Change Management - Jeffrey M. Hiatt and Timothy J. Creasey

Decided to read this book for a few reasons. It is related to one of my upcoming projects, and I also realised that many of my current work in HR deals with change management, in both big and small ways. It is an under-rated skill and discipline.

This is a short but useful book. Key insights:

1. Buy-in is essential, the "right answer" is not good enough. Everyone in the organisation has to be brought on board before or when the change is made, for it to be successful. And this cannot be done by simply reiterating the "right answers" about why change is needed. And resistance is always to be expected - it is the norm, rather than the exception.
   
2. Preferred senders for different messages. Employees want to hear from business leaders the business rationale for changes. However, for how it impacts them at the individual level, the Whats In It For Me (WIIFM), the preferred sender of the message is their supervisors.
3. Business leaders have to be present and visible throughout the change process - they need to be personally involved rather than just delegating it to a team.
4. The ADKAR model - Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement - is a very useful way to understand how we need to impact individual officers when implementing change.
5. People adapt to change at different speeds. As the organisation transforms, we need to be aware that different individuals may be at different stages of ADKAR. As such, be prepared to support people who are not moving as fast as the rest - change is n0t uniform.
6. Need to link ADKAR to comms plans, which should not be seen simply as say A, then say B, then say C, etc. They should be linked to the higher order messages to bring about ADKAR.
   

Technical Analysis Plain and Simple - Michael N. Kahn

Had been dabbling in stocks for more than a year now, after the financial crisis in 2008 (I started only a while after the crisis hit as I took time to build up some basic capital). Wished I had started earlier and had more capital! This was a period where the stock market really grew by leaps and bounds, and it was a shame that I also lacked the skills and tools to make full use of the recovery.

Many times, I sold things too early, or bought things too late. At the start, I was also plagued by quite some emotions when I tried to make sound decisions about what to do with my stocks. While I might have gotten a bit wiser over the months, there are so many things I don't understand (and so many mistakes which I made!) that compelled me to make a decision to improve my skills. I was initially also intending to hold all my stocks for the long, long term. However, there's been so much volatility in the recent months that I felt it a waste to not make use of the volatility to optimise my returns. Which was what brought me to this book.

This book is really about the basics. I think the world of technical analysis is much deeper than what this book is offering, but it is definitely a good start. Key learning points, based on my humble interpretations:

1. I think the crux of technical analysis is that it essentially goes for pragmatism over "truisms". There are scores of texts on "truisms" such as stock prices being in sync with underlying fundamentals, investors being rationale, that historical prices have no bearing on future ones, etc. However, the reality of the stock market is that it is a complex mish-mash of different investors behaving in ways that are often-times better explained by behavioural science than economics. Technical analysis attempts to look for patterns in past behaviours and trends to predict the future.
2. However, the book is careful to not discount fundamental analysis, which I do think is critical to understand which stocks are good to buy and hold in the long term. As such, I think it will be the successful application of fundamental analysis and technical analysis (the latter telling me when to buy and sell) that will increase the odds of successful investing.
3. Trendlines, support and resistance lines are historical indicators that may impact future behaviours of stocks. I'm trying to apply this to the stocks I track now, but I think I lack the experience to draw proper lines - I see 2-3 ways of drawing lines almost all the time and each one of them leads me to a different conclusion. However, as a small retail investor, I think it is very important that I'm able to read where the larger masses are going. No matter how I interpret the news and market information, the numbers and indicators on the stock charts tell me how the larger group of investors are perceiving these information, which is is much more important than my own. (UNLESS they are missing a significant opportunity that I'm able to foresee.)
   
4. I think the momentum of the market is very key. I'm using these indicators alot more to help me decide whether the sentiments are changing. Even then, I'm still wrong 80% of the time.
5. I think the main difficulty now is that I don't have all the time in the world to monitor all my stocks very closely. As such, there are often intra-day opportunities that go past.
   

I think the next step is to understand the techniques alot more - both through experience (learning and failing and failing and failing!) and reading more about this. All in all, a good start and this is really an interesting and intellectually stimulating area!

It's not about the Coffee - Howard Behar

Been some time since I last blogged about the books I've read. And I've actually read quite a number! It's just that I had some other more pressing obligations and couldn't find the time to put my thoughts down.

A colleague passed me this book "It's not about the coffee" by Howard Behar. It's a very easy read, but the concepts resonated deeply with me. Reading it while trying to apply some of the concepts at work is the most effective way of reaping the most from it. In this book, Behar gave 10 principles on leadership - all of which springs from the same idea, that it is ALL about the people. After I read this line, I knew that I'd enjoy reading about the book.

Won't repeat the 10 principles here, but would pick out a few of the more important lessons in the book here.

1. Authenticity underpins successful leadership. In many of the chapters, Behar keeps driving home the point that a leader really has to know what his/her true self is (the values, beliefs, goals) and it has to be coherent. I think the main point here is that leadership will only be a sustainable endeavour when one has laser sharp understanding of oneself. Otherwise, the many different conflicting forces competing for one's focus will likely only drain, rather than drive one closer to the goal.
2. "The person who sweeps the floor should choose the broom". People on your team are not just "staff" or "executive #1". Recognising that they know alot more than you about what they do is the first step in empowering them to act and perform. It's a simple concept, but I see it being overlooked in many organisations. Often, people at the top (who are there perhaps for their skills in A, B and C) overgeneralise and think that they can also make decisions about (D, E and F) simply because they are, in the hierarchy, ranked higher than other people. I think it is true wisdom to be able to admit that one really doesn't know everything and the right people make the decisions sometimes. This allows people to grow as well.
3. Behar says that there is a large gap between the wisdom of knowing and the wisdom of doing. I totally agree! It is easy to read about empowering people, caring about people, but when the going gets tough and say one is pulling an all nighter for 3 days in a row, it really tests the strength of your mettle to stay true to your beliefs. And that's when the first point above comes in. If one's values, beliefs and goals are not completely in sync, it doesn't take much before everything starts falling apart!
4. Balancing action and thought. Behar views the two as polarities that have to be carefully balanced to produce result. I like his quote to "think like a person of action", and "act like a person of thought". Nothing sums up the paradox of thinking and acting better. Being able to transcend the two produces a well considered action performed at the right time.