[Vnbiz] Future Leaders for Vietnam

[Tran Dinh Hoanh]

Dear cac chi Nga, Thu Huong, Le Thuy & CACC,

Below is an article I have just received from a friend about this
leadership issue.  It is written by a foreigner who has been working
in Vietnam for a number of years.  Since the author wishes to remain
anonymous, I shall adopt this article as my message, with a little bit
of commenting here.

One of the thing mentioned in the article is the leadership's
"arrogance."  I would change that to "lack of confidence."  The
leadership's lack of confidence, per my observation, has 2 causes:
(1) Unknown territories:  Managing a peace time economy, in a global
cooperation/competition game, is absolutely new territory to many
Vietnamese leaders.  When you walk into the unknown, in which you feel
that you are not well-versed, you just lose your confidence.  (2)
Leaders are indeed more of a "yes-man."  The Vietnamese culture puts
such a strong emphasis on producing"yes-men" that most "leaders" grow
up in that social educational frame.  So they are not confident enough
to try new ideas, to walk into new territories.

And when you don't have enough confidence, you act arrogantly.
Confidence generally goes with calmness and humbleness.

Other than this comment, I think the rest of the article is very good.
 Here it is to share with everyone.

Have a good day,

Hoanh

PS:  BTW, I appreciate this kind of honest article.  Honesty is the
best medicine.  I hope that other expats will share their feelings
like this.  If you guys want to stay anonymous (to be really honest),
then just send the message to be.  I will forward it to the forum and
keep the authorship confidential.
_____________


The longer I am in Vietnam, the less I have to say. This message will
be brief and on the philosophic side since I believe that is what is
most useful to all concerned. In my forty odd countries of work
experience, Vietnam is unique. I have never witnessed a country where
the people have so much capability and potential while the government
system functions at such a low level. The gap between the two is
greater than in any other country in which I have worked. This feature
leads me to question why this is the case. The answer, if one can find
it, is at the heart of Vietnam's reform challenge.

My own view is that the current government mechanism in Vietnam
suffers from two psychological features, which are seriously
interfering with its capacity to learn and catch up with the region.
The first feature is a legitimately earned deep mistrust of
foreigners. Vietnam has had such poor experience in its encounters
with outsiders for two millennia that its official system
automatically adopts a posture of mistrust and of keeping out the
outsider. The second feature is a certain, again legitimately earned,
arrogance on the part of senior officials. This arrogance probably
stems from the many great defeats the Vietnamese have handed down to
foreign invaders over the millennia, the most recent of which is
currently the most powerful country in the world. These two qualities,
in principle, are good qualities in modest doses. But taken to excess,
they can turn into dysfunctional characteristics insofar as the
development of the country is concerned. It is my personal view that
this is the case. These two qualities have been taken to excess and so
long as this is the case they are a net negative rather than a
positive for Vietnam's future.

Mistrust of the outsider works against the very policy that the
leadership of the country is trying to pursue, which is to link up
with and benefit from contact with the outside world. But if the basic
posture is one of mistrust, then the policy cannot work. The
Vietnamese official will not let the outsider enter into his mental
world such that he can benefit from an outside perspective. And the
outsider soon learns he is not trusted and therefore that it is
useless to attempt to offer his perspective.

Arrogance has a similar effect of cutting off the benefit of contact
with outsiders. If the Vietnamese system believes it already has the
answers, or at least that it knows better than the outsider, then
there is no purpose in outside technical assistance. Sadly, in my
view, this is too often the case in Vietnam. I should mention that
these two qualities are much more pronounced in men than women. But
then it is the men who occupy the high posts and who make the
decisions in the state mechanism.

The point about these two psychological traits is that they are
seriously impeding any growth or learning that the Vietnamese system
might otherwise experience. Until these characteristics are better
recognized, researched and ways found around them, foreign assistance
in Vietnam will continue to be wasteful with minimal impact.

Assuming there is some validity to my observations, what might be done
about it? At one level, nothing can be done until the Vietnamese
officials and their system are prepared to deal with the issue. At
another level, one could say that over time as Vietnam increases its
contact with the outside world, these qualities will take on a more
normal 'middle of the road' dimension. But this would be very much a
hands-off approach on the part of the donor community. It would be
more constructive to explore ways with Vietnamese officialdom on how
the donor community can support the development of a more rapid
self-awareness so that the Vietnamese system can deal more quickly
with these two dysfunctional qualities.

There are two levels at which this can be addressed, i.e. the macro
level and the project level. At the macro level, the donor community
could be assisting Vietnam by documenting other countries' experience
in dealing with foreign assistance and in learning from others.
Singapore is a good example. It did not rise so quickly by claiming it
knew better than other countries. On the contrary, it fully admitted
that other countries must know better than it because they were so
much better off and it deliberately set out to learn as much as it
could from other countries' and their experts' experience. It took a
humble view of itself, accelerated contact with foreigners and sponged
up as much advice and know-how as it could. The result is known around
the world. In one generation, Singapore went from third to first world
country.

Another idea the donor community might try is to retain or bring back
from time to time, selected former representatives of donor agencies
who were able to gain the trust and confidence of Vietnamese
officials. These trusted officials could be used to bridge gaps and
cultural divides that are interfering with the planning and
implementation of donor programs and projects. They might also hold
informal roundtables with high Vietnamese officials to discuss these
two problems and how best to overcome them.

At the micro or project level, there are a number of things that might
be done to approach the problem. Addressing these two qualities should
be built into the design and implementation of all project
interventions. This means there must be much more time devoted to
discussing these issues openly with Vietnamese officials and deciding
how to address them. In fact, this should become part of the overall
goal of every project intervention, i.e. to help Vietnamese officials
see that their mistrust and arrogance are blocking them from reaping
the benefits of technical assistance. There should be workshops to
discuss the issue and help hold a mirror up to the Vietnamese so they
can see it for themselves.

All of which is to say that in spite of what I perceive to be my
understanding of the problem, I have failed in my time to assist my
Vietnamese colleagues, as much as I would have liked. For this I am
saddened. But time is on the side of Vietnam. With increasing outside
contact and a new generation coming forth, prospects are good for
overcoming these two dysfunctional behavioural traits. I remain
optimistic for the long run.

_______________

On 7/16/06, Tran Le Thuy <tranlethuy at netnam.vn> wrote:
>
> [Vietnam Business Forum]
>
>
>
> Dear anh Hoanh and cac anh cac chi,
>
> "Look around our nation and we can see that.  We see thousands and
> thousands of problems and issues, we see complaints and problems every
> day in the newspapers, but how many articles we see discussing
> solutions for anything. "
>
> I agree with anh Hoanh that there should be more "solution journalism". And
> this is what I am seeking for in VNbiz. We have top experts here and we have
> people who are passionate for development of Viet Nam. I hope there will be
> more and more people find feasible, constructive answers and solutions in this
> forum.
>
> Keep on the good work !
>
>  Thuy
>
-- 
Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
Attorney of Law
Washington DC