Are family business and start-up good work-life fulfillment career choices for young professionals?5/8/2017 It is not unfamiliar, especially in Southeast Asia business context, to mention about family business. The idea of next generation in the family to inherit the business legacy is a common sense among private business owners. From small scale business like local restaurants which has its second or third generations in the family to operate to big scale conglomerates like Samsung in Korea or giant cooperation like CK Hutchison Holdings in Hongkong, we can find family business style under different shapes and shades. For young capable professionals, one of the critical questions for the career path choices is, to be in the cooperation environment, or to start their own business. To young professionals who has their family background involves in business field, there is one more thing to ask, to be in the cooperation, to start their own business, or to inherit the established one in their family. For giant family business like Samsung, seems like few options are available for the next generation, other than to build their own business capacity in responding to inherit the legacy of their family company. For other small private business, there are different options to consider: to inherit the legacy, to not inherit, or to create something new. They are the options for young capable professionals who have the established family business from previous generations. For others, create a new family business and start-up is one of the choices for their professional career path. For a while, the ideas of family business are considered passé and inactive career path choices, is coming back with certain reasons, mostly related to work-life fulfillment. There are certain reasons for the turn-around option of family business style and start-up for young professionals. First, the satisfaction in the cooperation for work-life balance and freedom is limited. Second, the desire to create their own paths in career development is stronger than the secured choices to follow someone else’s career path. This tendency is growing, especially among capable young generation who shows their interests in start-up and entrepreneurship. Third, for professionals who has established family business to backup, has the advantages to grow a business on their own. Fourth, to who creates the new family business on their own, the synergy between family members create a bonding working environment is a significant difference in compare with other regular business company. However, there are also certain challenges which not everyone is willing to take. For young professionals who want to get out of the restricted time commitment, found themselves in no-limit time commitment. The difference is, instead of working on someone else’s schedule and agenda, they work for themselves. The idea of freedom in work seems appealing at first, turn into a real challenge since they are running after their own agenda. The exhaustion is even more because there was no time restricted, and no clear boundary between professional life and personal life. For who has the advantages of established family business support to have their own, they have to run both the family business along with their own business. The struggle to maintain the commitment for both business is even more challenging. The benefit of standing on an established shoulder of the “mother” company compensate with the time and capacity to contribute to both commitment. For who creates the new family business and start-up, the struggle is slightly different, yet not less challenging. The ideas of companion in work and in life sound fascinating as first, became a no time-out show for people who involve. Family bonding creates sparkle synergy to come up with company strategy or work commitment, yet it can cause serious conflict when difference ideas clashes among others. If it involves newly married couples, the line to draw between work and life even slimmer. Moreover, if the married couple has children, it is another thing to top up on their plate. The questions here is, can family business and start-up be able to taken into consideration for work-life fulfilled career path for young professionals? To some young capable and potential professionals, saying NO for family business and start-up is the choice for their career path. They can see themselves ladder up in cooperation environment with a clear boundary between work, life, and relationships to set up, and they have few thoughts on how to run their own business. To some others, after saying NO at first to their established family business, they returned into their familiar context, after the unfitted experience in cooperation environment. To others, family business and start-ups are the choices they make, even if it is a leap of faith for everyone who involves. With the failure rate of start-up is around 90%, yet it is still the decision they take, among other available options and information they have, raise the question: Is family business and start-up a good opportunity for work-life fulfillment in business field?
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I arrived Yangon in time for Women’s Week, which included International Women’s Day, in March, 2017. Many events were conducted to celebrate, and to contribute toward women empowerment in Myanmar. The topics and speakers were varied, from State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi for the Business Talk Program in Nay Pyi Taw, to other remarkable women in different fields for Professional Women’s Workshop in Yangon.
