Thursday Edition

dispatches from the new world of work

No-No.
(As You Know.)

In Korea last week I had a long discussion with a BigCo CEO about the Japanese and Chinese (and Koreans). While I think I passed the implicit test, I was reminded of the obvious: We far too often spout utterly useless words like "European" or "Asian." Maybe the Chinese and Japanese and Koreans share skin tint to some extent, but otherwise they have about as much in common as America and Albania and Afghanistan. Well, that's hardly the case, but you know what I mean.

Implication: Eliminate the use of terms such as "Asia"—as in "the Asian management style." Eliminate: as in zero, none, never, naught, zip.

Tom Peters posted this on 10/24/07.

Comments

Thanks TP - with you 100% - 'people' first! - How refreshing! - lets hope it catches on. Radical thinking for some. Race/geography/culture completely immaterial - we learn from everyone we meet. Open and receptive mind is all that is needed.

Posted by Trevor Gay at October 24, 2007 11:13 AM

In Asia, people really are different from one another. Each country has its own unique history. Don't get caught up in physical attributes and stereotypes. A lot of people often mistake Chinese for Japanese or for Koreans and vice-versa. Despite some similarities in physical features, they actually have very individual characteristics.

Posted by jen_chan, writer SureFireWealth.com at October 25, 2007 6:50 AM

Oh, this post hit so close to home. When I moved to America six years ago, I could NOT understand this whole lumping up of all these different countries into "Asian". Having actually grown up there, I knew firsthand that each country distinctly stood on its own, in business and in all other areas. It was incredibly frustrating to experience that here and glad to finally see it acknowledged in this post.

Posted by Michelle at October 25, 2007 3:41 PM

I still can't understand why people would group such diverse cultures into one. Just like all spanish-language people are Hispanics, and they may share the same language, but the culture is so different. Wouldn't it be weird grouping the Americans, British and Australians just because of one feature?

I also grew up in Asia, and could tell the difference between the different cultures, in some places even regionally.

Posted by Piotr Jakubowski at October 25, 2007 10:57 PM

Wow! I completely agree. I posted the following on my blog last month after watching David Weinberger's "Everything is Miscellaneous" talk @ Google. "How can Asian be a race? It seems incredibly racist to label Asians as one race in the US. Are people from Lebanon, China, and India related somehow? It's a useless label."

Weinberger tells a really interesting story about a South African guy whose "race" legally changed 4 times during his life, once forcing him to get divorced so as not to violate the apartheid marriage laws.

[link to my blog post follows...]
http://staticflow.blogspot.com/2007/09/race-is-racist-everything-is.html

Posted by Matt McKnight at October 30, 2007 12:42 PM