Young Chinese want to learn and grow more than to be led

My staff, however, mostly did it for me. Even though I have never asked them to work over the weekend, they would come into the office to finish the tasks at hand voluntarily. One of my favorite team leaders, Ann, came to talk to me last week. She said she needed better-defined goals. I asked whether she could finish the annual target I assigned to her last quarter? She said of course. So I doubled the target. Ann did some quick calculations on her notepad. No problem, she said, I can do it.

People like Ann constantly amaze me - they seem to be burning with an energy to learn and to work, the like of which I had only observed in my colleagues in Silicon Valley during the heydays of the dotcom boom. Several of my key staff, including Ann, had told me that they expect a winning team to be one that is so dedicated to their goals that the team members do not have any personal life.

I, as a boss, actually had to remind them to maintain a work-life balance, to grow professionally in addition to finishing what I assigned them.

They are slowly learning. They still tend to look up to me for answers. And I know that it would be premature to expect from them an extremely innovative team like the ones I was used to in Silicon Valley. Yet I am confident about them - despite what James McGregor says in his book, I believe that increasingly the young hardworking in China treasure the opportunities to be coached, to learn and to grow, rather than simply being led.