Career Transition and Management in a Changing Business Environment (2)

In many of my programs, I have emphasized the importance of acquiring emotional management skills. It is a truism to say that when everything being equal, the one who manages better or leads more effectively is the one who is better able to hold the reins of his emotions. The Hindu epic, Mahabaratha illustrates this well through the use of 5 horses that pulls the chariot of Arjuna on which is also Krishna, his teacher. The 5 horses represents the 5 senses of Man and Krishna spends quite a bit of time trying to convince Arjuna to control his senses so that.... here is the beauty of it all.... he can control his emotions which is in turmoil as his enemies on the other side of the battle field is none other than his own flesh and blood.

Having the most powerful being in the universe (Krishna) was no guarantee for success as Arjuna still had to manage his own emotional turmoil. Similarly having the most sophisticated skills and knowledge will only take an individual so far in today's changing business environment. This is especially so when the individual is expected to pick up the pieces after a strategic change in the organization.

Emotional management, EQ, EI or whatever one prefers to call it, is simply the ability to use one's emotional energy towards something positive; towards the direction which will bring the best results in the long run. The first step in this is the willingness to be aware of how our emotions, more than our intelligence, influences our actions. I say 'willingness' because for most of us, being up-front about emotions is considered a sign of weakness. Being able to do this will probably make the difference between success and failure in this unpredictable business environment.

Donald Trump once told the audience of his Apprentice that " He has to go.... I don't want to end up managing his emotions for him"!

Career Transition and Management in a Changing Business Environment (1)

From the 5th to 8th of December I was in the vibrant city of Jakarta conducting a Career Transition program as an Associate Consultant to Right Management Consultants.

One of the key skills that I think, young graduates entering the job market should have is the ability to plan out, direct and manage their career. Life time employment and cradle to grave benefits and protection will become a universal thing-of-the-past in the near future. Managers and business leaders at all levels must also be equipped with the right skills to assist their subordinates on how to manage their career development. Of course, managers too need to manage their own career development!

As organizations the world over has slowly managed to educate their work-force that a guranteed life-time employment is no longer feasible, the least they can do for their employees is to have a structured and well designed approach towards imparting career management skills to them. As what many companies are doing, such things are also best left to the experts as business is business and the focus should not be diverted to anything else.

In a world of change where asking people to leave after years of service has become 'corporate re-engineering' and where people turn-up as usual at the office in the morning only to be told that they have been 'right-sized' have become a norm, I suppose preparing employees to be able to pick up the pieces should be part of the Corporate Social Responsibility mantra. To truly have an impact on society and to gain true loyalty and goodwill of the people, organizations must look into ways of not only training and developing their employees in leadership, management and technical skills but also on how their employees are prepared for drastic changes which inevitably also affect their career development.

I hope to share more on this in my next few postings.

Business Defense Has Landed on Our Shores!

This morning I had an excellent meeting with Mr. Ronald Simon of the Handal Group. I say excellent for two reasons : 1. It is always nice to talk to those who are passionate about their work. Mr. Ronald is definitely one of them. 2. It was an eye opener for me on a new area (at least for me) of management education.

For about 2 hours, Mr. Simon took me into the exciting world of Business Defense which involves everything from business fraud detection & prevention to industrial espionage! With more than 20 years of experience (with a license from the Ministry of Internal Security, Malaysia), the Handal Group is at the cutting edge of this industry. Mr. Ronald is probably one of the few individuals in the country who are trying to 'professionalize' the whole aspect of Business Defense as a viable career choice. More importantly, he is hoping to make organizations in Malaysia see the need for their managers and leaders from all levels be equipped with some knowledge on Business Defense. That is of course if we are not waiting for a Malaysian version of Enron to happen first!

Business Defense is definitely an area where our current managers need to pay more attention to and it is definitely a new career path for our young people to consider.

Personality Differences at the Work Place

The following are some additional thoughts especially for the 42 wonderful people at Menara Maybank, Bangsar who spent the better part of their Friday evening on 24th November with me for their weekly MyTalk session on the topic of Personality Differences at the Work Place.

It was a pleasure answering all your questions as they definitely showed your keen sense of understanding and deep interest in the subject matter.

Personality differences is one of the factors that we often take for granted in work place settings. This is unfortunate as I believe most of the work-place conflicts are related to communication breakdowns which in return are often closely tied to the different ways in which people interpret words which of course, is largely determined by their personality styles. Similarly, many managers have confided in me how they don't seem to be able to 'get through' to a particular staff or are unable to motivate a certain employee while facing no such problems with the others in the same department or organization. On further analysis, I often find that in such instances, the manager has actually come into contact with a personality style which is either similar to that of his own or totally the opposite. Allow me to explain.

One of the personality styles which I call as the Enterprise are those people who are so focused on the end result that they often forget that their means to reach there often make others feel frustrated, angry or down-right resentful. Their communication style are often 'strong' and lack in emotive words which are more pleasing to the hearts and minds of most people. They despise excuse-makers and will not take 'NO' for an answer. If anything needs to be done today, they want it to be done yesterday! The thing is that, Enterprisers don't even realize that they come across as too hard; that is until they meet their own kind! When this happens, they will resent that person for exactly the same reasons why many others resent them! In other words, they can taste the bitterness of their own medicine.

On the other hand, an Enterpriser may meet an Analyzer who is a careful and slow decision maker. In the eyes of the Enterpriser this is tardiness and sparks fly. Hence, personality differences may come to the fore when one is in close contact with the same or opposite personality style.

I often say to my participants that when a work team is being set up, a manager should not focus on only those who can see eye-to-eye. Rather, there should be a good mix of personality styles in the team to provide an effective check and balance. As much as a team needs members who can get along well with each other, there must also be those who don't see things as the others do or don't easily subscribe to team norms as these may very well be wrong.

