Tan Sri Dato’ Lim Kok Wing moving hearts and influencing minds

Over the past two decades, YBhg Tan Sri Dato’ Lim Kok Wing has been actively involved in national and international projects that contributed to nation-building. The 80s and 90s were an extraordinary period for Malaysia as the country moved from commodity-based economic development into industry-driven growth. The (former) Prime Minister YAB Dato Seri Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad had an agenda to raise Malaysian capability. But above all, he needed to convince Malaysians that they were as able as anyone from anywhere in the world. Tan Sri Dato Lim worked closely with the Prime Minister to influence Malaysians through strategic campaigns that moved hearts and changed minds to think Malaysia Boleh.

For his efforts he was awarded the IPRM’S CEO of The Year 2000.

"Fellowship of IPRM was instituted to give recognition to outstanding practitioners of public relations – those who have brought distinction to our profession.

Today, we honour Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing. I can think of no more worthy recipients of the Institute’s highest accolade. The words "outstanding" and "distinction" I do not use lightly. The first test of those attributes is that they are immediately recognisable. An outstanding individual is one who stands out from the crowd. The person whose attainments are distinguished. Who does not know of Lim Kok Wing? Who has not heard of Limkokwing Institute of Creative Technology? Before that who has not heard of Wings Creative? As Tan Sri seems to like a pun, I’m tempted here to include Mohamed Ali once said, "The man who has no imagination has no wings". Recognition in Tan Sri Lim’s case, is not confined to Malaysia. His reputation has spread abroad certainly, and, with good reason to Bosnia and South Africa, amongst others.

The second attributes I’d like to examine is talent. For public relations is a talent based profession. You need a gift for communications and all the degrees and all the technical training will not serve you in this profession without that gift. It can take different forms. In Kok Wing’s case, it was a talent for art. His gift for drawing was discovered very early in his school career. So precocious was he that when the teacher failed to turn up Kok Wing took over the class. Thus early on he had found his personal reality. It was to dominate his life and career. Talent always has a way of getting noticed. Tan Sri’s first job was a stringer to the Eastern Sun. Before long they found his true vocation. He was given a cartoon strip he called Abu. Hardly surprisingly, graphics has always been a strong point of his varied businesses – and in graphic design he was quite simply the best in the business.

Talent also has a way of driving us. When the newspaper folded, Tan Sri decided he was bored with hanging round the courts being a crime reporter. He wanted to create. So he joined the advertising firm of Lintas. It wasn’t long before he struck out on his own and in 1975 set up – what else but – Wings Creative – aptly named.

His professional career has been both outstanding and astounding in both the scope of his activities and his versatility. His biographer has dubbed him a "maestro at moving hearts and shaping minds", as well she might. Public relations calls for the mastery or command of many communications techniques. And we are getting cleverer and cleverer, and more and more sophisticated by the day. So comprehensive has our range of skills and media become, it would seem to defy the ability of any one man to encompass them all. Tan Sri is described as a maestro because he has done just that – he has mastered almost the full armoury of weapons and tools in a contemporary PR practice. He has experimented, explored, and conquered just about every element of communication to acquire expertise – be it cartoons, fashion design, copy writing, journalism, advertising, film graphic design, packaging, television commercials, account management, publishing, event management, public relations, education. And when IT came along he soon absorbed the new electronic medium of animation and the digital arts. His institute is named not just "Creative" but "Creative Technology".

This somewhat breathtaking scope of his activities is more than a matter of sheer volume. There is a great deal of talk nowadays about the convergence of multimedia. In Lim Kok Wing, you had a convergence of almost the full range of communications – a synthesis, unparalleled anywhere. It facilitated a strategic, multidisciplinary approach he was to bring to bear to campaign planning and problem solving. His experience spans three decades and more than fulfils the criteria of distinction. In his advertising days he won more than 100 national and international creative awards. Many will still remember his cartoon strip –

Guli Guli – which ran for many years in the New Straits Times. Among the highlights of his latter-day career he created the information systems for the KLIA and the LRT respectively, and revamped the image of KTM when it went electric.

It is no coincidence that these were national projects. Tan Sri’s career can be divided into distinct phases. That first was that enthusiastic, prolific and exuberant experimentation with not one but several communications careers rolled into one. Then he moved on, found a focus that allowed him to dictate this full panoply of experience to a voluntary national service. He engaged his mind and his strategic thinking in campaigns that supported government efforts in nation-building. He has tracked the extraordinary transformation of Malaysia from a small commodity-based country to thriving, export-based manufacturing economy – poised now for a hi-tech future. And in the spirit of Malaysia Inc, he has been part of that growth – playing to his strengths – promoting Malaysia and its products, explaining its policies, changing mind- sets, defending its rights, from the attack on our rain forest management to the recent currency crisis. His forte is not the single campaign but orchestrated strategic operations that access that unique convergence of professional assets few, if any, could begin to match.

