MANY insiders believe the Shanghai Museum is the most advanced in the country, and it enjoys strong financial support from the municipality as well as efficient management.

The same commentators also hold that Chen Xiejun, the director of the museum, has contributed greatly to the high prestige of the museum and the success of its numerous large-scale exhibitions.

Chen recently granted an interview to the Shanghai Star to explain the secrets of the museum's great success.

Words of wisdom

"The words of Chen Yun, the late high official of the central government, provided us with a lot of inspiration," he said.

Chen Yun once suggested methods to motivate the common people to seek a better life, using a metaphor to illustrate it.

Chen Yun said if a person want to have enough apples to eat, he should be munching one in his mouth, gripping one in his hand, watching one with his eyes and envisioning one in his mind simultaneously.

Interpreting these words in terms of modern management theory, good management requires not only the accurate daily execution of settled business plans but practicable short-term plans and far-reaching long-term plans as well. In short, success is forged by the incessant sustainable growth of the company's resources.

Chen Xiejun expressed a firm belief in these principles, trying his best to implement them.

"As matter of fact, almost all the top museums around the world make their plans 3-to-5 years in advance."

Chen is very modest about what he and the museum have achieved, but he has clearly laid a solid foundation for these achievements.

Apart from his role as director of museum, Chen is a renowned painter, an accomplished computer professional, a loving husband and caring father.

Recipe for success

"No one is born to do anything, so learning on-the-job is very important," said Chen, as a conclusion on his past working experiences.

A lot of Chen's friends have been startled at his rich working experiences in different areas.

"Believe it or not my first job - working in a computer-aided-navigation institute - has nothing to do with museums or related areas, and my major at university was in computer science," said Chen.

Chen started work just as the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) began, along with many other high-school graduates whose educational background was of little assistance to help in their jobs.

Chen devoted himself wholly to the computer-aided-navigation project and moved to live in the institute with the aim of gaining more time for learning.

After only six months, Chen was able to grasp the core technologies of electronics and computer science.

Then he was promoted to do research work in the IT sector for the municipality.

"The new job involved a lot of paperwork, and it really trained my thoughts."

The job often demanded Chen turn in a research report in just 10 days, including the time spent in field research.

Chen's excellent reports attracted the attention of experts from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences who thought highly of Chen's talents and offered him the chance to work there.

In the following decade, Chen continued attending lectures given by professors invited to the academy, without missing a single one.

"I still remember 'Essentials' was the first text book I read while working in the academy, and I have completed all 5,000 exercises in the textbook four times," he said smiling.

When Chen Ying, Chen's daughter, who works for KPMG, saw all the notebooks filled with these exercises, she was moved by her father's perseverance.

But Chen thought diligence could never be the only factor required to succeed.

"On the basis of hard work, one must also use learning to create new things," he said.

Many of Chen's teachers have considered him a highly innovative person.

While in the academy of social science, Chen's mentor Jin Zhe invited him to work collaboratively on a philosophy book dealing with the Theory of Time, the first of its kind in the country at the time.

With the guidance of Jin, Chen entered the realm of philosophy and began boldly exploring it in his own way.

Fruits of labour

His research resulted in an internationally-acclaimed book on intellectual disciplines, which set out the rules governing the birth of new subjects, the process by which a new subject is divided off from an old one, and the issues on cross-disciplinary knowledge.

"What a happy coincidence! Later I was appointed to the post of director of the Shanghai Library. And my book - 'On Disciplines' - has helped staff members in the library to enhance their efficiency at categorizing books in accordance with different disciplines."

As the director of the museum, he has continued to inject the spirit of innovation into the exhibitions there.

For example, the museum recently bought four volumes of the ancient Chinese calligraphy album "Chunhua Ge Tie" at the astronomical price of US$4.5 million.

While Chen shows a seemingly infinite enthusiasm for his work, his passion for his hobbies is also awesome.

"Since my childhood, I have felt a deep love for Chinese painting and the pipa (a lute used in Chinese traditional folk music)."

Chen spares no effort in the pursuit for his hobbies.

As a widely-recognized painter, his works are in high demand for exhibitions.

In 2000, he spent every Saturday on Chongming Island making sketches with his daughter over a period of nine months. He left for the island at 4:00am and didn't return home until 10:00pm.

His efforts were rewarded. All the works from Chongming were collected by the Shanghai Art Museum for a solo exhibition which won great applause.