Asian American / Asian Students: Aspects of Social Interaction – Workshop 2-C

Dave Bryan: …Ms. Jane Hyun. And the topic she is going to share with you and discuss with you this afternoon is “Leadership 101 Beyond the Classroom: From Student to Asian American Professional”. Jane Hyun, currently a trainer and career executive coach for [inaudible] Associates, Inc., Ms. Hyun retains a private practice as a human resources consultant, speaker, and executive coach. She is also senior coach of the 5 o’clock club, their website www.5oclockclub.com and she is a national [inaudible], sorry, she is a national career coaching [inaudible]. Prior to beginning her own practice, Jane was a Vice President of Human Resources at JP Morgan until 1997, when she became the director of recruiting in the New York office of [inaudible] resources connection, a national consulting, professional services firm. In her own practice, she provides workshops, training sessions for corporations and associations. She also conducts one on one coaching in person or by teleconference to assist individuals with developing and career strategy, changing career direction, and enhancing communication presentation skills. I now turn it over to Miss Jane Hyun.

Jane Hyun: Thank you Dave, hi. I guess, good afternoon, [inaudible]. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Jane Hyun, and I’m going to be here sharing with you the tools that you would need or one would need to teach students moving into the corporate world and I’m going to talk a lot about my experience as a diversity trainer for corporations and organizations, and what I have seen in these organizations as barriers to success, or perhaps, mechanisms for success. I’m going to try to open up by kind of introducing everybody around the room, I think it would help to kind of know who you are and where you’re coming from, whether you work for CUNY or another organization, and kind of understanding that. Look at it this way, we’re gonna go around the room, and if you could just introduce yourself, your name, perhaps what you’re doing currently, and also if you could mention to us when your family, if you are an immigrant here, when your family migrated to the United States, and we can kind of get a sense of where everybody’s from. And also, if you could also talk, relate to that, the immigration story, if you could kind of tell me on a scale of 1-10, how Asian you feel, [inaudible], I’m going to explain that. And Dave, you can pick any number you want. But, [inaudible]… no ties or affinity to Asian culture, you feel very westernized and may look Asian but inside you’re not, and 10 being completely, I speak the language, I look more Asian than anything else, so just kind of, if you could give me [inaudible]. But I just want to get a sense of that, and also, the immigration patterns. Okay, so Suzie, would you like to start?

Suzie Liu Hwang: Suzie Liu Hwang, I’m an alumni of Hunter College, and a graduate of NYU’s Wagner school of Public Service. I’m an Asian American, though my father is a first generation, my mom is second generation. My husband’s first generation, and I am, I guess, second, two and a half generations, something like that?

Jane Hyun: Okay, how about a scale of zero to ten, your Asian [inaudible]?

Suzie Liu Hwang: I would say 50/50.

Jane Hyun: 50/50? Okay, so right at five?

Suzie Liu Hwang: I guess I would say five, and currently I’m not in the workforce, so I’m doing a lot of volunteer work. I just finished a benefit with an organization that provides medical services to children at risk, I’m doing something with my graduate school for fundraising. [inaudible]

Female Audience Member: [inaudible] I guess my parents are first generation, I’d be one and a half, I immigrated here when I was four, so, I am 1.5, [inaudible]. I guess on the scale, probably seven or eight.

Jane Hyun: Seven and eight? So pretty strong on the Asian side, right? Okay. We’re just introducing ourselves, name, what you do currently, if you could mention when your family immigrated to the United States, sort of, what time frame, and also if you could give us, on a scale of zero to ten, how Asian you feel, an ethnic identity. There’s a lot of information right now, we’re going to open up right away. [inaudible].

Male Audience Member: [inaudible], and I’m first generation. My parents are [inaudible].

Jane Hyun: How old were you when you came to the states?

Male Audience Member: [inaudible] seven or eight.

Jane Hyun: Okay. Dave?

Dave Bryan: Hi, I’m Dave Bryan, I came to America in the late 80’s, I’m from the Caribbean. I would say I feel 50% Asian [inaudible]. I work at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, this year acting as special assistant to the Dean for Student Life. So we work with students on a daily basis [inaudible].

Loretta Chin: I’m Loretta Chin, and I work with Dave at Brooklyn College at student life, my session follows this one [inaudible], I also worked at Merrill Lynch at one time and a bank at one time. My father came over when he was 13 years old, on a slow boat from China literally, and my mother was born here, her parents were born in China, and from what I hear, my grandfather on my father’s side came over first, and went back to China, and then my great-grandfather, I should say, and then my grandfather came over after and sent [my father]. How Asian do I feel? I’m very, very Americanized, very Westernized, but I still feel very, very Asian.

I feel a very strong affinity to my background [inaudible], and how that relates to society, and I also feel for the generations that are coming in because of the stories that my parents and grandparents told me, so I understand the immigrant story. It’s different because it’s a different paradigm in this generation than two generations ago, but you know, there are language barriers and other things that are still the same. So I try to help students where I can and draw upon my background and this knowledge of my culture and family.

Jane Hyun: So you would say around five then?

Loretta Chin: I would say around five.

