2012年4月19日，谢霆锋出席香港科技大学举办的“亚洲领袖讲座系列”首场讲座，他在讲座中指出，要诚实对待自己，并热爱自己所做的事是成功的关键。他与出席讲座的约350名科大师生分享了他创办“PO朝霆”的过程、他的管理理念和人生体会等等。谢霆锋在香港科技大学的演讲时告诉孩子们一定要拿到学位文凭，自己没有文凭别人总会怀疑自己。社会残酷、忠于自己、如何面对自己的梦想等。
大约半年前，“香港科大商学院”力邀霆锋出席4月19日的亚洲领袖系列讲座，以CEO身份跟学生分享成功之道，而霆锋更成为全日制工商管理硕士(MBA)课程教材。能够被选中为MBA教材，霆锋更感到压力：“责任更加重大，压力很大，面对台下众多比自己更有学问、更有知识的人，我在台上说话，好像被别人脱光衣服一样，从答应之后，我心情一直都很忐忑和紧张。”
谢霆锋是著名演员和歌星，亦是香港最成功的青年企业家之一。早于2003年，只有23岁的他创办了制作公司PO朝霆，锐意为亚洲电视广告及电影提供世界级 的后期制作服务。在过 去短短的九年间，谢先生作为PO朝霆行政总裁，带领公司发展成为香港后期制作行业中领先的企业之一，公司在本地广告后期制作及上海高端影视后期制作的市场占有率分别约占一半。
以下英文全文由百度锋吧翻译组提供：
2012-04-19 谢霆锋在香港科技大学亚洲领袖讲座上的演讲
The Talk of Asian Leadership Series at HKUST by Nicholas Tse
Karen(MC): Welcome to the Asian leadership series. My name is Karen from the department of management, and I’m your MC for this evening.
Some of you may wonder how this talk came about, actually it is through a conversation between the case manager and myself, about how much we want to find a young, successful Asian business leader, and someone who all our undergraduate students can relate to. And the he said ‘well, Karen have you heard about the founder of the post production office limited, Nicholas Tse?’ And I said ‘Perfect!’
So, with the tremendous support of the post production office limited, we give you our delivering of the first Asian leadership series. So thank you very much for coming.
So, since this talk is especially for you students, the whole event is going to be hosted by students. So the format is this: The first 20 minutes or so Mr. Nicholas Tse is going to share some of his experience and insights with us, and that will be followed by an about 45 minute chatting session between the 3 student interviewers and Mr. Nicholas Tse, and then we’ll be round up by a 15 minute Q&A session. So may I now invite the 3 student interviewers, Jocelyn, Mandy and Nathan to the floor please. So before we officially kick off the event, just a friendly reminder of some simple house rules. First can you please switch your mobile phones to silent mode, and secondly, no laptop, computer, no live recording, and third, I understand everyone is very excited but please remain seated during the event. And, last but not least, if you want to leave the lecture theatre during the event, can you please use the doors at the back.
So, without further ado, can I please invite Professor Roger King, director of the Centre for the Business Case Studies and he himself a highly successful business leader to kick off the event.
Professor King: Thank you all. It’s really a great, great honor and privilege for HKUST to have Mr. Nicholas Tse here. First of all I would like to also thank our president Tony, to be here, and our dean Brandon Chan, and of course many other honored guests, but, most importantly, you students.
I think this is probably one of the biggest events we’ve ever had. Just to let you know Nicholas the registry opened and within hours, it was totally full. In fact, this room only holds 400 people. Within a day and a half, we had 1700 people sign up, and they clearly didn’t come to see Tony. Nor me. But anyway, I was asked to say a few words about our case center, and many of you may or may not be aware of it, we have a case center here in HKUST’s business coup, which is relatively new. And let me just tell you why we started this thing. It was actually the encouragement of our Dean and basically most of you probably aware of the notion of the case study itself. For those of you who may not understand, case study actually brings in real-life business situations into the classroom by writing cases on that company usually, and but we also back it up with theory, and allow students to actually analyse the situation itself. So by having said that, there are a lot of other schools particularly Harvard, Ivy league and many many other schools do write cases. So why should we be writing cases? Well one of my colleagues Professor pang here and what we did was before I said to Leonard “Yes we will do this” because he asked me to do it on a proposal base I might say. So I said “Well, before we actually do this let’s take a survey and understand what are we currently do in our school and who uses the case method.” And so we did was we actually took a survey for all the faculty members that are teaching the MBA program itself. OK~ and what we discovered was first of all at the encouragement of the Dean we actually had 2/3 of the faculty responded to the survey over 66% and what was discovered was that students actually like class that have cases in it. NO.1, they gained higher scores for class that had that, so for those of you who are teaching this is great news. The second thing is that (they) actually like the professor that’s teaching it. And the third thing was how come we always study western company cases, why don’t we have more Asian cases? And therefore our main main focus is now on Asian. In fact, my colleagues and I (某人名)as well, have now coined the concept—— Asian cases by Asians for Asians. Now it’s not to say that someone from Harvard they ask for a case we don’t give it to them. But I would hope that in a few years, they would actually come to us and ask for cases. Why? Because a Harvard professor their thinking-class is very very western. They don’t really understand how businesses are conducted in this part. And hence that’s our primary goal here. And we are also very very lucky that many of our faculties now have been supporting the concept itself and in fact even though 10-year system in the school doesn’t necessarily recognize those centres involved in writing cases or even teaching cases, but we are moving along that long. So this is the purpose of that and in fact many our cases we are able to invite honoured guest to come but more importantly in the classroom sometimes. And I recall one of my cases the individual that came to the class, this is the person that actually in the case itself, he said to me “Roger, you know what? This is great~! I’m getting so many good suggestions from students. In fact, it’s the cheapest consulting service I’ve ever had” so you know the whole idea is you need to participate for you students in this room. And it’s a great great opportunity to analyses real-life situations.
