The short version
What happens when a business turnaround starts with the wrong diagnosis? In this episode of The 1000-Day CEO, Bill Canady speaks with Marc Spiegel of HundredEast about business recovery, rebuilding trust, and giving teams the authority to deliver results. They discuss why CEOs need to question assumptions, examine the evidence behind performance problems, and listen to employees and customers before deciding what needs to change.
Marc explores the challenges of leading a struggling business, including making early decisions, restoring employee confidence, and recovering important customer relationships. The conversation covers why reports alone may not explain the real cause of poor performance and how leaders can create an environment where employees feel safe sharing information. They also discuss customer concentration, restructuring conversations, and the importance of establishing clear accountability while empowering people closest to daily operations.
The episode also examines how leaders can balance local decision-making with appropriate controls. Marc and Bill discuss the value of giving teams responsibility, communicating across languages and cultures, and building commitment through trust and clear expectations. They close with lessons for the first 30, 100, and 1,000 days of leadership. For CEOs and business owners, the message is simple: understand the real problem before choosing a solution, build trust with the people responsible for execution, and create the conditions for sustainable growth.
Four key takeaways
1. Test the diagnosis before making major changes
A struggling business may appear to have an obvious problem, but the first explanation is not always correct.
Marc discusses why leaders should challenge assumptions and examine the evidence before making important decisions. Financial reports, management updates, and operational metrics can provide useful information, but they may not reveal everything happening inside the organization.
CEOs need to ask questions, compare information from different sources, and understand what employees and customers are experiencing.
Testing the diagnosis can help leaders avoid implementing changes that address symptoms rather than the underlying cause.
The goal is to make decisions based on a clearer understanding of the business instead of relying only on initial impressions.
2. Rebuild trust through listening and accountability
Business recovery requires more than operational improvements. Employees also need confidence in the leadership team.
Marc discusses the importance of earning trust by listening carefully, protecting information sources, and making it safe for people to raise concerns.
Employees may hesitate to share problems if they believe speaking openly could create negative consequences.
Leaders can encourage more useful feedback by showing that concerns are taken seriously and that decisions are supported by evidence.
At the same time, trust must be supported by accountability. People need clear expectations, consistent communication, and an understanding of how their work contributes to business recovery.
A stronger relationship between leadership and employees can help organizations identify problems earlier and implement changes more effectively.
3. Recover customer relationships and manage concentration risk
Losing or damaging a major customer relationship can create serious challenges for a business.
Marc and Bill discuss the importance of understanding customer concerns and rebuilding relationships through direct communication and reliable execution.
Restoring customer confidence may require identifying where expectations were missed, clarifying responsibilities, and demonstrating that the organization can deliver consistently.
The conversation also addresses customer concentration.
When a large percentage of revenue depends on a small number of customers, the business may face greater financial and operational risk.
CEOs should understand their exposure to major accounts while also working to strengthen customer relationships and create opportunities for more balanced growth.
4. Give local teams authority with clear guardrails
A CEO cannot personally manage every decision across a growing or recovering business.
Marc discusses why people closest to daily operations often need the authority to respond to problems and make practical decisions.
However, delegation works best when expectations and boundaries are clearly defined.
Leaders should establish appropriate controls, clarify responsibilities, and make sure employees understand when decisions need to be escalated.
The episode also explores the importance of communicating across languages and creating an environment where people can acknowledge problems and commit to solutions.
Effective leadership combines local authority with clear accountability.
This allows teams to act more quickly while keeping decisions aligned with the organization’s goals.
Featured insight
Before fixing a struggling business, make sure you understand what is actually causing the problem.
A successful recovery depends on testing assumptions, listening to employees and customers, rebuilding trust, and giving people the authority to deliver results.
Why the Right Diagnosis Matters in a Business Turnaround
When a company experiences declining performance, leaders often face pressure to act quickly.
Revenue may be falling, profitability may be under pressure, or important customers may be losing confidence.
Although fast decisions can be necessary, acting on an incorrect diagnosis can create additional problems.
For example, an operational issue may appear to be caused by employee performance when the real problem involves unclear responsibilities, poor communication, or decisions being made too far from the work.
This is why business recovery should begin with a careful assessment of the available evidence.
Leaders need to understand the numbers, speak with people across the organization, and evaluate whether current assumptions match what is actually happening.
Once the problem is clearer, the company can establish priorities, assign responsibility, and measure progress.
Trust is also essential. Employees are more likely to contribute useful information and support improvements when leadership encourages honest communication.
