His education may have prepared Richard Teo for the intricacies of running an information technology business, but not for the complexities in handling people of different cultures, each with its own set of beliefs, languages and mind-sets.
Richard is president of Dell International Services Philippines, and from the time he joined Dell APJ’s (Asia Pacific and Japan) headquarters in Singapore about 10 years ago, he has been taking care of Dell’s customers.
As enterprise services director for the region, he introduced service quality improvements to support customers. However, he spent more time formulating strategies and drawing up projects at the headquarters than dealing directly with customers and company front-liners.
As the company expanded its reach, Richard led the establishment of Dell’s command centers in a number of locations and getting assigned overseas—to China, Japan and, recently, the Philippines.
With these overseas assignments and the transformation of Dell in the last three years—from being a mere computer maker into an end-to-end solutions provider—Richard found himself in the frontline, dealing with countless people whose cultures, work attitudes and upbringings were so diverse and very different from his.
“It wasn’t easy,” he admits.
But Richard has always been able to break down the barriers between him and the people he has to lead and work with in the countries he has been posted. It must be his effort and sincerity to understand and adapt to the culture, beliefs, traditions and values of the people around him that enabled him to establish relationships with them, making him an effective manager.
Dell is a multinational company that is present in 180 countries around the world. Its products are crafted in several design centers across the globe and assembled/manufactured in different locations and shipped all over the world. With the scope of Dell’s business, key officers of the company now expect various responsibilities and assignments to different places as integral parts of their job.
“We have to make the Dell culture work within local cultures—embracing diversity and inclusion, similarities and differences in our diverse workplace,” Richard says.
Different strokes
“The language barrier, which is the most obvious, is just the tip of the iceberg. In Japan, for example, it is important to grasp the nuances, not just the language, as communication may not be as direct [as it maybe in the west],” he says. “It is only through understanding the people’s culture that one can establish a relationship, which one needs to [engage] the people. It is only through getting the people engaged that one can lead and manage effectively.”
Although he spent several years in the United Kingdom to study, it was only through his overseas assignments that Richard, a Singaporean, realized how different one country could be from another.
His first overseas posting after a stint at the headquarters in Singapore was in Dalian, China, as head of the offshore contact center for the Japan and Korea markets. There he came to realize that, with that country’s economy growing so quickly at the time, people were so eager to learn and grow.
“Life was so fast-paced, and people were like a sponge, absorbing everything they are taught and implementing them very quickly,” he says. “This was a strength I was able to leverage, and it became the perfect setting for me to make a difference, lead the team and enable people to grow and thrive.”
His stint in Japan was an entirely different experience for him, personally and professionally. The move from an emerging economy to a developed and very mature country was a big challenge to Richard.
Aside from the language issue, he was met with an invisible barrier, challenging him to prove his worth. The Japanese are capable people, and the person tasked to lead them or work with them, especially if he is from outside their world, must prove he is equally capable before he can gain their trust.
The Japanese style of doing things—always based on consensus—was also new to Richard who, coming from Singapore and later China, was so used to making decisions fast and getting things done faster.
“There, I realized that one cannot make a decision and tell everyone to follow that direction. You always need to have a consensus. Gracious in nature, the people are patient, very quality conscious and meticulous to the point of perfection. As a result, it takes a longer time to reach a decision. But once a decision is made, the execution is swift, precise and great results can be expected,” he says.
“It was a hard adjustment for me, especially in the first six months of my stay there. I learned that one has to have a mind-set that he is in their country and he must learn from them. Coming in with the thinking that you are there to control is not going to work.”
Understand, adapt
After months of interacting with the Japanese, Richard succeeded in getting accepted in this closed community professionally and personally.
“Some of my best friends now are Japanese,” he says. “I learned that, in any country, people will respect you for being able to take the time and trouble to understand them, adapt to their way of life. That helps in making you an effective leader.”
By the time he was assigned to the Philippines about a year and a half ago, this mind-set was already part of his system, making it easier for him to make adjustments in his style of management.
Dell’s Philippine unit—composed of the sales and marketing division and the international services group, which caters mostly to businesses outside the Philippines—is one of the company’s fastest growing units. It has a workforce of 1,600 people, of which 650 are with the international services division. This division provides customer care and technical support to captive customers (buyers of the hardware) and various services (including data management, IT health care services, cloud computing) to non-captive markets.
Filipinos, he says, are always eager to please their customers, and that’s a strength that is very unique to the Philippines.
“I can now clearly understand why the BPO industry here is so successful, even overtaking that of India. That’s because of the sincerity of the people in trying to please the customers. That’s a quality that, I think, will stay for a very long time.”
Second home
The Filipino employees, he says, love fun. They work very well and become more engaged if they are having fun. Richard capitalizes on this to motivate his team by ensuring that the Dell office will be its employees’ second home.
“I regularly do what we call the birthday walk. It’s walking around and going to the stations of birthday celebrators to greet them, hand them balloons and gifts. I also do the walks to recognize top performers and give them some rewards. We celebrate special occasions in the office, hold sports fests and family days,” he says.
“We also do community services together, like a family. By doing so, we are able not only to help others and open the eyes of our employees to the situation of the underprivileged, but also give them a chance to bond and do meaningful things together outside the offices.”
In making decisions, Richard does not go for consensus-building, but he makes it a point to hear the views of the people before deciding on something.
“I love debates. I make decisions based on what I hear and my own inputs. People tend to execute a task very well when they see that their ideas are being listened to. It’s not consensus-building, it’s more of listening and having a healthy dialogue.”
His style seems to be working well. The employee turnover rate in the Philippine office of Dell is only half of the BPO industry’s average.
“Our people feel they are part of the family. And when you are part of it, you don’t leave your family.”