Re-engineering myself to be more assertive

My poorly designed assertiveness engine is failing me. It needs re-engineering, but it is going to be an arduous challenges ahead.

I remember I used to reminisce a lot about an incident with my old friends. Two of us were having an intense arguments with my other friend. I did not remember now what it was all about, but I do remember 2 of us spent a long time explaining to our opponent why our choice is better. Our opponent sat calmly across us, listening to our arguments. Our spirits were strong, our stands undeterred, almost hostile. After we were finished with our arguments in what seemed like a long time, our dear friend just said one thing in an unperturbed manner. "I still think my choice is better". As much as we were amazed by her answer, we felt the strong urge to reach over and strangle her. All throughout the argument, we were certain she was going to agree with us. Our argument was very logical and it was 2 against 1. Even the pitch of our voice and enthusiasm were on much grander scale. But, I daresay, we ended up losing big time to her. We wasted our time, our energy and even our ego to persuade her into joining our beliefs. Not only she was not persuaded, she also never disagreed with us or spent as much energy to argue back.

She is, as I realize it now, the Master of Assertiveness.

I used to misunderstand assertiveness as being able to prove your point or invalidate other people's points of views. I also thought speaking assertively means having a certain elegant air and tone to your voice that make you sound like when you are giving public speech to thousands of people. Indeed, as I begin to learn more, assertiveness means more than that.

So now, these are the re-engineering programs that I need to put back to my assertiveness engine:

1. I refuse to be pushed or manipulated by other people.

At one time, my HR manager handed me a legal document and asked me to sign and give back to him on the same day because he was pressed by the Global HR Manager from the head office. I knew briefly about what the document is about beforehand, but not the detailed terms and conditions. I obliged and it was a huge mistake, one that came back to haunt me many times. Later, I found out that it is actually illegal for people to pressure me to sign legal documents without sufficient times for me to think about it. Also, I should have consulted people who knew the legality matters more than me. I should have stand by my right, to say I would not sign the document on that day itself, insist to take back the document and to hell with what the local or global HR manager think of me.

Several other times, people would say something that make me feel either guilty or scared to lose what I am having. These are to make me do things for them, against my will. For example, things like "You will be mean to do things like this. ", "You have changed. You used to be very obliging and helpful", "I am in trouble. How you cannot understand my situation and help me?", "If you do not improve, I would give this chance to others. ", "Things are always been done this way." and "If you really want your money back, I would do anything to get it for you, even borrowing from illegal parties."
These are all pushing and manipulation.

I am done with being pushed around or manipulated anymore. It is time for me to say NO and stick to it.

2. I have my rights to my own judgment and opinion.
If what I have done or think is wrong, it really does not matter to anyone other than myself as long as I do not hurt other people. I have the right to voice my opinion and judgment. I do not need to care whether people think I am wrong or stupid or selfish. It really does not matter unless the person who think I am wrong are person who are dear to me.

3. I can accept criticism without getting crushed.

I would respond well and accept criticism. I do not need to argue with people criticizing me, even if it is not true. Other people have their rights to their views also. If they say the grass is blue, maybe someone has sprayed some blue paints over their grass or maybe they are wearing blue-tinted glasses. Or even maybe there are actually blue grass growing somewhere near the northern Atlantic where no people live (yes, grass instead of ice) . From what I see and where I have seen it, the grass has always been green to me. I do not need to argue that with them.

Actually, so what if some people think I am not a NICE person. I just get a bit fed up of being a nice person. A person that shout at you in anger may not be NICE, but a person that gossip about you behind your back is EVIL.

On the other end, if you say my fart is aromatic, I would say "Thank you for telling me that. I shall let you smell it more often then."

4. I do not need to have reasons or excuses to justify my behavior.

I always feel the urge to give reasons or excuses when people tell me my behavior is such-and-such, which is unacceptable. While I usually do not lie, I find that coming up with the reasons and excuses, while it is not always difficult, is actually detrimental to my well-being. It also makes me defensive most of the times.

For e.g., if you reprimand me for forgetting to turn off the light, I would say, hey, I did turn off the light 99.9% of the time. This is just one time I forget, more or less. And we were in such a hurry that I forgot. Cannot blame me. Also, why it is always have to be me who need to turn off the light when we leave? Anyway, how much money we can lose leaving the lights on for few hours?
Okay, in this case, "Yes, I forgot to turn off the light." will suffice. If there are more arguments, here is how I would respond:

A: Why you are so silly to forget to turn off the light?
Me: Yes, I am so silly to forget to turn off the light.
A: Have you no brain at all?
Me: Yes, I have brain, but I guess I do not have enough brain to turn off the light.
A: Do you know how much money we lose every month because you do not turn off the light?
Me: I do not know, but I guess it will be quite an amount.