Female Audience Member: Hi, Selena Cantor, I work in the membership department of the College Board, and I previously did some, I have corporate training in my background. My family, my mother’s first generation immigrant from China, my father is a second generation immigrant from Eastern Europe. How Asian do I feel? Probably, quantitatively, maybe four, because I feel, I do have strong ties to my Asian, I guess, part of my identity, I do speak the language and I spent time in the culture overseas, but I guess, also having grown up with more of an English [inaudible].

Female Audience Member #2: I’m [inaudible], I also work at the College Board [Finance] Department. I came over when I was eight, [inaudible]. I think I’m about a five. I’m Korean. They came over, actually my father came over in the 1970’s.

Jane Hyun: Okay, so post 1965, right? Okay, great.

Female Audience Member #3: My name is [Grace Liu]. I work for CUNY, [inaudible]. My parents came here in the late ‘50’s from Taiwan, [inaudible], I was born here. Even though I was born here and [inaudible], but I still keep to my parents’ tradition and values and morals, so I would say maybe seven.

Jane Hyun: So we do have a range, but on this side, more so. We’re just going around and introducing ourselves, and perhaps when our family immigrated to the United States, and how ethnically Asian we feel on a scale of zero to ten. Next.

Female Audience Member #4: Hi, I’m Lisa Wong. I work at Kingsborough Community College, [inaudible]. My parents came over in the early ‘70’s, [inaudible], so they were apart for about three years. I am second generation, I’m the only one in my family that’s been born here in the states. Asian identity, I’m a seven, eight.

Jane Hyun: Seven or eight? So, okay, on this side. Okay.

Male Audience Member: I’m Frank Shih, and my parents came here, I was born in Singapore, and I came here when I was six. Ten being highly identified with Asians?

Jane Hyun: Right, how culturally Asian you are, so ten being [inaudible].

Frank Shih: I’m almost like .5, but actually two, I’d say about two.

Jane Hyun: About two? Okay, fair enough. Next?

Female Audience Member #6: My name is Ming Yin, I teach sociology at LaGuardia Community College, and I’m a first generation immigrant here. I came in 1986 for my graduate studies, so [inaudible], I would say eight or nine.

Jane Hyun: So pretty high up there, right?

Ming Yin: 8 or 9, yes.

Jane Hyun: Okay, and introduce yourself, perhaps, and share with us, just your name, where you work.

Female Audience Member: [inaudible]

Jane Hyun: On a scale of zero to ten, how Asian do you feel?

Female Audience Member: [inaudible]

Jane Hyun: You’re the only one off the charts, right? That’s great, so I think it’s interesting to see, the range of people in the room who are perhaps second or third generation, or even new immigrants, it seems like it certainly leads toward the Asian end of the scale, even second, third generation. I actually do these exercises with people in companies who have Asians who are third, fourth generation, who have been here a long time, and usually the scales tend to be from five and up, so no matter how, how I guess the generations flow, it seems like a lot of people still retain a lot of their Asian-ness. Even fifth-generation continue to have kids who are very unorganized and know English very well with a foreign language, so it’s a very interesting concept. And also Asians are relatively new immigrants, as a whole, and I think that affects some of that as well, so.

Just as far as ground rules, I’m going to try to make this as interactive as possible, I know I only have about 45 minutes or so, I do all day workshops on this kind of Asian cultural identity things with [inaudible] and as well as with myself, so I do all types of things [inaudible]. So I’m going to try and squeeze in the highlights of a lot of this stuff in that 45 minutes, so I’m going to [inaudible] try to whisk through a lot of this stuff and you could save the questions for later, so we can get through as much as we can as possible, that would be great. As far as ground rules, I use sort of what I call the ROPE concept, Respect, Openness, Privacy, obviously there’s a lot of people who share different things about their personal lives here, and Empathy, as we share your experiences and hear mine and yours, just to be respectful about everything here.

I think I should start out with some statistics, I think numbers always excite people. When I was downstairs with the SAT trends and all the psychometrics that were out there, I was fascinated, I hadn’t had any interaction with SAT since I was in College, and just hearing those numbers out and how the Asian numbers are different from the mainstream ones, that was quite interesting.

But I think this will be interesting to you as well, as this research is based more on corporate work and people who are in companies in Corporate America.

As you know, the Asian population in the U.S. is growing, it’s growing at a faster rate than the general U.S. population as a whole. I think there was an increase of 72% since the 1990 census. Now, despite that, and despite the fact that Asian Americans are a very educated group, they’re actually the highest educated as far as undergraduate degrees and above, in the country, above whites, even, despite that fact, there’s still I think a lag in the corporate world as far how far we’ve come.

There’s a couple of studies that have shown that. A [Catalyst] study, [Catalyst] is an organization that works for the advancement of women in corporate America, they deal with class [inaudible] and that kind of thing. They did a study last year on Asian women, and they found hat despite the fact that Asian American women are one of the fastest growing groups in the United States of working people, they only represent one and a half to one percent of senior management positions. So very, very few. And then, in addition to that, there’s some studies that were done [inaudible], and a couple other journals, which showed that, in certain companies, [inaudible] of these companies only have very similar numbers, [inaudible] of the population were Asian American, at positions for VIP level and above, so. The numbers, as far as who was represented in the business world and of corporate America seem to indicate that there’s not a lot of progress that’s been made, even though we are representing, perhaps, [inaudible], and that kind of thing. So, that’s something to kind of keep in mind. This kind of research, actually, it’s not a lot of research because the whole idea of Asian Americans in the professional world doing research about that, there’s not a lot of work out there, and that’s actually a problem in itself. There’s not a lot of research, for women, for example, which is certainly an adversity group. There’s thousands, thousands upon thousands of studies about gender and adversity and why women are not breaking the glass ceiling, those type of things. For Asians, there’s, I think there’s like, I don’t know exactly the number, but it’s a very small number, and there’s definitely a need for this kind of study to be continuing. Next slide.

