Chang Dechuan: March on with “Discipline Alarm”

“The mission of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are working for country ,for society and for workers. In other words, SOEs should be responsible for our country, our enterprise and our workers. These three responsibilities are “Discipline Alarm”. No matter how difficult to complete the mission, we must accept these restricts and march on.”
He is said to be a SOE cooperate governance master, a ‘godfather’ in the field of Chinese port management and ‘Yue Fei’, a loyal national hero of the day. However, he calls himself the ‘eldest son’, the ‘filial son’ of his motherland. He is peaceful and simple, at the same time, he is courageous and keen. He is not only a beloved leader, but also a determined enterpriser who leads his team to create wonders. He is Chang Dechuan.
Recently, Chang Dechuan, Chairman of Qingdao Port has been interviewed by Shippingchina. At the firs moment we met, the sincere smile on his face shows us his kindness and peace in heart.

“As a SoE’s leader, I must be the ‘eldest son’ of our motherland”
  The managing master Peter F Drucker once said that, an enterprise can only grow up in the enterpriser’s thought dimensions. Only when the enterpriser has a remarkable thought can he lead the enterprise to success, and make it stronger and larger. The development of the Qingdao Port is an exact sample of this quote.
Born in an ordinary worker’s family, after graduating from the college, Chang Dechuan, from a stevedore worker to the chairman nowadays, has been working in the Qingdao Port for 40 years. During these 40 years, Qingdao port had endured the pain of transforming the system of economy from planned economy to market economy, had realized the six ‘large step’ and‘world-class’ dream, had made rapid increase of throughout capacity,  property, taxation, efficiency and benefit come true, had enhanced quality of team of all the workers and founded advanced working teams……
For this achievement, he replied “The back of our rapid development is the common pursue and belief of value of all the members in our port.” And this leaks out the profound mystery of the success of Qingdao Port and shows us why Qingdao Port has become world-class.
　
Journalist: As you have made “Work for country ,for society and for workers” the mission of Qingdao Port, and sticking to the mission means to sacrifice more private benefit, why do you choose to take so much on you shoulder, and what about your own dream?

Chang Dechuan: Because we are operating a SoE, it is not only an enterprise, but also an open door to the world which conveys the image of our country. I usually say that Qingdao Port is a “national team” which has the destiny to be the backup force of our country, to be the “eldest son” of our country, to be the “filial son” of our motherland. In view of these, we must make our enterprise better, stronger and more professional. Without doubt, we must pay more efforts to achieve our goals,
 My dream is to contribute myself to make our country a strong nation in the field of shipping, and make our Qingdao Port the shipping center of Northeast Asia which is a dream of my generation.

Journalist: The enterprise culture is a reflection of the leadership’s belief of value. So, how do you convey your patriotic belief to all the workers in Qingdao Port and make it the spirit of the enterprise?
　
Chang Dechuan: We do attach importance to building of the enterprise culture. I think the culture of the enterprise is soul of the enterprise. After owning this soul, all the members will be voluntary to do his best.
Qingdao Port has a long history of 117 years, and in the river of this history , she has not only raised several generations of stevedores up, moreover, this long process has created out our own culture, which is the “3-each generation” spirit that we usually talk about. And we must put this spirit into practice to realize our mission---work for country, for society, for workers. When everyone takes such spirit and mission, our port will certainly be united enough to develop so rapidly and well. During these years, I have been deeply impressed that a good culture of enterprise can bring so much that the development of the enterprise can be much more stable. For Qingdao Port, on the one hand, It could bring more benefits to our country, on the other hand, it could nature more talents to our nation, and create more space for the staffs to develop themselves. At the same time, the enterprise is also a large family. Under the relaxed and energetic atmosphere, such harmony is the inner power with generate our Qingdao Port to develop rapidly.
Journalist: As you said just now the ‘3-each generation’ spirit—‘Each generation must gain their own achievement, each generation must give out their own contribution, each generation must donate their own sacrifice.’ What do think of the missions of your generation and the post-80s, post-90s,and the differences ？ 
  
Chang Dechuan: It is certainly that every generation has its differences. But the same pursue of those generations are all to contribute to our motherland. The conception of patriotism and contributing to our country is all the same .To contribute to national shipping and to contribute to the development of our national ports. No matter the post-80s or the post-90s, to contribute to our nation and love our Party is always the same unchanging pursue.