Garnering public support – moving a nation.

His achievements are best summed up in campaigns like Inflasi Sifar, Rakan Muda, the Commonwealth Games, Vision 2020, Voter Education in South Africa, amongst others. And when the economic downturn came, he contributed to the necessary crisis management with the strategic release of the book The Hidden Agenda and the New Voice of Asia as well as a series of public service documentaries. His most recent efforts are now directed at supporting the bid for Kuala Lumpur to host the Asian Games in 2006.

Kok Wing has been highly successful. But he believes in giving back. This has inspired a humanitarian dimension to his record of achievement. Some 30 years ago he conducted the highly successful Art for Charity followed by the Red Cross regional Run for Humanity. Since then he has never stopped nor stinted in gathering support for worthy causes. The IPRM has good cause to know of this. My audience will recall that the inaugural Crystal Award of the Institute was accorded to Tan Sri Dato’ Dr Lim’s outstanding global humanitarian campaign to garner support for the rebuilding of war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina.

‘Giving back’ has included most notably his efforts in education. The word communications comes from the Latin, comunico, which means to share. The institute he set up was the vehicle for imparting and sharing his redoubtable professional knowledge and experience. It is in part a philanthropic venture that takes his contribution to nation-building to a higher level. He is striving to develop a new generation of highly skilled creative youngsters capable of using new technology to propel the country to new levels of progress. He seeks to help remedy the shortfall in skills in the creative area. He ventured into education to provide avenues for youths to obtain internationally recognised diplomas and degrees previously unattainable in the region. It was a timely move. The country had just made the inspired move to set up the Multimedia Super Corridor where new technology was at the centre of development. His institute will help supply the voracious demand of e-commerce for the necessary talent and skills of the 21st century, an important enabling factor to achieve the goals of Vision 2020. Along with the technical preparation he is trying to inculcate a new culture of service and caring in the generation who will inherit 2020.

Even here his ingenuity came through. Who else would have founded a Foundation for Creative Excellence which included a category for the handicapped, especially those from poor families, enabling them to access education and training in the new media and the opportunity to forge career pathways otherwise unavailable to them. And again with the national interests at heart he has established the Malaysian Education Promotion Council in support of the country’s aspiration to make Malaysia a regional hub for education. This is a good man. He is also an ideas man. Public relations as a profession is predicated not so much on technique nor technology but on ideas. Skills and techniques can be acquired; if necessary, they can be bought. But it is the use to which they are put that matters. At the end of the day it is an ideas game.

Looking at the crowded canvas of Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing’s career to date, can anyone doubt the fertility of imagination and the prolific outpouring of his ideas? He is a living exponent of true creative originality. So far we have dwelt on the facts. But a fellow of this Institute is a professional elder and statesman. What is it about Kok Wing that makes him a PR maestro extraordinaire and an inspiration to younger members. What can we learn from him? His many attributes can be boiled down to two pervasive qualities – ideas and energy. He makes thing happen. He is a doer. Thanks to enormous resources of talent and inspiration combined with will power. Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea. Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupy.

Andrew Carnegie once said, "People who are unable to motivate themselves have to be content with mediocrity no matter how impressive their other talents". Tan Sri Lim is self-directed. He has an invincible determination. Like any other successful entrepreneur he is alert to opportunities and seizes the moment. He has intelligent direction and skilful execution. He is resourceful. Abraham Lincoln said, "All things come to those who wait – but only what is left behind by those who hustle it".

Tan Sri creates his own opportunities. I’m convinced if opportunity doesn’t knock, he would build a door. He is also committed and faithful to his values. Above all, a sense of caring. He has invested his life and his talents in worthy pursuits and national causes – an exemplary corporate citizen, as the Prime Minister himself saw fit to recognise.

Finally he is a man for change. As we enter the new millennium we are in collision with change – strategic change more rapid and profound than man has ever known. In the face of this, Jack Welch of G.E. – Neutron Jack as he is called – sent out a memo to all his staff that read, "Destroy your company dot com". We have to reinvent ourselves. Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing in the course of a varied and dramatic career has already reinvented himself several times over. Jack Welch recommended two qualities needed for the 21st century – speed and adaptability. Tan Sri has manifested both many times over. The IT revolution is a communications revolution. New technologies will probably come at us with a blinding pace – the speed of light, says Bill Gates. But what we will also need is creative originality and a total communications strategy. I’m sure you will agree if anyone fits the bill, it is the Institute’s new Fellow.

Please join me in saluting this extraordinary individual – Tan Sri Dato’ Lim Kok Wing."

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