Customer relationships deserve similar attention. Recovering an important account may require direct involvement, clear commitments, and consistent execution.
The first 30, 100, and 1,000 days provide opportunities to assess the situation, implement changes, and evaluate whether the organization is moving toward sustainable performance.
Ultimately, the strongest turnaround plans combine accurate diagnosis, practical action, and accountable leadership.
Episode chapters
- 00:00 — Welcome and introduction
- 01:26 — When the diagnosis is wrong
- 05:30 — Protecting sources and testing evidence
- 07:04 — First decisions and accountability
- 10:18 — Earning employee trust
- 11:41 — Returning to profit and growth
- 13:15 — Recovering a major customer
- 18:06 — Customer concentration
- 19:21 — Local authority and controls
- 25:14 — Restructuring conversations
- 26:30 — Making it safe to speak
- 29:00 — Leading across languages
- 31:37 — Acknowledgement and commitment
- 33:02 — The first 30, 100 and 1,000 days
- 36:03 — Guest links and the CEO takeaway
Connect with Marc Spiegel
Full transcript
Bill Canady: Welcome everyone to The 1000-Day CEO Podcast. I'm Bill Canady. This is where we get inside the decisions that build enterprise value. My guest today is Marc Spiegel, founder of HundredEast, an advisory firm based in Bangkok. Marc has spent three decades leading businesses across Asia, Europe, and North America, working with both headquarters and the teams responsible for results on the ground. Today we're exploring a problem every CEO can recognize. What happens when the explanation for poor performance is wrong? We'll talk about finding the real issue, protecting customer economics, and turning a recovery plan into an operating discipline. Marc, welcome to the show. Marc Spiegel: Thank you, Bill. Happy to be here. Bill Canady: how is Bangkok today? Marc Spiegel: Well, it's pretty busy. It seems that we've been on the we've been on the radar for everyone doing a conference. So we had a data center conference, we had an energy green tech conference, we had IMF and World Bank here for the annual meetings. It was the first time they were back here in thirty five years. so it's just been a whirlwind. Bill Canady: Bangkok's amazing. I always love going there. In fact, as you and I spoke about, I'll be there in February. So why don't we just go ahead and jump in? your website, your website describes a business that has lost money for a decade. What first told you headquarters had misunderstood the problem? Marc Spiegel: So it's an interesting story, Bill. So when I was recruited to come into this company, it was a European listed multinational industrial manufacturing company. And they had first invested in this Thai family-owned business for more than three decades, which they eventually then bought out and took over completely. And from their point of view, they thought that it was basically coming down to mismanagement. And their technique in the beginning was to leave as much of the executive management in place, but just to put in a financial controller because that they figured that would mitigate any of the risks on the financial side for running the company. But unfortunately, as a foreigner in its high context in a family business, the amount of English being used in the company was quite low. So as much as the financial controller in place thought that he had understood the culture, the language and the way the business was being run, The truth, as we came to find out later on, was very, very different. And it only took me about three weeks being inside to start to unravel what was happening. Bill Canady: So take me into that first conversation or site visit that changed your view. Marc Spiegel: So it was interesting. It's it actually happened by accident. I met my new executive assistant. She had previously worked for an American boss. So she had an idea what the expectations were, the management style, and the way I was going to run the company. But I was the first foreigner coming in to actually run this business. As I said, it was previously a family owned company. So I was really the first white Western face they had seen. And many people were concerned about job security because they didn't know what it meant. Why was this change happening? And traditionally in family businesses and here in Thailand as well, transparency is not always the highest priority in an organization. Very hierarchical, very top-down, and decision making is really reserved for those in the know. But she came to me and just said straight off the bat, whether she just asked me straight up, does she have a job or not? She just assumed I'd be bringing in my own team and that she'd be she'd be replaced. So for me, it was really about. How to create trust because one of the things I learned on the ground quite quickly here in Thailand is that everything is based on relationship. It's not so much transactional. It really comes down to trust and building up that sense of safety, both psychological and cultural, in a working environment where people want to work with you and be part of your team. And I basically said to her, I said, look, I said, we don't know each other. Everything for me is a clean slate. You're gonna be my right hand as my executive assistant. As long as I feel and I and I know that I can trust you, then I would have no reason to make any change of that magnitude, especially being new in the organization, because it's my expectation, you're gonna help me avoid a lot of the pitfalls that I would run into otherwise. So after a couple weeks, she kind of spilled the beans a little bit about what had been going on that she knew about, but she had been in fear of revealing anything to any of the Thai staff. And once that started, it was like just finding the right thread of string to pull on a big wool ball and it all came out. Bill Canady: Hm. What had people been accepting as the explanation for the problem before that? Marc Spiegel: So they had previously been working offline, so old school financial records. So at the time, I guess they they hadn't been set up on SAP. and the