So I’m sure again that you’re not here because you want to listen to me. So it gives me great pleasure, and Nicholas really needs no introduction, but here today he’s coming as a entrepreneur, a business he’s founded, several years back, when he was only , guess how old? 22! That was only yesterday right? And he has a very very successful business. He has an office here in Hong Kong of course, as well as in Shanghai I understand.
So, without further ado, I would like to invite Nicholas to come up.
NIC: Hello. Thank you for the warm welcome. And…Ladies and gentlemen welcome and thank you for having me on campus. This is truly overwhelming. Really. I’m instructed to deliver a speech in English. So therefore I will be speaking in English. But if any of you prefer to speak in Cantonese or mandarin, please feel free to do so. I do hope that at the end of the session, both parties you and I will gain something out of it and leave behind somewhat, to take it as memory, all right? Wow, this is really intense right now, for me, really, maybe because this is my first time to show up as an entrepreneur, in front of the crowd. What is very odd is that I’ve been doing this most of my life. I have been giving speeches and performances, and talks around the world. The crowds ranging from 30 people to 130,000 people, but never have been so uptight and nerve-racking. Maybe it’s because I am simply put in front of a crowd of academics. And I feel that I’m not actually out of my…I do feel I’m talking to another caliber; I’m left out. So the first point is really to tell you I dropped out of school in grade 10. And I urge you really to go through your education. Most of you I think have gone half way. Really. Might as well go all the way and grab that piece of paper! If I had the chance to take all the wealth and so called fame and glory that I have right now, and buy back 15 years of life, but keep the knowledge that I have now and relive the physique I had 15 years ago and trade places with you right now. I would make that trade in a heartbeat, really. I dropped out school when I was…maybe in grade 10, and ever since I set put into the so called business world. There has not been a day that has gone by without me hating myself regretting that I did not fully commit to my education. Maybe fine arts, agriculture, architecture, ceramics…who knows, I don’t know. MBA. But, I dropped. And every day that has gone by, I do regret. Some of you may not feel it right now. But that diploma when you are trying to close a deal with someone, it means just that much more. When you are trying to convince someone to an idea, concept, something new, that piece of paper will just mean that much more and people will judge you, and they’ll doubt you that much less. That is reality, and it has been hard for me but…so I think I’m here to hopefully convince you to go through, go to the education, go all the way, grab that piece of paper before you leave. OK? Do not walk the path I’ve ever gone through. So for the people who did not know, I have been running a so called post production business for the past 9 years. And that’s what I do apart from the acting or the singing part, the entertainment part. There’s also the business part of Nicholas Tse. We are based on Hong Kong right now. We have a sub branch in Shanghai, it’s going very well. We are going to open in Beijing in the end…hopefully the end of May. Can I say that, please? Because we are in a rush and everything is really….so I’m looking at my colleague whether we can pull it off at the end of May. When I say post production it’s actually to a lot of people a very foreign term. So what is post production? Post-production is… I mean but by audio dubbing, online editing, offline editing, compositing, animation, computer graphics…all that good stuff. Actually, everything you see right now on television, advertising, was, or in the cinema, or even in the internet. Every visual image you see right now is actually…it has…it should have undergone the process of post-production in order to achieve a certain standard of broadcast quality. And just by saying that I’m very very happy to say that it has already obvious very high demand, or else I will not be here today. And so…for a more visual explanation of what I do, I would like to show the company reel and…These are some of the brands that we do represent in Hong Kong or in the mainland China right now. Some of you may recognize or may not recognize it. OK?
