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Suryo Suwignjo: Communication skills for ideal leadership

Suryo SuwignjoFor president director of Philips Indonesia, Suryo Suwignjo, communication is key to ensuring that the company’s message reaches everyone in the organizationSuryo Suwignjo believes that despite the textbook concept, communicating the company’s vision to the staff remains an important aspect to ensuring that everyone understands what the company’s vision is

Gandi Faisal (The Jakarta Post)
Mon, September 28, 2015

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Suryo Suwignjo: Communication skills for ideal leadership

Suryo Suwignjo

For president director of Philips Indonesia, Suryo Suwignjo, communication is key to ensuring that the company'€™s message reaches everyone in the organization

Suryo Suwignjo believes that despite the textbook concept, communicating the company'€™s vision to the staff remains an important aspect to ensuring that everyone understands what the company'€™s vision is. '€œThis is necessary so that they know how the company plans to paint this big picture and how they can contribute to this objective.'€

Suryo is the first Indonesian to hold the top position in Philips Indonesia. He is fully aware of the diverse ways people of different generations respond to instructions. According to him, getting everyone in the organization to understand the company'€™s vision is half of the objective achieved.

 '€œWe need everyone to proactively work to achieve common objectives. There should be a reward-and-punishment system; those, who do their job well, should get a proper reward, while those, who don'€™t, should receive guidance,'€ he stated.

For Suryo, a good business leader needs to have good communication skills because a leader must foster open communication and invite dialogue with everyone in the organization. '€œWe are living in a fast-changing world, so a leader must be innovative and adaptive to what the market wants,'€ he said.

'€œWe have to come up with innovations and breakthroughs to be able to move up to speed with the market. So, a good business leader needs to be innovative,'€ he added. And he finds this is in line with the company he is leading, Philips Indonesia, which is an innovation-based company.

Another thing he deems important is a cross-checking mechanism related to how the customers perceive the company. '€œThere should be a validation and verification process. We need constant feedback from customers to make sure we are doing the right thing.'€  

Leading a consumers'€™ product company, Suryo realizes there must be a way to tap into customer satisfaction levels. '€œThe number of complaints we receive, either about a product or the way the company resolves an issue, can be used to measure whether we have done our job well or not,'€ he explained.

Under his leadership, Philips Indonesia, a dominating force in the lighting industry in the country, has been putting more focus into its healthcare and lifestyle products, as well as developing the company as one of the leading B2B and B2G solution providers in the country.

Adopting local wisdom


In performing his task, Suryo associates the leadership theory he knows with the Javanese philosophy he lives by.

He names Ki Hajar Dewantara as a person whose teaching he admires. In particular, he admires Ki Hajar Dewantara'€™s three central tenets: ing ngarso sung tulodo, ing madyo mangun karso, tut wuri handayani. The Javanese translates to: '€œbe at the front to lead by example'€, '€œstand amidst the others'€, and '€œprovide support from the rear'€.

'€œSo before Stephen Covey, Ki Hajar Dewantara had already formulated similar leadership principles. He taught us to lead by example, and to be in the heart of the organization'€™s activity, which is similar to enabling the staff. And the last one is to support others in order for them to grow. A business leader should be able to combine these three roles,'€ Suryo explained.

'€œAnother thing is that management style should be situational. Different situations require different management approaches, so again we return to being adaptive,'€ he added.

Asked further about the differences between the management theories he has learned and the business practices he faces daily, Suryo stated that there was a wide gray area in practice as opposed to the clear distinction between what should and what should not be mentioned in theories.

To conform to this discrepancy, he said there was an art to this beyond the scientific approaches revealed in the textbooks. '€œWe have to see it from a different angle and try to optimize what we have available. We have to see which options secure the company'€™s interests without going against rules and regulations, for example. Here, experience is key,'€ he said.

Embracing adversaries

Besides Ki Hajar Dewantara, Suryo also mentioned the late Nelson Mandela as a person he looks up to. He admires Nelson Mandela'€™s character and his willingness to sacrifice his interests for the good of the people.

'€œHe was willing to sacrifice his pride, set aside his grudges and even embrace his mortal enemy for the good of the nation. Not many people can do that,'€ he explained. Another figure he admires is the current Indonesian president, Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo, whom he sees as having the courage to do things differently and steer the country toward changes. '€œMaybe some people will misunderstand what he is trying to do, but I believe he is sincere,'€ Suryo said about Jokowi. He cited an example of when Jokowi visited an ongoing project whose groundbreaking ceremony he had attended at an earlier date. Suryo said this showed how a good leader continued to follow through on a process, and not just show up at the start or at the end of the process.

'€œNowadays not many people like to listen but as a leader, we need to be able to listen even though we don'€™t necessarily agree to what our staff have to say. Listening and agreeing are two different things, but listen we must,'€ he stated.

'€œAgain, good communication is very important in an organization. Bad communication is one of the potential derailments of an organization, and in Indonesia this can be a big problem, because many of us still don'€™t like to sit down and have an argumentative discussion, which is related to our non-confrontational culture.'€

Suryo believes that an Indonesian has what it takes to lead a multinational company. '€œI want to reiterate we should never think that we are inferior. It goes back to our limited communication skills that may lead to this inferiority complex.'€
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Birth

Semarang, Nov. 30, 1966


Career Highlights


President Director of Philips Indonesia (March 2014-present); President Director of IBM Indonesia (January 2008 '€“ March 2014); Business Unit Executive for IBM ASEAN (2006-2008); Country Manager, System & Technology and Business Partner Organization (2001-2006).

Education

Holds a bachelor'€™s degree in finance from Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta.  

At Ease

Avid traveler

I love Bali. I can visit Bali six times a year to take a break from daily routines. I'€™ve traveled some interesting spots across the archipelago, including Komodo Island and the Wakatobi isles in Southeast Sulawesi. I favor Japan as an international traveling spot. Japan is beautiful and the Japanese are a disciplined people who try to make visitors feel welcomed and at home. Italy and Switzerland are the countries in Europe whose scenery and historical architecture I most like to see and explore. Of course, when I am traveling with my family, my children usually prefer metropolitan areas and shopping hubs, whereas my wife and I prefer nature. So we try to compromise and accommodate both interests.

Doing photography

Photography is another interest of mine. When travelling, usually I face time constraints, so I cannot delve deeply into photography, staying at one spot for hours to wait for that perfect moment when we can capture a truly amazing natural lighting effect. It'€™s not easy to do that when travelling with the family. But, someday I definitely would like to invest more time in this hobby.

Jazz enthusiast

I also enjoy listening to music, especially jazz. I sometimes go to jazz festivals, like Java Jazz, or maybe a jazz club in the city.

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