14131 Steve Harper Interviews Ronald E. Berenbeim Business Ethics Expert

Broadcasting from the business capital of the world, this is the Podcast Business News Network. And welcome back, everybody. Joining us today is somebody who is truly an expert in business ethics. And this is something that runs deep in his world for many, many years as an adjunct professor of business ethics. He's also been a senior researcher and director and so much more. Today, we're going to pivot over from ethics to some of his travels and some of his humanitarian work. And he is certainly our Diamond of the Decade, Ronald Berenbeim, from New York City, joins us on the program. How are you doing today, sir?

Well, I'm doing fine, and thank you for the warm welcome. Sorry for the technical difficulties, but we will solve those in due course, I hope.

We get it done. We got you on here. You told me a few weeks ago, and that's why we wanted to have you on here, about your travels to Vietnam and some of the things that you experienced and some of the initiatives, and also some of the inspiration you experienced while there. Can you tell us about that?

Well, I can tell you, I am, the group Children of Vietnam is an effort to focus on the improvement in the lives of children, particular children with single parents or who have no parents at all. And what we do is we have various types of activities. Some of them are athletic. A lot of them are, involve exercises in which we teach them how to work together and develop,

I guess, what could, I guess, be called emotional intelligence in dealing with one another and in solving problems. By the way, I might add, for the interest of your listeners, and something many of them probably already know, is...

It was quite a thrill for me to go to Vietnam. I had traveled throughout much of Asia and much of the world, but never Vietnam. And then I consulted various different directories and so on, and Forbes listings and so on, and found out that Vietnam was one of the most popular tourist visits for Americans on any list, and probably in my own neighborhood, more people have been to Las Vegas in the last year than have been to... Rather, more people have been to Vietnam than have been to Las Vegas.

But, anyway, and there's an article today, somewhere in one of my feeds, that talks about how Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Thailand, they're developing coordinated activities so that people get really comprehensive tours. But what we saw was mostly schools, and we tried to help, and various different exercises, which involved thinking processes and cooperative efforts. And we...

The activity centered around an area called Denong, which is the center of Vietnam. It's near, I think, possibly a better-known city called Hue. And up on the far north is Hanoi, which was once capital of North Vietnam, and Ho Chi Minh City on the bottom, which was once Saigon. I would say, if people are interested in visiting, Denong is really good because it has... It is very close to some of the historic areas, the most famous of which is Hoi An. And it has, for example, has a bamboo workshop, where they teach people to make everything out of bamboo.

And, uh, then, uh, if you wanna go north, that appears to be the epicenter of the government. And if you wanna go south, the Ho Chi Minh City, I wish you well. I don't, never heard about anything of that significance that was going on there. So, uh, that's, that's the lay of the land, so to speak. And we traveled around with these young people and talked to their parents and, and, uh, worked with the, uh, uh, with the, uh, with the staff, which is, uh, it, there are quite a few people in Da Nang.

There are, some of the people at the very top are in Hanoi. And then there are some in North Carolina, which is where the, uh, person who started it, who was somebody who did a lot of business in Vietnam and decided he wanted to do something for the children, uh, that's where he set up, uh, a sort of, uh, office and, uh, support staff. So, that's kind of the description. I've been to one meeting. Interesting thing about Vietnam is that the prices are very reasonable, but everything is in billions.

So, you, I forget what the basic unit is, millions and billions. So, you may spend a million, whatever you wanna call it, for your dinner and it could wind up costing you eighteen dollars. But, anyway, that's, uh, one of the, uh, amusing things about it.

Well, Ronald, I wanna know what your inspiration to go to Vietnam was? And, uh, did you even intend, if, did you intend to, to go there with a, a more... Humanitarian lens, or, "Hey, we're trying something different, going on vacation, and then when you were there, did you realize, whoa, the people are, you know, a certain way, oh, they need, they have challenges, we can help them with that, um, I want to get the word out there about what's going on, you know, in that, uh, in that country." How did that all go?

No, well, I'll tell you, the humanitarian lens, if you want to call it that, has been there all time. I've do- done a lot of, uh, travel throughout, uh, Asia, I, uh, worked, I was a, uh, a, uh, I don't know what you would call it, a, uh, a person who worked on, uh, developing, uh, a, uh, uh, principles for responsible management education throughout Asia, and so I'd been to China a number of times, I've been to, uh, India a number of times, and,

um, so on, uh, Singapore, and whatever, and developed various models for teaching responsible management education, uh, to, uh, you know, people who were in their, uh, thirteen, uh, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years old, uh, well, even older than that, twenties, in, in business school. But now we're, we're starting at the very beginning with, uh, and I was invited by a friend, uh, someone I'd known years before I got involved in any of this stuff, and became friendly with again, and he invited me to become one of the directors of the company, of the organization, so I did.