Being assertive does not mean I cannot admit my mistake or say something bad about myself. Just say it without justifying with reasons or excuses.

On a lot times, people will disagree with your view points. Then you say, of course, I am saying this happens under such and such circumstances, not all the time. Or, something like you say people need to be firm. But someone say, you cannot do that. You need to be soft on people with terminal illness. So, you start by saying, people need to be firm unless dealing with people with terminal illness, kids under 1 year old, mentally retarded people, etc. The list will never end.

I have this problem too- trying to explain but I find by saying "Yes, I understand" when people say things to contradict you is good enough. And yes, there are always exceptions and you cannot cover it ALL.

5. I do not need to put myself in other people's shoes all the time.

So what if my HR manager get scolded if I did not sign and submit my document at the same day? Why do I have to care about his ass getting screw while I screw my own ass by signing that document in haste?

Remember the story at the beginning of the "7 Habits of Effective People"? It describes a situation about a man and his bunch of kids making noises and irritating all people at the place. Then, the author found out that the man had just lost his wife and the kids, their mother. So, he was too distraught to discipline his kids. I always remember that story. The moral of the story is to empathize with people. Sometimes, it may not be what it seems at first. Put yourself on other people shoes.

But, what I find also is there are also a lot of annoying people with no care for other people in this world. So, if someone is making a hell of your world, it does not necessarily means their wife or dog have just died and they are too helpless.

Sometimes, I believe I am too soft on people, especially on my subordinates last time because I always give them excuses when they fail themselves or me. I give myself excuses to fail too. This is bad, so being assertive should help.

Let's say, someone cut the queue to buy cinema tickets.

Me: Miss, you are cutting the queue. Please line up.
Q: Oh, is it? I am sorry. I am in a hurry.
Me: I am in a hurry too. Will you queue up please?
Q: Really, I need to get these tickets as soon as possible.
Me: Really, I think you should queue up.
Q: No, you don't understand.
Me: Yes, I do not understand. I still think you should queue up.
Q: But, I have cancer and going to die. I need to get this ticket now to watch this movie.
Me: (Amazed) I really think you should queue up even if you are dying tomorrow. Everyone is going to die too. At least you still have today and you need to queue up too.
Q: No, I am dying in about an hour, probably while watching this movie. But I really wish to watch this movie before I die.
Me: (Caught by surprise) In that case, I really think you should get your ticket right now. In fact, you can have my tickets too. Or, even you can buy the whole lot of tickets so that you have the cinema by yourself.

Again, being assertive does not mean that I need to be right till the end. Empathizing with other people is important too. (Ooppps, I am doing it again, explaining the exceptional case that can invalidate my views. But if I do not do this, I probably get a comment saying that I need to be more empathizing, of which I already know empathy is good and need to be practiced, but just NOT at ALL TIME.)

Photo courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu

Desire and Faith – 2 things we need to achieve great things in life (Part 1)

In my 9 years experience of working and climbing the corporate ladder as well as more than 3 years experience of managing people, I decide it comes down to two things to find people who I want to work FOR me or who I want to work WITH. That is, DESIRE and FAITH. Unfortunately, more than 80% of the people I encountered do not have both and they usually portray a kind of negativity that make it seems impossible to achieve anything at all in life.

So, I want to share my own experience and my explanation on what I come to value most in people, especially if I am considering them to fight a war with me – their desire and their faith.

I start with Part 1 which is my story and Part 2 which I explain more on desire and faith, especially when people show me the opposite of them.

My story:

In 1999, when I went to the interview for my first job, I did not do the normal preparation like going through some common interview questions and rehearsing how to answer them well. It was not because I was very confident to get the job. On the contrary, I was just a Diploma holder and during that time, the 1997 recession caused the job opportunities to be scarce, especially for fresh graduates. And this job, which I heard, was paying quite well, around three hundreds more than other jobs I have tried and what my other college mates were getting.

