Running with a Spoonful in Life's Gallery

The Seat of the Soul - Gary Zukav

2011-10-17T05:44:00.003-04:00

Started reading this book because Oprah had said something along the lines of this book being the second most impt book next to the Bible, to her.

This book is essentially a New Age spiritualism book, and I feel that its ideas have a lot of similarities with Buddhism concepts. in a nutshell, the key idea here is that humans' end goal is to evolve beyond the five-sensory world into a more spiritual one, which can only be possible if one connects more deeply with one's soul.

I think that many of the concepts that the author talks about do contradict each other somewhat, and he tends to talk in very absolute terms, which makes me feel uncomfortable as I'm really not sure where he is getting his ideas from or on what basis he derives them.

Anyway, I do find certain concepts rather appealing, and I've put down the top three here.

Karma being generated with intention. I intuitively am drawn to the idea of karma, and that there is ultimately a chain effect to the things that we do. The author goes further and says that mere thought is sufficient to generate good and bad karma. Hence we need to be careful what kind of thoughts we seed and cultivate. This certainly sounds really Buddhist. While I'm not sure whether mere thought itself immediately creates karma, I do think that thoughts ultimately seep into one's personality; it is difficult to be a person of good character if one predominantly thinks badly of other people.

Addictions in life. I think this also stems from the Buddhist concept of "fixation". We are often addicted to all kinds of wants that we crave to fulfill, esp material ones. These cravings are bottomless pits, although I do think that there is some joy to be had in succumbing to them once in a while :p I'm not ready to lead an ascetic life. Notwithstanding, I do think that I need to guard against having too much of them - they do point to deeper issues that need to be thought through and addressed.

Power. I think instinctively, I often find myself drawn to "power" in the aggressive and ostentatious way (think macho movies, Vin Diesel, fast cars, etc). However, the true power that the book talks about is a different kind: an alignment with love, clarity, understanding, compassion, and being strong enough that one needs not harm other beings to demonstrate one's "power". Based on my interpretation, it seems to be an inner peace, acceptance and awareness of things. I intuitively seem to understand that this "authentic power" means, but I'm unable to put it into words properly. I also think that this authentic form of power goes against the more traditional and "masculinised" form of power. I will need time to understand this point much better, as I observe myself in various situations and how I react to issues.

How to Act like a CEO - D.A. Benton

2011-10-02T09:36:00.002-04:00

An enjoyable read. Was trying to recall the reasons why I felt like I wanted to become a CEO in the future, see if my imaginings about the job gels somewhat with what the reality demands, and to see if I am indeed slowly making my way there. I think I am indeed building some necessary skills, but the key issue now is that I might not have the depth of expertise and corporate experience that are critical to climbing the corporate ladder. This is something that I need to think about.

In the meantime, key learning points!

Self reflection/ awareness are absolutely critical to getting to the top job. This enables one to continually improve, and is also important because there are very few people who will tell you your flaws/ mistakes when you get to the top.
CEOs need to envision. Some say they spend 70% of their time envisioning. They need to show the company (the leadership team, the officers, the stakeholders, customers, shareholders) the "destination". In addition, they need to see opportunities and pitfalls where no one else can. This is something I don't spend enough time on, but I'm getting better. The key is to leave the operational details to the team - let them take ownership of it, and then set aside time religiously to think. I find going to all sorts of places - the library, the nearby cafe, or even hidden corners in the building, very effective.
To do this, they need to have access to a vast array of information - social, political, technological, economical, ecological, etc. To obtain these, they need to constantly gather information from people, especially from gurus, mentors and teammates on the ground. From all these, they need to connect the dots and "see around corners".
They then need to communicate this vision all the time, repeating it to people all over the place so that it permeates the organisation. This has to be done in short words, short sentences, and with no buzzwords.
9 out of 10 decisions are based on judgement, instinct, following your heart and going for it. This is interesting. Although I also think that to be this good, one has to build up a wealth of experience and knowledge - which comes from working darn hard, clocking the right experiences and reading like crazy.
You need the inventor, builder, and operator on your team. As CEO, you can't be all three. This sounds a lot like LKY's team.
Keep track all that's going on, but delegate the decision. Define the what, but leave the how to team. Lack of operations focus looks like a lack of interest! Let people fail, hold them accountable, but don't jeopardise their career. I think I have been doing both. I'm using a zero-inbox rule currently (although there is constantly a backlog of about 8-10 emails at any point in time), which helps greatly in ensuring that I know exactly what goes on in my team, even if I delegated the decision.
Control the resources. My training so far has given me good skills in managing manpower resources - I try to ensure that the workload is manageable by the team. However, I think I need more training in financial management. Perhaps a CFA will be useful?
Be a constant questioner.
Praise people but realise they rely on different things. Job security, public recognition, material rewards, being seen as the expert.
And I think this is one of the most most important points. Act like a CEO even when you don't feel like it, and project the right image and messages at every opportunity. The team looks at you to take bearings for their level of energy, optimism and drive. This takes a lot of practice and is not "natural". In addition, learn calmness. Look like you have all the time in the world when dealing with problems and talking to people. Need to practice this a bit more. Just did a friend's personality test and it suggests that my intensity could unnerve some people!

A really good read and serves as an inspiration for me at this point of time in my career.

Hard Truths - Lee Kuan Yew

2011-08-24T09:55:00.002-04:00

This was a very fascinating book to read. And it was surprisingly also easy to digest. Lee Kuan Yew (or the scribes) had this ability to distil complex ideas into bite-sized concepts that are easy to comprehend.

I will divide my learning points into three parts: policy/political, personal development and relationship.

From the policy and political angle, I think LKY had very perceptive and accurate understanding of the world (as proven by history and our progress). A key theme that appeared many times in the book is the dearth of talent in a small country like Singapore, and the key role it plays in a nation's development. This even include the running of large companies - hence the limit to which Singapore can privatise our linked enterprises. This was a theme that fundamentally changed the way I look at many of the policies that are in place today, and it also affected the way I perceive talents - I think the ones that LKY is looking at to make a significant difference to Singapore is pegged at a very very high level. Not sure how many of the people I know today will pass LKY's muster, even though I think many of them are already very smart and capable. [Not covering other policy/political learning pts here as there are too many to cite. Other ones that struck me deeply were ones about nation-building, LKY's views about other countries and the changing landscape in Singapore politics.]

From the personal development angle, he highlighted several qualities that determined talents (whether in government or private sector): IQ, EQ, leadership, stamina, determination, resourcefulness, energy, drive, ability to interact with people, to get people to work in a team, etc. This set of qualities corroborate strongly with the qualities that I've observed in some of the leaders that I've come across. Stamina and energy are very key traits that allow people to work much harder than everyone else and scale higher peaks. To LKY, nurture plays a relatively less role in life - it's all in the genes. (That runs a little contrarian to my beliefs that hard work can surmount everything.) Other things that I picked up: he jogs regularly, 20 min each time. And he also meditate frequently too, after having been taught by a Buddhist Dr. He is so intensely focused that he almost doesn't read anything that contributes to his work (like Sherlock Holmes) and he hardly watches film. He respects De Gaulle, Deng Xiaoping and Churchill. Perhaps I should spend some time reading their biographies. He appears to be agnostic and doesn't think too much about the afterlife.

Relationship-wise, I like what he said about an Indian Minister who was matched-make and saying that he learnt to love his wife, while in America, people start out loving and learnt to unlove each other. I think sometimes putting the commitment first (and setting the constraints) can beget more love in a relationship than one where an individual merely watches the love ebb and flow passively, and decides where to peg his/her commitment. It is also very clear that LKY loved his wife deeply - it was very touching reading about their relationship, and I can only hope to be able to have a similar love story in the future.

Linchpin - Seth Godin

2011-08-21T08:01:00.002-04:00

This is the first book by Seth that I've read. Seth makes a very persuasive argument, solidly built up paragraph by paragraph, for the key ideas in his book, and then eases nicely into explaining what these ideas are. I find the ideas very pertinent for me, especially at this stage of my career and life. I believe that the fundamental issue that Seth is tackling is that many of us office workers are gradually working ourselves into redundancy by not progressing to the next level in the knowledge revolution. The gap is that we don't tap on our artistic instincts and produce value that cannot be easily replicated by others, or worse, a very smart computer.

These are the key ideas that I've picked up:

Many of us office workers perform our work like what he calls "bureaucrats, note-takers, literalists, manual readers, TGIF labourers and fearful employees". These reflect many of the working styles that I observe around me: people sticking to rules and not exercising judgement, people living Mon to Thur waiting for Fri to come and living in dread in the meantime. This perspective towards our jobs leave us vulnerable to becoming redundant and dispensable.
The working class, which had so far been indoctrinated by the industrial revolution to follow instructions to the T and limit their creativity, needs to unlearn some of these practices and progress to the creative level to remain relevant. Otherwise, their salaries will constantly be chipped away by lower-wage workers as the world.
The key to becoming indispensable is to add value through creative innovation - not just incremental ones. My own interpretation is that incremental innovation would be, in the policy-making context, reacting and changing the rules in a narrow fashion to meet today's needs. Creative innovation requires the ability to see the future that does not exist yet, deep expertise, sound judgement and an innovative mind to create a fundamental change in policy.
Seth feels that schools should just teach two things, if nothing else: how to solve interesting problems + lead. I think I'm still struggling to learn these two things even after being 6 yrs out of school!
Creative innovation comes in short bursts, but are worth disproportionately more in value. For example, he quotes the example of Richard Branson - much of what he does everyday can conceivably be done by many other brilliant or good people. However, some of the "magic" that he does, particularly in seeing opportunities and capitalising on them, is what makes him a billionaire.
These magic moments require deep knowledge and sound judgement, which is a rare quality. But it sounds like it can be developed, based on Seth's book.
Emotional labour is another key ingredient - putting one's full emotional commitment and inspiration into one's work can add that additional edge.
I think 5,6 and 7 translates into moments of intense thought and meditation that one needs to cultivate and block into one's day. This is something that I've been thinking about for some time but haven't been able to do so diligently enough. This is time where a knowledge worker exercises his most significant leverage - to come up with creative solutions. Seth calls it "letting the silence into your life".
He contrasts this silence to the "busy-ness" that we try to immerse ourselves in non-stop everyday, which makes us feel gainfully occupied and less anxious (about the "absurd"? this might be the subject of another book review :p) but is of minimal value, because they can be done by many others. This includes checking email constantly, chasing every single details, etc. He says that there's a Tibetan name for it - shenpa - an itch that feels good when scratched but serves no other purpose.

So the question after all this is really: what do I need to do to become a linchpin? Am I gaining the necessary depth of knowledge, experience to build my judgement and also setting aside enough time to exercise my creative and innovative engines? I think one new thing I'll do is to being ten-minute "thinking blocks" where I focus on solving a particular task innovatively (rather than incrementally). This could be increased in the future, both in length and frequency.

Peter Guber - Tell to Win

2011-07-26T10:06:00.003-04:00

Bought this book off Kobo as a continuation of my interest in public speaking and communications.

A few quick takeaways from the book. The more trivial ones first - Peter Guber seems to know everyone famous in the world. Perhaps that's a perk of working in his industry - film. He also seems to have great persuasive power and business acumen. I believe he will attribute the former to his power of story-telling.

The key premise of the book, as I interpret it, is that humans intuitively connect to stories. There is a deep desire in us to understand, satisfy our curiosity, share and retell stories, and it provides a strong channel through which we can convince other people of our ideas.

There are broad guidelines on what are good stories. They need to be logical, I feel, so that there is a strong momentum and understandable flow to its eventual conclusion. The powerful ones also tend to have themes on struggles and overcoming them. In addition, when trying to use a story to persuade someone, one also needs to understand what the underlying story of the recipient is - which would affect how well our stories resonate with them.

Seen this way, a story can be seen as a logical and emotionally powerful way to link up a set of facts and ideas. (Much like a submission, except that emotions are eschewed in submissions.)

Some applications that I'd try to explore: as themes for people's motivations (what is their life story and how does this drive them?), personal branding and career path (what is my story and how does it make sense to myself and others? how do i want to be able to tell it to other people?), and even the visions/ missions of organisations (what do these companies really mean?).

Overall, a good and inspiring read, although it was a little short on the details side.

The Ten Faces of Innovation - Tom Kelley

2011-07-10T07:53:00.002-04:00

My interest in design thinking was sparked off recently cos of a conversation with a former colleague who is rather involved in doing design consultancy. More recently, I attended a talk by the Dean of Rotman School - Roger Martin, where I got an upfront look at one of the leading thinkers in this area. In keeping with this sudden interest in design thinking, I picked up Tom Kelley's book to learn more about the topic. Had been wanting to read this book for quite some time now anyway.

The book makes use of "persona" to represent various archetypes of personalities involved in the design and/or creative process. While many of these persona are closely pegged to certain specific skillsets, I believe that they border on being mental states that we can all assume at one point or another in our profession. Taken in this light, I interpret Tom Kelley's book as stating that too many of us assume the devil's advocate persona when dealing with innovative issues, and risk killing off good but budding ideas. There are other mental states where we can adopt to boost our organisations' innovative capacities. If we are really keen, we could even pick up the necessary skillsets and become an expert persona (of sorts) in our own right.

Here's my take on some of the persona that stood out more for me.

Cross-pollinator. I think that it is very critical for managers/leaders to have T-shaped competencies, and the cross-pollinator role is actually one that many leaders can (because of their T-shaped competencies) and should play. However, I see too many of them, including myself, developing the tunnel syndrome and fail to see the linkages or potential knowledge transfers across many disciplines.
Hurdler. I often lack the "get things done" mentality. I think this is something that many of us share. Our society and education system seems to have placed a premium on the thinking as compared to the doing side of things - sometimes I have the illusion that simply having a good idea is 99% there. I think we need more people (and also more capacity within myself) to have the drive and will to bring a first order concept into implementation. I think the hurdler persona finds relish in leaping over the obstacles - seeing them as challenges rather than troublesome "operational" details.
Director. Seems like a natural role that leaders should play. A good play is "90% casting", and so identifying the right people and playing to their strengths is the key to being a good manager.
Story teller. This links to this other book that I'm reading right now about story-telling. I think stories have a powerful way of motivating, inspiring and guiding people. Much more than simply barking orders at people or sweet talking them. Crafting a good narrative is also key to creating a strong vision that people can understand and be guided by. In our current workplace where there is an overdose of information and strategic directions can change rapidly, the narrative needs to be constantly refreshed and rationalised so that people can remain united on the journey. Tom Kelley said that the best story tellers can make a simply issue sound like the most exciting adventure (not in these exact words). Believe this is an important skill that all managers/leaders will need.

As I try to incorporate these models of thinking into my work, will also try to encourage more innovation in the people around me. May not be an easy task, but the least I could do is to stop myself the next time I'm tempted to play the devil's advocate and risk paralysing my own ability to think creatively.

The Talent Code - Daniel Coyle

2011-06-12T02:55:00.002-04:00

I started out looking for book on talent management in general, but stumbled upon this book by chance. The key theme is in line with Malcolm Gladwell's stories about the 10,000 hr mark and Colvin's "Talent is overrated" book. In gist, this is the idea that deliberate practice creates talent, which gives a glimmer of hope to all those who are aspiring towards goals much bigger than themselves.

There are some new learning points from Daniel's book, which are critical and will be incorporated into my learning methods. These are:

Deliberate practice is also about chunking. Talents perform at a very high and complex plane, much like the complexity of a symphonic band. To achieve this, aspiring people need to break the complex outcome into a series of small chunks and master each one, until they become subconscious and automatic. The way of practicing is much like breaking down a complex musical piece and trying to learn it line by line. The implication, I suspect, is that if one aspires to be a great CEO, one must first identify what are the ranges of skills needed to perform at that level, and work hard at each manageable sub-components of those skills, until one can execute them flawlessly. Colvin had suggested that the workplace is a great place to build these skills.
Failing and operating at the edge. To be able to improve quickly, the zone at which one needs to practice deliberate is the area that lies just outside your field of competency - where one is expected to fail, and fail often, but yet is within reasonable reach such that one can get there with repeated practice. I think this is the zone that has the most potential for creating flow-experiences and also gives the greatest satisfaction.
Long-term outcome focus. The fuel to enable people to keep plugging at a task in this zone comes from a strong desire that is targeted at the long-term outcome, e.g. becoming a world tennis champion, rather than short-term ones. It is a deeply felt desire to be able to belong to this esteemed group of people who are performing at a very high level.
Praising people for their struggles. Interestingly, Daniel's work showed that given the significance and sheer immensity of the effort that is needed to sustain these achievements, praise from external sources should target at the effort and the struggle, rather than the innate intelligence. In fact, praises targeted at people's intelligence (or some innate talent) diminishes their motivation and courage to test themselves further.

All in all, this is a very inspiring read, for people like me whose goals are often so far away and so hard to see that the affirmation of the very effort itself (according to a set of practice methods) as the surest way to reaching these goals feels very assuring.

The Next Level - Scott Eblin

2011-06-03T23:44:00.002-04:00

This was a pretty good read for me. It crystallised many of the things I learnt and "somehow knew at the back of my head" as a middle manager during the past 1.5 exciting years, and also gave some new perspectives on things I thought I already knew.

I think that there are some books and training that work better when one already has some experience and can relate to it. This is one of them.

Here are my key takeaways:

Managers should stop doing what they had been doing best functionally (writing papers is one) and focus their energies on doing the things that really add value to their team and the organisation. This is the what got you here won't get you to the next level paradigm shift in thinking.
This is primarily the strategic work, i.e. looking at resource allocation, prioritisation, looking forward, understanding what people upstairs want, etc. Very importantly, this also includes looking around and constantly scanning for potential threats and opportunities.
Networking with one's peers, getting tacit information and bridging inter-functional gaps in the organisation becomes also a key value-add (which I often don't do because I'm too busy skipping lunches to do work!) That is why big-picture, integration and collaborative skills are paramount for managers.
To do this, one has to shift from the "how" to the "what". i.e. as one is held accountable to the results, one must define clearly what the strategic priorities are and what is the end goal for the team. BUT one should not be telling the team how to get there, i.e. this is where the full-stop should go to, this is how to do sales, etc. At least this should be the steady-state outcome when the team's capabilities are built.
This is stepping out of the way, being less fixated with how things are done (there are a million and one ways) and letting the functional talents have the joy of owning their work.
This also includes stepping aside and letting the team debate and decide on what is the best "how", without jumping in and taking the ownership out of their hands all the time.
At the same time, that means as a manager, one has to be very clear about what are the 1-2 things that you'd want to accomplish in your time here. Which helps focus your strategic plan.
Concomitantly, one will also need to learn how to put the best people into the best roles and groom them properly, so that one can focus on the more strategic roles, which includes this very one :)
Guide for how to present issues to your boss: what, so what, now what
Performance = potential minus interference. How true - I often get alot of interference, like lack of sleep.

Pretty valuable information that I think will serve me rather well for quite some time to come!

Speech 1 - Inaugural speech for FDR

2011-05-28T08:21:00.002-04:00

Trying a new technique to improve my speaking ability by a quantum leap - why not memorise entire speeches? Just finished FDR's inaugural address in Mar 1933. Took me a couple of weeks just to finish this behemoth of 1800 words. Next one here we come!