Thank you. That’s some of these brands that we represent at the moment, but…what you have just seen is the pretty side of the production. I would actually like to show you some of the before and after as to actually how we make a living. So what I’m about to show you, is a…something called the Canon G12 model. It is an advertisement shot 2 years ago by a very famous crew. But, why don’t I show you.
Here you see in front of the green screen, just a…it’s merely a model holding a camera. And all it is…it’s just actually a track back show of this model…it’s quite not up to the entertaining part…This is the source that we got when we first accepted this project. We have taken the initiative to talk to the producer and director and say…hey, why don’t we do something more interesting and something that is to the next level…graphic wise and so…can we show the next layer? So with audio and visual enhancement…each layer by layer you can see that inch by inch…this is what we do to enhance the visual effect…for the outcome…After 1160 and some more layers and modelling put onto this image, you got the finished product…that’s it. All right, that’s one more full version or finished version.
There you have it. And that’s what we do for a living. For people do not know, post production… that’s we do, and…so any question so far? Why don’t I ask you a question. Who in here wants to be successful? Raise your hand if you wanna succeed. Coz I sure as hell do. What’s preventing you from raising your hand? Anyway, second question, and the more important: who’s lying? Because I’m pretty sure you out there and you ask people, “who wants to be successful?” 99% of people would tell you, I want to succeed. I want to be the best basketball player; I want to be the best hockey player; I want to be the best artist, engineer, whatever…They will talk. But most of you want to succeed. But are you truly being honest to yourself? Whereas you found your passion, you know your strength and weaknesses, where to place yourself in the market, how you want people to see you and how to project yourself in a market. I founded this company because, at the age of 22 and 3, between that time, I was on set, on a movie set. And, I saw the director go up to the CG, computer graphics guy in the department and ask them… could we… actually, I wanna do this… take the computer graphic image and do this… and, he hesitated, froze, and I thought, wow…
So, that stalled for an hour or so, but, ticking, tick tick tick, all that is money. And he called back to his headquarters, and asked for the allowance to say: They want to do this and that, so can we please…
After days of freezing, multimillion dollars was lost during that process. And at the time I was releasing a lot of music videos, I was doing a lot of concerts, and advertisement and movies, I wanted to enhance the visual effects myself, and I thought wow, this should be our realm. That’s our profession, why are we doing so poor in it?
So then, if some of you may have read through my interviews, that I did sell my property, for a certain amount of money to invest in this business. I started off with 4-6 people, and I bought 1 or 2 second hand machines to start it off. And, luckily, I am here today. But, what message I wanna get through is, it seems like Nicholas Tse gambled everything away for the future. I didn’t. It is a gamble, but, before I bought those second hand machines, I actually calculated and talked to a few producers and we signed contracts for 3 movies, 2 advertisements, and 3 music videos so that we’d cover my one and a half years overhead, ahead of time. So if I was to fail, I somewhat had a safety net, that I won’t just kill myself because I sold my house, sold everything, what I have left. So I did have a bit of a safety net. I don’t want to give the wrong message out to the public that ‘he just sold everything, so we can do that too.’ Please do not.
Alright, so, when I was saying, be honest to yourself if you want to be successful, because, some of us say we want to be successful but, we don’t wanna succeed more than we wanna sleep. We don’t wanna succeed more than we look cool，and go to the …. tonight , we don’t want to succeed more than hanging out with friends，going to a cinema，you must be honest to yourself and find your automatic passion, so therefore, are you willing to sacrifice all these temptations to prevent you from practicing your art? I don’t believe the saying of practice makes perfect, to me, there is no perfection, there should always be room for improvement, practice to me, practice makes permanence, you will only have a much higher probability not to mess thing up, but there is no perfection. That’s to me. Any questions so far?
These 3 guys are actually really intimating right now, because it feels like that at any moment they’re gonna chuck some intellectual question like ninja’s darts.
GIRL: this is the question from us.
BOY: you basically answered about half of question already, so
NIC: because the angle you sitting, the angle you sitting,
Q: So, really thanks for your brief introduction, and a warm welcome to today’s Asian leadership series again, so just before our conversation begin, would you prefer us to call you NIC or just Nicholas (yes…) so, ah, NIC, as we know that you have established a very successful company and we know, we have saw a sample work from Canon, we want to know what is the greatest challenge when you starting up your company?
NIC: The greatest challenge really is to earn trust of clients at the age of 23,because it is a human natural instinct not to believe in someone 10 or 20 years, younger than you, and to establish that trust is a reputation, but that together, it takes time. And we started offer really miniture size work, and earned the trust of some directors and said, you know, are you guys ready go to the next level? I personally say yes, but then what I’ve learnt is that saying yes doesn’t mean anything, because no one wants to fall, and it is a cruel world out there. People will start blaming stuff, and say well, nic, he screwed it up, it’s not me.