The solution to this : The onus is on us who are in leadership,managerial or supervisory roles to acquire some knowledge and skills in personality analyses and interpretations so as to better able to manage our people. As Jim Catchart once said, and acorn is meant to be an oak tree. It is in its nature to do so. By understanding the personality style of our people, we will be able to provide the most accurate assistance and guidance to our people based on their natural states.

More on Adult Learning....

The most effective corporate training programs are those that incorporate meaningful activities for the participants. For many of them, these activities are as close as they get to actually experimenting the new skills and knowledge acquired in real-life situations. As much as these activities are not 100% real-life in nature; they do help in making the participants understand and internalize what has been delivered.

In my experience, the best type of activities are those that are not too rigidly structured and provide ample opportunity for the participants to bring their own interpretations and view-points. For example, in a recent training program that I conducted on Planning and Scheduling for Effective Management, an activity based on the Work Break-down Structure was made more effective by incorporating the Work Responsibility Chart. This unexpected innovation by the participants made the activity much more effective. Sometime ago, I conducted an activity with a group of Customer Service Executives using ropes which was supposed to illustrate the importance of team-work and speaking one language to the customers. I had initially allocated 10 minutes for the activity and another 10 minutes for the debriefing. However, the participants were so excited to share their own realizations from the activity that I had to allocate an extra 10 minutes. For me, it was time well spent.

Adult learning is an art and science.

Adult Learning - Lets Not Forget the Basics

I suppose as we become more sophisticated, we also tend to become more forgetful of the basics in life. While searching for the latest this and that or while propagating a new this and that, we fall into trap of loosing ourselves in our own hype.

I find this applicable in most corporate consulting/training today.

Yesterday I was with a group of 6 great ladies who were all involved in Human Resource areas in one way or another. My presentation covered 3 areas : How to Develop and Retain Peak Performers, Training & Development in HR and Preparing for the 21st Century HRM.

Usually I will be a little concerned when the group is small as there may not be adequate sharing of ideas among them but not with these ladies! They were full of passion for what they are doing. Two of them were quite new to the world of HRM but their questions and feedback were insightful. The day-long program went in a blink of an eye and I wished I had another day with them.

The recurring theme in their discussion with me was the fact that they did learn many new ideas and HR strategies yesterday but they know for a fact that when they return to their respective organizations, there will be no one to share their new knowledge with and no opportunity to experiment with it.

This is what I meant when I said earlier that we often forget the basics while we search for the new and exotic. Sending our people to the latest training/development program in town or bringing in a 'foreign expert' to share his experience with our people will be of little use if two fundamental conditions are not met :

1. Preparing a mechanism for every employee who has attended a training and development program to share his or her new-found knowledge and skills with the others in the organization or at least with those from the same department.
2. Creating the opportunity and space for that employee to experiment with that new-found knowledge and skills.

The reason for the above is quite simple really. All employee training/development programs are fundamentally Adult Learning Programs and the above two conditions are, in my mind, the prerequisites to ensure their success.

Syabas! The People of CityLink (M) Sdn.Bhd.

Last week-end, I had a great time being with the amazing people from the Customer Service department of CityLink (M) Sdn.Bhd. Not only did they play an important role in making the 2-day program on Handling Difficult and Demanding Customers a great success, they also reestablished my faith in the future of customer service in Malaysia. As participants of the program, they eagerly immersed themselves in the new skills and knowledge that were presented to them and actively shared their own commitment to improve the delivery of their service to customers.

It was heartwarming for me to see how much effort they put in when practising the various new skills that were presented over an action packed 2-day program.

Syabas! to all of you and God bless.

A special thanks to Mr. Terence Mark for all the backroom assistance.

Living the Customer Service Code

The New Straits Times (Monday, November 6, 2006) published a reader's letter in which it was claimed that a staff of the 'ultra-moden' Rapid KL transport company insulted the reader and his mother for being too 'stupid' to understand the bus signs.

These are, fortunately, rare and extreme cases of service providers loosing-it in Malaysia. Yes, we have all heard some horror stories from the KL General Hospital, the Customs and even the National Registration Department. In fact even organizations that live and die by their service codes such as Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia have their share of service 'screw-ups'.

As much as these stories are exciting stuff to be sms and email fodder, what intrigues me more is the question : Why?... Why do these service collapse occurs among some of the most highly trained employees of organizations that mention the word 'world-class service' at every breath?

I would be inclined to say that the reason is that training and service-indoctrination has not been internalized by the target employees. You see, customer service must be declared and lived. By sending your people to such programs is your declaration of how important good customer service is for your organization. That's fine but the next step is, how are you going to measure whether the new knowledge and skills in relation to providing good customer service is being lived by your people? In essence, that's what it is all about: Living the Customer Service Code.

The 3 key questions that needs to be asked here are :
1. Did your people take away practical and implementable service ideas from such training programs?
2. Was there a proper analysis of what is the gap between your declaration and your actual living of that declaration
3. Have you built the right environment for your people to challenge the status-quo and experiment with new service ideas. As a good friend of mine often says, a Koy grows as big as the pond it is in allows it to.

Providing service (especially a service standard beyond the call of duty) is a psychological and emotional endeavour. The proof of the service is in living it.

Lets all live the famous Malaysian declaration of world class service standards!

Change When Times are Good! Please!

It seems that the mighty Microsoft Corp. is in trouble. It also seems that all is not well at GM. In fact, there are already rumblings of discontent at Sony Corp.

What? It can't be you might say. My question to you would be : Why not?

The biggest danger to an organization is when everything is going great. When you are as powerful as Microsoft, it is quite possible that you become complacent, slow to innovate and take your place under the sun for granted. That's why, the most successful organizations are those that are already looking out for new opportunities when there are seemingly no threat to their business or market share.

