Imagine, you telling a really really funny joke in front of everyone [comedic drum rim shot] ... then no one laughs. The room is filled with awkward silence and wide-eyes are starring right back at ya, with "What the hell is she on about?" written all over their faces.
Example of a bad joke from Kochie (Australian Anchorman):
Awkward, right?? This is what I feel like sometimes in the boardroom. In the creative field, we often come together to brainstorm ideas for marketing campaigns, TV commercials and etc. So what we need is people coming in full of ideas and just simply blurting it out and bouncing ideas off each other. Great ideas come from good brainstorming sessions and people working together to fine-tune. This has proven to be very difficult in Vietnam.
Why the silence?
It is frustrating, however the local Vietnamese are quite reserved in nature and therefore is often difficult to get them to openly share ideas. Why? They are afraid that their ideas are not good, and being embarrassed. It's very hierarchal here, whereby as a child the locals were taught never to disrespect your mother, father and elders. Throughout school, never question or talk back to the teachers and so even when at work (in Vietnamese companies) the boss is... THE BOSS. Shut up and do what he says or else you'll be fired.
Sometimes it's difficult to get a simple yes or no response. For example, "Do you like the idea?" And no one responds. Arrghh.... it drives me crazy!
What am I doing about it?
No idea is a bad idea. Understanding why this is a case, I and our management team encourages everyone to express their ideas, no matter how bad you think your idea is, just raise it. No idea is ever discounted, it's written on the whiteboard for consideration.
Involve people. I often make simple jokes or uses the people in the boardroom as examples, whilst explaining ideas in order to get them involved. Get them to laugh and feel a little more relaxed.
Food & Drinks. Sometimes we order food & drinks to inspire us. It always works because who doesn't like food, right?
Building a team culture. This is really important. We must break away from the hierarchal structure, because true greatness comes from team-effort, not a lone-effort. I was inspired by old my manager, Mr Pete (No exotic alias names this time) years ago. Mr Pete was a good team leader, by bonding the team and actually showed that he cared about the team. As a result, we felt comfortable to tell him our issues which led to changes to better the team. He introduces a thing called "That week that was." It was a weekly e-newsletter sent to the team reflecting on the week in a humorous way. Brilliant I thought.
I now have introduced "The month that was" and present it to the team every month at our company update. It includes funny photos of the teams captured during that month, people's birthdays, funny stories (some are true, some I make up). Everyone has a good laugh, we laugh at each other and it creates a friendly and family environment. It's been running for almost a year now and it works!
Today, we held a brainstorm and I can really see our team shooting off ideas and sharing their thoughts on things. Vietnamese or no Vietnamese, we all have good ideas to achieve greatness! I'm so proud of my team and now so pumped to pitch our ideas!!
I'll leave you with this great Heineken commercial. A result from a good creative brainstorm:
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Business. Dealing with clients
Firstly, welcome to my new followers and I'll keep my blogs updated weekly with entertaining insights from Vietnam. I know some of you have joined after a bit of bribery or blackmail, but hey, that's how we do business here!
I realized I haven't posted anything about the business, so today the post is about the frustrations of dealing with a client (in particular, Vietnamese clients), and I'll let you in on a technique I learnt years ago on how to deal with your frustrations.
The" F*ck off and F*ck off now" technique
If your working in a client-facing environment, I'm sure you've been in situations where the client or even your internal clients make unreasonable demands. In particular, in the creative or advertising industry we have many "prima-donna" clients.
"It's not pink... It's fuchsia." or "It's not blue... It's sky blue." You know the type... Clients who think they are semi-hollywood movie stars. That type! So when the days are stretched and you're going far and beyond what you're supposed to do, just to support their prima-donna needs, and they still make demands. What do you do? Just tell them to F*ck Off... and F*ck Off now.
Okay, realistically it's not going to always work in your favour, but it's sure going to make you feel a lot better. And don't exactly use those words, but a tone-down approach such as, "George, I'd love to keep designing for you, but you need to pay me for the last job first". Translation = "F*ck Off and F*ck Off now!" So in your mind it's "F*ck Off until you pay me biatch," but you deliver the message it in a more tasteful way. It seriously makes you feel better... try it!