So, what I’ve done, what I change to these years, I don’t say yes any more, I go back and ask my team do you think do this ,and if so, why don’t we do a 30 seconds demo to shut their mouth , So the hardest part, the hardest challenge is to, I think for any business is to earn the trust. actually, mentioning that, I myself, I ,ever since I was little, I love Hong Kong action movies, I still do, I really do, it’s all my passion ,being honest to myself, I love action movies, and I am willing to put my life on the line, literally, if it takes, and to protect HK action. So 10 years ago ,I made myself a promise, that if I’m gonna be in this business, I wanna, I wanna be an action star, at least participate in one of Jack Cheng’s cool movies, or the Jet Li movies or the Donnie Yen movies. I will show you this, actually, it is more a present to my son, it is a 2 minutes video for his first birthday, some of my favourite stunts, please do not try this at home, because what you’re about to see for the next 2 minutes, I have been training for12 years, and a lot of luck is involved, that’s why I’m saying practice only makes permanence, because the more I do this in this chance, I will die.
Jumping from 41st floor is not that wise, but I did that 19 times.
Yea, and that was only one or 2 feet away from breaking my neck
That’s the Convention Centre.
It’s funny they say you can put these paddings on, but wherever you hit, it never hits the pad, it hits you.
NIC: Now I tell you my son will not understand this message for another 20 years.
Thank god I’m still here one piece, but that’s how far I’m willing to go for what I love. Of course, I’m not asking you to go jump off buildings.
Q: I’ve actually seen this video about ten times. (really?) yeah! It still gives my goose bumps every time I watch it. It’s very emotionally touching, but shifting the focus on these students, and you have definitely found your passion, but how would advise us for finding our dreams and our passions?
NIC: like I said, I think be honest to yourself. So, I don’t think anyone can answer that question for you, it’s what you feel every day, you have to live with it, you have to smell it, you have to feel it, you have to touch it, it’s everything around you, something that never bores you, I guess, if you are hesitating for something, give it a second thought, but I’m here mainly to trial and error, and I guess that’s part of life,
you only start losing things when you start growing, but that’s contradictive, philosophical part of life ,so like when we 12 ,we are so eager to be 18 and say that I am old enough to stay up, I am old enough to go clubbing, I am old enough to click the porn button, but ,but when you do get older, like I am now, we lose the standard, we stared losing a lot of reflexes, speed, power, all of that, then, we start treasuring stuff, but ,what you love the most, ask yourself, I don’t think anyone can really tell you that question ,or the answer.
Q: well, but like sometimes if we find our own dream, we may not follow, like we cannot listen to our hearts ,because our social norms, or expectations from our parents, so what if I, can you give us students on really pursuing on your dream and stick to your mind.
NIC: I don’t think anyone, unless your dream is something that is so destructive that you’re hurting someone else, I don’t think anybody would stop u from pursuing your dreams, right? if it’s something constructive, or something we don’t normal, I would say, it should be OK, you are not trying to kill someone, and ,and make a statement ,that’s what I did in my stunts, you know ,I didn’t just go about talking to the director saying, I wanna do action movies, someone jump off. I trained, and I start going little stunts, I started to train weapons, my fitness, the whole thing, it has to start from scratch, so you want to prove someone wrong, prove them wrong.
Q: regarding this as Asian leadership series for you, we invite you to talk about your passion, your leadership experience, then what do you think is the one key leadership quality that you think is the most important to you to success?
NIC: one of the most important leadership qualities, I think, is to know yourself, and to place the correct people in the correct position, you know, really, after I’ve started this company, a lot of people say, they ask me, right to the point, what the hell do you know about post production?
And, to be honest, if you ask me to sit in front of a multimillion dollar machine, and ask me to … will I do as my staff, I will not. I will fail. I will crash. But, I don’t know how many of you follow football, but for example, let’s say, last night Chelsea and Manchester United play a game, see we’ve got people’s reactions now.
The manager of Manchester United, MR. Ferguson, he is not going on the field doing corner kicks and free kicks and the taking ball, he is placing the correct people in the correct position, if Rooney scored a goal, is it purely Rooney’s glory that he scored the goal, or was it also because MR Ferguson placed him in the correct position, so he had the chance to be assisted then to score? So I think to place correct people in correct position to do their work, do the jobs, and to inspire, to dedicate, to motivate, all that together seam through your staff. Being honest to yourself, your work and your staff. All the things together, I think is good.