Just thought I’d share with you some of the trends in corporate America, what companies are doing, kind of advanced diversity causes. It’s hard to, I’m writing a book about career strategies for Asians right now, and it’s primarily focused on the individual, so a progressional person will pick it up and say, “What do I need to succeed in corporate America now that I have a job here?” Well, they can do that, but if the company is not, does not have a structure in place or a mechanism in place to support their growth, to develop them, to select them for senior management positions or special projects and that kind of thing, they can be trying all hard trying to work on that kind of thing, it’s not going to go anywhere. So I just wanted to share with you some of the best practices of what companies are doing to help advance the diversity causes.

Now, not every company in the United States is doing this, unfortunately, it’d be nice if they were, but just some friends.

As you know, the diversity equation started out with the whole Affirmative Action practice, where you had to keep a certain number, if you had at least 50 employees in your company, you need to have a minimum of equal professionals of color represented in the company. So it’s more of a quota kind of thing that started this whole idea of equal opportunity and affirmative action. Probably in the early 90’s or so, diversity became a little bit more of a business advantage, so companies realized, if we have a diverse work force, and we have an international focus as far as clientele and sales and that kind of thing, we could probably sell more effectively, like let’s say to Asia or Latin America or [inaudible] represent. They saw that diversity has a positive effect on their bottom line, because the more diverse the people in the company are, and the more diverse your clients are, you would think that there’s a good effect, cause and effect, from those two.

Now, what’s happening now, is that the really progressive companies are really kind of latching onto the concept that, if you have a diverse work pool of people kind of working people, you’re just going to have a more creative team, and when you have more creative people and a kind of diversity of ideas, you’re going to get further in your solutions. It may take longer to get these solutions come to a conclusion because you have so many different opinions, right, you may have people who think this way, people from the Asian culture who think this way, and then this is not how we think….You need time to kind of distill all that stuff through, but they have shown that over time these results are positive, and that you can produce a lot better with that kind of, kind of energy and creation of ideas, versus someone who’s just a white person or a white male who continues to do the same kind of work with one kind of leadership style.

So that sort of has been proven in a number of different cases. What companies are also doing, in the light of best practices, is actually creating affinity groups. And I think you might already have that, I think Selena has her organization. Many of these companies are creating what I call Asian networks, so they have these Asian networking forums where Asian Americans from different backgrounds come together to form networking groups for each other. One of the things that is lacking, I think, in corporations where there are diversity organizations is kind of a unified voice, so you have, there’s an African American networking group, sometimes there’s a Hispanic American group, Asian American group, women’s group. I mean, there’s all these different groups out there that, if you as an individual are not part of a group like that, you’re not able to kind of form this unified voice so that you can have a communication forum with management. If management wants to do a good thingfor, let’s say, the Asian group, or for the Latinos or the African Americans, but if there’s 20,000 emails that are going up to the CEO with all these different requests, “Hey, we want to celebrate [inaudible], that’s an Indian holiday” or “We really want to take off Chinese New Year”, I mean, you get all these different types of ideas coming together. He can’t manage that, but if you have some co-chairs or chairs who represent the group of affinity nationalities there, who can kind of create this forum where you can communicate with one voice to the CEO, to the management team, I think that would be a lot more effective.

Now the one problem or concern with these networks is that, sometimes people don’t get involved, people think, I’ve gotta just do my job, I have other things I need to do, and it just kind of fails to get connected to these things, so when that happens, you don’t have a lot of momentum in the group, because people don’t show up, you have these events and you have two people show up, it sort of defeats the purpose.

Actually, I haven’t seen a lot of companies, I find that Asian groups tend to be the least represented, as far as networking groups are concerned. The women’s group is one of the best, I mean you get hundreds of women coming together from all different backgrounds. I think, I don’t know what it is, but women just really feel that they have this commonality, and they’re going to kind of pull through this together, and it’s easier for them to come together. For some reason, the Asian groups don’t tend to have that cohesiveness, so that’s something that, in the future, I think needs to be worked on and something we’re trying to encourage as we’re out there.

And again, I talked about the bottom line [inaudible] for initiatives. I think diversity only becomes effective when the senior people at the top realizes, “You know what, this really does matter to me, and if I do keep all the high-potential people of color, I can do well I here, because if they leave and go to my competitor and do all these great things, then what have I gained? I trained this person up, but they’re gone”, right?

So, companies are realizing, and I have talked to senior people at the top who say, “I really want to work with these high-potential Asians or people of color, how do I do that, how do I most effectively motivate them, how do I manage them, how do I get them to do good work?”

Female Audience Member: And also, evidence that the diversity is a very strong, and tap into different markets than the bottom line.

Jane Hyun: Sure, sure. Example, if they’re trying to open up an Asian office or somewhere in the Far East or even in a different country where they want a diverse team of people going out there, absolutely. They want to see, they want, the companies to kind of reflect the client base, right. It’s more effective. Okay, next slide.

