I recently had two very different yet equally interesting conversations about Taiwan, past and present. One was with a DSP engineer who worked on the island in the mid- to late 1990s. He and his family had fond memories of the place, and the graciousness of the people had made a permanent impression on them. He especially enjoyed working with local engineers, describing them as "brilliant," "very respectful" and "excellent team players." Yet he also noted that "they lacked some confidence to try things (perhaps afraid of damaging things), and I hope that I helped them in a small way. My hope was that if they could see me, who was a dummy, trying experiments (outside of the normal process) and learning from them, then they would be even more successful."

That reminded me of the other conversation, with an industrial designer who counts some of Taiwan's top electronics firms among his clients. Several years after the DSP engineer had left, the industrial designer was vigorously complaining about how too many Taiwanese firms still defer all decisions to the leader of the company--afraid or unable to go outside the normal process.

In one case, the designer recalled a situation in which a product decision was delayed for weeks, putting the company at a crucial time-to-market disadvantage, because the CEO was traveling. His lieutenants would not make the decision. Moreover, when the CEO returned, his suggestions flew in the face of the design team's research, but team members were prepared to implement them anyway until the lead industrial designer--a foreign consultant--cried foul.

His position: If you are going to hire me to do all this research, you should listen to the results. After that, all was good--or so he thought. Now, when the designers are at odds with the thinking of their boss, they don't bring it out in the meetings. Instead, they call the industrial designer, and ask him to call their boss.

Back to the DSP engineer: He wanted to know if Taiwan would be a force in the future, as it had been in the past. I thought so, but said it faces a difficult situation. "Taiwan is still a follower in the IC industry--with a few exceptions--and will be squeezed by the rising competence of China and the lead still held by the United States and Europe when it comes to innovation," I said. "There is probably a lot of pent-up creativity here, in that there are too many companies where deference to the boss is still the rule. Not enough people are truly empowered to make decisions and take responsibility for them."

I went on to say the good news is that Taiwan is still in a strong position, so it has some time to sort out these things. The bad news is that these sorts of cultural changes take a long, long time.

He agreed, recalling an anecdote. "My hope/guess is that Taiwan, with 'some time to sort out these things,' will sort them out very well. I was amazed at how they were able to resolve gnarly problems. Like traffic jams at busy intersections when the traffic lights were out, and there were cars, scooters, bikes, pedestrians, dogs--pointing in all directions. We thought it was hopeless, but would amazingly get through the intersection!"

Today, Taiwan's electronics business is at a similar crossroads.