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EP 10: Dr. Susanne Lehmann: How a Volkswagen leader navigated through cultures on three continents
36 Plays1 month ago
On this week’s episode of The Auto Ethnographer, host John Stech is joined by Dr. Susanne Lehmann, Managing Director of Volkswagen Group Malaysia. During the conversation they “visit” Malaysia, Mexico, China, and the United States and discuss how each location’s culture required different work styles.
Dr. Lehmann studied economic sciences and later earned her PhD in global automotive supply chains. Alongside she studied the impact of culture on the workplace, a topic that would serve her well on her journey.
Her first stop on her career was Volkswagen de México in a logistics role. After adapting to a culture vastly different from her own German upbringing, she would later have a second stint in Mexico as the Senior Director of Production for the Volkswagen brand in North America.
She later moved halfway around the planet to participate in the early days of expanding automotive manufacturing in China. She recounts stories from these days in the early 2000s and then juxtaposes them to a second stint she did in China in 2021-2023 as Senior Director of Logistics for a 1.6 million vehicle operation. The lightning speed of China’s auto sector development is a key part of the conversation.
Susanne also spent time in North America, as a member of the ramp-up team in Volkswagen’s new Chattanooga, Tennessee production facility. Here, employee individualism required significantly different management tools than in the collectivist cultures of China and Mexico.
Her current assignment as Managing Director of Volkswagen Group’s Malaysian operation added an addition dimension beyond culture. For the first time she was also responsible for the more qualitative topics of Sales & Marketing, Customer Service, and the dealer network. She discusses how she has worked to master this area during a career previously focused on logistics and manufacturing.
During the conversation, Susanne shares fascinating insights on how she navigated cultures and the challenges they presented in each assignment.
For more information on The Auto Ethnographer please visit the homepage at https://www.auto-ethnographer.com
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Transcript
Introduction to The Auto Ethnographer Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
I learned so much in all these cultures that is also really beneficial for working in any ah corporate culture. Hello and welcome to the Auto Ethnographer. I'm John Steck, your host on this journey. We travel the globe to bring you stories about culture and the global automotive industry.
00:00:19
Speaker
Fasten your seatbelt and let's get started.
Meet Dr. Zuzanna Lehmann
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Autoethnographer. We have a special guest this week, Dr. Zuzanna Lehmann. She's the managing director at Volkswagen Group Malaysia since December 2023.
00:00:35
Speaker
She studied economic sciences at the University of Paderborn in Germany, and then followed up obtaining her PhD in Sevilla, Spain, focused on automotive global supply chains. And she went on to make quite an incredible career in this field.
Zuzanna's Career at Volkswagen
00:00:52
Speaker
She started her career in logistics planning at Volkswagen de Mexico in Puebla. After this, she transferred halfway around the planet to working in logistics planning at Shanghai Volkswagen in 2004.
00:01:06
Speaker
two thousand and four She went back to Mexico for a second time. So here she was the senior director of production for the North America region for the Volkswagen brand.
00:01:20
Speaker
Following this, she went back to China for a second time, which we'll talk about ah the experience of returning so many years later. More recently, she's moved to be my neighbor in Malaysia.
00:01:32
Speaker
I'm located in Thailand, of course, and has responsibility not only for the production and logistics, that side of the business, but also took on responsibility for the commercial side.
00:01:43
Speaker
With that, Susanna, I'd like to welcome you to the Auto Ethnographer. Thank you, John. It's great to have you here. ah You have so many different unique experiences in different locations around the planet.
00:01:57
Speaker
It's hard to choose where to start. So I think we'll kind of start in the beginning with Mexico. When you started your career, did you imagine or did you want to have such ah an international career moving around the planet to different location? Or is this something that just somehow spontaneously happened?
00:02:15
Speaker
First of all, John, thanks again for having me. It's really a pleasure to talk to you today about this career I have made until now. And ah yeah, it was a plan because it was not my first experience internationally because I went to school in France and then to university in Spain.
00:02:36
Speaker
so I pretty much try to blend it, that it was like repeating some countries was perhaps not planned, but it was a really enriching um experience to see also the development in time.
Cultural Insights and Challenges
00:02:51
Speaker
For me, as i just a just newly graduated German person coming to Mexico with a very, very big power distance, different conflict management. So Mexicans like to agree like Asians. So they are pretty much more common to the Asian communities and also time management, project management.