A bit of a group exercise. I thought, I hate talking the whole time, it’s a lot more interesting for you all when you’re involved. I thought what we would do is, we have about, [starts counting], I think we should divide into three groups of maybe four of five, and in your groups, I’m going to give you one sheet each, and if you can write down on the sheet, together within your group, the perceptions of Asians that you have or others have had of you. And this can be stereotypes, could be incorrect perceptions of you or other Asian [inaudible], any kind of things that you think people think of Asians, okay. So it doesn’t have to be accurate, per say, but I want you to write this down.

[talking and discussion for several minutes]

Resumed: 29:45

Male Audience Member: Alright. Okay, we’re smart, we’re good at math, we’re hard working, shy, quiet, we’re bad drivers. Scrupulous, sneaky, law-abiding, compliant, accommodating, academic achievers.

Female Audience Member: What a contrast, law-abiding and bad drivers. [inaudible, laughter and discussion]

Male Audience Member: Business sense, cheap or frugal, obedient to parents’ authority, family centered, non-challenging, non-confrontational, ethnocentric.

Jane Hyun: Wow, that’s great. How about this group over here, want to read your list?

Male Audience Member #2: My list? We are hard-working, sometimes antisocial, [inaudible], educated, model minority, financially stable, [inaudible], family-oriented, healthy, feminine.

[inaudible discussion]

Jane Hyun: The next group? [inaudible] I’ll hold it up.

Loretta Chin: Okay, we have, hard-working, stick to their own groups, super-intelligent, passive, followers, quiet, non-confrontational, foreign, exotic, China-dolls, good at math and computers, non-participation in government and civic life, economically stable, education-obsessive parental interest, [inaudible], doctors or store owners-occupations, Asian males are nerds, [inaudible].

Jane Hyun: This is interesting, these are great, got some interesting new ones that I haven’t heard before too, that’s great. You know, it’s funny, I work with a lot of people who are in job search or changing careers and that kind of thing, and inevitably when I talk with Asians and I talk about “Well you know, you need to do these types of things, network and talk to people [inaudible], and get into a new industry”, they’re kind of like, “What degree do I need to get?” It’s not, “Well, how do I get all these leadership skills or public speaking skills or [inaudible]”, it’s more of like, “Do I have to get a Master’s for that?” It kind of automatically brings education as the ticket to success, and it’s not, you could change careers here in the states without having a master’s degree, without having a specialty that [inaudible], so it’s not necessary to have to jump to that conclusion. But I think the importance of education has been so drilled down to us, just keep getting your PhD and keep moving up and that kind of thing, I mean, you need that in an academic setting, but if you’re working in, say, a certain corporate world, that’s not necessarily the only thing you need.

Okay, well let’s talk about how behavior, values, and perceptions all play [inaudible]. Because I think that those perceptions, some of them are based on some half-truths, some of them are pretty accurate, some of them are completely off.

Let’s talk about how that works. Well, let’s also talk about what we were raised with. I want to just hear from the group here about, what kind of voice did you hear when you were growing up, your parents, your grandparents, the values that were instilled in you. I’ll just write some down, I’ll just take two or three. Work hard, okay.

Female Audience Member #2: Work hard. Whether or not in school, or hands on.

Jane Hyun: Okay, kind of the work ethic, uh-huh, the importance of pushing through, right? Any others?

Female Audience Member: Responsible?

Jane Hyun: Responsible, okay.

Female Audience Member: Assimilate, English, English language.

Jane Hyun: Absolutely. Actually, when I’ve spoken with Japanese clients, or when I’ve spoken with a lot of people…because of the internment process during World War II, they were totally told to just forget about the Japanese, to just become as American as you can. And a lot of times when I talk to them, they’ve lost a lot of that Asian culture [inaudible], so assimilate at all costs, at times, okay.

Male Audience Member: Do not assimilate. [inaudible].

Jane Hyun: Right, learn to keep the language, right, you’re still Chinese or Korean or [inaudible].

Male Audience Member: Don’t forget Asian culture. Never forget.

Jane Hyun: Okay, how about other things. How about one more, and we’ll just work that. What other things, voiced were drilled…

Female Audience Member: Save.

Jane Hyun: Save money? Okay. Okay, great, so anyway, these are the values that were, how about as far as in relation to how we interact with people, what were we raised with, maybe just one thing about that.

Female Audience Member: Respect your elders.

Jane Hyun: Respect your elders, okay, maybe don’t talk back, maybe, alright. Even if you’re right, right? Okay.

So those are some of the voices that we held growing up. Anyway, beneath the values that we held, there’s certainly a lot more that we can get into, but those are some o f the ones we have. And the perceptions we just talked about, like good at math and science, quiet, hard-working, saves a lot of money, frugal, all that kind of thing, are the external perceptions that people make. Now, what are those based on? These are based on the visible behaviors that we demonstrate to the outside world, right, and what are some of those behaviors? What do you think? Here, let me throw something out. A common thing that I’ve seen when I’ve worked with clients is, why don’t Asians talk up or speak up in meetings, that’s sort of the perception that’s out there. So that’s the behavior, they see this, they don’t speak up at meetings. What’s going on underneath the surface, does anyone want to take a guess? What’s going on, what are some of the values that may be driving that behavior?