Q: Speaking of your human resources, cooperation, we have about 350 students sitting here today, and they might just happens to be interested to applying for your company. (feel free, please, please, please) Just maybe! Just maybe! So, For qualities of your employees, what’s your specific qualities of your employees you’ll be looking for?
NIC: Creative thinking. Because in a business like ours, it’s imperative, that every job is unique, we cannot duplicate jobs. Actually I’m not quite happy with my business model because of that, because it makes very tough. We’re not in a job, where robots and machines, can just keep printing and make money of that product. Each job is unique. So when I look for people, in our staffs, I look for creative thinking, motivation, energy that they want to bring into the image, and of course, technique, and maybe some inward sense or talents.
Q: You have many staffs in your company, so how do you encourage creative thinking in your company?
NIC: We have over 130 staff now, and after opening Beijing we might raise the number a lot. I actually, I participate in their daily routine of their lives. It might surprise you, but actually sometimes I cook for them. I make them desserts. Some of you may have read on newspapers we just had just went on a pretty fancy vacation. Do you have the video here? OK
I gained weight.
Q: That’s a very amazing trip. As we can see from the video, we know that you actually have a very good relationship with your employees, your workers, I’m wondering what is your company’s philosophy regarding work. Do you often go to overseas trip with your employees?
NIC: Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I try to participate as much as I can. And…trips like this is very good to come by these days, and I’m not just throwing a multi-million dollar trip for them and say hey, you know, take this, go and enjoy yourself. You got to be part of it. You got to be live through their eyes, see what they are going through, solve the problem before it actually hits the rock. Before the collision starts, solve the problem and you will earn the utmost respect. The difference I think between a world class company and mediocre company…if you are feared, your staff will only work as hard as to do not get fired, but if you are respected, not only will you have staff, you have a team. Not only you have the team, you have an army. And they will go that extra mile, they will push that extra mile for you, for the company. And that is the difference between a world class company and…just…that’s not bad.
Q: You’ve mentioned earlier that trust is important in your company, so how do you build trust with your employees among Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong.
NIC: We have a…we actually take turns. We send some of our senior partners and our senior engineers up to mainland China, and we trained new people. Our business is actually very creative and human based business, whereas we need a lot of people. That’s whereas the next challenge for me lies, is to find people like you, who are young, who have potential to enhance better graphics. And have that motivation to say “I can take this up to the next level.” I think the whole business is…I think the whole world is asking for people like you right now. Steven Spielberg in 2011, last year, and now he’s decided he is gonna dump in 1.5 billion dollars into Shanghai, doing post production in dream works. To me, yes, that is scary, that is a big pressure, but I’m happy that…just to know that there’s such a high demand, so therefore…supply is also needed, so…
Q: Could you explain to us your vision statement of your company?
NIC: We or I, myself, I hope to…I really hope to give something back to the society in terms of visualize since I’ve been in this entertainment business for over 14 years now. I want to give something back to what is being broadcasted and to…this is my time to but re-educate the next generation, my kids, to know what is a better quality, look at Korea, look at Japan. We are always following the footsteps of their images. I think it’s time for us, and that’s why we are here today for Asian leadership, to tell the western people that “hey, I can tell you right now, that if you want Nicholas Tse to do Titanic 3D, I can do it, just give me that time and give me that preparation. Post production alone cannot make a piece of blank paper into magic…We need the whole process of preproduction along with us to merge together, then we can…I’m pretty sure that we can achieve 3D Titanic. Don’t think that we can’t do it. We can. But ultimately…I’m looking for education. If there’s a kid like me, a random kid like me in Hong Kong, that wants to learn about animation or that likes to play video games. I’m sure a lot of you do. You have different angles and visions of things that people don’t have. So times that by the number of the population in the whole mainland China. Only if 1 percent of mainland China people wanted to learn animation or post production, that would mean 130 million students. How can we not do 3D Titanic, I’ll do 8D Titanic.
Q: We’ve already talked about your vision, and we’ve also talked about how you build trust with your employees, how do you ensure that you share the vision from different offices in Shanghai, in Hong Kong, or in Beijing?
NIC: Each year I gave annual speech to them, and so far I’m very very thankful to say that we have reached each year’s goal. We have moved from…Our office was in a basement, a building in Causeway Bay, last year before April 2nd. And after April 2nd we moved to a quite luxurious building right now in Cubus No.1, 5 storey building. But…what is means, each year we’re meeting our goals, and then two years ago, I announced that we are the first company to cross border with mainland China to have a sub branch in Shanghai and in Hong Kong. And we have achieved that goal. And within a year, I’m very proud to announce that we are going to open in Beijing, which is no other company, post company has done in the history of Hong Kong. So for the staff, I always tell them I’m not asking you to work for me, I’m asking you to work for yourself. And it is important to make them feel like that they are at home; they want to go to work, and they see their future. Not am I only getting the salary paid, Wow…This guy is actually… he’s making every promise come true. And for them, that is so important because they are not… everything is coming true, and they see further. And I think that is very important for everyone.
