Challenge is a constant companion of our professional and private lives. What would I wear today? Should I quit smoking? How do I react to a behavior of my colleague? How do I write this essay? I joined Hanwha Europe a year ago from April this year, and as I often look back on the past year, I am amazed, time and again, by how many challenges I have been able to overcome since, which knowledge I was able to acquire, and what unforeseen strength I have developed.
It is well worth noting that I have never worked for a Korean company before, and that in itself aroused uncertainties in me. How would people react on me and would I be able to successfully integrate myself into the team? These doubts were not without reasons. I have a bicultural background: My mother is from the Philippines and my father is a German. I grew up in Germany, my name sounds “typically” German, my appearance, in contrast, tells a different story: I often encounter quizzical and dismayed faces. On the streets, I am sometimes mistaken as a a tourist and when I allow myself a little joke and tell people, in perfect German, that I was born in Hawaii and life hanging around under the coconut tree had bored me, they would buy it right away. The actual version of my story brings more astonishment. My iridescent cultural costume generated a dichotomy in myself as well. The “Germans” in my view are too ritualized pedantic, whereas the unabashed loose Philippine culture is after all somewhat too careless.
I had been all the more flabbergasted when I was faced with a team at Hanwha Europe that did not throw me into the usual “astonishment” over my name, my looks, my language, and my way of thinking. I was welcomed, heartwarmingly and in a completely neutral manner; I was just a “new employee” who they gladly embraced and whose capabilities they trusted in. I found that most of my colleagues had culturally mixed background. Whether Korean, Chinese, German, South African, Thai, Russian, Slovakian, Hanwha Europe united the various cultures for me, achieves integration and supports personality, not identity.
The constant balancing act is certainly a big challenge for the company, which is influenced by each individual employee. Every day, I face my colleagues with the same open-mindedness that I had been greeted with. Since I got onboard almost a year ago, new employees from a wider cultural circle have made our “potpourri” even more colorful and the “Hanwha Family” more varied. I found the excitement of these newcomers for the exceptional and unbiased welcoming culture from their first day on, as was the case for me. And they, too, face each of their colleagues with the same open and warm attitude ever since, as I do. It is a reciprocal process that each and every one causes and spreads, and by doing so a climate of “togetherness” created, regardless of the origin of each person.
It is actually very simple. So simple that I am not exasperated by the Germans’ obsession about rules or the Philippine flightiness any longer. Since then, I try not to assess people by a cultural yardstick but by their personalities and abilities, because I, too, wish to be evaluated accordingly and only then can integration be achieved. This is not only peacemaking but allows a barrier-free communication which focuses on the collectively set goal.
I have started my work at the solar division of Hanwha Europe, which makes me very proud in that the division represents an innovative and future-oriented industry. Still, it was often difficult for me to understand the solar industry in all their diverse facets and their important, intergenerational impact. And right at this point did I find out how important this kind of communication is to successfully drive the projects into the future. Through this, I was not only able to optimize the operations within the division but also, through the new knowledge I acquired in the field of renewable energy, an important topic of today, I was able to develop further on a personal level. The in-depth examination on this theme brought my understanding of responsibility to a higher level. Challenge is also shown through questioning or supplementing the concepts I held onto so far. My willingness to constantly widen my knowledge and grow beyond my limits led to an assignment of new tasks from other divisions of Hanwha Europe in just less than a year that I joined the company. I am looking forward to them full of excitement and anticipation.
The fact that Hanwha takes part at the Pyeongchang Olympic Winter Games as its ambassador, in light of my experiences, could not be more fitting. The Olympic Games are not just a competition of diverse people with exceptional abilities. More than anything else, they are a festival for cultures. People from all countries with different individual abilities gather together on this occasion. Each individual carries his or her very individual hopes, challenges, and dreams. While not forgoing these goals, they pursue the superior value of a peaceful and sportive get-together, where people are evaluated neither according to their origin nor their looks or their language, This Olympic spirit is symbolized through the Olympic torch. The torch must not be put out, just like we should not lose track of a single day as we dedicate to the cosmopolitan climate with a collectively defined goal. So sensitive the flame, each individual contributes all the more to the everlasting light. My time at Hanwha Europe has so far proved that it can be indeed successful.
The Olympic Games were held for the first time in 2000 AD in ancient Greece. There were only a few disciplines and athletes were all from the region. Already at the time, athletes pledged themselves to a peaceful festival by adhering to the rules of sports. Today, over two thousand years later, there are far more disciplines and athletes join from all around the world to show their fascinating capabilities and be a part of the biggest and most peaceful celebration of humanity. This success story is unprecedented and I already know who will win the gold medal for the best successor—Korea.
