One of the things I like to change about myself is my tendency to become frustrated very easily. This, coupled with the fact that I used to live in New York City, where everyone gestures and speaks a little more aggressively than most – makes me into a crazy woman when things don't go my way.

Don't get me wrong, I don't insult, nor yell at anybody in particular, but I do shout out to the heavens and slam pieces of paper around on my desk. It's not a pretty sight. If I were in New York, the staff would roll their eyes and give me a wide berth. But here, people freeze. To be fair, it's not just the Chinese. I only realized how much people did not behave like New Yorkers when I had to work with people other parts of the world, both east and west. Strange and faraway places like … Europe. Hey, even Americans can't always work with New Yorkers.

Back to Shanghai and my frustrations.

There was this little problem with the ADSL at my apartment. China Telecom was called; the computer maintenance person was called. I paid to upgrade the download speed. Still, my internet refused to be roused from its deep slumber. I started to lose it, then caught myself. That's when my assistant, who has been with me going on 3 years now, said quietly, "If you get frustrated, you can say it, I can handle it," he continues, "last year I couldn't but now I can."

As someone who has watched this country morph faster than a supersonic jet for the last 12 years, what he said gave me pause. I stopped fixating on the ADSL problem and turned to him. Curious, I asked what he meant.

"Before, I didn't understand why you would get so excited if things weren't right. ‘I am doing the best I can,' I used to think. How could you still be unhappy?" he tells me.

"Now I know. For example, when you are working on the computer, you just want to do your work. So when the computer breaks down, and even though I work hard to get it fixed, if it is not fixed, you get upset. You are upset because you just want to work and you cannot. If I were you, I would be upset too."

There was more. "I used to think working hard was enough, now I know it's about getting it done."

I slowly sat down and stared in awe. How did you learn that, I asked.

"I'm reading some books now," he continues. "It says it's not a matter of how hard you work but what you contribute to the company that counts. I never saw it from the company's point of view."

There were so many gems in that one sentence I didn't even know how to respond. Like being present at a sunset, or noticing a particularly beautiful bloom, I was in awe because at that moment, I knew I was witnessing a force of nature: he was undergoing a paradigm shift.

A Paradigm Shift
First used in the 60s to describe changes in scientific thinking, paradigm shift has come to mean any changes from one way of thinking to another. It is a transformation, metamorphosis, in short what I call a miracle. However, unlike a miracle, it doesn't just happen. Rather is driven by agents of change. What an exquisite description of what is happening in China, and what is happening to the people I see around me here in Shanghai.

What my assistant said demonstrated the ability to shift from one's own perspective and see something from another's. The ability to consider things from someone else' view is a hard concept to grasp in any culture but particularly missing in this one.

This is a culture where if someone likes to eat roast lamb, that's what they'll put on your plate and insist you try – even if you're a vegetarian. This is a culture where people stop dead while walking, or in traffic, without so much as a backward glance to see who might be affected by their pulling up short. It is a culture that is focused purely on the Self, not Others. In this culture, no one ever gives advice by saying, "if I were you I would do it this way, but you're not me."

And yet here he was, taking leave of his own experience and trying to inject himself into mine by telling me, "If I were you, I would be upset too."

Making the Journey
A few months ago, this very staff wrote a confidential email to me complaining of the behavior of another person in the company. That person had a tendency to yell when feeling pressured – a constant situation in a service industry – and drove many a staff to tears. My assistant didn't understand why this person was allowed to continue in his position.

But today my assistant said to me, "I used to think that you were wrong, but now I see that you have to look at the bigger picture. For the company as a whole, it was the right decision to keep this person."

Witness the change between "I think you should," to "I understand why you did." Between the two perspectives, there is a road longer than the highway to heaven. And yet he made the journey.

What made you change your thinking, I asked him.

"I think it was being exposed to many different people, many different ideas. I like to read. I read in English, I take books out in French from the library." (Did I mention he is teaching himself French too?)

He is right on. The quest to know, to understand, coupled with his language abilities has exposed him to a world of logic and beliefs unlike anything found in China previous to his generation. Shanghai's international community, representing people literally from all over the world, has provided the fertile soil for his mind to grow.

Many of us today who uses western management concepts, notably American ones, forget that even the Americans didn't formulate their theories until the 70s. Tunnel vision, resistance to change, and slow to react are still the bane of most organizations from the mom-and-pop shops to the mega-nationals. That's why it was particularly interesting when a friend who works as a life coach in Shanghai recently told me, "I'd rather work with a Chinese national than any other nationalities. They are so much more attentive and sincere. They just want to learn."

Perhaps even in social science, China has an advantage over the rest of the world. Just as they can go into the mobile world unfettered by the millions of obsolete landlines telephones that the West has; maybe they can skip into the millennium mode of thinking without the burden of our last 50 years? It's a thought.