00:03:15
Speaker
This was really ah very, very big culture shock when it first started. And I yeah just tried to cope with it as a newcomer. So you just arrive and learn and see what you can do with it.
00:03:28
Speaker
In the second stage, then I tried to to play with this experience already gained. But at the beginning, I think the power distance was the most critical thing for me to learn about.
00:03:39
Speaker
I realized when I was working with Latin America that that there's a different concept with time. um And you know in Germany, the concept of Pünktlichkeit is very specific.
00:03:53
Speaker
How did you come to reckoning with with this one? Or did people in Volkswagen de Mexico adapt more to a German, let's say, definition of time? ah Later on, I recognize, yes, they do. But for me, at the first are in the first month, it was like, wow, what a difference.
00:04:14
Speaker
It doesn't mean that they work less. No, not at all. they ah I think time-wise, they work more. you know Germany has a 35-hour week. ah For example, Mexico and also Malaysia have 45 hours.
00:04:28
Speaker
So just the normal contractual basis is longer. And in Mexico, the thing is, They cannot leave
Project Management in Mexico
00:04:36
Speaker
before the boss leaves. So they are all sitting there working, perhaps also doing some other things, but they are physically present until the boss leaves.
00:04:45
Speaker
And this is, I think, the most impressive thing that I've seen there. I think it's a myth. So Germans are not so punctual anymore and we kind of get used to other concepts, but not following project plans. So when I arrived in Mexico, this was the introduction of the new beetle in 1996. When I are started to work there, this was all focused and really super good professional project management. So I cannot say that we followed the Latin American timing concept.
00:05:20
Speaker
Can you talk a little bit more about this conflict management and and how you worked on this one? Because in the German culture, you tend to be a little bit more direct in trying to solve
Conflict Management Across Cultures
00:05:32
Speaker
issues. And and as you said, in in Mexico, as in Asia, you have a little bit more distance and the hesitation to say no.
00:05:42
Speaker
ah Yeah, sure. um You have this face saving concept, same in Mexico and Latin American cultures. It's like collectivism, it's like the individual is not so important as is the group.
00:05:57
Speaker
In Mexico, it's more the family or the working group. In Asia, it's very often, or in in China, especially the Dan way, the working unit or the unit of the Communist Party that you are in.
00:06:10
Speaker
um But the concept is the same. are in, then everybody will help you. You are not in, then you are and nobody. And this is, ah what you also have to consider a while being in a difficult situation where you have to address things. So if you are in the group, you can tell the members everything, that you have to have this trust that builds up over some time. You cannot say that directly as a newcomer, but you can be very open if you know the persons, if you are in the group.
00:06:42
Speaker
If you are out, you cannot say it even after a long time. So you can just try to give face to the other person, try to make proposals. so Would it not be a good idea if we would follow the budget or something like that?
00:06:57
Speaker
Or what can we do in order to amend things? Where is your problem? Like looking for mutual understanding more than giving orders. Did you find that you had to do a lot of um give and take and adjustment? Was the adjustment more on your side, adapting to the local culture? Or did you find a kind of a meeting in the middle?
00:07:19
Speaker
I think it was vice versa, mutual give and take. And I learned so much in all these cultures that is also really beneficial for working in any ah corporate culture.
00:07:35
Speaker
In my case, Volkswagen is an international, or multinational, global ah automotive company. So it helps everywhere because compromise and and yeah working as a group, as a team is helpful everywhere.
00:07:49
Speaker
From there, you've already done some comparison between the culture in Mexico to China. I think China is a really important topic nowadays, given um the the massive growth of the auto industry there over the recent years and and the exports.
00:08:07
Speaker
So you moved to China and you were there in the relatively early days of the development of the auto industry. um when there was a lot of, let's say, seeking, let's say, foreign talent, foreign knowledge in the industry.
00:08:22
Speaker
Can you talk a little bit about your first time in China and and what you experienced at that time?
Experiences in China's Auto Industry
00:08:29
Speaker
Yeah, it was really like ah feeling very welcome, very open arms for our knowledge, for also the connections to the headquarters that we could offer.
00:08:41
Speaker
And yeah people really were grateful because we had a situation where we made like this a big jump. We developed from three factories around Anting where the site for of Shanghai Volkswagen's headquarter is.
00:08:58
Speaker
We still produce the Santana, perhaps compared to the Volkswagen Beetle, the car that was responsible for China's industrialization.
