AS an owner of Singapore's Liner Shipping Pte Ltd, Robin Teo has taken a vow to protect his staff and build their careers - and not ruin them.
The philosophic freight forwarder brims with pithy bits of wisdom, which guide his life, and given his bounding enthusiasm, must influence all who know him.
"I always advise my staff to dream, but to dream small dreams first, because small dreams can be more easily achieved," he said in an interview with Asian Shipper.
At core of his beliefs is the power of positive thinking, ever ready to embrace new ideas and do old things in new ways and confront difficulties head on without flinching.
"Sometimes we are at a crossroads. But this is our opportunity to make the most important decisions we ever make," he said.
Such crossroads were met in 1990 at the outbreak of war in the Middle East, when he was setting Liner Shipping up as Mideast specialist.
"When Liner Shipping was established in 1989, it hardly was up and running when my dreams of conquest were shattered by the start the 1990 Gulf War." Or so it seemed, until he picked himself up and got back in the race to fight for his fledging company's survival.
"Problem free management never makes a strong leader," he said. "Clear skies never make a good pilot. Good roads never make good drivers. Stormy seas make a good sailor," he said, recalling hard times in his past.
"Some people will just go with the flow of things and sway in life, but I fight against the currents and go upstream to reach my destiny," he said, remembering how he saved his business.
"So many were thinking this was the end of Liner. But I did not want to believe that. We were able to survive. No one knew how, and in the end, we were able to conquer this market and we grow together with the carriers," he said.
His answer was LCL or less than container load, before anyone thought of the term. In those days it was called "AQ" (all quantities) or "consol" (consolidated). At the time he found a tiny business, which over the years grew to be the dominant intra-Asia trade, itself the world's biggest trade by box volume.
It started with customers' overflow cargo, that exceeded the capacity of one container yet was unable to fill another. "Because of that, we learned how to pick out this cargo and develop a niche for it," said Mr Teo.
And then the long-gone P&O Line gave Liner Shipping a break. They had a lot of these odds and ends to deal with - and there was cheerful Mr Teo with a solution to their problem.
"They allowed us to - and we were the only freight forwarder they allowed this - CY [container yard] and CFS [container freight station] status," Mr Teo said. "We were only freight forwarder in Singapore with that. It is not something they just give away."
After that, P&O and Liner Shipping worked together. And being associated with a conference member line like P&0 with fixed schedules, gave Mr Teo's customers greater confidence in Liner Shipping.
And the good news spread in the freight community that Liner Shipping were the go-to guys for the Mideast.
That, and many other lessons since, taught Mr Teo to think positively and never despair. "Forget your past. Don't think about who you have been, but only who you have decided to become. Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully," he said.
Also necessary on the road to business success, Mr Teo said, is to have a good sense of proportion, and be well organised in all areas of life.
So while he has quick to seize business opportunities, Mr Teo directs his concern to charity, good corporate citizenship, even when it involves some cost or risk to his business.
He is one of the few businessmen to willingly engage convicts in rehabilitation programmes through employment at Liner Shipping in co-operation with the prison service.
While he freely concedes that "leopards never change their spots", he feels that some convicts are not really leopards and have merely made bad choices when young and can with effort change their ways. Yet his is a tough love.
"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them," he said.
Another aspect of good corporate citizenship is coming to the assistance of the Singapore government department when a piece of his company's equipment is needed for a quick job, he will provide it without charge.
Business has changed since those start-up days. "The reason is very simple. During the old days, many countries' cargo were unable to go direct, and would go direct to the Middle East. Today is different. From Bangkok, Jakarta or the Philippines, they can now go direct. No longer do they need Singapore to re-consolidate."
"Because of this, the only thing Singapore does give is the best service it can. Many ocean-going ships go from Thailand through the Suez Canal and take away our transshipment cargo," he said.
In the face of such difficult trends, Singapore applies its comparative advantages. "First, we have a good infrastructure. The attitude of the workers here and their commitment is good and it is a very safe culture. They know that in Singapore we do our best," he said.