Win: The Key Principles to Take Your Business from Ordinary to Extraordinary - Frank Luntz

2011-05-28T07:58:00.003-04:00

I was looking for a book to help me improve my communication skills, and ended up finding this book in a list of online reviews. I think that the book is more inspirational in nature than informative, from my point of view. Here are the key learning points:

Selling yourself. I think this is a paradigm shift that is useful for my (and anyone's) career. It is the recognition that communications and marketing is more than about one's ideas, but more importantly, selling oneself. Henceforth, it will be key to think carefully about what is the professional image and identity that I want to portray.
Empathy is practiced. Maestros such as Bill Clinton took time to hone his skills in listening and empathising. The appropriate facial expression and tone to use, for example, was carefully rehearsed. I see that each encounter with people is an opportunity for one to practice one's skills in these areas. One key prong of effective listening is really about respect - giving the speaker the full attention in that moment. This takes great discipline.
"Get your hands dirty". To fully understand one's customers or one's competitors, it is not possible to remain in the ivory tower and base one's thinking on pure logic. There is a strong need for leaders to be on the ground, listening and learning all the time.
One sentence answer. Communications is centred very much on brevity. Practice how to condense your ideas into one sentence forms that can be sold quickly to people.
Selling the problem. The most effective way of selling a solution is to sell the problem. Steve Jobs' talks on the release of new gadgets, for example, sells you the problem by telling you no less than 3 times before he unveils the product.
Types of audience. He classifies the audience's receptiveness to one's ideas according to 5 levels - Rejection, disagreement, neutrality, agreement and action. The right thing to do for each of these groups are different. For example, for the vehement rejection group, just getting them to stay silent is good enough. Whereas for the agreement group, what you need to do is to energise them enough such that they go around evangelising for you like the action group. This useful way of classification allows one's messaging to be targeted.
"Persistence is the art of manufactured motivation". Speaks for itself!
Crafting the vision for your people. To engineer passion and commitment in people, give them a vision, and communicating this vision well to people is key.

The McKinsey Way - Ethan Rasiel

2011-05-02T07:59:00.003-04:00

Read this book to try to learn a little more about management consulting and to see if there could perhaps be some skills that I could adopt. Overall, this was not a superb book - many of the ideas that the author presented were not of sufficient detail but just broad concepts. However, the interesting thing was that I found a great many similarities between the concepts and what I have been learning during my civil service stints so far. For example, basic ideas (or archetypes that can be used to solve problems) such as the 80/20 rule, dealing with the low-hanging fruits first, not boiling the ocean, etc.

Nonetheless, as with any book, there will always be learning points. Here are some of them:

MECE. First time I'm hearing this term - Mutually Exclusive and Completely Exhaustive, but it makes immediate sense and I can relate this to what I've been doing all these while in my work when breaking down complex issues into its components. However, this short phrase succinctly captures what it usually takes me paragraphs to explain to people.
Issue tree. I had been using mind-maps to perform a similar function. For any problem, use an issue tree to drill the issue down at increasingly detailed levels, which will help identify the possible facts to validate a particular course of action or unearth what are the other possibilities that one might not have considered. At each tree branch, apply MECE to make sure that all the bases are covered.
Understanding about the management consulting world. I learnt a little more about how the management consulting world operates, and this is similarly rather akin to the civil service in some way. Teams are built to solve problems, and everyone on the team are knowledge workers.
The book also shared some guidelines for what are considered good interview skills. This include: listen and don't lead the interview, prepare significantly in advance, paraphrase the person's response. The author also introduced the "Colombo technique" (after a movie character), which I think can be quite useful! Essentially, the suggestion is to only ask the interviewee a question after the interview is formally over and the interviewee more relaxed. This can be done as a "by the way" kind of question just as the interviewer is about to leave the room.
The last thing I learnt is on how to sell ideas to clients. The trick is always to "pre-wire" all the different stakeholders through earlier meetings or presentations so that when all of them eventually come to the meeting room, your presentation faces less chances of catching people off-guard and being rejected.

Managing transitions - William Bridges

2011-04-30T01:29:00.001-04:00

Am working on a project related to restructuring, and thought that I should continuously try to learn as much about change management as I can. This was one of the key books that were highly recommended online, so I decided to have a look at it.

The author seems to be very experienced in this field, and it is reassuring to see that the issues faced in times of change were broadly similar (in terms of their causes) and faced by many different organisations too. This book gave a useful framework to understand how changes impact on people and what can be done to make the process more fruitful and less painful. It also gave the author's view about what were the better ways to manage change - this was a very useful part of the book that I liked.

Here are my key learning points:

The author differentiated "change" from "transition". Change is what occurs on the surface - moving people into different places, moving towards a new policy, etc. Transition is the deeper set of emotions that people feel that have to be addressed properly as the change occurs. Many changes fail because the transition was not well done.
Transitions start with an ending. This is a simple concept but it took me a long time to grasp. The organisation has to find ways for people to let go of their present situation, job or expectations before the transition can start. To do so properly, first we need to clearly identify who is losing what, and then engage each group differently. "Overreaction" is often the sign of something deeper - historical issues related to the ending that were never resolved properly. They are to be expected and should be treated with due care.
Often, emotions such as anger, fright, depression and confusion are signs of grieving, which are very normal when one understands that transitions start with an ending. Never should we mistake them for bad morale.
Acknowledgment about these losses should be done openly, simply and directly. The next question to ask is, what can we give back to balance the loss that has occurred?
Give people information, and do it again and again. Don't imagine that the grapevine is not already churning all kinds of rumours to fill up the empty comms spaces, so be open with information during times of change. Also do not assume that just because an email has been sent, the message has been c0mmunciated. Changes need time to sink in. Be very clear about what the changes mean, not just in broad terms such as "we will become more innovative". Otherwise, there will be serious misinterpretations and confusion on the ground.
Honour the past for what it has accomplished. Many people have worked hard to bring the organisation to where it is today. Do not belittle these efforts when making the case for change.
Changes should take place all at once. Machiavelli (not that I support him) said that "in taking possession of a state, the conqueror should well reflect as to the harsh measures that may be necessary, and then execute them at a single blow".
After letting go, transition proceeds on into the "neutral" zone, where things are in flux and many things are uncertain. Leadership through this zone is critical. The redefinition of objectives and processes is key during this stage.
It often seems that "nothing is happening" during the neutral zone and people get discouraged. Hence, there is a strong need to put in a temporary structure and give people short-term goes and processes to keep the organisation going. Don't set high expectations and set people up for failure during this period. This is actually the time to manage expectations about what the team can deliver.
Set up a transition monitoring team, that doesn't make decisions but whose sole purpose is for upward communications. It is a group of about 7-12 people and chosen from a background of as wide a cross section of the population as possible. It also serves as a good way to monitor the grapevine and dispel untruths if they appear. For it to be successful, it will hv to be people who will not taint the reports, e.g. managers may not be the best group in giving feedback from the ground.
The main output from the neutral zone is to redesign the system and processes so that they can be ready for the future.
For the new beginning zone, there are four key things to address: (i) purpose of the new outcome, (ii) paint a picture of the outcome - must make everyone feel it inside out so that they can give their hearts to it, (iii) lay out a step by step plan so that everyone is clear how to get there, and (iv) give each person a part to play for them to feel that they can contribute and participate.
Marathoner effect - be careful! As in a marathon, people progress and cope with the change at different paces. As such, the leaders might already be running back to home base while the rest of the organisation are still heading out. Be wary that there are still people who are coping with the loss or are in the neutral zone when the leaders are ready to sell the new change. We need to tie up the loose ends first.
The transition plan in 12(iii) is focused on the process and timelines and people, while the purpose at 12(i) is focused on clarifying the objectives. As such, the transition plan needs to be very detailed and we need to be able to tell person A and B exactly what is going to happen when and what this means for them.
To reinforce the new changes, leaders have to walk the talk and show how the new purpose and processes are being lived out. Incentives and rewards will also hv to be restructured to be aligned with the new purpose.

The author says that the entire change process can take months or years, and we need some tenacity and determination and belief that things will work out well for change management to succeed. I have quite a lot more thoughts about this wh0le change management thing - how my actual experience relates to what I've read and how there are areas that I'd hv done differently on hindsight. But that shall be the contents of another post, whether online or not. All in all, a very good read that has enlightened me very much, and showed me that there is much for me to learn about working with people and organisations.

Talent is overrated - Geoff Colvin

2011-04-10T09:11:00.003-04:00

This was an excellent book. I guess I'm partly biased because what this book talks about gels a lot with what I believe in.

The book spends quite a big section on convincing the reader that excellence is built more through hard work than talent. Since I'm already a convert on this, I'll jump to what I feel is essentially the tools to becoming great.

In one word, the tool is called deliberate practice.
Identify the elements that make up the complex task. To start, one needs to know exactly what one wants to achieve and then break the destination into smaller "practiceable" pieces that one just keeps plugging at. For example, if there is a particular stroke that one wants to master in tennis, one just keeps practicing the same shot, ball after ball after ball.
Building vast amounts of domain knowledge. Build up domain knowledge and think critically about the knowledge. Much like chess, one can speed-learn by mugging loads of information about the topic. At the same time, to be able to tap on these knowledge, at a certain pt, one has to consolidate and understand it critically. The unfortunate thing is that many of us work as if domain knowledge is a by-product. The right way to do it is to read up all about your area of expertise even before and during your work.
Looking at "textbook" answers. The chess model - which is much like the case study model. Think of how you'd perform a certain task (or make a move) and then compare it with the model answer, and keep doing so until one masters the basics properly.
Building "fitness". To make the entire training whole, there are two more angles of attack adopted from sports. There are basic skills that are fundamental to all sports and training them will improve you no matter what. This includes speaking skills, your base level of energy, your level of focus, your working memory, etc.
Learning to react quickly to unpredictable situations. This is the second part of the sports model - to learn how to react to unpredictable situations, which always happens, one puts oneself in these situations (or simulated ones) to practice until one's reactions becomes instinctive.
Tonnes of reflection. Start each day or project with clear objectives and then take time to reflect at work after each major project or each day. This transforms one's working life into a major set of deliberate practices, rather than just going through motion.

This book has certainly reinforced and changed some aspects of how I'm going to work and function for the next few years. Awesome and timely book :)

Talent Masters - Bill Conaty and Ram Charan

2011-04-02T23:46:00.003-04:00

This book is part of my efforts to build up my knowledge about talent management. It provides useful advice both from the system point of view (how should a talent management branch go about building talent in the system) and unit-level point of view (how should a manager go about building talent in his department).

Here are the key learning points:

To have meaningful conversations about talent and their development, management teams need to develop specific and sensible vocabulary about their talents. e.g. saying that XX is a "great worker" doesn't add much value to the conversation, while YY is able to "relate to consumers, employees and partners and articulate the business vision clearly" enables the participants of the conversation to be able to refute or support whether the person indeed has the traits needed to succeed in a particular role. Relentlessly pursuing this specificity is key to good talent management.
Inbuilding people matters into annual review cycles is key. GE's cycle apparently starts with people, before going to strategy and then operations and budgets. (Not sure if I've got the order right but people is in Jan - maybe their cycle starts in Apr?) But in any case, the key learning point is that there needs to be a structured process to discuss people issues. I'm going to build this into my team process - so that people issues will be discussed at least once every half a year - the team's development, performance, etc.
In the same vein, there need not be an artificial differentiation btw business plan reviews and talent reviews - both should be tightly integrated with each other and conversations about one can take place in meeting focused on the other.
Based on the book, top leaders spend more than 30-40% of their time on people matters. They in turn hold other leaders accountable for developing talent under their charge.
Constructive and timely oral/ written feedback to officers is key to setting the right expectations and guidance.
Discussion about talent needs to be candid and direct - this is the only way to get a true understanding of a person's potential and capabilities.
Differentiation is key to driving talent.
Take a long term view of talent. Look at what kind of system and process they leave behind after they leave, and not just look at their current performance.
Get your leaders to attend and teach at classes targeted at rising stars. The conversations will benefit both parties.

However, what the book lacks is how to set quantifiable targets and remains largely a qualitative book that provides good practices for companies to follow.

Walk the walk - Alan Deutschman

2011-04-02T21:57:00.004-04:00

Was passed this book by a friend. It's a concise book, but it has very powerful messages that I feel are critically missing in many of our leaders today. Overall, it was a very engaging read, but it also pointed to dire areas in my own leadership development that needed greater attention.

The starting point of Deutschman's book is that leadership is about creating change, of which a significant part is through changing the way other people think, feel and act. The genuine way of doing this is only through: talking and acting. Not many leaders talk about the right things. Even fewer act them out.

Deutschman makes many references to famous leaders and highlighted many anecdotes to illustrate this idea of walking the walk and how this creates change in people. One of the first lesson he teaches is that one has to be very certain of what he calls "first virtues". In other words, what are the first and second most important principles that you (or your company/ organisation by extension) stand for. This has to be thoroughly thought through, in particular, how one will make the trade-off between these principles at critical decision points. Deutschman's point is that many organisations have such a long list of motherhood principles that the list serves little purpose in guiding actions or illustrating what the organisation REALLY stands for. In addition, there is a need for relentless consistency in demonstrating these beliefs and principles before the change can take root in the organisation.

In this respect, I had thought hard about it, and while serving the customers of my HR team and growing my HR team itself are both important outcomes where my unit is concerned, I realise that the second precedes the first, in terms of a long-term sustainable strategy and also in that the first objective will be compromised if the second is not attended to well. This insight has given me a deeper understanding of how to prioritise my resources and time spent in my work.

The second learning point is that leaders are often out at the front, leading the team, showing the way and setting the tone. This is akin to how battles are fought historically, with the generals out at the front. It goes beyond simply deploying troops from one place to another, and crafting strategy in the backroom. Leaders need to be seen and heard.

The next learning point is that apart from building confidence and belief in themselves, leaders need to cascade this down to all the levels below him/her, such that it permeates the organisation. We need to build teams of people who believe in themselves too. Unfortunately, apart from close mentoring and "walking beside" one's team, the book did not give in depth ways of how to build this confidence in all of the team members.

All in all, this was an inspiring book and it clarified some of the fundamental ways I think about leadership. It was a good read!

4 Hour Workweek - Tim Ferriss

2011-02-19T04:51:00.002-05:00

On the whole, it's a very entertaining book, and it certainly made me rethink about how I'm doing things in my life. Tim is a good writer - he made a compelling vision and easily convinces the reader that a 4 hour workweek life is easy to achieve. However, I think hard work ultimately is necessary to get one to one's destination, and I bet Tim worked real hard to get to where he is today.

Nonetheless, he paints a compelling picture that stirs something within me to want to ultimately get to the endpoint he has painted. And he has very good ideas/ principles that we should learn from:

Lifestyle design - We need to rethink about the current paradigm of "working till you are half dead before enjoying the fruits of retirement at 62". There are too many important moments and experiences along the way that should not be missed. We have to build "mini retirements" into each and every station in our lives.
Pareto principle - Or otherwise known as the 80-20 rule. One needs to be able to let go of the 80% that contributes little to one's final destination either in life or in career. Many times when we fret and get sidelined about the small things, we need to take a step back and refocus our energies on the 20% that matters most. E.g. as the middle manager in my branch, while vetting and picking up grammatical errors in submissions is important, the 20% that I should be doing is: (i) setting the vision and strategy and (ii) training my team to no longer need me to vet. Often I don't do this enough.
Managing processes - Eliminate and automate processes whenever possible. This should become second nature rather than a "do-it-once-a-year" kind of a review. For example, if I can eliminate myself from the decision process, do it. Understand the risks, apply the 80/20 rule, and manage the risks. The benefits often outweigh the risks.
Hobbies - The book awakened in me my memories of how much joy learning something new and becoming good at it is. Tim's "mini-retirements" are pretty much times when he takes 2-3 months off to immerse himself completely in learning and perfecting a new skill or simply immersing in a new experience.
Business as the way to go - Based on his story, it seems to validate the reality that owning a business is the only way to optimise the income-time tradeoff (after one's business is up and running, that is!). Other jobs all require one to invest more and more time as one moves higher in appointment or in wage.
Wealth, money and time - We should stop thinking of wealth in terms of money. Having an abundance of time to do the things one wants to do is a form of wealth. By being creative, one can actually find experiences that one can relish with one's time without too much cost. Once this is achieved, one realises that being a millionaire is really not necessary for one to have a good life. In fact, having loads of money and no time makes one really poor!

I must say that there are many other ideas in Tim's book that I did not feel are key to my life right now. And there is certainly alot of bashing going on online about how he is just a snake-oil salesman. But I really do think that the book has given me a hard shake-up, and my lenses a good wipe. I'm seeing my life in new light again.

Made in America - The Walmart Story

2011-02-06T08:24:00.003-05:00

Sam Walton grew Walmart from just one store in 1962 into 8,500 stores worldwide today employing about 2 million people. This is quite an amazing feat to accomplish within one lifetime, and I hoped to learn a little about how Sam achieved this.

My initial guess was sheer tenacity, attention to details, relentless focus on efficiency and customer service. Sam was probably really good at putting good people where they can contribute the most. The book bore some of these out, but there are also other important lessons within:

Focus on training employees. Sam set up the Walton institute to train his employees, particular those without degrees. This mirrors what Jack did at GE.
The bigger that Walmart got, the more important it is that we think small. Sam's lesson here is that one needs to stay focused on the little things that one used to diligently abide by when one was starting out even as one progressed and became more successful. In Walmart's case, he cited examples like treating customers well, greeting them, and discussing the performance of individual stores at management meetings (wow the attention to detail!) And Sam warns against stifling ground up innovation as the bureaucracy grew.
Communicate, communicate, communicate. Communication becomes more and more critical as the company grows, so that everyone is on the same page and good practices are spread quickly throughout the network. Platforms include computers, phone calls and many meetings! He said: Communicate everything to your partners. The more they understand, the more they will care. The moment they care enough, there's no stopping them.
Push responsibility and authority down, while forcing ideas to bubble up. Sam used this mantra a number of times. He wants to empower people on the ground, especially those with the passion and ambition, to help the company grow. At the same time, he helps ideas "bubble up" through encouraging people to raise ideas at meetings, and personally visiting each and every of his stores to pick up good ideas.
Reduce layers. Bureaucracies tend to fix problems by introducing new "layers", or extra personnel. Sam's philosophy is to stay lean and to limit the number of layers.
Hands on. Sam was a completely hands-on executive. He literally visited all his competitors' stores, taking notes and learning everything he could from them. He continued doing this even when Walmart was already expanding like wildfire in the US. Such dedication!
Commit to your goal. Sam said that he believed that he overcame all his hurdles simply by the force of passion.
Treat your associates as partners. In other words, give all your top executives a stake in the future of the company.
Celebrate your successes. Everyone likes to be on a winning team, and hence it is important to create that culture within the team.
Listen to EVERYONE in your company. And figure out ways to get them to talk to you. He really meant listen - he wants to know what is going on from his associates.
Exceed your customers' expectations. This one's standard, but absolutely important.
Control your expenses better than all your competition.