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.)
Q1: Hi, Hi Nicholas very nice to see you here. Actually we all know you as a very successful actor and singer, am I right, instead of being an entrepreneur. So I just want to ask how did your great fame affect your occupation, your business? Is there any negative effect? Because there must be some negative effects.
NIC: That is an awesome question. I was gonna say about the category that the questions are gonna come by. I was gonna say if anyone was gonna asking for an autograph, I would sign you the autograph if you can ask me a question that was a starter because after all we’re all in the study of MBA, so why not study in negotiating. But I like that question. Yes, I did not launch to the public that I had this company until April 2nd last year. So I have been actually going undercover for 7 years, and it has been really hard, that’s actually what I forgot to mention. It is another challenge for me to be such low-key. And to still participate in the company and why I kept it a secret was because I just thought if I really wanted to prove myself as an entrepreneur, first I do not want to use my fame, so-called fame to assist it. And also I do think that would actually harm it in a way because the press just gonna eat me up. He’s another so-called actor who is trying to do a business, but how successful am I really? I myself I want the real answer, and therefore I kept it a secret. And I hoped my clients are coming in because that they know they can rely on PO and rely on me as the CEO but not as… “Oh, I’m gonna give him a better credit because he just participated in my action movie” No I did not want that. It has been painful sitting in the office seeing all these people, all the directors come by and say “Oh you~ Hey~ You’re here for?” “I’m here for dubbing…” “Eh~ Oh~ You’re here again~” “I’m still here for dubbing…” I have been going there for 8 years, and then thank whoever’s up there that’s looking after me. Then last year I can present to the public that this is my company. (MC: and they completely bought that you were dubbing for 8 years? Nic: You think I’m mad? LOL) Ya~ It’s true. (Any other questions?)
Q2: Hi, Nicholas~ My name is Johnny and I know that you were doing really great at the age of 22 in the entertainment industry. I wanna know what motivated you to establish the post production at the age of 22, cause you were enjoying a lot of famous and money. So you should have sacrificed quite a lot, so what motivated you to establish the company? Thank you~
NIC: Like I mentioned before that little crisis I saw on set with the movie things with the hesitation, with the post production, I was quite upset and ultimately I do want to give something back to the society and, say you know, I hope in the near future. Well a lot of times when I was trying to sell a concept or an idea for my own music video back to the time, I was always banned. I was always given the answer saying “You can’t do that. —-why? ——that’s too expensive and we don’t have the technology, we got to go the Hollywood for that.” I said “Really? Korea just did one quite similar. I don’t think they went to Hollywood for it” I was you know I was pissed off that we are relying so much on the western technology. We have, to be honest, even today we have exact same machinery that they do. It’s just the culture that is different. What’s the difference between Brazilian soccer and China soccer? We got the same balls, right? But it’s the culture that they live it, they breath it, you know each kid is… all they have is a soccer ball and they play it every day, like our badminton. It’s the same, I mean, it’s different in culture but I wanted to make a difference, I wanted to make a statement.
Q3: Was there ever a time you wanted to… like you felt yourself drifting away from the business, like when your company was doing well and as a start-up I guess it’s very tough looking for projects and clients. And how do you take time off your acting work to, you know; spend time to your company? And was there ever a time you felt like giving up or just very tired of this whole thing?
NIC: No, I have not. And I do feel tired sometimes as do my stuff, but as much as we love our jobs… No we have never thought that you know… there’s not a second that has slipped by my mind that I would give up this business, because I believe simply I believe and I see it’s a very logical business. China last year became the third most movie-productive country in the world, first being India, second being the States, third is China. We made 716 movies last year, that’s almost 2 movies per day, how much post production is needed. That much of hours of movies are made each day. It’s a very logical business if so much pre-production is made then there must be space for post-production and I don’t doubt at all. I see a great future in this business.
Q4: Hi, Nicholas~ You have mention about the challenges your company had before, how about the great success of your company?
NIC: It’s doing OK~ (LOL) I really don’t dare to say it’s anything right now, it’s nothing compare to lot of my idols like DreamWorks or Pixar, but we’re getting there and I do believe that no one’s gonna start it off might that it might as well be me. So we’re trying we’re trying~
Q5: Hi, Nicholas~ You have been successful in different areas like you’re a very good actor and tripler, so how do you manage your time so well? Like you must be very busy.