I wanted the job very much, not just the additional three hundreds, though at that time, it made a lot of differences to me. The three hundreds can give me all the food I need in a month. (At that time, I remembered my heart aching over a 5-or-10-ringgit meal, which I only indulged once in a while. My meal is usually 3 ringgit, 4 ringgit if I ordered drinks). I needed this job because it was a key step for my plan to pursue my Degree on part-time basis. My parents had offered to let me do Degree full-time using their hard-earned money, which my course fees and living expenses will be equivalent to the salary of my father, if not more. Knowing all that, I insisted on pursuing my education on part-time basis. I had a definite plan and knew very well what I wanted to achieve, which included to get to work as soon as possible so that I could get as much working experience as possible. I figured working experience is more valuable than a piece of certificate.

So, I was very determined to get a job. Not just any job, but a job that allow me to pay my courses as well as my living expenses. Also, a job that allow me to learn new things and also maybe help me in my Degree final year project. Since I was in Computer Science course, my final year project involved creating a workable application by going through a well-documented software development cycle. What would be better than to take from something I would be learning at work?

I was lucky also as I had a senior working in the same company and the interviewer, also my potential superior, was my senior’s superior. So, he was able to put in some good words for me to get me the interview opportunity. But, job is a job; I still need to prove myself to the interviewer to get hired.

Amazingly, I just know how to convince the interviewer to give me the job. And that did not require me to answer the common interview questions well, except how to describe myself. I already have some sort of plan in life – my desire to excel in life, to get ahead of most people and my faith that I am able to achieve anything I desire, even without knowing exactly how to get there. Thus, despite my lack of working experience, which was none – what I just needed to do in the interview was to show myself by conveying my desires and faith.

So, I sat through the interview, without much preparation per Se, as I already prepared for the life ahead of me.

I talked about my keen interest in programming and what the job can offer to me, especially learning to work in real environment and building software that are really being used by people in real business life.

I talked about my plan to pursue my Degree on part-time basis. I know I can use my working experience to do better in my Degree study.

I highlighted my great track record of excellent academic result; I was mostly top of my class, sometimes even the whole batch of students in the same year; that means I was ahead of more than 300 others. It showed I was consistently working hard to achieve great results.

I convinced the interviewer that I could handle both my work and studies without compromising the work performance. In fact, I have every intention to excel in both my work and studies.

At the end of the interview, which I remembered vividly even now, I looked at the interviewer earnestly and said to him I am a very hardworking person. I said it with full conviction and sincerity. I remembered the interviewer smiled at me in response, maybe because of surprise or because of awkwardness of my unsolicited remark, but I knew he believed what I have just said and that would have made an impact.

Yes, I got the job, with a starting paid of RM1500, a good rate for a Diploma holder at that time. The offer for Degree holder from my company was RM1800. In the next seven years, in 2006, a degree holder freshmen can get up to RM 2,500 for starting paid; some can get even higher than that from a minority of great companies. However, I also knew some other graduates were still getting RM1800 in 2006. So, when people ask me what is the market price for fresh graduates in software engineering field, I usually answer, it is largely determined by what the applicants are asking for and how they ‘carry’ themselves. By carry, I really mean how strong are their desire and faith and whether they show it during the interview.

To many, this story of mine cannot be considered a great achievement. But for a girl with no working experience, came out from hometown to study in the big city 2 years before, the same girl who traveled more than 80 km to class each time by bus (I lived in a housing estate in Klang with my aunt’s family, traveled to KL Central for classes by 2 buses per trip –one air-conditioned and one without), sometimes had to get out from house as early as 5 am, walked through a sport field (badminton, jogging) when the morning was still dark to wait for bus if there were early morning classes; this achievement is a great mark in my life; that all the sweats, persistence, the fear of unknown or danger were well justified. I had proven to myself and to those who invested in me, especially my parents. Because for the 2 years of studies, when most of my classmates have settled down comfortably at home, probably after some nice baths and dinners and were probably watching their favorite TV drama, I was usually still on a bus on my way home. On top of that, I even worked as the college librarian to earn extra bucks. So, I spent longer hours in college than most people.

The fact is I still have a long way to go, to achieve my ultimate dreams. But it will be very soon that I will get there. Then, I will start telling another story of my desires and faith that get me there.

