What is happiness ? To me, happiness is when you have love, peace and compassion in your heart.
When you have peace in your heart, you are happy.
When you feel love is in your heart, you are happy.
When you have compassion in your heart, you are happy.
I have contentment, but i don't want to be complacent, no, never. Contentment is good, but complacency is BAD.
I will always try to be better, but I should never be attached to the results. Results depend on controlable factors and UN-controlable factors. So, there is no need to feel discouraged when we don't achieve the results that we are expecting. Most importantly is we must learn, and lessons learned are TRULY what I think as the "results".
To find peace, look for courage and seek the wisdom of Tao.
To have love and compassion, have a giving and caring heart. Ignorance is sin.
Life, in essence, is a chance for our soul to fully embrace love, peace and compassion.
At the end, it is how much love we have given.
At the end, it is how much peace we have enjoyed.
At the end, it is how much compassion we have shown.
At the end, it is our soul that matters!
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
What I've learned these past few days
My staff resigned unexpectedly during a business trip in Batam, and the trigger point was just because I asked with him about the work status in regards to his previous trip to Guang Zhou. Cutting the story short, the resignation was a result of pent-up frustation built over the time.
I've all the while been thinking that he was doing fine and happy. So the suddend and unexpected resignation prompted me to review deeply what have gone wrong all these times, without me truly aware.
I've learned many lessons in these past few days through objective self analysis, and these are the summary of things to note to prevent the same incident from happening again in the future:
1. Never again think that people could be so objectively take work arguments as simply a discussion for the sake of finding the best solutions. Especially, if that person is your subordinate or someone whom you have power/authority on. Take good care of their sensitive feelings. As much as we want to say work is just work, we are sensitive Asian, not objective American.
2. Control or manage constantly their expectations (and importantly, right from the very beginning) and let them know your expectations too. Serious communication in a RIGHT setting is crucial. Cannot depend simply on informal mode, mixing formal and informal will be best. Don't expect them to align themselves to your goals, you MUST put effort to align them to you. Well, initially they might seem to be able to align to you automatically (meaning: without you spending effort to align them), but it will be a fool to think that the auto-mode can last forever.
3. Effective communication does not mean having a good command in the language, but also right usage of tone and constantly be aware of the other party reaction and feeling.
4. Try to understand their situation, for example their work load and their mood. Help them manage their work load and motivate them when they are down (which could likely be caused by some non-office matters)
5. They won't understand whatever dilemma you are having, and they don't need to as long as you pay attention to point no.1 to no.4 above.
Bottom line is: we really need to spend time and effort on those so called non-technical stuffs to achieve the best working relationship in the hope to achieve maximum results.
I've all the while been thinking that he was doing fine and happy. So the suddend and unexpected resignation prompted me to review deeply what have gone wrong all these times, without me truly aware.
I've learned many lessons in these past few days through objective self analysis, and these are the summary of things to note to prevent the same incident from happening again in the future:
1. Never again think that people could be so objectively take work arguments as simply a discussion for the sake of finding the best solutions. Especially, if that person is your subordinate or someone whom you have power/authority on. Take good care of their sensitive feelings. As much as we want to say work is just work, we are sensitive Asian, not objective American.
2. Control or manage constantly their expectations (and importantly, right from the very beginning) and let them know your expectations too. Serious communication in a RIGHT setting is crucial. Cannot depend simply on informal mode, mixing formal and informal will be best. Don't expect them to align themselves to your goals, you MUST put effort to align them to you. Well, initially they might seem to be able to align to you automatically (meaning: without you spending effort to align them), but it will be a fool to think that the auto-mode can last forever.
3. Effective communication does not mean having a good command in the language, but also right usage of tone and constantly be aware of the other party reaction and feeling.
4. Try to understand their situation, for example their work load and their mood. Help them manage their work load and motivate them when they are down (which could likely be caused by some non-office matters)
5. They won't understand whatever dilemma you are having, and they don't need to as long as you pay attention to point no.1 to no.4 above.
Bottom line is: we really need to spend time and effort on those so called non-technical stuffs to achieve the best working relationship in the hope to achieve maximum results.
The Position Myth - Part 2
From: Boss
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 7:49 PM
To: Me
Cc: HR Manager
Subject: RE: Opinion on "The Position Myth"
Hi Subordinate,
Thanks for your opinion.
Not disagreeing with what you have mentioned....but when you said TOP....what does it mean....meaning one is in a leadership position already? If so, then a team or project leader is in a leadership position.
In organisations, its very difficult to promote someone to the very TOP position eg General Mgr and then "demote" that person....that is very difficult for anyone to accept. (Not like politicians, which runs election every 5 years). Hence, usually, organisations would "test" one's leadership capabilities by empowering him or her to run projects or lead a small team. Once he has proven himself in terms of delivering the results -- both in terms of "hardware" and the "software", then we can say that he is really a Leader -- both in name and in substance.
Regards
Boss
===============================================================================
and my reply to the above email
From: Me
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 9:28 AM
To: Boss
Cc: HR Manager
Subject: RE: Opinion on "The Position Myth"
Hi Boss,
In my opinion, sometimes people get trapped into what I think as one of the greatest fallacies in leadership: the Initial Support must (and in extreme case, always) be coming from the bottom first. To put it in another way, I made a distinction between a profit organization and a country.
