In 2014, I read Pour In Your Heart by Howard Schultz – CEO of Starbucks, a captivating, charming, attractive book, and in many places it made me feel “suffocated”, in other places I felt happy and proud, as if sharing the joy, excitement, pride, confusion and disappointment of the author and the entire Starbucks team. At that time, I thought, when will Vietnamese brands be able to tell interesting stories like this?
After that, I read many Brand Storytelling books but none of them impressed me as much as that one. A few years later, this CEO also released Onward, which was equally interesting and breathtaking. I still remember the detail of Starbucks deciding to close thousands of Starbucks stores nationwide for one day, to train tens of thousands of Starbucks employees how to make a proper espresso, to protect Starbucks' pride. And when entering a coffee shop, discovering the fragrant smell of grilled cheese bread, overwhelming the smell of coffee - the coffee sanctuary - this director firmly defended his decision that caused strong opposition: Eliminate grilled cheese bread, the best-selling bread with 1.3% of revenue (the figures may be inaccurate because I read it nearly 7-10 years ago), to preserve the vital mark of Starbucks: Stepping through the door, you can smell the fragrant smell of coffee throughout the store.
Since Pour Your Heart Out and Step Forward, I've been waiting for a Vietnamese brand that can tell such a good story.
Once again in 2018, when reading Winners Dream - Vietnamese title is Let the aspiration lead the way, an autobiography of Mr. Bill McDermott, Global CEO of SAP - Top 10 most influential technology corporations in the world; World leader in ERP - Enterprise resource planning system, and honored to be assigned by the group of translators, who are also the leaders of SAP Vietnam, to publish this book, the above question once again came back: When will Vietnam have such a good story? Then last August, when reading the first few chapters of the book Dek know anything also progress, posted by Mr. Nguyen Thanh Nam - Member of the Founding Council of FPT - Founder of FUNiX on his personal page, I thought: Ah, here it is.
They said that Dek knows nothing - in fact, it is a way of saying "Dive into it", but they are all Russian PhDs in Mathematics, an elite "furnace" of a generation trained on the scientific foundation of a leading world power, so "Dek knows nothing" is a figurative way of saying. They may not really know anything about new technology, about how to do business, negotiate, but solid scientific thinking is the foundation to lead and build the strong FPT project as it is today.
This is not the first book about FPT culture, but the first book about Corporate Culture through the typical case of FPT Software (FSOFT), one of the important pillars of FPT Corporation, the unit that just brought in export revenue of 1 billion dollars in 2023. In the book, with a humorous, silly, funny, even a bit "crazy" tone - which is "FPT's specialty", Mr. Nguyen Thanh Nam and the group of authors recreate the "film footage" of FSOFT from Zero, that is, from when there were only a few founders and there was nothing to do, from the days standing on the brink of skepticism and discouragement, to the first victories, and continuing the next victories, then to the days on the brink of skepticism, difficulties and losses everywhere, to continuing to win and continuing that cycle; From the first few tens of thousands of dollars and the feeling of earning foreign currency for the first time, to the first FPT USA office, and to the headquarters - FSOFT's spacious private building inaugurated in Da Nang; The flow of Vietnamese culture flows through FPT, flows through FSOFT, flows to the US, to Europe, to Japan, harmonizes and assimilates with the flow of international friends, then flows back to thousands of FSOFT people, later to dozens of FE (FPT Education) students, creating a special cultural flow.
I have 3 children studying at FPT, I tell everyone like this: Putting aside the academic factors, the biggest thing that makes me very happy when sending my children to study at FPT is the genuine respect that the Fschool environment gives them. My children enjoy genuine respect, from there they become active, natural, confident, from there they learn, practice themselves, become happy children, have aspirations, have goals, frankly announce their goals and always achieve them. The children achieve it themselves without their mother having to worry about anything. I tell the FPT leaders: The biggest thing that FPT has done at Fschool is the ability to be consistent from the philosophy of the group to the culture of its member units, which a middle school - high school in Da Nang also demonstrates no different from the spirit in "Don't know anything, go forward".
As introduced by Mr. Thanh Nam, Dek Knows Everything is also Progress is a book about the history of FSOFT, structured according to Edgar Schein's theory of 4+1 stages of corporate culture formation. The book's target audience is the next generation of FSOFT leaders, ambitious "entrepreneurs" who want to turn their company into an empire, and anyone interested in corporate culture. The structure of the book is divided into 6 parts. Each part will be divided into Chapters, or Topics to explain a phenomenon from a cultural perspective. In each chapter, there will usually be main characters, and is structured into 3 parts: stories, comments and discussion questions (if any). Part 1: Groping; Part 2: Chaos; Part 3: Formation; Part 4: Transformation; Part 5: Reflection; Final part: TGB (Truong Gia Binh).
But I think this book needs to be expanded to include students regardless of their major, and parents who are in the process of helping their children orient their careers. Life stories are interwoven with business stories, stories about friends are interwoven with stories about partners, stories about colleagues are interwoven with stories about teammates; business stories are interwoven with stories about national names and national identities. This is also a valuable reference book for anyone working in human resources; and also a very interesting book for journalists.
Many of you asked why Anbooks made this book, because Anbooks' strengths are educational, psychological, and parenting books? Honestly, I realized that there are many educational lessons in Dek Knows Anything and Progresses. That is a lesson about being naked: the brothers dare to admit ignorance, mistakes, childishness, and silliness; They also frankly admit and ridicule themselves; and they are able to look at themselves with a different eye: an objective eye.
Lessons from FPT's culture and education through this book will be written in another post.
In Thanh Nam's response to a narrator in the clip, Nam said that the girl (me - the midwife of Anbooks) is an amateur bookmaker, meaning that she only makes books that she likes, and does not make a living from making books. I was a bit worried when I gave her the book, but unexpectedly they (An's team) were very professional and methodical. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the editorial team of Ho Chi Minh City General Publishing House and Ms. Dinh Thuy - Former Director of Ho Chi Minh City General Publishing House, who supported me a lot, so that the book could reach you, my dear friends, in a timely manner. Thanh Nam was right about us: We only make books that we find truly valuable.
Thank you Mr. Nguyen Thanh Nam, who can become a genuine writer with a very attractive, humorous, honest, cute writing style on top of being sharp and slightly satirical. Thank you for trusting Anbooks with this work, in the style of Dek knows everything and gives it.
Ngo Phuong Thao - Founder of Anbooks.