Three generations of Hong Kong businessmen in half a century

In 1957, the reclamation project in Kwun Tong, Kowloon had just been completed. What used to be the flying cables and the roar of machines on the sea is now the largest factory area in Hong Kong. In the same year, the first TV station in Hong Kong and the first Chinese-language TV station in the world, named "Li's Video", was officially launched. Half a century ago, Hong Kong was full of vitality. Although we can't see the night view of Victoria Harbour today, the brilliance of its "Pearl of the Orient" has already flashed to every Hong Konger who is unwilling to be mediocre.

That year, Li Ka-shing, who founded Changjiang Plastic Factory, was less than 30 years old. In order to avoid falling into the quagmire of a price war, Li Ka-shing flew to Italy alone to seek production technology for plastic flowers. Facing the same fierce competition in the film market, the fifty-year-old Shaw Brothers did not hesitate to bid farewell to his brother, and returned to Hong Kong from Singapore alone to open a new "Shaw Brothers (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd.". And real estate developers such as Fok Yingdong have established a firm foothold in the local property market with new methods such as selling off-the-plan properties.

From their beginning, the image of "Hong Kong businessmen" was so clear for the first time, and then it was deeply branded with the imprint of each era. Looking back at the situation in Hong Kong in the past half century, three generations of Hong Kong businessmen have already shown different leadership styles.

The first generation of Hong Kong businessmen——Eastern wisdom and Western-style management

From the 1950s to the 1970s, Hong Kong gathered wealth through processing and exporting, and domestically, it used gold, real estate, and stock markets to "speculate" to create wealth for the people. new pattern. There are countless business opportunities, and it is easy to capture the market with low cost or new products. However, it is easy to start a business and difficult to maintain, and the market ultimately tests the management skills and leadership of managers.

Jim Collins wrote in "Good to Great", "The most important reason for a company to be mediocre is poor management, not technological backwardness." In his view, technology, the environment or the trend of the times Neither is the determinant of business excellence. The "Li Ka-shing" who have experienced Hong Kong's economic take-off before and after have formed the "first generation of Hong Kong businessmen" capable of leading enterprises to excellence.

If there is one word to describe the first generation of Hong Kong businessmen, it is "between the east and the west".

In terms of corporate culture, they use the Chinese tradition in their bones to create a family atmosphere in the company. The older generation of Run Run Shaw is even more so. Before going to work every day, he will practice qigong for two hours, and when he goes to work, he will work for 16 hours. The ancient adage of strict tolerance for others was revealed to the extreme in him. He must be at the studio at nine o'clock, but the employees are late but not held accountable. In 1963, "Gold Medal Director" Li Hanxiang suddenly resigned and took away a large number of backbones when he left. In the 1970s, when Li wanted to return to Shaw Brothers, Run Run Shaw welcomed him with a paternalistic mind.

In addition to the charismatic oriental wisdom, the first generation of Hong Kong businessmen have won the European and American management methods in the export-oriented economy. Li Ka-shing said, "The company has always been managed according to the Western business model. As the leader of the company, I will incorporate a little bit of our Chinese humanity into my colleagues and business policies." The balanced management between things also conforms to that Hong Kong of the times. "With the management methods of foreigners and the management philosophy of Chinese people, we can preserve the enthusiasm and enthusiasm of employees. I believe that we can go nowhere without success." Just look at the annual salary of his managers over 100 million on the annual "Working Emperor" list. , you can see his trust and motivation to employees.

Comprehensive but not out of balance, so that it can walk at the forefront of the market between the East and the West with ease. The leadership style of the first generation of Hong Kong businessmen has set the tone for the latecomers, and it is also a mirror of the current mainland managers.

The second generation of Hong Kong businessmen--strong capital is in line with the international

Hong Kong in the late 1970s, the strong economic take-off was accompanied by a weak successor. At this time, the rumble of the mainland's reform and opening up guided Hong Kong businessmen to the new continent outside Europe and the United States. Hong Kong businessmen, who are good at drinking "head soup", then turned around and headed north. As capital owners or foreign agents, they have introduced Western capital and management into the mainland, and their leadership style has become stronger and more adventurous.

After 20 golden years of manufacturing and foreign trade, Hong Kong businessmen have grown tremendously and have unprecedented investment strength and willingness, and the external environment has also prompted them to look farther. On the one hand, the local manpower, land and resource costs have soared, and the manufacturing base needs to be transferred urgently; on the other hand, various policies of the Hong Kong government have led to the liberalization and internationalization of the financial market. In the late 1970s, the Hong Kong banking industry’s overseas loans increased by more than 6 times, the overseas investment has increased by 11 times, and it has begun to take shape as a financial center.

