A Growing Up Lesson

I have been in the industry for close to 20 years currently. I guess that makes me pretty “young”! In my career, I have learnt several lessons. It started with being jobless for a year for the insistence of not going with the norm to be an engineer. It soon followed with SARs in 2003, Lehman Brothers leading to recession in 2008, and last but not least, an almost bankruptcy in 2015 that I suffered.

Each of these episodes represented a milestone in my life where I learnt something.

• Jobless for a year – the importance of pursuing your passion. You will feel that you have never worked a day.
• SARS – the importance of tele-commuting and business continuity. I have never embraced e-processes and paperless so well.
• Lehman Brothers – the importance of being aggressive. My business doubled because I refused to cost cut and decided to gain market share instead.
• Bankruptcy – the importance of living simply and never giving up. I came from being in debt by a half a million (SGD) to being profitable within the same year.

With each of these, I felt that my life had been pretty fulfilling. I felt that my life had stagnated and I have reached my potential, which clearly was not!

I was hungry to learn.

I was hungry to grow.

With that, I left the agency that I started and ran for 14 years, and decided to go back to employment again. To complicate matters, I chose a country where Cantonese is widely spoken and I can’t speak a word of it, and I chose an industry that I was exposed to, but obviously do not know enough of.

I landed in a country where protests had lasted for 8 months and still counting, only for the protests to be reduced because of Covid-19. So, in an industry where physical engagement matters, we face a lot of cancellation or postponement of shows. A lot of businesses go into crisis mode and thus, then pursue various measures – retrenchment, no-pay-leave, etc.

As a Chinese, I am then reminded of the Chinese word, crisis or 危机, the word represents that with each danger, there lies an opportunity. And when I looked everywhere, a lot of businesses take the lesser evil by keeping their staff, but getting them to take no pay leave, in the bid to stay afloat.

I get that.

No business, no individual.

I grew up embracing that and as an ex-entrepreneur, I bought that too.

A mentor then sat down patiently with me and ran me through the figures. How much of the business is affected due to crisis? How will it impact the net profit? How long will recovery be? What can we do to reduce the impact? These were all very valid examples with figures that gave me a lesson on the financials. I am appreciative. These are perhaps lessons that I signed up for, when I took the leap from business-owner back to being an employee. I want to swim in the bigger pool!

And the idealistic me came back with a question again. What if…instead of everyone taking one for the company, what if the company took one for everyone? Imagine, conducting a townhall where a transparent financial situation is shared with everyone. Letting them know that no amount of financials can keep a company profitable forever, and the company, will take one for the individual, for a finite period of time. During this time, the company should stand strong together and go look for all sorts of projects to reduce the financial impact. And if, after that finite period, things still do not do well, perhaps, then take the cost cutting measures that were thought of.

Can this be a good rally call? Will that make a difference? Will that get employees to be even more loyal to the company? I guess I will never know, but I certainly hope that one day, when I am in a position of that much power, I can implement it. For it is the people who make the company.

I guess, this is my growing up lesson now.