September 17, 2007

Bangkok Post - As part of the sixth Thailand Corporate Excellence Report for 2006 prepared by the Thailand Management Association (TMA), the Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University and MarketWise Ltd, there was...

Today we present excerpts from the interview we conducted with our third leader, Khun Kan Trakulhoon, the president and CEO of Siam Cement Group (SCG).

- Q: What do you see as the key drivers for the success of Siam Cement?

- A: It starts from our strong corporate image that has come from the collective contribution of our people and our management since our establishment.

Then there is our business philosophy, which is rooted in the concepts of integrity and ethics. This code of ethics has been a foundation for corporate governance at SCG that we have followed for more than 30 years. Also, the way we approach and deal with our partners and customers, we do this using the fairness principle.

History tells us that to only achieve financial goals is not enough _ that is where corporate social responsibility fits in, and at SCG we place high emphasis on this area.

The ability to adapt to change is another critical factor. Competition in this world is becoming increasingly fierce. This ability to change has helped SCG to sustain itself for almost 100 years.

And, if we boil it down to the core, it's all about people. Our people are both highly competent and have high integrity.

We value people as the real human capital, the highest value resource. We put in a lot of effort and resources to ensure that we invest in our people. We highly value our people and, once people know that we do care and love them, they will reciprocate in the same way to the organisation. They will then have the energy and motivation to contribute to the company.

- Q: SCG is focusing on innovation. What advice can you give for others about how to deploy innovation?

- A: Innovation is about research and development (R&D). SCG plans to be a leader in Asean and innovation is our core strategy.

To be an innovative organisation, the work environment needs to be open-minded and risk taking. We are manufacturing-based, so R&D helps us to produce machines, tool modifications, and develop new products. We invest heavily in R&D and we network with the public sector and other institutes to promote R&D and innovation. R&D needs alliances, we cannot do it alone.

We urge all companies to invest more in R&D. It is imperative for our country's competitive advantage.

- Q: How do you convince your team about the need for innovation?

- A: At SCG, we place emphasis on communication, particularly about the company vision. It is the role of all top executives and the CEO to communicate. I went on tour 60 or 70 times to communicate the vision until people understood. Each session consists of 30 to 60 people per group. I don't want to have a big size, as people will be reluctant to ask questions if the group is too big. I did not use the term plant visit, it is instead called a staff visit. I spend time sharing with staff about our vision, people matters, R&D matters, career paths and also have a Q&A session.

- Q: What tips can you share on effective leadership?

- A: At SCG we do not emphasise a one-man-show approach. We approach business as a team. We try to avoid reliance on any one person. We spend time developing our systems to support the business.

One thing that I would like to emphasise is empowerment. When we are so successful, as a leader we can fall into the success trap. We have been so successful; hence, we have a tendency not to listen to our team. We need to really empower our people, to give them the authority and responsibility and then monitor it.

We need to allow our people to have an opportunity to learn from mistakes. If we have too much of a set frame, people will not have much room to manoeuvre. At SCG, we try to abandon unnecessary rules or ancient practices. We challenge the status quo all the time.

Here, we do not punish any failure and we value the lessons learned from mistakes made, as this is seen as learning. We have several executives who did fail a few times. Running a business, you have to win and lose.

I also value learning. I read all the time, and do attend seminars. Things change all the time. If you do not have any eagerness to learn, you cannot grow.

At SCG, we encourage our people to share and teach their expertise. Each year, I have a duty for one day to give recognition to our in-house trainers. These trainers are our line managers who have a trainer or facilitator role in addition to their existing work. We also send them to acquire additional knowledge, even overseas, in order to better equip them for the trainer role.

Kriengsak Niratpattanasai provides Executive Coaching in leadership and diversity management under the brand TheCoach. He can be reached at coachkriengsak@yahoo.com. Copies of previous columns are available at www.thaicoach.com.

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