I had the opportunity to listen to a few remarkable Myanmar women from different generations. Daw Thet Thet Khine, is a woman who witnessed the country’s progress from the closed phase during the 80’s to now. Phyo Zar Thwin, another business woman with a multi-branch company, fled the country during its turbulent time and returned five years ago. Vicky Win returned to the country about six months ago, after six years of education in Australia. Daw Thet Thet Khine, is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Myanmar. Originally she was trained to be a medical doctor during the military regime. However, she owned a few jewelry and gem companies successfully with her family business. She also had two MBA Degrees, a national one and an international one. Now, she is pursuing her PhD degree in Leadership and Management, while being among 64 female members of Burmese parliament with its 657 seats, after Myanmar’s first free election in 2015. Her comment about gender equality progress in Myanmar? She mentioned about how Burmese legislation system was adopted from the British model, which held a neutral view towards gender. However, the challenge for gender equality in Myanmar lay in the cultural bias and stereotype toward women, the mindsets of the people, and in the leadership from top-down level. Because the law has relatively no discrimination towards both sexes, it was even more challenging to address the issues, since, “What is not written, is hard to erase ”. Phyo Zar Thwin was another business woman with four different business branches in her company, from real estate broker, to managing director of her own media communication company. She was a journalist during the turbulent times of the 2000s, then fled the country and went back as a business women after the democratic reforms in 2012. She is concerned about the political stability of the nation that affects everyone, not only women. For Phyo, the challenge lies in the policy making process. As an owner of multiple small businesses, she needs to manage her risk in different business ventures, just in case policy suddenly changes. It is also challenging for her to grow her business to the next level, when basic law is unstable enough, and the law keeps changing. Vicky Win, CEO of AusCham Myanmar, in the interview, answered my questions about challenges woman may face in the top positions of an international organization. To my surprise, she said her age was more concerning to her than her gender. She is 23 years old and in charge of a prestigious international organization in Yangon. AusCham, or Australian Chamber of Commerce, along with British Chamber of Commerce, and German Chamber of Commerce had the most active events for women empowerment in business in Yangon for the women week. Toward the end of our conversation, it was her time for another meeting. She had two or three more to attend in the afternoon, after three meetings earlier in the morning. To witness such dynamic progress in how active Burmese women were in such a coincidental time of Women’s Week, I raised a question: what is other challenges that other Burmese women would have faced, other than the women I had my interview with? I asked Nandar, a young female from Shan State who just received her scholarship to study in Vermont this fall of 2017. She had a specific interest in gender studies, and was volunteering for an internship at Rainfall Magazine, the country’s first feminist magazine. She said there was still a big gap between the upper and lower classes in Burmese society. Privilege was mostly for women in the upper class, yet gender inequality happened as a daily issues of lower class women, especially in the rural area . It is the same issue that Nora Pistor, a gender specialist who worked in the field of domestic violence toward Burmese women for almost 10 years, pointed out during the table discussion in one of the women’s events in Yangon. As an outsider, I found the challenge represented itself on the security gates of Shwedagon Pagoda, where they still have two plastic signs for “Male” and “Female” for the same security check-in process . Shwedagon Pagoda is the most popular location for visitors, and a holy place for the locals in the country. No one can go across the gate of the opposite gender for the same process, even when that differentiation is not necessary, since they still step in the same main gate after. There is another challenge. There were few men in all the events during the whole week’s activities for women that I had chance to attend. However, when I walked down the streets of Yangon, I saw it was stepping to the developing stages of an emerging country. Buildings are rising everywhere in the city. New and old businesses open next to each other. Being a witness in such a time, and an interviewer of remarkable individuals who may represent Myanmar for a new era, I believe there is nothing impossible for a Myanmar in a dynamic phase of its history. I see more and more signals in the future, among many noises from the past. There is an estimation of 4200 different religions in the world, with about 12 major religions. The top 5 religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, have roughly 5 billion followers. Among them, 2.1 billion people are Christian, and 1.5 billion people are Muslim—if these religions were countries, they would be the biggest in the world. China only has 1.3 billion people. On Sep 11, 2001, the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York, was also the begining of the term “extremism” in newspapers and media around the world. Fast forward more than ten years, the horrifying graphics of an online beheading prosecution video clip, which released by ISIS, again shook social media . Religions can also be exploited by extreme terrorists, who shouted “Allahu Akbar” before starting their killings in Paris, 2015.The extreme violent images were associated with groups of people, who are in the name of religions to commit action against other human beings. Before Dec 15, 2004, Aceh, was a small quiet province in the coastline of Sumatra Island. After the fatal morning, the whole world knew about Aceh with heart-broken images of mountain of debris and bodies. With international aid and support, Banda Aceh recovered quickly within 10 years, even more prosperous than before. For the locals, it’s also the strong beliefs in God that helps. One may believe, without the support of such a strong religious belief, the people in Banda Aceh were really challenged to overcome such a devastating disaster. Most recently, the “Muslim ban” of the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, stirred a global public outrage about whether the ban associated terrorism with the Islamic community in certain countries. It also showed how complicated