[moocow01]

"Back home, I can drive the workforce to do the best practices that I believe without having to have long discussions"

But this where you may be missing out on the value of a worker. In this day in age, someone who just cranks out something to a mold or specification is not as valuable to an organization. I'd much rather pay someone 5 times as much if they can think on their feet and not always have to rely on me to figure out how they should be working. Constantly having to define practices for a team of lemmings is a typically exhausting full time gig when you're the only one to take initiative and guide. The other problem is that we all make bad decisions from time to time and it is important to make sure we have competent people around us to correct our course when that occurs rather than a bunch of yes-men.

[hello_moto]

It's not as bad as you'd think.

These best practices are just the foundation, not necessary the long-term solutions. Once you have a set of standard, there's always room for improvement or changes.

The biggest problem with N.A. workers is that they can be categorized into 3 types when it comes to "Do Things":

- Do as they pleased (cause they think they know it all)

- Follow the best practice

- Follow the latest and greatest best practice and create some sort of work revolution in the middle of directing the ship toward the goal

You kind of need a "Yes-Man" if you're on early stage of startup inventing your own dream (I'm sure this is going to open a can of worm but hey... it's your startup).

I'm not discussing whether this is the best way or the worst way. I'm focusing on the "why" people chose culture that prefer "Yes-Man". It could be a way for them to exploit human psychology for all I know.

That's the thing. You need to be there to see how things are happening/working. It's totally different in there (Asia) than in here (US).

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare advises won't work in Asia while it may work in US or UK.

[quanticle]

>You kind of need a "Yes-Man" if you're on early stage of startup inventing your own dream (I'm sure this is going to open a can of worm but hey... it's your startup).

Nonsense. You are not smart enough to run your company. That bears repeating: You are not smart enough to run your company.

In other words, you will face unexpected challenges and problems that you aren't smart enough to solve on your own. In a situation like this, being surrounded by "yes men" is the worst possible place to be. Employees that can't or won't think for themselves won't be able to help you get out of a jam. They won't be able to tell you that you're going in the wrong direction. Instead, your own workload will grow exponentially as you find yourself having to tell your employees what to do as opposed to having them figure it out for themselves.

Even worse, you'll find yourself cut off from vital information. You'll find that you don't receive news unless you specifically ask for it. In other words you'll be flying blind with faulty instruments. That's not a situation I'd like to find myself in as an entrepreneur. I would much rather have employees who can take initiative to fix problems and pounce on new business opportunities. I would much rather have employees who tell me that things are going badly without having to be prodded. A "yes-man" is the very antithesis of this.

[hello_moto]

It's hard to argue because I've seen many companies/businesses that start that way back home or in Asia.

Only later on when they're stable enough to hire smarter people then they start to delegate.

YMMV. As I said it before, it's one of the reason why people want to go back regardless whether I'm wrong or you're right.

It's the worst place for you but not necessary for other people.

Different culture but I haven't seen China nor South Korea fail so far :).

UPDATE: Since I can't reply any more (for whatever reason). Sure, innovation might be lacking, but meh, most people come back because they want to create a company/business. This isn't a debate about USA vs the rest of the world in terms of innovation. It's about "why" people left US.

[quanticle]

>Different culture but I haven't seen China nor South Korea fail so far :).

It's also the reason they haven't made any major inventions or advances. The yes-man culture is positively noxious to innovative thought, and if you look at Korea right now, they're trying to loosen up that culture so that they can innovate and don't get stuck in a role of constantly receiving secondhand innovation from the US/Europe.

[spitfire]

He might not be smart enough to run his company. But I've seen more than a few people who aren't smart enough to run a company, but are lucky enough to hit payday.

Sadly, this sort of failing upwards just reinforces their world view.