And lastly, he said that it is ok to ignore all of these "rules" from time to time and "swim upstream". Be prepared for people to tell you that things would not work.

All in all, a very good book that provided a good insight into how Sam thought and operated. His tenacity and commitment to growing his company was the main trait that jumped out at me. He really gave his company his all. I believe that he must have had tremendous energy to be able to run thousands of stores and yet drive each one to operate at the peak efficiency to remain at the forefront of competition. However, it is also enlightening that he said in his last chapter that he definitely had moments when he wondered if he was putting in too much for the company and it was time to lay back. (He did say that he would probably make the same choices if he could live his life again.) Seems like great accomplishments clearly require great sacrifices.

Execution - The discipline of getting things done - Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan

2011-01-15T06:50:00.003-05:00

Had been reading things off my iPad recently, and I must say that it has been a great experience. Reading off the iPhone was slowly (but surely) killing my eyes.

I came across this book when reading the list of books that Jamie Dimon recommended for his interns. This was an extremely "nourishing" book for me. It came at a time when I was feeling a little sapped and less than inspired in finding ways to push through tasks that seemingly had no end to them. After reading it, now I feel like I can tackle anything :)

The book made a very important point - that often neglected is the importance and difficulty of execution. I read somewhere that often it is not the strategy that dooms a company, but its poor execution. Something I read from another place was that companies that fail were often "out-executed" by another one which might not have as brilliant a presentation piece on its strategy. It is true that we often glorify the process of coming up with slides and conceptualisation and look at implementation as if it is the simpler and more straightforward task. This book states otherwise and I fully agree.

Here are some of the key learning points:

Leaders have three key roles: (i) setting the strategic direction, (ii) picking other leaders and (iii) conducting operations. What I've seen in my workplace so far are people who are very good in (i), but not many in (ii) or (iiii). We are often promoted solely based on (i). Have decided to work harder on (ii) and (iii) from now on. In particular, think that I can do more in grooming people on the team.
Being actively involved in execution. The leader should not shun 'operations' work, but should immerse himself in them as it is inextricably linked to strategy. Jack Welch and Jamie Dimon appear to embrace this. Dimon encourages leaders to lunch with their frontline staff - the leaders will learn much more than reading reports.
Probing is key. To get to the heart of execution, leaders need to probe deeply and relentlessly. E.g. One should not be satisfied just looking at strategic plans that say "we need to roll out XX by YY". A leader should ask the hard questions - how are we going to do it, why is it going to work, what are we going to do if it doesn't, who is responsible for each step, etc. Many strategic plans are shallow because they simply state the whats without saying the hows, and people should not be allowed to get away with it.
In addition, a leader needs to be able to make fine judgments abt people so that they can be placed at steps of the execution plan where their contributions will be optimal. Coaching the next level of leaders is also exceptionally different. I'm starting to do it - for the last year, I think I as coached more than I coached :)
In both execution and people issues, the leader needs to foster open and candid dialogue. People need to be able to speak up and feel ok to disagree. Otherwise, the level of incisiveness and thought that goes into execution will not be sufficient. This includes being able to open up about weaknesses or intractable issues in an organisation. Informality is critical to such candor, and it is important to create this. We need to be able to say "let's listen to everybody and then
Doing all of the above certainly requires alot of discipline and courage. Many times I had put off intractable issues only to discover that dealing with them right at the beginning would hv been better. The book calls the secret ingredient "emotional fortitude", and it comes from self-mastery and self-awareness.
"We don't think ourselves into a new way of acting. We act ourselves into a new way of thinking". How awesome!
Differentiation is the key to building a performance culture. For this I still have some learning to do. I find many people excellent in what they do, and have difficulty using a ruthless ranking process.
Make use of platforms such as meetings, mgmt meetings to set the organisational tone, performance, professionalism and work ethic. The platforms are the hardware, but you need to imbue it with the software as a leader.
Learn how to get things done through others. Still learning about this - am tempted to do everything myself sometimes.
Follow-through is the cornerstone of execution. At the end of strategic reviews, write to everyone on what the follow-up should be.
Larry says that in interviews, he focuses on a candidate's energy, implementation and achievements, and he often calls the candidate directly rather than rely on HR.

There are many more gems within - would strongly suggest people read through this good book.

Investing in Real Estate - Gary W. Eldred

2011-01-07T12:08:00.003-05:00

One other thing that I wanted to start learning about this year is real estate. Not sure what my objective right now is yet - for investing or simply for finding a place to stay. And not sure when I'd go in too - whether now or a couple of years later. Nonetheless, as the saying that luck favours the prepared mind, why not start now.

This is a rather straightforward book about the basics. The key idea behind investing in real estate, I feel, is that it allows you to leverage your initial capital many times over.

Not much that I can write here on the specific learning pts as there is a significant amount of calculations that are stated in the book that are not easy to reproduce. However, the key learning pt from these calculations is that there are many variables at play - interest rates, amount of loan, amount of capital, length of loan, etc that influences the eventual cash flow.

I think the next step is really to try to dive into the property market in Singapore and get a sense of the prices, what areas are good, whether the market still has room to grow and when is the right time to go in.

Confessions of a public speaker - Scott Berkun

2011-01-07T11:46:00.002-05:00

Decided to take another step in improving my communications, or rather, public speaking, skills. Think it is a very useful skill to develop. This book is one of the first steps. It was one of the highest rated books on websites that I visited, and it seemed like a good bet!

Overall, it was a pretty entertaining book. Berkun writes in a very "approachable" manner and it certainly didn't read like a textbook. Many of these points that he highlighted are simple and commonsense, but I think that they are helpful for a noobie like me all the same. So here they are:

Everyone freaks out. I always get the butterflies before any situation where I'm required to speak. Even in meetings (those with senior ppl who I imagine are judging me all the time). It's good to know that many people get the same feeling too.
Practice is key. I don't think I've ever practiced much. Not for presentations. And not for just the sake of practicing. I think I look unhinged if I start speaking at home to myself. But I think I should start somewhere, and I need to find a place to practice everyday.
Preparation is key. Study your material inside out.
Working the room. Simple but important - there is a need to first get everyone to come to the front of the space that you are speaking in to focus and concentrate the energy.
Storyline. The storyline should be captivating and convincing. This is not so easy to do so in the typical presentations that are done in my workplace. People seem to expect slides that simply capture information in a snapshot but very detailed manner. Will keep the need for a storyline in mind.
Making presentations interactive. I'm seeing Tony Robbins do this really well. I think I have lots to learn in this area - most of my presentations are one-way. I'm simply downloading loads and loads of data onto people, even for those where I'm not doing to my supervisors and people are there to learn about something that I'm (supposed) to be good in. Will keep in mind to ask people more questions.
Know what's coming up on the next slide. Again, simple but really important. It allows you to connect your storyline.
Tension and release. This is not so easy. But silences play quite a useful role. Berkun suggests using questions or problems that you ask people to solve.
Always end early. That's a pretty good idea!

So here's the first step in my resolution to become an excellent public speaker. Now to find a place to practice!

The Reason for God - Timothy Keller

2010-12-19T09:58:00.003-05:00

Got this book as a gift, from a friend who felt that I could benefit from reading and clarifying some of my thoughts and beliefs about the Christian God. I'm rather thankful for the friend's kind thoughts, and am slightly surprised by the number of people and friends who had been gently nudging me in this direction lately. Of course, the me right now interprets this as serendipity while my friends would disagree :)

In any case, it is both refreshing and challenging to read this book after having read Richard Dawkin's "The God Delusion". The arguments in both books, hailing from opposing camps, are strong in their own ways. And as much as it is a leap of faith to believe that there is a God, I think that it is also an equally big leap of faith to conclusively believe that God does not exist (it is not really possible to "prove" that something doesn't exist, only that it is very unlikely).

At a very personal level, I find the idea of a higher spiritual being very comforting and "right" in a way. This book has addressed many of the issues that I have encountered, thought through and digested over the years pertaining to God, and they are quite well written. However, on the other hand, there's this part of me that finds it hard to accept some aspects, and unfortunately these issues have not been fully resolved. (Not sure whether they can be resolved through sheer logic ultimately - although some of my friends feel that they can.)

But it is nice that I'm thinking about such issues again after all these while. Chapter 1 needs to be revisited!

Jim Rohn video

2010-12-16T06:31:00.002-05:00

Dunno why it took me so long to realise this, until I watched this youtube video by Jim Rohn.
"To become more valuable and succeed in life, work harder on yourself than at your own job."

Active Value Investing - Making money in range-bound markets, Vitaliy N. Katsenelson

2010-12-14T09:28:00.003-05:00

For the same reasons that I read my first technical analysis book, I read this book on active value investing to build up my knowledge about the tools that investors use to, well, invest. The reviews for this book were wide ranging, with many feeling that this book does not add much value to the reader.

I personally think that this may not be the best book on investing, as it does not highlight in great detail how to actually ascertain say the growth potential of a company, but only say that it is an important aspect that we need to take note off. However, it has given me some good insights nonetheless that I will incorporate into my meager well of knowledge on investing.

One of the key themes at the start of the book is that we are currently in a range-bound market, which often occurs right after a long and steady bull run. In fact, the market generally alternates between a range-bound and a bull market, having done so for much of the last hundred years. In a range-bound market, stock prices are not significantly higher at the end of the period (which can be more than 10 yrs) than at the start. As such, a buy and hold strategy doesn't work. One will have to actively manage one's portfolio, hence the name. The learning point here is that we will need to know when to sell, as the market will just keep yo-yoing between the upper and lower bounds.

The book recommends that we use traditional value investing strategies to evaluate the right company (e.g. using DCF) invest in. However, another point of departure is that the P/E for the entire stock market will be overpriced at the end of a bull run (and we are now at one of the most overpriced points in history) and the range-bound market corrects this by slowly eroding away the P/Es until it reaches a reasonable level for the next bull run to start. As such, it is all the more critical that we focus on companies with low P/Es. This is the second learning point.

I think that there is some truth to these analysis. Ever since I entered the stock market 1-2 years ago, it has been yo-yoing quite a bit, and there were multiple entry and exit points, which if I had capitalised on, would have earned me much more. However, the book made me realise that there is actually still much that I do not know and I need to learn. (Mainly cos the book mentions many terms but does not really explain how to use them.)

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

2010-11-14T10:27:00.002-05:00

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:

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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

2010-11-14T08:41:00.002-05:00

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:

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.
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.
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.)
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.
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

2010-11-07T05:15:00.002-05:00

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.

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.
"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.
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!
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.

The Spirit Level - Why Equality is Better for Everyone - Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

2010-10-07T09:59:00.004-04:00

This was XM's recommendation. It strikes right at the heart of an issue that XM and I have been talking about alot recently. The crux of the book is that inequality (particularly in terms of financial endowment) in a society leads to significant issues for individuals, ranging from health and social problems to softer issues such as the level of trust people share. The data is surprisingly consistent, and shows that even in countries with higher levels of economic development, where everyone is better off, the inequality between individuals at the top and bottom of the pecking order still leads to all the gamut of issues above. And this is more strongly correlated with the inequality rather than to the absolute financial wealth of the society as a whole.

At a very personal level, I do believe that the capitalist economic model has worked very well and I haven't seen anything that drives human behavior towards industrious ends and focused action as successfully and on as wide a scale. However, I must concede (to XM too) that I think our society can be even better off than today. (And yes, I don't really need a Maserati in this lifetime.)

Our current economic model is fundamentally driven by consumerism, and industries are blooming by creating greater and greater capacities for spending in people. A TED talk that I listened to this morning aptly called it: "people spending money they don't have, on things they don't need, to impress people they don't care". The crux is this. Capitalism has become wildly successful because it has insidiously creeped into our social selves. Our very social well-being, hierarchy and beliefs, have become so intertwined with our earning / spending power that it is sometimes difficult to tell the two apart. Apart from material goods to make us feel good, we are also sold "experiences" nowadays, which is an attempt at elevating consumerism to a spiritual and hence, nobler, pursuit.

I think I will have to start by rewiring my own brain first - there is too much beliefs about success, effort, anxiety about financial security, achievements, and so on, that is deeply ingrained in me that I think I have a long way to go to having a more enlightened view of society and how I should live my life.

Thanks to XM for getting me to read this book :)

In Lieu of Ideology - An Intellectual Biography of Goh Keng Swee

2010-10-07T09:12:00.005-04:00

Goh Keng Swee, one of the key personalities in the founding of Singapore, had passed away earlier this year. After reading Ngiam Tong Dow's depiction of GKS's towering intellect and many accomplishments, I had always wanted to find out more about the man and his ideas. This book came at an opportune time when I was also trying to learn and understand the Singapore Civil Service at a deeper level.

The book indeed gave me much insights into GKS's ideas, but I must say that I only got quite a one-dimensional picture of the man. Didn't seem to be able to glean his deeper beliefs and emotions from the book. Nonetheless, it is a rich repository of Singapore's history from an intellectual perspective, and here are some of the key learning points that I took from the book:

GKS's thinking is that a capitalist system suffers from two ailments - widening income inequality and the tendency to go through boom-bust cycles, which lead to significant wastage. In particular, the emergence of a wealthy class leads to economic "wastage" as significant economic resources are "invested" in status symbols rather than things that are of real social or economic benefit. However, a socialist system has even greater handicaps, not least is the difficulty to incentivise people to pursue excellence. Ultimately, GKS believes that the intelligence, energy and sympathy of the people determines the success of the system, rather than its form or ideology.
From the social angle, the book gave insights into how poor Singapore really was at one point in time (around 1950s to 1960s), when GKS conducted his census. An observation that was made at that time was that immigrants generally were more willing to work than the locals. I wonder if this is a scenario that is being (or will someday be) played out in Singapore.
GKS believed in the advantage of having a "ruling elite", and saw no inconsistency between having such an elite and democracy. Unfortunately, this was not explained in greater detail and I wasn't able to understand the thoughts behind this belief. However, it was stated that stability and consistency in the government allowed industries to prosper and social / welfare policies to develop (based on the income generated by the industries). A strong central government is also necessary for socialist policies to be implemented wisely.
He had a belief that the "modernisation of the traditional man" takes place in the city, which allowed traditional values to meet with and be amalgamated with global ideas.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and defence was one of the top priorities for GKS. However, he believed that both the regimental (punishment and reward-based) and the ideological (almost akin to brainwashing) type of armies were not suitable for Singapore. The book was not clear in what he felt was the ideal model though, except that it would be similar to "Frederick the Great's". One point that he found to be missing in today's society is the absence of a desire in a people to want to defend themselves. In this respect, national service can help to build loyalty and national consciousness.
Tourism was a method through which wealth from the rich countries is distributed to the less well-endowed ones. Never thought of it before!
In terms of education, GKS had expressed his concern with the significant amount of effort and resources that went into studying for examinations, and the society's preoccupation with how much everyone had in the bank balance. This restricted the ability of the education system to deliver larger and more holistic (although he didn't really use this blaise term then) educational outcomes for our students.
How some of the older initiatives failed dramatically, in particular, the introduction of religious studies, which led to widespread proselytism as an unintended outcome. This is an important lesson - even really brilliant people can make some mistakes sometimes. So one can never be too humble in terms of viewing one's own capabilities and judgment.

Do hope to be able to put my mind to the greater benefit of the world or society someday, like GKS did. Would be really grateful if I can have even one-tenth of his list of contributions!

Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior - Chogyam Trungpa

2010-08-28T08:55:00.005-04:00

Some unknown gut instinct drew me to take this book off the library shelf. (I've always liked to read about spiritual stuff, so it's not out of the ordinary that I've picked this book.) I really enjoyed reading this. It was thoroughly inspiring, refreshing and has made a tangible (and quite likely, long-term) impact on my life.

The book essentially advocates the "way of the warrior", a symbolic and ideal way to live one's life that's based on ancient Tibetan / Buddhist principles. It advocates a raw, truthful and ego-less approach to life, for one to be fully open, conscious and exposed to life in it's full brilliance. Through this, one will be able to live fearlessly and bring greater good to the rest of the world.

There are a few major points about the philosophy that are worthy of writing here.

First, if I'm not interpreting / generalising it too widely, the Tibetan / Buddhist (as far as this particular branch is concerned) / Zen view towards goodness is not extrinsic but intrinsic. To discover true human goodness, one does not look for answers or exhortations from scriptures or tomes (though they are useful as guides). The answer lies within oneself, and comes through disciplined meditation and introspection. This intuitively makes quite some sense to me, and I think I'll try to ingrain regular meditations into my life. (Had stopped for a long time.)

Second, there is a significant focus on the concept of being "centred". Meditation focuses and disciplines the mind, and creates a sense of awareness that pervades through one's life. This is a source of strength that will allow one to live with more presence, and deliberateness. This concept of deliberateness has come at a very timely point. Increasingly I've been finding myself to be constantly distracted, to be thinking of B when doing A, thinking of C when B comes, and when C has arrived my mind is already thinking about D, E and F. I'm missing out the full brilliance of now, the precise instant where my future joins melds into my past. (Apparently, when one has become skilled enough, one can then appreciate the world properly through the five senses because one has learnt to observe without judgement. Not there yet, man.) Worse, I'm often doing things without thinking.

Third, this flows directly from the second point. We often become victims of habits because we stop being conscious of what we are doing and thinking. And gradually, we drift further and further away from realising the full potential of what we can be. In addition, I sometimes think that all the mindless distractions are but results of us being afraid of the silence and what the introspection might lead us to find out about ourselves. I noticed that after I've stopped my endless and mindless iphone surfing, I actually feel alot more attuned to who I am and what I'm doing, and I experience more moments of calmness and alertness. The obsession with activity and being occupied actually diminishes my quality of life. It's like scratching away at a scab - it feels really good for now but in the long term, the wound doesn't heal.

This sums up my attempt at understanding my spiritual side more. There are alot more deeper philosophical issues in the book that I do not yet understand, but I hope to be able to someday. p.s. The more I read, the more I think that Buddhism / Zen is alot about studying and understanding the mind.

Rework - Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

2010-08-14T12:38:00.003-04:00

A fellow traveler and friend from my workplace passed me this book to read. It was a great read. Straight to the point but full of words of wisdom.

There are too many to be summarised here. (The book itself is already a summary.) But here are the ones that really resonated with me.

Start making something NOW rather than just keep talking about it
No time is an excuse - the real reason if one thinks and prioritises one's time properly is that this particular thing is not important enough
Making the call is making progress, and be ready to make small decisions that brings one closer to the goal each day
Distractions are nemesis to productivity - we really need to change the way we work and function nowadays. I actually enjoy getting distracted at times, which is bad. We need to create white spaces - long stretches of uninterrupted time to think. Each time I do that I really do get good ideas or breakthroughs.
This one is really interesting - hire good writers. The writer says that people who can write well have a clear mind, can communicate, can empathise and understand what people want, and know what to omit. Honestly, I do feel that my mind has been sharpened by years of writing in the service. Glad for it.
Send people home on time.
Inspiration expires - so if you have an inspiration, the right time to do something about it is NOW.