The worst threat does not always come from the outside. They often come from the inside. Ask Yahoo! they know this very well. Google is hitting them from all sides. Why? Yahoo! failed to translate their initial dominance into continuous improvement. As much as Total Quality Management is important, I believe that for today's organizations, Total Change Ability is also equally critical. Without the ability to change, today's success is a preparation to tomorrow's down-fall.

Malaysia Airlines, Proton and a host of other local players have and are still paying the price for this lack of change ability. Luckily, its never too late to change. More importantly, lets hope the other organizations are able to change before change is forced upon them.

The Corporation in a Civic Society

Sometime last year, Steve Balmer (CEO, Microsoft) was in Europe to negotiate a settlement of the anti-trust suit brought on by the Europeans on Microsoft. This was just after a prolonged battle between Microsoft and the US government over the same issue.

The legend says that, on the night of one of the most difficult days in the negotiation, Balmer received an urgent email from a group of his programmers demanding his quick action. The urgent issue : Microsoft's recently made public stand on its refusal to support a pro-gay legislation back home. Balmer then spent the whole night going through the issue. By the next morning, he has back-tracked his earlier decision after long-distance communication with his programmers.

This, for me, is beginning of the most powerful new global trend in which the Corporation will no longer be blind to the issues in the society. Corporations will make choices on what they support and what they do not. Their influence will grow in areas of legislation and they will increasingly flex their muscles in areas where traditionally the politicians held sway.

The influence of Corporations in playing back room politics is not new. They have been accused of even starting wars. However, by their sheer size and influence and the fact that Corporations will be increasingly manned by knowledge workers, it is inevitable that the issues of the community will be as actively debated in the board-room as the development of a new product.

The separation of Church and State will not be the issue in the coming years. The issue will be how much will we allow Corporations to be the vanguard of a new civic society?

The Trust Factor

John O. Whitney in his 1996 book, The Economics of Trust (Originally published as the Trust Factor in 1994) asks the following question:

" If everyone in your organization knew what to do; why he was doing it--

what would the organization chart look like?

If everyone desired to do his job correctly, on time, and could be trusted

to act with integrity in support of the firm's aims and goals, what would

your organizational processes and control systems be like?"

To answer his own question, he proceeds to put forward the hypothesis (which I paraphrase here) that like the concept of 'original sin', the entire management philosophy as we know it today is based on the presupposition that people are inherently untrustworthy and they can't be relied on to do the right thing. To ensure the check and balance is in place at all times, organizations have developed a complicated hierarchial system whereby each level in the system presupposes the one above or below it self will 'screw up' at the first opportunity.

Of course, I am putting it crudely here but that is about sums it all up.

I must admit that when I first read Whitney's ideas almost a year ago, it caught me by surprise. I felt that he has been able to explore the fundamental psychology on why organizations do what they do and why employees behave the way they do.

Maybe because this idea has been germinating in the recesses of my mind, it seems that for the past 1 year I have been 'picking-up' instances where I can trace the root-cause of a management/people issue back to a lack of trust in the parties involved. And, as Whitney has pointed out in his book, this lack of trust has a financial cost to it. Surprised? Consider this : How many signatures must a leave application carry in your organization? How many approvals for a purchase agreement? How many layers of decision making to decide on a new office mineral water supplier? You get the picture?

Anyway, the Foreword for Economics of Trust was written by no less than W.Edwards Deming himself. He writes:

" We have reached the limits of the capability of our current philosophy

and resulting methods of management....We can emerge from this prison

only through knowledge that is not part of the present system".

There it is. Its time to re-think, re-create and re-mind ourselves with new knowledge paradigms. As is often quoted : Yesterday's Solutions Can't Solve Today's Problems!

The next time you make a management decision, maybe you should consider the Trust Factor.

Leaders, Leading and Leadership

Jay Conger in his foreword for Leaders Talk Leadership (Ashby, M.D & Miles, S.A; Oxford University Press, 2002) said that " One of the hallmarks of effective leadership in this century will be the capacity to learn and adapt quickly. Years of experience will no longer be enough and, in some cases, may prove a hindrance. The shelf life of knowledge today is simply too short. Instead, a winning characteristic of the new generation of leaders will be its commitment to personal learning and the ability to generate a 'buzz' about learning throughout their organizations. The photographer Walker Evans's advice to novice photographers - " stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop" - will prove sound counsel for today's business leaders"

As far as I am concerned, I see two major lines of thought here from Jay Conger. First, the quality needed in today's leaders is the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn AND ensure the whole organization does this. Second, leaders need to get they hands dirty. Revolutionary thoughts? No. Well accepted? Yes. Practised? Hardly.

I have always and still do find it difficult to accept a CEO or a GM's request to meet his 'Training Manager' or his 'HR Manager' to talk about training and development related matters. I agree that the training manager cum HR manager (as often is the case) do play a critical role in T&D. However, to relinquish the entire responsibility to these two individuals is tantamount to putting in place a road-map for the eventual failure of the organization's T&D initiatives. The reason is simple. Today, the CEO/Chairman/President IS the business. The organization is there to achieve HIS objectives vis a vis the people and resources. Even in a GLC which many people assume wrongly to be a shadow play of the government, a CEO is still the life-blood that will decide the success or failure of its strategies. In other words, the final say (and responsibility for) everything that happens in an organization should lie with its highest decision makers. That includes training and development. These key decision makers must take the time to get involved in determining the T&D needs of the organization. Better still, they must be (once in a while) part of training programs even though the program is for lower level employees. I was pleasantly surprised to facilitate a module in the Bullet Proof Manager program (which is a 12-month long program) for a company whereby the General Manager was also part of the program together with other mid-level managers. This GM, let me add, does not lack in knowledge yet he found the time to be there. I hope there will be more like him or at least there will be more who will at least take the time to bounce their ideas with trainers and learning partners like me.