And this, this was my first meeting, and, uh, it was mainly, uh, you know, staff work, it was not, uh, you know, executive, uh, decisions like directors typically make, how much money we're going to spend on this, various strategic moves, it was just developing, uh, programs and so on, that sort of thing.

What really surprised you in going there? Uh, or maybe one of those things that we, we think here, having not gone there, gone there in the United States and, and we would think something different in, in going there?

Well, I think first and foremost is probably, uh, what, you know, people noticed in Germany in 1947 and Korea in 1956 and on and on, how friendly and nice these people were in spite of the fact that you had dropped a lot of bombs on them not very many years before. Uh, but they were very respectful, very nice, very friendly, everything you could possibly imagine. So, um, that's, that's the one thing I can tell you. And very enthusiastic about whatever help we were able to give them and, uh, so on and so forth.

So, uh, I was, uh, I was, I was not too surprised by that because I had heard from many other people and it's also borne out by much of our history of the last 30 or 40 years, 50 years since the end of World War II, 70 years. Uh, but anyway, it was quite gratifying.

What, what are some of the things that you did in support in being there? It sounds like it was on your radar, you were aware of, of the country, its people, some of the challenges and it sounds like, uh, you know, maybe you found another place in your heart once you were there?

Well, one of the things I did was supervise a group in a competitive exercise about, uh, developing a chart and a poster that would attract people to a certain...

A program and what they would learn about cooperating with people and, and doing work together and, and so on and so forth. And my chart won, far and away, I was very surprised, I was somewhat surprised. But also the people I had working on me, eh, with me in terms of the craft of the whole thing were very good. Uh, and, you know, how you should listen to people, how you should talk to people, how you should persuade people. These were things that they wanted to learn, that they thought we could teach them. And that, uh, you know, alone is, should surprise anyone, I think, who has been in

the United States for the last few years at least. So, um, anyway, I would.

Did you feel, did you feel a lot of gratitude by the people there?

Oh, absolutely. As a matter of fact, the head of the whole program, the local head of the whole program, who shuttles back and forth between Washington DC and her home in Hanoi, uh, took us out to dinner at a restaurant, uh, you know, somewhat off the beaten track that was considered to be, you know, really, really special. It, it was good, uh, they're all good, the food there is, tends to be very good. And that was quite flattering and we had, uh, quite a nice talk and so on. Uh, I was with my wife, so.

The, uh, the, uh, terms of the program are that all spouses of directors may attend all activities, or they may participate in no activities. It's entirely up to the couple to decide who does what. Uh, right, well, except my wife couldn't have gone instead of me, but, uh, uh, she didn't have to go if I did, and, and she did not go to one of the meetings, she went to all the others, I think.

Hmm. I uh, I feel that a lot of us here at this point in the US, Vietnam is off our radar. Yes, there's, they have new leaders, they're meeting with China's officials, that's you know, trending as we speak. But short of that, it seems that we put that in our past. And it seems that you're trying to change that perception.

Well, I think, I think the main thing that one sees these days is that certain countries, certain zones are targeted as competitive. I would say that Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos are not really on that list right now, particularly. However, there are other places that are. Clearly, the Middle East has gotten to be the hot spot that it was in the middle 1950s. And it just all depends. And I think it's really pretty ridiculous, because I think

that what you need to do is make a success and an example of something. And if you want to cite Lebanon right now as an example of a successful project, I don't think I would do that, much as it pains me to say that. But it is clearly, obviously, in the news for, for, for good reason, I might add.

Hmm. I want to pivot over for just a moment. You mentioned it briefly, others have said it, in terms of the food in Vietnam. Very special, unique dishes. How about your top two favorite?

Oh, God, that's rough.

(laughing)

My top two favorite. Uh, well, uh, I don't know. Almost anything with fish, I like fish, and uh...

You know, it is Vietnam, it is not, you think of it as being very, very spicy, but it is both spicy and sweet at the same time. And, uh, there are, uh, huge ranges of choice. Food is generally not served, uh, uh, is not ordered by a waiter. There are these huge buffets and you just take whatever you want. And, uh, occasionally you order and that was the very special place that we were taken to was one of those.

