What do you think are the most common culture challenges for Vietnamese and foreigners working together?

Paul,
I think you raise a very good concern, i can speak from personal experience having worked for Techcombank in Hanoi. We had quite a few foreigners working there including myself, but most were westerners and i was one of the very few asians there.

Language is obviously the core cultural challenge, simply because it's not just a matter of understanding what is being said, but deeper than that understanding the nuances implied.

From a cultural perspective, i think it comes down to how willing one is to integrate with the local staff. I find that Vietnamese, similar to Indonesians, have very strong family values. My key to success was trying to embrace them as family, getting to know them, and understanding them. In the end, i ended up knowing the husbands, wives, children of all my staff, and they openly accepted me as part of their extended family and this was how we built up a very strong mutual trust and loyalty towards each other.

Simple examples:
1. Tet is probably the most important festivity in Vietnam, it was very difficult for the other foreigners (especially the westerners) to fork out cash for lucky money, but it's the culture here and playing along with it goes a long way.
2. Willingness to learn the language and practice it also goes a long way. Vietnamese know that their language is not easy especially for those foreigners whose native tongue is not tonal, so the simple effort is appreciated.

In conclusion, it's the little things that count and make the difference for foreigners to integrate with their Vietnamese staff .... going out for drinks, learning to sing a vietnamese song or two.

Hope this helps.

regards/bimo

Very nice question, Paul:). To build on what people have been sharing, I'd add several small points:
- Culture differences : Nothing right or wrong about how each culture consider certain behaviour is acceptable or not, but in Vietnam it may cause big judgement For instant I used to have some single American colleagues who play out nightly and of course having many date at the same time. This can be considered normal in America but my other Vnese co-worker think this is not acceptable and dislike these guys.
- Foreigner tend to be straight forward while Vnese, especially in the north (beside the language limitation) don't speak what they think, so it may create many misunderstanding...
- If the foreigner don't open up to VNese, the chance that Vnese proactively get close to them is less, cause VNese by nature respect hierarchy and also quite shy...

The only tip I have is build relationship & build relationship. Open up, talk, go out of work, blend into each other culture in order to understand and behave rightly... When you have a close understanding and a little bit personal touch in the relationship, it's much easier to overcome culture obstacle

When I was Creative Director at Texas Instruments in Dallas, USA. I managed 3 design centers, one in NIce, France for Europe, one in Tokyo, Japan for Asia and the Head design center in Dallas, Texas, USA. Each Design center has 3 to 4 designers and they all working the same concept of laptop computer for TI.
Its a huge challenge to get them work and share the same process. The mind is there and plenty but the culture understanding is missing, created many conflicts among them. Just like the wolf pack, when they are together, same culture, same thinking they are strong and discriminate the other. By solving this problem, I rotated them . Every 6 months, one French designer came to and worked with the American team in Dallas. one American went to Tokyo, one American went to Tokyo, Japan. By doing this, they have to learn different culture and process from different group. This method is expensive but its worth to implement. After one year, things getting better, shown more result for the company. Conclusion, the most problem is about understanding different culture and having an open mind among different ethic groups. Good luck with your project Paul.

.hi Paul, from my opinions, the common challenges for Vietnamese and foreigners working together are:

1. language barrier

2. vietnameses are conservatism - although they know most foreign companies bring better and creative solutions, they still often have thoughts like: "you ain't vietnamese and how long have you been living here to understand what the VN economy is like, what you are saying is harvard's talk so those won't work in VN, we must be flexible!!!..."

3. do top management foreigners really know the working system in vn? do they understand what are the local citizens' needs?

4. westerners follow laws whereas easterners do things according to relationships

.probably that's it for now .will add on if anything pops up!

Hi Paul, I have few years working in Panasonic, Standard Charter and Mizuho, from my personal experiences, I think the most common culture challenges for not only Vietnamese or even Foreigners working together out of differentiation in language the issues are understanding and ability to adopt and adapt organization's culture. Different organizations have different culture, different countries have different culture. Therefore to overcome these challenges, we would beter to understand the local as well as international and organization's culture, from that understanding we will be more empathic and it may help us to create most suitable working environment and culture for organization. I also think that it may be quite difficult to communicate effectively with others incase I could not understand the culture in the organization. From point of view of staff, the organization would be beter if have proper and suitable training programs to ensure new and existing staffs, managers (mid management levels) or even top management level could understand deeply the organization's, local and international culture and these may help ensuring effective communications among and out of organization.