Third in annual premium among tier 4 insurers, winner of Sino-Korea Life’s “Team Enhanced Pioneer” award in 2016, third in sales among same-class foreign-capital insurers based in Ningbo:
These are the series of accomplishments the Ningbo branch of the Sino-Korea Life Co., Ltd. has celebrated in less than 10 months since its launch. What is more astonishing is that the hero of this splendor is the financial planner (FP) team that consists of the youngest members in the entire Zhejiang province, aged 28 in average. A typical Chinese insurance company would consist mainly of FPs aged between 45 and 55 in average. Given this, a team made up of young FPs in their 30s was unprecedented in the region.
“It is extremely difficult to nurture a good young team, Being young means that they are that much energetic and can adapt to steep learning curves, but at the same time it means that they lack information and are likely to fail because they are less stable. Therefore, most of the insurance companies are reluctant to hire young people. Xie Lingyi (head of Ningbo branch) is always willing to take on challenging tasks demonstrating high perseverance.”
Senior Manager Junho Jung (Hanwha Life expat) does not spare his compliments for him. Jung says that the success of Xie Lingyi demonstrates a brighter future for Sino-Korea Life. Xie Lingyi aspires to become the head of a tier 3 organization, and then a tier 2. Through his experience of creating the biggest FP team in in this special market of Ningbo in Zhejiang province, his ultimate goal is to contribute to the development of the Chinese insurance industry going forward with the support of his team.
Proactive mindset turns Xie Lingyi from sales team lead into branch head
“I admit that FPs aged older are presently playing a pivotal role in China’s insurance market. The more aged they are, the more information they have. The young ‘new faces,’ so to say, may have limited information but they are willing to explore new marketing models and go for bold innovation. Innovation, to my sense, is the driving force behind the development of any trade. Behind the global success of Apple lies the ceaseless effort to pioneer unexplored fields which changed people’s consumption pattern, and even their lifestyle.”
When Xie Lingyi first joined Sino-Korea Life, he had been the leader of the FP team at the Ningbo branch, and already then, it seems that he had his tactics prepared for creating a young team.
The reality, however, is always harsher than you hope it would be. Young FPs did not have enough data and, once exposed to the tough world of insurance sales, they were easily worn out. To make things worse, boosting sales is never an easy undertaking, so even for the young FPs who had finally come onboard, it happened quite often that they didn’t last and left the company one after another. Xie Lingyi tried many different ways to stop the draining of young talent but was growing anxious as he failed to untie the knot after all. It was then when Jung shared the success stories of young teams at Korean insurance companies, which gave him a lot of insight.
Thoughts determine the behavior. To address the genuine trouble of young FPs who suffered from scarcity of information, Xie Lingyi and his team have decided to carry out a thorough market survey and from that on proactively create database. As part of this initiative, they visited local travel agencies to give lectures on insurance 101 highlighting contingencies and self-rescue measures thereof. Upon finishing the lectures, many employee of the travel agencies bought accident insurance right on the spot.
“Representatives of travel agencies have a higher need for full-coverage accident insurance as they are more likely to be exposed to contingent accidents being more frequently on the road compared to staff employees. We offer our products on a one-on-one basis visiting travel agencies, just like a doctor writing a prescription according to different symptoms. This does not mean that they do not need a critical illness insurance or long-term care insurance. We are just letting them know that, compared to other products, what they need most is accident insurance in realistic terms. As such, we can increase our success ratio by breaking down market demand and taking the pulse in a more accurate manner. Accident insurance premium is relatively low, so 20 policies all together would only make RMB 40 million in total. However, the 20 policies represent 20 customers, so even compared with a singly policy worth 40 thousand RMB, they have far bigger significance: they represent a bigger potential for future growth.” Xie Lingyi, together with his team, devised many similar new sales models, along which customer information started to grow exponentially.
To cope with the issue of losing young FPs, Xie Lingyi made the creation of a corporate culture the top priority and focused on strengthening cohesiveness of the organization. Young people have unique personalities and tend to be sportive, so he frequently organized team activities to create a pleasant working environment for them. For instance, we went on a picnic in the suburbs to boost team spirit and vacations were given as a reward to high-performing FPs.
As a result of his multi-faceted efforts, the team recorded highest sales ever, and Xie Lingyi climbed up to the highest position as a leader of an FP team, namely a director. However, he was not complacent. Early last year, the company started to review a plan to establish a new office in the Ningbo region, and he believed that this was an opportunity for him to convert to a back-office management position and grow the size of his team. He reported to the HQ management and volunteered himself to take on the pioneering initiative.
Transferring from an FP manager to a branch leader was easier said than done. Internally, he had to take care of management, training, and operation, while handling outbound tasks like collaborating with diverse stakeholders, such as sister companies and local governments. In the face of the tough reality, he still maintained a proactive mindset to study whatever is unknown to him and keep questioning things that he did not understand, often staying up late into the night without even recognizing how late it already was. Amidst all the frantic efforts, he never let go of a chance to mingle with the executives or representatives of other branches.