NIC: I must give this credit to my staff. A lot of time I’m on the way and not in Hong Kong, or I’m not in mainland China, all over the places. And we have established a trust, a kind of a harmony that we are in sync, we know what we want to achieve. So this I give all the credit to my staff when I’m not here. They would make the harsh decisions and we’re, through the internet, we will communicate. And we are just obeying our rules.
Q6: (XD) Hi, Nicholas~ I’m called Nicholas as well and I hope I will be as successful as you one day. So we all know about you glory and success. And I would like… I’m curious about what mistakes you have done before for you as a leader. And what have you done to rectify your mistake as a leader? Thank you~
NIC: I…… (I like that question. It’s hard… LOL). I have a tendency of rush. As to all kids should, actually, maybe when they’re 22 or 23 right? We kind of rush into things, and when I first started this business, I did not go all the way to know it each and every part or department of how they run the business or I had the picture of it. But then it came to the part where, I had to buy really expensive machinery. When I was buying the second-hand piece of a colour corrector, actually I brought a broken piece of machine, and that cost us quite, pay a heavy price. The maintenance for that machine cost us a lot and luckily we were able to survive out of the crisis, but yes I did make these mistake and I failed a lot of clients and a lot of staff to trust me or not, whether or not to trust me anymore. Of course I was cheated also, but you know, you can never really blame anybody but yourself as a leader. Yes I did fail in buying a wrong piece of equipment. Yes, I did.
Q7: Hi, Nicho~ Actually I’m from Shanghai and I’m wondering where is your office. LOL~ Actually I was wondering Is there any difference between starting a new business in Hongkong and especially like in mainland China.
NIC: I don’t think we should draw a line between any country, especially that we’re as one now. If you hold on to the same principles, may it be Hong Kong, or mainland China, or the states, or Africa, I think it should be the same. And my office is in the 红坊工业区，所以…. (Q: is it very luxurious? Nic: It’s OK; we might expand in the summer)
Q8: Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Hi, Nicholas. Do you have any short term or long term plan on your company or on your personal life? I remember that you are like action movies, are you still going for that? Do you have any plan in the future to have you own film shot? (MC: sorry this is irrelevant to entrepreneurship, so… N: That’s all right~ MC: Is it OK? )
NIC: Actually you know it’s kind of related, and although it’s kind of a… it’s not a business secret, but a lot of people think why did you all a sudden open a post-production company when you’re an actor. Does it sound that ridiculous? Am I jumping from acting to cooking? I am not. Actually if you think about it deeply it’s quite linked together if I have enough bargaining power and trust between the directors and the producers, to say look my company can handle this now. What about I participate in your next movie, and I do the post. Now, isn’t that a win-win situation? So do I have plans? Yes, I do have plans in making new movies and I hope that I can bargain the deal that I can also handle the post production part if… we have all seen that you know the last real big success in Hongkong——《桃姐》. We were really lucky to be able to o the colour correction part, although I wasn’t in it. But hey we got to the Venice Awards.
Q9: You were 30… I’m sorry; you were 23 when you founded your company. So you were so young, did you ever feel like you missed out on life? And how do you deal with these regrets?
NIC: Yea…~ I tried to think that I lived my life fully. That’s why I’m going for, call me greedy, but I’m going for every opportunity and yet why shouldn’t you? Right? A lot of people ask me that question do I regret anything. Like I said I would take I would fully commit to my education if I have the chance to buy back 15-year’s life but I don’t, I think I have lived my life fully. I have two very cute sons and they’re healthy. I’m just grateful. I hope everybody should think out of the box sometimes, I’m getting lots of questions whereas “how to pursue a dream?” or “Is this OK?” “Are we going too far?” “Where do you draw a line between reality and visions” Leonardo Da Vinci In 1493 I think, it was 1493 that’s a “Judy air screw”—— What we know today as a helicopter. I’m pretty sure back in the time then people call him crazy “what? That thing flies? ——well whatever…” 500 years after, we are… I mean it’s a very well-known transportation device. It was 1493. So don’t doubt yourself, you may get a lot of negative inputs or comments. My mom, my families told me, they were seriously, in words “You won’t make it, you won’t be a successful businessman.” I got tons of those. And my dad you know all worried because it’s just very seldom for one leaving entertainment business actually make it from the scratch in the business world. But that’s me, that’s the rebellious side of me. I like proving people wrong.
The boy: Sorry we’ll only have time for about two more questions? The lady in the front row there
Q10: So Nicholas, I wonder…you mention that you have a competitor in Shanghai, right? So how are you going to lead your team to defeat your competitor?