"We started with the Middle East, and we expanded from there. We are an operator inside the Port of Singapore - from the Keppel Distripark. We have a warehouse inside the port so we can do all the transshipment," he said.
"In Singapore, the government is going to shift the port to the west side of Singapore. And because they are going to shift it to the west side of Singapore by 2027, I can foresee that the west part will become very busy. This is why I have five warehouses there."
But things change in shipping, a field in which today's wisdom is so often tomorrow's foolishness.
"Correct, correct," Mr Teo said. "Look, right now, even though they expand the Panama Canal, they will have a big problem because carriers now have bigger and bigger ships. Maybe they will go through Nicaragua instead, if they can open one big canal.
"Even in Thailand today, there is a threat to Singapore because the Thai government is going to cut across the land to make a sea channel. Because they can go from east to west through Thailand. And China is involved in this too," he said.
Mr Teo was speaking of the projected Kra Canal across the Malay Peninsula at its narrowest that may well be the next big talking point in Asia-Europe shipping. A centuries' old idea, it has now attracted China's serious attention as it fits in with its new "One Road One Belt" global transport initiative.
The Kra Canal, if built stands to shave days off a typical Asia-Europe voyage, though would undoubtedly put Singapore and Port Klang in mortal peril if megaships could one day cut out the southern plunge to Singapore and the Malacca Strait by cutting across the Malay Peninsula before the crossing the Indian Ocean into the Red Sea and going on to Suez and the Med.
Philosophically, he says: "We never know what's around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day, I look back and I have climbed the mountain."
Today, one of the great debates in shipping companies, large and small, is whether to be asset-heavy or asset-light.
"Liner Shipping is more asset-heavy. We have crane lorries for lifting the cargo off trains. We have a crane for heavy lift as well as all kinds of loading, lashing equipment."
What matters to him most is command and control. Mr Teo very much likes being in command of the situation where he can exercise proper control.
The asset light strategy has the advantage of not having equipment one has to pay for and maintain it even when it is idle. In such cases, management sub-contracts or leases the assets to provide the services to customers.
Then there's the asset heavy strategy, where one invests in infrastructure, equipment, owning and operating yourself.
Said Mr Teo: "If we can manage to own ourselves and operate it ourselves, there is no need to be at the mercy of others. When we become the operator we command ourselves."
What he likes is having control over scheduling, operational quality, service levels and safety - all those areas, which should be fully under his control. "The more you do yourself, the less you are at the mercy of the sub-contractor," he said.
"Sometimes our customers say we need it right now. If we control ourselves, we can tell our own department. It is direct - we can activate resources in relation to the job to be done and we know ourselves and we can get the job done and when it will be done."
But if we get a contractor, then we are at his mercy. We can only say we can get the job done - when they can get the job done - and not even be sure of that. We are left to ask if you do it for me this or can you do it for me that. Some of these they can do for some and not for others.
In the face of difficult trends, Singapore can only apply its comparative advantages, with sheer quality of service being the most important.
And forwarders are needed to provide trucking, warehousing and cargo handling. "Today, we have a free trade zone in Singapore. We lease the whole unit from the port and we do our own operations, we have our own cargo to ship in from agents to Singapore.
"We just do whatever we need to do, unstuffing, transhipments, we are logistics people. Not many are. The others do not own a warehouse, because the number of warehouses in Singapore is limited. So sometimes they will engage our service, and then we just give the support to them.
"And we share the profit together, whatever we receive, in order to help everyone survive," he said.
Asked what accounted for his success, Mr Teo said: "Whatever I do, I use my heart. A person who works with his hands is a labourer. A man who works with his hands and his mind is a craftsman, but a man who works with his hands, his mind and his heart is an artist."
As if speaking for Singapore, he said: "We do not need approval of our competitors or others. We are our own person with unshakable courage and confidence in our decisions and ability."
