Q: Working in creative media industry, I suppose there could be some divergent opinions amongst your work. When you actually face such type of situation, how would you settle those disagreements?
NIC: Uh, well, you know, Post production is really a passive, sadly to say very passive business. We…for the past maybe few hundred years, I think post production is to do what we are ordered to do, by the producers or the directors of people who shoot these commercials. But we have managed somewhat to turn it around, to take the initiative… to actually go to the meeting with the directors, and say, is this what you are trying to achieve or what are you trying to achieve, why don’t we go this way? So now we are participating more into the pre-production to ensure that we’ll get good quality out of the post production. That is mainly what we do.
Q: Has there ever been a time when other companies try to steal employees from you? Since I guess, there could be some intense competition to get the right talents.
NIC: Yes, there has been and I think it was about five or six years ago. One of our competitors was willing to pay five times the payroll for 20 of my staff to walk away from my company. I’ll tell you the truth, I mean, 5 times the payroll…I myself will think twice. But out of twenty people, only one left. I don’t blame anybody for leaving; they must have their own reasons. But I am very proud to say that we kept 19 of them. And I did ask why. I said so, really, you know, why are you staying. What is it that makes you stay in my company? I am not paying you any more than other people? And they replied simply that, “We are happy when we’re here, we feel like home. We know how to bring a smile to our work”. That actually shocked me quite a bit on how the new generation values their life today. Not only do they wish for a high salary, but they need to be respected, loved, cared for and feel this is our home. There was once when we were moving to our new company. I called on a vacation. I said, “Guys, stop today, we are not gonna work”. They said, “what are we gonna do? I said,” we are gonna go look for our new office together”. And they were actually quite shocked. And the whole army of us just, you know, we were strolling through all these buildings. And they asked why are we looking at this? Because you are the ones who are gonna be sitting here 8 hours per day, not me, I want you to feel like you are at home. I want you to wake up and feel motivated to say, I want go back. And fix that, I think I can do better. These little things accumulate to a better crew.
Q: That’s really inspiring. So it is inevitable that there are ups and downs in our life. So how do you stay positive?
NIC: Uh, stay positive. I consider myself very lucky. And we all should. All this you have right now is really a privilege. I remind myself that every day, the fact that I am just alive, you know those crazy stunts…I am thankful. I just keep reminding myself that every day, as simple as that.
Q: As a final question to wrap up from us three. What is the most important message you want us to take from this Asian Leadership Series?
NIC: You know all this is great. I don’t know how you feel. Thank you for all this warm welcome. But all this 谢霆锋 Nicholas Tse stuff, right? I am not asking any of you to totally embrace this guy’s personality or the way he works, or the way he does his job, not to replicate or duplicate, but to find yourself or pick up from this guy, what is useful to you and your lifestyle, make compatible and find yourself. So from me, I hope that you can find a little bit of use, to put into your lifestyle and create your own dreams, because my dream is to make the make believe believable, and I will keep on doing that for a long long time.
Q: Although I said that was a final question. I do have another one. Uhh, you’ve actually mentioned a lot of qualities, you talk about being charismatic, how you lead your team, how you make them like you. Well, you don’t make them like you, they just like you. You talk about bringing them to different places. So what are some really important leadership qualities that a leader must have?
NIC: Well, another one I would say is to…Set as an example, you can talk all you want, I can talk about stunts as I want, and when you are really put under the spotlight, and you don’t know your stuff. I don’t care how much you talk, you can talk forever, but can you make that jump? If you have been training for it, you can. But that for me is an ultimate test. Whereas in business I may lose money, I may lose a job or two. But there, if I was not really honest to myself, I would lose a leg, I would lose an arm, I would lose my life. So it’s knowing your staff, like I said again, practice makes only permanence.
Boy: Thank you very much for sharing with us today.
Karen(MC): Thank you for really encourage our students to pursue our own dreams, our passions, and although we’ve asked quite a few questions, I’m sure the audience here have many more questions to ask you. So we will now give the question to the floor. (Just as a reminder, today’s section is focused on entrepreneurship, leadership. This is important, keep in mind that today’s section is focus on entrepreneurship, leadership and management, so questions fall out of these categories will not entertained. Originally, we had about 20 minutes for Q/A sections, so keep you questions brief and to the point. If they drag on for too long, I’m sorry but I’m gonna cut you short and I’m gonna get the questions from some other students, so please be respectful to the audience. Just another thing, when we hand you the microphone after asking a question please pass it back to the staff members so other people can get a chance. Thank you for your attention and we will now start taking questions.)