No matter how big or small an organization is, I believe that T&D is far too important to become the sole domain of the training/HR manager.

In the final analyses, the people are trained and developed to achieve some salient objectives and these objectives will in the end be about the bottom-line. Hence, shouldn't the highest decision makers be actively involved in such an important task?

What Success Means

On Thursday, I was with a group of managers and entrepreneurs with whom I shared some ideas on how to build a success foundation that their employees can own and strive for. The first idea that I shared with them is the fact that we all have a personal definition of what success is and most of the time , a manager's definition of what success is entirely different from that of a subordinate simply because a manager's scope of factors in determining success is inevitably larger than his subordinate's. Let me explain.

In a project management scenario, a manager's performance will be judged as a success or otherwise based on factors like cost control, on-time delivery, resource management, overall people management, creative new ideas produced, etc. On the other hand, his subordinate in the team who is responsible for keeping accounts will be judged only on how well she has balanced the account. She need not worry about anything else. You get the picture? So is it fair o expect the individual team members to have the same definition of what success should be? I suppose not at t least not until the manager has managed to create an ownership for his definition of what the team success should be by the team members.

Hence, the concept of what success may be basic but not universally understood or agreed upon. The solution to this apparent dichotomy is simple : Ensure that the team believes in a collective definition of success whereby each and every one of them will be held responsible for the 'SUCCESS' as a whole rather than to only a few tiny facets of it.

In doing so, I would also suggest to managers, as I did on Thursday, never to underestimate the 'good-old-values' like honesty, trust and fairness. I believe that in our rush to acquire more and more of the latest management skills, knowledge and tools; we have forgotten the power and energy behind such values like honesty and trust. I would suggest to managers not to feel old-fashioned when speaking about these values as without them no success is complete.

I am going to meet a group of managers of a private higher education on Monday to discuss about their Change Management project...I will talk about these values. I strongly believe that success without these values is empty no matter how we define it!

ACTION - OD

The following will be part of a book that I am currently working on.

The ACTION Organizational Development Tool (ACTION-OD) is the culmination of our involvement in consulting and in designing and delivering corporate development programs for Malaysian and international corporations. Through or dialogues we have identified a myriad of requests, needs, worries, complaints and concerns. Some often give us the impression that they are more inclined towards depending on technology to solve their organizational problems while others point to weaknesses either at the management level or at the employee level. Some blame external factors. The commonality between all these voices is that organizational issues are compartmentalized. Compartmentalization of organizational issues refer to the notion that like a production line, problems and defects can be identified and corrected at one single clearly defined point. This may be true in a manufacturing production line but never in situations where human input, feedback and performance are involved. In other words, organizational performance is a single unit of ‘organism’ whereby defects in one part affect the entire organism. Identifying and curing a symptom will not cure the disease. Developing and implementing disjointed measures and strategies are a surefire way of getting deeper into problems. What organizations and business leaders need is a Management Model cum Managing Tool which will help them to create a road-map for organizational excellence and high performance and sticking to that road map.

Hence, to address any issue in an organizational setting, there must be a willingness to look at a much bigger and wider context. In trying to conceptualize this understanding, we had to face one critical task. We had to identify a model within which a clearly defined paradigm can emerge and with which we can create a tool to understand and consequently address issues related to organizational performance. At another level, we also wanted a framework that can be applied to diverse contexts without simplifying the issues at hand. Thus began our search for a model that can help organizations manage the complexities related to performance which can also be applied to understand and improve individual performance. The final challenge for us in developing the ACTION – OD is creating a model/tool that Malaysian organizations, business leaders, entrepreneurs and managers can empathize with without getting lost in a maze of management fads, buzz-words and ‘same-wine in different bottle’ solutions.

The ACTION – OD tool is made up of a cascading paradigm that takes an organization towards the exact behaviors that it needs to improve performance and productivity. ACTION – OD begins by identifying the 4 Drivers for organizational peak performance (Knowledge Edge, Leadership Orientation, Change Adaptability and Customer Literacy) which produces 4 Characteristics (Innovativeness, Commitment, Fluidity and Passion) which in results in 4 Behaviors ( Utilization of Knowledge, Empowerment of Human Capital, Internalization of Change and Delighting of Customers). This 4-4-4 cascading paradigm is supported by a 6-step methodology that will assist the organization in identifying, developing, instituting and measuring management/business strategies for peak performance.

We began the development of ACTION – OD by understanding the organizations that we worked with and others which we observed. The most outstanding element of successful organizations that we have been involved with whether directly or indirectly is that they are so focused on knowledge. We can say that they are driven by the acquisition, dissemination and utilization of knowledge at every level of their business performance. In some organizations, this has become much like a second nature to them, they don’t even realize it. Individual employees in such an organization seem to reflect a characteristics unique to such organizations, i.e innovativeness. These organizations and their individual employees are bale to innovatively re-focus all their effort and energy to seek knowledge and to use each acquired knowledge to add value to products, services, work and life in general. These knowledge driven organizations are constantly adapting and adopting new and innovative ways to acquire and utilize knowledge. Although most of their knowledge seeking are utilitarirsn in nature, there also seems to be genuine respect of and appreciation for knowledge.

The next element that we have identified in successful and progressive organizations is their orientation towards leadership. Leadership is defined as being more than merely ‘leading’. It also encompasses ‘nurturing’ and ‘developing’. Such organizations are constantly nurturing and developing leaders ate every level of their business process. We were pleasantly surprised to note that leadership in type of organizations is not tied to any position or title. Everyone is a leader. Everyone is leading, nurturing and developing either an idea, a person, a product or a service. Leadership in these organizations is

viewed as a function of an individual/person rather than as a function of a title or position in the organizational hierarchy .