The time is right and the place is right. Outside the traditional European and American markets, a new generation of Hong Kong businessmen "discovered" the mainland and grew up with it.

"In 1977, the (Xinhua News Agency) Hong Kong branch invited me to Beijing to observe the National Day ceremony, and I stayed for 27 days in several cities." Hu Yingxiang, chairman of Hehe Industry, from the first Sino-foreign cooperative hotel in the mainland at the beginning of the reform and opening up, to For the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge in preparation, he gradually shifted the focus of his business to the mainland. The country's leaders once called him "a knowledgeable entrepreneur and a brave Chinese." Equally brave is Wu Shuqing. In 1980, her Beijing Air Catering Co., Ltd. became the first Sino-foreign joint venture. Before the approval from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce of No. 001, she had already shipped the food machinery costing 5 million yuan from overseas.

With the fastest speed and the most international standard, the adventurous actions of Hong Kong businessmen also greatly refreshed the face of mainland enterprise management. For mainland employees in the early 1990s, Hong Qingyi, chairman of Citychamp Group, who started in Chengdu, recalled, "When the company held meetings or assigned tasks on weekends, there were always some employees who couldn't get away with something." In this regard, he insisted that Hong Kong companies should Normative, but not in a hurry. "I will do more work by myself, slow down my eagerness, and adapt to the situation in Chengdu. Everyone is Chinese, and everything can be resolved through communication."

Looking back 20 years before Hong Kong's return to the motherland , The flexibility and persistence of the second generation of Hong Kong businessmen have allowed them to play the role of enlightenment in the management of mainland enterprises. In addition to the above-mentioned investors and industrialists heading north from Hong Kong, since the 1990s, more and more multinational corporations have dispatched managers from Hong Kong to the mainland, further making international management deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

The third generation of Hong Kong businessmen - taking root in the Mainland and looking to the world

With the advent of 1997, the next generation of the first generation of Hong Kong businessmen began to leap into the mainstream business arena. Young people born in the economic take-off are also After receiving international higher education, he entered the front line of management. They may not have the oriental complex of their fathers, nor the strength and adventure of the previous generation of Hong Kong businessmen, but this diverse and flat world has given the third generation of Hong Kong businessmen an unprecedented global vision.

The decade of return is also the decade of the booming of the new economy. Bubbles in Hong Kong real estate, East Asian financial markets, and the global Internet have burst and popped up again. The 9/11 and SARS crises are even testing the new Special Administrative Region. Xingang businessmen, who are in the center of the eye of the storm, have been honed and matured in the peaks and valleys of the global political economy. During the crisis, the charm of China's economy has become more and more apparent, and it has become the biggest winning factor for the third generation of Hong Kong businessmen.

It may be too early to generalize about the third generation of Hong Kong businessmen. They are still growing and as uncertain as the world is. The only certainty is that their leadership style will be more Chinese and more international.

Huang Shaoji, once the last apprentice of Chow Tai Fook, is now the president of China. He spends two-thirds of his time in the mainland, and he considers the company's talent strategy the most. "The company's scale has expanded, and it cannot stay in the family management stage. It should carry out more scientific management." Since last year, he has led 47 executives to receive training for half a year at Peking University instead of foreign business schools, and will be trained in the future. continue.

A set of international management language, coupled with the understanding of the mainland market, has become the goal of professional managers in Hong Kong. This kind of local adaptability in globalization is also the common pursuit of managers in mainland China and other countries. Even the successors of major families in the Hong Kong business community also intend to get out of the closed loop within the family. The story of Richard Li and PCCW is an example. Analysts said, "Li Zekai, who has a 'rebellious' personality, has always wanted to get rid of his father's 'shade' to create his own business, and naturally he is not willing to sell the PCCW shares by himself. The Hong Kong Economic Journal shows its ambition to build a Chinese-language media empire.

From 1957 to 2007, no matter how the three generations of Hong Kong businessmen changed, what remained the same was their sensitivity to the times and their attitude of continuous adjustment and learning. When China not only means the future, but also the present, Hong Kong businessmen, one of the protagonists of this era, also ushered in a golden period of self-development. "Not everyone has always been a fifth-level leader," Collins said. "Some events in their lives prompted them to grow into a fifth-level leader." Now, then, is the next fifty years of Hong Kong business excellence.

The author is an associate editor of the World Manager website.