New Job As A Md

[khunMato]

Hello all!

I received the wonderful news last week. I am going to Thailand, as I have been given the wonderful opportunity to work as a Managing Director for a company with close to 40 employees. The company offers services within the construction service sector.

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Here are some questions and thoughts I have.

As I have browsed through the web trying to find out more about the Thai business and working climate and how I should conduct myself.

I have gotten a bit confused. For example; Thais say "yes" when given a new task to perform, without really understanding how to do in order to complete the task. Although I have seen this behaviour as a tourist in the country, I have trouble seeing it work in a functioning business environment.

I am fairly young, in my early 30ies, will this be a problem with the older employees whom might think that they will play the "age card" on me and demand some extra respect (I know that I should show respect to all of the employees)?

If I see someone performing a task in a wrong (according to me ) manner or perhaps even in an unsafe manner . How do you go about explaining this and consequently how he should go about to perform the task in a correct and safe way?

Is it possible to have a (blue collar) working force that is as effective as in northern Europe? I.e can perform different tasks on his own and perhaps even take his own initiatives.

Have anyone of you managed to get your employees to trust you enough to come to you with a problem? If that is the case, how did you go about earning that trust?

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I will be most grateful for any answers and ideas from experienced (successful) managers in Thailand.

There must be many things that I have forgotten, please share.

Regards,

Mato

Ps

It is not my intention to talk down on the Thai population. This is only my asking questions that have come from me browsing the web. I am asking this because I want to be the best I can and as a consequence be the best for my employees. I do not have an ulterior motive so to speak.

Ds

[archthai]

Good luck!!! Anything else said would be Thai bashing!

[archthai]

Pm me if you wish to know more what you may be facing in you new job.

[lannarebirth]

You would do well to search for the posts of TV member "Valjean". He's made several insightful posts IMO with regard to managing Thai employees.

[wordchild]

your secretary/pa will be very important to you (much more so than if you were working in Europe/US), try to make sure you get a good one and one who is used to working for a farang boss.

[JurgenG]

How is it going ? Have you start working ?

I'm a bit older and with a bit more experience ( a couple of years only). After working in Thailand, I'm now managing a team the same size as yours in South China and I'm interested to compare experiences.

My personal trick to avoid people saying yes without fully understanding your instruction is to use in reverse a technique I learned as a young sales man. After finishing giving my instruction, I ask the other person to quickly explain me, with his own words, no parroting, how he intends to complete the task. You can then spot really easily if he understood or not. I use it with both local and expatriate staffs, the over confidence of young expatriates is sometime more dangerous that the fear of losing face of local staff.

[Soutpeel]

Here's my advice after being here working for 10 years and managing teams of up to 300 Thai nationals at a time.....manage people as you would manage them anywhere else.....treat people the way you would be expect to be treated....simple as that, there are little nuances in Thailand, which you will learn quickly enough anyway.

If you are a competant manager elsewhere, you will be a competant manager in Thailand its that simple....if you have never managed people before...you are going to have problems, not because its Thailand, because you dont have the experience as a manager.

[Jobo]

I have been a MD/GM in Thailand for 15 years employing from 250 people (only 3 expats) when I arrived up to 900 3 years ago - now 700.

One thing that has not been mentioned is that if your employees are mainly "blue collar" you will need constant follow up to ensure what you wanted is in fact happening - assuming they understood

your instructions.

If they are university graduates then sometimes the above applies as well. However in the main they will not be decision makers,risk takers nor show much initiative.

Only when/if you attract the most experienced, most expensive most well educated (that means offshore) Thai staff might this be different.

If you come into the new job you will no doubt want to change things from the way your predecessor did it. Change is not something Thai culture embraces in general. True elsewhere sure but Thais much

more resistant to it.

Your age will not be such a problem even for your older employees because you are the boss. However if you are eventually perceived as incompetent then that will change. The same would apply if the boss

was a young Thai.

Unless your staff are experienced with working with a farang boss or very competent English speakers, you may find they won't alert you to existing or pending problems and when you eventually find them

yourself it will slowly emerge that they all knew but were too "kreng jai" to tell you.

As another poster said you need a very good PA or some other competent confidant to work with you. This is probably the most important thing to develop from the start.

Not sure how long you will be here but equally important I would suggest is to learn Thai. Whether that extends to reading and writing is up to you but some conventional wisdom suggests that you

can't speak good Thai unless you can also read and write it. Equally you might make it compulsory for your Thai staff to learn (improve) English - at your company expense.

There is a book called "Working with the Thais" which I read when I arrived. While most of it is actually out of date in the contemporary Thailand it might give you some invaluable insights.

One other piece of advice. If you are single wait some time to understand the culture before hooking up with the first (there are many) beautiful Thai lady that comes your way!