“ Yes! We can. “ – to compete, and excel successfully in a global job market

“ Yes! We can. “ – to compete, and excel successfully in a global job market
- blog by Steve Hwang ( 黃國興)

After publishing my book of “ Five Secrets of Management and Leadership” "領導與管理5大祕密：如何創造一支勝利的團隊" in 2007, I began giving the lectures, which is intended to share my personal life, work experience and to emphasize on the significance of an individual’s continued skill development and identify the areas for professional career development and growth.

Over the course of two years, I conducted ~20 lectures with universities and companies in Taiwan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong-Kong and USA. My primary goal when conducting these lectures was to motivate and inspire them.

I wanted to encourage them uncover strength, unleash potential, and achieve biggest goal they can dream of. I wanted to have an exchange about their personal interest, mission and how to plan and achieve them. And, I often suggested that we should live our life journey to full potential and develop “ can do” attitude with that we can achieve every goal as long as we put our desire and mind to it.

Frequently asked by the audiences who attended my lecture – “ what prepare you to succeed in Silicon Valley where the best talents in the world compete?” “ What secrets to compete and succeed in the job market?” “ What skills I have to have in order to compete in job market?” “ What I need to do for increasing personal value to organization and companies?” “ Am I too old or too young to learn these stuffs?” “ When should I develop these skills – in the school or after? ”.

These are the questions that are very interesting and get at the heart of personal career development and required skills for a successful professional career and life.

And here are four advices to the questions I shared with audiences.

1. Commitment to learning and developing

In order to succeed in job market, we’ve to committed to never stop personal learning and developing. Form my experiences in various management positions at Seagate Technology, I’ve observed an interesting fact – The factors of employees whether they succeed or fail in their job are not determined by Ivy league vs. 2nd/3rd tier universities, or the degree of intelligence, or the level of strength. Rather the distinct factor of predicting who will be excelling in professional career is that successful employees are committed to constantly learning and developing. While less-successful employees are comfortable with past/outdated skills, resist to change and frequently complaining lack of opportunity.

My story is a good example showing how a commitment to continued learning and developing helps my professional advancement at Seagate Technology.

As a foreign student from Taiwan studying in USA, I graduated from a 2nd/3rd tier university, University of Utah, studied in an unattractive field, metal and alloy materials, worked with an extremely nice but little known professor, and faced great difficulty in landing a job when competing with engineers/scientists of prestigious universities, such as Stanford, UC Berkeley, CAL Tech, Yale and the likes. However, after given the opportunity working in a start up company in Silicon Valley, I excelled my career through commitment to learning and developing.

This constant improvement was well noticed by my colleges at Seagate and described in the recommendation letter from my direct boss, Jerry Glembocki, former Sr. VP of Seagate. He wrote of how I strive to make improvement.

“ My most memorable impression of Steve is that he is always looking to improve himself and the situation around him. He would always take the time to meet with me to understand the five most important things from my perspective that he could do to improve himself. Most impressive was that he would always put the things in practice. This would be very visible. There is an insatiable hunger to improve and learn in Steve's heart. As a result of this trait, Steve was able to master the difficult technology challenges and the management disciplines. My experience is that being proficient in both disciplines is very difficult.”

2. Maintain high energy, healthy life style and strong family support

People who desire to succeed in a professional career have to venture into unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory, to face many hardships and roadblocks so they must be able to handle disappointments, cope with stressful situations, become tenacious, and learn to never give up until reach final goal.

I was a rugby player in Cheng-Kung University and trained to have a very healthy and endured body and mind. However, in 1997, after many year lapse of exercise and training, I found that I was gaining weight, fell asleep in the afternoon, felt tired easily, hence my productivity and self-confidence suffered.

When I learned that my CEO, Bill Watson, and my boss, Jerry Glembocki successfully competed and finished in New York and Silicon Valley marathon, it motivated me. I said to myself if they can do it, so can I. Such “ can do” attitude leaded me to Silicon Valley marathon training team through which I’d competed and finished two 26.2 miles full marathon with a very respectable time – 4 hrs – 4hrs & 30 minutes.

Upon the training and race of my marathon, I became fit, built strength physically, most importantly, the mental toughness, inner strength and self –confidence that were missing in my life started to come back. Since then, I’d participated in 198 miles relay race in 28 hours with 10 friends, completed two adventure races in Las Vegas and New Zealand sponsored by Seagate Technology while maintaining daily running and exercise for past 12 years.

In addition, I have an excellent supporting group from my family, parents, in laws, relatives and friends. I’ve married to my wife, Su, for 20 years with whom I met in the 3rd year of college. Together, we’ve two wonderful daughters, Jessica, Junior in University of California, Irvine, and Justine, 11th grader of high school student. Three of them help me not only succeed in a very stressful and competitive career but also show me how to relax, learn to be humble, humorous, and frequently stop to smell the roses with family.

We’ve to realize the importance of a high energy, healthy body, a strong emotional, psychological capability inside and having a strong family support. The advancement and success of professional career can’t be possible without them.

