Let me start this section by saying I always try keeping a good relationship with everyone, here in Asia I try being as friendly with my staff as my socially awkward personality would let me. So even years after I stop working with them, they still contact me from time to time to ask me for advices or help or just a coffee... and they still call me boss.
I didn't do this as a managerial technique, but just trying to adjust to their culture. Asians in general are more friendly than people in the West, and particularly people in South East Asia, like Thais, Malay, Indonesian, Singaporeans, etc. I think it'd be safe to assume it's because of their tropical nature.
This introduction has a reason, and the reason is, even if you're not a very friendly person by nature, after a certain time, the people closer to you on your daily work will automatically consider you their friend and that brings a whole new set of responsibilities and things you didn't think you had to do when you came to manage a team or a company in your new country.
And like in everything, this can bring you very good things as well as unpleasant surprises, because their highly developed sense of loyalty and solidarity can sometimes play against your best intentions.
I've found that here they may ask you personal questions that you may not even expect from your closest friends in the West, and this is particularly true with people in Indonesia, beware, don't feel ofended and if you feel uncomfortable, try not to show it too much, it is their natural way of wanting to know you better and show interest in you. Be prepared for things such as: are you gay? are your boobs real? have you thought about boob implants? are you working on having a baby? are you faithful? you think local men/women are attractive? or comments like: you look handsome/pretty in this clothes, I don't like your haircut, prefer the old one, you should loose/gain some weight, those pants make you look stubby and short, etc. Be prepared for this kind of interactions and take them with an open mind, they really mean good, so don't take them the wrong way.
Because of their nature, you will also be put in situations you were not expecting AT ALL!!! I never thought I was going to be asked by my staff what to do if their husband was cheating on them, what to do if, by accident, he found a romantic SMS from another guy in his girlfriend's telephone, how will you react when someone is crying in front of you because she had a miscarriage? What do you tell someone who's telling you she's virgin and really wants a boyfriend? (I've gotta warn some guys about this, even though laws are a bit looser in Asia, what you may be thinking about the virgin girl is still sexual harassment here, so STOP! hehehe) Sometimes when you take a managerial job here in Asia, you also become the resident psychologist, these are all things that happened to me,except the questions about the boob jobs, but someone told me happened to her, and for those of you wondering, she said they were real.
These and more, are all situations you may find yourself in and you will have to manage them to the best of you capabilities. If you're unsure, try to avoid giving advices about delicate matters without information, ask them if you can take some time to think before giving an advice or opinion (run back and google it) and talk with them later. These interactions can be both uncomfortable as well as very fulfilling and they can bring you unexpected benefits that I will mention later on.
Sometimes these conversations can come from totally unexpected situations. I found myself having conversations like this when doing performance reviews, be prepared for people to tell you all sort of things during performance reviews that, according to them, can be affecting their work, including the person in the adjacent cubicle being too chatty, their boyfriends or girlfriends, etc. But I will talk about performance reviews more in detail later on a different post, I just wanted to mention a weird situation where these conversations can be started.
I mentioned before their sense of loyalty and solidarity. That sounds nice, but in some cases in can lead to behaviors we will consider very irrational and sometimes even borderline reckless.
Normally I try to share my experience without really using a real life even, but I think the best way I can explain this is with an actual situation I went through once.
Some years ago I was happy managing 2 departments in my old company, things were good and improving at a steady pace in both departments, life was busy, but good. One day my boss came to me, in one of his visit to Asia, and told me he needed me to take charge of yet another department, the biggest one in the company. My initial reaction was of surprise, and also rejection, I knew the people from that department liked their manager very much, and to be honest I liked the dude too, he is a nice friendly guy and we got along very well, so at first I said no, but my boss on that time knew I like a challenge and he convinced me saying something like "things are too nice and smooth with your work now, I'm sure you need a challenge", reluctantly I accepted that challenge.
I knew it was going to be hard, but not only about managing the biggest department in the company, also about relationships.
When the former department manager was removed and I was announced as their new boss, they all left the room with a face that reminded me of a person with food poisoning and simply packed their bags and left the building, just a few people remained in their area. I understood why they were doing that, it was their way of protesting for what they considered an injustice to their former manager and 'friend', but that behavior was - even for a person as used to their behavior and idiosyncrasies as me - way too much. When that happened I was given authorization from the company to get rid of whoever I thought necessary to establish my authority over the group... I really thought of getting rid of some of them to be honest, but after a lot of thought, I realized an action like that would be a comparable visceral reaction from me, to their earlier reaction towards me and the company. I also thought that as a mentor, I had to teach with example and keep my head cool to make the best possible decisions.
It was clear after this initial reaction my job was going to be a lot harder than I thought. My first instinct and also some of my seniors was to have 1-on-1 meetings with the managers and team-leads of the department and find out what was in their minds, since we were sure, the manager's exit could not be the only reason for a behavior of such proportions. Some times their behavior during those meetings continued surprising me negatively, I found out they were implying some sort of 'conspiracy' against the whole department from the rest of the company, so it was clear my initial work there was not about improving performance and efficiency, but to improve relationships.
As an engineer I like numbers and I like things I can quantify and qualify, this problem was nothing of such, so to face it I had lots of conversations with seniors and friends, and taking a bit from everyone's conversations, I was able to improve the situation and morale of the team in a pretty reasonable time and from them just win them over with hard work. Very important in that process were KPI's and documented processes, which gave them tools to measure, and structure to improve upon. Looking in retrospective, I'm very glad I didn't act impulsively.
When looking at all these interactions it may sound as a lot of extra work without much reward, but it is not that way. The good feeling you get after helping someone with their problems is very rewarding, but rewards are not only intangible, they are quite useful as well. Without doing anything in particular and without trying to take advantage of your relationships, you can improve retention in your team, people who like working with you and who have friendship relationships within a company are much less likely to leave a company (I mention before, retaining your talent in Asia is hard, because there are several options for locals to move around), so using some of your time to create and nurture relationships may prove a win-win situation.
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