So ends Mr Teo's lesson, from which many may profit.
The philosophic freight forwarder brims with pithy bits of wisdom, which guide his life, and given his bounding enthusiasm, must influence all who know him.
"I always advise my staff to dream, but to dream small dreams first, because small dreams can be more easily achieved," he said in an interview with Asian Shipper.
At core of his beliefs is the power of positive thinking, ever ready to embrace new ideas and do old things in new ways and confront difficulties head on without flinching.
"Sometimes we are at a crossroads. But this is our opportunity to make the most important decisions we ever make," he said.
Such crossroads were met in 1990 at the outbreak of war in the Middle East, when he was setting Liner Shipping up as Mideast specialist.
"When Liner Shipping was established in 1989, it hardly was up and running when my dreams of conquest were shattered by the start the 1990 Gulf War." Or so it seemed, until he picked himself up and got back in the race to fight for his fledging company's survival.
"Problem free management never makes a strong leader," he said. "Clear skies never make a good pilot. Good roads never make good drivers. Stormy seas make a good sailor," he said, recalling hard times in his past.
"Some people will just go with the flow of things and sway in life, but I fight against the currents and go upstream to reach my destiny," he said, remembering how he saved his business.
"So many were thinking this was the end of Liner. But I did not want to believe that. We were able to survive. No one knew how, and in the end, we were able to conquer this market and we grow together with the carriers," he said.
His answer was LCL or less than container load, before anyone thought of the term. In those days it was called "AQ" (all quantities) or "consol" (consolidated). At the time he found a tiny business, which over the years grew to be the dominant intra-Asia trade, itself the world's biggest trade by box volume.
It started with customers' overflow cargo, that exceeded the capacity of one container yet was unable to fill another. "Because of that, we learned how to pick out this cargo and develop a niche for it," said Mr Teo.
And then the long-gone P&O Line gave Liner Shipping a break. They had a lot of these odds and ends to deal with - and there was cheerful Mr Teo with a solution to their problem.
"They allowed us to - and we were the only freight forwarder they allowed this - CY [container yard] and CFS [container freight station] status," Mr Teo said. "We were only freight forwarder in Singapore with that. It is not something they just give away."
After that, P&O and Liner Shipping worked together. And being associated with a conference member line like P&0 with fixed schedules, gave Mr Teo's customers greater confidence in Liner Shipping.
And the good news spread in the freight community that Liner Shipping were the go-to guys for the Mideast.
That, and many other lessons since, taught Mr Teo to think positively and never despair. "Forget your past. Don't think about who you have been, but only who you have decided to become. Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully," he said.
Also necessary on the road to business success, Mr Teo said, is to have a good sense of proportion, and be well organised in all areas of life.
So while he has quick to seize business opportunities, Mr Teo directs his concern to charity, good corporate citizenship, even when it involves some cost or risk to his business.
He is one of the few businessmen to willingly engage convicts in rehabilitation programmes through employment at Liner Shipping in co-operation with the prison service.
While he freely concedes that "leopards never change their spots", he feels that some convicts are not really leopards and have merely made bad choices when young and can with effort change their ways. Yet his is a tough love.
"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them," he said.
Another aspect of good corporate citizenship is coming to the assistance of the Singapore government department when a piece of his company's equipment is needed for a quick job, he will provide it without charge.
Business has changed since those start-up days. "The reason is very simple. During the old days, many countries' cargo were unable to go direct, and would go direct to the Middle East. Today is different. From Bangkok, Jakarta or the Philippines, they can now go direct. No longer do they need Singapore to re-consolidate."
"Because of this, the only thing Singapore does give is the best service it can. Many ocean-going ships go from Thailand through the Suez Canal and take away our transshipment cargo," he said.
In the face of such difficult trends, Singapore applies its comparative advantages. "First, we have a good infrastructure. The attitude of the workers here and their commitment is good and it is a very safe culture. They know that in Singapore we do our best," he said.
