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Small town boy learnt to dream big
Boston Consulting Group chief talks about how he took 'two steps back to take a step forward' Published on Jun 02, 2013
Success for Mr Vincent Chin is making others become successful. "It means you have the ability to bring the best out in people and that leadership trait is very well-prized," he says. -- ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO In writer Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, a bunch of pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything from a giant computer Deep Thought. After 7.5 million years pondering this, Deep Thought solemnly pronounces: 42. There is just one snag: The beings do not quite know what the question is. In the last three decades since Adams' "trilogy of five books" was first published, geeks and readers have devoted an inordinate amount of time grappling with this, and the other poser: Why 42? Avid fan Vincent Chin, 46, decided to frame his own ultimate question to the ultimate answer. It is: "At what age does one stop taking and start giving?" "Coincidentally, just earlier this week the average lifespan of a Singaporean was estimated to be 84, so 42 is exactly midpoint," he says with a grin. At 42, he started writing a column in a Malaysian business weekly, posing questions about economics, education and governance. The senior partner and managing director of The Boston Consulting Group also decided that one of the best ways he could give back was to help others move forward and make them successful. "When you make others successful, you become all the more successful yourself. It means you have the ability to bring the best out in people and that leadership trait is very well-prized," he says. The corporate honcho, who started out in life as a poor boy from Malacca, says he is just emulating the mentors who played a big role in his success. He is the eldest of four children. His father, a street urchin who was picked up by a missionary and educated at St Francis Institution in Malacca, taught mathematics; his mother was a kindergarten teacher. "Without sounding immodest, I scored 100 per cent across every subject in Primary 1. My teacher was astounded; my parents did not believe it because I would come home and not do my homework. But they probably realised later that their son had a bit of brains," says Mr Chin, who was consistently one of the top students at Bandar Hilir Primary and the Malacca High School. Mr Chin realised very early on that he had the courage to challenge convention. He cites the time when he defied school rules which required Chinese schoolboys to wear shorts while their Malay counterparts could wear long pants to school. "When the discipline master hauled me up, I was quite prepared to take him on. I asked him what was the difference between my legs and those of the Malay boys. I also said, 'Who am I offending by wearing long pants? Am I offending you?'" The argument did not impress the discipline master, who punished him with two strokes of the cane. "I wore my shorts the next day but soon reverted to long pants. Nowadays, every student wears long pants. Maybe I helped to change that," he says with a guffaw. Like many feisty individuals, he delighted in going off the beaten track. "I'd say I spent the first part of my life, up till the age of 21, breaking barriers." As leader of his school's scout troop, he proved doubters wrong when he pulled off a rare trip to Singapore. He organised the visit with very little money. "I just wrote to Raffles Institution and they hosted us by allowing us to sleep in the gym," says Mr Chin, who adds that he has never let critics or the lack of money stop him from pursuing his dreams. He left Malacca for Singapore after completing his O levels. "No matter what, I wanted to be here," says Mr Chin, who was convinced his ticket to a brighter future lay in continuing his studies in English, instead of Malay. He completed his A levels at National Junior College on an Asean scholarship. Bowled over by life in a new city and a new independence, he suffered the first blip in his life. "All through primary and secondary school, I never really had to work that hard. I realised I had to work harder for my As but I didn't," he says. The straight As he was hoping would get him into the law faculty at the National University of Singapore eluded him. He had to settle for his second choice: computer science. "I made it through but I didn't like it. Computer science was very rule-bound and I've never lived my life by rules," he says. But he did achieve something else while at university. Although not musically trained, he wrote and staged a musical. "It was about a small town boy who met a sophisticated girl, sort of like Grease reversed," he says, referring to the musical starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. "I wrote the script, as well as the music and lyrics to eight songs." After graduation he joined Singapore Airlines as a management trainee. Postings first to Bangkok and later Ho Chi Minh City followed. After four years he developed an itch to get out of operations and into the commercial side of business. But just after he decided to accept a job with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), the airline offered him the