Guanqiu Lu, founder and chairman of Wanxiang Group, was featured on the May 1991 cover of Newsweek as a pioneer in China's reform and opening up.

'Incentivize'

“As long as we are fair, we give them the opportunity. When the result is there, we reward them. When we do that, you cannot believe how powerful this can be. It does not matter whether it is CEO or janitor. If given the power to make it right, they can make it right."

Ni said he does not need a big central management team for the sprawling entities he oversees. There are only about 40 people with him at the headquarters' control center and local hires make up a good percentage of them.

“I am not trying to manage people; it is too complicated. If you incentivize people, I know what they are going to do because logic will prevail in the end," said Ni, who got his MBA degree from one of the top universities in China in 1989 before joining Wanxiang. At that time, an MBA was rare in China. At Wanxiang, Ni met his wife.

Among Wanxiang Group's global operations, the US ones give the greatest return. Ni likes to call his Wanxiang America a true American company. Other than paying taxes to the US government and hiring Americans, the company also keeps all its profit in the US for reinvestment, as he told CBS-TV' s “60 Minutes''.

Ni attributes that to the nature of the US economy and one's ability to understand and make good use of it.

“Here in the US, the business cycle is always there. This is what I love about the US environment. You just need to wait for the right time, you get in, then you are covered," he said.

His advice

Many Chinese companies have asked Ni for advice on how to do well in the US, especially when facing deals such as the A123 controversy that Ni experienced, which have to go through the scrutiny of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an inter-agency committee led by the US Treasury to check on a transaction's impact on national security.

“I always joke with them, just find a more expensive lawyer," said Ni. “As long as you have the better lawyer, you are going to come through because the rule has already been established."

When Johnson Controls, a leading player in auto parts, joined the A123 bankruptcy auction bid at a later time with a lower bid, Ni hired a top law firm in Washington to argue that the bidding process violated protocol.

“China in the past three decades is more about breaking the rules, because we are in the reform mode and we need to constantly push the envelope to move on," said Ni. “But in the US, you need to really follow the rules."

Ni has shown that he not only follows the rules, he is good at it.

Contact the writer at charlenecai@chinadailyusa.com.