When all the national enterprises are dealing with the bad influence which the American financial crisis brought to our economy, the book On state-owned Enterprise by Chang Dechuan has been published all over China. The author has 40 years’ SoE managing experience in state-owned enterprise. Through the lines in the book, the impression of a patriotic enterpriser and the wisdom of thinker in a state-owned enterprise sparkles.

　
Journalist： On state-owned enterprise has merged the thought and experience of Chairman Chang. What about your expectancy of the social influence of this book?

Chang Dechuan: On State-owned Enterprise is the impression of my 40 years experience in Qingdao Port. It is difficult to operate a SoE, probably more difficult than other kinds of enterprises. we have to face the problems which were brought to us during the process of transforming the economic system from planned economy to market economy. These are the burdens that the history left behind: where should the workers leave for? What could we do for financing？These are the huge and realistic problems confusing us? As a state-owned enterprise, we must deal with these problems well. After these years’ endeavor, I have had so many impressions about reforming and developing state-owned enterprise that I wrote this book.
　
 This book begins with the mission of the state-owned enterprises and has also talked about how the enterprise can get a win-win in harmony and how to enhance the cohesion of the enterprise, Those are my impression from the experience, and I am expecting that this book can bring some inspiration of promoting a state-owned enterprise and give a point for enterprisers to promote the core competitiveness with the guidance of the Scientific Concept of Development.

  
Journalist: During SoE reform, Qingdao Port didn’t let the employees laid off. Now the financial crisis erupts, Qingdao Port promised that she won’t lay off employees, won’t cut pay, won’t leave an employee to society, Qingdao Port reassured its employees. But how to ensure the employees work securely, actively, creatively and without a sense of crisis? How to balance?
Chang Dechuan: The real port economy was heavily hit by the international financial crisis, the ship and cargo experienced a sharp downturn. For example, the BFI dropped to under 600 points in December from last year’s highest 12000 points. Leaders who operate the business and the employees both know that port and shipping enterprises encountered unprecedented difficulties. Employees are afraid of being laid off under such conditions. In fact, cutting staff and cutting pay are normal, but we consider that the more difficult the condition is, the much determination we need to get over together.
So we proposed such objective, and carried out it in reality. In order to make sure that the employees won’t lose their job, we transfer 1400 employees to other positions. Moreover, we pay close attention to the income of employees despite the fact that the financial crisis is really serious and we are lack of fund. Compared with the same period of last year, employees’ income has increased by 3%.
The employees really appreciated it. They felt that the enterprise could still take them into consideration even at such a difficult situation. They will work harder in return. They conduct labor emulation “Worker Pioneer” in positions. The “Worker Pioneer” is by every team and by every day and it competes for safety, quality, benefit and contribution. In the emulation the employees gained vigor and got to know their gap between others, they calculate how much they contributed to the country and how much they lose. They improve their enthusiasm by the practical and visual labor emulation. In this special period, they have shown their practical action and their willing to try to overcome the crisis, it has promoted the development of our port enterprise.
From January to May, our Qingdao Port rose against the tendency obviously, the port's total throughput up 5% compared with the same period of last year, the foreign trade throughput increased more than 3% than last year, and container rose more than 2%. Practice has proved, this approach is correct and it has won the support of employees, it combines the staff together and creates wonders.
“State-owned enterprise is not easy to deal with, but I have to”
The achievement of Qingdao Port has become the focus of world attention. However, if it was back to 5 years ago, at that time, Qingdao City haven’t approved Qingdao Port to built any new dock for many years, it was really a huge barrier for the development of a port. In the face of difficulty, Chang Dechuan didn’t complain, he led the whole port created another and yet another splendidness by relying on inner to tap the latent power, management innovation and such modes.
Journalist: The “1>2”mode of Qingdao Port was called a legend by the industry, what is the key fact to create the legend?
Chang Dechuan: “1>2” is a special statement of Qingdao Port, that’s to use the capacity of one Qingdao Port to create the achievement of two Qingdao Ports. It’s impossible according to natural numerical order, but Qingdao Port wants to make it real. How to? That’s to build a highly efficient port.
We improved efficiency by drilling troops, learning techniques, exercising unique techniques. We created a series of World Records in container, iron ore and carton. We also made use of informatization, technological innovation and information center. Technological innovation has played a pivotal role indeed. If every position could improve its work technique and do some technological development, it will certainly improve our work efficiency and quality. Our labor productivity and workers handling techniques both improved unprecedented, so Qingdao Port could realize the special “1>2”.