"We started with the Middle East, and we expanded from there. We are an operator inside the Port of Singapore - from the Keppel Distripark. We have a warehouse inside the port so we can do all the transshipment," he said.
"In Singapore, the government is going to shift the port to the west side of Singapore. And because they are going to shift it to the west side of Singapore by 2027, I can foresee that the west part will become very busy. This is why I have five warehouses there."
But things change in shipping, a field in which today's wisdom is so often tomorrow's foolishness.
"Correct, correct," Mr Teo said. "Look, right now, even though they expand the Panama Canal, they will have a big problem because carriers now have bigger and bigger ships. Maybe they will go through Nicaragua instead, if they can open one big canal.
"Even in Thailand today, there is a threat to Singapore because the Thai government is going to cut across the land to make a sea channel. Because they can go from east to west through Thailand. And China is involved in this too," he said.
Mr Teo was speaking of the projected Kra Canal across the Malay Peninsula at its narrowest that may well be the next big talking point in Asia-Europe shipping. A centuries' old idea, it has now attracted China's serious attention as it fits in with its new "One Road One Belt" global transport initiative.
The Kra Canal, if built stands to shave days off a typical Asia-Europe voyage, though would undoubtedly put Singapore and Port Klang in mortal peril if megaships could one day cut out the southern plunge to Singapore and the Malacca Strait by cutting across the Malay Peninsula before the crossing the Indian Ocean into the Red Sea and going on to Suez and the Med.
Philosophically, he says: "We never know what's around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day, I look back and I have climbed the mountain."
Today, one of the great debates in shipping companies, large and small, is whether to be asset-heavy or asset-light.
"Liner Shipping is more asset-heavy. We have crane lorries for lifting the cargo off trains. We have a crane for heavy lift as well as all kinds of loading, lashing equipment."
What matters to him most is command and control. Mr Teo very much likes being in command of the situation where he can exercise proper control.
The asset light strategy has the advantage of not having equipment one has to pay for and maintain it even when it is idle. In such cases, management sub-contracts or leases the assets to provide the services to customers.
Then there's the asset heavy strategy, where one invests in infrastructure, equipment, owning and operating yourself.
Said Mr Teo: "If we can manage to own ourselves and operate it ourselves, there is no need to be at the mercy of others. When we become the operator we command ourselves."
What he likes is having control over scheduling, operational quality, service levels and safety - all those areas, which should be fully under his control. "The more you do yourself, the less you are at the mercy of the sub-contractor," he said.
"Sometimes our customers say we need it right now. If we control ourselves, we can tell our own department. It is direct - we can activate resources in relation to the job to be done and we know ourselves and we can get the job done and when it will be done."
But if we get a contractor, then we are at his mercy. We can only say we can get the job done - when they can get the job done - and not even be sure of that. We are left to ask if you do it for me this or can you do it for me that. Some of these they can do for some and not for others.
In the face of difficult trends, Singapore can only apply its comparative advantages, with sheer quality of service being the most important.
And forwarders are needed to provide trucking, warehousing and cargo handling. "Today, we have a free trade zone in Singapore. We lease the whole unit from the port and we do our own operations, we have our own cargo to ship in from agents to Singapore.
"We just do whatever we need to do, unstuffing, transhipments, we are logistics people. Not many are. The others do not own a warehouse, because the number of warehouses in Singapore is limited. So sometimes they will engage our service, and then we just give the support to them.
"And we share the profit together, whatever we receive, in order to help everyone survive," he said.
Asked what accounted for his success, Mr Teo said: "Whatever I do, I use my heart. A person who works with his hands is a labourer. A man who works with his hands and his mind is a craftsman, but a man who works with his hands, his mind and his heart is an artist."
As if speaking for Singapore, he said: "We do not need approval of our competitors or others. We are our own person with unshakable courage and confidence in our decisions and ability."
So ends Mr Teo's lesson, from which many may profit.