My Lessons from the Field

The year is almost over, and most of my colleagues and clients at work are off for the year. This is the time of the year when return emails all come back with a tag of "out of office". I'm still at office because I am a slow worker. My brain cannot process on-off messages fast enough. I want to maintain the always moderately on approach.

This morning, as I was getting up for work, on Christmas eve, I did not feel reluctant, instead I felt fresh and alert. This is why I would share one of the most important lessons I learnt this year.

Take two minutes to think about this if you are reading this. It does not matter if you are reading it at work, or at night as you are unwinding or in a meeting.

Whatever you are doing, it will not change the world just because of you. The problems still remain and issues still to solve. It will not go away just because you take off on time after work or skip lunch or start scolding your colleagues. Whatever will be is already set by the actions of the things in the past. If you feel your blood rising, just think that we can do more to prevent more blood rising incidents in the future, but we can never prevent it all. The mind is very strong, it influences what we believe in as well as what we want to make out of things.

5 years ago, I had started off at a client working my way up. I used to do 1901 hotdogs every lunchtime, just because I wanted the 15 mins off but also because I never had time. Now, I never hesitate to take up a lunch offer. No matter how busy we are, we need to eat. And eating well serves to fuel me for later challenges. The world will not fall apart just because a bunch of people spent time to eat. How about that?

Thanks to you who taught me this important lesson from the field.

Take two minutes and enjoy your moment. This will help other moments in the future. Panicking or rushing will not help.

Leadership by Humility

It was a lunchtime discussion. I shared how I try to teach people in my team or my organisation. I am terrible at motivating people by face to face discussions, although I have found that counselling sessions have been quite revealing. I am one who like to see people make the leap of capability on their own.

The method I wanted to share is that I practice leadership by humility. It starts with the belief that we all hire smart people to work with us. Smart people are motivated by self assessment of their own capability, and I found smart people to make a leap of capability when they conciously know that they have limitations or have made mistakes. Smart people do not like to be told what to do, or fail to reach their goals. The only way to coach smart people is to show them humility and motivate them to reach for their own the next level. Humility means accepting that you may not be as good as you are, and understanding and seeking the way to overcome that.

I would like to ask all of you, who have teams to lead or is in a team - tell those who work for you something new everyday, and learn something from them. Humility could work both ways.

I am still learning how to do this well.

My luck can only get better...

Would you be one who believes in Luck?

I cannot believe I have not been blogging for the last 1 month + for this blog. Spate of events and spate of bad luck happened, which included my being down and out in a series of flu and coughing fit which lasted almost 3+ weeks. I have been drinking cough medicine for the last 3 weeks. I wonder if that helps explain my sluggishness...

No great idea or story has come out of me since I've been under the daily influence of cough mixture. I cancelled two big client meetings with many important people, missed the Singapore Marathon, and could not speak for 5 days last week.

As in all days which has been bad, a good leader does not blame the luck factor, but if one will let me word it differently, I tried to be positive - I do think my luck can only get better.

My esteemed organization's international chairman, who was previously leader of the group I was in, told us this once when we were at a global leadership seminar - he said - there are three things you must do to be successful - you must work hard, you must be very smart, and last of all, you must be lucky.

If not, I'd just start the next year 2008 afresh ...

Intent from the Heart

A year and a half ago, I attended a leadership development course from my firm.

It was unlike any other training courses where you go for a few days, maybe a week, get into a surreal environment and then the next Monday, all the desire to change has gone back to square one when the burdens of the daily work comes crashing back in.

Suffice to say, the program was a 9 months long, strong camaraderie with a team of global upcoming leaders, a chance to be close to the global leaders and also a memory which has lasted that I work for a global firm.

One of the most unique experience was during a second workshop when we got together. We spoke about two very personal items which the coaches wanted us to share - one was the personal journey line, and the other to develop our own teachable point of view (TPOV).

My teachable point of view was intent from the heart. It was about how I serve with good intent. It is what makes me go home, sometimes tired, sometimes elated, sometimes stressed, but everyday, I know I am not wrong in my principles; and everyday, I also know I can do better.

