Renzhe: Ingenuity with Chinese Characteristics

by William R. Dodson

19 April 2002

 

In early 2001 a Harvard University Chinese employee wanted his wife to get a job in a University office. He arranged an appointment with the Director of the Office, during which he introduced his wife to the Director. He gave the Director, a woman, a bottle of expensive perfume as a gift. The Director, knowing the Chinese to be gift-giving culture, accepted the gift, albeit awkwardly. Some weeks later the wife of the Chinese man did not get a job in the Office. The Chinese man returned to the Harvard Office and pummeled the Director in the face. It took several staff in the Office to pull the irate Chinese man away from the Director. The Chinese man accused the American Director of having taken the gift he had given her on bad faith. She had cheated him. If she was not going to reciprocate the obligation that had bound the Chinese and the Director in relationship, then she should return the gift, he insisted.

 

Close relationships of obligation are very important for Chinese people. Historically, relationships with extended family meant the difference between life and death. Patronage from well-endowed family members would support generations of relatives, or open opportunities for individuals that would not be there otherwise. Relationships of mutual obligation – called guanxi – were the support network for groups and individuals within the context of laws and commercial regulations – fazhi – that would change on the whim of the local administrators. The historical realities of such quixotic change created in Chinese people a distrust of fazhi. So, Chinese people would rely on an intricate network of relationships and resourceful workarounds, all of which they call renzhe – basically, human ingenuity – to get the job done. People from Mainland China rely more on renzhe than do Taiwanese or Hong Kong Chinese, where Western-style legal and corporate practices have been more a part of the society for a longer period than in Mainland China.

 

Chinese people look immediately to who they know – their guanxi wang, or relationship net, literally -- to solve a problem that may seem more than they can handle. This does not necessarily mean they go directly to their Western counterparts, either. A variety of blocks to communications and relationship will keep them from doing that; including their embarrassment at their lack of fluency in English, or their insecurity with how to approach their foreign counterpart in a non-Chinese context. A Chinese who works at a Western bank explained, “…these are the kinds of things Chinese people must do in China to get ahead,” she said. “And it’s what many must do in America because they do not know the system and are not fluent in English.”

 

If the Chinese employee has no Chinese resource to help her through an issue, the Chinese will quite naturally attempt to solve the problem on her own, without any assistance from coworkers or managers. It’s plausible that through the conditioning of renzhe the Chinese would seek a workaround to the problem. However, the workaround could obviate the controls a company has put in place to reduce risks to the business. Of course, if this sort of action works out and the issue is resolved, then likely the employee may not be censured for breaking the rules.

 

Renzhe may explain an employee’s compulsion to ignore the rules; or perhaps why he or she doesn’t come to a manager when a problem emerges. Renzhe can be the source of great innovation for Chinese staff, or a source of compounded issues for management.

 

Another possible effect of renzhe should the employee feel he has no network upon which to fall back is that the employee simply suffers with the issue in silence. In another column on working with Chinese, I indicated that bearing a difficult situation in silence (renzi) is actually considered a positive trait for Chinese, an action from which they feel they can gain great Face.

 

The Chinese bank employee suggested to me that the best way for a Western manager to mitigate the risk of Chinese resorting to renzhe is to simply engage the Chinese once each month in a casual way, if even for a few minutes. The manager can ask after the employee’s family, general well-being, or about the Chinese culture to build a bridge of trust that will reduce the employee’s desire to work around the system or keep information from the manager. In other words, the manager needs to become part of the Chinese employee’s relationship network. For many Chinese people, the bank employee said, “Showing you care is sometimes more important to Chinese people than how much you pay them.”