Journalist: The current crisis makes the competition between ports becomes fiercer. How to make core competitiveness? Can you talk about your next development planning?
Chang Dechuan: At the present time, the development of ports really faces many difficulties. What can we do? We port enterprises are helping each other now. Taking Shandong for example, we and Rizhao Port and Yantai Port has built alliance, such can enable us not to haggle and compete maliciously and to protect our common benefit.
The next step for Qingdao Port is to accelerate the infrastructure, to build a set of high-level deepwater terminals. Now we are carrying out the “three countries and 5 aspects” program, joint venture investment 1.4 billion dollars to build Qingdao New Qianwan Container Terminal, the berth depth is of -20meters, it could reach  6.5 million TEUs capacity of the 10 berths has been built. Meanwhile, we prepare to jump out of Jiaozhou Bay and to develop new dockland in Dongjiakou, coal mining come first, and to build some processing free trade zone, logistics park, to make Dongjiakou a second Qingdao Port, to give the logistics industry a new appearance.

Journalist: The Internationalization of Enterprises is the trend of the times. The Chinese government also supports Chinese enterprises to “step out”, to expand the market, in your opinion, what problems and opportunities has Chinese port enterprises faced? What is Qingdao Port’s plan?
Chang Dechuan: Port enterprises want to step out is a brand new problem in my opinion. Because ports are normally localized, local exploit, local construct and local develop, it is strange to the external part. In overseas countries, national governments will set up some obstacles to port, they take port as national defense and safety problems. Some obstacles are about policy and labour organization, some are about local conditions, if these obstacles couldn’t handle well, it is certain that many other problems will follow up, in this respect we are very prudent, and we have study several years, but still dare to make up our mind. I think with the opening to the outside world of our country and our familiarity with the outer environment, stepping out can be expected to happen soon.
Journalist: Now, most of ports have set up “Dry ports” inland in order to increase the cargo resource, please introduce about the situation of Qingdao Port.
Chang Dechuan: “Dry Port” refers to move the dock to the area inland where could be given favorable policies and deal with clearing customs and drawback, which is a very effective way and conforms to the whole strategy “rising of central China and Development of the West Regions
Qingdao port has been walking to inland since 1995 and has established 15 office, reaching to XinJing, the farthest area, Chongqing , Chengdu, Lanzhou and Xian in Southeast ,until to Zhenzhou and so on . Recalling our together with customs and inland developed containers market inland, it is on huge potential which will contribute to our containers growth in the first half of this year.
In addition, “Dry port “will increase the qualities of container from sea to inland. When the cargo from sea arrive the port, most should be transported to inland, we convey the cargo to inland through pendulum transportation. Then, the inland take out the cargo and export others in taking advantage of the container, which is a virtuous cycle. Especially, in the first half of this year, the volume of cargo, transporting to the Middle Asia and West Asia through our railway is great rising. So ,we think that it is very necessary to set up “dry port” and it is also the important part of developing potential. Meanwhile, it is very necessary way to keep the development of our container.

Journalist: What do you want to do after retirement and what about the way of living?
 
Chang Dechuan: I still want to research the development of port and sum up the experiences of our Chinese port development. In fact, we feel our management of the port do not fall behind through my many years experiences. In the past, I studied the soviet pattern when I was in school, and after reform and opening-up, we all studies European or American pattern. But we have master our own unique management system which conform to the state of our country and the economic development of socialism with characteristics lover the 30 years after reform and opening-up. Our management system is practical and I hope to sum up well in order to make our port surpass other countries on the side of economic strength, and to make the world know the Chinese management pattern.