00:09:09
Speaker
and We really did it in a very manual um process. We did ah then really do this big development over three years from 2004 to 2007, where we introduced modern processes, IT t systems, already the first steps into digitalization with all the knowledge that that we could bring into these things. And we were super astonished how flexible the Chinese colleagues are even at that time already much more flexible perhaps than nowadays. These were the wild East years where everything was possible, everything was developing and yeah we really had a great time. Although, for example,
00:09:58
Speaker
We were not allowed to use any navigation systems in the cars. So I really had the compass and looking for the sun if we could see it in order to find the directions. And I remember me driving with the handwritten page with my secretary's Chinese signs, trying to compare the road signs with them so that. So that was completely different time.
00:10:25
Speaker
And I think we talk a little bit about the second stay later. it was another planet some 15 years ago. In terms of the the learning um potential with with the Chinese colleagues in your first stay there, um it it was really the beginning of the industrialization and the massive growth of the Chinese auto industry.
00:10:50
Speaker
How did they learn? it was really learning by action or did you have a lot of, let's say kind of one-to-one conversations? How how did that process and that knowledge transfer work? It was really literally um like putting things on the floor, for example. I remember one visit to, i I don't tell the name of the company, of course, but one of our really big supplier companies and they were putting bumpers but just outside in the yard.
00:11:21
Speaker
so and But it was not because of they didn't want to. They did not have the understanding of quality, focus of... things that were necessary at that time it was really just talking to them explaining why we should do things and they were pretty uh taking up all the suggestions that we might if they found them useful if not you could say what you wanted that was a no-go then but usually anything useful was accepted
00:11:53
Speaker
As an expert in logistics and and planning, when when you arrived there, and how would you compare the status of of where they were when when you first arrived in the early 2000s? Was there what you would even consider kind of um a modern you know like approach to logistics or supply chain?
00:12:15
Speaker
We had warehouses, um I think 46 warehouses in total in the villages around Anting. And I very often had to talk to the village boss or Communist Party boss of the village in order to speak about but what we needed, what our but expectations were.
00:12:33
Speaker
And we had ah mostly ladies working in the warehouses still with one, two, three, four, five, so paper tags. and petroleum lamps. But this was really just at the beginning.
00:12:46
Speaker
As I said, after three years, we worked with them. We introduced the SAP warehouse management, transport management. and We had a logistics center. And this took only one and a half years in total to establish it.
00:13:00
Speaker
It modernized at at a very rapid pace.
Transformation and Innovation in China
00:13:03
Speaker
Big jump. Yes, big jump forward. And I think that's one of the hallmarks of of the culture from what I understand is is that rapid adaptation of of best practices.
00:13:13
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So um they they really were then ah very soon becoming experts. And in the second stay that I had, they were already like frog-lipping us in in order of processes, of systems of digitalization, especially.
00:13:32
Speaker
Well, let's go ahead and and take that next step and and talk about your return to China. I know you did many things, important things in between, but it's a logical jump to talk ah about your return to China.
00:13:45
Speaker
What changed? How did the people change? How did the technology change or the processes, as you just mentioned? Well, um as I said, they pretty became ah pretty experts in our process and also pretty focused on quality management, on improvement cultures, on documentation.
00:14:08
Speaker
so And they became experts in these things. So when we first arrived, we were the ones like little bit semi-god-like, ah considered as the a person with the knowledge and the relations.
00:14:24
Speaker
Second time, completely different. I mean, we were still very much welcome and accepted, but more as a partner, ah equal partner than a teacher or a semi-go, nothing nothing of that anymore. So ah even then later in the COVID time, you might have heard that foreigners were considered as not ah following the rules or ah bringing the virus, being a risk,
00:14:54
Speaker
um source. And this really was showing me how that what has changed over the years, first from being a semi God to being a perhaps equal partner, then becoming a risk, a potential risk person.
00:15:10
Speaker
This was really like, I think many of us that had this experience over the time, perceived this development. of course it's not nice but i think it's also natural development that any country in this development scheme ah follows just that china did it so much faster than any other country that i know about i would probably on the auto ethnographer probably never ask any ah other person about a change in the actual culture of a country
00:15:43
Speaker
in less than 20 or 30 or 40 year timeframe. But it seems really China within a decade had had a dramatic change from the learning phase to the knowing phase to actually developing above and beyond um what what ah what what their former, let's say teachers had brought to them.
