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Program hacks away at 'bamboo ceiling' ; Asians learn to beat bias, cultural limits. [Columbia Daily Tribune (MO)](Columbia Daily Tribune (MO) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Today's lesson is about power. Stanford University business Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer stands before a group of smart, young, promising -- but in some cases frustrated -- Asian executives at the Graduate School of Business and talks about ways to project influence through physical presence, gestures and words. "Bill, you're not taking up space! Take up space!" Pfeffer barks at one executive slouching in his chair. "We are taught not to be angry," Pfeffer adds later. "Get over this! Bad!" A collection of vice presidents, managing directors and partners in their 30s or 40s, the executives range from native-born Americans and lifelong residents who speak with a Southern drawl to foreigners from various nations. But all are ethnically Asian, attending a unique leadership program where many say they learned how a combination of their cultural upbringing and organizational bias could hamper their careers. Representing a range of companies, including Google, Intel, Cisco Systems, Juniper Networks, Chevron, Pepsico and KPMG, the 21 men and 17 women were selected for the, six-day Stanford program because they were judged to be potential candidates for top corporate jobs. Studies show that a "bamboo ceiling" can hold back qualified Asians from landing top management jobs. A new report from the Center for Work-Life Policy found that while Asians are more likely than whites to aspire to a top job, Asian men are more likely to feel stalled in their careers than any other group, and Asian women are hurt by career "tripwires" such as failing to stand out by offering new ideas. A corporate "census" done in 2009 by Buck Gee and Wes Hom, retired executives from Cisco and IBM, respectively, found that Asians are underrepresented in top management compared to their share of the workforce. Armed with their findings, Gee and Hom convinced Stanford's graduate business school last year to launch a first-of-its kind leadership development course for promising mid-career Asian managers at Western companies. The first course attracted 26 executives from 17 companies. This year's program grew to 38 participants from 25 companies and ended earlier this month as executives departed for offices as close as Mountain View, Calif., and as distant as Bangalore. "This has really grown through word of mouth," said Gee, who attended the sessions with Hom. "I'm really pleased with the reaction of the students here. They are learning aspects of business and leadership that they hadn't thought of before. I see a lot of 'aha' moments in classes." The Advanced Leadership Program for Asian-American Executives is a combination of classroom instruction and unstructured, informal bonding over lunch or evening drinks. The informal sessions include frank conversations about career problems -- such as an internal reluctance, given the cultural upbringing of many Asians, to be seen as too aggressive. "You may not realize it now, but when you go back and look at your life, you'll see this was a big change in how you see your life and your career," Dennis Wong, an alumni of the first class and Symantec's senior director for strategy, told the 2011 group. In some cases, the program reveals strong feelings, as participants talked about their families and cultures. Some spoke about how they had focused on becoming technically excellent but failed to build clout in their company. "What I've seen is if you work hard, you're the technical expert, and you're so busy focusing on your accomplishment, and you don't look up and see what's happening to your peers," said one female executive. "You've been working hard, but they got promoted." Copyright 2011 SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. This article was published on page B8 of the Wednesday, August 24, 2011 edition of The Columbia Daily Tribune. Click here to Subscribe. (c) 2011 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. |