post of station manager in Zurich. "After two years working in one of the poorest cities in the world, to be told you are going to live in Zurich, in one of the richest countries in the world... that was very hard to resist," he says. It was a good expatriate life for a newly married young man; his perks included a nice apartment and a company car. "As an Asian in Zurich, you become an ambassador. People kept asking me about Singapore and Malaysia and talking about the boom in Asia. "I realised that I had to experience the Asian Miracle, the Asian Tiger story for myself. I also realised that I had lost touch with Malaysia," he says. He decided it was time for the second phase of his life. And he was going to live this phase by turning Lenin's maxim of One Step Forward, Two Steps Back on its head. "I was prepared to take two steps back to take a step forward." He decided to move to Kuala Lumpur and join Andersen Consulting - which had kept the job open for him - even though it meant a 50 per cent pay cut. It was not an easy decision, especially since the first of his two children - who are now aged 13 and 16 - was on the way. In Kuala Lumpur, he drove his father's old and battered Datsun 120Y. "He had just bought himself a Proton and was going to sell his old car but I told him to let me have it," he says. As part of Andersen's new ventures team, he worked on several projects including Malaysia's multimedia corridor and rose through the ranks very quickly. He remembers having breakfast by himself at the Hilton in Seoul as a pivotal moment in his life. "I was assigned to work on a government project in Korea because of my experience of having worked on the multimedia corridor in Malaysia. For the first time, the notion of world-class became very clear in my mind. It was no longer an ephemeral world. "I realised this boy from Malacca who went to Singapore had learnt something and acquired a skill set that was valuable anywhere in the world." He took another step back to go forward when he left Andersen to join The Boston Consulting Group in 2000. "I wanted to be in strategy, to be in the boardroom," says Mr Chin, who had no issues taking the lower position of consultant reporting to a manager even though he was already managing a team at Andersen. "I was after learning," he says, adding that this thirst for learning is one of his greatest assets. "The problem with smart, bright people is that they are not very good at learning from other people any more. But I believe there are always good mentors in every good organisation. You just must want to be mentored," he says. He was made a partner in BCG after five years. He is now head of South-east Asia, the first home- grown talent to assume the role. It was another pivotal moment in his life. "It is such an important milestone because to be part owner of a global business is such a big thing," he says. The BCG, one of the largest private companies in the United States, has 78 offices in 43 countries. As head of South-east Asia, he oversees 200 consulting staff across five offices in the region. To be successful, he says, a person needs to dream. "One lesson I learnt is the power of aspiration: dreams only come true when at first you can dream it. I had little dreams when I was younger. Wanting to be in Singapore while a small town Malacca boy. Wanting to open new horizons for my Scout troop. At this stage the dreams were bigger, like believing I could triple my business in five years." He says of the last goal: "When you set a goal like that, you look at the business differently. If you say you want to grow the business by 10 per cent, the moves you make, the people you hire are necessarily incremental. "But when you have an audacious aspirational goal, you suddenly think, 'Hey, we are not hiring enough people, not investing in this and that.'" Mr Chin - whose wife is a former consultant who now sits on the board of a Catholic charity - says matter-of-factly: "I know I have the ability to move results." But at this stage in his life and career, he believes he needs to more than deliver results, he wants to be a leader. Which leads us to 42 and giving back. "I asked for leadership, and at this stage I realised it's about helping others move forward," says Mr Chin, who sits on the board of Singapore Institute of Management. "Hence SIM, hence my column, hence my role. It's about moving forward but eventually I guess giving is also a chief lesson I draw from my mentors," he says. "The realisation that you have to give back comes only after you've achieved a bit." A good mentor and leader, he says, must know how to help his staff get the credit, recognition and rewards they deserve. Mr Ong Ching Fong, 39, who works for Mr Chin, has known him since both were colleagues at Andersen. "He is a great mentor. He doesn't mince his words at times but he has really guided my career at critical junctures. He shares his credit with me, he knows how to raise my profile," says the managing director. Asked if he has any fears, the boyish-looking Mr Chin - who often uses pop cultural references from Bruce Lee to Chow Yun Fat movies to make a point - says: "I'm very afraid of the emperor's new clothes. "I hope people will tell me if and when I'm naked." 本帖最后由 AhSengSg 于 6-6-2013 08:49 AM 编辑
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