00:16:06
Speaker
and Yes, and but what I still like very, very much about this culture in China is here experimenting they They're not like Germans perhaps do, like searching for the problems in advance or looking for yeah perhaps arguments to avoid ah innovation.
00:16:28
Speaker
No, the complete opposite. They're going for it, trying, experimenting. If there is a failure, there is, and then they try another way. It's not so bad and it's not a catastrophe.
00:16:41
Speaker
ah Always, of course, following the rules of safety, but they they are really much, much more open to innovations in total, in private life with all the digitalization going on, but also in the factories.
00:16:54
Speaker
So between your two stays, the country changed so much. Did you expect that when you returned? Or were you just really really quite shocked and had to adapt yourself to that new ah developed China?
00:17:12
Speaker
Yes and no. um I was... prepared because I was there continuously over the years visiting, for example, 2016, 2018. And we were already like, wow, like impressed by the, let's say, digitalization steps that society had gone through.
00:17:32
Speaker
um But then when I really came back for work, for living there in 2021, it was a shock. Especially the many, many new OEMs that rose, new brands like Avatar, just to name one, or ah Neta, or BYD, all these big names, or Xiaopeng and so on.
00:17:57
Speaker
So... names that were nearly not known in the West at all. And then, especially after COVID we saw the cars that, uh, were like coming up out of the nothing out of the COVID time perhaps.
00:18:12
Speaker
And we're really, really positively shocked by the good quality and the results that they have achieved in so short a time. and it It certainly is a massive transformation in a, in a very short time.
00:18:27
Speaker
Now, Interestingly, you worked both in Mexico and China, and both of them are manufacturing powerhouses in the automotive industry, not just for Volkswagen, but really across the board for many brands.
00:18:43
Speaker
From what you find, is was there something specific or related between the two cultures that made them such a such a manufacturing powerhouse and well-suited for manufacturing?
00:18:57
Speaker
Wow, that's a difficult question because I think in in China, it's this learning culture. we talked about it earlier, the the people even really, really old people over 90 years old.
00:19:09
Speaker
try to constantly optimize themselves, try to keep training, keep their body and mind fit. And I think this is what we also see in the factories. They always want to get better. They don't give up if they don't find a technical solution immediately.
00:19:25
Speaker
They go on and on and on until they have it. ah And I think this is a little bit difficult ah different from Mexico. Mexico has a...
00:19:36
Speaker
really incredible creativity finding solutions. So technical wise, they are also open. They are not trying to learn all the time, but they are trying to find solutions pragmatically for technical problems, for example. And they are also pretty, pretty good in, ah yeah,
00:19:56
Speaker
not working their way around regulations, I don't want to say that, but really in and and finding new approaches to problems where in Germany, for example, we still have a lot of restrictions and therefore are kind of blocked in finding new approaches. And this, I think, is for for both countries what helped them become these powerhouses in manufacturing.
Manufacturing Success: Mexico vs. China
00:20:21
Speaker
And I think it's also the infrastructure that government is bringing to both of these countries. Of course, in in China, it's it's really heavily incentivized to find ah digitalization, for example, so many startups that we met there in this time that were also really pushed by the government.
00:20:45
Speaker
Automotive, as focus industry, is heavily encouraged by the government, also by local governments. So it's I had contracts to several yeah regional government
00:21:01
Speaker
policy makers, for example, and they wanted that for their own region in order to develop it. While in Mexico, it's it's mainly also reputation, it's helping them to improve their economic situation and also with a big freedom.
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah, but look, we have a lot of earthquakes, active volcanoes. I had Popokate Petal 19 kilometers away from my biggest yard.
00:21:32
Speaker
So they are used to a catastrophe and they will find a way how to deal it. As I had mentioned to you before we started recording, I experienced one week ago today, the earthquake here in Bangkok.
00:21:44
Speaker
did Did you actually experience anything with the volcano or earthquakes while you were there? Just out of curiosity? Not in Malaysia. We were really, but i think we are blessed here. There's no volcanoes, no earthquakes, nothing to do with the ring of fire.
00:22:00
Speaker
We are, I think we have flooding from time to time. but Thank God, not this year.
Establishing Volkswagen in the US
00:22:06
Speaker
Let's head north a little bit ah to the United States.