Loretta Chin: Insecurity, nervousness.

Jane Hyun: Okay, okay, but based on what, where’s that coming from?

Female Audience Member: I think, priority given to being a listener, like more emphasis on listening and secondly, a question that if you ask a question, it appears you don’t know something, so this fear of appearing like you don’t know.

Female Audience Member: So having to be really confident and knowing everything before you can say something that’s sure. And possibly, the English language is not their first language, so if that’s the case, you may feel uncomfortable presenting an idea, maybe you’re not saying it right or something, right, as well. What other reasons, yes?

Female Audience Member: I think it’s in the Asian culture, but we have the education in China, and to respect he teacher…

Jane Hyun: Absolutely, absolutely. It’s a different educational process, right. Okay, how about anyone… Humble? So, respecting, respect authority, okay, and you have one more.

Male Audience Member: I was going to say that we’re taught to be very deferential to people who know, who supposedly know more, who are an authority. We’re very, very deferential.

Jane Hyun: Sure. Absolutely, you don’t want to [inaudible] 20 questions to the person presenting or something like that, in a meeting setting, where they’re the expert, clearly.

Male Audience Member: And you don’t wanna embarrass them.

Jane Hyun: So anyway, that’s what the behavior is, the only behavior they see is the Asians that are not saying much, or maybe they say one thing but they’re not really contributing. But what’s going on underneath the surface is all this other stuff that we have, all these cultural lenses with which we see the world, and all the things we bring to our experience, so maybe that English is sort of a second language.

They did some studies where they sort of observed what would make Asians participate more, that kind of thing, and they threw out a question, you know, to a group of Asians, and kind of saw how quickly they kind of responded. Typically Asians tend to take a little bit longer to digest the information, and then they respond, they have an answer to say, but perhaps it’s because they want to kind of get the right answer and say something incredible versus just shooting off their mouth, or it could have been that maybe because it was their second language, they need time to kind of figure out, “How do I want to say this and not really sound like I don’t know what I’m talking about as well?” So it could be one of those things.

But if companies knew that, if the people that you work with knew that, that that’s the reason, that would help them, wouldn’t it? Instead of kind of expecting, sometimes you may never get your chance at a meeting, right, if you don’t speak up, so, if the people that you’re working with, your direct manager, or your colleagues knew that, hey, you have some cultural tendencies here that, may inhibit you from shooting out your mouth and say something, they could at least be more sensitive for that and prepare before the meeting, hey, you know what, we’re going to talk about these types of issues, I’m going to give you a chance to speak, so I want you to think about preparing this so that on the spot at the meeting, they’re not like, what do I say, because I didn’t expect this, or whatever.

There’s no reason you can’t prepare for a meeting, there’s no reason you have to be just always spontaneous, right? Or if the manager’s sensitive to what your wishes are, he can call on you, you know, he can say, “I’m going to call on you specifically for that answer, and I want you to think through that ahead of time and [inaudible]”. You can also practice being a little more spontaneous as well, but that’s another set of skills you have to work on. So anyway, that’s the behavior.

So I just wanted to kind of re-emphasize that this is the kind of visible thing here, the behaviors that are on the outside, and this is the invisible stuff that’s going on, the values [inaudible] and which drives how people think of you. Actually in the corporate world or any other kind of work setting, what they see is what they believe, right? The “perception is reality” kind of thing. So no matter what you think, what your motives are, how well-intentioned you are about saying something or doing something, all they see is this one behavior, and then you’re kind of narrowed down to either, if you don’t talk at a meeting, this is what they assume. 1) You don’t know what you’re talking about, so you’re not saying anything. 2) you don’t care, or 3), you just are arrogant and [inaudible] be there, right? So, that’s the perception that people have of you immediately without you even saying anything. So, you want to work with that within the confines of what you’re doing and figure out how to combat those types of things.

Okay, so. Could you go to the next slide? Great.

So we talked about the relationship between behavior, values, and perceptions. Okay, keep going, okay, keep going. I want to share with you these cultural images, if you could just open them all up. Keep going, there’s two more. Okay.

Can anyone take a guess at what that duck stands for? Like what does that mean? Each one is sort of related to an adage or a proverb or a saying, like, either Eastern or Western saying. These are the Eastern, or Asian, values you grew up with, and these are the Western. Can anyone take a guess about ducks?

Female Audience Member: Stuff the duck. [laughter]

[inaudible chatter]

Jane Hyun: That’s really interesting, I want to hear more about that, I never heard that before. Yes, in the back?

Female Audience Member: I was going to say go with the flow.

Jane Hyun: Go with the flow? No, not yet! [laughter] Basically, that has to do with an old Japanese proverb that says, the loudest duck gets shot, so don’t quack too loud, kind of thing. Somebody in the audience once said, well, that means Asians are like ducks, they look really calm and collected on the outside but on the inside they’re [inaudible] like crazy. So, that’s something else.

So, how about this one, with the hammer and the nail?

Female Audience Member: Hard knocks?

Male Audience Member: The nail that sticks up gets hammered?

Jane: Exactly. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down, that’s another Japanese proverb as well, so you don’t want to stand out, because you’re going to get, you’re gonna get squished, you’re not going to be able to do that. Okay, how about those two Western images? The one on top?