SAP integration happened right before I joined the organization. So I think at that time they were doing some creative financing with the records. So from the European headquarters point of view, the company just wasn't doing well in terms of from a management perspective, that there was nothing really wrong. They just didn't have the right people in there or the processes. weren't the ones that they needed or their structure wasn't correct. So that was the initial angle they wanted to take. Bill Canady: And what evidence did you have that challenged that? Marc Spiegel: So as I said, she she came forth pretty quickly. And the first thing I did was I protected her and I made it clear to headquarters that, you know, this is someone that's come forth as a whistleblower. And, you know, two decades ago whistleblower is still kind of a scary term to use, even it probably is still today in some organizations, but in Thailand it was very much a a foreign concept. And I said we really need to isolate and make sure that nothing happens to her as a result of her being forthcoming. So we started to get access to records that no one had seen before. And we started to find evidence of wrongdoing and malfeasance happening in the organization that headquarters was not aware of. and then at that time I got with headquarters legal team and of course regional management, and we quickly put together a SWAT team of specialists that could come in and support and reinforce me because I needed to still run the business. But at the same time, this needed to be investigated properly and we needed to figure out how we're gonna really straighten out this ship. Bill Canady: Yeah. What'd you initially get wrong? Marc Spiegel: What did we initially get wrong? So what we got wrong was as I said, they really thought it was just, management that wasn't skilled enough to run a multinational organization. They didn't have world class business processes and the structure was off. But it was that, but that wasn't the driving cause of what was causing the company not to make money. Bill Canady: So once you understood the cause, what was the first operating decision that you made? Marc Spiegel: So the first operating decision we made, as I said, was we brought in some outside help. So we brought in security investigations firm. I brought in an expert firm on change management local, because one of the things the company had been doing is transforming the organizational structure of the companies region by region. And we really needed to look at what their strategy was from a European standpoint versus what would actually work in Thailand. And we needed to map that out against. the way that business was set up, the way our customers were structured, and what was really going to be effective. So I brought them in as second. And then of course then we had to have a legal team in to support on all the cases which were forthcoming as we uncover what was happening in the company. But this freed me up to be able to run the day to day operations at a company. Bill Canady: Who owned making making this happen? Marc Spiegel: Me. At the end of the Bill Canady: You own it up. Marc Spiegel: day, I and managing director is an interesting title. I don't know outside of the United States how many people know really what it is, but country manager you can call it or president or but it's like a mini CEO. But managing director actually means you are the legal entity for the business in the country in which you are operating. So not only is the company liable for anything going on in the organization, but as a managing director, I had personal liability. So one of the first things I did is I went to the board of directors and I asked for a letter of indemnification against anything we found. And I also wanted to make sure that we had director and officer insurance to protect me and ensure I'd be provided for, knowing that we would end up having court cases following. Bill Canady: What was the first resistance that or the key resistance that you encountered? Marc Spiegel: The entire company turning on me. basically, there's a saying in Asia, don't break people's rice balls. Well, I basically broke it and threw it out the window. but the thing that I the thing that I think really helped, Bill, is that when we had our first town hall and we were really, really transparent with the employees about what was going on. And I think that was part of the problem. Because in this family organization they weren't very forthcoming. People were still getting annual raises, they were getting bonuses. So The fact that we told them that the company was losing money in the beginning, they actually refused to believe us. And we actually had to have our new Thai financial controller get up on the stage and put the audited financials up on a screen. And we actually had to walk the staff through on what staff through on what had been going on in the organization. And even still, they were they they they were in disbelief. They just couldn't understand. But the thing we made clear to them is I said, look, You can all gang up on me and go to headquarters and try and get me overthrown, and maybe you'll be successful. Who knows? It's happened in many companies. But at the end of the day, if it's not me, it's gonna be somebody else. You know, and the difference is I'm committed to being here. I've taken the time to learn your language, try to understand your culture, and I'm gonna do the best that I can, not just for the company and the and the investors, but also for you as employees of this organization and local stakeholders. But I said you need to understand. You're not a Thai company. You are a subsidiary of a European listed company that happens to be in Thailand. And trying to get them to wrap their heads around that and initiate that culture change was very, very challenging. Bill Canady: What improves first? Marc Spiegel: So, what improved first? So, weeding out bad apples. once we started to do some house cleaning, I think some of the people that really were quiet about what was happening and hung on for whatever reason started to