00:22:11
Speaker
So clearly, from my personal accent, I'm an American by citizenship, also German in my history. But it's interesting, Volkswagen has had really two attempts going into the United States. One was long ago in the nineteen seventy s And then the most recent one in the 2000s was and has been and is much more successful.
00:22:37
Speaker
Can you talk a little bit about your experience in helping to set up the factory in Chattanooga and the supply chain and what you found with working with Americans?
00:22:48
Speaker
Yeah, it was ah really fascinating to see the differences because it was completely different dynamic that we found there. Of course, also super well welcomed that we got there. We are in Chattanooga, Tennessee, ah the factory we built up in 2009 and 2010. And we um yeah found that we have a lot of um different things to observe, for example, processes also.
00:23:18
Speaker
ah had to be covered by all the individuals and the the individual there is counting a lot more than in these other cultures that we have been talking about earlier.
00:23:29
Speaker
So we had to make sure that um every individual coming in and we have a very high fluctuation there in, I think, all the industry and in the southern states that we we make processes so waterproof that anybody new coming in just can't follow them. Working with pictograms, working with really restrictions, physical restrictions in order to avoid people going somewhere where they should not go. And had to establish much more rules from our side in order to make the individual ah based ah workforce follow and work together with us.
00:24:13
Speaker
At the beginning, especially. But then, I mean, this was also a wonderful experience with this special American um dynamic, North American dynamic, ah that they said, yes, we yes we can. we We want to succeed. And they really brought up the factory in a fantastic timing.
00:24:33
Speaker
That's a very, very interesting insight from your side that the sense of individualism from the Americans caused such a different approach in how to you know train people and and how to I wouldn't say control people, but but how to guide them through the processes and the and the rules.
00:24:54
Speaker
That's fascinating. It was was really um completely different for me with this big experience because in as well Germany as Mexico and China, Volkswagen is an established um yeah factor that has usually generations after generations working for for us.
00:25:16
Speaker
So in Mexico, I think it's even like merely inheriting your workplace from your father or grandfather. so Of course, not inheriting, but anyway, they follow their v lead.
00:25:29
Speaker
ah And in in the US, it was a new thing ah when we started. So we had to attract people and it was not this loyalty that we found in the other regions.
00:25:42
Speaker
Interesting. Just out of curiosity, since when was Volkswagen producing in Mexico? It's at least 70 years, yes, or more? ah we We had a factory earlier in Westmoreland, but the Chattanooga factory it started in 2010. in Mexico?
00:25:57
Speaker
and and in mexico ah in In Mexico, this was 68, if I'm not wrong. Okay. So really, it's it's more than 50 years. It's approaching 60 years.
00:26:09
Speaker
So I can understand how it's a generational, yeah hand the job down from generation to generation. factory wise, but also customer wise. I mean, in the US also, we have a big history. And I really love how you guys they're like, beat for example, the golf, the rabbit.
00:26:28
Speaker
ah but But in Mexico, it's something like family members. It's still a little bit more Let's actually swing to your current ah location because you know we're talking about product and we're talking about how product appeals to the customer.
00:26:46
Speaker
And now you're really in your first role where you have to really talk about these emotional things. Up until now, it's it's logistics, it's planning, you know it's very rational.
00:26:59
Speaker
um Now you get into that, let's say, more irrational area, which is marketing and pricing and sales. And I had an American boss once that said, please promise me to never go into this area.
00:27:17
Speaker
I nevertheless did. I kind of like it.
Role in Malaysia and Southeast Asia Expansion
00:27:21
Speaker
I'm super proud in in Malaysia. We won the car of the year with the Touareg and the Golf R's in two categories. And this was amazing beginning of that year to be invited there to say, hey, perhaps all these efforts that we did were worth it. And yeah it's a lot of government relations that is involved with this role.
00:27:46
Speaker
A lot of yeah sales, a lot of also being a public role, public person, a lot of legal compliance stuff. And this is fascinating for me to see. Yes, it's perhaps irrational, but it's also a very hard job and worth doing it.
00:28:07
Speaker
I've worked several times as a managing director and I can completely understand what you say. It's a 360 degree role that operates almost 24 hours a day because you're talking to the headquarters, but you also have full 100% responsibility for a country.
