CNN: American Morning: An Asian glass ceiling?

By John | Tuesday, May 15, 2007 | 13 Comments

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Today, in the on-going American Morning series, Yul Kwon covers the topic of “An Asian glass ceiling? (video)” As I’ve written in a previous post, “Working While Asian/Asian-American,” Kwon covers the topic of Asian-American stereotypes in the workplace. Challenging authority, self promotion and taking risks are some of the attributes that are valued in 19b CNN: American Morning: An Asian glass ceiling? Corporate America that clash with classic “Asian values” of respecting authority, being modest, etc. as brought up in the segment (i.e. The nail that sticks up, gets hammered down.”

Kwon also interviews executive coach, author, and diversity strategist Jane Hyun, who wrote “Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Career Strategies for Asians (2005).” I’ve actually read this book (I was trying to get Jane as a speaker for an event once) and found it pretty interesting. As Fortune Magazine noted when writing about the book:

“Even in Silicon Valley, where Asian Americans represent 30 percent of technology professionals, only around 12 percent of managerial positions are held by Asian Americans compared with 80 percent held by Caucasians.”

Now that is pretty startling…. If you work in Silicon Valley (or beyond), have you noticed this? Do you think there is a Asian glass ceiling in America?

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Tan

I think Asians excel in assimilating into new cultural settings. When there is a conflict between personal and coporate values, we are better off in maitaining a separation of what is personal from what is professional.
James

I watched this little segment and I agreed with one of the points being made, that Asian cultural values may not coincide with ladder climbing in the corporate world. Namely, that to gain an executive position in a traditional corporate environment, it takes an aggressive and forward attitude, something as an Asian-American speaking, that was not as encouraged by our parents.

Unfortunately, I sometimes think these attitudes for ‘successful’ ladder climbing also means a lot of twisting the truth and chest pounding. One reason I think the corporate world is not really for me (although I work in it unfortunately).
tiffany

I feel like this might be a generational thing– that Asian/Asian Americans adapt as they are acclimated to American values and ethics.

I didn’t watch this segment, but I also wonder if the priorities for asians (be financially lucrative and being scientifically inclined/just plain smart) need to be realigned with new values like leadership and …?
Erik

I agree with Tiffany. Values differ now more by generational and geographical lines than ethnicity.

I also believe there are more skill sets that people tend to focus on that aren’t linked to leadership. I hate to stereotype, but verbal communication skills are a must that many Asians still have to master.

Also, the numbers may be flawed. If 30% are Asian, then I’d say probably 70% of those Asians are focused on the engineering side of things. So they are competing against each other for those same managerial positions. They don’t divide managerial positions up by ethnicity but by department. So maybe there are only 9% competing for the other non-engineering (admin, sales, biz dev, marketing) positions.
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lazybye

I didn’t watch the segment, but it sounds like Yul Kwon is basically blaming the victim: if Asians can’t move up in the business world, it’s their own damn fault. I think he and many Asians realize there is more to it than that–i.e. plain racism, but he can’t get up on CNN and say that and expect to be invited back. Several thousand silicon valley firms have been founded by Asians, and many of the most well-known ones have been headed by Asians, like Nvidia, Yahoo and Garmin, so I don’t think there’s really a dearth of Asians who have leadership skills. On the contrary, many white CEO’s like Eric Schmidt of Google or Larry Ellison of Oracle don’t seem to be the most personable or dynamic or even likable people, yet all the same they’ve been successful. I have actually read parts of Jane Hyun’s book The Bamboo Ceiling and she basically says the same thing, that it’s Asians’ fault. Now I know there is an ounce of truth to this, but to fail to discuss the other part–institutional racism–is kind of lazy if not outright cowardly. I wish more Asians would just come out and say it, that much of America still thinks we’re foreigners and outsiders, and that’s why they don’t think of us a appropriate in leadership positions.
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Amused_Observer

You guys are hilarious. You know, there once was another minority group that was said to lack managerial ambition, leadership ability, interpersonal and communicative skills, and even a sense of humor. All these were thought to be natural traits inherent to the minority group… up until Executive Order 11246 started to be enforced heavily in their favor, and people found out, hey, it’s not that they lack these skills, it’s just that institutions used them as weak rationalizations for clearly discriminative practices.

This group was women.

Now, with the help and commitment of the EEOC and Labor Department, we have Indra Nooyi, ranked Fortune’s #1 most powerful woman in business as head of PepsiCo. And she’s Asian to boot! Go figure.

Also, Asians lack leadership skills? Do you people even take history classes? I defy you to tell me that Genghis Khan didn’t know how to assert himself. Or Tsao Tsao. Etc.

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