Business Times, Letter From Abroad - Taipei, Settling into Mandarin mode

Business Times - 06 Sep 2008

TAIPEI
Settling into Mandarin mode

This is a nation of entrepreneurs. You can see it in the mind-boggling array of small shops and night markets. This is not a nation of malls. This is a nation of people who prize being their own boss. And it is at these same markets that entrepreneurial skills are honed at a tender age.

By Edmund Koh
President and director of
Ta Chong Bank, Taiwan

STARTING a new job is challenging enough. Starting a new job in a new country where English isn't widely spoken? There aren't any manuals anywhere in the world that can help you. When I relocated to Taiwan in April to head up a medium-sized local bank, it wasn't just about a foreign company or foreign work culture. Basic, day-to-day communication became an issue.

My first morning at Ta Chong Bank in Taipei started off quite smoothly: I met senior management, toured the banking hall, settled into my new office. Then I turned on my computer and to my surprise, all correspondence - from e-mail to minutes of meetings to board papers - was in traditional Chinese script.

It might as well have been in Sanskrit. In Singapore, we use the simplified version of the Chinese script. Taiwan uses the traditional, more complicated script. And it wasn't just the difficulty with the written word. Everything in this Taiwanese bank was conducted in Mandarin. That meant speaking, thinking, breathing Taiwanese Mandarin, all day, every day. Coming from the globalised, multi-cultural environment of Singapore, that was a radical change. One thing I learned quickly was not to think in English and articulate in Mandarin. Diving right into the language and culture is the best way.

There was no honeymoon period whatsoever. In the crucial first 100 days, I had the task of plugging senior management gaps. All heads of the bank's three core businesses had left, which meant rebuilding the team and motivating new and existing staff to pool their strengths and knowledge quickly and seamlessly. One priority amidst this was to hire a talented bilingual secretary who could help me not just with the nuances of the language but with Taiwan's social norms. The Taiwanese exude ren qing wei: they are exceedingly polite and extremely warm hosts. At business dinners, for instance, there is a lot of bowing (in the manner of the Japanese) and toasting of alcoholic drinks (in the manner of a wedding), all of which can be unusual to people new to Taiwan.

Even as I settled into Mandarin mode, I encouraged senior management to start using more English. This was not so much for my convenience but to make the bank more global in its mindset and culture. Meanwhile, putting in place a new team involved scanning over a hundred resumes and conducting 80 interviews in 60 days (I have not seen so many qualified MBAs from top colleges per capita than from this population). That meant juggling intense work days with appointments to vet candidates as well as appointments with the housing agent to view apartments which I could rent.

Given the upheaval in management, it was crucial to engage Ta Chong's employees. For most of the bank's Taiwanese staff, this was also their first interaction with a Singaporean boss and co-workers. Generally, across cities in the Asia-Pacific, Singaporeans have a reputation for being law-abiding, organised and logical. We're people who follow rules. We're also perceived to be very boring. In my many years with multinational banks, the head honchos from Europe and the US tend to pick Singaporeans to lead non-creative project work precisely for our predictability, reliability and 'perfect' logic.

The Taiwanese, in contrast, pride themselves on their individuality and their ability to speak and think freely and unconventionally. People are very politically engaged and articulate, from businessmen right down to taxi drivers. This is impressive, considering that the country was under martial law for a long time (1949 to 1987) and has been politically 'liberated' only for the last two decades or so.

Many people here do things for the right reasons and not because they fear being fined. Take recycling; I've noticed my neighbours and colleagues clearing leftovers from their lunch boxes before throwing the boxes away into the waste bin. There is no penalty for not doing so. They do it to protect the environment, and they are proud of doing their part.

This is also a nation of entrepreneurs. You can see it in the mind-boggling array of small shops and night markets. The night markets, in particular, are a fertile breeding ground for small businesses. My favourite is Shi Da, which is near the National Taiwan Normal University.

Here, you can feast on Taiwan's famous street food - from giant crispy chicken cutlets and dumplings of every kind to oyster omelettes and even 'stinky' tofu. But at Shi Da, the vibrancy of Taiwanese youth really stands out. You see students stocking up on stationery at stalls manned by other students. You see young people going into business for themselves. This is not a nation of malls. This is a nation of people who prize being their own boss. And it is at these same markets that entrepreneurial skills are honed at a tender age.

Taiwan is SME-driven, and its people are risk takers. Many sales people here have a hunger we lack in Singapore. They bubble over with courtesy and initiative. When new stock arrives at a store where you're a regular, the sales people will contact you, engage your interest and work to clinch the sale by throwing in details they've remembered about you such as your shirt size and preferences. As a result, I learnt early on that it is important to show my colleagues that you have not just the skills and the tenacity, but the creativity to deliver the goods.

As I neared the end of my first 100 days at Ta Chong, I knew I had not made a wrong move or a wrong hire, despite bringing in a significant number of new people in a short time. That's because none of the existing staff walked out, and the initial results are quite positive.

It's still early days but all in, I feel the new team (some of whom are not Taiwanese) and I have immersed ourselves in this entrepreneurial bank, this dynamic city and its gracious people. And hopefully, we've done it with a touch of Singapore's best qualities.

Edmund Koh left DBS Bank, Singapore in March 2008 to join private equity firm Carlyle, which took over Ta Chong Bank. He joined Ta Chong Bank on April 28, 2008.

Credits: Business Times 06 Sep 2008, Letter From Abroad - Taipei, Settling into Mandarin mode