Ask someone what family means to them and their first answer will almost certainly involve their parents, siblings and other relatives. But probe a little deeper and there are likely to point to other people in their lives who they describe “as like family to me”. And so it is at THP. Alongside the Tran… [Read the full article]
Category: Family Business
Why governance is so important for family-owned businesses
Family: what do you come up with if you play word association? I hope the answer involves words like love, security and commitment. It is good to feel all three when operating a family-owned business too. But the key issue is to make sure that the love family members have for each other does not… [Read the full article]
Women: being the Number 1 version of ourselves
One of my favourite days of the years is International Women’s Day on March 8, or Ngày Quốc Tế Phụ Nữ as we call it here in Vietnam. It’s an opportunity to celebrate women the world over and not least the most important ones in my life: my mother, my sister and all my female friends… [Read the full article]
Why the pendulum is swinging back to family-owned companies
For the past couple of years, I’ve used this blog as a platform to examine how THP conceptualises value creation and outline the different processes we’ve put in place to achieve it. I’ve talked a lot about core values, as we view these as the foundation stone for both our short- and long-term success. One… [Read the full article]
Why education is about more than getting a college degree?
Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford. All three men were titans of America’s Industrial revolution. Today, they still rank among the richest humans to have ever walked the planet. But what I find interesting is that none of them started their corporate lives after leaving college with formal qualifications. They all worked their… [Read the full article]
2022 in Review: A Year of Transition
Every year, the world’s leading dictionaries and many global publishers come up with a “word of the year”. For me, there is one very clear one to describe 2022: transition. Last year was the one when the world acclimatized to living with Covid-19. Even the last country to hold out – China – had opted… [Read the full article]
Combating unethical business practices
In a recent blog post, I wrote about the reassuring findings of Edelman’s 2022 Trust Barometer. It found that, globally, trust in business is growing because people view companies as a reliable and credible source of information in the fake news era. I also wrote about how THP views trust as the core part of… [Read the full article]
Why informality not hierarchy is the watchword for Vietnamese business
One issue that often confounds Westerners when they come to visit us at THP is the gulf between their pre-conceived notions about the way that Asians value hierarchy and what they perceive happening on the ground. In some ways, this is very understandable. It is well known that Vietnam is a Confucian society. This is… [Read the full article]
How to align individual attainment with a company’s business goals
One of the most difficult and fundamental issues that any company faces is getting the right balance between many peoples’ innate desire for self-advancement and the need for collaboration to achieve common goals. I am always reminded about former US President Harry Truman’s quote on the ideal scenario: “It’s amazing what you can achieve when… [Read the full article]
Being a Teacher
Each year since 1982, we have celebrated Teacher’s Day on November 20th here in Vietnam. It is a chance for students, past and present, to show respect and admiration for the teachers among us. And one of our most famous sayings about education always reminds me of my father and his great childhood friend Uncle… [Read the full article]