The characteristic that seems to be most outstanding in these organizations is the commitment towards nurturing and developing leadership. This organizational commitment is reflected by the individual employee’s commitment towards identifying and nurturing self-leadership in every aspect of life and to believe that this critical to personal success.

Being knowledge driven and committed towards leadership inevitably prepares these organizations to manage planned and un-planned internal and external changes. We refer to this element as change adaptability. Change is said to be the only constant and many organizations do believe this. However, they seldom prepare themselves to manage change. In the last few years we have seen the successes enjoyed by organizations which have and are still riding the waves of change and we can also observe the failures endured by those who couldn’t.

The often given reasons for these organizations’ failures are the fast changing technology, the rise of low-cost manufacturing centres and the obsoleteness of previously held competitive edge. What we suspect however is that, although these may indeed be contributing factors that resulted in organizations’gradual decline but the actual cause is their inability to adapt to change. The only element differentiating between successful and failed organizations is the ability to adapt to changes as they are all operating in a fundamentally similar business environment.

The associated characteristic with change adaptability that we have identified is the ability of the organization as a whole and employees at the individual level to identify, institute and welcome change in every aspect of life and to accept this a s continuous process of improvement.

The final but no less important element of successful organizations is their customer literacy. These organizations literally live and die for customers as they know that they can also live and die because of customers. They have tremendous respect and appreciation for their customers. They have extremely high customer care standards and are willing to institute whatever it takes to achieve that standard. These organizations take great pains to understand and involve customers in every stage of their business process. In return they receive and enjoy customer retention and loyalty.

There is only one word to describe these organizations’ intensity of focus on customers : Passion. Hence, we have identified passion as the corresponding characteristic to the element of customer literacy. Customer literacy is reflected in these organizations’ and their employees’ passion to develop others in every aspect of life and to realign life mission and vision to make others (customers) successful.


The core component of the 9 – Box Model for Peak Performance is the ACTION hexagon which will determine whether the four elements of Knowledge Driven, Leadership Orientation, Change Adaptability and Customer Literacy are transformed into results that reflects positively on the performance of the organization and the individual employees. This ACTION hexagon is the actionable component of the 9-box model.

The ACTIOn hexagon comprises of 6 stages in the process of achieving peak performance : Analyze, Create, Transmit, Institute, Orientate and Naturalize. These 6 stages are equally applicable for both and organization and an individual in efforts to achieve peak performance.

To begin the process of achieving peak performance, the organization must first analyze the performance needs. Performance needs refer to the kind of optimum performance enhancing environment that is needed. There is no one single environment that can be applied to all organizations or individuals but there are some general approaches that can be taken to achieve a desirable environment. Most of these approaches are rooted in suitable training and development programs.

Once the need has been analyzed, the next stage involves creating the resources and/or programs needed to begin building that environment. At the same time, a vision and mission of the peak performance desired must also be created. To be effective, this creation of resources, programs, vision and mission must involve all levels of the organization.

In the stage 3, the created resources, programs, vision and mission are then transmitted clearly to the part of the organization that specifically wants to achieve peak performance. At this stage, ample time must be given to receive feedbacks and comments.

Stage 4 involves instituting programs and resources as have been identified in stage 2. The institution of programs and resources must be closely aligned to the vision and mission of peak performance as have already been determined.

In stage 5 orientation takes place. The respective leaders must be ready to orientate the programs, resources and efforts to achieve the desired standard of peak performance. This stage will face challenges in the form of overzealousness or loss of motivation. So, it is vital that the leaders are able to continuously orientate the instituted programs to achieve the desired outcome of peak performance.

Finally, all programs and efforts toward peak performance must be naturalized so as to make it a lasting factor contributing towards organizational success. The naturalization may take a long time as old behaviors need modification and new thought processes must be assimilated.

Thus we propose the 9 Box Model of ACTION to achieve peak performance. We have argued our case on the basis that any program intended to achieve peak performance, including motivation programs, need to view the process of achieving peak performance from a wider perspective. Merely focusing on a limited set of micro skills to be delivered (such as sales related skills) will not bring lasting effects on peak performance. We have to look at peak performance from a perspective of knowledge driven, leadership orientation, change adaptability and customer literacy. These must be viewed from the point of view of the organization. An organization that has internalized these qualities will inevitably develop employees that reflect those qualities which will result in peak performance.

Next we have discussed the actionable component of the 9-Box Model which is the ACTION hexagon. Action outlines the stages that an organization need to address before, during and after a program that is intended to bring about peak performance. By following these stages, the planned program will achieve its intended objectives.

Back To Basics...

Allow me to quote Bridget Menezes on Humility : "Humility is the fruit of self-respect. A humble person neither feels afraid to open up nor does he fear loss. Humility springs from inner security, and this makes a person open, ready to communicate, co-operate and experiment with new thoughts, ideas, and other ways of doing things.....Humility is the proof of self-mastery."

I think Humility is a great management tool to have and also an amazing value to acquire. A manager with humility is a manager who opens hearts and minds. She brings her people willingly to the battle ground. She stands first in the line of fire but last in the parade of victory. She brings change carefully and slowly but surely. She allows conflict and contradiction so as to build character and spirit. She creates more than destroys although destroy she must at times. She builds bridges where none existed before and finds opportunities where others despair. She knows when to retreat and when to strike forward. She talks hard but with a heart. She swings strong but with a smile. She talks to not at her people. She allows mistakes. She tolerates failures. She acknowledges success. She gives credit.

All these and more she can do but all she does with quiet confidence as she is fueled not by brute intelligence nor arrogance. She is driven by the all powerful Humility.

Blessed are the humble Managers and Leaders.

