Diary of a CEO

Learning to be a global leader

Visit T. with his Division Director C. at Lin Ko Chang Kang Memorial Medical Center; as Head of HR subtlly suggest me to pay a visit to him; I decided to go as soon as I can; I am not why the hospital put him at the containminate floor, so I decided ( well, again follow my wife's idea ) not to bring flower or fruit basket -- a trandition to visit patient in the hospital; instead, I issue 2000 NT as the greeting red envolope.

T. losting weight significantly; but he covered his body with a blanket. his mother stay with him and she told us. T's belly blow up like a pregnet woman, the medicine prescribe by the doctor dosen't help, they only have limited information about his situration -- a tumor somewhere near the spine and only 0.5 cm to a artiral. doctors are hasitating in taking operation and worried about the potential huge blood eruption. the passive treatment make him stay for 2 weeks and according to his mother. T's pessmistic about his life; 31 years old young boy should not give up the passion for life; my encourgement should contribute some efforts -- I told T. the speech I attended last year, Henry Huang - Medical PhD. and a famous cancer treament professor; he told us the defination of " Health " doesn't mean you are well from sickness, but an attitudet about " How you handle the decease " and how you co-exist with them; pleasant and positive attitude is the best medicine in the world.

My last converstaion with him at his bed was wishing he recover soon and earn the money back to me -- a compensation to his red envelop today; he smiles; and I tell him how I wish to celebrate his 3rd anniversity at our company, that's July 15 -- he was so surprise to this, how I know the day he report to duty; I can see his eye wet and I wish he can return to celebrate with us.

I want to thanks my wife for giving me good advise before the dinner with expetraiate , I pre-empty my sterotype mentality when sitting in the car with K. as T. is working on new project, he said to us that he will be late for 30 minutes. so it leave us a good time to chat alone. K. shows his honesty to me and explained to me his Mission in Taiwan - a foreign country, and how an expatrait should perform and achieve- this mission base assignemnt is flexiable to himself / the company and inclusive of the factor of family; the decision may change from the collective factors such as enviromental / organization / mission completion / familly issues; the prerequisite statement is for building the groud before discussion the " Successor " issue to me - the ambition leak out from his mouth a few day which make me uncomfortable , and the communication between him and HR before my consent was another stone in the water; now adding up the departure of COO -- it all direct to a plan -- a plan to take over , this is why make me so uncomportable, we promote directors locally is for building a fair groud for talent to compete in health enviroment, that include expetratite. I am not in the fashion of giving anyone preveliage in this power play - performance will show who's the leader of the company next; his second point was every expetrait have a tenure -- obligation to perform in foreign country and complusory to return to their hom country; so in the sense, they are here to contribute and to learn.. it all make sense. the competiton won't be with locals. they are not rivals.

As I didn't hold any objective before the conversation, so I accept and digest his mind word by word; my response is : to find a person in mid-manager level helping engireering is fine. to set the mission base monitoring time table for his goals here is fine either; I am listing again but with a wild open heart; I don't really want to creat enemy; T. joined the dinner by 8:45 pm. that's about the time we finished everthing, he came and we order 2 more hot dishes; then the interesting converstaion encountered, I asked them to profile me as a typical Japanese, I want to know how they see me from their viewpoint. the ansewr comes : First . Suw... the nice guy I know in Tokyo, mild, no temper and no ambition; Seocnd, they point out L. our channel head - what a surprise, they both agree that L. is like Japanese - especially his thinking and responsing process is just like Japanese, and I am the type of him. this is interesting.

This is why I need to learn how to work and understand people from different country, different culture and backgroud; I told them on the dinner table, lauguage is not a barrier. human nature share some common attritubtion, how you show your feeling to others. they can feel. and we can feel as well.

posted by Roger @ 6/08/2005 08:18:00 上午