see that we were really living what we said we would do. and we continued with transparency, we continued with regular town hall meetings. I set up open door policy, which was very much a foreign concept today. And because typically in a hierarchical organization in a lot of Thai companies, nobody below the management team would ever go talk to the managing director of a company. And I did it in a way that they didn't have to come to me. I went to them. So every day we were in a we were in a multi-story building, which we owned. And every day when I came in, before I got to my office, I would enter in on the ground floor and I would walk every I'd walk up the stairs every floor. And I would just walk around, I'd talk to managers, I would talk to supervisors, I would talk to general employees, try to get to know their names, a little bit about their family, and just show a genuine interest in who they were as a people. I had my HR manager give me the list of everyone's birthday in a company. So I had my assistant go out and buy me birthday cards. We had several hundred employees, but I hand wrote birthday cards for every one of them. And every time there was a birthday, I actually went out and for those that were in the office, I actually went out and gave it to them. Bill Canady: That's really nice. That's really wonderful, in fact. you described profitability within 18 months. what profit measure was it? Marc Spiegel: Even we for ten years they were just they were just not making money at the bottom line. and as I said, it was because of the the causes we spoke about. But once we changed the structure of the organization, unfortunately we did have to lay off certain amount of people. We got the organization right sized, we had proper business processes in there and we were doing business the way that it should be done and accounting practices the way they should be done. we also had to be very transparent with the customers because they were really in the dark about a lot of what had been going on and really didn't understand why we had such drastic change happening in the company. Because as I said, when the company ganged up on me, they didn't just gang up on me. They were actually trying to leverage customers to gang up on me and to gang up on headquarters to get me out. So had to spend a lot of time doing proper PR and marketing and going out and and really pressing the flesh, as we like to say, in the West, and and really showing them what we were about and that this was all positive in order to benefit the long term satisfaction of our customers. Bill Canady: It makes a lot of sense. Do the improvements hold that you put in? Marc Spiegel: They did. They did. After we really right-sized the business and we returned to profitability, then we really started focusing on growth. And that was a completely different pivot shift in strategy and mentality. And and they got it. And and today the company is in that industry, they're one of the top in Thailand, whereas before they were they were not. Bill Canady: That's quite the success story. Let's take that same discipline to a customer decision. Your site describes rescuing an account worth roughly forty percent of a plant's revenue. How'd you decide whether it was worth saving? Marc Spiegel: It wasn't me that decided. It was actually the site management. it was a very, very large multi-global customer that they had had a multi-decade relationship with and they just didn't want to part ways. They realized that through their manufacturing errors, they had made a lot of mistakes, quality control had slipped, and as a result, they had field escapes which were impacting them, their customer, and their customer's customer. So credibility was lost. Dollars were lost on both P&Ls. And it was a matter of what was it gonna take to get this thing back on track. And they realized that they couldn't do it by themselves. Bill Canady: Mm-hmm. Marc Spiegel: the cust the great thing was is that the customer was committed to staying with us. And it was a matter of first they brought in external support from one of the big consulting firms to help get the structure right because that's what their customer wanted. But as we all know, that's not the most sustainable long-term practice financially. So they went out to look for somebody like me to really come in, take over the program and take it to the next level. And originally they wanted a local, but the engagement team on the ground knew me and they said, look, they said, we'll give you the next best thing, we'll give you a hybrid, we'll give you a guy that's from the West, from the same country as where your customer sits, speaks the language, reads, writes the language, knows the environment inside and out, understands the culture, can walk the talk. And even though he doesn't come from your industry, He'll be able to drive the optimization of these business processes and return that credibility to you and for the customer. And I just took Bill Canady: That makes a lot of sense. Marc Spiegel: the same formula from the the first company. I went in there, got to know the people. This was a very, very technical, complicated manufacturing environment I had never worked in. So the best thing I could do is just sit with the people out on the floor every day. Sit in those production meetings, sit in those technical review meetings. It was quite a challenge to learn a whole new set of vocabulary around their business, but I immediately gained trust from from the people. and it immediately got back to their customer what I was doing to go above and beyond to ensure that this was successful for them. So it bought me a lot of goodwill from the customer. So there was still there was still animosity between the site and the client over what had happened. But with me coming in as a fresh face from the outside and really not taking sides, but just focusing on fixing the issue at hand. and restoring credibility for both organizations, it was just I had support all across the board. Bill Canady: Which two or three changes that you made made the biggest difference? Marc Spiegel: I think so so