BIZ STORIES, CROSSING EAST AND
Hi, I'm Scott Williams. It has been more than eight months since I joined TOJOY last year. Since joining I have experienced a lot, got to know many employees. After a course of several months I joked in a group meeting in December that I was in fact the “oldest new" employee. I have been fortunate to be in the cross-culture business community for nearly three decades, and with experience gained in multiple markets around the world. But I have to say, I feel younger and more energetic every day. The world has changed tremendously over this time. Like any career, viewing in hindsight, I have experienced both many triumphs and challenges.
The opera, PEACH FAN, presents lyrics such as "See Up The High Building, See The Banquet Guests, See the Building Collapse." this song can be so telling in the real experiences of life. Let’s examine this, with broad thinking. What should a company be?
First, a company should be innovative, as well as broad and robust in its thinking. I worked at Nokia Mobile Phones in Beijing for two years before it was acquired by Microsoft. Nokia was bleeding with problems, most of all strategic and technological leadership. You could see “the writing on the wall”, as we say, it became pre-ordained that Nokia technological and strategic leadership had dimmed dramatically, and APPLE was never taken seriously enough before it was too late. Even in the late 1990s, I recall long lines of people in Singapore waiting to buy the next Nokia mobile phone. The day eventually came where Nokia fell from glory to a company of the past. Many have explored and debated the reasons for Nokia’s decline. The primary finding often noted is a lack of consistent on-going innovation and a sustaining strategic vision. In the high-tech industry, technology is typically viewed as the religion. An able, sustaining company stays on track with a passion to innovate. Sometime I think the best view of an enterprise is probably from deep outer space, with a crew using a powerful telescope satellite viewing the companies position on earth’s map, how the company is influencing things now and into the near or deep future, and how this fits in a world of current upheaval and rapid change. Chairman Lu has pioneered an innovative successful formula over many years broad in scope with hundreds of prevalent enterprise success stories, and Ge Jun CEO has pioneered a broad successful approach to global markets including TOJOY international teams, and the innovation of GLASE, Global Alliance of Shared Services.
As TOJOY drives new rewarding success stories around the globe, new innovation will arise. We will see our clear role even more deeply and the importance of what TOJOY is for business today, and ultimately the planet. TOJOY’s evolution has seen constant innovation in management,its business models, including its response to the pandemic crisis. An enterprise with a uniquely innovative cross-cultural corporate culture can expand its success track in today’s world. The vitality of TOJOY has truly been its continuous improvement and development.
My original home town is Eugene, Oregon, in the USA. I was educated at the University of Oregon studying finance and communications, and later completed graduate studies with a masters degree at a private international school, at the Thunderbird Graduate School of International Management in Arizona which is now part of Arizona State University. More recently before returning to Asia I lived in West Los Angeles, California and acquired valuable experience in the business of Hollywood. My career started in commercial banking for seven years in the USA and after that I was a paid graduate intern at Intel Corporation for one year. With a good start in the USA, I just had to get to Asia, many of my good friends in university were of Asia descent. I took my chances and ventured off to Japan as it was rampant in opportunity and had a rapidly expanding economy. In Japan I joined the world class delivery logistics company FedEx Express, and became the Japan Deputy General Manager and General Manager of Taiwan.
However I always wanted to work in the mainland China, in either Beijing or Shanghai. In 2006, I was recruited and then eventually joined another well-known logistics company, DHL Express, and became their National Operations Director for all of Greater China, I was able to travel on business to nearly 100 cities. After a brief stint at Nokia, and after it was bought out my Microsoft, I joined the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai as Vice President for nearly five years and was primarily in charge of member business services. Except for a small marketing consulting company in Japan, the companies I have experienced have been primarily multinational organizations. In each there existed a corporate culture which was broad, multi-ethnic and multi-faceted.
So what I am proud of? I would say in every role I have taken, I had some hand toward influencing an increase in quality of teams, improved service quality, and improve the company image in front of our clients. I was deeply touched by a quote and video presentation by an influential leadership training guru while at FedEx Express, here was the message“leadership should indirectly, and best in a subtle way, influence that employees have metaphorically taken their shoes and socks off, and while engaging in work almost feel like there is a lighted match burning under their bare feet, and the pain of the lighted match only ceases as we are moving,beingresilient,efficient,bold,smart,cooperative,collaborative, and no one including leadership is on an un-reachable pedestal, we are collectively reachable”. I also learned a lot regarding the dangers of “leadership hubris”. I could spend a whole day talking about these things.I was so impressed and touched by these experiences, and I eventually I became an Asia Pacific wide leadership and management trainer for FedEx management.
I use to share often in these classes across 13 countries in North and South Asia, a metaphoric story, “Service quality has to be driven by checkpoints, you have to check off every point to be sure quality is assured. Think of it more simply this way, it is the same as not taking a shower for days to cleanse yourself. We all know how it feels to not take a shower or bathe for days, you will feel uncomfortable constantly, not confident, not happy, not fresh, not whole, not even able to think clearly and be confident, so unless you assure 100% quality and service, then it’s the same as feeling sweaty, perspiring, unkempt, un-clean, so avoid this feeling, always be clean and feel clean, and do it right the first time today before heading off to sleep”. This is not simple in practice, not everyone can do it, it takes hard work and focus, you have to think several steps ahead, not just what is in front of you, and you need to see how things react and change after each step, it requires efficient use of your time, but it is possible and it is a worthy goal. Also, it is not merely multi-tasking, as most people (not all) are not productive when they multi-task. Instead it is tasking properly, efficiently and with closure. Do not let things linger, that brings no value. Fill your day with amazing accomplishments, it is possible.
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