Cultural Change Management

A couple of days ago, I had an opportunity to meet an exciting manager from a private higher education institution based in KL. We had a refreshing conversation on how his institution needs to embark on a high impact cultural change management program. It was so exciting to hear from him ideas and beliefs that I usually only hear from die-hard corporate figures. Here I was talking to a manager from an educational institution who has very clearly integrated his need to maintain the special characteristic of his business with the real demand of the business world. More importantly, he has realized very early on that the only way his institution is going to face up to the multifaceted challenges is by going through a clearly defined and designed cultural change management program.

For me, an organization is a living breathing organism and it has a culture. Its culture could be the natural result of years of existence, a carefully designed one, or a combination of both. The way it does its business will be to a large extent a reflection of its culture. In fact, organizations often fail not because they have lost their competitive edge per se but due to their failure to adjust their business culture vis a vis the changes, challenges and innovations of any given period of time.

So, kudos to all of you managers and leaders out there who have realized the importance of getting the DNA of your organizational culture sorted out. I wish you the best.

Mind-Teaser Answer

This is for the good people of Yayasan Sabah who made my program for them on 20th September a great success. The following is the answer to the mind-teaser as given by the creator of the test, Peter Watson and as presented by Roger Dawson:

"Only 4 percent of the people he tested got it right. Obviously,you turn the A over to be sure it has an even number on the other side. But most people select the 4 as the other card,to be sure it has a vowel on the other side. And that's the wrong answer! The right is the 7, to be sure it doesn't have a vovel on the other side.

The interesting thing about that is, not only did 96 percent of the people get it wrong, but it's almost impossible to understand why you shoud turn over the 7, and not the 4. Let's say that the second card you turn over is the 4, and it does have a vowel on the other side. So far so good: but you are still left with the possibility that the 7 has a vowel on the other side. That would dispute the supposition that any card with a vowel on one side has an even number on the other.So you can't prove the supposition that way because you have already turned over two cards, the A and 4.

So you should turn over the A and the 7. If the A has an even number on the other side and the 7 doesn't have a vowel, you have proven the supposition. But how do you know the 4 has a vowel on the other side? It doesn't matter whether it has a vowel or consonant. Your challenge was to prove that if a card has a vowel on one side, it has an even number on the other. If the 4 has a vowel on the other side, fine. If it has a consonant on the other side, it's not relevant to the supposition!

As I mentioned in the program, many managers and leaders find it difficult to solve problems and conflicts at the work-place because often times they mis-state the problem or in other words the problem or conflict is wrongly defined. A wrong definition will lead to a wrong problem-solving parameters. More importantly, there are always more than one way of looking at things.

My sincere best wishes to all of you at Yayasan Sabah Group.

Vision, Values and the Way We Do Business

There is an often quoted story of how Jack Welch, the former warrior-CEO of GE, made every employee carry a card that states the core values of GE.

Yes, for me Jack Welch was a warrior-CEO in the true sense. It takes a warrior to wage war on entrenched culture and values that are like a quick-sand dragging an organization into the bottomless pit of poor performance, weak customer service and shameful ROI for share-holders.

After retiring, Jack has given numerous high-powered talks and also informal interviews. I have watched and read some of them. What strikes me the most is his emphasis on vision and values. He always,always goes back to the value and vision that he wanted to give GE.

My fellow corporate trainers and I are always amazed when we find many of our participants who are sometimes senior managers are not able to describe the vision and value of their respective organizations. For us, its like the story of if you don't know where you are going, anywhere will be just fine. That includes down.

Vision and values drive an organization. It gives a road-map for its employees. It gives a clear guidance on the parameters of everything they do from 9 to 5 everyday. The decisions they make or don't make, the service they provide or don't provide, or the innovations they make or fail to make are all driven by the vison and values that they believe in. But of course, as all things, employees must be given a reason to live and breathe the said vision and value. One of the best reasons for them to do so is when they have a say in developing the vision and values. What people give birth to they do not destroy.

Business, Work and Life : They are Connected

I would like to share this with all of you. I received it from a good friend of mine recently.
In all my corporate programs, I often pause to share with my participants stories and anecdotes that warms the heart. In an age of break-neck speed, I think it is important to pause to reflect on reality. I believe that when we are at peace with ourselves, we make much better managers.
Read and ponder.
Enjoy.

A wonderful Message by George Carlin:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are the days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom.

Remember, spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember, to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

George Carlin

Being a Learning Organization

You may find the title of this article strange. I know that we are all used to articles and discussions on how to make an organization a learning organization. Well, its the same actually. Its just that I am more inclined to think that all organizations are already learning organizations even before the term was coined and became a fashionable statement. Organizations have always been learning and improving BUT they have not been doing it conciously nor was there any systematic way of doing that. NOKIA, BP, BMW and Lee Kum Kee are not some young kids on the block. They have been around for a long time and some of them have completely reengineered what they do as a business entity. I find it hard to beleive that they did all these while not being a learning organization. For me, the term may be new but the practise is as old as Genghis Khan.

Hence, whats more critical now is for the leadership of every organization to institute clear strategies of how its people can realize that they are a learning organization and how important it is to be a learning organization. Its not so much about learning new tools but rather learning new ways of using existing tools.

However, I do believe that certain factors can enhance how well an organization act like a learning organization. They are :

1. Tolerate mistakes
2. Reward originality
3. Invest in people development programs
4. Encourage sharing ( top down and vice versa)
5. Encourage team work

Preparing for Conflict Resolution : A Manager's Guide

Often times a manager/supervisor will be required to play the role of a mediator in work related conflicts in the work place. Often times also, many managers plunge into conflict resolution without proper preparation and planning. The following is a simple yet effective guide-line for managers to prepare themselves prior to engaging in any activity relating to conflict resolution.

1. Prepare mentally : Clear (temporarily at least) your own problems and challenges. You are right if you think that you have to 'put on an act'. Thats part and parcel of being a leader; you can't afford to allow personal problems and challenges to affect your managerial responsibilities.