NIC: Yeah, competitors are everywhere. And I like the thought of friendly competition. Only through that will the clients know who is better, and that makes us to excel, to thrive more for excellence. If anything was monopolized by only one grand name, they won’t fight. There is no one to be in the race, you can walk that marathon and still win, if you are the only walking or running, right? We just do our job as we should every day. Regardless if there is a competitor, if there is Steven Spielberg‘s DreamWorks coming into Shanghai or not. I’m just doing my job, as should my staff.
Boy: Our last question will go to the guy in the black shirt.
Q11: Hi, Nicholas, my name is Ken, as you mentioned the skill of post-production in Hong Kong is not that far from the western industry. The only difference is in terms of culture. So I want to ask do you have any plans to bring the Post Production Office to the international market by overcoming this barrier.
NIC: Wow, right now, I have to say I don’t have that ability yet, because I have put my efforts and investments into, first, handling our whole China. But I do believe that… you know… what’s that movie called? 《金陵十三钗》right? Christian Bill came to us, you know he China-based movie. So you know if you ask me about that, that’s something really far away, but I hope one day or maybe through IPO will I get the chance to go overseas and reach that goal, but me alone I really can only do that much.
Boy: Our last question will go to president Tony Qian. Will you do the honours?
President: Nic is a surprise, now can I ask a question not tied to entrepreneurship? Everybody wants to ask that kind of question.
Boy: Sorry, sorry, I won’t entertain this, but I don’t know if he is feeling generous?
President: You know some of us who sitting here are a little bit older than most of the people here. And some of us grew up with movies related to your family. So, no, but I wasn’t gonna ask about that, I was gonna ask that there must be a lot of family pressure, you know, maybe implicit, to live up to the family fame. You know, maybe founding a new company, finding your own place, making your own name. I just wonder how …your view on this, how you live through this? Must be a lot of expectation that a lot of our students also feel. Before you say you have to find your own passion, a lot of our students also feel the pressure from our family. A lot of family expectation. So for you with the particular family you have with the fame, you must feel that ten times more than the typical student, I want to hear what’s your view on this?
NIC: Uhh, it is a good question, really, but I used to hate that shadow that overpowered Nicholas Tse, because I am the son of whom and whom, but I have learned maybe because I started working at the age of 15 or 16, and now did my parents do anything wrong? I have learned to accept and actually be proud of who they are. I used to really hate that shadow….谢贤仔… Seriously! But as you grow, and you go through crisis and all that crap. You learn, when you get hit, and life will hit you as hard as he wants to. No one will stand by you as close as your family. And it is through these little problems and crisis where I have found a way to relieve that shadow as being whoever’s son and embrace it and love it and say, yes, I am, so what. We are both doing ok as a human being. And in this business and the entertainment business, I am proud now to hold my father or my mother’s hands and say we’ve done our part in this business. So really, I know, cause I have kids also. And sometimes when I think about it, I ask myself, Wow, I’m under a lot of pressure. I was under the eyes of 6 million people in Hong Kong watching me grow up as the son of Patrick Tse. Now that I think about it, what‘s really unfair is for my kids, because now they are under the… you know… the lens of 1.3 billion people in China. My kids are under more pressure than I am. But what I hope they will learn from this is, if they can just simply grow as a human being and not let my shadow overpower them too much. Now that’s being a man, now that’s being able to live life as you should. Why let anything stand in your way especially if they’re are someone who loves you and that’s unconditional love. They expect nothing in return. I bet anything simply because you are sitting here today; they want the best for you. This is HKUST man.
Boy: That officially ends the Q&A Session, Karen, back to you.
Karen(MC): Ok, let’s give them a round of applause. I have to say, Nicholas, this is the second time I meet you. The first time we did a video interview with him. And that will be showing in the fourth-coming classes. And there was truly inspirational, even though I heard it twice. So thank you very much. To show our appreciation, may I invite Dean to the stage for a gift-giving ceremony?
Karen(MC): Please remain on stage. May I now invite President Tony Chan and Professor Roger King, and also the three students interviewers, please join Nicholas for a photo.
Karen(MC): I can see there are lots of photos.
Professor Roger King: I think Karen, Renee and George should come here.
Karen(MC): Ok, Thank you very much. Most of all, thank you all for coming to the event, give yourself a round of applause. Now I am sure many of you are very interested in joining Post Production Limited, right? The senior managers are going to stay behind to answer questions, so you can explore job opportunities with them. Yes. We have Amanda, Diana who is the managing director. Also, Michael is going to join us with the director. So for those who would like to talk to them, please come down later. And in the meantime, I am afraid this is the end of our first Asian Leadership Series. And I hope to see you again. Goodnight. So for those students who would like to talk, can you please come down? It’s a free format thing. Anyone wants a job?