Professor Neville Lee Associate Head & Director of Self Financed MSc Program Department of Industrial Engineering & Engineering Management, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology

Hong Kong professionals have more chances to further their career and rise through the ranks of management now, when China has entered the WTO and Hong Kong's economy is merging with the Pearl River Delta Region's, than ever before.

Chinese talents excel in engineering disciplines but, because of China's historical background and socio-economic structure, business management professionals are in relatively short supply. The career outlook for competent managers with modern management training will be very bright for the foreseeable future in China, which has one of the fastest growing economies, as enterprises need to upgrade and transform their operations to become more competitive in the international market place.

Basics of developing a successful career

Good management training is basic for developing a successful career. To take full advantage of management training, one should take into account the following factors:

1. Ground yourself and start from the basics. If you have no previous hand-on management experience, you can easily get lost in fancy abstract theories and principles. First try to envision the challenges and responsibilities of project and operational management then the basic methodologies of solving them.

2. Keep things simple and direct. It is difficult to convey complicated messages to others, especially to people who may have a simple educational background. That is why management has to keep messages simple.

3. Understand the different perspectives of your company and individual managers. Ideally, whatever is good for the company is good for the employees. But quite often it is not so. To be successful, you need to know both sides of the equation.

4. Prepare yourself for a management career. Management has to deal with a great deal of conflicts and stress. Many managers fail because they are edgy and crack up. If you don't know how to handle stress, your judgment will be impaired, and your employees will be unhappy. Consider taking training in stress management, assertive management, and basic negotiation techniques.

5. Develop your strategy and plan to manage your own management career. Understand the difference in requirements and challenges of different positions. A good individual contributor does not always make a good line manager, a good line manager may not automatically make a good senior manager, and a good senior manager may not necessary make a good corporate executive!

Formal training or common sense?

Those who have already assumed management roles through rising from the ranks and file should also hone their management skills through formal training. Some managers believe management is merely common sense. However, the world is changing rapidly and therefore the ways of doing business and the role and skills of successful managers change accordingly. Many modern management techniques now are absolutely necessary.

For example, low labor cost used to be Hong Kong's major competitive advantage and the main job of a manager was operating a factory and delivering the product. But today, it is an entirely different story. The industry needs to compete relentlessly. Clothes retailers want to hold as little inventory as possible because excessive inventory costs money and fashion changes rapidly. But they need to replenish fast the clothes that do sell well. This brought about new developments in the supply chains; transportation logistics and distribution systems have become vital for business.

In the 21st century's knowledge-based economy with ever increasing stiffglobal competition of products and services in terms of cost, quality and time, it is absolutely vital for managers to have proper training in modern management techniques and systems such as global supply chain management, logistics management and total quality management in order to successfully compete globally.

Taken from Career Times 2002/04/19