Startup Mentality — Speak and Listen Your Way to Success!
I have been a while in Asia working for a couple of companies in the past few years, starting from working for a bank, moving forward with an IT consulting startup and ultimately ended up in a US-based Fortune company. They all brought to me various insights on both pros and cons in each culture, and once again, how the startup mentality matters a lot in the business sustainability despite of the scale of your company.
Many Asian countries has been crowned as crucial hubs to tap into a wider talent pool and capitalise on the growth for both multinational corporations (MNCs) and international businesses. However, many local talents are still strungling when transitioning their career path from local company to international one or from SMEs to MNCs. A typical issue several candidates shared with me currently was that their applications were screened out during the introductory interviews because of having no prior experience working in a similar scale of business. The disadvantages are among those who only work for local SMEs or startups.
The separation story of local|SMEs vs. international|MNCs is not something new in Asia but it actually reminded me about another variant of “power distance” which is similar to the spreading of COVID-variant. This expression of power stomps flat the multi-level relationships and open communication.
Most of us usually tend to separate big and small culture. Even many leaders in big corporations are easily trapped into a thinking that someone comes from a small team or company may find it harder to adapt to a bigger one, especially in term of cross-lever or cross-team communication and output delivery. I am still in contact with some HR colleagues in Vietnam to give advices and persuade them that the matter is all about how the company itself allocates resources, setups its communication channels, streamlines tasks and documents internal exchanges among workers to communicate more efficient, to improve our workflow and to increase our productivity.
…Still not many of them are willing to jump out-of-the-box thinking.
Who owns this separation conundrum? Everyone, of course. But this is one case where change must start at the top.
Changers are only those motivated by the long game either for their companies’ welfare, or for the societies their kids will inherit, or both. Those who believe they can afford the status quo must consider that strong business growth is heavily dependent on highly competitive and performance-based talents. If these talents can’t find themselves here with you, they will continue searching from the rest of the world and do everything in their power to succeed.
