoft Group, a Chinese company with more than 2,000 employees. The most important quality is an impressive performance track-record over the last one to two years, he said.
Certainly, this quality of patience would strike Western managers as a little bit odd for an employee virtue. Creativity might be desired. Or perhaps work ethic. But patience?
Yes, said Mr. Wang, who has been with Beyondsoft since its inception in 1995 when it had just a handful of employees. Now it serves leading companies like Microsoft and IBM, and Mr. Wang has been invited to speak at China’s SME Challenge, sponsored by AmCham-China. The event takes place Friday, January 25, at China Resources Hotel.
“If you want to become a leader you have to have patience to influence the team members to drive the team to go the right way,” Mr. Wang said.
Maybe he’s on to something there. Many Chinese, after all, are shy, Mr. Wang said. They often will not voice their true opinion unless they trust you. And trust – a foundation for interpersonal relationships – takes time to build.
“If you don’t have patience, you can do a good job but not achieve excellent results,” Mr. Wang said.
Someone with a lot of patience is not necessarily passive.
“If you look at all the leaders of SMEs, they have lots of patience, and do things more aggressively and with long term commitment,” Mr. Wang said.
So, how do you identify these people with patience?
Aside from just connecting with them to find out who they are, you could observe their energy, Mr. Wang said.
“People who are patient always have energy and are eager to do things,” Mr. Wang said. “They are a little bit different from others.”
Special employees, meanwhile, deserve 80 percent of company leaders’ attention, Mr. Wang said.
“They are the team, they are the potential, and they can help to grow business in the future,” he said. “You should give them more opportunity, promote them, and let them try. Sometimes they will make mistakes, but give them opportunity.”
The human resources issue continues to remain the most difficult challenge Mr. Wang faces, along with many Western companies. But, he said, identifying and rewarding able employees should make things easier.
AmCham Member Matt Young, editor & publisher, bizCult.com
This is the second post in a series discussing the upcoming China’s SME Challenge event