Failure and Guanxi

THERE is a broadly perpetrated fiction in modern society. . . The fiction is that society consists of a set of independent individuals, each of whom acts to achieve goals that are independently arrived at…

Roger D. Goddard

Imagine you are in China; you do not speak the language; you do not know how to behave; you don’t know what those around you consider important. But you have important business to do. You will likely fail, not because you are incapable, but because you do not understand the system. Your failure will seem unfair.

The UM is a very selective place. All of our students were amazingly accomplished in high school. But some fail when they come here. A few fail by choice, but more fail because they do not know how to succeed, and do not learn the tools necessary for success in a demanding, complex, foreign environment. For many students the transition to college is not just a shift to a new academic environment, but is rather a move into a foreign culture. This transition is all too often disguised by the apparently familiar language (English) and activities (going to class), and the feeling of alienation and isolation goes unrecognized for the culture shock that it is.

Back to China: What do you do? Change China? Not likely. You will need to make connections with those who can help you. The social network you will build gives you what the Chinese call guanxi. You can think of it as capital on which to build success. Just as you need financial capital on which to build your business, so you need social capital on which to build success in any complex community setting. The importance of such social capital is demonstrated in the business setting by GM’s entry into China, as deftly described by Michael Dunne in his book “American Wheels, Chinese Roads.” GM’s many failures, leading to eventual success, can be traced to a failure to understand China and a failure to understand the importance of guanxi. But the principle applies more widely; there is a considerable sociological literature on social capital and its utility in creating success in a social setting, and a branch of this literature focuses on the role of social capital in college success.*

To succeed you need connections within the existing power structure and you need to understand the norms of the community – in the university setting you need connections with faculty and staff and other students, and you need to understand what is expected and what works. Students who understand the university as a community of people and understand this community's expectations – especially its implicit, hidden, unarticulated expectations – can much more easily do what is needed and can more easily find the support that we all need to be successful. Students with good guanxi are more robustly positioned to deal with roadblocks and setbacks. Those for whom the university is unfamiliar, like a foreign country, need to build a store of social connections and understand to help navigate the place or else they will fail.

These human connections can share understanding of community expectations, knowledge of success strategies, and transmit the social norms that lead to success – what are the most productive study strategies? where can you reach out for help? what are good co-curricular activities? ... and so on.

Your social connections can share their own connections within the broader organization, and they can even take actions to your benefit. I’ve met many students who succeed, and many who fail: those who fail often feel they have little control over their situation; they feel buffeted by outside influences and lack a sense of agency. Your social network, your guanxi, will provide information, influence, and control over your fate. Your social capital provides confidence.

*Roger Goddard, “Relational Networks, Social Trust, and Norms: A Social Capital Perspective on Students’ Chances of Academic Success,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 25, pp 59-74 (2003) is one example of this literature.