Again, like what I have said, at the end it needs to come from BOTH directions.
On the “demotion” issues, I think that really depends on the culture of the company, in a high-performance company (and under high-performance manager like Jack Welch) maybe there is no such thing called “demotion”, the person gets fired. I believe, people like Jack Welch is NOT everyone idol, ask those who were fired by him, ask those whose comfort zone has been taken away by him. For the same number of people who praised him, there could be an equal number of people who hate him. But for many, he is considered one of the greatest managers, why? I guess, at the end it is still the results and achievements that count.
I just asked myself, if Jack Welch did not bring continuous excellent growth to GE that made GE’s market capitalization bubbled up few times during his tenure, will anyone say he is one of greatest managers and that he has a good team leadership (keeping in mind that he had offended and fired many people too)?
Regards,
Me
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 7:49 PM
To: Me
Cc: HR Manager
Subject: RE: Opinion on "The Position Myth"
Hi Subordinate,
Thanks for your opinion.
Not disagreeing with what you have mentioned....but when you said TOP....what does it mean....meaning one is in a leadership position already? If so, then a team or project leader is in a leadership position.
In organisations, its very difficult to promote someone to the very TOP position eg General Mgr and then "demote" that person....that is very difficult for anyone to accept. (Not like politicians, which runs election every 5 years). Hence, usually, organisations would "test" one's leadership capabilities by empowering him or her to run projects or lead a small team. Once he has proven himself in terms of delivering the results -- both in terms of "hardware" and the "software", then we can say that he is really a Leader -- both in name and in substance.
Regards
Boss
===============================================================================
and my reply to the above email
From: Me
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 9:28 AM
To: Boss
Cc: HR Manager
Subject: RE: Opinion on "The Position Myth"
Hi Boss,
In my opinion, sometimes people get trapped into what I think as one of the greatest fallacies in leadership: the Initial Support must (and in extreme case, always) be coming from the bottom first. To put it in another way, I made a distinction between a profit organization and a country.
Again, like what I have said, at the end it needs to come from BOTH directions.
On the “demotion” issues, I think that really depends on the culture of the company, in a high-performance company (and under high-performance manager like Jack Welch) maybe there is no such thing called “demotion”, the person gets fired. I believe, people like Jack Welch is NOT everyone idol, ask those who were fired by him, ask those whose comfort zone has been taken away by him. For the same number of people who praised him, there could be an equal number of people who hate him. But for many, he is considered one of the greatest managers, why? I guess, at the end it is still the results and achievements that count.
I just asked myself, if Jack Welch did not bring continuous excellent growth to GE that made GE’s market capitalization bubbled up few times during his tenure, will anyone say he is one of greatest managers and that he has a good team leadership (keeping in mind that he had offended and fired many people too)?
Regards,
Me
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
The Position Myth
I just finished the workshop conducted by my boss. The workshop is about leadership and it was conducted after one of my people, who is very capable, resigned from the company. I'll talk about the whole saga pertaining to his resignation in another chance as I want to focus on the leadership issue here.
My boss gave everyone a copy of a chapter from one of the books written by John C. Maxwell (her favorite author). The title of that article is "Myth #1 The Position Myth - I can't lead if I am not at the top." Having read that article, I ended up with writing her an email (which I cc to my HR Manager, with the hope she could comment on that too). And this is my email.
start of email - "
Hi Boss,
Thanks for sharing with us the interesting article on “The Position Myth”.
My opinion is this:
I agreed 100% if we say “Title and position are not what a leader need”. In fact, in some organizations, position and title are totally screwed up. What leaders truly need is SUPPORT.
Support can come from Top or bottom. In country, the support is coming from below. In organization, I think it is most importantly must be coming from the TOP. At the end of the day, it must be coming from BOTH directions. The problem here is should it come from the BOTTOM first then top, or TOP first then bottom? My bet is in organization, unlike in a country, the support should come from TOP first, and let the leader build the rest (of the support) from the BOTTOM.
Egg first or chicken first?
Hi Mrs.HR Manager, I thought it will be good to cc you too as you are much into organization/leadership stuffs.
Regards,
Me
" - end of email
My boss gave everyone a copy of a chapter from one of the books written by John C. Maxwell (her favorite author). The title of that article is "Myth #1 The Position Myth - I can't lead if I am not at the top." Having read that article, I ended up with writing her an email (which I cc to my HR Manager, with the hope she could comment on that too). And this is my email.
start of email - "
Hi Boss,
Thanks for sharing with us the interesting article on “The Position Myth”.
My opinion is this:
I agreed 100% if we say “Title and position are not what a leader need”. In fact, in some organizations, position and title are totally screwed up. What leaders truly need is SUPPORT.
Support can come from Top or bottom. In country, the support is coming from below. In organization, I think it is most importantly must be coming from the TOP. At the end of the day, it must be coming from BOTH directions. The problem here is should it come from the BOTTOM first then top, or TOP first then bottom? My bet is in organization, unlike in a country, the support should come from TOP first, and let the leader build the rest (of the support) from the BOTTOM.
Egg first or chicken first?
Hi Mrs.HR Manager, I thought it will be good to cc you too as you are much into organization/leadership stuffs.
Regards,
Me
" - end of email
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