Governance and Workplace Culture
Governance and Workplace Culture My wife and I were visiting her family at their village in southern China when I would slip away for walks. I’d find women cleaning laundry in the river, merchants preparing chickens for sale and farmers tending to their fields of rice and peanuts. One day I came across a soccer game: men in their twenties; a somewhat organized game with lots of shouting; and on a field with more gravel than grass surrounded by scooters rather than spectators. At one point a young man approached me and said: ‘Why you here?’ I often consider this question to be profound but in this case it was quite practical as I was the only spectator and likely the only ‘white dude’ for a hundred miles. I replied in mandarin who my wife was and he stared back and shrugged before returning to his game. Years later I was appointed to lead a public agency and the employees were gathered on short notice to meet me. I said a few words about myself, how I looked forw