Till then, wait for Part 2 where I will continue on desires and faith. Or maybe, drop me an email at susanlimkw@yahoo.com to share your story of desire and faith.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”

Photo courtesy of http://g8.no/

Sense of urgency - a critical asset in career and life

On the fateful day of 25 January 1990, Avianca Flight 52 crashed into Long Island, New York after ran out of fuel, killing 73 of the 158 people on board. The plane was put on hold from landing by Air Traffic Control several times on its way to New York due to bad weather. After on hold for more than one and a half hour, the crew asked for "priority" landing, which at their critical level of fuel shortage, they should have declared an emergency. The delays, a failed landing attempt at the about 10 minutes from the crash, and communication failure between the crew and air traffic controllers; all these caused the disaster where we all have so much to learn from.

The Avianca Flight 52 is a story of catastrophic result due to poor sense of urgency. There are several things we would find ourselves asking:

Why the crew failed to use the word "fuel emergency" to declare the extreme seriousness of their situation instead of asking for "priority landing"?

Shouldn't the sound of fear and urgency in the pilot and co-pilot's voices have been enough to show to the air controllers they are facing an emergency despite the culture and language barriers, had it been there?

Shouldn't the crew be more forceful and insist on being given immediate landing when they were redirected elsewhere, such as using some forceful words like "NOW" and "We can NO LONGER WAIT"?

A true sense of urgency is an exceptionally important asset for one to become successful in career and life. A true sense of urgency is not about being impatient on everything; it is not about rushing around energetically, running from meeting to meeting and screaming at people to execute. No; that is a false sense of urgency.

True urgency, according to John Kotter, a famous author, focuses on critical issues, which is needed now, not eventually, not when it fits easily into a schedule. True urgency is driven by a deep determination to win, not anxiety about losing. Now means making real progress every single day, not leaving ourselves with a heart-attack-producing task of running one thousand miles in the last week of the race.

With an attitude of true urgency, you try to accomplish something important each day, never leaving yourself with a heart-attack-producing task of running one thousand miles in the last week of the race. Critically important means challenges that are central to success or survival, winning or losing. A sense of urgency is not an attitude that I must have the project team meeting today, but that the meeting must accomplish something important today.

I still have a lot to learn on having a real sense of urgency, because I have always been a procrastinator on a lot of things. But slowly, I am improving; starting by doing the right thing and planning ahead. (Actually, to be honest, it is largely driven by working with a bunch of people with super sense of urgency. Haha....Ahem....).

In my previous blog post, I also mentioned that the lack of urgency caused an innocent girl to die of abuse because no one responded to the situations before it got critical. In Avianca Flight 52, it caused the death of 73 people. Although, not all things are matters of life and death, but I am sure we have a lot of things to learn from the past disasters caused by simple lack of urgency.

A week ago, I was absent from a special occasion; a wedding dinner of a wonderful couple, whom I personally get to know both of them really well. Earlier in the week, I made plan to work with my co-worker (also my partner) on the same weekend as the wedding dinner. My co-worker was working with me on part-time basis so the only available full days for us to work together is only during weekends and holidays. I had casually suggested to her that we need to work on certain outstanding issues, which seems quite important but not so urgent. She said she was busy but she might be free on coming weekend. I thought to myself then "I have a wedding dinner to attend on the same weekend" , but I did not say anything about that to her. Few days later, she confirmed she can meet on the weekend.

I know it will be marvelous for us we work together full day on the weekend because we can really make good progress with one whole day without interruptions. Unfortunately, this also means I could not go to the wedding dinner. So, I made a choice; to work on something that are important to me but relatively not so urgent; not because I have to but because I want to make good better progress in my work and maybe have the rest of following week free to do other things.! In fact, on that day, we worked from 1 p.m. until 6 a.m. the next day, on something that was totally not urgent! But we really did achieve something important because we have completed what we set up to do, and we are satisfied to know that we might be able to use our new-found knowledge anytime in the future.

So, if anyone of my friends ask me now or in the future why I do not show up at certain occasions, my general answer will be:
There are always a lot of choices we can make in our life. It is up to individuals to evaluate the priority and urgency of any of their choices. Since I want to be a business owner, having a sense of urgency in my work is very critical now.

I believe a sense of urgency is more than making the right choices, it has to be synchronized with our thoughts, feelings and actions; our attitude altogether. It should not only be used in work, but also in our everyday life. It is not rushing through things like I used to do last time; it is doing important things NOW instead of LATER.

Five effective actions for solving a corporate conflict

In a corporate world, there are bound to be conflicts and miscommunication between different parties or organizations. When problems occur, finger pointing is not the logical response of solving the problems itself.