I the I have to give a lot of credit to consulting firm. They really came in and set up a fantastic program. But again, a lot of the people that were working on it from their side were not local. they understood manufacturing, they understood both businesses, but that cultural gap and really understanding what it took to execute at that level in that environment, I think was probably the difference. Because they originally told and it projected to the site. That normally for them to exit their improvement program took about two years. And we were able to do it in nine months. And that's a testament, not really to me. I mean, I may have helped lead the lead the charge, but it's a testament to the commitment of the team that I was leading. and their ambition and pride and wanting to show their customer that they had worked with for so long that they really knew how to do things that were world class. Bill Canady: Did the customer itself have to make many changes? Marc Spiegel: Yes. That's where I had to make changes to. I mean, you know, this is this is definitely not one sided. They realized on their end that there were lapses in in their business processes. And, you know, regardless of what countries are or in the mix, whether it's one country or multiple countries, you know, it all boils down to communication. And challenges in communicating across multiple languages, across multiple time zones always complicates things in any environment. So being able to simplify a lot of that, Doing things in multiple languages to make it easier for both sides. Really working to repair the bruise relationships between the local teams, the Thai teams, the international teams, and the regional and international headquarters really, really, really helped. Bill Canady: What proved that the recovery was complete? Marc Spiegel: So we had a set of KPIs which are s based on standard quality control procedures that we had to achieve and we had to have certain milestone deliverables in terms of output and field testing, which we were able to achieve. audited by the customer, not just by the site, not just by me and my team, but by the customer and their independent deal. Bill Canady: Yeah, well that always, as it it really brings it home from everyone wrapping it up. Yeah, it's interesting. Marc Spiegel: Yes. Bill Canady: A large customer can really dominate the sales report. What should a CEO be examining to see the effects on profit and cash of that large customer to see if it's worth it? Marc Spiegel: it's a good question. as as you rightly mentioned, forty percent of the revenue of a site is no small amount of money. And Bill Canady: Mm-hmm. Marc Spiegel: had we lost that account, it would have been devastating in terms of what it would take to backfill that amount of revenue, especially in a manufacturing environment. Takes a long time to get a customer qualified, takes a long time to ramp and build up the amount of revenue that we're talking about here. and to me then that goes back to a headquarters decision of in terms of customer revenue mix, how much do you allow in a single plant? I was gonna say we had similar discussions in other multinationals where I worked and I saw where companies got into trouble because they just had too much customer dependency on too few customers. You know, it's that you go back to your eighty twenty rule. You don't want to have eighty percent of your revenue come from twenty percent of your customers and then a couple of them go belly up. Bill Canady: Customer concentration is a real issue. yeah, Marc Spiegel: Yes. Bill Canady: we are all naturally concentrated just by the way things work. But when you've got half, you've got sixty, you've got that customer goes away, it gets tougher. what decision should a local leader be able to make without asking headquarters? Marc Spiegel: That's a fantastic discussion and debate. I think we could probably be here all day on that one. Bill Canady: Well, you are especially affected by it given the fact that you work with multinational companies, typically Western companies looking in Bangkok and surrounding areas. Marc Spiegel: Yeah, it's interesting because I've worked both sides. I've been in the field most of my career, but I have spent some time at headquarters, so I've seen what works and I've also seen the big disconnect. And again, a lot of it comes down to trust. you know, when you're sitting at the intersection of being the head of a operation, a business unit, a country or a region, I mean you are the emissary, the ambassador for the headquarters. But there has to be some level of leniency in understanding how to translate the requirements. of headquarters into the local operation. You can't just copy and paste everything and expect it to work. I think this is where a lot of companies fail. Whether it's hubris, whether it's you know built on previous success that they've had elsewhere, that they think it will definitely work here. You really need to come to Asia with a very blank canvas and be willing to trust and depend on who you have here. The important thing is that as long as the guardrails and the structure around the business processes are in place, you should be able to trust the leadership you have there to make the key decisions necessary around the business within that context. Bill Canady: Can you give me an example of an approval that really slowed the business down? Marc Spiegel: Yeah. I mean the I guess this happens in most companies, right? The budget process is always the most challenging. Is it top down, is it bottom up, or is it something in between? And once the Bill Canady: Mm-hmm. Marc Spiegel: budget is approved, how much leniency do you have to really make decisions against that approved budget? And that's always been a challenge. in one company that I worked in recently, that my position actually didn't exist. So they had been doing business out here for about three decades, but all their operations had been siloed. So they had manufacturing plants in several different countries in the region, but they were all operating on their own. And funny enough, the owners didn't