00:28:26
Speaker
And it's it's a really fascinating and and frankly, fun job. and that's what you said is very true because you have to win the battle twice you have to win it in the market and with the headquarters so uh yeah that's like a dual um uh direction that you have to observe uh always sell your successes twice or explain why the market requires that or to the market why the headquarters requires the other thing so um
00:28:57
Speaker
Sometimes I feel like a double personality, but but it's pretty pretty much fascinating to try to cope with that. No, that is a ah delicate balance between between not according to headquarters definition going too local.
00:29:16
Speaker
and And also, how do you earn the trust of your team in Malaysia? and And how have you gone about that to earn the trust of the team when you're having the discussion representing them towards the headquarters?
00:29:28
Speaker
First of all, um we made it very clear these are persons that have been working for Volkswagen also 12 years. Some of them in the factory are there from the beginning, from the first cars that were produced here. and and This is something that we have to honor and value. So these persons are far away from headquarters, perhaps have never been there, but they are Volkswagen guys. They belong to the Volkswagen family and we are pretty glad to have them and their experience. And this is something that you have to make clear. It's not some far away experiment. It belongs to Volkswagen. We want to be in Southeast Asia. We want to expand our business here.
00:30:12
Speaker
We want to go into export from Malaysia. We have chosen Malaysia as an export hub. So we want to go full in and we need the people, we need our team to do that.
00:30:25
Speaker
So putting on your your sales and marketing hat for just a moment, ah The Malaysian customer, from your perception, how is this different, for example, from the customers that you um you know lived amongst and and worked amongst in China?
00:30:43
Speaker
and First of all, um in Some other countries we are number one, number two. ah Here in Malaysia, we are number 14, to be honest. and For me, this is a new situation. i was not used to, I had to be ah confronted with that. I had to work it out. um How do you be behave? Like usually number one, like coming in, no, not possible. and So you have a very strong national car industry here with the two big players, Perodua and Proton.
00:31:15
Speaker
ah They cover in total like nearly 70% of the national automotive market and they are incredibly um economically attractive and we have to of course take that into consideration.
00:31:34
Speaker
So even if we have a car now coming in with 20,000 euro this is not good enough for these markets in Southeast Asia and This does not mean at all that the customers are um not used or not expecting the same level of functions that they see from other competitors, especially the Chinese companies coming into these markets.
00:32:01
Speaker
yeah You know, that heavily pushing into also Thailand, ah Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia. And we cannot just expect to sell the same product that we have been selling here in the last years. We have to be on the same level technology-wise, but also price-wise. And this is a big, big fight that we have to go through also with the headquarters, explain what is happening. Nevertheless, say it's a market, it's worth it, and we want to go for it.
00:32:34
Speaker
So it sounds then that that you're really making a push if if it is going to be a Southeast Asian manufacturing hub to even adapt the product to more local conditions and and more local tastes.
00:32:47
Speaker
I mean, they are different from Chinese ties. So we cannot just say, oh, take a car from China. No, doesn't work at all. I think we have to ah be very clear about it's not only copying a Chinese car. It's not only copying a UK car.
00:33:04
Speaker
We cannot just take one configuration and bring it into the market and hope that people will like it. It's not the way to do things. we have to be sure what the customers want in Southeast Asia and have to adjust and perhaps even develop functions, not only the right hand drive, but also some additional technical functions that are different here or to be developed for these markets.
00:33:33
Speaker
Is there anything about Malaysia itself that surprised you when you arrived? I mean, China is known for its traffic and for just huge number of cars and the size of the cities.
00:33:45
Speaker
What surprised you about Malaysia and of course the capital Kuala Lumpur?
Living and Working in Malaysia
00:33:51
Speaker
Kuala Lumpur is, of course, with more or less 2.6 million inhabitants, a not small city, but compared to other Asian mega cities, quite not so big and it's quite relaxed. Nevertheless, I think they have a big traffic a problem here, especially if it rains, you know, monsoon rain.
00:34:14
Speaker
ah So we are trying to actively work also so with the local authorities offering traffic control ideas or concepts.
00:34:26
Speaker
um And it really so surprised me how well they are managing. I mean, It's really a city, okay, you have a big traffic situation, but then it dissolves also. So um I think it's the Malaysian way of taking things easy and not always push for an immediate situation or solution for the situation.
00:34:51
Speaker
but Looking internally in the company a little bit, your adjustment, you talk quite extensively about your time working with your Chinese colleagues and and how they developed over the past 15, 20 years.
