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'When the entire company is made up of yes men, it will decline. It is not desirable to have complete tranquility.'
A non-proprietary director, B24, emphasized that it was an executive's duty to speak his mind:
'If the managing director said we shall go south and I thought north is the right direction, then I would explain my reasons for my belief. If ultimately he said let us go east, I should follow him eastward. The most important thing is not to be a yes man. Do not support going south just because he says so.'
The fact that the ‘yes man' was singled out for criticism seems to indicate that compliance among subordinates constituted a problem in their companies.
Differences in opinion, according to the spinners, must be contained and resolved before they deteriorate into actual conflict. They followed several rules to prevent dissent getting out of hand. Steps were taken to ensure that the interests of the key decision-makers were homogeneous. As A22 told me, 'All of our executive directors are Chinese, friends. We can argue things out'. Besides ethnic and friendship ties, kinship bonds were also used to guard against irreconcilable conflicts.
In Mill 17, a young director said that differences in opinion were settled by those at the top who would take the ultimate responsibility:
'I follow the advice of my uncle and my father. My uncle has a son on the Board [of Directors]. So the four of us are of the same family. Only two other board members are outsiders.'
Within this framework, the weight of an individual's opinion was graded according to his hierarchical standing. A24 put this best:
'If they are under me, I make the final decision. If they are senior to me, I explain my views to them. If they do not accept, I shall do it their way.'
But among peers of similar status and power, resolution of differences could not be so straightforward. Under these circumstances, most spinners did not favour settlement by majority vote. A27 gave the following explanation:
153
'When the entire company is made up of yes men, it will decline. It is not desirable to have complete tranquility."
A non-proprietory director, B24, emphasized that it was an executive's duty to speak his mind:
"If the managing director said we shall go south and I thought north is the right direction, then I would explain my reasons for my belief.
belief. If ultimately he said let us go east, I should follow him eastward. The most important thing is not to be a yes man. Do not support going south just because
he says so.'
The fact that the ‘yes man' was singled out for criticism seems to indicate that compliance among subordinates constituted a problem in their companies.
Differences in opinion, according to the spinners, must be contained and resolved before they deteriorate into actual conflict. They followed several rules to prevent dissent getting out of hand. Steps were taken to ensure that the interests of the key decision- makers were homogeneous. As A22 told me, 'All of our executive directors are Chinese, friends. We can argue things out'. Besides ethnic and friendship tics, kinship bonds were also used to guard against irreconcilable conflicts.
In Mill 17, a young director said that differences in opinion were settled by those at the top who would take the ultimate responsibility:
'I follow the advice of my uncle and my father. My uncle has a son on the Board [of Directors]. So the four of us are of the same family. Only two other board members are outsiders.'
Within this framework, the weight of an individual's opinion was graded according to his hierarchical standing. A24 put this best:
'If they are under me, I make the final decision. If they are senior to me, I explain my views to them. If they do not accept, I shall do it their way."
But among peers of similar status and power, resolution of differences could not be so straight-forward. Under these circumstances, most spinners did not favour settlement by majority vote. A27 gave the following explanation:
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