They made us speak about our TPOV on video, and I still have that DVD. Almost 1.5 years later, I could still feel the genuine-ness of my video, and this serves to still remind me why I am always eager to provide service.

Today, our people are more passionate, more ambitious, more daring. Yet, not many serve with intent from the heart, not many serve with intent to help others.

And halfway down my career, I am still not perfect, but I can claim to go on each day with good intent.

This is the career experience I hope all our new joiners aspire to have .... to serve with intent from the heart.

A Choice to Enjoy

Rarely have I seen people glow with the excitement of their job than one of my client members today. Enjoying what you do certainly drives energy and passion. It was a very different Mr K I last saw or that I rarely heard off. Today, he was passionate about what he could do, and excited about meeting people to turn around things.

I really think that what sets us different from the expats I've seen in my life at work is that the expats are here because of choice, and they chose to be here, to do something they are good at which they enjoy, and they get paid for it handsomely as well!

Now, that is what I call enjoying work...

How many of us are doing what we are doing by choice?

What if you choose to do differently?

Take action... to enjoy what you do, and the results will be different. Or find something you enjoy to do.

One wish

I learnt something from a humble Japanese man that day. It was the one wish which is the symbolic heart of leadership.

Recently we had a big "kick-off" meeting in Putrajaya, where the senior leadership of the company across APAC came together to plan for the next company fiscal year.

During one of the sessions, we had four of our geography leads on the stage - they were from India, China, Japan and the rest of SouthEastAsia, Australia and Korea - these were the 4 largest geographies we had in the region.

The question one of the audience asked - "What is the one wish you have if you could ask for from all of us here?" - bearing in mind this was being asked to each of them, and the audience was a 400+ strong senior leadership representation across the various APAC countries.

The one wish which bears the most meaning to me was when the Japan lead said that he wanted each of us to give each of our team career counselling everyday, to touch each of our people and guide them when we could, daily. As a multinational company, we had so many challenges, virtual teams and also a 180,000 strong global employee base. Our people are indeed our biggest asset and as leaders we sometimes chase after too many deadlines or requests that we forget the soul of our own organisation is indeed those who work with us.

I ask you - reach out to someone who works with you today, and say thank you to them for being there, or contributing to something. It will not make you less a leader, instead it will make our lifes richer with meaningful interactions.

A powerful "one wish" which is practical, yet easy to request for from all of us.

Do it today.

Charisma - the secret sauce of leaders

We have definitely chosen the right man to go to space. Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor definitely has charisma.

My father is a certified coach and a learned man - he mentioned to me, this guy has charisma and he definitely charmed the school children, the local media, the foreign media and even the ministers and scientists, not forgetting the fellow astronauts.

Charisma, is in fact, the main element behind leadership. I have personally believed that one is born with charisma, but without it, one learns to adapt using social intelligence.

Surprisingly, we all agreed he has charisma, he is able to answer and motivate even the minister to a level of pride in the country's achievement in sending the first man to space.

I am sure he will be able to do more now as he has arrived back on earth.

It is hard to define the word charisma, but it is a mixture of charm, intelligence, friendliness and the ability to express this in one's behaviour, appearance, words and actions. It is indeed the secret sauce for extreme leadership.

After all, who does backflips interviewing with the Science, Technology and Environment minister? And manages to teach me something on surface tension by sucking a drop of liquid "caught" with a spoon!

Dr Sheikh Muszaphar, welcome back to earth. You have ignited the imagination of a nation, and I am sure we will hear more from the leader in you in the coming months and years.

Space, the final frontier.

Phone vs Food

The human longing for interaction is touching. I had a meeting with a vendor today, and he told me about working in Bangladesh, where the poor was a majority and the poor people could only afford between food or a phone call.

I am not ready to see poverty, I clearly could not understand this type of harshness of environments. But my heart goes out for those in this predicament, how could companies buy IT services or solutions when the customer cannot even afford to eat?

It is indeed a large world outside, and for a moment, I count my blessings for what I could do everyday and appreciate better the little difference I could make whether at work or at home.

Paradigm Shift - a fable of a castle and riders

I miss my comrades.

