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Bui Quang Huy had always been a builder. At thirty-eight, he founded Skyline Tech, a Hanoi-based startup creating cloud solutions for mid-sized companies. He was sharp, ambitious, and quick with ideas. Investors liked his energy, and his employees respected his persistence.
But as Skyline Tech grew, so did something else: the reports.
It began innocently enough. The sales manager wanted weekly revenue numbers. The product manager built a dashboard for feature usage. The finance director added budget forecasts. By the time the company reached one hundred employees, Huy had six dashboards, twelve spreadsheets, and a constant stream of Slack notifications that lit up his phone like the Lunar New Year fireworks at Hoan Kiem Lake.
Huy didn’t even notice how bad it had become until one Tuesday morning.
He arrived at the office after the usual battle with traffic. His motorbike ride down Kim Ma had taken forty minutes instead of twenty because of a minor accident, and he was already sweaty by the time he stepped into Skyline’s glass-front office. His assistant handed him an iced trà chanh.
“Good morning, anh Huy. Sales dashboard is ready for review. Also, finance sent Q3 forecasts, and marketing has a new customer acquisition report.”
Huy smiled weakly. “All before 9 a.m.? Excellent. Maybe by lunch I will drown completely.”
He sat at his desk and opened his laptop. The tabs multiplied like rabbits. Sales. Marketing. Finance. Product. Customer support. Human resources. Each one filled with colourful charts, KPIs, and words like conversion funnel, churn rate, and synergy pipeline.
He tried to focus on sales numbers, but Slack pinged.
[9:17] Thao (Marketing): “Anh ơi, please check page 4 of the report. Should we use the blue colour or green colour for the campaign header?”
[9:18] Hoang (Product): “Anh, bug report increased by 3% this week. Not serious but maybe serious. Can discuss?”
[9:19] Finance Bot: “Reminder: Q3 forecast due in 3 days.”
Huy rubbed his temples. He hadn’t even finished his first coffee.
At 10 a.m., he had his weekly leadership meeting. The managers filed into the glass meeting room with their laptops open, each eager to present their carefully crafted slides.
“Sales first,” Huy said.
The sales manager launched into a fifteen-slide deck. Numbers went up, numbers went down. Charts looked healthy but also confusing.
Then marketing presented. Then product. Then finance. By 11:30, the table was covered in half-empty coffee cups, and Huy felt like he had been force-fed a five-course meal of pure data.
Finally, he raised his hand. “Everyone, stop. Please. I cannot breathe in this ocean of charts. Tell me, in one sentence each: what is working, and what is broken?”
There was silence. Then laughter around the table. It wasn’t a mean laugh, more like the collective humour Vietnamese often found in tough situations. Someone joked, “Anh, maybe we need a dashboard to summarize the dashboards.”
Even Huy laughed. But inside, he was uneasy.
That evening, Huy had dinner with an old university friend, Nam, who now worked in logistics. They met at a small phở place tucked between shops on a noisy street.
“You look tired,” Nam said as they sat down.
“Information overload,” Huy replied, stirring his bowl. “Every day I get so many reports, I don’t know what matters anymore. I wanted data to help me decide. Now the data buries me alive.”
Nam slurped his noodles thoughtfully. “In logistics, it’s the same. Trucks, warehouses, shipments, sensors. If I stare at every number, I go crazy. So I ask only three questions each day: Are customers happy? Are costs under control? And are shipments on time? Everything else is just decoration.”
Huy chewed on this. Simple, direct, almost too obvious. But it made sense.
The next morning, Huy came to the office with new energy. He called the leadership team into the meeting room. Everyone looked nervous, expecting another marathon session of charts.
Instead, Huy stood in front of the whiteboard.
“From today,” he announced, “I want simplicity. Each department must answer only three things each week:
- What is working?
- What is not working?
- What do you need from me?”
The managers exchanged glances. Some looked relieved, others skeptical.
“But anh,” the finance director asked carefully, “what about our dashboards? Investors want detailed KPIs.”
“Keep the dashboards,” Huy said. “But give me clarity. I don’t want 100 numbers. I want the one that tells me if we’re moving in the right direction.”
There was silence. Then, slowly, nods of agreement.
At first, it wasn’t easy. Old habits die hard. The product manager still sent colourful charts, and marketing still loved ten-page reports. But gradually, people began to adjust.
Weekly updates became shorter. Meetings ended earlier. Instead of staring at dashboards, Huy found himself walking around the office, asking engineers about their work, sitting with customer service to hear client feedback, and drinking coffee with his managers without the barrier of endless slides.
One Friday afternoon, his assistant stopped by. “Anh, you have only one report waiting today.”
Huy smiled. “Ah, progress. Tomorrow maybe zero.”
They both laughed.
The real test came a month later. An investor from Singapore visited the office, eager to see the numbers. Huy was nervous. Investors loved data, and he had just reduced his own reports.
But when the investor asked about company health, Huy didn’t bury him under charts. He answered clearly:
“Our revenue is growing 20% quarter by quarter. Customers are renewing contracts at 85%. And we’ve cut support tickets by 15% thanks to better onboarding.”
The investor nodded, impressed. “Concise. Clear. I wish more CEOs reported like this.”
Huy realized then that Nam had been right: the power wasn’t in knowing everything, but in knowing what mattered.
That night, as he rode his motorbike home, the city lights reflecting in the wet streets, Huy felt lighter. The chaos of horns and traffic didn’t bother him. In fact, he laughed quietly to himself.
Maybe leading a company was a bit like driving in Hanoi rush hour. If you tried to watch every single detail, every car, every scooter and pedestrian, you’d freeze in panic. But if you kept your eyes forward, knew the few rules that mattered, and trusted your instincts, you’d make it through.
And maybe, just maybe, even enjoy the ride.
Answer: The company became overloaded with dashboards and data — dozens of reports from every department, which made it hard to see what actually mattered.
Answer: During a Tuesday meeting, Huy noticed that everyone was talking about numbers, but no one was actually explaining what they meant. The team was lost in data instead of making decisions.
Answer: He limited each department to three key metrics, forcing teams to prioritize the most important information.
Answer: Running a company is like driving in Hanoi traffic. You can’t watch every vehicle; you just need to stay alert, focus on the few things that matter, and move forward decisively.
Answer: More data doesn’t mean better decisions. Leaders must simplify information, focus on clarity, and ensure their teams understand what really drives progress.