However, most resort to such behavior, often overwhelmed by emotions such as anger, frustration, distrust, prideful, and so on. This results in bad feeling in the air for both parties and keep people away from solving the issues at hand which are the objectives.

Recently, I am able to witness a corporate conflict involving a vendor and a dealer. Jeffrey’s help was engaged to solve this conflict. Thus, I have a valuable chance to see and learn how to solve this problem in an efficient manner. Since this is a real incident for corporate environment, I would use fictitious names to preserve the anonymity of the parties involved.

Johnny, the dealer, gets a project to supply products and services, consisting of software and hardware, as well as training and support services to a customer. The customer gives the project to Johnny because of his good experience and reputation in the industry. However, Johnny does not produces the products himself so he sources the products from a vendor company XXX whom he was previously working for. Johnny has some rough experiences with the vendor company before, especially with Eddie, the superior of the sales manager who is managing his deal. Eddie was also his ex superior in XXX.

He was dealing very well with the vendor so far in getting the products and services delivered to the customers. However, in the third purchase, the vendor not only raises the price of the products but also decides to not supply to Johnny anymore. Hence, Johnny faces the risk of not fulfilling his customer’s orders, breaking the customer trust and also ruining his reputation in the industry. In summary, he is in dire state.

When dealing with conflicts, it is important that we keep the following five actions in mind:

1. Stay focus on the subject. Do not deviate. Do not get clouded by emotion.

Since Johnny has some bad experiences with Eddie before, he is filled with frustration and anger. Instead of trying to understanding the other side of the stories and solving the problems, he keeps on thinking that Eddie is making things hard for him on purpose to get back at him.

When Jeffrey talks to Eddie, it is found that the reason why Eddie does not supply to Johnny is that Johnny has not settled the earlier two payments. Johnny argues that he cannot settle the payment yet because the customer does not want to pay him until the implementation is fully completed. The customer complains some features are not in the system and the last training cause their staffs to enter wrong data into the system. Thus to the customers, the implementation is not fully completed yet.

Eddie argues on his side, he has delivered fully and should get the payment. Due to his company policy, Eddie cannot continue to supply to Johnny if he cannot clear the payment. To Eddie, he is only dealing with Johnny and not Johnny’s customer, so Johnny needs to settle the payment regardless whether the customer has paid him or not. Eddie also admits his subordinate has previously given the wrong quotation and which cause him to re-adjust the pricing on the third purchase.

Thus, in staying focus on the subject, on business ground instead of personal matters, we now know the only way to solve the problem is to pay Eddie and quickly get him to fulfill the third orders. The other matters are histories.

2. Present things in a pleasant manner.

When Jeffrey presents the issues and prompts both parties to talk, he avoids having both parties finger-pointing at each other. Instead of focusing on “me” and “you”, he focus on the powerful word – “WE”. In many cases, he emphasizes that “WE” are doing business here and the deals are beneficial to both parties. So, “WE” should solve the problems together instead of harping on who is at fault or on the past issues like bad services, wrong pricing, etc. “WE” is A VERY POWERFUL WORD.

3. Keep a non-tempered and cool composure.

Confronting the problem on hand, Johnny is very frustrated and angry since the beginning. To him, Eddie and his teams have not delivered a very good service to him and his customers. And this is the cause that the customer is not paying him. Thus, he is unable to pay Eddie’s company. On the other hand, Jeffrey tries to keep the situation in a cool manner by not delving too much into these issues. He asks Johnny to calm down and remind him being angry does not serve any purpose. Several times, when Johnny gets into an angry tone when talking about his pain, Jeffrey asked him to pause and talk slowly to keep him in a cool composure.

4. Discuss on problem-solving and future co-operation issues and also channels of communication.

After understanding the issue, it is obvious that the most important issue to attend to is to continue to provide the customers with the products and then prompt the customer to make payment. Although Johnny has not get the payment from the customers, he must pay Eddie for his company to continue provide the products first. In the future, Johnny needs to be careful in managing the customer expectations and also service delivery by the vendors. Johnny may also take over the training and support services from Eddie’s team so that he can provides better support to the customer if he wants to.

Johnny, being the middle man and consultants in the deal has to bear the responsibilities in keeping both parties (vendors and customers) happy at all times.