The New Asian Hemisphere - Kishore Mahbubani

2010-08-14T08:44:00.002-04:00

Took a really long time to finish this. Partly because there are alot of arguments packed into each page, and partly because I was working myself a little too hard at work.

But finally! Finally I managed to cross the last page and by then I had forgotten most of the issues stated in the early part of the book. All in all, this was a rather harsh critic of the West and its institutions. There were moments in the book when I cringed, despite being a bystander to the criticisms. In scanning the book a second time, the key learning points that I managed to glean are as follow:

1. End of Western domination of history. This is the period when the western domination of the world history ends and the oft-mentioned rise of the rest begins. However, the improvement in the lives of millions across the world is actually beneficial to the West, as more people join in as global citizens with an interest in ensuring world peace and security. The discomfort to the West is that the relative superiority of the West will inevitably also be diminished.

2. Different layers of freedom. The West had been harping on the issue of freedom of speech, and appear to fail to understand that there are other forms of freedom that Asia has fought hard and achieved, which are in fact more important than freedom of speech itself. Freedom from want (food and basic survivability), security (risks to national and security safety) and freedom to choose one's employment are major advancements that people in the rest of the world are more concerned with at this point in time.

3. China has great potential ahead. It applies the principle of meritocracy ruthlessly in the CCP, in the same way as top companies do in MNCs, which has led it to accumulate top leadership talent in the government that has propelled China forward. It's society might be closed but people have open minds and are ready to find ways to move ahead in a pragmatic way. It has also demonstrated great finesse and acumen in furthering its geopolitical interests in the region and the global stage.

4. Current leadership gaps in the world. We need a strong leader or an institution (i.e. the UN) to bring the world forward in resolving issues facing all of us. However, the West had been unable to make good progress in areas such as the Middle East conflict, bringing down trade barriers, resolving global warming and nonproliferation of nuclear technology.

This short summary is doing a disservice to the breadth and depth of content in the book, but captures what struck me the most when I was reading the book.

Steve Farber - The Radical Edge

2010-06-12T04:37:00.002-04:00

Was given this book by a friend. It was a fast read but invigorating. Through a short story, Steve provides some advice on how to live life more fully. My sense of what he feels is "wrong" with the way people are living their lives is that they are (i) going through each day like a drone and not being aware + subscribing to fixed mindsets as an easy way to evaluate the people or environment around them , and (ii) having conservative goals that ultimately do not go beyond themselves and/or are not revolutionary.

His advice is two-fold.
First, to make people "wake up" to their surroundings and people around them, Steve prescribes the "Wake-Up Pad" or WUP, on which one should jot down observations gleaned from scanning/ eavesdropping on one's environment and people. The key is to pass no judgement but put things down the way as they are. Thereafter, he recommends that we ponder through how these observations relate to our lives and our endeavours. He even recommends forming a small group to discuss and exchange ideas as a way to multiple the WUP-effect. I think all these are great ideas. Very often I pass judgement quickly on the things I see (it helps save a lot of time) and chuck what can be potentially new insights or ideas into the bins of "seen-there, done-that" or "not worth my time to think more about". The limits to my lens will only limit my growth as an individual. Since I already carry a notebook everywhere I go now anyway, I shall endeavour to write down observations about people and things as much as I can.

Second, Steve dares us to think about how we can change the world, and to believe, just for one lifetime, that what we do everyday will have that impact. I think this is important in two ways. One's success is essentially limited by one's imagination, and too often, we have been overly modest in this aspect. We don't dream big enough. Second, we tend to see ourselves as isolated creatures, but we should expand our horizons and think of what we can bring to the larger world. I will begin rethinking my goals to include the perspective of how it can impact the larger world henceforth :)

George Soros - The Credit crisis of 2008 and what it means

2010-06-12T03:03:00.003-04:00

Had always been rather amazed by George Soros, as the man who broke the back of England. Having started my hand at doing a little investment myself, I must say that I am very keen to learn from the "gurus" as much as I can. And of course, investing in the midst of this financial turmoil does mean that I'm facing off with a Mr Market that is not in one of his very good moods, and any guidance that I can find to add to my analysis will be useful.

The central theme to Soros's book is that of reflexivity - which is roughly similar to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in a way. We often view our role vis-a-vis the financial system as if we are independent observers, and our very act of observation and participation has no impact whatsoever. In such a world, prices will tend towards the fundamental value of assets, which our participation will not have an effect on. However, as the credit crisis (as well as all the other bubbles that blew up in our faces so far) has clearly showed that people's expectations and behaviours do impact on the fundmental value of assets, which in turn affect prices and consequently people's expectations and behaviours. Based on this feedback loop, the corresponding behaviour of the stock market often lapses into self-reinforcing cycles that makes Mr Market a clear bipolar case. It is no longer useful to apply traditional economics to explain or predict the market.

Unfortunately, while Soros's book serves as a good cautionary signal to those of us who are gullible enough to rely solely on economics to invest, the book did not offer clear ways out of this conundrum. Like the unsatisfying Uncertainty Principle, it leaves us with more uncertainty and doubt than answers.

Drive - Daniel H. Pink

2010-05-23T10:30:00.003-04:00

This was actually a very fast read. (I feel like I might have overpaid for the hardcover version!)

Pink advocates for a rethink in the way we incentivise people. Currently, we use a combination of carrots and sticks to ensure that people perform their task well. However, Pink says that enforcing extrinsic forms of motivation would have side-effects that become more evident in our world today. Here are the key points that Pink makes:

Carrots and sticks work wonders for algorithmic tasks. Higher reward / stronger sticks --> higher productivity. However, for creative tasks, these traditional levers actually limit creativity. Nonetheless, a minimum amt of carrots is necessary for the individual to not be focused on the unfairness of the situation.
Tangible rewards kill intrinsic motivation. If-then rewards are especially potent and can lead to unhealthy expectations. The solution is to give rewards that are unexpected.
It can encourage unethical behaviour as the focus at hand becomes the reward (or avoidance of the punishment) and creates a win-at-all-cost mindset.
The solution is to focus on satisfying the fundamental human needs of competence, autonomy and relatedness. In competence, the system has to allow the individuals to develop areas of strength and grow. I think this also means that grooming one's team is especially important. In autonomy, Pink advocates giving people flexibility with when and where they want to work. I see it also as not micro-managing people. In relatedness, people want a sense of purpose to what they are doing. It is the leader's responsibility to keep on linking people's work to the larger picture and higher purpose.

Straight from the gut - Jack Welch

2010-05-21T10:02:00.002-04:00

I enjoy reading Jack Welch's books - they are direct and cut straight to the chase. The book also gave me insights into how Jack made various decisions throughout his career, from simple ones to major business decisions. These were very useful. Overall, there were strong traits about Jack that stood out - he had immense drive, focus and an ability to sniff out opportunities. And of course, he also made a number of mistakes along the way. It was helpful to read about these as well and why they happened.

Here are some of the other learning points that I find most useful:

The importance of hiring good people and placing them in the right jobs. This point was raised again and again in the book, until it stuck in my head. Good people are fundamental to the organisations' outcomes and products. GE spent a significant amount of their time on its people, esp for the best - ranking them, putting them into the right roles, creating quality training facilities with significant investment. While I am not totally comfortable with the philosophy of removing the weakest all the time, I am quite convinced of the need to reward the best significantly.
Removing bureaucracy. In the ideal world, people are capable and take ownership for their work. As such, removing layers of bureaucracy would allow people to perform at their best as they would also be held fully accountable to those results. In particular, people closest to their work know it the best, and should be the ones making the decisions.
"Need to be hard in order to be soft". Jack states that making tough-minded decisions about people and projects is a pre-requisite to earning the right to talk about soft values. There has to be solid performance-based culture as the fundamental for the rest of the other issues to build on.
The 4 "E"s. Jack stated the following as traits of 'A' players: very high energy levels, ability to energise others around common goals, the edge to make tough yes or no decisions, and the ability to consistently execute and deliver on their promises.
Boundaryless. This is about creating a culture where innovation and ideas permeate freely around an organisation. GE promoted initiatives that facilitated the sharing of ideas.
Strategy has to be dynamic and anticipatory. Speaks for itself :)
Deep dives. Jack would get different teams to sit down and take ideas (concerning their departments) apart, in sessions known as deep dives. This seems like a useful thing to do, and one of my old bosses used to do it. It really does harness the intellectual capacity of all the talent on your team, and is a good tool for spotting new opportunities.

The Unforgiving Minute - Craig Mullaney

2010-04-25T11:07:00.002-04:00

This was an inspiring book, but also one with serious undertones. The key thing I learnt from this book is that leadership is not simply another job that one takes up - there are responsibilities to your people and their lives that you shoulder once you pick up the mantle. In the extreme case of the army, you are responsible for lives.

There are more parallels in leadership between the military and the real life than I thought. The concepts that Craig brought up: leading is actually a pull - one has to lead from the front, trust and empower your people but verify, and that competence is the biggest morale booster, are true gems. I think this means that the person leading has to push himself harder than everyone else on the team. In addition, I think demanding excellence from the team actually pays off in the long run - achievement and competence are indeed greater rewards than praises that ring empty.

It also gives me some comfort that all the training that I'm putting myself through, be it forcing myself to think with greater clarity, enforcing greater discipline on myself, reading a diverse range of books to steal from ppl's experiences - the sum total of all the moments where I could have rested but pressed on, shapes me up to be able to respond in the right way when the unforgiving minute arrives.

This was a gift from a colleague and also a friend, someone who has been further down the road and has much more experience about leadership than I can imagine at this pt. Appreciate all the guidance and advice so far! :)

Doing What Matters - James M Kilts

2010-04-01T09:49:00.002-04:00

All in all, this is a great book. Pragmatic experience and advice that is immediately applicable everyday.

Getting to the heart of the issue. Looks like this is one of the skills that would be transferable. Need to train myself to be able to first ask myself fact based questions that lead to the heart of the problem, and then force myself to give simple and clear answers. I believe that this is one aspect of clarity of thought that can be trained.
Focus on 3-5 concepts only. These should form the fundamentals of how one drives success in an organisation. Consistent effort and being in the top 1/3 continuously is the key to success.
Intellectual integrity. Being able to face harsh facts in the face and address them. Kill the snake! :)
Enthusiasm as a nonstop activity. Keeping the momentum going is not just about one-off appearances or rallies. This is something that I have to learn! Use weekly meetings to stoke accountability and make people act.
Out-execute competition. Planning is only a small part of the game. It is rare that fantastic ideas lead to fantastic outcomes. The winner is the one who out-executes an ordinary plan against competition.
Energy as a key pillar for talent. Darn - I'm maxing out my caffeine intake already. How!
Have a roadmap and vision. This is also one area to work on. Am beginning to shift more of my energies each day towards planning, rather than doing things. It doesn't help that I can't delegate much of my work away though.

Harvard Business Review - Becoming a High Performance Manager

2010-03-07T06:32:00.003-05:00

Was glancing around my neighbourhood bookstore for a good read, and decided that it was time to study into the issues surrounding middle management and examine whether I was doing a decent job.

It turns out that there are a lot of commonsense "guidelines" but which I didn't really have the mental capacity or experience to think of until I read the book. (Didn't get much proper training before I took up this position!)

Some of my key takeaways:

Passing the monkey. Being conscious of where the next "initiative step" lies when managing work in one's team. Managers who try to help their team out by asking for balls to be lobbed into his / her court (either consciously or unconsciously) actually decrease the value that they can bring to the team - the pipeline soon gets clogged up and the manager finds himself / herself being unable to focus on larger issues such as prioritisation. Proper empowerment and giving clear instructions are key.
Focus and prioritisation. Still one of the most difficult things to do as a manager - how to select the most important tasks and putting in the most effort in them.
"Wasting" time. Apparently, managers "waste" a lot of their time. Much of their day is unplanned, much of it spent with people (even those beyond direct reports and superiors) and includes many disjointed conversations. (This actually resembles my worklife nowadays.) According to HBR, managers actually get alot done during these "time-wasting" activities. They subtly influence and set agendas, gain both direct and tacit information from their vast networks which help them make better decisions. To do this effectively, I feel that they need to have a very clear idea of their objectives - so that seemingly disconnected events throughout the day can be shaped and optimised to contribute to the larger goal, even if it were unplanned.
Courage. The troops look to the leader to know how to feel in stressful situations. While this seems to show that one needs to develop nerves of steel to be on top, studies seem to imply that people who are put into leadership positions gradually develop more serotonin levels to deal with stress anyway.
Empowerment. Managers need to cultivate an environment where people have the space to be released to do what they do best, and not fear failure. Focusing on solving problems rather than nitpicking on people's faults and mistakes is another lesson. People are naturally hardwired to want to be "sent in", and it is often circumstances that dull this inner desire.

Can Asians Think - Kishore Mahbubani

2010-02-28T07:20:00.003-05:00

I think I'm neither the target audience (the book is more geared towards a Western audience) and many years have passed since much of the contents of the book was first published (abt 8 years ago). However, I do find the book a pretty good read - there are many ideas within which are relevant. It took me some time to get through the book through - I can't say foreign affairs and geopolitical issues interest me that much.

But anyway! Here are some of my takeaways:

Economic growth and cultural renaissance. The former usually precedes the latter. In this regard, the western's dominance of the cultural complexion of the world (the music, dressing, language, etc) is a result of the economic progress that the west has made over the last few decades. I wonder when we would start seeing the asian culture begin its flourish? Right now, it feels like asia has been trying to beat the west in their own game, but I think that I might be able to see some unexpected changes in my lifetime.
Economic growth precedes political transformation. This is probably not a concept that's unfamiliar to students of political science and economics (I think) but I had a little "oh yah hor" moment when I read this. The model that the west had been trying to establish in various countries - immediate creation of democracy without first stabilising the economic situation of the country concerned, has led to rather disappointing results.
Issues with a "free press". The book makes the point that the free press in the US enjoys too much power and although it has passionately embraced the role of being a moral police for the Government (and other famous people), it seems immune from any moral wrongdoing whatsoever. As one group (the other being financiers of parties) that influences political and policy outcomes greatly, it seems dangerous that they themselves are not in turn checked by another force. In addition, with reference to the earlier pt above, economic progress and political stability have to be present first before a free press can be "unleashed". Even then, we have seen in several asian societies how a wild press can lead to more social issues.
China and soft power. This was the part that I found the most interesting. The book argues that China has exercised more sophisticated foreign policy than the west had in recent years, and its soft power is slowly beginning to take effect. As a large market for many of its neighbouring countries (even those that are not neighbouring), it wields great influence over the actions of the other countries, which it had used intelligently. The book also argues that China takes a longer term view in terms of its international strategy, while the US is increasingly focused on the short term (which might be the result of how its Government is structured). Another reason is that the west might have been clouded by its arrogance about how much it can use force as a solution to global issues, even though the dynamics of the participants have started to change some time ago.

What the dog saw - Malcolm Gladwell

2010-02-21T06:57:00.002-05:00

I have always enjoyed reading Malcolm Gladwell's books, and this one I must say I enjoyed tremendously. It provided bite-sized material that gave me new insights and perspectives to various issues - I feel I grew a little wiser and also learnt a little more about the world after reading this.

Some of the key things that I learnt:

Amplitude - how different tastes blend together - as an important factor in how things taste. Now I know why I love my Coke Zero and Santouka ramen. I suppose this also has implications in other areas of life. Perhaps personalities also have blends, and some people are more well-blended than others?
Body language and other non-verbal cues as a powerful way which we communicate with other beings around us. In the case of a dog, which can't really understand most things we say, these cues become amplified and hence can lead to large chances in the behavior of the dog. I believe that the impact on humans is equally strong, but it is harder to become skilful in dealing with humans.
The benefit of retrospect - I think many armchair economists / theorists / pundits are tremendously skilled in making sense out of things (and accusations too) in retrospect. And it is quite easy to make things look simple (and oneself look intelligent) with the luxury of hindsight. (I'm starting to doubt all the business books I've read! Oh dear.)
Choking vs panic - these are two things that I often battle with in times of extreme stress. Now I know which situations to use my brain more and which to use my instincts more.
Late bloomers - this gives me some comfort! There are different kinds of genuises and the type of talent they bring to the world are slightly different in nature. Now that I'm over the age for precocity, perhaps I can aim to do something great by my 50s and 60s.

HR Transformation - David Ulrich

2010-02-07T09:33:00.003-05:00

Was forced to read this book as I had to go on a study trip on HR transformation, which I had very little idea about. Turns out that there is a whole new world to HR which I never knew about.

In a nutshell, driven by David Ulrich (who wrote the book), HR has been transforming itself structurally and functionally so that it could deliver more strategic value to businesses, a opposed to the basic and transactional work that HR traditionally performed. With the transformation, HR will raise its position as an equal partner alongside line managers. At the same time, the transactional work is agglomerated, technology-enabled and streamlined to cut costs.

During the trip to UK to study other organisations, I discovered that many organisations were implementing similar transformations in their HR functions. It does seem like there's some advances going on in the field of HR, and hopefully this field will grow bigger in the coming years. Might be an opportunity to capitalise on in the future, and makes my work now a little more relevant!

Harvard Business Review - The Mind of the Leader

2010-01-24T08:39:00.003-05:00

At this crazy stage in my life, I feel like I'm running with three spoons in my hands and all the paintings along life's path are fast becoming a big blur. Finally have a little hard earned time to make a post on a book I read today. And it is indeed hard-earned - I spent so much time working this weekend that I even sacrificed my tennis game!

Anyway! This book is a fast read (and thankfully so!). It is a compendium of essays showcasing different views of leadership by academics. It provides another perspective as compared to the books that leaders help to write from their own perspectives.

Some learning points:

Leaders are prone to being influenced by their followers, in two key ways. One is through followers who with-hold information. Second is through followers who, through a majority, push for a decision that may not be the wisest in reality. A few ways to deal with this. Having a clear vision will help a leader stay guided to his objectives. Making sure that people disagree on a decision is key to actually hearing alternative points of view - an overwhelming consensus may not necessarily be a good thing. Find people that you can trust, and depend on them. Delegate, but verify.
A Freudian take on leaders - they often have issues during their childhood that propels them to have insane drives or need for achievement. This could be a strong need to have control over their lives (leading to a quest for power + money), or parents who never gave enough validation. Interestingly, the piecce states that many male leaders have very nurturing moms and a plain dad (who didn't have much impact on their lives). This article even went as far as to say that leaders are often people who can evoke transferrence behaviours in their followers, which leads to unwavering loyalty. This usually involves making followers respect or perceive certain "parental" traits in them.
Daniel Goleman makes a case for emotional intelligence. That basic intelligence and drive are threshold requirements, but EQ really makes leaders shine - which is quite intuitively in line with what I've always believed.
That leaders are all a bit crazy! This one I'm still trying to figure out, but apparently, this is an essential ingredient for those bursts of creatively that sets them apart from the rest.

Amartya Sen - Identity and Violence

2009-12-27T10:34:00.003-05:00

This was a short book, but I took close to a month to finish reading it. I blame it on the never-ending flow of work that I had to do!

