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Thursday, March 28, 2024

The Secret to 200 years with Cathay Pacific’s Robin Bradshaw

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Longevity is as sensational as Duterte and Trump today. Everybody is interested and attracted to the idea of a successful long-lasting relationship. Ambitious men are even yearning for immortality. Couples vow to thrive together towards eternity—in sickness and in health, for better for worse till death us do part. Entrepreneurs and businessmen want to stay in business and be resilient to challenges in the next century or another. Two hundred may just be a number, but the Swire Group is gratified to have served their clients for 200 long years.

The Swire way

I am grateful to get a look at the over-arching secret that makes Swire’s long-lasting relationships successful—relationship with their clients, employees, suppliers, business partners, and relationship among the Swire family. Robin Bradshaw, country manager of Cathay Pacific Airways, shared the Swire way of leadership. He has been with the company for years and had gone through the Swire Leadership Program. The secret to longevity in business is simple. It is the “sense of value and integrity is what has kept it for 200 years.”

By sense of value he refers to what they uphold as core values in their organization. Today, it takes more than capital and good looks to stay in business. You need to do more. By doing more, your actions and everyone in the organization should be embodied in what we call as core values. 

Deeply ingrained principle

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According to Eric Jacobson, the core values “become the deeply ingrained principle and fabric that guide employee behavior and company decisions and actions—the behaviors the company and employees expect of themselves.” Swire’s core values are excellence, integrity, humility, endeavor and continuity. These are what guided them to achieve and serve for two centuries. 

One strategy that Robin shared in order for these values to be carried among the leaders and managers within the organization is by growing their own people. They do not bring leaders from the outside. Instead, they develop them internally.

Be the example

I have been trying to assess the organization I am currently working at and I see that the core values of Swire are quite similar to ours. If these values are so important, then communicating these values is also equally important. 

I go back to my question with Aftab Ahmed, the country chief for Citi Philippines, on how to effectively communicate core values and the answer is really merely walking the talk. Be the example.  

As with my organization, I think they are doing a pretty good job at this and our more than six decades in business is commendable as well. My organization, just like Swire, believes in the value of “integrity” as vital ingredient to success.

Flourish with love and integrity

Robin shared a classic experience of Swire that exhibited the value of integrity. In order for Cathay to fly to India, the negotiation with the Indian government took 20 years. How could this be an issue of integrity in doing business? Well, 20 years is like ages if we are talking about only one negotiation and so the temptation of bribe is higher. However, Swire waited 20 years to succeed in the negotiation and this is what integrity is all about. It is knowing and doing what is right. “Twenty years is just a history if you’re thinking about a 40-year-business,” he said. 

The integrity they put in their relationships is critical to their success. Thus, the highest ethical and moral standards should be maintained. Swire’s existence is a proof to the framework of Harpur on love and integrity in business.

Business is all about relationship among human beings. Relationships flourish with love and integrity.

The author is an MBA student at the Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business. This essay is part of a journal he keeps in fulfillment of the requirements of the course, Trends and issues in Business and Management: CEO Series.  Visit his blog at  http://billytabangcura2.blogspot.com/.

The views expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official position of DLSU, its faculty, and its administrators.

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