There is a Chinese saying that goes, “No matter how skilled a housewife is, she cannot cook rice without the ingredient.” Lack of manpower was the biggest hurdle Xie Lingyi faced. There were only three back-office employees to manage the approximately 120 FPs: one general back-office manager, one BDM (business development manager), and Xie Lingyi himself. Even with an all-out effort of these three, Xie Lingyi admitted that it would be impossible to get the work done. Amidst this difficult situation, they found a new way to get things done: Namely to bring out the sense of ownership from the FPs. It was the FP teams themselves who formed a business management committee, organizational development team, and project implementation team, and back-office staff led front-office personnel (FPs) to execute what was originally the job of the back office, such as organizing and planning activities, trainings and educations, and sales execution, in support of the back office. As the result of the dedications of all employees, last year’s premium payment and annualized premium of the Ningbo branch was ranked second of all tier 4 organizations, and Xie Lingyi and his team won the 2016 “Team Enhanced Pioneer” award. This is an achievement they have accomplished only after 10 months since its establishment.
Embracing challenge with radiating youthfulness
“As one sows, so shall he reap.” The young team created by Xie Lingyi generated limitless new ideas for the Ningbo branch.
According to a newsletter in the WeChat open account, “Jia Yue Life” of the Jia Yue team, one of the four teams of the Ningbo branch, the members have, accompanied by their children, visited a historical village, an old rural settlement called Ban Pu in Ningbo, where they spent valuable time to experience Chinese traditional culture, trying on traditional costumes and learning the manners of the Han dynasty by making mugwort rice balls and tie-dyed clothes, a traditional handcraft of the old times. In the pictures they posted, one could see the quietness and peacefulness of the old heritages as well as the excitement of the participants. Other newsletters of “Jia Yue Life” tells us about events the team had hosted, product information, industry issues, healthcare tips, educational insights, time spent with customers, and other various activities. According to Xie Lingyi, the WeChat marketing platform is one of the new marketing models he and his young team members have devised. The open account on WeChat is used to communicate with customers, team members sharing insurance information but also useful contents for health, children’s education, and other issues that would interest the households. It also improved the image of the branch to form a long-term, effective, and stable relationship with customers. This is the secret behind the long-term success of the branch’s sales activities.
“In every undertaking, there are many ups and downs at first. The WeChat open account is like a one-man media, but no one from my team had experience with it, so we had no idea on how to register the account, how to post, how to standardize the format of texts and pictures, and what kind of news our customers wanted. We had to find out and ponder upon every single thing from A to Z on our own.” Xie Lingyi admitted that if the team’s average age was 10 years older, they would not have been able to work all the way through. It is after all true that one’s ability and passion for accepting and learning something new diminishes as they grow older and that in relative terms, younger people have a stronger propensity for accepting challenge, according to Xie Lingyi’s explanation.
Your effort never betrays you. On April 1, China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) carried out a New Deal policy in the insurance market, and thanks to the teams that have explained the new policy to customers in detail and the changes in the company’s insurance products well in advance through the WeChat open account, many new and existing customers have voluntarily signed the new insurance policy.
Leading organizational culture: driving the development of Chinese insurance market
Southern Song dynasty wrote in his work 〈Zhuzi Quanshu (朱子全書), Xue Wu (學五)〉, “The fine words you hear and the good conducts you see from people shall be admired and recorded (見人嘉言善行,則敬慕而記錄之).” The slogan of the “Jia Yue” team, “beautiful and fine speech and behavior, joyful and dynamic life” was conceptualized from this very phrase, expressing the educational significance of good speech and virtuous behavior. The other three teams also present their own slogans in high spirits. The “Jia He” team’s slogan is “accept talent with joyous minds and let us all harmonize;” the “Jia Yuan” team’s is “praise, encourage, and move ahead diligently;” and lastly, the “Jia Xin” team’s is “for the peace and prosperity of the nation, for the joy and harmony of the whole world”—each one of them being full in vigor. Xie Lingyi told us that the most important aspect of creating an organizational culture is excellent and reliable young teams, and the core values are indispensable in making one.
“Cultural and national differences between Korea and China leads to discrepancies in the insurance market as well, but regardless of regions, core values always speak the same language. The element that is most needed in China’s insurance industry is ‘Challenge’ among the core values of Hanwha Group. If we are successful in setting up a unified value system based on this, we will be able to move towards the same goal by going further together.” His words and eyes are full of confidence.
The most economically vibrant city of Zhejiang province, Ningbo, is sometimes dubbed the “little Shanghai.” Xie Lingyi says that the persistent expansion in the Ningbo market as a warm-up for making inroads into the Shanghai market, and in this respect, shows deep affection for the Ningbo branch. His next goal is, with the Zhejiang province’s largest FP team in this special market of Ningbo as a momentum, to make full use of this team and spearhead the development of the Chinese insurance industry.
Perhaps, as he said, we should always dream big. After all, we never know when it will come true!