Female Audience Member: [inaudible]

Jane Hyun: What common saying is that?

Female Audience Member: Wheels, spinning wheels…

Jane: The squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? If you squeak loud enough, somebody will help you, right? That happens a lot, right? If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it, but if someone cries aloud and says there’s a problem, they try to address it, right? How about the last one? There’s another saying that relates exactly to what you’re thinking.

Male Audience Member: You have to toot your own horn?

Jane Hyun: Exactly, right. So you can see the dichotomy, right, between the two groups? And, you know, a lot of us grow up in this kind of household, and having to operate in a world that’s very counter to what we know, and what we believe to be true in our own lives. It creates a lot of conflict and stress, I think, in a lot of people. So when you’re not yourself, and when you’re not allowed to be fully yourself in the work world, I think that you’re not being the most productive that you can be, right? And if you can be yourself, you could be natural and in your own environment, and feeling like you can do whatever you need to do, you’ll be a little bit more at ease in the workplace. Okay, great.

So I just wanted to kind of summarize, here, the whole idea of collectivism versus individualism. Duty and obligation versus rights and privilege. Respecting elders, and egalitarian society, which is more American and Western. And the shame-based culture and guilt-based. I’m going to get into that a little bit more as we continue, but I think this is a pretty important one as well, about how we see things.

Basically this says that most of the Asian cultures are more shame-based. I haven’t done a lot of work with the South Asians, the Indians and Pakistanis to kind of confirm this, but I think, for the general stuff that I’ve done, it seems like this were the case, that when we do something wrong, or we fail at something, it becomes sort of a public shame issue. It’s not like just this one thing that [inaudible], you just [laugh] it off, kind of like this is a big issue, for yourself and for the community, perhaps. Whereas, the Western culture is more guilt-based, in that you make a mistake, you do something wrong, you just move on, hey, you just learned from your mistake, just [laugh] it off and keep moving. I think this is a really important issue when you’re working in corporate America where it’s very competitive, where you sometimes do fail or kind of need to fix things, and a lot of times, there’s sort of a sense of fear of failure sets in, where you don’t even want to take a risk, because if you do and you make a mistake or if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, then you can’t move on, right? So I think this is a really important dynamic, I think, as people strive to keep moving up in a very competitive world.

So these are just stereotypes in the media, not that I spend a lot of time on them, but I think that you, during the conference, you heard about them, the model minority myth, that people assume that Asians are the most privileged minorities because they’re well educated, they work hard, they just do what they have to do and they get there. And then I think this perpetual foreigner concept, because we look physically different from other people, people assume that we don’t speak English, that we don’t know how to operate, and that we’re always kind of seen as an outsider. I think that can hurt people, right? Like, I remember an example, a friend of mine who actually owns his own technology firm, he’s an Indian guy and he lives in the West Coast, and he has a lot of clients all throughout the United States who are not, people he doesn’t see on a regular basis. One of his clients wanted to meet with him, because he was kind of making some trips around the country, somewhere in the Midwest, and so he shows up to the meeting. As soon as he walks into the meeting, the guy, [inaudible] of this company’s like, “I had no idea that you were Indian, I had no idea!” So, on the phone, he was talking to this guy, fluent English speaker and all this was happening, and he was just so floored, it was almost a disappointment to him. And so, my friend, who’s hearing this guy speak, was sort of just like, boy, I should have just kept the phone conversation going, and not meeting this guy, because it wasn’t helping him to have met with him.

I mean, there is, that’s sort of an extreme case, but I think there’s some, there’s some evidence that there’s still prejudice and bias out there in the workplace, or just, I think ignorance. It’s not that intentionally they expected this person to be Caucasian and he ended up not being that way so he doesn’t know what to do with it, I think it’s just, he’s not used to that, you know. He wasn’t expecting to see an Asian guy walk in the door. So [inaudible] that first impression thing almost daily, “Oh, I didn’t know you were Asian, you speak English so well,” that kind of concept. Okay, next slide.

Okay, great. I just wanted to quickly go over these with you, these will be quick. How do you keep yourself marketable at work? I think you have to go beyond technical competency, right? That’s certainly a minimum, you need to know how to do your job well, I mean that’s a bare minimum, but as you move up in your respective jobs, I think just based on more subjective factors such as your [inaudible] skill, how do you motivate and work with other people, how do you present to other people in a meeting setting, or how do you present your material, and how do you present who you are as well. Do you represent the company and organization well, or are they afraid to send you out there? Are you someone who they can send out to represent their company at conferences, at meetings like this, or other types of things? You want to, at some point, determine your promote-ability. There’s some criteria that you could use to kind of keep yourself on the radar screen.

How do you deal with adversity? I talk a lot about developing what I call career-resiliency. In this day and age, where the average American has four to five careers and about 10-12 jobs, it’s really important that, in the world of downsizings and merger integrations and all this stuff, that you know how to bounce back, right, and deal with the punches that come. That’s what I call career resiliency, that no matter what really happens to you, that you’re a survivor, that you’re not crushed by these things that happen. If you have five managers over the course of a year and you have to deal with these people all the time, that creates a lot of stress, right? But some people could say, you know what, I can’t deal with this, I’m leaving. They could take off and join another company that’s better, or they could deal with that, be part of this very tough transition time and come out a better person, and come out as a survivor as well. So, there are different pros and cons of that as well.

