Our Leadership talk session is a part of our “Leaders Who Lead by Example” series, where we connect leaders from diverse industries and sharing their career journey, experience, insights of the corporate world.
In first episode of our “Leaders Who Lead by Example” Series, We speak with Minh Chau Nguyen, Head of Human Resource at Johnson & Johnson, Vietnam, Who share her career journey and how has the pandemic changed the role of human resource.
Transcript
What makes you passionate about Human Resource?
Honestly, my career started with Sales and Marketing role for the initial seven years after graduation. By chance and by family reason, I have had an awesome opportunity to move to Human Resource, which become my life passion.
For me, it’s all about PEOPLE. You may be proud of an excellent strategic business plan with intelligent systems and great products, very strong financial status; but indeed, it’s your talents who create them all. Talents create talented plans, smart systems, admirable qualities and prestigious brands. These successes cannot be self-created; and in vice versa, these successes also cannot create back the talents.
I do believe that a talent is the “core” of everything. So that why I have a deep passion in Human Resource in generally and in Talent Development in particularly.
How did you get into your career?
As shared, I caught up my HR career by chance and by family reason. After graduation, I worked for Saigon tourist as Sales and Marketing Assistant Manager. This job required much regular travels.
Then there’s another bigger happiness came to my life in 2006 – my first son. At that time, my thinking, priority was, I need to save more time for family as I wouldn’t have any opportunity in future to revert back the lovely childhood time of my son. Then I decided to restart my career with a job that includes less travelling and more focus into liberating potential of young talents. HR job became the most explicit choice.
Being Sales & Marketing Deputy Manager for 7 years, I curiously restarted the interested career journey as HR Executive with mainly focusing into payroll administration and recruitment coordinator. Promoted and rotated around almost HR spectrums as Talent Acquisition Lead, C&B Team Lead, Total Reward Manager, L&D Manager, HRIS Project, HR Ops Transformation project Lead, HRBP Head, Change PMO (3 big M&A projects) and then HR Director.
What is an obstacle you encountered, and how did you handle it?
I have a different view on obstacle. It’s always the challenge for me. And I believe that there’s always a better opportunity behind the challenge. I feel it’s an interesting job with the challenge as it teaches us the most. Doing the routine daily work, it’s good to build the familiar skills and regular profession but without challenges, you cannot have agility to grow.
The way I view challenges as : 5A
Approach and Accept the challenge with positive mindset. It’s an opportunity for learning, no matter I can overcome it and never complaint why this challenge happened to me.
Adapt to understand the insight and Analysis based on fact and figure, prepare some options, backup plan
Agile mindset, flexibility – even may be change quickly the original plan.
We always have many ways to overcome the challenge, not one way. It’s our choice in different contexts.
What is your leadership style?
Supportive but assertive impact. I understand this might not a strong leadership style in some business situations when we need an aggressive, decisive style to make a bold move. But for the purpose of talents development, I do think the supportive leadership style is most suitable.
What's the most important leadership lesson you've learned?
If you have a strong passion and believe, you can do it and inspire the team to do the same. It’s not about the tangible values of promotion or monetary but the inside recognition of your invaluable contribution. This is an aspiration power. The “inside-out” strength is always the most sustainable power than any “outside-in” add-on.
Your advice for inspiring HR Professionals?
Just do it with your passion and strong believe! Trust in "Cause and Effect" rule and trust in good things. Because our targeted focus is people, we should respect the complexity and sentiments by human being naturally. We should embrace the diversity and inclusive, respect the value of being themselves since we cannot treat people as a robot or products.
What is your key learning’s from this Covid 19 Pandemic about life and work?
Flexibility and Agility
If you haven’t got Flexibility, you cannot be Agile. But if there’s no Agile mindset, it’s hard for you to be Flexible and Adaptable.
Agility is very crucial in VUCA world, not only in Covid 19 situation.
There’re some interested examples of giants like Kodak, Blackberry or tradition taxi. We can see now the replacements by digital camera, iPhone and Grab, Go Jek. They are agility examples.
The agility will give you more flexibility to quickly adapt with change to grow healthy and sustainable, from Good to Great.
For HR, Agility happened from traditional HR with more focusing in operations, services delivery to become focusing in strategic partner of business now, and be a part of business critical decisions in future. It’s true because you, as HR Professionals, have the most powerful, essential resource – people, talents – who can create everything, drive the success and thrive the grow holistically.
