Yi Chi – A long journey from China to bring unity and love into her workplace

ebbf member Yi Chi has a very interesting story to tell from her decision to leave her hometown of Nanjing, an ancient capital of China, at the age of 16 up to her current position of Vendor Relations Manager at a Banking Group in Toronto, Canada.

We first asked Yi Chi about her first big step, a decision that many young professionals ask us: how did you choose your MBA?

To take an overseas MBA is a leap of faith for a lot of young professionals who grow up in mainland China and aspire to expand their horizons in life and career. The old discourse from cold war is fading and the new discourse is yet to be built. In the middle there is materialism not driven by greed but more by lack of understanding. How can we better understand the dynamics and build dialogue beyond the dichotomy of the east and the west, the communism and the capitalism, and the developing and the developed?

During the process of MBA application, Chinese applicants face the same challenges as other international applicants in English skills, cross-culture communication, and financial resources.

However, the biggest challenge is lacking of emotional support.
When stepping out of my comfort zone in life and career, I would very much like to open my mind to understand all the differences I encountered.
I very much hoped to have a mentor who could walk me along the path, not necessarily someone who shared the same background as me but someone with utmost care and curiosity in what I can offer in the mutual learning process!
It would be a tremendous support for a mentee to conquer my inner petty and fear, and embracing and contributing to the diversity!

We have a lot of research and publication on diversity, emotional intelligence, partnership and engagement, it seems to me there is a lot of room for our top North American business schools to keep innovating and improving, given the advantage in visibility across sectors and available financial resources. Ivey’s Shanghai office is just one of the innovations that may not work for every school. It is a step which is proved to be extremely helpful in my journey.

I truly hope to build a bridge of understanding, inspire business school and government, and most importantly, to encourage Chinese talents who are in China and overseas in the journey to embrace the world and call everyone of us to keep global unity and peace in mind in every workplace, because it is the vision of our globe where we work every single day.

QUESTION: After your MBA you took a role in organizational design and now in retail banking. How much of this is a designed path, something you wanted to do, and how much “just happened”?
What are you striving for in your career path and what is your motivation?

I got to where I am with a combination of both following my drive and priorities in life and things that just happened along the way.

Business can build bridges across countries. Business people are practical, diligent and open-minded. But my faith in business was challenged so severely. I quested and quested. Where is that utmost care and love that can help people overcome the fear, speak up, innovate, drive change and keep global unity in mind when working in their roles?

I aspire to create such drive in people because it is the spiritual capital that creates a new world and make business extraordinary and not just at bottom line.
A professor recommended me to explore Organizational Development.
Before the last semester in MBA program, I met an executive in HR/OD area.

This opportunity helped me to work in OD for a short while and then my current role vendor relations manager for a newly acquired business. Now, I am not just ensuring compliance and saving cost from an M&A deal. Instead, I help our service partners to deliver legendary experiences to those in financial difficulties across US and Canada. And I promote mutual learning to integrate acquired organizations with care and effectiveness.

I am motivated to work for global unity, including self-development for that purpose.
My first motivation comes from my roots. I was born and grew up in Nanjing, an ancient capital of China. During WWII more than 300 thousand people were killed. Both my parental grandparents were survivors and they told me their experiences when I was a child. In secondary school, every year on the massacre anniversary the teacher would say you were all indirect survivors.
So I ask myself, what do I survive for?
I survive not for revenge but for building peace and unity.
My hometown is also where Dr. Sun Yet-San’s cemetery is. His writing Universal Love becomes the image of the ancient Chinese city. And the universal love reconcile so well with Chinese ancient wisdom.

My second motivation comes from the people I encountered in life.
In the last two years before I left China, I met some friends  in Shanghai who moved to China, learned Chinese language, ate Chinese food and studied Chinese scriptures. Those two years changed my stereotype of the west and showcased me how to go beyond our limitation and love beyond our nationality or race.

When Ivey offered me their MBA place, I couldn’t pay for the tuition and was about to ask for help in Ivey’s Chinese alumni gathering. Then an old friend in Canada suggested to co-sign the student loan for me without me having to ask for this to happen. And my current employer is the only bank that approved my student loan.
So now when I feel sad in life, when I am angry, and when I am trapped in my own ego, I would tell myself “live well” because many wonderful individuals have believed in my potential, voted for me and become a crucial moment in my life.

I left home at 16 for university with no contacts or money but college tuition as many other people. If it wasn’t for the help of each of my friends, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be who I am today and strive for who I would like to be in the future.
And it is me who is responsible to develop that potential.

