(Reuters.com) - Forget any ideas about ‘one-minute management' in Thailand and be prepared to spend time with your staff, on an individual basis when directly related to work tasks and in groups for social occasions.

There is a place for the weekly staff meeting which will serve for you to provide information received from headquarters and summarise local events of the week, with praise when due but not criticism. A few questions might be raised, but don't expect much in the way of brainstorming.

In addition to managing your staff, you will, to a varying degree depending on the nature of your business, need to be in touch with Thai business contacts, government officials and influential people. You will need an information system which amounts to a genteel spy network. In all of this, you will certainly need some capable and well-placed assistance.

A PERSON OF INFLUENCE

All of the successful earlier foreign business enterprises in Thailand survived because they worked through a Thai comprador, a person of influence who owed his loyalty to Thailand but who received money from foreigners proportionate to the foreigners' rewards. A comprador held an important and respected position.

The term ‘comprador' is still in use in English and in Thai. In English, it now has pejorative connotations related to the spread of European imperialism. In Thai, it has lost its original meaning and usually now refers to a financial broker (without any pejorative undercurrents).

Although use of the term had best be avoided lest HQ calls back its nutcase representative, the foreign entrepreneur or manager will certainly need a modern comprador of some sort if he is to survive and prosper. Call him what you will - partner, deputy, assistant, consultant, or even secretary - but know that an efficient comprador is necessary to operations.

Day-to-day bureaucratic problems, which can stifle your company and you, will disappear with a good comprador. When you come to the table to sign contracts, it will be for symbolic discussion, probably some last minute light-hearted ritual of bargaining and commemorative photographs; all the work has been done behind the scenes but not behind your back by your comprador and the person in the other camp with whom he or she went to school.

(If that sounds a bit like the system in England: It is.)

If you find yourself replacing a failed manager, there may be nobody performing the comprador's role. Look carefully around your staff. They were probably recruited because of high education and proficiency in English, qualities which are becoming increasingly available but are still very much valued.

A really well-educated Thai is still rare enough that he or she is likely to know personally many of the like-educated (and well-placed), and to be linked by kinship or friendship to at least some. Pay particular attention to the middle-aged. A comprador with court connections is not a must if you are managing a restaurant in a racy part of town: An ex-policeman major could be helpful.

If there is no one available to fill the role, you will have to recruit. Be careful: employ a Thai only because of good social contacts and he could turn out to be inefficient, dishonest and hard to get rid of. The surest way to get the reasonable assistance of a good comprador is to poach one from another foreign company. This is not easy and will definitely involve offering much more money and non-taxable incentives, but you don't come cheap to your company so don't expect your comprador to come cheap.

Having satisfied yourself that your organisational structure is sound, you can sit back and appear to relax. You have time now to get to know your staff a bit. Not too much; be friendly but not friends, and make the workplace more pleasant and yourself more popular. Time to enjoy it all and at the same time really get down to work.

Of course, as you might have guessed by now, getting down to work doesn't mean quite the same thing for the Western manager and his Thai staff.

("Culture Shock! Thailand", published by Marshall Cavendish International, can be ordered here )

(Editing by Peter Myers)

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