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Published on March 17, 2008

I signalled to turn right and started to turn.

There was a huge bang and I saw two people on a motorcycle flying through the air and landing in miraculously good condition on a patch of grass. They had been driving fast and hit the car as I turned.

Insurance agents and police arrived. The two motorcyclists had minor injuries and were taken to hospital and it was off to the police station.

I knew it was not my fault as I had signalled before turning right and was moving slowly.

When we met the investigators, my secretary translated. "Yes", she explained, "You were both at fault."

I asked how on earth it could possibly be my fault. The answer was that I was driving the big car.

I understood and it has made me smile ever since. They had little and were injured, and I had more and was fine. I even gave them some extra money for their medical bills.

In the end, we all said goodbye and hugged each other. Their family waved us off.

It was a valuable lesson in "being Thai" and coincidentally came in a week when I had failed to take this into account at work.

One of my first actions in building Dtac's business division had been to build an exceptional management team. This team is extremely driven and super-high calibre.

Next was to present our plan for this year. We worked on  detailed Excel models which we discussed with working teams in other divisions to get feedback.

We then gathered senior management and delivered the "Business Division 2008 strategy". All requests were approved, including an additional 138 headcount. It took two hours.

That was end of November. By "car accident week" the plan had shuddered to a halt.

The feedback I got afterwards was that while we had spoken to the working teams, they did not really feel they had an opportunity to comment on it.

Also, because the plan had quickly been approved, some key management members could not comment either.

So the fact that nothing was heard did not indicate there was nothing to be said. Rather I had failed to actively hear what was to be said, quite probably because I did not actually want to hear it.

So perhaps another way of saying "nothing was said" is in fact "nothing was heard".

That is a good way to take the responsibility on to ourselves, to seek it rather than blame others it was not given.

Andrew Mcbean

The Nation