Leading the team forward
By Lily
Photos by Yao Fan



"外企中方代表风云榜"于上周起隆重推出. 本期我们采访了厦门宝龙酒店现任总经理张云. 拥有良好国际教育背景的他, 曾经成功地领导了数家国际知名酒店的筹备开业及经营管理. 在其二十多年的职业生涯中, 他体味了破旧立新的困惑与艰辛, 也收获了以战略头脑统率团队、协同作战的成就感与快乐.
上任厦门宝龙酒店总经理不久的他, 一如既往地遵循着"严谨、务实、科学"的信条, 努力带领团队朝着国际化管理的方向迈进.

Founded in the 1980s by Xu Jiankang, a well-known entrepreneur from Macao, Powerlong was originally an industrial and commercial enterprise. Later on it developed into a competitive real estate company and moved into the mainland market in the 1990s. Now it has grown into a large and diversified group with companies working in the areas of real estate, hotel management, informatics and high technology. Xiamen Powerlong Industrial is a division of the Macao Powerlong Group. It was incorporated in June 1998 and at the end of 2004 it received approval from the National Tourism Bureau for its five-star rating. Collin Zhang became the General Manager in August this year.

Natural progress and deep understanding

Though hotel management was not Collin Zhang's original choice of career, he entered the field right after his graduation from high school in 1981. "There was a great demand for hotels which could meet the requirements of foreigners in the early 1980s. I didn't have much choice but to take a job in this area even though I had little knowledge of hotel management. But as time went by, I found it more and more interesting and challenging."

Over 20 years have passed since Collin was first employed at the Holiday Inn Lido Beijing. At that time, he had been promoted to ever higher positions and moved from city to city, earning a good living. But there was one incident which affected him deeply and has served as a stimulus right up to the present day.

"I had a serious argument with my Hong Kong supervisor when I was just starting out. I heard him talking with a foreigner, saying he came to work in China because he believed that people on the mainland were not skilled in providing good service, and that he wanted to change the attitude of the locals. I was extremely unhappy about what he had said. I thought it was an insult to the mainland Chinese. So, not only did I argue with him, I also reported it to the hotel's local management. This dispute came to represent the conflict between local staff & expatriate managers. The local management organised hotel-wide debates on the topic of ‘why do we have foreign management in the hotel?' Of course, I was at the center of the debates."B
Cautious, practical, scientific

Collin has worked in international chains, including Howard Johnson Hotels and Resorts and Gloria International Hotels; he has also managed the opening of a number of famous international chain hotels such as the Kai Wai Plaza Kunming (5 star), the Fontainebleau Guangdong Hotel (4 star), Tianjin Teda International Club (5 star Hotel & Apartment) and Shenyang Royal Fortune Hotel (5 star). In all of these positions, Collin has always maintained an attitude of being "cautious, practical and scientific."

After becoming the GM of Powerlong Hotel Xiamen on August 1st 2005, Collin has gone all out to bring the hotel's management in line with international practice. Hardware upgrades, staff training and reshuffles have kept him at work day and night over the past 50 days. To his great pleasure, the management team members are now highly motivated and eager to change and improve, which was totally unimaginable when Collin first arrived. The high turnover and successful image that he found disguised poor motivation among the management team. In the previous three months, more than 60% of the staff had left the hotel. They had many different reasons for leaving. Most of them felt dissatisfied with the hotel management. Though it has recently upgraded to five-star status, the Powerlong has a long way to go before its running is fully normalized.

During the CIFIT this September, the Powerlong Hotel Xiamen was appointed for the first time to be one of the official hotels of the fair. The feedback from customers confirmed that the improvements in the hotel management were having a real effect, and boosted the confidence of all the staff.

"My aim is to make Powerlong Hotel Xiamen very competitive in the hotel industry and to gain respect of other hoteliers, especially the international chain hotels. No matter how difficult it might be, I will never give up." In Collin's view, a successful hotel GM must be a strategic thinker. He must know how to lead the hotel into a pattern of sustainable development. At the same time, he should also be a director and guide to the staff, especially the middle management. He must be a leader, leading people forwards; sometimes he has to reach out to individuals to help them catch up. He should also be a mature communicator, good at coordinating with all parties. Finally, he must provide backup to his staff when they are in trouble.

"It will take time for me to achieve my goal, since it's a scientific system. You can't expect a complete transformation to happen overnight. If possible, I would like to build a beer garden and add some other new facilities to update range of services we provide - and to raise service levels accordingly," Collin remarks with an optimistic smile.

Managing the hotel like military division

Despite the fact that he has headed the Beijing Association of Rooms Division Executives as Chairman for ten years, Collin has never ceased trying to find new areas where he can unite his lifetime ambitions and career goals.

"Lead" is one of the words which occurs most frequently in Collin's speech. This is closely connected with his childhood dream of going into the army. "Obviously I'm never going to realize this dream now, and sometimes I still feel sad about that. But with my training and experience, maybe someday when I step down from my GM position, I will be able to start my own hotel management company and run it in my own military style."

Being bold and resourceful, ready to meet challenges, and never flinching from the task in hand - these are the key qualities required for both a successful officer and a manager.


Name: Collin Zhang
Position: General Manager of Powerlong Hotel Xiamen
Education: Master's degree

Vocabulary
diversify 多样化
hotelier 旅店经理
cautious 谨慎的
stimulous 激励的
insult 侮辱
sustainable 可持续的

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