really have much experience in the region. They kind of did the helicopter thing. They'd come out here once in a while, see what's going on, and everything was managed by spreadsheets and conference calls. But when I came in, the thing that I made clear to them is, you know. We need a comprehensive cohesive strategy for the region. You can't just keep copying and pasting what you've been doing from the US because they knew it wasn't working. And in fact, before I'd gotten in, they had spent 10 years downsizing the footprint of what they already had, which I was pretty surprised about knowing what I already knew about the region. And part of the pitch when they were interviewing me was I went to them with a strategy paper. So I had done my homework and I went in with a strategy paper based on what I've known, things I've already done for other companies, and proof to them with data. That guys, no disrespect to what you've done in the past, but if you want Asia to be a pivotal part of your revenue strategy and your operation, we need to reverse everything that you've done and go in a completely different different direction and start putting serious investment into the region. And from that started to build a strategy around which I could make decisions. Bill Canady: How headquarters work with you and know that the control was working and still giving you the latitude? Marc Spiegel: So I think that came through audit over time, right? Because it was in a matrix environment. So while I had direct control over a lot of the functions, they also had either dotted or direct line to other reporting functions in the headquarters. So it's not that they're just hearing from me, they're getting to hear from leadership in the region at the plant and in different functions. And the books were clean, everything was audited through local financial controls. So everything was coming back exactly the way I was saying. The important thing that I found, Bill, is consistency in messaging, really having that one voice coming out of the region. And not just people being a yes man, but just that at the end of the day, after we had agreed and aligned on the data and the strategy and what we were gonna do, that everybody spoke in the same tone with the same wording and the same messaging consistently. And I think by doing that, that really started to give them the confidence that we were really working together as one team. And the thing that sewed up for us was when we did the employee satisfaction survey. From year one, my region had the highest engagement rates in the entire company. Bill Canady: Do you have any examples of where a local authority giving too much maybe goes wrong? Marc Spiegel: In terms of Bill Canady: Well, you you're making all your decisions locally. sometimes it goes wrong. It gets a little bit a line misaligned with what the corporate headquarters want. Marc Spiegel: Yeah, that that happens lost in translation. I think I think I think they're executives Bill Canady: It's the old telephone game. I thought I said this. Marc Spiegel: I I think they're executives that have exceeded their mandate from time and again. I think sometimes, whether it's out of frustration or ambition, you decide to ask for forgiveness instead of permission. And things don't always go the way you want them to. I mean, on anything big that would really impact the P&L, I don't think I'd ever go so far or be so bold as to take those kind of decisions. Something that could really materially hurt. But things where the issues are time sensitive, customer related, delivery related, where we really need to do something and make a decision now, there are times where I've made it a calculated risk to to do it. And and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. but at the end of the day, I'm was able to demonstrate in the interest of the company, the shareholders, and the customer, it was the right decision. And it was either one of those, okay, I won't do it again, or company accept the decision I made and just said, you know, good job. But the time zones don't help, I think when you're working from Asia to Europe, it's a little bit easier, or from Europe to the United States is easier, North America it's easier. But working really across the globe, it it creates a lot of challenges in terms of time sensitive decision making, especially in crisis. Bill Canady: Yeah, you're in one one way your five or six hours difference. which if you're Asia, depending where you are, it's Marc Spiegel: twelve to fifteen. Bill Canady: it's a whole it's a whole day, right? So it's the middle of the night on one place and it makes make it makes a giant, giant difference. You've done a lot of work around restructuring. when the parent company is restructuring, what's the hardest customer or supplier conversation you've personally had to handle? Marc Spiegel: Honest structure. I think and it goes around to several assignments that I had. I think again it it comes down to the level of transparency also with the customers getting to understand the transformational journey we as a company have decided to take and why, and being able to demonstrate to them without obviously revealing proprietary internal information what the benefit would be to them as a And although sometimes they're difficult and many times the customers were much larger than the subsidiary operation I was running, we were able to satisfy them in the end. But sometimes it it took time. Sometimes people would go over my head and call headquarters and demand to understand what was going on. They would try to force headquarters hands not to make certain decisions that they thought were gonna impact them adversely, and sometimes it might. But if the overall decision was made that this was the direction we needed to go, we just needed to hold a line and figure out a way to mitigate any concerns that those customers had. And you do lose customers sometimes. it it's not all roses. There are thorns in that mix. Bill Canady: Absolutely. you you mentioned a really interesting point before. How do you make it safe for the people to tell you something that