He survived cancer twice and transformed his business in the face of death

“You have stage two Hodgkin’s Lymphoma,” the doctor pronounced.

Having just crossed a month after his 33rd birthday in June 2014, it came as a shock to Marcus Tan. What was a routine visit to the GP for cough and sore throat became a diagnosis of a potentially terminal disease from a lump on the lower part of his neck.

“I had felt extremely distraught and worried for my future,” Marcus shared. “Cancer for me seemed like a farfetched disease, infecting people who smoked, consumed too much alcohol, led unhealthy lifestyles, or had symptoms of over indulgence. I had none of these. So how did cancer suddenly flare up in my body?”

A positive outlook

In 2014, Marcus was on his way to take over Conspec Builders, his family’s landscaping business, as its managing director. The company is based in Shah Alam in Selangor, Malaysia.

He was also involved in running operations for the business since 2008, which required him to work long hours and travel extensively to off-site locations.

Despite the diagnosis, Marcus focused on what was at stake. “I had to gather strength as I had three young children—the youngest only one and a half years old at that time. I also had my wife, parents, and 55 employees depending on me for their livelihood.”

He also took confidence in positive facts. “Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is highly curable, with a 90 percent success rate for remission at stage 2A and a 95 percent chance of no relapse within five years. Moreover, the chemotherapy was mild and had minimal side effects.”

He also cited the times his children were healed miraculously and believed he would be healed as well. His daughter was in the ICU for 83 days because of a life-threatening birth defect. His two sons also had miraculous recoveries—one from a hernia operation and the other from a ruptured placenta in his mother’s womb.

“All these personal experiences reinforced my faith in Jesus that He will take care of all aspects of my life through my treatment.”

Revamping the company’s culture and management style

Despite news of the diagnosis, Conspec continued in its usual operations, where Marcus had a hand in everything.

“I was still doing day-to-day operations during my treatment. The company was previously run in a very typical family-owned SME fashion, where key roles were filled by family members with no emphasis on talent development, strategy goals, and business and marketing strategies. There was no regular meetings among the staff to talk about [it].”

In November 2014, Marcus went to Singapore for radiotherapy treatment for four weeks. The business was left to run on autopilot and, as a result, many things were left unattended to.

This urged him to fast-track manager development. Prior years of high staff turnover also stoked him to make more initiatives: creating an employee incentive scheme,  increasing by five times the spend on HR activities, hiring management consultants to conduct internal training, planning and tracking the company’s progress, and mentoring team leaders to take over the daily operations.

He also built a new 30,000 sq ft headquarters-cum-storage facility and a 40,000 sq ft manufacturing facility.

Free from cancer

But cancer returned with a vengeance

Standing together as a company

Changing his life perspective

Victories during the trials

Reflections

Ending thoughts