Khun Chumsai has resigned!

Khun is an honorific placed before a Thai name.

Chumsai was the Thailand-based “key account manager” for a German multinational that supplies software for urban traffic control safety.

Reggie Pennington, a Brit who heads the Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore region, called me in Tel Aviv and asked me to get to Bangkok as soon as possible to help do damage control and bring Chumsai back from the brink. Reggie was entirely dependent on Chumsai to close the sales cycle for a new product across major Thai municipalities—a process that had been running for two years.

Reggie told me Chumsai had accepted a job at the very client where he’d served as key account manager. Reggie said he was completely blindsided. Chumsai had seemed to be working as usual, with no complaints whatsoever. “He was always smiling.”

I booked a week-long trip to Bangkok and held a series of meetings that surfaced the issues behind Chumsai’s decision to leave. These are exact quotes.

1. “Khun Reggie has no time for small talk. So he must really care only about the business, not about the people.”
2. “When we work late, Reggie never asks us out for a drink afterward—he tells us to go home and spend time with our families. Some of us don’t have families here in the city.”
3. “Khun Reggie invited Tom, the product expert from corporate HQ, to meet with the client. We planned the meeting in the taxi on the way there, so I understood I was being marginalized.”
4. “At the client meeting, Khun Tom spoke too loudly when the client raised concerns, saying he was ‘convinced’ the rollout of the new product would be ‘seamless.’ That embarrassed me deeply—it came across as arrogant, and I worried I’d look bad in the local market.”
5. “After the meeting, we debriefed—again in a taxi. They talked so fast I couldn’t contribute. My role as their ‘yellow face’ is over.” He smiled with anger.

I didn’t think it was possible to stop Chumsai from leaving. Reggie asked if “a large stay bonus might solve the problem.”

Reggie was not an easy client. After two more resignations of locals, Reggie was fired.

Lessons

1. If you use a local employee only as your “face” to the client—nothing more—you’re setting yourself up for failure.
2. Learn to read the subtle ways your local staff signal discontent; it rarely arrives as a direct complaint.
3. The local manager stays behind with the client after the meeting; the HQ visitor goes home. It’s the local who’s left to lose face.
4. Understand the value locals place on planning ahead. In many cultures—though not all—it signals dedication and respect, and skipping it can read as a slight.