maybe their boss doesn't want to hear or me you know, maybe it's gonna take and just create a create a mess. Marc Spiegel: So I talked about earlier about psychological and cultural safety. And that's really for me what it's about, and not making things personal. Because in Asia, everything is about face. You never want to lose your face. Losing your Bill Canady: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Marc Spiegel: face means losing credibility. And once you've lost that, getting it back is very, very difficult. So people will do anything to not have that happen to them. So that's why I said instead of waiting for people to come to me, a lot of times if I have a sense that something's going on, I will go to them. I will quietly pull them aside or I might drop them a note or I might find a way to meet them outside the office to not put them in an uncomfortable position. But I would never call somebody out in the middle of a meeting or put them in a position where it might be uncovered that they were the ones that let me know something was going on. So a lot of times I try to do my homework, gather to due diligence, and then really go to validate what I've been hearing to make sure that what we thought was going on was the real story before we took any any actions. And by doing that and focusing again, not so much on the people, but on the business processes in the company, it allowed people to feel that we weren't going after them per se, but we were really doing everything we could to make the business environment operate at optimal capacity and efficiency so that they could be successful. Because sometimes you have the wrong people in the wrong job because they don't have the right training, they don't have the tools, the work instructions or processes or job description don't exist or they're incorrect. And it's just a matter of getting these things cleaned up and people can do their job. Because at the end of the day, look, there's a lot of bad things happening in the world. We see it in the headlines every day. But I don't think most people, Bill, wake up in the morning with the intention that they're going to go to work to screw over their employer. People genuinely want to go to their company, they want to go to work, they want to do a good job, they want to get recognized for it from their peers, from their bosses, and they they want to make good money. So I think intentionally people have that in their heart. But if we don't give them the right environment where they can be successful, then it's really us that should be held accountable for having created the environment for those things to happen in the first place. Bill Canady: Yeah, I agree. People really do want to win. If you were advising a CEO who doesn't speak the local language, how would you advise them to create that safe space? What would what would work for them if they don't speak it? Marc Spiegel: it's a good question because I see it a lot, not just in Thailand, not just in Asia, but even across Europe. Trad if you have traditional expats coming into assignment, a lot of times they might only be on site two to four years. And for them to make the commitment to learn the language, depending on where it is and the complexity of language, it's not always really feasible. I know sometimes companies will hire translators, they'll at least bring in cultural coaches to help them. They might come in and do immersion classes before they go into the office. So the thing for me in advising people that are here for a short term, number one, try to learn at least some of the language. We call it like taxi Thai or survival Thai. At least learn Bill Canady: Mm-hmm. Marc Spiegel: a few languages. Hello, thank you, where's the restroom? how to order a meal. Basic things that, over time, even if you're here for just a couple of years, you'll be able to learn. The local people really appreciate it in any country and that you're at least making an effort, that you're not really imposing your culture and your language on them, knowing you're not going to be there for a long time, expecting them to change, and at least they're somewhat receptive to the changes you're probably going to be making, knowing that you're only going to be there for a short time. Because that's always the risk you run. If you don't help to create that space for them and they know you're here for a short term and they don't buy into the strategy of what you're doing, they will absolutely run against you. Bill Canady: I find that to be true. When that leader and the team really knows the that that they're there for that short period of time, even though they may may not talk about it, what becomes so routine that the leader really has to look out for so that the business does not slide back when their attention moves to their next assignment? Marc Spiegel: Hmm. So I think I think you gotta keep your eye on the ball. I've seen people in companies where they're quote unquote managing their careers. So they know they're in for a short term, so they just focus on, okay, I have these few KPIs I need to meet, then I'll get my next promotion or next assignment, and that's it. And they don't really start to care for or really look after the employees they work for. But as we talked about earlier in Asia and specifically in Thailand, it's a very different operating environment. And in in America, we have this saying, right? When when you come to work, you leave your personal life at home. If you ever had the guts to tell somebody in Thailand that, they probably wouldn't be your employee for very long. Thai people look at the workplace as an extension of their home life. And they really expect the work environment to be fun, to be enjoyable, and for them to have an opportunity to grow and accomplish something. And if you come in with that short term, very focused mindset on those KPIs and nothing else, and don't make any effort to take an interest in those employees, you are not going to be very successful. Bill Canady: I think that's true everywhere. People want to be cared about, created a safe space, feel like they can win. You