There is an analogy I've mentioned to some of my colleagues. It was about a castle and the riders. The castle has inhabitants, which were different clans. Sometimes the clans were at civil war, and sometimes they were at peace. But most of the time, the inhabitants of the castle lived a happy life.

The castle is surrounded by a moat. The only access is a drawbridge. The castle is surrounded by high walls. These prevented undesired company to penetrate the castle. The drawbridge was usually up.

The castle is surrounded by harsh land. There will always be people roaming around the castle, toughened by the harshness, and always longing to be in the castle, the happy life beckoning. These are the riders. They were my comrades.

I work for a specific sector within my company. There was a period where there was a low morale amongst the staff, it was about 3-4 back. We lost a lot of good team members, and there were factions within the larger projects. During that time, I always felt I worked pretty much alone and in the toughest circumstances, never enjoying hunting in a team for new sales or execution of new projects. It had always been me and a very young team and scattered support from comrades who were in similar predicament, those not in the large projects.

I had a few comrades. We were the riders.

I rode outside the castle for the longest time. There were three of us. We lost the first comrade when he left. I had only one other rider left, we complemented each other in our hunts and never envied the castle inhabitants. Then he too left, and I was alone. I outlasted all the riders.

In time, I was recognised for my ability to tackle the surroundings, and I was allowed into the castle, but I chose my path outside. Along the way, I brought out new riders, and young riders. Some lasted, whilst some did not. Some were trapped in the forest, not even able to ride freely close to the castle.

Cryptic? The moral of the story - I thrive on solo flying. But this is not a sustainable function. I am very tired of riding outside the castle and today, I was thrilled to see some of my fellow comrades, my ex-colleagues again, and indeed they had a successful career after they left - I was very happy for them.

I thrive in difficult environments but I cannot last forever. In analogy, one cannot ride alone and battle the harshness at one go. The inside life is always happier, but the outside life has the freedom and challenges. The right thing to do is to find the right team to ride together and change my paradigm. Riding outside is good, staying trapped in the castle is not real.

In a paradigm shift environment, it is not the view but the eyes of the viewer which matters the most. And the paradigm shift means I need to convince more to join me as riders instead of wanting to join the others in the castle.

Maybe I can then stop missing my comrades.

Schools of Thoughts

One late weekday, I was driving back from work, one of my customer's senior staff called me, and I was too tired to really try to understand what she wanted. Eventually even though we spoke briefly, I vividly recalled that conversation.

She said, if it was not because of people like me and her (the context here was that we had this conversation at 9pm+ driving home) everyone else would just be ok to finish their work and go home at 5:30pm.

Driving home, at 9pm+, I shared with her what I felt was the young vs the old school of thought - that today's society, the younger generation just wanted to get rich quick with minimal effort. Young people job-hopped and looked for balance lifestyle in careers. These new generation executives go on holidays and equip themselves with expensive purchases and toys as a lifestyle option.

The question here is that - who is right? We both knew we were the "old" school of thought, whilst I wish I was not categorised in this bucket, I was indeed clearly an old school of thought.

Old school of thought :
- Work hard for a living, believing that hard work is the most reliable way for guaranteed success
- Never pausing to rest as the belief of competition is nearby and working hard is the best equation
- Expects those around to embody the same principles, and expects extreme loyalty
- Appreciates and rewards smart, intelligent and loyal followers in opportunities but continues to demand continuous contribution
- Typically works harder and longer than co-workers even as a boss

New school of thought :
- Work smart for a living, believing that smart work means identifying the right opportunities, regardless of at which arena or junction
- Takes holidays and expensive hobbies as it motivates them to go further
- Likes being around smart co-workers, and finds social networking a better equation than working
- Believes that performance is measured on outcome and not hours
- Does not bother on the hours worked or perception with respect to co-workers or boss

As a leader straddling between the two schools of thought, it is constantly a challenge to try to balance the needs to teams - at one point the mind is schooled in the old school of thought, but the environment of high performance is moving towards the new school of thought.

Who is to say who is right? I would like to believe that the extreme leader is the one who knows how to adapt, rather than stay within the school he or she was brought up with. I believe the young have it right somewhere, but the old knows how to adapt, improvise and enjoy this lifestyle too if they are willing to understand what drives the younger generation.