00:35:03
Speaker
How do you find your adaptation to the Malaysian culture? What what really sets them apart? I think it's the cultural diversity. I think everybody says that but it's true. um we have Malay, very, very confident, very active group, of course, it's a country, but we also have the so-called minorities of Chinese and Indian, mainly Tamil ah populations that are both very well respected, very active, but also kind of different from the Malaysian groups seen as car customers.
00:35:43
Speaker
So, um I think this is the most surprising factor, how they live with each other being so different, but also being so yeah homogeneous, nevertheless, at the end as a as a country's population.
00:35:58
Speaker
How does that translate into the workplace? Does that you know make a challenge for you in in leading people who are so diverse, even even in their religions and in their um just attitudes and and experiences?
00:36:11
Speaker
ah We just had, for example, Hari Raya, which is a Muslim big holiday after Ramadan. And my Chinese finance team, all finance guys are Chinese origin, they were working during the monthly closure. So, yeah, it's a you have to be flexible with the working schedules, with customs, of course, so in the celebrations that we do together, somebody is drinking alcohol, somebody is not drinking alcohol, and both respect each other. We usually try to avoid directly confronting the other group with it, but everybody is really super respectful and understanding, which is, I think, example to follow.
00:37:01
Speaker
Speaking also of of work ethic, and we talked a little bit about Mexico and and China being you know very diligent in their and and very hardworking for high level of of work ethic.
00:37:15
Speaker
How do you see that in Malaysia? Pretty much the same. Just officially, ah the basis for a normal work contract is 45 hours a week, Germany 35.
00:37:27
Speaker
um We are, of course, um confronted with these cliches that all Chinese are, fine all all finance guys are Chinese, all lawyers are Hindu, somehow Chinese.
00:37:40
Speaker
somehow ah HR is Hindu and the technical guys or in the production are Malays. But it is like that. It's a little bit following the cliches.
00:37:54
Speaker
I think there different countries around the world where you sort of see those types of ah kind of kind of cultural stereotypes of who does what. I think we discussed one time that when I worked in Russia, you cannot find a chief accountant who is not female.
00:38:10
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. This is following it. But yeah, it's it's a good working concept that has been proven for years. So why change it? So how have you changed as a result of this journey? you've You've gone through so many different cultures. You're currently about a year, almost a year and a half into living in Malaysia.
00:38:32
Speaker
How has this changed you? What have you picked up along the way? And you know how do you feel that that this has helped you to grow?
00:38:42
Speaker
When I started my career writing the PhD, I was focusing also between others on culture as a determining power for these multinational production networks.
00:38:57
Speaker
i so And I have to say, you have to choose your topology right. So you cannot have two different cultures working so closely together if you want to avoid certain hiccups or obstacles or even financial risks.
00:39:16
Speaker
So I have learned to respect culture as a big power, even different technologies, different technical solutions are determined by culture.
00:39:29
Speaker
a lot of times what I have seen. So um knowing that and respecting that, i think can bring us forward as a multinational company.
00:39:39
Speaker
This is what I have learned. Now, that's very insightful. and And I think that's no surprise then that you've had the career that you have had with that type of a mindset and and adapting the the way that you have to these different cultures.
00:39:56
Speaker
Yeah, well thanks a lot. Susanna, thank you very much for joining us today. it's It's been really insightful to hear about your experiences in so many different locations and and working so collaboratively with different cultures.
00:40:11
Speaker
So I appreciate ah the time you took to join us today in the Autoethnographer. Any final words on your side? any Anything insightful that you want to ah have for parting words?
00:40:23
Speaker
Well, thanks, John, again for having me and for making me think again about what I have learned in the last years. um i just can um tell that to your listeners, take culture as a yeah power that can help you define your cooperation with people from other countries, take it as a positive aspect and take it as a chance, even with your customers. If you go local with your central synergies, it can um only help you a lot in your business.
00:41:02
Speaker
So thanks a lot for helping me, myself to find that ah lessons learned about my career. Thank you. Now, very meaningful words. And I think the the listeners will gain a lot if they they truly listen and and absorb what you've just said.
00:41:19
Speaker
With that, I would like to thank the listeners for joining us this week. Next week, we'll will be back with another exciting guest. In the meantime, keep on driving.
00:41:31
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on today's journey. Please remember to like and subscribe to The Auto Ethnographer and leave us a rating or comment. For more information, visit our website at auto-ethnographer.com.
00:41:43
Speaker
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