know, it's just being a decent human being and someone that someone wants to work with. I I think you I think you really you really really net nailed it with that. So what's a warning sign that maybe that leader should be looking for that that maybe they're not creating that type of environment? Marc Spiegel: So this is a really good people in Thailand when they're just sitting in a meeting and you're asking questions and everyone's nodding along, not saying anything, or they just say yes and you believe that that is acknowledgement and acceptance that they're going to do what you want. You walk out of the room, you think you had the best meeting, they've all bought in. A week later you come back and nothing's changed. Bill Canady: Yeah, the proverbial yes, but but nothing changes. I I think that's true everywhere. And y given the languages and things like it's easy to fall fall into to that trap. Marc Spiegel: Because specifically in Thailand, there's a level of acknowledgement in a way that people would just say the word krup. Krup means acknowledged. So chai kru. Yes, acknowledged. Or my chai kru, not acknowledged. So when foreigners only hear kru, that basically means I've heard you, I've listened to you, okay. But it doesn't mean I'm going to do anything. I haven't said yes, I'm going to, or no, I'm not going to, or would you consider something else? And this is something that people easily fall into here. Bill Canady: So a company that's coming in, they've hired a CEO where he's temporary or or he's bringing one over, and they've got a thousand days to build enterprise value in that region or turn that company around. What must they understand in the first thirty days? Marc Spiegel: First 30 days, as I said, the biggest thing to f focus on is really understanding that whatever mandate they have and whatever understanding they have for why the business is underperforming, they need to validate that. Because if they've already made a decision in their minds about what the problem is and what they need to do to fix it, and it's not right, that 100 days is going to be gone before you know it. Bill Canady: Before you know it, right? What should be visibly different by day one hundred? Marc Spiegel: I'd say the engagement of the employees needs to be there. People need to be showing up. People need to be forthcoming. You shouldn't have to be doing root canal to get information out of people. The data should be transparent about what's happening in the business, good, bad, or ugly. And people are really willing to engage with this new leader or new leadership team to drive the business in direction the company wants. But a hundred days may not be enough. It really depends on again the severity of of what's gone wrong in the business. Do they have experience working with foreigners in the past? Is it a subsidiary of a multinational? Is it some of what I stepped in where it used to be a family company? A lot of it's gonna depend on what the root culture of that company is when these people have come in. Some environments you can change pretty quickly. Some may never change. It's just the way it is. Bill Canady: Yeah, situational. By day one Marc Spiegel: Yeah. Bill Canady: thousand, what should the business be able to do repeatedly without depending on that new C Marc Spiegel: Make money. Bill Canady: Always very handy. Marc Spiegel: Right? the whole job of a CEO is to work ourselves out of a job, right? We want to get to the point where, if God forbid something happened to us the next day, company's still gonna be running without us there to make every decision. and really being able to empower and delegate with authority and hold people accountable is very important. And that's really what I strive to do. I mean, servant leadership I think is a fantastic concept. it works very, very well in Asia and very, very well here in Thailand. And instead of running the company, that traditional pyramid you see on PowerPoints where the CEO's at the top and the employees are at the bottom, I really flip everything on its head. Because when you think about the company and you have a bunch of employees in it, those employees are interact with your customers much more than you ever will as a CEO. And I really subscribe to what Branson has always said. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your customers. So I really try to be that guy that de bottlenecks and removes obstacles out of the way of my people so they can really run. Because the more efficiently they can work, the less they need me and the more they can be empowered to do their jobs. Bill Canady: So a CEO of a company that has a subsidiary in Thailand, what's the one action they should be taking this week? Marc Spiegel: This week Make sure you got the right guy in the chair. I would agree. Bill Canady: There you go. So if people wanna learn more about you or your company, what you do, how do they how do they find you? Marc Spiegel: You can find me on LinkedIn, you can find me on my website, hundredeast.com. That's the easiest way to get a hold of me. Bill Canady: Great. Well, it'll be in the show notes. so people who are looking for more information about what's going on in Thailand, they have a business there that needs some help. we'll make sure you you have that. So, Marc, thank you so much for taking us inside the decision behind the businesses that you've ran and been a part of. For the CEOs listening, choose one explanation your company has accepted for too long. Go to the people closest to the work, test it against the numbers and decide what action the evidence supports. Follow The 1000-Day CEO and share this conversation with other leaders who can use it. For our free operating tools and more resources, build our build our visit our website, billcanady.com or the8020institute.com. I'm Bill Canady, make everyday count. Thank you so much. Have a great day, everyone. Thanks, Marc, for joining us. Marc Spiegel: Thanks, Bill. Really appreciate it.
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Question for listeners: Which explanation for poor performance should your team test this week?
