Try Hard and Never Give Up
Interview with Poh-Yian Koh, Vice President of Operations, FedEx China
“Everyone should have a thankful heart, be diligent in thought and be humble in attitude, which is the life philosophy and wisdom I pursue,” said Poh-Yian Koh who has a strong character, is conscientious and meticulous in her work and full of energy. At the same time, Poh-Yian, the Iron Lady is kind, tolerant and caring, bringing positive energy to everyone around her. Our conversation with Koh was relaxing and comfortable. Whether we talked about life lessons, workplace or family, she spoke at a moderate speed smilingly, making people feel at ease and welcomed.
As the first Chinese female vice president of FedEx China, Poh-Yian Koh has made outstanding contributions to the company’s growth — from the moment FedEx set up its first office in China through to today when it has developed into a company with 11,000 employees. She has participated in the planning and implementation of key projects in the China market, including budgeting, supervising and auditing, and has managed the execution of projects in each region of China.
From 2000 to 2005, Koh, along with other FedEx executives, achieved double-digit revenue growth for FedEx China, and the number of served cities increased from less than 100 to nearly 200. From 2005 to 2009, she was responsible for the construction of the FedEx Asia Pacific Transit Center in Guangzhou, and from 2012 to 2018, she was in charge of and involved in the development of the FedEx Shanghai International Express and Cargo Hub.
What difficulties has she encountered in the past 30 years of her career? What kind of faith and strength has made her who she is now? What are the principles that she has always been following?
Recently we interviewed Poh-Yian Koh, an outstanding female executive in China. She told us about her upbringing and her career and advised female employees on career development and work-life balance.
Koh has a unique understanding of the definition of success. “Try, and you can learn something valuable from the process.” she emphasized. “Try hard and never give up, and you can learn lessons and improve through failure. That makes me the person I am today. I didn’t try to be the best female engineer or vice president. I do what is right and do every job well. Failure is a motivator, and an accumulation of experience pushes me to find creative ideas.”
Everyone makes mistakes at times, and in Koh’s opinion, sometimes mistakes are a spur and a wake-up call to oneself. The more important thing is to know the value and meaning of mistakes and learn from them.
The Winning Secrets for Women in the Workplace
Growing up in a large family with 11 siblings and being enlightened by her father, a construction developer, as a child Koh developed a strong interest in building models and assembling electrical products and showed great talent for creative design.
“When I was a kid, I built tree houses on durian trees with my siblings,” said Koh. “At 12, I founded my bag brand and became an independent designer. My brand won the favor of retailers and entered the shopping malls.”
These valuable experiences of giving full play to her creative potential laid a strong foundation for her career path of becoming an excellent engineer. When choosing her major at university, at the persuasion of her father and siblings, she compromised and pursued industrial engineering because civil engineering was a dangerous and physically challenging field for women. The positive impact that the engineer’s way of thinking brought to Koh was that she developed the ability to think constantly about how to improve the effectiveness of operations and maximize human potential.
Koh started to work in 1988 and joined FedEx Singapore in May 1990 as an engineer. She first came to China in 1995, when the air express was still an emerging industry in the country. The express industry was developing rapidly, and FedEx acquired the Flying Tigers, gaining air rights in 21 countries. Over the past 30 years, Koh has participated in the growth of China’s express industry and witnessed its development, along with thousands of people who have worked hard and contributed to the industry.
As a female engineer, she has often been asked the following questions: Why did you choose engineering as a career? Is it challenging to manage the operations of a logistics company as a female leader?
When building the Asia Pacific Hub, Koh set up an operations team of more than 900 people in Guangzhou. When she first came on board, she found it challenging to manage the team as she was the only female Chinese in the core management team comprised of male expatriates from the U.S. and UK. However, after she took over the project, she reworked the project plan, and it only took her three months to move forward and finish the negotiations that had been stalled for a year. She also led the team to complete the construction of the crucial hub that laid a solid foundation for FedEx long-term growth in China and the Asia Pacific region.
In 2010, Koh took charge of FedEx China operational planning for receiving international and domestic shipments and made significant improvements in cost savings. At the same time she led her team to improve operational efficiency by optimizing the network, innovating operational models and applying new IT technologies.
Looking back on her 30-year career at FedEx, Koh is grateful to have met many great mentors and to have had a strong team.
“I have worked with many male allies as well as amazing female leaders who have been my mentors, sponsors and role models,” said Koh. “I often maintain good communication with my team members and treat them as my colleagues and friends, giving them care and support in work and life. I also encourage every female leader at FedEx to strive to be a mentor at work and help other female employees on the team develop and plan their careers.”