This was a thought provoking piece of writing for me, even though the idea was simple. Essentially, the crux is that human beings possess many different identities (e.g. I am a brother, an agnostic, a civil servant, a Singaporean, a tennis player, an anime lover), and I can be all of these identities at the same time while being a totally coherent individual with a unique set of beliefs. When exercising my rational judgments or forming moral decisions, I will sometimes be constrained by the boundaries of these identities, but I can choose how much weight to give to the potentially conflicting values that come with affiliation to these identities.

The root of much violence in the current world is a result of people dichotomising the world by choosing to see people only in terms of one dimension of identity, in particular that which divides along racial or religious lines.

I have yet to read Huntington's book on clash of the civilisations, which Amrtya's book attempts to rebut, but I am quite convinced by Amartya's arguments here. In an increasingly globalised world, partitioning people categorically according to what we perceive as his or her dominant identity precludes us from understanding other people on a much more complete manner, and foists unwarranted prejudices that are associated with these identities upon these individuals. It may be more cumbersome, but a learning pt is that I'd strive to be more discerning in assessing people and not rely on lazy categorisations as a crutch to make decisions.

CEO Material - D.A. Benton

2009-11-30T08:53:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I think I read books to get recharged. It is like fuel for my soul and inspiration for my mind. This must be the gazillionth book on leadership and how to be a CEO and yadda yadda that I've read. And the principles stated within are vaguely familiar to me, having read so many books of the same genre. However, I still ended up gobbling the book like it was the first time I'm seeing the content. I did feel very recharged after reading the book.

It's packed with useful advice - nuggets of wisdom to help me make those small decisions each day.

Especially given the circumstances that I'm in right now as a very green junior manager, many of the issues resonated strongly with me. Nothing like reading the theory and then putting it into practice the next moment, and then to come back again for inspiration. Here are some thoughts:

As a manager, one has to think fast, think well, think clearly and think decisively. So far I think I've been doing ok on this front. I don't change too many of my decisions, and I generally make the correct decisions quickly. (Generally correct, that is!) However, I think there were a few times when I did not communicate my ideas or decision as well as I should have. This is one area to further work on.
Stand and walk tall. I think I haven't been doing this as well as I should! I had been so tired on some of the days that I looked like a mess. I don't think that creates alot of confidence in the people I work with. Have to do better here.
Having fire in my belly. Energy and time management are but two sides of the same coin. I have no time and no energy just 2 months into my job! And my energy is rather unstable - probably due to all the stimulants that I use to stay "on top". So there are times when I space out quite a bit and times when I'm on cloud 9. Perhaps eating healthier and exercising more will be a solution to this.

What on earth happened? - Christopher Lloyd

2009-11-21T03:03:00.003-05:00

Wanted to learn a little more about History, and hence picked up this book. I got the condensed version and it was a very fast read - finished it within a couple of days.

It was quite a humbling experience to be reading about the whole of earth's history and realising that humanity (and also my life) are but an extremely small blip in the whole scheme of things.

And looking at everything in a greatly condensed timeline also made me realise how transitory events, people and countries' destinies are. No one stays at the top forever, and when one's fortune changes, nothing seems to be able to stop it.

I think I live in a fortunate time - at a time when Singapore as a country is doing great, my family background is decent, and I've been given opportunities to do the things I want. At the very least, I'm not born into an era where people's lifespans are a mere 30 years - otherwise I'd be near the end of my life!

Chris Patten - What's next?

2009-11-06T00:07:00.005-05:00

One of my forays into international relations, politics and (most) things concerning the globe. All in all, this was a great read. Patten writes very eloquently, and with style to add too. His thoughts are lucid and well presented, and he does not hesitate to take a stand and give his own view of issues.

But it is a thick book, and it sure took me a really long time to finish reading it.

Some of my key takeaways from the book:

At the personal level, it is often said that it is the way we choose to react to an issue that says more about our character and has more impact on the future than the issue itself. The same goes for larger and more complex entities such as the nation state. In this regard, the way that the US and the rest of the world chose to react to the Sep 11 attacks has brought the world inevitably down this path of an ever-growing fissure between the West and Islamic world.
Dealing with issues on your own terms and never compromising on your principles, even if the enemy is ruthless. Democracies should live by their principles when fighting terrorists - in this regard the previous administration has lost much of its credibility in the eyes of countries that look to it as model, and increased cynicism amongst those who believe democracy is but a hypocritical veil for what ultimately are unbridled pursuits of self-interests.
I never knew this connection existed - the drug consumers in NYC and the rest of US are indirectly financing the military in Afghanistan. (Drug trade is about 40-60% of its GDP.)
"Solutions to the problems of global warmings are primarily issues of politics, not economics or environmental policy, and politics should be the answer..."
Chinese leaders face an existential crisis with regards to their centrally managed industrial economy. If they give the industry too much rein, the party may lose control of the state. On the other hand, if they continue to hold on to these industries with an iron fist, they also risk foreign investment flagging and leading to a slowdown / loss in competitiveness in their economy. The failure on the part of the party to fulfill its end of the social contract will result in it losing control of the state.
The world is built along the boundaries of nation-states. However, the issues that face the world are increasingly global in nature. (Disease, drugs, terrorism, etc) How nations can work together to deal with these issues will be critical in how the world develops in the new millennium.

Great People Decisions - Fernandez Araoz

2009-10-25T11:41:00.000-04:00

This was also a birthday present from a friend :) Couldn't have been more appropriate, given my current work related to personnel and the fact that I'm supervising with a small team of people.

Took me a few weeks to fill this in, cos I was interrupted by a number of other books in the process. This book is a gem. It resonates strongly with many of the things that I intuitively believe in but never had the opportunity to hear from a source that's more credible (than own self-affirmation!).

The higher you climb, the more impt hiring decisions become. First you hire great people, then you assign the right person to the right job.
The trend now is for HR to be increasingly decentralised. As such, there is greater responsibility for managers down the chain to take charge of hiring and managing talent.
When hiring, experience, IQ and EQ all matter. However, the combination of EQ and experience is the most powerful predictor of future performance. The lack of EQ alone is the factor which is strongly correlated with executive failure.
Essential competencies for managers / leaders include: (i) results orientation, (ii) team leadership - the ability to build high performance teams, (iii) strategic orientation, or big picture (iv) collaboration and influencing. Is starting to sound like the AIM model eh.
Potential comprises the following components: (i) ambition - the need for achievement, affiliation and power, (ii) ability to learn from experience and (iii) specific competencies relevant to the particular job.
Finally! Integrating the new hires and talent. One on one time cannot be substituted. As a manager, this is the one thing that cannot be delegated or solved with technology.

Bench Strength - Robert Barner

2009-10-13T10:48:00.002-04:00

This is a must read for people hoping to learn strategies on how to manage talent in an organisation. The book explains how different strategies trade-off in terms of benefits, strengths and drawbacks, depending on the structure of your organisation.

Here are my three main takeaways:

A useful framework to analyse future leaders uses three dimensions- ability, engagement and aspiration. It gives a manager an idea how to unleash the potential in an underperforming leader. Based on a study, 10% of managers are missing ability (engaged dreamers) - these hv little success climbing the ladder. 43% are missing engagement, and these have hv 13% chance of success at the next managerial level. However, 47% of the employees who are missing aspiration hv 44% chance of success at the next level. Hence, target the employees who are underperforming due to aspiration first.
Capstone vs Foundation strategies for talent management. Capstone - use when resources are limited and there's little line of sight to talent - want to create competitive platform for leadership talent. Good in deploying the best people, but may lead to overlooking of solid performersFoundation - use when resources are ample, you know where your talent are, and cultural indoctrination is a key objective. Supports strong value / cultural messages, but dilutes the focus on the high performers. To effectively use the Capstone strategy, one needs to hv a process for tracking the hiring source for HIPO leaders.
Stream or pool strategy. Based on the assumption that most talents can fit into most places, the company maintains and steadily recruits into a pool of talent that it taps on to fill positions. A pool strategy offers flexible arrangement for both talent and organisation, as both can select from a range of optionsUseful for fluid organisational structures and where there is a broad base of talent to draw from. On the other hand, the stream strategy presumes a stable and organised hierarchy, and critical leadership positions that require pre-identification. Streaming allows for more intensive and effective use of talent resources. In an organisation, a hybrid can be used - i.e. pool for the lower rungs of the management ladder, and stream for the highest positions.

The Talent Advantage - Alan Weiss and Nancy MacKay

2009-10-07T21:10:00.003-04:00

Another book I picked in my effort (perhaps an overly ambitious one) to understand the talent management space as quickly as possible.

This book is more relevant to a CEO audience than to a HR executive-wannabe. But there are still lessons to be learnt that can be applied to managers keen on recruiting and retaining talent in their own teams.

Some of the interesting insights:

People do follow tough bosses who exact high standards and deliver. People hungry for success want to work for successful people and learn from them.
Don't blindly promote people from within based on their technical expertise
All the divisional leaders / supervisors have to be engaged in the talent game. HR policies have to be executed well for talent to be attracted, groomed and retained.
Hold people accountable to generate results
Prepare a strong bench - have at least 2 people groomed and on track for the key leadership roles in one's organisation
To retain talent, one has to go beyond financial incentives, into giving people learning and growth opportunities, providing career certainties for the top talent, and giving top talent variety in their jobs
Need to keep an eye out for future talent trends and demands - cos we are grooming people for the future

Common Wealth - Economics for a Crowded Planet - Jeffrey D. Sachs

2009-09-22T11:54:00.002-04:00

This is probably the first book I'm reading that touches on "save-the-world" type of issues such as global warming and sustainable development. And I am very surprised to find myself enjoying the book despite it not contributing directly to my narrow interests (i.e. how to make it big, hahaha).

Sachs puts forth coherent and powerful arguments overall. As a primer (for me) into this whole spectrum of issues, the book has taught me well. However, upon reading it a second time, I find Sach's treatment of the issues a little too strategic and not practical enough to spur me into action. Perhaps this is in keeping with the spirit of the book as a clarion call to galvanise people, rather than to lay out concrete plans for execution.

Here are some of the takeaways I had from reading the book, and my thoughts:

Humanity shares a common fate on this planet. However, the way our nations, its institutions and companies are structured often stand in the way of more coherent and proactive actions to address problems that humanity face as a whole. It's time that we recognise our common fate and take concrete steps to evolve the organisations around us to adapt to the change.
The book focuses on three major common problems - environmental sustainability, population stabilisation and extreme poverty. Contrary to Sachs' opponents' views, market forces alone will not solve these problems.
The responsibility lies in countries doing the right thing - contributing to end poverty, providing incentives to combat the damage to environment / biodiversity, and investment in R&D to create sustainable technologies to reduce our carbon footprint.
This requires informed and passionate citizenry to "pressure" the Government.
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) can be a powerful and effective way to address global warming. Though somehow Sachs appear to be putting it a little too simply for it to be real - there seems to be a catch somewhere!
I learnt about the economics behind developing countries' high population growth (primary due to the low probability that my children will survive till adulthood). It seems like a systems issue - a negative reinforcing loop where overpopulation further reduces the chances of my children getting good care and resources to survive till adulthood, which compels me to have even more children. The solution as Sachs has pointed out is to break the cycle - i.e. reduce mortality rates.
Sachs waged vitriol against the US's decision to spend a disproportionate amount money on defence, while a tiny fraction of it can make a big difference to the poor in developing nations.
Sachs also included a chapter on social welfare states, comparing them (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden) with moderate welfare states (Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy) and free-market economies (Australia, Canada, Ireland, UK, US). Sachs showed that welfare states have been successful in reducing income equality, reducing poverty, higher employment, higher income per capita, better governance and even a higher rate of technological excellence. Moderate welfare states are actually at the bottom of the three models in these measurements!

Talent Force: : A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business - Rusty Rueff /Hank Stringer

2009-09-11T12:39:00.007-04:00

Reading up on this to learn more about talent management.

I think that this is a good "overview" book on talent management, but it does not go into much details which I feel would have given me a better understanding of the considerations and processes related to the subject.

Here are some of my key thoughts inspired by the book:

Talent management is a continuous process - talent has to be groomed at every level of the company. Waiting till the post has been vacated would be too late already. For example, in GE, when Jack Welch retired, there was a row of capable leaders on the bench that could be readily deployed. This process had taken many many years. These leaders were so good that they went on to head other MNCs.
Using the internet to give recruitment an edge - the internet offers a range of tools to recruiters like never before. It is much easier to stay in touch with job applicants even after they are rejected, or people who may be interested in yr company but are not ready to take up the job offer yet. This relationship management process is critical for talent recruitment.
Talent branding - need to ensure that one's corporate image is consistent with the brand that recruiters are selling to talents.
Understanding of a company's strategies - talent recruitment and management cannot exist in a silo. The Head of talent management has to be keenly aware of the strategies of the company before he/she can know what kind of talent to recruit and how to groom them.

Daily infusions of Drucker's words

2009-08-31T11:25:00.003-04:00

Got this as a gift from Alan. It's exactly what I almost got myself. Pretty excited about reading this book!

Ripped it open and gobbled up the few lessons for this week.
The theme centres around time.
Managing, recording and consolidating time.
Drucker suggests that we record how we use our time to enforce discipline and to better understand how we use this precious resource. Might be a little too extreme for me!

But what I liked was his advice on consolidating time. To be effective, we have to be able to chunk time properly. On paper, a day filled back to back with an assortment of 30 min, 60 min meetings may seem to work. However, for me, there's a lag time in switching from one task to another ... and often the creative juices (the higher value added returns on my time) only comes after 15-20 min when concentrating on a task. Am seriously shortchanging myself if I don't try to chunk!

Will be writing more about the book as the days progress ....

Strategy bites back - Henry Mintzberg

2009-08-29T10:53:00.004-04:00

A very short book giving various perspectives on strategy and planning. It is rather hilarious at some parts as i could certainly relate to the issues that I encounter in the workplace.

There are some takeaways from the book about strategy, even as it pokes fun at the subject. Here are the gems:

Strategy cannot only be the function of a strat planning team, which simply takes information from the ground units and then churn out grand plans which must be followed. It has to be distributed across the organisation.
Often times. strategy and prediction are "wrong" when applied to reality. However, the true value of strategy in these situations is that it galvanises the imagination and commitment of the people to get them to do something, anything at all. The reassurance of a plan enables people to act.
However, of course, badly founded statistics, forecasts and plans can also lead people to take disastrous actions.
The current structure of organisations places reason above experience, and hence we often have young officers with little experience leading people with experience on the ground. i.e. separation of strategy from tactics is the norm.
Many times, strategic planning becomes obsessed with the processes and frameworks, and does not generate new insights at all. (I'm very familiar with this!)
Even experts cannot agree whether strategy is a top down or bottom up thing. However, some companies have managed to embrace both and make it work ... so maybe that's the soluti0n!
Culture and strategy may be more similar than one thinks. I'm still trying to digest this point ... so till I manage to, it will remain as a short and abrupt sentence :)

The Differentiated Workforce - Becker, Huselid and Beatty

2009-08-22T22:27:00.003-04:00

A good friend Alan had introduced me to the first book in the series - the HR scorecard. Which I tried my best to complete, but found great difficulty - which I think owes to the fact that my dearth of HR experience makes it hard for me to relate to the concepts in the book. And also, as he had warned, the book may have been written with a slight academic slant.

After that tough struggle, I made the commitment to go back to that book again someday. As fate (or my winding along the aisles of Times bookstore) would have it, I came across and decided to pick up the third book in the series - the differentiated workforce. It was a very insightful read, and one which will be very beneficial for my upcoming posting. The crux of the book is as follow (mixed in with some of my interpretations):

Instead of putting people first, organisations should put strategy first, and then recruit / place people according to strategy
To achieve this, the organisation would need to learn how the different positi0ns map to its final strategic outcomes, and then determine which are the "A" positions that contribute disproportionately.
The rest of the positions are identified as "B"s - where they perform supporting functions to the "A" positions, in contributing to the strategic outcomes and "C", where the strategic impact is minimal.
The characteristics of "A" positions are employee performances have huge variations, implying that talent can then be fully exploited in such positions.
An organisation's positions aside, employees can also be grouped according to "A, B,Cs" by their talent and performance.
Studies show that "A" employees contribute disproportionately and positively to KPIs in his/her role, while "C" employees can sometimes have negative impact.
The differentiated HR strategy works when "A" employees are placed in "A" positions - and this process must first be led by a firm understanding of what the strategic positions are.
To achieve this, the responsibility of HR staffing cannot reside only within the H. function. Line managers have to be held accountable for developing the workforce under his charge, giving appropriate assessment and rewards, and designing work to maximise the returns from each position.
On the compensation framework, pays used to be differentiated on experience and performance solely. Now the authors propose that given the recognition that certain positions are "A" list strategic positions, compensation be differentiated on the basis of positions as well.
Once this architecture is in place, there has to be constant emphasis to the workforce on the organisation's strategic outcomes and how they contribute to it.

There are many other useful information (esp on how to implement this architecture tactically) in the book, but I hope I have brought out the key running theme.

Who's Your City - Richard Florida

2009-08-04T08:45:00.004-04:00

Have been doing a quick read of a number of Richard Florida's books lately. His thinking surrounds the creative class - a segment of the population who have the potential and are engaged in jobs that involves the creation of meaningful forms. This would include professions such as scientists and engineers, university professors, poets and architects. people in design, education, arts, music and entertainment, etc.

Florida's arguments are compelling - that the world is not becoming flat. Rather, talent is congregating in ever increasing concentrations in specific places, and this effect feeds upon itself, for talent is naturally attracted to other talents.

Other aspects of a place that attract talent includes cultural and intellectual diversity. Florida attempts to measure the "openness" of a place through proxies such as the Bohemian index (concentration of artistic talent in a place) and the Gay index (concentration of gays in a place).

In this book, Florida introduces the idea that different cities actually have different personalities, attracting people of certain characters and talents to cluster. For an individual, choosing a place to live is as much about finding a place to be at home emotionally as it is for one's full economic potential to be realised. I find this concept behind a place very interesting. Florida further introduced the idea that there are different locations for different stages in an individual's life. Given that talent is going to be increasingly mobile, a different kind of housing model that lies between home ownership and short rentals should be explored. I, for one, am very open to this idea :)

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - John Perkins

2009-07-30T11:08:00.002-04:00

This is certainly a very riveting story. Overall, I find tht the facts and claims in the story rather logical and coherent. However, I wish there could be an easier way of verifying them. (I could potentially do some internet research, but I think that it won't bring me much nearer to the truth.)

If I were to suspend my skepticism, the implications of this story is serious and scary. And depressing too - cos we appear so helpless against such nefarious and gargantuan capitalist machinery. Many of these companies have GDPs greater than my country!

Even if it were largely fictional, there are still lessons on greed and corruption that I can learn. My current desire for success may eventually bring me closer to decision points that could lead me life down paths where the temptations are strong. I do hope that my moral compass continues to point the right way and may I have to strength to choose to follow it then!