(Up until now, I always think being a dealer is a simple job of getting the supplies and delivering to the customers. But the fact is a dealer has to take the double pains from both the vendors and the customers. He also has to bear any risks of any parties not doing their jobs well enough)

Since Eddie admits one of his sub-ordinates has made the mistake in the quotation and thus creates all the confusion, he agrees to remove him from the future correspondence. Eddie will assign another sales manager to handle this deal in the future.

5. Provide a compromising situation for both parties for future collaboration.

After getting each parties to understand what needs to be done immediately to solve the issue, Jeffrey goes on to discuss what it is like for future collaboration to prevent the same problems from happening again. There may be more deals between both parties in the future and they need to learn how to work closely.


What I know is Johnny certainly has a lot to learn from his mistakes in this conflict. He need to start by practicing the 3 principles in doing everything in life.

And you know what? Jeffrey bought some of Johnny’s share in his company and the deal was sealed. Eddie was very surprised that Jeffrey, who actually owned the company, was logical and not single sided in handling the matter.

Thus, what we have learned today? Ask yourself….

I’m a home-based consultant

After reading Milena Thomas post “I’m Staying Home From Now On. Will you Still Respect Me Tomorrow?”, I am tempted to write about my own stay-at-home experience.

I have “stayed at home” for almost 4 months now since I left my last company. I feel I really deserve this break since I have been working non-stop for almost 9 years except for some small vacations each year, which are usually shorter than 5 days. I am grateful to Jeffrey for making this experience possible for me.

You might imagine me lazing around. I hate to break your imagination but I have to tell you I am not. It is just like Dogbert’s saying: “I’m not unemployed, I’m a consultant.” So you see, I am training myself to be a consultant!

Why? First of all, being a consultant requires one to be organized and have great time management skills. It requires me to plan my day and do the things I need to do for the day. Here, I am practicing these skills to perfection each day. Practice does make perfect and after four months, I think I have graduated. So, I will be moving on to the next level. ( I will talk about this in later post)

Of course, I have gone through problems and overcome them.

Sometimes, I feel good because I have all the times in the world to do things and that is usually in the morning. At night, I feel that “time really flies” and I usually do not finish what I set to do for the day. Sometimes, I do not even wake up until afternoon due to my “late” nights (I really mean wee hours in the morning). I really like staying up late.

Sometimes I can be very relaxed. Other times, I can be quite agitated because I am afraid I will turn into a lazy bum and enjoy being that.

Staying-at-home is not hard and it is not easy either. In fact, I find it to be harder than working because it requires much more discipline and “keeping to the flow”. I can be washing the bathroom, cooking, blogging, reading books, doing laundry, reading online news, going to gym - all in one day and keeping the flow going. It is most probably not in one day because I have all “the motivation” to take things very slowly.

I know I should focus on fewer activities than that, but I am adamant that even though I am not working, that does not mean I cannot learn new things, keep up-to-date to what is happening, and improving my knowledge.

In Chinese saying, there are "big woman" and “small woman”. “Big woman” is someone capable, strong, and independent. She is the type that can either put guys off because she is too smart and powerful or she can get a lot of respect for being assertive and successful in the place prevalently dominated by male. And "small woman" is someone who whines and feeds the ego of guys, with guys taking care of her and being pampered. “Small woman” also stay at the “castle”, taking care of it and the family while the man fight the outside world. The man, who "bring home the bacon" also expected to be cared tenderly by the “small woman”. That is where the “small woman” cooks the bacon, feed the man and show tender-loving care.

I used to focus my energy so much in being a big woman, until I totally feel out of the planet when doing housework, cooking and so on. I even have problem keeping my desk tidy. Jeffrey gave me a sound advice – if you want to be a great big woman, you need to be a damn good small woman first. I am true-blue about this. If I hold a prominent position in a company and managing a large team of people, what pride do I have if I cannot even take care of my children, my husband and our home? Yes, I can hire maid, but I cannot be fully dependant on her.

So, I aspire to be both - small and big woman.

I think I am getting near it. I am much better at cooking and keeping the house in order now. And I am still reading and learning new skills every day.

