What to expect from an association whose mission is to advance management excellence? Surely – excellent management. Victor Lee, executive director of the Hong Kong Management Association (HKMA), tells us what goes behind managing an association brilliantly
So how is the HKMA structured and why is it effective?
I’m the CEO. Backing me is a council and executive committee, and together we develop activities to keep members abreast of the latest developments in, say, marketing or HR management. So we always have the inputs of the industry, as the council and executive committee members bring real insights into HKMA. (The council comprises leaders from heavyweight companies across industries in Hong Kong, including The Hong Kong and China Gas, Jardine Matheson, Hutchison Whampoa, Hongkong Land, The Hong Kong Jockey Club and The Bank of East Asia.)
How many members do you have?
Around 13,000, including some 10,000 individual managers and executives, and corporate members, including organisations such as HSBC, Standard Chartered, Swire and McDonald’s.
And the association’s mission?
We are a non-profit organisation with a vision of advancing management excellence across all industries in Hong Kong. Now of course that’s a broad statement and we need to come down to the nuts and bolts of what it is that we do.
Firstly, we do a lot of training and development programmes; these are a major source of our revenue. We offer something like 2,000 courses a year, everything from a one-day seminar, two-day workshops, one-year certificate course, to degree programmes all the way to doctorate programmes. We train around 40,000 people a year, so I believe we are the largest organisation that provides management development and education for this region. Whether or not we’re the largest association with the most number of members is not important. What is important is the impact we create on the society and we do this through training and education. Being a volume player is not in our DNA. If your organisation is meaningful, people will join. You need to do something that has an impact and that maintains your brand.
Secondly, we run awards, such as our marketing excellence awards, sponsored by the broadcast company, HKTVB, and our distinguished sales persons award, in which we select the most outstanding sales persons from all industries, and each year, more than 1,000 people attend the awards ceremony in Hong Kong. Such business awards create great impact in not only promoting best practices but in giving insights into future directions.
Thirdly, we have a number of clubs for our members, eg, the IT management club or the HR management club, so they can network with their peers or the big bosses, may be find a job, or learn about the latest developments in their industry. We organise field trips for them to big companies, say, Alibaba or Tencent – how can they approach such companies on their own? But with our reputation, chances are the big companies will welcome us for these field trips and many do.
I understand you’re quite new at the helm of the association?
Yes, I’m young – (laughs) not a young guy but young in this organisation – which is 55 years old and is still going strong. I joined over three years ago. Before, I was with the university.
Must be quite a change, from theory to practice?
I never managed an organisation like this but I did manage a school, I was the dean, although, yes, it’s not exactly the same.
But management professors don’t just sit still! It’s not my style anyway. I always believe we need to advocate the best practices in management but also look out for the next best practices to help organisations become more effective and innovative in producing their products and services.
Was there an existing CEO before you?
Yes, she was retiring and the association wanted a person who welcomes change, initiates change and wants to do something different.
Why?
For the first 40 to 50 years of its life, the association had enjoyed good times. In the 60s, there were only two universities in Hong Kong, now we have eight public universities and Hong Kong has opened itself up for all qualified institutions around the globe to come to the city and offer training and education. So gradually we see that the competition is getting keener and the market is becoming more mature. There are more players and more people are educated.
Are your members changing?
Demographically, we are seeing younger members with less experience. I think that’s great because these are the people we want to serve in the long run. The well-established people will eventually retire and we need new blood. This is why I literally reach out to students for our courses from outside the business world, as they are the ones who will be our future customers.
How?
For example, we don’t just go to the business schools – they already have hundreds of courses. We go to, say, the school of education where students are learning to be teachers. We ask the director of student affairs if we could bring a marketing expert or a human resource expert from our membership to speak to the students, so they know what is going on outside the classroom.
The students are training to be teachers and don’t know much about the business world. But even though they go on to become teachers, they take our courses in management or become our members. It’s the same with engineers, social workers, etc; these are the people we want to attract. We need to tap new sources of membership.
People say, yours is an association that promotes management excellence, so of course it has to be professionally-managed.
Not necessarily. It all has to do with the mentality, personality and calibre of the people running the association. If they are ever so satisfied with what they have accomplished, chances are they won’t do a lot of new things. I always look for breakthroughs, new initiatives to satisfy my desire for development and my curiosity – that has to do with my personality.
Long-serving staff also have a mindset. They don’t see that change is a matter of life – they just want to get on; they are satisfied with what they are doing until their retirement. But I’m patient, unlike the US organisations which just dismiss you if you don’t perform or are not up to standards or expectations. But that’s not going to work in our society and in particular in the culture of this organisation. So I try and use my persuasive powers to talk to people and get them to see things, test new ideas. If it works, it proves I’m correct. If it does not, then we learn a lesson from it.
Were you able to change mindsets?
Gradually. I do see that my staff, new or long-service, are realising that we need to work not just harder, but smarter, in the face of a competitive market. Competition is not such that there are 100 apples and you take 50 and I take 50, or you take 60 and I take 40. Eventually the market dries up, so you need to tap new sources of membership.