Screw it, Let's do it - Richard Branson

2009-07-25T12:29:00.004-04:00

This was a very short and fast read. But it was a really awesome read nonetheless. It's a cross between a quick and dirty autobiography of Richard Branson and a summary of this thoughts on how he lived his life. The autobiography is inspiring and exciting to read (this guy has got real guts and brains!); the summary of life advice is simple but not easy to follow :)

Have listed out the key things that Branson feels we should follow when leading our lives. They are actually pretty much aligned with my own beliefs. However, acting on them (beyond just believing them) is the harder thing to do. And he has shown, with much credibility, that it can be done.

Just do it
Think yes, not no
Challenge yrself
Have goals
Have fun
Make a difference
Stand on yr own feet
Be loyal
Live life to the full
Nothing ventured, nothing gained

Feeling inspired!!

Drawings

2009-07-23T11:07:00.003-04:00

See you at the top - Zig Ziglar

2009-07-20T10:30:00.003-04:00

Bought this book quite a while ago but never got down to finishing it. Just read it last night and I guess it is true that there is indeed a time for everything - my brain was craving for such a book then. I gobbled it up and felt really satisfied at the end of it all.

This is one of those classic motivational books, which I am (unabashedly) a huge fan of. They are a fuel for my brain and soul, and often gives me new perspectives / ideas from the comfort of my own home while (this is the more impt part) giving me the boost to want to do more.

I think this is a book that I'll read time and time again to extract the motivation from. The main thing that I felt last night after reading the book was a sense of urgency. It came from this paragraph in the book which asked the reader to imagine having to go on a holiday for the rest of the week. With the acute knowledge that one only has one day left to do all the work for the rest of the week, one suddenly develops a new ability to prioritise aggressively and attack tasks with an unquenchable sense of urgency. Zig's advice is to live everyday like that.

Duct Tape Marketing - John Jantsch

2009-07-18T01:42:00.008-04:00

This is the first book that marks my entry into the subject of marketing. Decided to choose this book after seeing the numerous good reviews. But more importantly, I have been subscribing to the Duct Tape Marketing blog for some time, and I thought that it was quite a good resource.

The contents in the book are extremely practical and easy to understand. The main audience that the book targets is small business owners - people who need marketing strategies that are simple yet effective. The overarching theme to the book is that marketing is "getting people, who have a specific need or problem, to know, like and trust you". I like this definition, which is straightforward but has much impact on many of the points that were highlighted later in the book.

Some ideas that I've picked up along the way:

Alot of marketing is commonsense but such simple stuff often gets lost when one aims for the glitz that is associated with marketing that can be seen.
Segmentation of the client development process to into: suspects, prospects, clients, repeat clients and champions, with different strategies for each group. Never really thought abt such a differentiation strategy before, but it makes perfect sense.
Another simple fact, but very useful to keep in mind - there are two ways to increase sales: getting more new customers and selling more to yr current ones. As with the segmentation strategy above, these require rather different strategies.
If you market well, sales is redundant.
Several methods to generate referrals, which is a key in expanding yr customer base.
Using stories to target yr PR / media channel as a marketing tool - how to use news releases, pitch letter and PR kits to engage the PR industry.
How to do a two-step direct response ad - the first step aims to get the customer motivated enough to respond to yr ad, which signals a permission for the marketer to step in - the second is a more in-depth marketing process.

All in all, this was a good primer to the world of marketing which I had (up to this point) very little clue about. Having such knowledge is important if I want to run my own start-up in the future.

Top 10 leadership lessons

2009-07-10T06:46:00.002-04:00

Yes, I'm quoting from someone else here, didn't come up with them myself :)

These are Terry Starbucker's top 10 leadership lessons .... I'm in the midst of trying to brush up my knowledge about sales and marketing, but can't help but got excited when I read this. It really syncs with some of my fundamental beliefs!

Practice “Full Spectrum” management, where high performers get the recognition they deserve, AND underperformers either get coached or let go.
Teach instead of just tell, by using repetition, consistency, plain English, common sense, and best of all, rolling up the sleeves and showing them how it’s done.
Be an Enabler, not a Disabler, because if we can’t entrust someone with proper responsibilities commensurate with the job description, we simply shouldn’t hire them.
Develop a Zen-like mantra of goals that permeate the minds of all your teammates, and watch great stuff happen.
Avoid inertia at all costs - or risk heading in the wrong direction. Provide the needed acceleration to propel a business forward, always.
Trust the facts, for if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. As John Adams said, they are indeed “stubborn things”
Understand that words alone don’t make the leader- proper presentation, attitude, inflection, cadence and structure are musts to inspire to action.
Exhibit a blend of will and humility - we push hard knowing we don’t have all the answers, with a sense of decency, fairness and mindfulness.
Know “the secret of work” for their team - the passion, the cause, and the fun that results.
Be able to mix it up and do the unexpected, like break out in song at a staff meeting. Put in a memorable hook to go with your message.

The 2-minute addiction

2009-07-07T22:42:00.003-04:00

It first started out as a strategy I learnt from reading books on productivity and Getting Things Done. Th strategy is encompassed in a simple rule. For tasks that can be completed under 2 minutes, do them immediately. For tasks that take longer, classify them into folders for execution later. It worked wonderfully! Using my email inbox as a testing ground, I frequently managed to keep to the zero-item-in-inbox target.

However, I realise that this strategy does have its perverse effects! I'm starting to procrastinate on the tasks that take longer to complete, drawing comfort from the act of filing them into well-organised folders (which SHOULD not be a substitute for executing the task!) while pursuing the satisfaction that I get from completing 2 minute tasks.

At this rate, I'll reach my deathbed being the dude who has achived millions of 2 minute tasks but nothing big. Haha.

I think I'll have to change my strategy so that I devote more time to thinking longer and deeper on things that matter. These things may have outcomes that take longer to realise, but I guess I'll just have to get my instant kicks from other sources instead :)

Nudge - Richard Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

2009-07-06T07:25:00.003-04:00

A pretty good read! This book can be broadly cut into two parts. The first part explains in pretty layman terms the idea behind "libertarian paternalism", while the second part goes in depth about how this idea can be applied across a range of issues, from healthcare, saving the planet, to even marriages.

Will just touch on what the authors refer to as libertarian paternalism, and what an understanding of this issue will allow us to do about it. The line of logic goes something like this:

In a perfect world, all humans are rational and can make economic decisions accurately. In such a world, free market will ensure that humans optimise their choices and any increase in the complexity (or simply, number) of choices, is beneficial to humans.
However, in the real world, humans are really bad at making such rational economic choices, due to the following "interferences" - tending towards rules of thumb (anchoring, availability, representativeness, overconfidence in one's abilities, larger aversion to loss than gain, bias towards status quo, laziness, following the herd, or simply being overwhelmed by the complexity of the decision.
In such a situation, the Government can step in to influence humans at moments, when they are irrational or slightly weak, towards decisions that are beneficial to them without actually forcibly removing options from the table. e.g. giving citizens a large range of healthcare plans to choose from but gently influencing them to pick a better choice. This is known as "libertarian paternalism", which at times seems pretty oxymoronic, I must admit.
Such a framework that influences the behavior of the decision maker makes use of the very "interferences" that could potentially cause the human to make a wrong choice in the first place, but applies it for the good of the human. This framework is known as "choice architecture".

I think the ideas behind this book is extremely useful in policy-making, especially in areas where a mandatory option is politically unfeasible, and/or if there is clearly a "better" solution that the human should take. (The authors go through lengths to defend their point of view towards the end of the book, and I must say that they did quite a good job!) The applications towards sales and marketing is significant, as far as I can see.

First break all the rules - Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

2009-06-22T22:14:00.006-04:00

This book is built around a fundamental idea - that each individual has his own talent (defined as a recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied) and talents cannot be changed. This is the basis for breaking all the rules supported by conventional wisdom with regards to managing people, e.g. that we should keep working on people's weaknesses, that we promote perfomers regardless whether the person's talents are suited for the job, that given enough practice, most people can do most jobs well.

Some other takeaways!

The role of a manager to is to spot and fully harness the talents of each employee. To do this, one must recognise the difference btw talent, skills and knowledge. The last two can be taught. The former, it will have to be selected, and the employee will also have to be casted in the right role.
There are three main dimensions of talent - striving (what motivates the employee), thinking (how he thinks, strategise and process information) and relating (how does he deal with people, praises, etc).
Management by exception - manage each individual differently, according to their talents, and spend the most of yr time with your top performers. This is a natural step following from the understanding that the manager's role is to cultivate strength, rather than focus on weaknesses.
Tough love = uncompromising focus on excellence and genuine care for employees. Balancing the two well is the key to successful management.

The rest of the book contains many insightful steps and details relating to these issues. This will likely be the last management book that I'm picking up for now - will start diversifying into other areas :)

Drawings again!

2009-06-18T12:15:00.001-04:00

Drawings!

2009-06-17T11:20:00.003-04:00

Been attempting to learn how to draw! Will start posting some of my attempts.
Have made the images as blur as possible to hide the flaws.

The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama

2009-06-16T10:14:00.002-04:00

Had always wanted to read one of Obama's books. I have been quite taken by his charisma and eloquence on screen, and am eager to indulge myself in reading his thoughts on paper. I must say that this is indeed a very good read. Obama writes in a very simple, clear yet beautiful prose, and somehow he manages to use the most appropriate metaphors for every occasion. And I do not think that the issues that he is writing about are simple at all, which makes his delivery all the more impressive.

Some key takeaways that I have from his book. (I just found out that it is alot easier to remember what I've reade by scribbling all over the book when reading it. That also effectively renders the resale value of my book zero. Haha.)

1. The beauty of policy making
I must say that after all these time I had spent pushing papers, I am finding it harder to appreciate the greater value and beauty of the work that I am doing, nor the people whom I am serving. It may be Obama's compelling way of writing, or the clarity of his ideas, or perhaps even the book's oversimplification of what really are complex and stubborn issues, but I do feel inspired by Obama's vision and discussions on how tough problems can be solved with logic, persistence, and a little hope. And how everything shifts with the change in perspective! For example, all the endless tussling that I deal with at work appears worthwhile if I can see it his way - "through debate and competition, we can expand our perspectives, change our minds, and eventually arrive not merely at agreements but sound and fair agreements".

2. Politics
I always thought politics too challenging and crazy an area for me to even think of going into. The glimpses I have of American politics (and the ways which could potentially be applicable to Singapore) did not convince me otherwise. My thoughts, however, kept drifting to how the Senate functioned - and how this was so very different from what goes on here. It seems that issues are really debated and picked apart thoroughly in the case of the US, something which I wish we have more of here. However, the bipartisanship in the US has indeed led to a polarisation of issues to an extent that has not always been helpful.

3. Integrity and trust
It is probably a combination of alot of things. But immediately after (and throughout most of the book in fact) reading the book, I felt like I know this man, and I am willing to be led by him. (Perhaps it is also the fact that I now know that he is the 44th President of the US.) I suspect that he has managed to cook up a well balanced concoction of wisdom, vision, ambition, ability to slug it out with other equally ambitious and bright men, while at the same time exuding humility, a sense of the ground and ability to bring hope to impenetrable issues. (His unique background definitely helped in building his credibility.) These are all useful traits to learn from!

The Return of Depression Economics - Paul Krugman

2009-06-05T11:36:00.002-04:00

It's been some time since I've blogged - almost 1 whole month to be exact! It was a combination of factors - being overworked, feeling sick of work, and then being sick of being sick of work and yet being overworked ... haha ... one gets the idea. But the root of it all is that my increasing skepticism of the value of my work (both to myself and if I could, the rest of the world) relative to the amount of time that I'm draining into it was close to smothering out the drive that was sustaining me all these time. I don't think I've actually figured a way out - althouth I've come to know alot of people who haven't either - but I've enough left in me to continue churning out a decent amount of work. The energy that I've conserved - I'm starting to put it to better use :)

But anyway! Ramblings aside! Have just finished reading Krugman's book. He has a knack for making long periods of history and economic intricacies sound short and simple to a layman like me.

Some of the lessons I learnt, apart from how nations' economies crash, many of which would sound like primary school math to those schooled in econs!
(i) The Fed and Alan Greenspan - Greenspan's pursuit of a laissez-faire capitalism, in particular, his reluctance to regulate derivatives, had contributed somewhat to the bubbles that formed during his time. In fact, the stock market bubble may have only been saved by a housing bubble.
(ii) Supply and demand side issues - Krugman made the statement that "for the first time in two generations, failures on the demand side of the economy ... have become the clear and present limitation on prosperity for a large part of the world". As such, we cannot stick to the Bush era tax-cuts-to-promote-production as a means to climb out of the current situation.
(iii) Psychology in economics - That it is difficult to apply the same set of economic principles to all situations without factoring in the human element - which is difficult to predict. There are two aspects that Krugman raised. First is that speculative attacks (such as by hedge funds) can have exceedingly high impacts on a nation's economy. Second is that the level of confidence in a nation's financial market can either spiral its economics into a meltdown or cause nothing more than a benign blip when policies such as the devaluation of its currency is made.

The 100 Best Business Books of All Time - Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten

2009-05-09T12:23:00.005-04:00

All this while I've been trying to read and pen down my thoughts on all the good books on leadership and business. I felt that this was a good way to capture as much of the knowledge, expertise and perspectives out there as I can, short of being out there in the private sector and experiencing it for myself. I am a firm believer that in the knowledge economy today, knowledge (duh) is the source of power and differentiation. He who accumulates knowledge and experience in the fastest and most effective way will have an edge. (Of course there has to be a balance between reading and actually doing!)

Only after reading through the introduction of this book did I realise that there were 11,000 business books published in 2007 alone. How can I even hope to obtain 1% of all that knowledge that is stored within these books? Reading a book like "The 100 Best Business Books of All Time" definitely helps as it compresses the themes of 100 books into 1 - saving me the time needed to read all the books. But a summary inevitably misses out on certain things in the books. Even after reading "The 100 Best Business Books", I still feel like I don't really know the 100 books at all, but only snippets of inf0rmation.

Nevertheless, I've penned down some of what I think are the useful lessons that I've picked up from the book here:
(i) From Getting Things Done: productivity comes from a quiet state of mental being.
(ii) From the Effective Executive: a leader's job is to make decisions about committing resources to the possibilities of tomorrow.
(iii) From 7 Habits: four areas that need constant renewal - the physical, the mental, the spiritual and the social/emotional.
(iv) From The Power of Intuition: Intuition is the way we translate experience into action.
(v) From The Radical Leap: extreme leadership is the pursuit of the OS!M.
(vi) From Good to Great: pushing on a giant flywheel - change and effort takes time to materialise.
(vii) From Zag: when everyone zigs, zag.
(viii) From The Great Game of Business: Open-Book Management - sharing all of a company's financial data with employees.
(ix) From The Art of the Start: belief in what you are doing is as important as competence and experience.
(x) From The E-Myth Revisited: build a company that is systems-dependent, rather than people-dependent.

The World as I see it - Albert Einstein

2009-04-29T21:53:00.004-04:00

Well, I kinda cheated. Didn't really read the entire book, but more like a summary of it :) Still, it was quite a long read - 76 pages of it all.

This collection of letters and essays provides a much needed and wholesome insight into Albert Einstein's ideas and perspective - the things that make him human. With his success in the field of physics, it is sometimes hard to see beyond the E=mc squares that dominate his personality to hear his other ideas.

Here are some things about Einstein, as revealed in this collection, that struck me.

(i) Einstein was astoundingly humble. For example, he felt undeserving of the cult-like status that he received when he was in the US, saying that "This has been my fate, and the contrast between the popular estimate of my powers and achievements and the reality is simply grotesque." He also attributes our blessed existence and environment today - "A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving".

He goes further to say that this culture of individualism and egotism has not only consumed persons, but also society as a whole. "For whereas formerly it was enough for a man to have freed himself to some extent from personal egotism to make him a valuable member of society, to-day he must also be required to overcome national and class egotism. Only if he reaches those heights can he contribute towards improving the lot of humanity." How right he is!

(ii) He's not a big fan of accumulating wealth. "... at last beginning to be realized that
great wealth is not necessary for a happy and satisfactory life." and "The way to a joyful and happy state is through renunciation and self-limitation everywhere"

(iii) While Einstein doesn't believe in an immortal soul, he is religious in some way - he appears to see God more in terms of the beauty and remarkableness of the world that we live in - that can be connected to a form of cosmic experience. "The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science." In the same vein, he rejects atheists who can't marvel at this beauty. "The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer."

To him, Judaism and many of the Asian religions are more of "moral religions", endowing us with moral compasses and ways to lead our lives. "Judaism seems to me to be concerned almost exclusively with the moral attitude in life and to life." And "If one purges the Judaism of the Prophets and Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity."

And finally, this is the one sentence that I think really struck me:
"The life of the individual has meaning only in so far as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful."

The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

2009-04-29T12:30:00.003-04:00

Just finished reading the black swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. General impressions first! It is a book that really changed the way I think about many things, in particular (and but of course) how to look at uncertainty and randomness. Taleb rants quite a bit and spares no chance to make a dig at people whom he disagrees with, even if they are prominent and respectable people in society today. (I googled one of the names of a judge thinking that he was a severely flawed individual but instead read glowing writings about him online.)

To distill Taleb's ideas, they revolve around the irony that we are blindy confident about our inability to predict the future. The ideas can be broadly listed as follow:
(i) Humans are natural story weavers - we have to rationalise issues ex-post. The problem here is that events make perfect rational sense when we look backwards. This creates a false sense of certainty that removes the important role played by randomness. We in turn project this false sense into the future and overestimate our ability to predict.
(ii) Taleb's Ludic fallacy - using simple games and probability frameworks that we learn to model the world - which is a lot more complex.
(iii) The world is alot more complex. In fact, it is not just complex, but many events don't follow the simplistic bell-curve that we forcefully fit the world into. There are several reasons why the bell-curve doesn't work. It only measures probability, but not the impact of the event. It also underestimates the frequency of such "low-probability" events. Mechanisms such as the tournament effect (where winner takes a disproportionate amt of returns) and the benefits of early wins (events don't occur independently) skew the tail-ends of the bell-curve, making improbable events more likely and more impactful.
(iv) In addition, when analysing and predicting the future, we artificially limit the scope that is being examined and use that to project. However, such a model ignores the so-called "unknown unknowns" - things that we can't even incorporate into the model because we don't even know what they are. However, it is precisely these things that drive the world and its history! e.g. The rise of the internet, world wars, the financial meltdown.

And I guess the next question to ask is so what! :) What should I do now that I know that Black Swans abound! Here's where I like Taleb's idea of segmenting Black Swans into positive and negative ones. The positive ones are those that can generate enormous windfalls some of the time, but costs a little most of the time. The negative ones are no better described than Taleb's example of "picking pennies before steamrollers". You win small most of the time, but one unlucky event will blow you out of the water. For now, I'll just focus on the positive ones.

And the lesson is surprisingly simple. Black Swans are a product of randomness. To reap the rewards of positive Black Swans, one has to bid one's time by exposing oneself to as many events that hold the potential of positive Black Swans as possible. (an immediate example would be expending my energy to network with people. who knows who i'll meet next!)

Creating a World without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism - Muhammad Yunus

2009-04-12T10:50:00.004-04:00

Am fostering a growing interest in the area of social enterprise. Decided to pick this book up and join the Singapore Social Enterprise yahoo group to bring myself up to speed on what are the global and local developments in the area.

