Do the thing that you fear

For generations, there was a stereotype that people from southern China must know how to swim because of all the rivers and lakes in that region. But growing up near the water didn’t help Allen Zhong become a swimmer – it made him afraid of it. “My parents wouldn’t let me go swimming,” he says. “There were always stories that kids sneaked out to swim in rivers and tragedies happened. So, from an early age, I believed that water was dangerous.”

Nowadays, most kids in both the north and the south of China swim safely in pools. Allen, who works as Head Production at the GF Suzhou plant, didn‘t want his daughter to grow up with the same fears. He enrolled her in swimming school when she was eight years old. As her most loyal playmate, Allen was itching to have a go, too. In the beginning he was scared, but as he carried on bringing her to the swimming course, he started to relax. He began by observing his daughter’s coach, and then tried swimming on his own. “I had a slow start in the first couple of weeks, but eventually I decided that I had to put my head down and just do it.” Thanks to his determination, Allen managed to learn to swim through regular observation and some training videos. It was hard work, but being finally able to enjoy swimming with his daughter has absolutely been worth the effort – his connection with her is now even closer.

At work, Allen follows the same strategy that helped him learn to swim: he immerses himself in the problem. He leads a team of over 300 people across process engineering, logistics and production. Last year, the scrap rate of the rear shock tower GF is producing for Mercedes- Benz unexpectedly shot up to nearly 20% due to porosity after machining. All of a sudden, there was a risk of not being able to deliver the required quantity on time.

Allen says that everyone involved was under tremendous pressure because they initially struggled to locate the problem. “We were heading in the wrong direction because we were aiming for an easier solution,” he says. “But we had to realize that in this case taking pills was not enough to cure the disease. We needed to perform surgery.” A crisis team from various departments improved the functionality of the venting system to fix the porosity, which was a much more complex workaround than had been anticipated. The redesign, which took a lot of hard work, turned out to be a success – the scrap rate went down to under 2%, allowing GF to fulfill the order according to schedule.

“In our line of work, we are always facing unexpected challenges,” Allen says. “But life has taught me that there’s no better way to handle them than by confronting your fears head on. That way you’ll begin to discover your true potential.” Do what you are afraid of, he says. And, as shown by Allen‘s experience with learning to swim, it‘s never too late to start.