OntoSomething

Pondering in China: The one-child family rule and its implications

An interesting fact I learned today, per the human resource director of my client here in China:

If you were born during the 1-child/family rule in China, and you marry someone who is also an only child, you are allowed two children. But if you come from a family where one of the parents is not the only child, you are permitted only one child.

With these rules in place for China, projections show that India will have a larger population by 2014, since they have no such restrictions. Currently, India already has more people between the ages of 18-35 than does China.

The Chinese government will have to grapple with how to pay for its aging population and how the young will take care of its older people.

I wonder the psychological impact of a nation of people without brothers and sisters. How does that change family dynamics and cultural preferences over time? As the H.R. director pointed out, "Can you imagine the consequences that every child has 6 people taking care of each child?" (2 sets of grandparents and the 2 parents)

From a cultural perspective, I also wonder about the collectivist orientation that is so strong in Chinese culture. A collectivist culture focuses on social affiliation, with value placed on dependence; where the "we" predominates over the "I". Could it be that the Chinese become more individualistic, valuing independence and focusing on "self" over time? How would that show up in the workplace? What are the implications?

These questions, among others, to be pondered as I'm here near Shanghai this week.

A globalized world means being more aware of individual cultures...

In the case that you're still thinking that a globalized world means less attention to adaptation of local cultures, read this.

New York Times article, April 18th: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/arts/18abroad.html?th&emc=th

An excerpt:

"The common denominator of popular culture ...seems to have just intensified the need people now feel to distinguish themselves from it. And global technology has made this easier by providing countless individuals, microcultures and larger groups and movements with cheap and convenient means to preserve and disseminate themselves. Years ago a language like Cimbrian, a Bavarian dialect today preserved by just a few hundred speakers in northern Italy, would have been doomed to extinction; now Cimbrian speakers, according to a recent German newspaper article, turn out to be getting their own online newspaper and television show. The language is being sustained by the same global forces that might promise to doom it."

The Legal Profession vs. Management Consulting - Billing Time or Billing Value?

It finally happened...as reported in this week's Wall Street Journal (8/24/09) the legal industry is slowly breaking its tradition of hourly billing.

According to the front page article "Billable Hour Under Attack" by Nathan Koppel and Ashby Jones, clients of legal services are beginning to move away from the straight hourly models because of new scrutiny of their expenses in this tough economic environment. It seems that firms who buy legal services are renegotiating with their providers to demand flat fee billing, instead of paying fees which have risen in the last number of years to $300 - $1000 an hour, according to American Lawyer magazine.

But before I go further, why this topic on a management consulting blog? Call it a rant based on past experience when I received a $47 bill for a call to thank my attorney for her services, but I have always had a pet peeve around hourly billing in professional services industry. And the same standard applies to myself as a management consultant. I strive to consistently to bill based on the value of the services I am providing, instead of the time it takes me to complete a project. (Credit goes to Alan Weiss, PhD, and his book Million Dollar Consulting for sharpening the argument for the whole management consultant community on "value-based consulting".)

While surely many attorneys would argue the contrary (saying that I don't fully appreciate their unique challenges), the message of time-based billing from a client perspective in professional services sends the wrong fundamental message, namely:

1. Client interests (results, quality) is secondary to compensating every minute of my time.

2. Clients have no need to consider cost-benefit and should have minimal control regarding end costs.

3. There is no reason to fear that clients' hours are padded, even though billing by time and being efficient are diametrically opposed. Just trust us implicitly.

I could go on.

What's different for management consultants who bill on the value of our services (which not all management consultants follow) is that what means most in the agreement is a solid relationship with the client. And the billing structure reflects my concern for that client relationship! As long as the scope of the project does not change, neither does their cost. I will do the necessary to deliver the result according to our agreement. And having agreements which reflect this philosophy disallows surprising clients with $47 bills in exchange for a call to say "thank you."

I want to be clear that certainly many attorneys are client focused and go above and beyond for their clients. My point is simply to state that working within a time-based structure sends a mixed message regarding what is most important and puts clients and professional service providers at odds.

While the legal industry is responding to this new fixed fee trend by saying that this is a temporary "correction" in the marketplace (just as price corrections are happening in other industries), buyers of legal services seem to be seeing this move as potentially permanent. I can only hope that this economic situation continues to shake up the status quo on time-based billing, which has always seemed to me as entirely counter intuitive.

What Ruth Bader Ginsburg Says about Gender Diversity: A Really Interesting Interview

While diversity conversations in the US have historically taken place largely around the topics of race, ethnicity and gender given our particular cultural context (and more recently sexual orientation and differently-abled), the conversation is substantially expanding. Specifically, organizations are looking to foster an environment which is more inclusive of many kinds of difference.

That said, the current conversation regarding Supreme Court Justice candidate, Sonia Sotomayor, gives us another opportunity to explore and discuss the diversity question.

Below is a link for an excellent interview with the New York Times with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who talks about women on the bench and their effect on the dynamics and decisions of the court.

You may need to sign in (free) to have access to the article, but well worth it because of the clear examples she uses about her experience as the only current female Supreme Court Justice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12ginsburg-t.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th