Being responsive is critical for better communication

Imagine you speak passionately to a group of audiences on a topic, “How to double your income in a year”. You exuberate such an excitement that your eyes glow and you feel like your spirit is almost going to spring out from your body as you feverishly share what it takes you almost a lifetime to learn and months to prepare. At the end of your speech, to your amazement, no one have any questions to ask. This is the tenth speech you have delivered and in all the previous speeches, you received a lot of questions and even heated arguments. Now, the reaction of your audiences is not even a subtle acknowledgement of the effort you have put in the speech. It cannot be any worse than having this non-responsiveness to what you have just earnestly and sincerely shared. You begin to wonder whether you have delivered to the wrong audiences. Maybe they do not like or need money at all, you think. But all people need and like more money, the more the better. You feel the sudden impulse of hitting them on their head and see if they can respond. “Oh”, you thought, “what the hell!”. You grab a stick (don’t ask me why there is a stick there) and hit one of the audience nearest to you. (Let me digress here, if you are a non-responsive person, I advise you not to sit near the speaker next time). That it is - no response as well! At the end, you actually find out you have gone to the wrong room. Your audiences are autistic patients and you will record that speaking experience as your worst.

Yes, it is a definitely a heart-wrenching and stomach grueling feeling of speaking to people are non-responsive.

Imagine you as a leader, who has sincerely shared your negative feedback with one of your team member, who fall short of your expectation. You even write a one-thousand-words email to explain the behaviors you observed from the person and suggested few ways for him to change. Though there is some amount of criticism, but you honestly want to help the person to improve. How would you feel if you do not even receive a single email or phone call or message in response? Not even a thank-you note. No agreement or disagreement with you. You most probably will not feel so inclined to share more advices or feedbacks with the same person anymore.

I once heard from a CEO of a company who felt so impressed with an employee in the company who wrote him a thank-you email. The good CEO was making tremendous effort to get to know each of his employees by scheduling some small but prestigious dinners with them, each time with only three to four employees to allow better interaction. Out of the thirty to forty employees, only one wrote back to say thank you, not just for the gourmet and the CEO’s time but also for the insights shared by the CEO. And you are pretty sure that person, who is also, fortunately, able to deliver good job quality, has gone far in the company.

If you are not convinced until now that responsiveness is critical for better communication and also building better relationship, please try this. Try to smell whether unresponsiveness is there in the air around you. Probably, you have lived with it for so long you are driving most people away, especially those smart and experienced people who have not much time for everyone, much less the non-responsive one.

Get this right. Responsiveness is VERY IMPORTANT to good communication. It requires not only listening skills, empathy, and paying attentions but also involves actions. It requires one to understand and act on the understanding to the best of one’s abilities.

Take for example, a trainer or mentor who advise his students to undergo a makeover with specifics given to which parts to improve. Let’s say Johnny has his hair too long for a sales person to portray the right image to the customers and Johnny’s mentor and also superior, Edmund advised him to cut his hair. Weeks after weeks, Johnny went around with his long hair, making sales call. He failed to close any sales after weeks. He may not have the right skills but his look which is non-professional may aggravated the situation for him. But Johnny believes no one should judge him by his look. But the truth is, everyone judges others by their looks. So, in the end, Edmund has no choice but to give up on him.

Failure to take action based on sound advices has shown that Johnny is not responsive and not valuing himself and people who spend times to teach him. Yes, Johnny might respect and have listened attentively to Edmund, but responsiveness includes action(s). And actions speak much louder than words. This is always the case. You can be very smart, very loyal, and very creative but as long as you do not put that into actions, you will fail miserably.

Sometimes, it is our culture and background that cause us to be unresponsive in most of the situation. It also maybe due to our lack of confidence that we are afraid to respond for fear that people may think we are stupid if we ask silly questions or say something that reveals our lack of knowledge. Of course, do not just simply ask questions without understanding what is being communicated. Responsiveness requires understanding as well as actions.

I still remember in my secondary school, there was one girl in our class that we all found it hard to mix with her. She was the one who always asked teachers a lot of questions; however, the questions she asked had already been covered or taught by the teachers just a while ago. That was quite annoying as it prolonged the lectures and prevented the teachers from moving on to the next topics. While responsiveness is good, I certainly do not hope to call for responsiveness without a good cause.

A logical and favorable level of responsiveness can be cultivated. Through trainings and practices, you will soon find it to be part of your daily interaction. You will become responsive without any great efforts or even without you noticing it.

So, remember the followings:

1. Listen attentively. Do not interrupt unnecessarily. Nod your head or something to show that you are following the conversation.