domestic and international affairs were, when religion is involved. These samples demonstrate how important religions is to human beings, whether one believes in religion or not, and whether they have their positivity and negativity to the lives of their people. The role of religions is significant for the development of the human society. Religious people and atheists can have an endless argument about whether God does or does not exist, but they can agree on one thing: the religions can drive us to do things collectively, across borders and languages. Because religions play such a significant role in many people’s lives across countries and cultures, it can be a great challenge when it comes to conflicts related to diverse views on different religions around the world. With the development of technology, the world is more connected than ever, and brings even more challenges. Yet, recent years, there is sign of a common space among diverse religions, where people can find a neutral look toward one that hold the same religious views, different ones, or even different views on religions themselves. The common space was promoted by well-known spiritual leaders around the world. Among them, Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, were the ones who promotes the universal values of compassion in a hope that everyone can find a relation to the term, whether they follow different religious practices, or not. That common space, which can provide a time and place for universal values inside every one of us, to nurture a better self, and/for a better community. Besides compassion, mindfulness, and awareness are among these universal values that can find across major religions and cultures under different terms. They also can find in the heart of non-religious individuals who are in search for a better and more fulfilled life. They also provide the common ground for people who are from great diversities of beliefs come together, and learn how to be a better human being. There is also sign of the common spaces exist not only mentally, but also physically. One of the way to activate, accumulate and nurture these universal values is through mediation(meditation?). Various mediation (meditation? – careful of spelling!) centers can find across the country borders: Lang Mai of Thich Nhat Hanh in a small village in France, Dalai Lama Temple Complex in Dharamsala, or Osho International in Pune, India. Other centers of mediation in different scales and practices can also be found in Vietnam, United States, and other countries. Take one example, Osho International, one popular center among other ones for MEDITATION in India. It is the place for people from more than 100 different countries to be together to practice mediation with Osho Methods of Mediation. One notable thought of Osho about meditation is “Meditation is the only hope for humanity to be saved, for the earth to still remain alive”. Whether one may agree with his words or not, just like many controversial debate about Osho himself; however, many people are regular returned visitors during the years, since the establishment of the center in 1974. They come from various countries with diverse backgrounds, and of all sexes. The reasons are different for everyone, however, there is a common reason they give among them.: They find the place extremely peaceful, and they love to go back. It is the place for them to be connected more to themselves, and to others in a nurturing environment for their self-development. The sign of people who comes from such diverse pools of cultures, educations, backgrounds, ethnicities and ages, to stay peacefully and in harmony with each other, to be together in the center with the similar practices regarding other aspect of life, does bring hopes for the expansion of these common spaces into a bigger world. With a great diversity of religious and non-religious beliefs, these common spaces can be expanded for a better development. It can nurture the compassion in human beings across the political systems, across social structures in which they are following. It does not matter if they follow different religions, or no religion at all. With that, it may bring hope of harmony, and peace to a world in a very chaotic time. We are living in the technology era. This is the time when people connect with various ideas and people through advanced development in transportation and also migration trends happen around the world. The connection happens even when they have not stepped into each other home place, through the internet and social media. With that, it has a great potential that the common spaces can take a more significant role in the development of our global society. Like Tom Chi, the leading man behind Google X, was asked what was the next big thing for the world. “A more compassionate human being”, was his answer. This is a surprising yet not surprising response from one of the most notable leaders in Silicon Valley, where is leading advanced researches and development of technology for the world. Suspicions for the differences in Asian and Western thought process can be traced back to philosophical roots of dualism and duality. Dualism is the division of something conceptually into two opposed or contrasted aspects, while duality is the quality or condition of being dual.
The terms “Western” and “Asian” can generally describe the difference in thinking process among traditionally “Western” and “Asian” societies. The Western way tends to value precise, specific, and solid ideas, while the Asian way tends to value the general, uncertainty, and interconnectivity among concepts and ideas. These differences are reflected in conceptual process like thinking and expressing ideas, as well as in various aspects of everyday life, like the traditional treatment of illness, or dining styles. Take an example of verbal expression. There is a joke about the word “maybe” of Asian is either served as “yes” and “no” in Western way. “It depends” is another well-known synonym term for “maybe”. “It depends on the context” is another way of explaining that both possibility and impossibility can be present as the same time. Verbal expressions reflect different thinking processes. It is intriguing to compare the Asia and Western ways of thinking. There are spaces in the Asian way for uncertainty. In the Asian way, it is challenging to come down with a solid conclusion about certain things or events, since conclusions can change depending on the situation. Meanwhile, it is very specific steps and ideas in the thought process of a Western when it comes down to writing styles. We can have an examination at the different in writing essays in Western and Asian in fictions and non-fictions. For examples of Western and Asian differences in the traditional conceptualization