2. Be sure not allow your past knowledge of the parties involved in a conflict to cloud your approach. Ramli may have been a trouble maker in the past but he may also be the innocent party in the current conflict. Fairness must be seen by all those involved.

3. If possible, take the conflicting parties away from the environment that produced the conflict in the first place. Don't underestimate the power of a positive environment in conflict resolution.

4. Make it clear to all parties that they must accept the fact that the conflict is in relation to work and not personalities. This is to show them that you are not on a witch-hunt.

5. As far as possible, get all needed information before attempting to resolve a conflict.

6. If at all you are a contributor to the conflict, own-up to that as soon as the meeting starts.

7. Ensure that all parties are given ample time to voice their frustrations.

8. Be sure to keep repeating that conflicts are not all that bad in the work place as conflicts can give birth to new and better ideas.

9. All resolutions and agreements reached at must be approved by all parties concerned; if possible in writing

10. AND most importantly, enter a conflict resolution situation with a clear mental picture of you resolving the conflict to the satisfaction of all.

A Desired Employer

There was an article in today's NST in which Jack Welch discussed how an organization can become an employer of choice. Isn't it great? Companies and management gurus are actually talking about how they can manage and run their organizations in such a way that people want to work for them. Why should any organization bother to make it self desirable to the workforce? Why should it even try? If people want a job, let them come.Right? Wrong!

Today organizations take great pride when the international magazine, TIME publishes its list of Best of Employers of the year. Such a title has become a great source of pride and organizations use it in their marketing just like how ISO's are used. They hope that such accolades will attract the best minds from the market to seek employment with them. I was once told by a visiting management expert that Microsoft (USA), Infosys (India) and Lenovo (China) are so aggresive in recruiting from college campuses that they practically pay their young recruits forward so that they do not get attracted to the competitor! I am sure a Best Employer title will do great wonders too.

The thing is this : to get the best, an organization has to be the best. The more skilled the job is, the more the organization needs to do to make it self attractive for courting. How does an organization becomes a desired employer? The first step is for all senior managers to realize that they have to once in a while get away from the demands of their everyday tasks and responsibilities and spend time in developing and reviewing their strategic HR approaches. If there is a quarterly review of financial matters, I think there should be one for the most critical asset : human resource. This is People Management in the 21st century. The ROI from this will be tremendous.Just ask Microsoft.

Decision Making : Whats That?

There is a story by Roger Dawson of how the CEO of a multi-million dollar organization said that he doesn't really know how he makes decisions.

Then, there is a story popular among EQ trainers of how a manager secretly arranged for a work-tour for the husband and two teenage sons of one of his top performers to show them how hard the wife/mother is working everyday. His objective? To show the family that they need to give her a break once in a while so that she can re-charge. The reason? He made the decision that he didn't want to loose her.

In both these examples, critical decisions have been made. The former says he doesn't really know how he comes to his decisions while the latter clearly has thought out carefully of his decisions. In reality, we are the sum total of all the decisions that we have ever made in our lives and our lives will become as determined by the effects of the sum total of all future decisions that we are going to make. The same goes for organisations. General Electric, AirAsia, Toyota, Micosoft, Google,etc all have a common factor : Effecient Decision Making. Not always right decisions but effecient decision making processes.

The difference between a bad decision and a bad decision arrived at via an efficient decision making process is that the latter can be easily identified, corrected or abondened. Leaders at all levels of organizations must be able to think about thinking and decide how they come to their decisions. Otherwise, organisational strategies become fixed, rigid and inflexible. That is no way to do business in the 21st century.

When the BEST leaves....

Retaining top performers in an organization was never easy. People managers will tell you that it just got more difficult today. Some organizations that I know of have 40% employee turnover and; they are in industries where a stable staff strength is needed for the business unlike the fast-food business where high staff turnover is almost always expected.

When a top performer leaves an organization, he/she takes more than just himself; he takes with him the money-can't-buy knowledge and insights into how a certain aspect of his job functions are carried out. Now, things get more 'expensive' when the top performer leaves under less than satisfactory circumstances as weeks before he leaves he will lay a carefully planned groundwork among his co-workers as to the 'real' reasons for his decision to leave and trust me when I say that such reasons will have nothing to do with how good the management has been to him. Whether knowlingly or otherwise, a top perfomer who leaves will always be able to bring the motivation of his co-workers a notch down. Lets also not forget that when a top performer gives a two-month notice to the management; he has invariably given himself at least another 2 months notice prior to informing the management. Under most circumstances, what the organization now has on its payrol is an employee who is going to only perform at 50% (or less) of his capacity for 4 months. People managers shoud calculate the cost of this to the organization! This is the reason why somethimes I wonder why companies insist on 2 months notice!

As costly as all these are, they are actually not inevitable. People managers can retain their top performers. Lets be honest here and admit that there is no way under the heavens how anybody can retain ALL their top performers ALL the time. There will always be those who leave. There will always be others who make better offers and provide more attractive perks. Besides, as I recently ponted out to a manager, a long serving employee could mean loyalty OR a no hoper anywhere else! So, whats important is to have systems and strategies in place to ensure that at the least our top performers do not jump the boat at the first sign of trouble or better offers.

People managers must come to the realization that it is the nature of the 21st century workforce not to show any loyalty to the organization. Their loyalty is only to their career or their expertise. The old pep-talks glorifying loyalty to the organization will not cut it with the young kids coming out of our universities. They need to be told how by staying on with us, they can develop themselves and; oh yes! the organization too. They need to be told how the organization will appreciate and reward their talents and contributions. People managers must be able to provide an attractive picture of career development and professional enhancement.

