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Opinion more and more complicated decisions by themselves, here and now! Then the child must also stand up for criticism if the decision proves to have unwanted effects -a lonely position. In the Eastern culture, the child will rely on the head of the family being the decision maker. The first obligation of the child is to obey, do what he is told, and don’t question the decisions. Doing so the child is free of the burden of responsibility. When these two children grow up into young adults and meet with the intention of doing business, complications are to be foreseen. We have a whole industry dealing with ‘Cross-cultural Communication’, they are mostly just scratching the surface with commonplaces and their efforts will not help much. It all starts with the individual’s capacity to accept that he/she was ‘brainwashed’ from early childhood. No need to quit the norms –the brainwashing- but understand them as relative. Realize that when you meet your counterpart, you meet the young front office man in the family, but he of course wants to show that he is of importance and that can eventually trick you. Nevertheless, behind him is the back office man, and behind him again, the real players. If you then know and accept, by looking hard at your own norms, that you shouldn’t expect a deal ‘here and now’, you are on the right track. It is not sure that
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you will ever meet the ‘Big Boss’ but you will meet his spirit in the form of the front office fellow. Can make you a bit paranoid, unless you realize the presence of the big man’s spirit and acknowledge the fact.
Leader lead! -Foreign boss Thai staff If you are manager in a company with Thai staff, you will maybe notice that the staff work hard but regarding decisions and actions they will typically wait for you, you are the boss, you are expected to tell them what to do and eventually how to do it. Many young Thais are well aware that this is a problem in a modern digitalized world, but they, often in despair, exclaims: ‘But we never learnt to think out of the box’. The silliest thing you can do is to regard your Thai staff as stupid, they are not, they are children of their cultural norms. I have two adopted Thai sons. It has been a job for their mother and me to ‘lift’ them up to some thinking ‘out of the box’; they absolutely haven’t learned that in school. Take the motorcycle taxi drivers; they are extremely fast and smart but hopelessly underused. Your most profitable option as employer is to handle your staff with patience and care. That becomes easier if you can laugh a bit, looking at yourself, your norms and your belly!
I know well that all this is not new to some old hands in this country, but I also know, from so many talks in confidence, that the young ones and the newcomers don’t see what is going on right under their nose, but just wonder why their counterparts are not reacting in a proper (read Western) manner.
The author has working and research experience from the Sudan, Zambia, Portugal and Thailand. Thanks to Claus Gundersen for valuable comments and proofreading. The icons are designed by Liu Young, born in China - educated in Germany.
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The Boss West
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Handling of Problems West
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Travelling November 2012 • ScandAsia.Thailand 35