Here's my own summary and take on this good man and his ideas.

What Yunus is proposing as the future of capitalism is his idea of a social business - an organisation spawned from a social objective but creates a profit-making shell so that it can be self-sustaining. This is a wholly different concept from that of CSR, where a company with a profit-making core attempts to increase the scope of its bottom line to include social and environmental good. As opposed to charities, this allows greater survivability, self-sufficiency, scalability, and ultimately the capability of the organisation to do greater good. Being an absolute noob to the world of business and charities, I can easily imagine myself scorning such an idea if I had no prior knowledge about how much the Grameen Bank has accomplished.

Central to Yunus's philosophy is that economics currently assumes, for the sake of over-simplification, that we are all one-dimensional human beings with only one objective - profit-maximisation. Yunus wonders if we could have a more enc0mpassing view of human desires in economics. This way, two of the world's most pressing problems - poverty and our destruction of the environment - may see some light as the clouds of single-minded capitalism retreats.

There are some other nuggets of lessons from the book, which can be summarised as follow:

Contrary to what organisations such as the IMF and World Bank believes (which is that the poor need advice, new regulations, capability building), the poor are able to solve their own problems if given the right resources. In fact, they only need very little resources to do so.
This also addresses the other myth that poor people are in their condition simply because they lack the skills (hence the capability upgrading programs). Having said that, the injection of skill can make a significant impact on bringing the poor to the next level.
One of the few resources that they can tap on - loans from moneylenders - have such high charges that it effectively enslaves the poor and perpetuates their poverty.
In this regard, microcredit is an appropriate solution to the poverty problem, by providing a cheaper resource.
Apparently, women are much less likely to default than men!

Overall, a good and very thought-provoking book! Has introduced me to the world of social businesses - let's see where this path brings me!

Thoughts about leadership and career

2009-03-31T00:27:00.002-04:00

Had some time during one of the long train rides to clarify some of my thoughts about leadership. This is a really draft version - but I had to get my thoughts down before they slip away!

Dimensions of leadership

Strategic thinking + vision to strategise at 30,000 feet
Operational intelligence to operate on the ground
Charisma and presence
Building relevant experience and knowledge base
Mental strength and will
Sturdy integrity and values - walk the talk!
Wide yet strong networks
Master in the art of communication
Time management - ability to prioritise ruthlessly
And of course, last but not least, maintaining oneself in the prime of health and fitness to have enough energy to do all of the above

What do I lack and how to improve

I think the three main areas that I need to work on are the ability to think strategically, my ability to communicate in large groups and to persuade, and to further increase my networks in the private sector.

In addition, I think I've been doing alot of reading to build up my knowledge base. However, for it to translate into real experience and the other skills, I would have to practice them. And I think there are opportunities everyday to be just a little bit better in every one of the 10 areas above. And to seize those opportunities would be training in itself :) The key is to spot the opportunities and then get to work!

Duelling with Dichotomies

2009-03-29T04:32:00.002-04:00

Just touched down in Amsterdam a couple of hours ago. This place looks fantastic! The classical looking buildings, the weather (I'm puffing water vapour as I walk outside), the many canals. I'm lucky to be able to come here on a work trip ... will try to accomplish an outdoor run in a couple of minutes to take in the sights while keeping fit.

Had a meet-up with Alan and a bunch of friends yesterday. A friend who works for a HR consultancy firm told me this - increasingly, the definition of talent is those who can marry and excel in dichotomies. In particular, individuals who possess the ability to think strategically at 30,000 feet but yet is totally at ease in operational and implementation details are highly sought after. Somehow this sounds alot like how the Civil Service talent is defined as well ...

Guess now I know what I'm lacking right now and what I should be working on. The harder question is how!

On Leadership - Allan Leighton

2009-03-26T11:33:00.002-04:00

This is an excellent book on leadership, especially for someone who is in the public sector and longs for an insight into how things are run in the private sector. (Is it just as uninspirational? haha)

This book covers a wide spectrum of issues, from entrepreneurship, day to day challenges, to dealing with the media and managing your people. It is also filled with authentic stories and quotes from business leaders. Somehow it always inspires me when I read what these people have to say.

Here are some of the key nuggets that I've taken away from the book.

Leaders have the ability to take apart a complex situation and simplify it into bite-size actionables that people can act on.
Be in touch with the ground all the time - the leader has to get to know his front-line staff, customers, how the company really works on the ground. Avoid the ivory tower!
Authenticity is what builds people's trust in you. Mean what you say and walk the talk.
Recruiting great people - those who can take the ball and run is important. That way, you can empower them without micro-managing them, and build trust in the long term. Look for people who can think, analyse, look ahead, ask difficult questions and have a sense of perspective + history.
Good leaders have to have passion and confidence, and must exude and infect people with these all the time. Leaders also often suffer from some sort of restless paranoia, which drives them on.
Be ruthless with your time and prioritise heavily everyday. This is certainly something that I can learn alot from!
Building relationships underpin everything.
Use all kinds of ways to inspire and communicate to your team in a way such that it will stick.
Copy from people and other companies shamelessly!

There are many more, but this is what I can reasonably write down without copying down the entire book! Just reading it makes me feel like learning how to lead a team right now. The excitement!

A Sense of Urgency - John Kotter

2009-03-24T10:38:00.002-04:00

Lay Keng lent me this book, which she got after attending Kotter's seminar. (The book actually has Kotter's autograph within! So dun play play!)

As I was telling xm, this book came at a very serendipitous time. I was finding difficulty at work getting things to move, and now I realise that alot of it boiled down to my own lack of a strong sense of urgency. In many ways, I was practicing what Kotter described as a false sense of urgency - much activity but focused on the wrong things and running in circles.

Here's the main takeaways that I got from the book:

A true sense of urgency is needed to help corporations (and I'll, for the rest of this summary, extend this to the running of my own life) accomplish change.
To accomplish this, the leader will have to speak to the heart of the audience, based on solid logical arguments. The latter is often not sufficient.
There are four tactics that a leader can tap on:

Bring the outside in - i.e. the organisation has to be very well clued into what is going on in the external environment. To do this, managers should connect with the frontline or even customers directly. One can also bring in external experts or second your people to learn from outside. Data, both good and bad, should be allowed to enter your organisation freely and quickly in a readable way.
Behave with urgency everyday. The leader has to set the pace for the entire organisation and convey the sense of urgency in everything he does.
Find opportunities in crisis. I can't say I understand this tactic fully, but one has to leverage on crisises to egender change. Kotter even suggests trying to create some crisises through stretch goals.
Deal with the Nonos. These are essentially the naysayers and are stumbling blocks to change. We often find them within ourselves as well. Kotter suggests to deal with them by distracting them. Incorporating them into one's team or completely ignoring them both do not work. In the worst case scenario, they have to be let go.

For the tactic to behave with true urgency, Kotter raises the following points, which are all excellent:

Purge and delegate aggressively - clear up one's schedules (less meetings) and do not allow subordinates to delegate up to you
Move with speed - respond immediately to top-tier issues - each step has to be clear and fast
Speak with passion - talk with feeling and infectiousness
Match words with deeds - walk the talk!
Let everyone see - as far as possible, show to everyone in the organisation how you are doing it

Overall, this is an excellent book. Short and sweet and to the point.

Things to do better this week!

2009-03-15T09:52:00.002-04:00

I think it is a good idea to spend Sunday doing a mini-review of my previous week, and then setting things that I'd do better in the coming week. (Gee, this is sounding like some PIR of some sorts ... )

Looking back ....
I managed to accomplish a mini-milestone in my life today - running 10km. This is probably quite an easy and nondescript feat for many people, but honestly, this was the first time in my life that I ran such a long distance. (And I generally dislike running! Even 2.4km was a real pain for me.) xm likes to call such goals "character-building" :) Accomplishing it definitely made me feel more confident about goal-setting, since I now have one less item on my list of things that I fear doing. Maybe the 21km next? Hahaha.

I think I'm also getting better at keeping my eyes on the bigger picture, larger objectives, both at work and in life. I've often been guilty of the habit of engaging myself in alot of activities but achieving little outcomes. (Sometimes, alot of activity can be quite calming to the mind, as it beguiles me into thinking that I'm doing useful things with my time. The two are really not the same!) I've still got some way to go, but I think I'm making progress :)

I've also been keeping up my promise (to myself) to pick up the violin again. Man, how much have my skills slipped over the years! But it is sure fun as heck to be playing the instrument again, and forcing myself to play difficult songs. My goal is to be able to play Praeludium and Allegro well.

In the coming week ...
I will improve my tennis!!! This is something that I've been trying to do well for the last year, and admittedly, progress has been really slow.

Integrate a running regimen into my weekly schedule. Have been doing this on and off for the last few months, with some success. Will be making it more regular.

Sharpen my ability to plan and execute projects. There are a number of projects at work coming up. Would really like to leave some value and legacy in my division before I leave - which is just a few months away!

Chasing Lions

2009-03-08T22:55:00.003-04:00

Read this off an article this morning.
This is a quote from the Bible for background -

“Benaiah chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it.” - II Samuel 23:20

Taking Mark Batteron's quote, which is REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY inspiring. Especially when one is sitting underneath the cold from the lifeless air-con and feeling trapped by all the white-washed office walls around me.

“Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Consider the lilies. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshipping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. Chase the lion!”

Wow.....

The Logic of Life - Tim Harford

2009-03-05T21:12:00.001-05:00

I must admit that I have not yet read Freakanomics and many of the other economics-related books. I picked this one up because I happen to be in the mood for this kind of books now and it appeared in the bestseller table that is placed near the entrance.

I found the book to be a really interesting read, and it opened my eyes to many new perspectives of looking at things. I think it also enhanced my ability to think logically, as the book introduced me to very logical and rationale ways of explaining counter-intuitive or complex issues.

Some of the things that I learnt!
- Your boss is paid so much not because he really deserves it, but because it motivates the people below him to work harder
- How mental models can develop simply based on events created by chance but we continue to use as if they are underpinned by facts
- People conglomerate in cities because of the access to other people, and consequently ideas
- While the world is truly getting flatter, geographical proximity does still play an important and necessary role in creating innovation and economic activity
- Many small companies competing against one another is the most fertile ground for innovation and economic progress, rather than a few huge companies or a monopoly

Wow

2009-03-04T10:21:00.000-05:00

This is like the coolest thing ever!!!

The "Yes" attitude

2009-03-02T11:11:00.003-05:00

People often speak of the "lenses" with which we view our life, the world we live in. Using different lenses often bring out new perspectives, insights, and learnings.

One very useful lens that I've adopted is to see my work as a form of service. To excel in my job, I would strive to provide the best service available, by value-adding and delivering with the best attitude. Taking this perspective, my customers would then be the people I come into contact with everyday, and in particular, my bosses.

Just read this post by Seth Godin today. I think the post came at about the right time. I think I've begun to cultivate quite a bit of negativity in my attempt to reduce the amount of work that gets laid on my desk. I've started saying "no" to many things.

While that may be a good thing for me in the short term, I think that in the long term, I will only succeed in driving my customers nuts. I should change my perspective to: "yes, let's see how we can work something out". In particular, I should do this more for my more valued customers - people who are indeed honest and keen on helping me or making things better.

Thought for the day!

Microtrends by Mark J. Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne

2009-02-25T10:56:00.002-05:00

Many books that I've read focuses on the big things that drive our world and society today. These are things that we can see happening to us everyday, and things that hardly escape the media's attention. I like this book - Microtrends - because it draws our attention to the myriad of things that happen below the radar. Penn calls these things microtrends if they are adopted by 1% of the population, which he calls the "magic number".

The proliferation of Microtrends is a reflection of the increasing access we have to self-expression. It is also a product of the flat world. Information and knowledge is now widely available to almost everyone, and with more selection, people have much more themes to chose from and incorporate into their lives. It is also much easier now to find commonality and brethrens amongst the world populace that one can identify with. This allows critical masses to form, which in turn switches on the virtuous cycle (or vicious cycle for negative trends such as terrorism) for more people to be brought into the trend.

I like that Penn focused alot of his book on the implications of these Microtrends, particularly what it means in terms of impact to society and businesses. Someone with a keen sense can pick out Microtrends early (before they explode) and quickly capitalise on the business opportunity in serving this group of trenders. But to do so would mean that I'd have to be actively plugged into all the trends that's going on around the world. Or that I'd need to have alot of luck to be at the right place at the right time to get hit by the right idea. I think the certainty of the former makes it a more attractive option.

Overall, what does it mean for me? On a personal note, I'm certainly glad that I live in an era where I can see all the colours and richness of the world for what it is ... it is more exciting to be immersed in a sea of multi-coloured strands of ideas than to be swimming in an orderly school of fishes. (This IS a very bad analogy, but it is getting late. Hahah.) As for my business aspirations, this means that there is potentially alot more opportunities out there ... but to spot these trends early and accurately, I would have to be sufficiently exposed to a wide range of ideas. I think the key to this is to talk to people. Taxi drivers, security ppl in guardhouses (xm would know why i said this!), people in the coffeeshop, friends who work in banks, law firms, IT companies, etc. And the other is to read widely. All in all, this coincides with what I believe is the crucial success factor in the knowledge economy today - knowledge (duh! hahaha), or more specifically, the accumulation and speedy access to quality knowledge.

Containers we live in ...

2009-02-24T09:31:00.004-05:00

Sometimes I like to think that we live within containers.
Containers that we grow into and grow used to. Containers that whose form we take when we appear to the world.

When someone says that you are the brightest amongst yr peers, your container changes its shape and prolly gets a little bigger. And you learn how to grow into it. By studying harder, by reading more, or simply by believing that you can. You become better than before.
When you get promoted and get called say a "Director", the new responsibilities, coupled with the newfound validation of yr abilities by the higher authorities, drive you to perform at a higher level than you did previously.
Through other ppl's expectations, our container gets shaped.

But what's really stopping us from moulding our containers ourselves, even if it were just a little bit each day? Why can't I believe that I can do things better today than I can yesterday, or simply allowing my dreams to take on gargantuan proportions so that my abilities can grow to match them? What's stopping me from thinking like a CEO just because I think I might actually be that good?

Instead of growing into our existing containers, we all shd grow our containers just a little bit, every single day. The rest will take care of itself. Do I have the courage to dream big?

What have I done to enlarge my container today?

Kouzes and Posner - The Leadership Challenge

2009-02-16T09:26:00.002-05:00

This book has been acclaimed as one of the better books on leadership out there. And indeed it is. There is so much information and anecdotes inside there that I couldn't quite remember even more than half of them after I was done with the book.

What impressed me about the book was that it gave very practical advice. Instead of just airy-fairy concepts on leadership, the authors took pains to translate almost every single idea into an anecdote or example. Most of which are real cases.

The main ideas can be distilled into five categories:

Model the Way
Inspire a Shared Vision
Challenge the Process
Enable Others to Act
Encourage the Heart

Actually, there is little point in me trying to expand on any of these points! It would take up too many pages. And I think I missed out on alot of the points because I was speedreading. So any attempt to elaborate won't do the book justice.

But if I could just say one impt lesson learnt. The whole book is very very very very people-centric. Alot of it is centred on the person that is being led. How do you motivate him, serve him and groom him. I really do like this idea of servant leadership. It brings leadership back to earth, to what it is all about - the people.

What do you do ....

2009-01-23T22:48:00.005-05:00

When your friends share different principles from you, those that are moral in nature?

What if those are principles, if held by other people, would hv made you pass harsh judgments?

Should the friendship be a line that I should never cross, so that I could only observe the crime but not step up to the witness stand when condemnation is called for?

On the scales of morality, with each pound of friendship that I place upon its pans - should it lighten the weight of the guilty, or should the guilty bear a heavier burden because of the expectations that I hold him to?

There were times when I had chosen to look the other way, painfully conscious of the inconsistency in the intensity which I believe in my morals and how casually I can choose to ignore them. How else are the worth of my values measured, other than by my actions when I see injustice done?

But.

There were also times when I was looked upon and I was watched. As the waves brought me further away from shore, I chose to give up struggling to see where the currents brought me. When I finally came back ashore, I was always welcomed by the few familiar eyes. Eyes brimming with unquestioned understanding - only the slightest tension in their gaze belie the hypocritical restraint that they had to bear. And I was always thankful each time.

Vu jaDe

2009-01-11T10:54:00.003-05:00

Heard this concept from one of the talks given my Tom Kelly. Fantastic stuff!
Deja vu = looking at new things and feeling that you've seen them before
Vu jaDe = looking at things you've been seeing your whole life and feeling like you've never seen them before, i.e. the ability to continually discard old perspectives / mental models and develop new insights

The Fifth Discipline - Systems Thinking

2009-01-11T10:32:00.003-05:00

This book took almost an entire month for me. Partly because I was struggling to even finish my work on time. And partly because the book is really dense. There is a wealth of information within - much of which I can't quite relate to nor internalise given my paltry experience with running huge projects and teams.

Nonetheless, this book has already opened my eyes to this brand new subject on systems thinking. And it has very much piqued my interest too! The engineer inside me finally finds a bridge into this whole world of business and leadership which had seemed so alien just a while ago.

(I might have to either make this a living blog entry, or split this up into many many short posts. It is almost futile to summarise a subject as huge as systems thinking into a single entry.)

So here's my first post on this big hairy animal.

One should look past the seemingly random or human-induced processes and outcomes in the world, and think one level deeper as to why these things are the way they are. It is almost certain that one will find a system at work, which can be understood by simple logic. Developing this ability takes practice, and one would need to have a good grasp of how certain typical system archetypes work. However, the rewards are tremendous - being able to see the crux of an issue quickly and more importantly, knowing the point of greatest leverage to execute a solution. I shall attempt from today onwards to figure out the systems underlying the everyday processes that I see!

Another concept that was preached in the book is mental models. Through our experiences and the conclusions / learnings that we reap from them, we gradually develop mental models about the way the world works. These models provide a very convenient and efficient way for us to deal with the world, and allows us to spend more resources dealing with the other things in our life. For e.g., after I develop the mental model that "to improve in anything, i will just have to work harder at it", I have a template that is easily applied to many areas of my life. At work, I would subconsciously throw more and more time at my assignments to improve on my performance. However, this may be a faulty view that is actually limiting me from seeing that my work processes may not be optimal, or that the marginal gains from each extra hour of work decreases so dramatically that I may be better off chewing gum or taking a nap. This is related to a podcast that I listened to recently, which said that we should always remain a little skeptical about all our beliefs. (it gets harder the older we get though)

That's the main takeaways for now. Enough to keep me occupied for a long time to come.
Another good thing about finishing this book is that I'm now in time to buy a new one on my payday tomorrow!

Ahhh - the little things in life.

Running with a Spoonful in Life's Gallery

2009-01-02T06:26:00.007-05:00

I'm not even sure if the title is grammatically correct. But it quite aptly summarises the main themes of my life in recent times.