Once a top performer has been identified, there needs to be a serious attempt by the organization to lay the groundwork on how to retain him or her. I would suggest that there should be a general framework to retain top performers AND a more individual-specific strategy. A commitee should be set up to track and develop the career development aspects of a top performer. This commitee should comprise of among others the General Manager,HR manager and the head of department and the said top performer. He or she must be kept in the loop at all times. There is no point in saying on the day a resignation notice is given that the organization "...had great plans for you".

Keep your BEST to be the BEST. There is no other way.

Leaders Galore

Leaders and leadership : The 2 most powerful words today. Not that in ages gone by there were no leaders; there were many. However today leaders and leadership take on a different dimension. With the advent of information and communication technology, it has become easier for leaders to 'share' their leadership secrets with the world. Soon we became leadership junkies just as millions of others became self-help junkies. We devoured every single word uttered by these leaders. In fact the newly coined term, celebrity CEOs captures this wonderfuly.

There is nothing wrong with this of course as we all need a figure-head to lead us. Whether we like it or not, there will always be those who lead and those who are led. But, we should stop and ask ourselves what it means to have leaders in our organizations. Is leadership in an organization the sole responsibility of one or two individuals? Is leadership a function of the possition OR is it a function of the person.

How do we develop leaders at all levels of our organization? I believe that to do this we need to first and foremost accept the fact that leadership is a function of a person. In other words, everybody in an organization is a leader and he/she are required to shoulder leadership responsibilities. It doesn't matter whether one sits in the CEO's office or in the guard room: Everybody should be and act like a leader.

Is Management Personal?

A quick browse in any bookshop today will show you titles such as Managing from the Soul, Managing from the Heart, Principled centered Leadership, etc. There are many more other titles that are more 'brutal' AND business-like such as Performance for 21st Century,Business Strategy for the New Age etc. However, even the latter titles tend to devote chapter after chapter of discussion that deals with the 'personal' aspect of management. They may come under various titles and buzz-words but in essence they all relate to the core (but often mis-understood) issue of the role of 'self' in management.

What I term as 'self' in management is about 'being who we are while we do what we do'. In this case who am I when I am managing? Who am I when I am supervising? Who am I when I am leading a team? Who am I when I am managing a project. The who am I question, as you would have guessed by now, is practically endless.

It is of great importance to remember that our world view (which is a result of who we are) colours what we do and how we do it. More importantly it influences what we think and why we think so. Say for example an employee comes to your room with shoulders hunched and with a 'lack of sleep' appearance and tells you that he needs to go back immediately as there is a family emergency. Your first instinct (which is usually correct) is not to trust him as something tells you that there is no family emergency. Now comes the interesting part; what you do next is an indication of who you are while you do what you do after listening to the so called family emergency. If you tell him off to get back to work, it shows who you are being at that moment. If you listen to him and find out later that there is more to his story although there is no family emergency, also shows who you are being while you are doing what you are doing.

Is there a right and wrong in the above example? I think not. Only what works.
Is management personal? I know it is. The real question is do we dare to make it personal or rather do we have the skills to make it personal and yet be effective managers and leaders.

I know for sure though that today, it takes more than an MBA to rule the corporate office. It needs a big heart too. I know as I have been there.

Do We Really Believe What We Say at the Company Annual Dinner?

Noticed how every opening speech of a company annual dinner invariably begins something like this : " It is a great pleasure to be with all of you today. You have all worked very hard this past year and the management would like to say thank you to all of you. For us, you are our biggest asset. Without you this company is nothing. So, please enjoy yourself and remember that we are a team...."

I have often wondered what is the meaning of the phrase "you are our biggest asset"? Why do managers love to say that at every opportunity they get? Is it because they really believe in it or is it similar to our preferred way of beginning an official speech at an even more official function by saying "Tan Sri, Tan Sri...Datuk, Datuk..." although there are no Tan Sri present. Not even a Datuk K! I suspect its merely to satisfy convention. Nothing more.

Are our people our biggest asset? Damn right they are! One thing is true : A company is NOTHING without its people. I cringe when I hear senior managers lament that they wish they can do more for their employees in terms of flexibility and rewards but they just dont want the rotten few to enjoy the benefits that they dont deserve. I just don't understand this! If there are 'a rotten few' why are they still being employed in the company? In which MBA module is it that our senior managers are thought that its perfectly alright to deny the productive many for the sake of the un-productive few?

I have worked for others, I have worked for my self and I have seen others work. I stand by what I have always said to senior managers : Stop the rhetoric and begin to show some action. Talk to your people, get to know them, identify what makes them tick and go back to your cosy conference rooms and re-design your business processes to utilize the talents that you have in your midst. Take people in good faith and let them go in good faith. Don't be beholden to anybody and don't neglect anybody.

I am convinced that there are rarely bad employees only a mis-match between what drives a person and the environment in which he or she is placed.

Inspired by Coffee

Every manager, at least once every quarter would have had this thought in his/her mind : "Damn, why is it so hard....its so simple...why can't they see it?....why can't I do it?" The operative words here being 'its so simple'.

Every morning, the instant my 1st cofee of the day takes its effect...the instant my warm roti-canai soothes my morning hunger, I often look away to the streets ahead of me or the people around me and think : "Its going to be a great day"! Somewhere way...way back in my mind I can feel a sense of clarity in what needs to be done for the day as a manager/leader. Everything is perfect. Ideas are there, the reasons are rock-solid and the implementation is waiting for the word go.

Then, two hours into the day, one by one, my ideas for the day crumbles! My clarity vanishes. Problems take over. I long for my 1st coffee. Not the coffee it self but the clarity that it provided.

So, firstcofee.blogspot.com is a place that I have created for my kindred souls who are also longing for that 1st coffee feeling...throught-out the day. I hope this will become a place for managers, leaders and change-makers find clarity and solutions for their challenges through vibrant networking between and among us.

May the 1st coffee be with you.