3. Develop ability to communicate, coordinate project, lead teams and organizations

I urge and give advice to every employee at Seagate Technology "Don't only rely on your technical skills and education for your professional advancement. Be proactive to communication, leadership and coordination skill development."

First of all, we need play active role in our own development, seeking out opportunities where we can lead cross functional/geographic teams, coordinate multiple functional projects and ask for managerial rather than staff assignment.

Communication, coordination and leadership skills are not born with, can’t be bought, rather can be trained. During my professional career in Silicon Valley, I’ve experienced the important of these skills or lack of can impact to personal career.

Looking at employees of a high tech company in Silicon Valley, it is usually composed of 40-50 % Asians, 15-20% Middle Eastern, 20-25% of European and Caucasian, 10% Black and Hispanic. 40-50% Asian who typically have Master or Ph.D. degree and are responsible for critical technical projects, but hold very few top management positions, and see their contributions and values to company diminish as they get older and can’t keep abreast of the advancement of technical knowledge. While European, Caucasian and Middle Eastern who made up less than 50% of total technical staff, hold up more than 95% of top management positions and are running the company show.

There are many factors causing different career path for Asians and others. And lack of communication, coordination, leadership’ skills are widely considered to be the primary factor to why Asians are absent in the top management ranks.

I’ve realized the important of these skills in the eary of my career. So I’ve been deliberately working on these skills and practicing on the job. My predecessor in recording media R&D at Seagate, Dr. Joel Weiss, was observing my development process.

He wrote these in his recommendation.

” It has been rare in all those years that I had the opportunity to work with an individual who possesses so many of the key attributes required to transform an organization and to make it great. Steve Hwang has developed his skills through experiencing and responding to both the ‘tough times’ and the ‘great times’ in one of the most difficult and challenging businesses in the high tech world - hard disk drives. This is an industry where a ‘pause’ in innovation can bankrupt a company. Steve’s ability to lead, motivate, encourage, hold accountable, and reward his people was not something that he was born with, nor instinctive, but rather something that he strived for, learned, and implemented 'on the job' during his years in the industry. He learned about these skills by observing others whom he admired, learned what he needed to do to improve by openly discussing his own personal needs, and re-engineered himself to become one of the most productive, talented individuals in my organization.”


4. Take effort and contribute to community and those who needs our help and supports

Many studies show that when a person gets a job or a promotion, 85% of the time it is because of his/her attitude, and only 15% of the time of intelligence and knowledge of his related topics.

A postive attitude is the the fundation of success, regardless of chosed profession we are in. As individuals continue to advance professional career and enhance personal skills, the same urge and effort that drive individual forward should help building a strong and better communities.

Through volunteerism, personal donation and giving, we can keep a positive attitude, recharge passion, and renew the sense of mission to make a difference for our communities.

We can focus our support and efforts in several areas that align with personal goal, and the community interests and needs.

--"Teaching and Learning” – we can dedicate time to teach on science, technology, engineering and math education through hands-on learning opportunities for children or others.

--"Support Green and help Earth” - we can help reduce our impact on our planet and within our communities, go clean up beach, pick up garage on the road with friends and family

--"Health and Wellness" – we should promote healthy lifestyles and wellness in our communities by involving little league sports, organizing team sport and races.

--"Reach out” - we help those most in need in our community through money donation to charities, and other activities, such as build bicycle for kids, furnish house for elders, deliver meals for hungrier.


Another frequent asked question during my lecture was: “ Am I too old or too young to learn these skills?”

----· Am I too old to learn these stuffs?? The answer is “ No. It’s never too late” - if you are a working professional, you should follow these daily activities. 1. reading books when you commute, during the lunch break and after dinner; ask your boss, spouse, and parents on what the improvement you should work on, then practice and improve it on the job; 2. playing sports and exercising daily in the morning or every weekend. Keep a simple life – avoiding smoking and other bad habits. 3. working on communication, coordination and leadership skills by participating in communication, leadership & management training, and asking for the opportunity to lead project and organization.; 4. becoming volunteer for community service.

----· Am I too young to train for these skills?? No, you are not too young to learn these skills. If you are a student and study for landing a good pay job and bright future, you need to start 1. Extending learning and education not limited to own field, but cover other disciplines, such as finance, engineering, psychology, and others. 2. involving in competitive team sport for training personal endurance, improving energy and understanding teamwork. 3. enhancing communication skill by being a member of Toast Master; coordination skill by becoming a member of technical and student societies, leadership skill by being a captain to school sport teams, a student lead on school societies and/or a lead in international activity/meeting. 4. volunteering 5-10 hours/per week for teaching children, and helping elders.

Though I acknowledged that these advices are my personal experience and help excel my career, I also understand that some of people may be uncertain or uncomfortable of staring this process. To those people, I will tell them that the new things are typically uncomfortable, but today’s comfort is result of tomorrow’s failure.

A successful change requires mental strength, endurance and flexibility. So let’s take these activities today; don’t wait until another day.

And I know that we can! , and we will succeed! See you all on the top of selected profession.

Thank you,
Steve Hwang