and treatment of illness, we can look at cancer treatment. Western medicine and treatment methods include radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which target specific areas of cancer cells. The traditional Asian way considers cancer as an imbalance in the body. The cure is a process of fixing all the related internal organ functions so that the system with rebalance itself. Everyday life is another place where the emphasis on fluidity or specificity is present in even simple things. Look at a typical Asian and Western dining tables. In much of Asia, plates, bowls, chopsticks, and spoon are the basic easting tools. Plates are for food, bowls are for broths. Plates or bowls can be for rice. Chopsticks are used for everything from splitting, picking up, or serving food, except for broths. Spoons can be used for broths or broths can by simply slurped from the bowl. In a typical Western dining style, there are specific plates, bowls, and utensils for different purposes. For plates, there are plates for butter, salads, main dishes, and condiments; bowls for soup, stew, and sometimes salads. Then there are the utensils: forks for picking up food, spoons for soups, knifes for cutting. Within the fork category, there are different forks for salads, main dishes, and desserts. In the spoon category, there are different spoons for soup and dessert. With knifes, there are different ones for butter, common foods, and steaks. These are some examples, from abstract thinking to simple daily life, which demonstrate “Asian” and “Western” differences. These difference can be connected to each society’s traditional philosophical concepts of dualism and duality. These observations also raise other questions for future exploration: Are these differences also connected to the West’s technology revolution and valuation of the scientific method for explaining and exploring concrete ideas, and the East’s examination of meritocracy in classic masterpieces and literature as a way to govern a society? Are individualism and collectivism also the results of different thinking processes? What role might religion play in reinforcing these differences? Thinking about these differences and why they happen, can be steps toward deeper mutual understanding between the “East” and the “West”. Since the world is more connected now than ever, this mutual understanding can contribute to growth and collaboration between the “West” and “Asia” – from new ways of thinking process, to other aspects in life. The Women's March on Jan 21, 2017, which immediately followed the inauguration of the latest President of the United States, Donald Trump, once again shows how we truly care about gender equality and other critical issues, which are happening in such an uncertain time in our history. While the demonstration aimed to protect legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues related to the big picture, there are some other actions on the ground that can make a difference in achieving gender equality and empowerment for all women and girls - goal #5 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals - to transform our world. In a GIST meeting with Dr. Nisha Onta, Regional Coordinator for Asia & Knowledge Management Coordinator for WOCAN, we discussed our goals for women's empowerment in the 'big picture', but also mentioned that when it comes down to the ground, there is a need to be more specific on certain aspects: time, education, income, health, etc. This raised many thoughts about empowering women in entrepreneurship, small and medium business, and giving practical impact on the ground regarding short-term and long-term progress. Wandering around local markets, shopping centers or small-scale restaurants in Southeast Asia, in a dynamic atmosphere of densely populated cities, it is not so hard to recognize how many of the sellers or owners are women. Not being obligated to government or cooperation structures, women with private businesses have more flexible time and are more financially independent. The financial independence improves domestic women’s life significantly. Nancy Salamone, in her article “Domestic Violence and Financial Dependency” for Forbes indicated, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the significant proportion of women who are under domestic violence return to their circumstances due to their inability to deal with finances. Vice versa, with more financial independence for the women herself, domestic violence towards women can be reduced, at least for the returned number of domestic violence’s victims back into their damaged circumstances. The flexible time management improves a woman's position in domestic household roles, since the stereotypical roles of women in Southeast Asia for years is still embedded with the time for the homemaker or caregiver for children and elders. However, the advantage that women are responsible her children’s education with her time, and the mindsets of the youngsters in nuclear families about women’s roles is heavily depend upon on what have been taught and projected not only socially, but also domestically. Since a woman has an independent career and income with flexible time to call for their own, they can be a role model for their children. This advantage give women the opportunity to have more time, more power to break the gender stereotype, and to educate younger generation about gender equality and women equity for both sexes for the future. The benefits of independent income do not stop for the women only. Melinda Gates, a well-known philanthropist, in her notes, “The Small Animal That’s Making a Big Difference for Women in the Developing World”, mentioned the statistics in her line of work, when women control money, they are more likely than men to spend it on priorities that help fight poverty, like education, health, and nutrition. Also, “when a woman controls the family’s income, her children are 20 percent more likely to live past the age of 5”, is another example how independent income contributes significant benefits in the family's sustainability and the society as a whole. There are also many aspects to discuss of what limits women in the field from social structurer, policy makers, or religious viewers. However, with focus to empower women in small and private business with leadership capacity in their own fields, a sustainable improvement with viable and practical impacts. Thus, it is an applicable approach that can make difference for women lives in short-term, and contribute toward gender equality in a long-term progress. |
AuthorI am Thao Le, one of the GISTers of APLP G16. I am interested in female leadership in entrepreneurship and small business. Thank you for your time to stop by the online corner of my GIST journey. ArchivesCategories |