She suggests that, as employees, we should always stay connected with our immediate managers, who can help us develop our capabilities and get candid feedback and support. We should grow by working hard to complete each challenging task, bring out our potential in practice and stretch ourselves to the limit.
Create a Culture of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion for Employees
The FedEx open door policy and the corporate culture attach great importance to individual capabilities. Inclusion doesn’t mean tolerating low performance; it means giving equal attention to the competencies of each individual despite gender differences. In Koh’s view, why we get promoted as women leaders is only because we demonstrate the capabilities that the company needs. We need to learn and develop our capabilities constantly to meet the high standards and requirements we place on our work.
“Of course, the journey will not be smooth,” said Koh. “We will stumble and fall and encounter setbacks. For each failure, I think about what I can learn from it.”
Koh often reflects on her work. “Are my unconscious biases preventing me from making the right decisions? We may not be aware of our biases because we use them as shortcuts to process information quickly. We need to overcome such unconscious bias.
“The FedEx unique People-Service-Profit or PSP management philosophy allows our employees to work in a very humane and caring environment, which makes me very proud,” added Koh. “Our corporate culture plays a critical role in bringing together more than 600,000 employees from diverse cultural backgrounds from all over the world. At the same time, our new cultural values of “take care of each other,” “commit to do good,” “own outstanding,” “drive business results” and “create what’s next” provide good guidelines for our daily behavior. For example, the value “take care of each other” requires that employees respect differences and recognize diverse opinions while focusing on work. This is a value that the company has been actively promoting.
Find Your “Life Compass”
For women, the balance between family and work seems to be a constant challenge. When talking to Koh about how to make good use of the limited time in a day, how to balance life and work, and how to juggle things efficiently in a day, she said, “We need to learn to ‘manage’ work and family, just like running a company. In order to make sure every task is completed and done well, first we need to know how to manage ourselves. If you maintain a positive attitude and state of mind, your family, friends and employees will do the same. To achieve the balance, we should have a good mindset and the knowledge to judge and weigh options.”
Koh reflects and corrects herself every day to live her life to the fullest and bring joy to everyone. She shares her life compass, which helps her grow continuously and maintain a positive attitude.
- Reflection on oneself: Success can make us blind, arrogant and deaf. When you are arrogant, you make stupid decisions and choices that no longer benefit the team.
- Attitude toward change: The business environment is constantly changing, and strategies must be redefined accordingly. Similarly, at home, we need to be alert to changes in the family. For example, your parents are getting older and need more attention and care. Maybe the children are old enough to take on more responsibilities, so we need to watch out for a “complacent” or “maintaining the status quo” mentality. We need to improve our ability to respond to change through continuous learning. For example, we need to upgrade and optimize our use of digital technology in both business and daily life.
- Don’t sweat over trifles and learn to let go: In the long run, insisting on “unity and harmony” creates more respect and loyalty between people. Sometimes differences are due to unconscious bias. With family issues, many times they are trivial problems. Don’t worry about who does more and who does less. Taking on more makes you stronger, more capable and more attractive.
- Understand failure: There is no such word as “failure,” unless we don’t learn from it. Failure is a part of life, and it takes us to the next level. I think if I have not experienced failure for some time, it means that I did not work hard enough and did not improve.
- Learn to compromise: Compromise is a part of life. Compromise does not mean giving up on your goals. To achieve a win-win situation, you need to challenge yourself to find alternative ways to reach your goals.
In short, the only way to have a balanced life is to change yourself. Your actions will sometimes determine the outcome.
When it comes to hobbies, Koh has many. These hobbies help her achieve her dreams and have a rich and fulfilling life. She chooses her hobbies based on whether they can refresh her life, make her feel happy and lead to the next exciting phase of her life after retirement.
“If you watch a movie and you don’t learn from it or you don’t enjoy it, it is a waste of time,” said Koh.
Koh loves gardening because she finds that putting different plants and flowers together can create incredible art. It is also true for management when she puts together employees with varied skills and experience, thus forming an excellent and creative team.
Koh lives by not missing the past and not fearing the future. She focuses on enjoying the present and moving forward. For her future, Koh is full of expectations and vision. She divides her life experience into three stages: growing up, contributing and harvesting.
“The knowledge, skills and abilities we acquire when we are young enable us to contribute to society and our families,” said Koh. “If we live till 90, when we retire, we still have a journey of more than 30 years ahead. We need to continue to live an active and independent life. For me, the ideal state is, in my retirement, when I look back, my heart will be filled with pride and satisfaction, and when looking forward, I can do even more interesting and meaningful things.”
Koh is indeed a role model for women everywhere and we are privileged to have her participate on the Women Empowerment Council (WEC).