I talked a lot about qualification and opportunity, preparing for stretch assignments. And this applies to anyone, really, but I think for, especially for professionals in college, this is really important, because what we’re talking about here is, you could be the best worker that you can be, but we need the opportunities, like people need to say, “Hey, Lorraine” or “Hey, Selena, I really think you’d be perfect for this job,” and this is a really great opportunity, the senior managers are going to see a lot of you in this, you get to prove yourself and that kind of thing. Well, a lot of times I think, we Asian Americans are afraid to take on some of those roles because of that whole shame-based thing that’s going on, because it’s different from what you’re doing now, because maybe the skills are kind of not exactly what you had trained for, it’s going to stretch you in certain ways, and maybe, preemptively, you don’t even take these assignments, right, so if you took them you could at least have the opportunity to take that next level up and get a promotion or whatever, but [inaudible] don’t take them sometimes, right? You’re afraid that this will not work or will fail. Or if you take it on and you do fail, people feel like they’re derailed for ten years, and they can’t bounce back as quickly.

But the idea of resiliency is very pertinent. And I put in there, idea of becoming a level-five leader. There’s a book by Jim Collins, those of you who have heard of him, he wrote some business management books. The latest one he wrote was, “Good to Great”, he talks about what a level-five leader is, and that’s, I guess, the ultimate for him, as far as leadership. And he talks about how level-five leaders, some of the qualities they have are, humility, they really look out for the good of other people, and communalism and that kind of thing, which, I think, the values that we talked about here, are very big for Asians, right? Kind of, looking out for others, the whole collective thinking idea, it’s not only for yourself, you’re not in this for yourself, and I’ve been trying to encourage people to stay in the workforce so that you can become these level-five leaders. The hard part is, you need to kind of move past the levels one to four to become a level-five leader, which requires different sets of skills, right?

And I think, the mindset that you want to be in when you think, “Okay, how do I get up to this senior level?” is, you want to kind of think that, it’s not that you have to change yourself or compromise who you are to actually keep moving up in this world. As we saw, this whole, this, the conflict between our behaviors and perceptions and what we truly have been raised to do, there’s a lot of conflict there, there’s a lot of room for challenge and difficulty, but I think we decide that, okay, in order to do well at my job, I need to know how to [inaudible] speak right in front of people. I can go to a public speaking course and kind of get preparation for that. I need to know how to be a little more assertive, there’s assertiveness training kind of stuff they give. I need to understand how to present my ideas a little more clearly. You can take a project management course, or something like that that will get you there. It’s kind of like developing new skills versus changing who you are, so it’s kind of a mindset change, I think people think, “I can’t fit in here, it’s all like this good-old-boys network, and I’m not anything like these people and it’s a very different kind of world!” Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. It could be that you have to develop certain skills to figure out the rules of the game, and operate from that role.

And, also, in light of that, it’s sort of the whole dealing with failure. How do you deal with failure. Do you see it as a little tick mark on your shoulder and just…hey that’s alright, everybody makes mistakes, I can move on. Or do you see it as, “Oh no, everybody knows I failed and I really don’t have anything to contribute to this company, and I can’t do well here.” It doesn’t have to be that bad. I’m just whizzing right through in the interest of time.

I talked a little bit about your presentation skills as being important. I just wanna get the…Okay.

So I wanna talk about your presentation, is it a deal-maker or a deal-breaker, a very important fact, right? You know, I encourage people to kind of think about, when you’re presenting yourself in any kind of setting, that you’re marketing yourself in a way, you’re the product that you’re showing to the world, and what kind of messages are you sending about yourself. And a personal [inaudible] visual appearance: thrust, demeanor and attitude; visual aides: how do you write your emails, how do you come across. If someone reads an email from you does it seem like someone who’s not out of college, who’s just kind of casually sending out “Hey, what’s up” kind of thing? Or are you working in a professional kind of tone that makes people think, “Wow, this could be like the V.P. at…” whatever, it sounds like a different level person. Presentations and proposals, how you come across. Verbal skills, the tone, inflection and use of the language. Certainly if you want to be careful with that as well, you, someone perhaps, because perhaps maybe Asia, an Asian language is your first language, that you are perhaps a little more tentative in the way you speak. You could have some training to kind of get over some of those issues as well.

Behavioral effect is an important concept that I think many of you probably, perhaps, have heard of in the past. So basically what that says… you could go to the next, so you can kind of see the whole thing…is that basically it says that if your visual first impression image is positive, the person that you meet will assume that other aspects about you are equally positive. I think as professionals of color, because we are physically very different from the mainstream Caucasian worker, people may assume that we’re different already, and then they have these images of us as well. So we kind of [inaudible] this kind of double-dosage [inaudible]. When people walk in the door and you’re Asian, you know, they kind of take a little [inaudible], there’s no one in this room who’s Asian, different, that whole concept, okay?

However, if the visual message is negative, the person may not spend the time and effort to discover the talented person inside, right? It happens, they kind of dismiss you as, “Oh, this person [inaudible] he doesn’t seem to care about what I have to say, I’m just gonna talk to these people over here.” They just assume that, right? Without knowing who you are, what you know, and all the talents that you have. But projecting that professional image is very important.

