Ep. 439: Filipinos are resilient

Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing to the Philippines. This is episode 439, Filipinos are resilient. So today I want to take a different approach to this and talk about the Filipino people and how they are resilient. One of the things that people are concerned with when they go overseas is how different people are. And that difference, in this case is actually a really good thing. Now, the Philippines gets typhoons every year. They get hit by an average of 20 typhoons per year. A typhoon is the word they use for a hurricane in the Pacific Ocean, in at least the western Pacific Ocean. So the Philippines get hit by, let's say, 20 hurricanes every year, where the US gets hit by few. Every year, the Philippines gets hit a lot. The country also has several active volcanoes, and it seems like there's always one going off somewhere spewing ash into the air. And while initially looking at this, you might think, wow, I really just want to avoid the Philippines because they have too many natural disasters there. It's going to affect my workforce. Actually, what it does is it affects your workforce in that they are resilient. And having resilient people working for your business really serves your business well. So there's this poll that Gallup did recently of how resilient nations are, and it was actually like, how prepared do you think you are? How well do you think you can bounce back from a disaster? And the Philippines, they plotted it on a scale of, like, your family and how well you can protect your family, how you can bounce back, and household planning. So the Philippines was the number one farthest to the right and highest up in both categories. So, like, they are the most prepared and the most well able to bounce back. And then was the US which, you know, those are very different cultures. And then it went down from there. So let me give you a few examples of how the Philippines does this. So just last week, there was two typhoons that hit the Philippines, and they hit the same area of the Philippines in a row, which is really, really odd. So the Philippines, it's an island nation. Typhoons are. They typically affect a small part of the country at a time. So a typhoon will come through, and you have, like all these dots of islands, and it'll come through here, and it'll make all kinds of flooding up here. But your people that are down here on these other islands saw no effects from it, or maybe they saw some rains, but they're fine. So for a typhoon to Come through. For two typhoons to come through and hit the same place twice in a row is really, really odd. And so I get an email from one of my team members saying, this other team member. So Jessica sends an email to us saying, Abby is out because of the typhoons. So we get an email from Abby two days later that says, so sorry, we don't have any power. We're okay. We lost our awning. And she sends a picture of their awning totally destroyed. But my mom's house was flooded up 1 meter high. Like, well, that's super sucky. So she's obviously working on her mom's house. A few days later, she says, I did some work today. We still don't have power. But I was able to go somewhere to get some power to make things work. I got some work. I'll try and keep up. So she is. I mean, this. This is like Hurricane Katrina level, right? Houses around are completely wrecked, destroyed. Right? Thousands of people evacuated. And four or five days in, she's trying to work. She's trying to make sure that she works nine days in, which is just maybe yesterday. She says, we still don't have power, but I've been able to do this and this and this work, and I'll keep trying. My response five days in was, don't worry about it. We want you to take care of your family. Do what you need. We sent money. Nine days in, she says, I'm getting this work done, and thank you so, so much for the money. Right. This has been the experience that we've had with people. So a few years ago, a really big typhoon came through the Cebu area, which is the second biggest area in the Philippines. Metro Manila would be the biggest area. Even though Manila itself isn't the biggest city, Quezon City is. At least I think Quezon City is part of Metro Manila. So Metro Manila is gigantic. It's the most densely populated area in the world. Cebu is the second biggest area in the Philippines. And it's on a different island, it's in a different region. And Cebu had a really big typhoon a couple years ago, completely destroyed the house and area of one of our people. Actually two of our people. They're married and destroyed to the point where they just moved. They said, this isn't going to work. And so they moved. They moved to another island. And they were there for a couple years, like, just picked up and changed their life to go somewhere else because it was too destroyed. That resiliency shows up in your business where they're willing to change they're willing to adapt. They're willing to try something different. Now in your business, in order for them to be willing to try something different, they have to trust you that you're not going to get mad at them for trying something different and failing. They're really concerned about failing. And so if you'll allow them to fail, if you'll allow them to do something wrong, to try something new and do it wrong and say, hey, thanks for trying, you know, good job. Let's fix this. Let's make some progress here. Like I talked about in the last episode, let's make some progress here. Then. They're willing to try and fix things. They want to make it right. They want to improve, they want to bounce back just like they do in their normal lives. And so if you're trying things in your business and failing, or things aren't turning out how you want, or your people are trying things and they're not turning out how you want, well, Filipinos are really good at bouncing back. Give them the chance to bounce back. Give them a chance to try again, to do more, to do better. You may have to make some changes for them to do that. You may have to gain their trust. You may have to change some other way. You manage them, you may have to empower them. But all of that fits into their culture. It fits into the way they're already used to coming back from failure and from disaster. They're used to it. They want to do it.