What about the historic sites? Where did you see, you know, did you connect with those that were connected to the Vietnam War?

Uh, the answer to the second question is, other than some of the Americans participating, uh, since this is children of Vietnam and the people who are their caretakers, uh, very few, if any, seem to have any experience of Vietnam War. On the other hand, I was invited, uh, by a person who had served in the military, uh, in a combat unit and, uh, he's, he's the head of merchandising or sales.

And the person who started it is a guy who was, uh, uh, a manager of some sort of enterprise that sold equipment to the Vietnamese and he's very dedicated and he's, I would say, over eighty, as is my friend, as is me. So, uh, we're about the oldest people there. And you have to drop down about thirty years from there and you don't have very many people left at that age who have unpleasant memories or any memories at all of what it was like from the sound of it.

What about language? How did that play a role in your experience? Was communication challenging? Was it surprisingly easy?

Not at all. It was surprisingly easy. Almost all of them spoke very, very good English.

Wow. Okay, well, you know, there's a, I would think, a misconception with somebody that would be visiting there. What would your first piece of advice be to somebody considering exploring Vietnam?

Well, my first piece of advice would probably be to go to Hoi An, which is a historic city near Vietnam and which has many of the absolutely gorgeous pictures you see of palaces and temples and river cruises and that sort of thing. But beyond that, I would say, you know, it's pretty much up to what interests you and what interests them. I mean, it'd be nice, it's always nice if you can help people and do something that interests you at the same time.

So that would be, that would be about the best advice I could give anyone.

Was that your intent going there? You know, did it turn out for you feeling like you were helping those people there? Obviously with their economy as, you know, somebody who's a tourist. But did your view change originally? Was it, "I'm going there on vacation, but now I feel like I'm more connected with the people of Vietnam"?

Well, it wasn't vacation in any event because I had responsibilities and so on and so forth. It might be the sort of thing that some people might consider a vacation because they like doing that sort of thing. It's not that I don't, but, you know, my time was not entirely up to me. So that was...

It wasn't a vacation. It couldn't help being a sightseeing trip because, I mean, the place is so nice. The one thing I would say is getting there. Uh, we went, it looked like the simplest thing to do was to fly to Hong Kong and then catch another plane to Da Nang. Well, Hong Kong is sixteen hours and then, uh, you wait for a plane and then you're so, and, and then you'd have another two hours or so. Going over was not too bad. Coming back, when we got to Da Nang and we checked in and we were advised that the,

uh, next plane behind us was too close behind us and therefore, once we got to Hong Kong, uh, we wouldn't have a plane to take us the rest of the way for about seven hours. And we spent a lot of time in a waiting room and everything else and then, uh, finally we, uh, we got, uh, taken home and it took a while to recover from that. And, uh, uh, actually, I think the advice I would give people is to go through, uh, Seoul, which has, uh, become a very interesting city. I've been there before, but it's become a lot more interesting, I'm told, since I was

there last, and that divides the trip more evenly.

What, why has that, uh, become interesting, that area?

What?

Why has that area become interesting?

Well, first of all, it's become a commercial hub. I mean, it's like, it's like Japan was thirty years ago, you know? It's, uh, it's become a real hotspot and, uh, I think that may have something to do with chips and whatnot, but I don't know exactly what, but anyway, Seoul is, is a very hot place.

Hmm.

Go there too.

So, final question for today. Love to circle back on this in the future. Did you and your wife and your entourage, did, did you feel safe going there?

Did we feel what? Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Absolutely. Uh, among other things, uh, these, uh, the Da Nang, for example, we stayed in a Sheraton hotel. It was many- It was one of many chains of hotels that weren't confined in cities throughout Vietnam. So there is nothing particularly unfamiliar, to put it that way, about any of this stuff.

Hmm. Fabulous insight on, I think, a bucket list trip for a lot of us. But you've changed some of the perceptions, the misconceptions that people might have. So I appreciate that and would love to talk more, you know, next time we get together, Ronald.

Okay, let's try to make better connections electronically, okay?

You can travel halfway around the world to Vietnam with no issues, but, you know, getting a video running here so we can see each other was a challenge today, but we'll get it done. Great having you on. And by the way, want to say to anybody that if you want to give us feedback about Vietnam, business ethics, any of the above, you can always reach us, [email protected]. All right, Ronald, appreciate it. Thanks for being here today.

Thank you.

Broadcasting from the business capital of the world, this is the Podcast Business News Network.

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