It is actually, shall i say, 'inspired by' "The Alchemist" by Paul Coelho. In the book, Melchizedek told a story where a boy was sent out to walk about a castle while holding a spoon full of oil. He was warned not to spill a drop of oil from the spoon. The boy was so paranoid about fspilling the oil that he never saw the beauty of the castle or its riches. The boy was then sent out again with the spoon of oil and told to pay attention to what is around him. This time he got so caught up in the beauty and riches that he forgot about the oil, and it spilled. The secret to life, according to Melchizedek, or the story (or Paul, depending on which world you prefer to live in) is that the secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.

And that leads to the three themes of my life now.

I've pretty much made up my mind to live life like everyday's the last and to squeeze all the goodness (and also all the nasty parts) out of life as much as I can. If my life were a painting, I've basically put down my brush and started sloshing buckets of dulux all over the canvas. If my life were a supermarket, I'm eagerly trying to enter the electronics and fresh food sections at the same time. I enjoy the feeling of aliveness and pursuing things that are meaningful to me. I enjoy running (only figuratively!!) - the freedom of exerting oneself fully coupled with the strain of sheer abandonment. It's akin to living on a fine edge. I dunno how I manage to somehow survive each day, but i usually end each one feeling really zonked out but strangely exhilarated.

But there are many moments worth slowing down for in life. There's been many occasions when I was so preoccupied with sprinting that I constantly have half of myself plunged into the future, and less of me left in the present. And I never failed to regret, each and every time, that I did not savour these moments for all they were worth. My life's gallery has accumulated a sizeable collection of pieces that are blurred and hazy. You know, the kind of photos you kick yrself for messing up as you'll never be able to quite construct the moment that you were trying to capture from the incoherent pixels? I have decided that, where it counts, I'll make really good imprints henceforth. It will be a gallery worth visiting time and time again.

And then there are responsibilities. There are things that you just have to do, people whose interests you have to take care of, promises you have to keep and many more. There are times when I feel like just neglecting all of them. It is certainly alot easier to run and appreciate the scenery with less baggage! Even a spoonful of oil can be really challenging to hold in one's fingers.

So this will be what 2009 is about. I will run. I'll run with all that my lungs, sinews and flesh can let me. I'll be present. I'll allow myself to be fully absorbed in the now when it matters, and take in all the smells, the sights, the sounds, the emotions, with all the eagerness that the depths of my soul yearns for. And I'll guard the oil. Not one drop of oil will drip from the spoon that I hold.

One Minute Manager!

2009-01-02T05:56:00.004-05:00

Extracted this off someone else's summary. Haha.

Three key lessons again:

One minute goals
Goals have to be written down in a clear and succint way such that it takes only 1 minute to be digested.

One minute praisings
It's the little praises throughout an employee's day that counts. The trick is to be seen to be "catching" your employee doing something well. (Rather than the usual where employees enjoy "catching" their staff doing things wrong.)

One minute reprimands
Keep the reprimand short and to the point. Concentrate on the action and not the person. As such, it has to be delivered as timely to the action as possible. And then move on.

Some short lessons

2008-12-28T04:28:00.003-05:00

Found out that my E71 can download, manage and play podcasts. I love this phone!
These are the podcasts that I've subscribed to:
(i) Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders
(ii) Great Speeches in History
My biggest problem now is that I keep on falling asleep while listening to the podcasts. Hahaha.

Read this off Jim Estill's blog. He uses this Power of 3 goals in life and in business. My adaptation of it is that I'll keep setting 3 goals (maybe on a daily or half-daily or even weekly basis). One reasonably achievable, and two others that are slightly challenging. Accomplishing the easier one spurs one on to do the other two. Once I'm done with all 3, I'll create another new list.

I think this list of 3 thing works for me .... sadly cos my brain can hardly handle anything more than that!! Hahah. Sigh!

Harvard Business Review on Managing your Career

2008-12-25T05:34:00.003-05:00

Brought along some books that I intended to read on my holiday trip to Vietnam. I only ended up finishing just one book! (And it was a book that I was already halfway through on.) Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe that means that I actually took a proper vacation instead of thinking about work and career all the time.

But anyway!

Some key points from the Harvard Business Review book on Managing Your Career.

Goodbye Career, Hello Success - Randy Komisar
Pretty inspiring read of the biography of his success. Komisar did not follow any conventional career path, but instead let life work itself out along the way as he tried out a myriad of businesses and employment, throwing himself and his passion into each one of them. Would love to have a career like that - pretty much the way that I live my life. Actually, why not right!

Managing Oneself - Peter F. Drucker
Have seen this concept reiterated in many different forms, but it was still good to see how Drucker puts it into words from his perspective. Essentially, it means applying the rules of management to oneself - to think through what my values, passion, abilities are, and then align my career and time spent accordingly. This essay also talks about the "second career", which many people embark on after they have achieved reasonable success in the first one. This "second career" often lies in the area of philanthropy or social entrepreneurship, as people think of ways to contribute back to society. It is important to start thinking about this early on - so that one can transition smoothly into the second role (usually in the fifties). This IS definitely something that I am interested in.

Managing Your Boss - John J. Gabarro and John P. Kotter
We all kindof take this for a given nowadays, but this was quite a landmark piece when it was written in 1979. Reminds how we should often think from the perspective of the boss to understand his needs, concerns and abilities when engaging them. One key thing to remember is that they are but humans with their own limitations and fallibilities!

Building People - Sunday Emails from a CEO

2008-11-30T09:25:00.003-05:00

Liew Mun Leong (LML)'s successful transition from a civil servant to become a CEO of a profit-driven entity gives me some hope that I might be able to do the same some day! (Of course, there's a huge gap btw our abilities which I do hope can be narrowed with time.)

Many deep insights in the book, and it is surprisingly a very easy read. Some of the key takeaways....

LML's work philosopher is founded on the 3Ps - Paranoia, Perseverance and Perfectionism. It must be pretty stressful to live by these mantras ... but I can see how they can contribute to success
He pays great attention to details, despite being in a high position where he can afford not to. Somehow I see this trait being exhibited in many of the civil service's leadership as well.
He sees growing and building people as the fundamental foundation for his business. Methinks this is very true. Ideas, ventures, profit, are all output from living bodies.
Work-life balance seems to come easily to him. (I suspect he doesn't sleep very much.) What is interesting is what he calls his "3rd home" or "3rd wind" - the 3 hours in the morning where he runs, works out, takes a cold shower and have breakfast. The more stressful his job becomes, the more he runs. This is the period where he gets inspiration and solutions to the most challenging problems. Maybe I should try building this into my routine. The only problem now is that I can't run that much, hahaha.

Dabbling in Buddhism

2008-11-28T23:16:00.003-05:00

Been some time since I read something spiritual. Maybe it was a thirst for something to touch my soul. Or maybe it was a craving for a distraction from the all-consuming dream-chasing pace that I was trying to keep up. (Or maybe I just felt I need answers.) But anyhow, I decided to abandon the book (of the you-know-what genre of "how to become a leader!") and proceeded to soak myself in this book - "How to see yourself as you really are" - by the Dalai Lama.

And I almost drowned myself. Hahaha. It was a great book - I think I came to a better understanding of the key thoughts behind Buddhism after finishing it. Still far from nirvana though. And there are all these frustrating koans and entangling quotes that don't make much sense to my unenlightened brain.

If I may expound the little new-found understanding, it would go something like this. Nothing inherently and independently exists, as everything owes its (or their?) existence to the existence(s) of other things. In the same way, I don't exist (at least not in the inherently and independently way I'm familiar with) except in dependence on everything else, much like the mirage exists as a result of the sun and the patch of water. The essence that awashes everything and imbues light so that I (and everything else around me) can have a semblence of existence is my mind. This is quite mind-boggling, and prolly quite all the more so because my understanding might be flawed! But methinks that this is the gel that holds contradictory statements such as "The mind is the Budhha. The Buddha is not the mind" together. (I might hv made that up.)

It's frustrating though, the gel seems to run through my hands like water whenever I try to grasp it. And I'm left with a senseless sentence construct.

There's a simple thought experiment. Simple to construct but absolutely irritating to solve. It is to find where and what is the "I" that exists. One can hardly find it. It just keeps slipping by you, running in circles. "I" is clearly not my body, since I can systematically remove everything except my mind and I can still pretty much identify myself. If "I" is my mind, then statements like "I have a sound mind" and "I have a brain" would make little sense. (Cos "I" would have to exist independently of my mind, much like me and my car when I say "I have a car".) The only way out is to conclude that "I" exist in dependence upon everything else - my brain and body included - like a mirage does.

Strangely, it makes me feel happier that I'm confused. (Maybe that's how it's really supposed to work. Haha.) This lends another meaning to being blissfully ignorant. Maybe periodical spiritual ponderings where one questions one's existence does help one to feel alive. This is one area in my life that I'm glad to leave in an amorphous and confused state. Until the next time I take a dive again.

Traits of leadership thought leaders

2008-11-18T10:50:00.001-05:00

Just saw this off the web - traits of the top 100 leadership gurus

Preparation: academic and professional.
Character: values, ethics, beliefs, purpose, mission, integrity, walk the talk.
Principles: big message, point of view, tenets, main points.
Personality: charisma, style, originality, authenticity, one of a kind.
Performance: inspiring action, real-world performance, work ethic.
Experience: beyond local and regional, more national and international.
Expression: substance and style in writing, speaking, coaching, consulting, mentoring, training, or teaching.
Influence: difference, results, change, transformation.

The Secrets of CEOs - Steve Tappin and Andrew Cave

2008-11-14T22:48:00.003-05:00

Took some time to finish reading this book, and I must say that this is one of the better leadership books that I've read in some time. There's a wealth of information within, much of which I've hardly digested in my first reading (despite spending so much time on it)! The special quality about this book is that it brought together findings obtained through interviews with more than 150 CEOs. This is (I'm pretty sure!) the closest that I can get to speaking with these CEOs at this point in my life.

Some of the key lessons I learnt:

Businesses are going global, and are in dire need of leaders who can cross the national boundaries and lead under any geographic or cultural settings. Developing this global outlook, coupled with a piercing understanding of how geopolitical and economic systems operate worldwide, will be key in leadership development. Of course, understanding China and India will be critical.
The next (it might already be here) battleground where businesses fight for success and survival will be on the field of talent, especially given the increasing demand for talent who can speak the many languages of globalisation. The CEO will have to be personally involved in talent "procurement" and the talent agenda. He should be familiar with the talented executives at least 3 levels below him - which may come up to more than 500 individuals. CEOs would need to develop strong HR capabilities within the business (which currently has been more of a hindrance, than help, to talent recruitment) while forming a strategic partnership with external talent search agency.
Various leadership styles were very nicely captured in the book. My personality quite possibly straddles across quite a number of these leadership styles. I have a feeling that my eventual style of leadership (if I'm ever lucky enough to express it!) will have a strong element of vision and probably charisma combined. However, after a couple of years working in the civil service, it is also true that I'm developing quite a bit of "paranoia, perfectionism and perserverance" in my style. (These three qualities give a little bit of a hint to the next book that I'm currently reading.) Perfectionism is quite unlike me though - this is sad, but I'm quite ok with doing things 80%!
The sectiion on preparing to lead must be one of the most useful parts of the book. One key message in this section is that I have to gain as broad an experience as possible in the fastest amount of time, if I were to succeed within my lifetime. I should also take up multi-disciplinary jobs that are challenging and make me learn, again, in the fastest amount of time. These jobs should span geographic boundaries. I should aim to fail once or twice majorly too. If not, it only shows that I have not been given tasks that are hard enough, or I never dared to try. AND. I should get a mentor. Where to find one though!
Finally, the book says quite a bit about the sacrifices that CEOs make. Many of it make me not even want to try this line of work! Haha. Losing your friends, divorce, not seeing yr kids grow up .... I mean, what's the point of leading and losing all that is impt to you! The way I'm seeing it is that it is possible (as some CEOs have done) to have work-life balance. With the cynical thought that some of these CEOs may have shifted the goal-posts aside, I do think that this is a reasonable assumption. In any case, many ppl who aren't CEOs nowadays are already slogging their lives away and making sacrifices at a fraction of the pay. Might as well aim high right?

After all the rambling (not written in the most concise manner, I admit), I'd conclude to say that this is a book that I'll continue to refer to again and again for inspiration :)

To ask "why" five times

2008-11-07T03:13:00.003-05:00

Just read this today - Paul Walsh from Diageo said that he liked to ask "why" five times. It's his way of penetrating deeper into issues and to find out what is the crux of it all. I really like the idea. Something to start doing from now on :) (But why?) Haha.

Muay Thai and My Time

2008-11-02T10:10:00.003-05:00

My series of Muay Thai lessons is now drawing to an end. It feels like the end of a season - one that I artificially created for myself to make sense of the movement of time, or perhaps to give myself some sense of progression. It also feels a lot like walking from one room to the next, closing one door and opening a new one.

Progression - it is interesting that my life so far is defined in chunks.

I had a really good time putting punches and throwing my shins into those sandbags for these few months. Can't say that I've become one real and mean boxing machine right now, but I think I now know how to look less amateurish if I ever get into a real brawl! (Also managed to persuade two friends to join me in my temporal hobby.)

So what does this chunk of my life mean to me?

A new beginning, a renewed zest, rediscovering myself, "throwing" myself into life. It's too complex an experience to be written down in a couple of lines. Or maybe it's but a transitory phase. A bridge to a new place.

But have I arrived? I do not know. I wish I do.

Reading - Trump Style Negotiation

2008-10-27T07:18:00.005-04:00

This book caught my eye when I was browsing around the Times bookstore near my office. (I should just sign up for their membership, since I buy so much stuff from there all the time.) There are plenty of negotiation books out there, to be honest. However, I found this book to be interesting because it contains many examples of how certain deals were formed, rather than simply quoting principles after principles.

Some things I've learnt.

One, I think I'm far far far away from being anything close to being able to handle a decent negotiation. This is clearly uncharted waters, and I hardly can even begin to visualise how the different strategies can be used.

Second, personality and communication techniques are key in one's negotiation arsenal. While it is true that the two negotiating individuals are but vehicles through which the interests of the two sides meet and gets resolved, the battle essentially takes place between the two people. Personality and communication techniques can create distortionary perceptions of the actual interests, powers of the parties involved. A skilled negotiator needs to know when to build trust, when to coerce, when to walk away and so forth, while knowing when the other side is pulling a fast one. (This is really exciting stuff - it is a testing ground of all the personal skills that one can possibly think of, all put together.)

Third, research and attention to details (sounds like civil service speak) are crucial. One can hardly afford to be lazy, especially when putting up complex deals.

Fourth, then there are all the tactical means to gain ground and to close the deal. These are the oft-heard strategies in many of the other materials out there - start out with a ridiculous offer, nibble at your opponent, smoke them by giving concessions on red herrings (after having fought a life or death battle for them) and then asking for similar concessions on issues really important to one.

Lastly (I really like this one), negotiation, at the end of the day, is about creating win-win situations that both parties can be satisfied with. There is little to be gained from winning a single deal by completely demolishing one's opponent and sacrificing your reputation in the process.

Man ... all these sound like alien language to me. This is definitely one of those things that I don't think I can learn without stepping out of my comfort zone. Maybe I shall try an impossible negotiation to bring down the price of my McSpicy meal tomorrow.

Blowing off the dust

2008-10-27T06:48:00.003-04:00

It must have been eons since I last wrote anything in this blog. Looking back at the old posts, it feels kinda surreal. It's like the current me listening to the old me, different selfs (now I've gone through more of life ... weathered maybe!) but yet still very much the same person who's punching the letters the keyboard. It's as if there's a "me-me" self who exists and where my will resides, and there's a "constructed-me" self that is shaped by experiences and is in turn shaped by myself. (This must be the driest introduction I've ever written in my blog. I blame it on the lack of practice!)

In any case, I've found some more reason to write again. Met a friend recently who fanatically keeps a blog on what she'd read, so that she'd be forced to digest and understand the contents of her books diligently. What's more, this is a free method to save one's writings.

So, inspired by my friend's blog (or more like stealing her idea), here's going to be my first post in (what!) 2 years. A side-track - having time to read nowadays is a luxury. It feels almost like I'm doing something shameful - I have to sneak in my reading time here and there, in the nooks and crannies between my appointments, my work and such. Life's tough eh.

And I guess the same will go for my blog writing as well :(
I need more nooks and crannies! Haha.

A problem with time

2005-12-17T11:54:00.000-05:00

A recent spate of blog-writing amongst my friends has ignited this itch, long hiding within some recesses of my soul, to start typing away on my blog again. And gosh! The last entry in my blog was written more than 4 months ago. Most remarkably, I was whinging about my lack of commitment to writing in my blog ... it is laughable, and rather painfully ironical, that my self-developed technique to induce more writing on my part actually backfired. Instead of producing a flurry of entries on my blog, I created a 4 month blog-drought!

Except that .... this time round it was not for the lack of commitment that caused my writing juices to run dry, but it was a result of my preoccupation with a bigger problem that I am having lots of trouble with - a lack of time.

I have found the perfect excuse ... I simply don't have enough Time for myself! No one can fault me for that ... unlike commitment, whose very paucity can be confronted with due diligence; unlike lack of inspiration, which can be dealt with by scooping on gossip from certain *ahem* friends; or unlike, to cite a highly improbable case, me not having internet, which can be overcome by tapping onto my neighbour's wireless network. *sneaky laughter*

Everyone's only given 24 hours a day. There's simply no way for me to get around that! I cannot cheat Time, I cannot add a few more hours to my allotment per day, and my attempts at exploiting the relative nature of Time with radioactive rust found under my kitchen sink failed miserably. [Though I cannot deny that I could at least have stolen a couple of minutes if I had succeeded in getting past the second equation in Einstein's theory.]

And yes, I tried other means ... I tried doing everything faster, and I even tried multitasking. I chewed on my bread whilst I changed in the morning; I progressed to the point where I was swallowing whole pieces of bread - chewing is a waste of time, everything dissolves somewhere further down there anyway. I practiced my dance steps when I was brushing my teeth. And no, i didn't get no more time. What I succeeded in doing was to give myself endless jitters from the panic that floods through my system everytime I force myself to do more things in less time. I became a really edgy grouch.

I even bartered with Time. I gave up my sleep, in return for more Time on my hands. It worked, for a while at least. I was doing a lot more things with my life! It seemed too good to be true, until I realised that I was doing everything and doing nothing well. Somehow, being in a semi-permanent vegetative state doesn't render one very capable of doing anything much, other than the most basic of tasks such as breathing and drinking.

I was getting disillusional ... very bitter and sore, and not to mention, extremly exhausted. It then struck me. Maybe the problem isn't with Time ... my fleeting worldly existence is a gift given by Time, and I should count my lucky stars that Time has decided to waste 24 hours a day on someone like me. How can I bargain with Time when this gift has been given to me for free and in Time's grace; when I have nothing that Time even remotely wants to give in return?
Maybe, just maybe, the problem is with what I want to do with the Time I have. Maybe I am not getting the contentment that I have been so feverishly pursuing after, simply because I am doing too many things.

I've been taking on too much stuff ... been haphazardly commiting myself to too many endeavours, maybe?

Shucks. That can only mean one thing.

I am back to my problem with commitment again -_-