theceomagazine.com | 61“I always make sure my suppliers make a
decent margin out of doing business with
me. I never ask them to take an unreasonable
price cut. Instead, I ask them to give me
quality: quality food, quality ingredients. But
in turn I make sure they have a reasonable
margin to survive.”
But whether it would be a major supplier
or a housewife working part time at the front
of the restaurant, Alan would rather have
people call him by his first name. “It’s very
common in Chinese society to address your
boss as ‘Mr Chan’. I refuse to have people
calling me ‘boss’, or anything like that. I insist
on them calling me just ‘Alan’. I just treat
them as my friends,” he says.
Perhaps surprisingly, Alan did not learn
this approach from his 20 years working hisway up at McDonald’s. In fact, he learned it
from the two years he spent between
McDonald’s and KFC, working at Triple O’s,
a Canadian fast-food franchise. “In Triple O’s,
I only had around 200 employees, which
meant I had the opportunity to work with
them every day and develop a more intimate
professional relationship,” Alan says. “I found
that approach also worked at KFC.”
Immediately after graduating from the
University of Hong Kong with a degree in
history and political science in 1987, Alan’s
experience in fast food began at McDonald’s.
Joining as a restaurant manager trainee, he
opened the first restaurant in China in 1990,
and spent two years teaching future restaurant
managers at Hamburger University, the major
corporate training facility of McDonald’s,
before leaving as vice-president of
McDonald’s Hong Kong in 2008. “I left
McDonald’s because I thought I had worked
with the brand for too long,” Alan remarks.“I just wanted to take a break.”
Whereas McDonald’s was already an
established worldwide chain, and resourcing
issues there are usually minimal, it was a very
different situation at Triple O’s. Alan had to
oversee the day-to-day: whether the shops
ran to time, whether he had sufficient cash to
pay bills, or whether he had enough revenue
for the next few months to cover all
expenses. “I think the biggest lesson I learned
at Triple O’s was that I had to roll up my
sleeves. You work hard every day and you
have to be a real entrepreneur to run the
business, because it is so small. It really helped
me to find a missing piece in my career as a
manager or as a businessman,” Alan says.
“When I came out of Triple O’s after
20 years at McDonald’s, I think I had the
best of both worlds. I had the experience of
running a big corporation and, on the other
hand, that of being a real businessman
working on the very detailed stuff.”
In creating the most effective strategy in
managing people, Alan also drew inspiration
from the book Gung Ho! by Ken Blanchard
and Sheldon Bowles. Most notable in the
book, according to Alan, was how it
encapsulated employee turnaround within an
organisation in three Native American lessons:
The Spirit of the Squirrel, The Way of the
Beaver, and The Gift of the Goose.
“The squirrel represents focusing on what
matters the most in work, the beaver
represents managing the necessary processes
in achieving the goals, and the goose
represents working as a team and cheering
each other on,” Alan summarises.
Over the seven years he has been at KFC,
Alan always talks about the three animals in
workshops he hosts for employees, and tries
to embody the spirit of those animals within
the company. Now, according to Alan, ‘the
squirrel’, ‘the beaver’ and ‘the goose’ have
become common language in the company.
“When you find some people are not
behaving properly, most managers would tell
them, ‘Please focus on what is important,’ ” he
notes. “We don’t say that. We just say, ‘Okay,
be a squirrel,’ and they immediately get it.”
Alan is well aware that, when someone
makes it to the top, it can be very easy »“ I had the experience of running a
big corporation and, on the other
hand, being a real businessman
working on the very detailed stuff.”
“‘Customer First, Solution
Driven’, customisation is
always the key to success.
Building on our strong
customisation capability, we
closely collaborate with KFC
in designing specialty coffee
and tea formulations with a
one-stop service covering
market analysis, recipe
development, sourcing,
production, marketing and
after-sales services.” – Chris
Hui, Operating Officer of Tsit
Wing Group Marketing & Sales,
Tsit Wing Coffee Co., Ltd
Interview | INSPIRE