Origins of "F*ck off and F*ck off now"
This technique was brewed up years ago by a team that I highly respect. They were mentors to me during my first few years of management. I used to be nice and accommodating, and was stressed all the time until I saw a shining light when my mentors... let's call them "Marios Perella" and "Stephan Georganis" said to me, "You know what VQinVietnam (btw, that's not my real name), just tell them to F*ck off and F*ck off now!" And that's exactly what I did. And many of times, we actually used those exact words to our internal clients. It changed my way of thinking and until this day I still use this technique to make the day go by easier. So thank you guys and I hope this technique will live strong and passed on to generations of managers to come.
Vietnamese Clients
The Vietnamese are known to be quite fickle creatures. The want one thing one day and the next day the want something else. So when I get an approval to design something in a certain direction, I can guarantee you that they'll make about 5 more direction changes after that. In Australia, we can request them to pay for the additional hours spent on their "prima donna" changes, but here they want everything for free. It's the culture and that's the way it is over here, unless you're one of the large organizations who can really truly afford to say ""F*ck Off and f*ck off now" without caring about the repercussions.
It's also very hierarchical here. They use and abuse their authority and so in Vietnam, you will experience those who sit on their high horses and just say things for the sake of it. I once had a client asked me to design for him flash banners that would follow the user up and down the page as the person scrolled down the page (who does that in this time and age?). I advised them if we do that, it would cheapen your website and downgrade the preimiumness of your brand. You know what his answer was? "I am the General Director, and I said... I want scrolling flash banner, so you give me scrolling flash banners'" What do you say to that? So we gave him the damn scrolling flash banners.
Even the Vietnamese don't like working with the Vietnamese in a service-client environment. My team kind of shiver when working with Vietnamese clients because they know what to expect.
That's it for today! I'll leave you with this.... F*ck Off and F*ck Off now!
I realized I haven't posted anything about the business, so today the post is about the frustrations of dealing with a client (in particular, Vietnamese clients), and I'll let you in on a technique I learnt years ago on how to deal with your frustrations.
The" F*ck off and F*ck off now" technique
If your working in a client-facing environment, I'm sure you've been in situations where the client or even your internal clients make unreasonable demands. In particular, in the creative or advertising industry we have many "prima-donna" clients.
"It's not pink... It's fuchsia." or "It's not blue... It's sky blue." You know the type... Clients who think they are semi-hollywood movie stars. That type! So when the days are stretched and you're going far and beyond what you're supposed to do, just to support their prima-donna needs, and they still make demands. What do you do? Just tell them to F*ck Off... and F*ck Off now.
Okay, realistically it's not going to always work in your favour, but it's sure going to make you feel a lot better. And don't exactly use those words, but a tone-down approach such as, "George, I'd love to keep designing for you, but you need to pay me for the last job first". Translation = "F*ck Off and F*ck Off now!" So in your mind it's "F*ck Off until you pay me biatch," but you deliver the message it in a more tasteful way. It seriously makes you feel better... try it!
Origins of "F*ck off and F*ck off now"
Vietnamese Clients
The Vietnamese are known to be quite fickle creatures. The want one thing one day and the next day the want something else. So when I get an approval to design something in a certain direction, I can guarantee you that they'll make about 5 more direction changes after that. In Australia, we can request them to pay for the additional hours spent on their "prima donna" changes, but here they want everything for free. It's the culture and that's the way it is over here, unless you're one of the large organizations who can really truly afford to say ""F*ck Off and f*ck off now" without caring about the repercussions.
It's also very hierarchical here. They use and abuse their authority and so in Vietnam, you will experience those who sit on their high horses and just say things for the sake of it. I once had a client asked me to design for him flash banners that would follow the user up and down the page as the person scrolled down the page (who does that in this time and age?). I advised them if we do that, it would cheapen your website and downgrade the preimiumness of your brand. You know what his answer was? "I am the General Director, and I said... I want scrolling flash banner, so you give me scrolling flash banners'" What do you say to that? So we gave him the damn scrolling flash banners.
Even the Vietnamese don't like working with the Vietnamese in a service-client environment. My team kind of shiver when working with Vietnamese clients because they know what to expect.
That's it for today! I'll leave you with this.... F*ck Off and F*ck Off now!
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