And where your presentation counts, in large group presentations, meetings, sales calls, client visits, project meetings and recruiting events. [inaudible]. Keep going. Keep going.

I’m just going to say that self-assessment is very important in the process, you know, understanding who you are, your strengths and weaknesses, your personality, and your selling style, how do you approach people. Okay? Could you just put back, one step? One more, back? Oh yeah, here it is.

I want to talk about slaying your inner giants or inner dragons. I think a lot of times we have these values or these conflicts within that kind of keep us from moving around and moving up in our careers. Here’s some examples of them: fear of failure or fear of career dereailment, fear of success…I was in a race and ethnicity subgroup at one of my old companies where I was able to kind of partake in what these senior executives of color were saying about their groups, right? And there was an African American man who was a vice-president of one of the business groups. And he was saying that, “When I made V.P. [inaudible], I was really happy because I got promoted and I got kind of moved to the next level, but I was really sad ‘cause I knew that there was no other person that made it to the M.D. level”, which is the next level up in the organization, and he was kind of like, “This is where I’m going to end.” So it was kind of a fear of success in that, “I’ve made it, so now what?” Could be one of those inner giants that we have as well. Fear of imperfection, self-blame and –shame, fear of not meeting client deadlines, hesitation and procrastination could be others that keep us from being the most effective that we can. So those are all part of your self-assessment, understanding, before you can kind of go out and use these tools to market yourself, what are the things that might be holding you back, in light of all this.

There’s many different personality types, but I’ve just filtered them into these four different personality groups. There’s detailed, cautious thinkers, results people who are doers, acceptance seekers who are more influencers, harmony seekers who are more stimulators. And each of them really kind of show the spectrum of the different [inaudible] various personality types that you all need to be aware. So in light of, in addition to the cultural values, we all have our individual personalities. So when we’re assessing ourselves we need to understand our cultural baggage in light of who we are as individuals. So if you’re someone who is truly, truly introverted and then you have the Asian cultural values layered on top of that, that’s going to show yourself in different ways. Or if you are someone who is gregarious, love public events, and kind of is more energized by being out there, and then you happen to be Asian, it is gonna have different ways that that manifests itself as well.

Next, we’re gonna include some of that kind of personality and culture kind of thing in my book so that’ll have more experience on it. Um, how do you…you knowledge of Asian cultural values, I think we talked about [inaudible] understanding what they are. Another important thing that you can use when you are operating in your career is asking for feedback, okay? And this is not kind of a performance evaluation, once a year [inaudible] required to do it.   You know, asking for feedback on an ongoing basis. When I used to work at [inaudible] I worked with this one business group that had a lot of the bankers in there, and a junior analyst who just joined my crew… He was just kind of trying to learn the ropes and work with his senior person and trying to learn this stuff. When I kind of watched how he operated and how he actually learned how to do his job, I was really fascinated.

What he did was, after he went on a deal meeting with his clients, he went with the senior person and he was able to kind of say thing and present some stuff or whatever. Afterwards, he would ask for feedback right away. He would ask the senior person, “How did I do? The stuff that I said, what did you think about it, give me feedback so I can improve this thing right away.” He didn’t wait, you know, six months later, you get this surprising thing like, “You didn’t do well with your manager.” He asked for that feedback right away and his senior person was able to tell him, “You know what, you did a great job but you could have been a little more forceful in this area and you didn’t have to say these types of things, unimportant to the decision making process.” And so the next time around he fixed what he had to do. He did it, he asked for feedback again, he kept improving and improving it. Kind of like a continuous feedback thing, I think it’s really important in understanding how you’re doing and getting real-time feedback.

Okay I think we only have like two or three more slides. So networking is very important, I’m not going to go into detail about that [inaudible]. This is testing my fast-speaking skills…networking is a door-opener, networking is very important. Obviously when you are meeting new people and creating networks of your own…When you’re meeting people there is different stages of meetings, and you want to kind of move from one to two to three. Stage one is when you’re kind of meeting people to get information, stage two is when you’re meeting the right people at the right levels, stage three is actually when you’re actually at the point of meeting new people who are [inaudible] meeting your objectives kind of thing.

There’s a two-minute pitch that I use a lot with my clients that basically is the answer to the question, “Tell me about yourself.” So, what is your arguing statement, what is your story to the rest of the world. And I’ve had sessions just for the two-minute pitch, we’d use two hours to talk about what the pitch is, kind of create it and practice it in a group setting. [inaudible] and try to figure out what is your statement that you want to make, that you want to sell to the world.

Mentoring is very important as well, unfortunately I’m not going to be able to get into detail. All I want to say about that is it’s important that you know how to be a good mentee or protégé as well. The thing I’ve had to hear a lot of complaints from the mentors who say, “You know what, I’m getting a little impatient. These people want me to be their mentors but they’re not really taking the initiative to follow up with me. They want to meet for lunch, I meet with them once and I just, they disappear. What’s going on there.” How do you sustain that relationship and continue that relationship to grow. [inaudible]

So I think that really just passing of the torch, developing future Asian leaders, now that we kind of realize a lot of this, a lot of the things about ourselves, we continue to build future leaders and build the Asian networks to be more effective. And that’s it, we’re going to have to close…but I’ll be around for questions maybe here I think outside [inaudible] I have some business cards if you want….[inaudible]