Crisis management
How did Ed Yang manage to go from one of many lowly HP engineers to vice-chairman of a major American corporation in 25 years?
Yang was always a good student. He graduated from Taipei's prestigious Chien-kuo Senior High and was guaranteed a place in National Cheng Kung University's Department of Electrical Engineering. He soon found a girlfriend, Lu Ping, a student in the university's Department of Foreign Languages. They married young, and their children--a son and a daughter--both own their own businesses today.
After completing his military service, Yang was awarded a joint scholarship from the United Nations and the Dutch company Philips to study at the company's institute in the Netherlands for one year. This scholarship, awarded to one student from each developing nation each year, opened a window to the world for 24-year-old Yang 30 years ago. He took the risk of traveling to Europe on his passport from the unrecognized Republic of China.
After returning to Taiwan and working for one year, in 1976 he went to the United States to enter a Master's program in electrical engineering at the University of Oregon. In 1980 he started at HP, and after seven months was promoted to project manager. One year after that, he was again promoted to second-tier department manager. He was then put in charge of quality control for networking products.
The young Yang was called upon to save many projects.
One such time was when HP decided to enter the RISC processor market. It was investing a lot of money, and the entire communication and networking architecture of its computers would have to be reconfigured. Customers were only willing to wait so long, however, and the team members were split between California and France. There was a time difference, and the management cultures were very different. Yang, who was in charge of the project, says that the deadline had already passed and team morale was low. He was also a newcomer. He just wanted to have it finished as quickly as possible, so he put in long hours. He got it done, but there were many mistakes.
In 1992, opportunity knocked. Hewlett-Packard decided to try to sell computers to the telephone companies. It also established an Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore, which Yang was selected to manage.
His friends told him not to accept the offer, as the economic outlook was not good. Furthermore, Yang was unfamiliar with the Asian market--if he performed poorly, he might have no job to come back to at head office. But Yang was determined to try.
For two years in Singapore, Yang was in charge of everything. Singapore hadn't been a major market for HP's IT products, but with strategic partnerships with Japan's NTT and Hong Kong Telephone, business picked up.
Yang returned to the Silicon Valley in 1994 and quickly found himself promoted to chief technology officer of the PC department and second in charge of the company's research labs. He would be responsible for coordinating work at ten labs in France, Singapore, California, and Oregon, and supervising product research and development. It would also be his job to coordinate development with large companies such as Microsoft and Intel.
The engineer trap
Did Yang ever find himself under a Chinese "glass ceiling"?
"I don't believe so," he says in his strong voice. With scientific rationality, he analyzes the finer points of cultural difference.
He believes that Chinese tech-industry employees don't reach top management positions for many reasons. First of all, he says that many are unsuited for managerial work or have no interest in it--especially considering that a senior engineer can make good money as it is. At HP, talented engineers with no interest in management were on a different career path.
Some have the interest, but they are unwilling to leave their area of specialty. They don't want to study the market, sales and marketing, finance, strategic planning, and other such areas that are required knowledge for a manager. Some engineers even actively reject these subjects. "You can't make a straight line from your field into another area, and it's hard to get promoted," says Yang.
Finally, there is the problem of communication. Many people think that Chinese can't break into the corporate mainstream because they speak English with an accent. "But in America," Yang says, "French-accented English is considered sexy." He believes that effective communication means clearly expressing your ideas. He says, "Many Chinese think that to struggle proactively is to step out of one's place. The boss is seen as the all-knowing hero, but actually that is a one-sided fantasy. You have to at least let the boss know you are interested in management."
Yang, who has been observing the ups and downs of the Silicon Valley Chinese community for years and has acted as a consultant to Saratoga's city treasurer, says that while once Chinese were only engineers and businesspeople, now they are venture capitalists and politicians--they have many more opportunities for development. However, it seems that not many younger Taiwanese are willing to make the trip abroad to study the newest technology, and there might not be anyone to take up the torch.
Secrets of innovation
In October of last year, Yang went to Beijing at the invitation of the World Economic Forum to give a talk on "the innovative spirit." There, he discussed his outline of how the innovative spirit can revitalize a company.
Being innovative means being able to anticipate customers' needs. Underlying that is knowing what threats are presented by the competition, and which technologies will help customers become more efficient.
Next, technology is an open system that develops on many fronts. A company must choose its area of specialty in respect to the overall industry. Then it can consider what solutions it can provide and which areas it can bring together.
Thirdly, no nation or business has absolute allies or absolute enemies--enemies could become allies in time. Hewlett-Packard, for example, has withdrawn from research and development of upscale CPUs, contracting the work out to the higher-volume Intel.
"In the past, Taiwan was successful because its small and medium enterprises were tough and flexible. They could stand on the world stage and work with the world," says Yang. "Now, Taiwan has to prepare for the next challenge, and innovation is the key. That's how Taiwan can get a piece of the pie in a globalized marketplace." Yang says that Taiwan's tech industry doesn't have to put all of its energy and resources into China to grab hold of global opportunities, but it also doesn't have to give up on China due to political reasons. Taiwan and China can play complementary roles.
A two-hour interview is not enough to get the entire story of Ed Yang. At the conclusion of our interview, Yang says, "If you can't use the story after you get it straightened out, that's fine." But with a subject like this one, how could we not try?