My third motivation comes from the Chinese talents who are so thirsty for knowledge with so few resources. When I was in consulting, I encountered many very talented young people who worked in factories at school age. Their living and working conditions were very poor but the thing they strived for first and foremost was knowledge.
I share the same thirst and values although I am wearing suits.
Once I was in a friend’s house in Shanghai, a carpenter with his apprentice came to fix things. The apprentice looked only around 16 years old and had very beautiful big black eyes. He looked at the collection of books on one side of the wall for about seven seconds. I could never forget his eyes.

Faith is definitely the driving force in my life, I see one of the purposes of Faith to strive for personal development that will in turn contribute towards an improvement in global civilization. And it is interpreted consciously and unconsciously by so many wonderful souls. Knowing they are there, before, together with and after me, I stand more firmly in my faith.

If education is not for the job you are doing today but for the job you will do in the future, if people today are only making the train faster whilst tomorrow they will be creating the airplane, I then ask myself a number of questions that challenge my progress and that of organizations I work with:
how can we accommodate intrapreneurs at workplace? How can we create social spaces to generate new knowledge from diversity?  How can we engage employees, build inclusiveness at workplace and develop talents based on common faith rather than temporary passion or ego? Are we and our organizations following the increasingly rapid changes with increasing anxiety on maintaining ROI and bottom line, or are we leading the changes collectively toward a common vision and horning skills to master spiritual dynamics and forces with beauty and care?

At the same time, I am thinking of my role as a translator to build cohesion to dissolve any boundary between the east and the west, the communism and the capitalism, the developing and the developed, and people of all religions and who have no religion.

QUESTION: in a conversation we were having, you highlighted a link to a Corporate Social Responsibility course. What is CSR and how do you see it happening and evolving today based on your direct experience in your recent companies?

We bring our values to business and vice the versa. If we can live up to our values in our lives, we can do it in business, vice the versa. I see CSR is currently a way in which the company can live in and contribute to the society (community, customers, employee, etc.) just as an individual would do.
Even though it is not seen as directly connected with business, I feel CSR is a beahaviour that should run in a business just like blood runs in our bodies.
The CSR program offered by that specific theology school offered a space for people to talk about their belief system as the foundation to building a values-based organization.

QUESTION: you shared the news of Claire Shih, a 29 year old entrepreneur and social media expert who was just asked to join the board of directors of Starbucks. What does that tell you? why is it important? what signal does it send?

As in Cisco’s white paper, we are transitioning from an education society to a learning society. I am curious how this young lady can bring her China heritage into her purpose.
This news is an example of how a young talented Asian can pursue her true dream rather than appealing to what the society expects (so-called career development, climb corporate ladder, so called lateral move, so called diversity, so called philanthrophy, etc.).

Furthermore, it shows how the only path to change the world is to be who we are.

QUESTION: you mentioned how important career development is for you, but a career development that is connected to who you are and what you want to achieve more broadly, Could you tell us a bit more about this?

I personally have this challenge – I don’t want to limit my career direction by saying I want to do supply chain or OD. Our career development is still about what is the next role in our organization, not what issue do you see and how you want to tackle it.
For example, when I am talking about my career with my boss: I want to include my Faith, my chinese background my main inspirations and motivations (as mentioned above). I think that “all of our being” should be openly mentioned in these conversations and form part of our career development. The skill of a good manager is to include and connect those personal motivations with the objectives of the organization.

That very frank and open conversation with my boss allowed him to suggested to me how I can focus on what I can do everyday, helping me to understand how to take a senior role in the company that would allow me to have the more positive influence that I look forward to bringing to my organization and the world surrounding it.

QUESTION: I am glad to find that we are both in the ebbf “WeValue Indicators” team.  Why in the we value team? what are you looking for there?

I was in WeValue initially to learn how to be a Baha’i inspired business professional. I am looking for potential partners, mentors, and tools, and am also looking for ways to be helped and supported in my active quest to engage like-minded business in Canada/China.

And that is my final wish: I so very look forward to enjoying conversations with like-minded individuals, with whom to share the issues we are facing and to support our respective development paths.
Striving to continuously learn, improve and design my career and my influence to tackle the issues of society that can contribute to a better, more united and loving global civilization.

Any volunteers?

Tags: bahai, building peace and unity, china, claire shih, csr, diversity, ebbf, emotional intelligence, featured, knowledge, learning, mba, meaningful career, meaningful work, mentorship, Organizational Development, unity in diversity, values, we value indicators, yi chi

Category: commentary, mindful people