Vietnam: Relationships and Collaboration

In Vietnam building and maintaining good relationships is the key to collaboration, whether

• you want to cooperate with business partners in new or ongoing business projects
• motivate your employees
• or create great teams.

Trust is the underpinning of a successful business relationship – the glue that holds it all together. When you start working on new business projects, you need to establish trust and you need to maintain trust with business partners and stakeholders in your ongoing business. You must build the kind of trust that leads to a fruitful collaboration.

Different priorities and perspectives affect what makes up trust with business partners in different areas of the world.

In Scandinavia, Germany, the US, and the UK, trust is based primarily on business results, effectiveness, and performance.

Good relations count, but trust is primarily task-based. Business is business.

In Vietnam, trust in business is built through personal relationships and over the long run. Trust is built through socializing and personal contact. Through spending time, sharing meals and evening drinks. Once established, you continuously must pay attention to the relationship to ensure that trust is maintained.

Business results count and will be evaluated, but trust is primarily relationship-based. Business is personal.

Motivating employees in a way that makes them happy and satisfied with their workplace and at the same time meet company goals is a strong competitive advantage.

In Vietnam, like in most fast-growing markets, the labor market is very competitive and with high turnover rates when it comes to skilled talented workers. Paying significant attention to employee motivation is extremely important to attracting, developing, and retaining a skilled workforce.

Among the top-ranking factors influencing the motivation of Vietnamese employees are relationships with superiors and colleagues. The hierarchical leadership style, common in Vietnam, should include a „nurturing and caring‟ style. A management style that recognizes and appreciates employees as people with interests, abilities, and preoccupations beyond their day-to-day work assignments. Creating trust and good relationships includes building and maintaining a lot of communication, providing personal development plans and training, and arranging social events at work and after work hours. Demonstrating concern for the well-being of employees and also their families.

To be an effective leader you have to balance skills and relationships. Creating mutual respect between you and your staff by providing your competencies and considering the human factor.

High-performance teams are characterized by team members all rowing in the same direction. Two major dysfunctions of a team are the absence of trust and the fear of conflict.

Vietnamese culture is dominated by collectivism and a strong group attachment to in-group(s), with family being the primary in-group. Loyalty to your in-group(s) becomes extremely important because your behavior is linked to your in-groups.

In cases where work teams are not in-groups, attention should be paid to creating loyalty between team members and commitment to pursuing common team goals.

The respect for hierarchy and the appreciation of harmony could make it unusual for Vietnamese employees to share opinions with colleagues and leaders and engage in open communication and feedback.

The key to encouraging and supporting team loyalty and open communication is building strong relationships among team members. To focus on building a team culture of trust.

Building strong relationships among team members will encourage and support team loyalty. Prioritizing and investing in organizing (a lot of) social team meetings and out-of-company activities for team members, and providing clarity and training in teamwork.

This is a framework of tendencies in Vietnamese culture. Of course, you must always consider the context of your specific situation. When analyzing your context include individual differences, company and industry norms, regional cultural norms, and your personal and company goals.

Remember, we don’t deal with cultures,

we deal with individuals.