I am still learning.

Sales with an Extra "0"

Recently, I was in Singapore for a sales briefing cum meeting with fellow executives. My boss just came off a leadership session where he was motivated on being exposed to a new paradigm of high performance executives.

He mentioned on how the method and discipline embodied by these learnings will enable us to add an extra "0" to sales. I was very intrigued by this proposition. It was not the method which intrigued me, but the objective.

But then when you dissect the objective it is relatively different depending on your angle of view - this was my view - that all concepts hold until a certain threshold - see below :
1 -> 10
10 -> 100
1,000 -> 10,000
1,000,000 -> 10,000,000 << where I am at
10,000,000 -> 100,000,000 << this one I believe is the threshold, but where I would like to be
100,000,000 -> 1,000,000,000 << and then it becomes impossible

I strongly believe extreme leaders push the envelope for the extra "0" every corner, every step. It is merely a question of whether one has reached that light speed terminal velocity*

*Do note that in science, terminal velocity is both a constant as well as an extreme start stop indication.

Have a break, Have a Kit Kat

Extreme leaders take breaks. Living on the edge means practicing what you preach, and a big part of this means letting go of work sometimes. This blog entry will be about blogging for a change.

The best leaders in the world blogs because of publicity, interest and self marketing. What do you blog for?

I recently voted for someone I have never met before for the Malaysian top 50 blogs. He is a running virtual acquaintance - Runwitme - running with passion. His style and approach in blogging is such a pleasant read, plus I also identify with running and photography as a passion, so it was good to see someone who can run so many races, takes photos (nice ones too!) and tell a story, all in one. It beats reading the boring yarn on technology or some other guy in the company talking about the next new technology innovation in the horizon.

Which brings me to why we blog - the human race is about interactions. Through the internet, we have propagated our message of interaction, and the best thing about blogging is that it is self-expression, no one cares about what you write, and yet you care. And it is a great means of sharing too.

I read blogs as a means of taking a break. After weekend races, I sit down to write a "race report" and then I look around for photos of the race of others. Occasionally during work days, I read some of my colleagues' or my old school friend's blogs. I also surf for blogs on my interest areas - photography, running, and gossip in general.

The human need for interaction is as simple and primal as a need to communicate and be part of society, and technology has enabled this through the virtual world of blogging.

I just joined facebook recently. I would not have seen anyone else at my organisation do this at my level. And yet, I could identify with a lot of my school friends who has done this. It is quite interesting to be linked to each other, and I have just begun exploring this degree of separation thing.

Leaders of organisations, set up your own blog site now. Set up a few. It is extremely fun!

Give you enough rope to hang yourself

I decided this blog will be about lessons I learnt from the corporate world. This is the world where I spend 12 hrs a day battling with the good, bad and ugly. In the end, I still represent a good organisation, so there is a few things I may not be able to say, but then again, there are some extreme leadership lessons I would really like to share.

The other day, one of my reporting to boss said - certain people who know how to play the game will give you enough rope to hang yourself.

This is a cruel reality - that there are those of us who urge on others but know when to back off to protect themselves, or know how to maneouver such that the roadkill or accidents do not reflect upon themselves.

I just had enough rope to hang myself recently, and I did, but I decided it was not my time yet. I learnt an ugly lesson of how things work around here, in almost my 1st year anniversary in office as a senior leader of this organisation.

Extreme leaders hurt themselves along the way. And sometimes we need to know how to give up too - I have not yet learnt this second part of the lesson, so I guess my pain threshold is high.

Extreme Leadership - a new beginning

Its the end of the financial year coming up and also when the school holidays are here for Malaysia. Most of my colleagues are either clearing leave or planning to do so next week to spend some time with their children.

Whilst I was meeting with a vendor MD today, I was thinking what I would take a year off to do. The list in the day-dream I recalled were :
1) Run a marathon - Mar 2008 KLIM
2) Start a business - a coffee espresso bar
3) Learn how to make money in the share market
4) Write a book
5) Travel to unknown places

Extreme Leaders know how to pace themselves - a marathon is not a sprint.