Assertive behavior key to career development in China

Imagine that you are standing at the end of a very narrow bridge. You want to cross but at the other end someone else has the same idea. What do you do? Do you let the other person proceed, do you both go to the middle and one forces the other one to go back, or do you try to squeeze past one another? This is one of the exercises by which a group of Chinese trainers and managers is learning how you can take up an assertive position - don't do yourself down unnecessarily, but don't let a situation degenerate into aggression either.

The scene of the action is the head office of the training and consultancy company Schouten & Nelissen in Zaltbommel in the Netherlands. The course members are managers and trainers from Schouten China, a professional training company in Beijing which is invested by Schouten & Nelissen. They are there to finish off a course in Assertiveness Training so that they will soon be able to run the same kind of course for Chinese business.

"We are learning the three basic elements of assertive behavior here: speaking up, opening up and standing firm", explains course member Jiang Qishi, CEO of Schouten China. He explains that he wishes to have learned such assertive behavior earlier, especially in work situations.