2. Understand what is being communicated.


3. Most importantly, Act!!

a. Ask questions if you are not clear about something. It is also advisable to do some research on your own first, if you have the time.

b. Say thank you to show your appreciation. If it is an email, reply the email saying thank you. If you need to approach the good speaker in the crowd of hundreds of people, do it. Showing appreciation does require some effort. And greater the effort, the appreciation shown is much greater.

c. Give your feedback - how you feel and what you think. Be careful whether you are being defensive, which you should not.

d. Act on the person’s request or advices if they are good ones. If unsure, check again with the sender of the messages on what actions are required.

e. If you come across some blog entries or articles that you like, leave some comments, even just a short one. You should know how much it means to the writer to get some sort of responses, even disagreement is most welcomed.

Getting Things Done Using iGoogle

Erik Folgate from Brazen Careerist shared a useful tip on Getting Things Done Using iGoogle. I found it to be really useful after trying it for more than a week. You have to believe me as I have used all sort of tools to keep track of my task lists ever since I read the Getting Things Done book but to no avail. So here am I again, giving another shot to keep things organized and tracked properly.

Here is a funny product tour for iGoogle. I really love Google products!!!!!

I manage to improvise a little bit on Erik's suggestion. Here are my suggestion.

1. For the "Get Things Done" tab, include also "Gmail" widget, "Yahoo Mail" widget or whatever mail you are using. Email usually serves as the inbox for tasks also, so it is right to put them in that tab.

2. You can also add "Quotes of the Day" widget also. This can cheer you up a little while you are gazing at the task lists each day and wondering how can you complete all of those. Hakuna Matata!

3. "Remember the Milk" and "Google Calendar" widgets are pretty useful but I found "Google Notes" to be dissappointing. I hate the structure of the notes and the fact that the display is bad. I need to literally scroll up and down each time to see all the notes. For that, I substituted it with a "To-do List" to keep the list of the notes. I use notes only to put some reminders like what I am waiting for and what I need to buy.

4. I also added a "Reading" tab where I have all the widgets for reading RSS feeds from local newspapers. Try to keep the reading list to the minimal so that you would not be too overwhelmed.

5. Lastly, you may also find the "Beauty Tip of the Day" widget to be quite inspirational. Example: "Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them." William Stone

It is always good to feel beautiful each day.

Hope you find this to be useful.

Efficiency

I came across the following story which provide a valuable lesson on efficiency.

The story of ''Masha and Sasha'':

Once upon a time, in a little village, there lived a dry-goods merchant who had two apprentices, Masha and Sasha. After six months, Masha came to the boss and said, ''Boss, I've been here just as long as Sasha, but you pay him two rubles a week more than me. That's just not fair.''

''You may be right, my boy,'' said the kindly merchant. ''So let's see what we can do about it.''

''Look out the window, way up the main street, almost at the edge of town. What do you see in the middle of the road?

''A peddler,'' Masha said, ''with a horse and wagon, coming this way.'' ''Very good. Go see what he's selling.'' Masha put on his cap, ran out of the store, up the street and came back in about seven minutes, with this report: ''He's selling linen.''

''Hmmm,'' the merchant mused. ''We're running low and could probably use some. Ask him how much he wants for it.''

Masha ran out again, came back in three minutes this time, because the peddler was continuously moving through town, and provided this information: ''He wants 100 rubles for each bolt.''

''Not bad,'' the merchant said, ''but I don't know how many meters to each bolt. Go find out.''

Another run out and back, and a minute later Masha brought back ''50 meters per bolt, Boss.''

''That's not bad. But how wide is the cloth?'' Another trip, another run - this time in the opposite direction, because the peddler was by now heading for the outskirts of the village - and Masha has discovered that the goods are 60 centimeters wide.

''O.K., Masha. Take a well-earned rest. But first, ask Sasha to come in.''

When Sasha entered, the merchant posed the same problem. ''Sasha, do you see the peddler who is just leaving our village? Go find out what he's selling.'' Completely out of breath, Sasha returns 10 minutes later. ''Boss, he's selling linen, and we're really short in this material. He has 50 bolts for sale, each one two-ply, 60 centimeters wide, 50 meters per bolt. He asked for 100 rubles a bolt, but I talked him into letting you have them for 92. He's unloading downstairs.''

This reminded me of the intense sessions I had with my mentor. He would bombard me with all sort of questions on my tasks or reports. When a question was asked, acting like Masha and giving answer like "Let me check and get back to you" would get me an F in the my report card.
I would then have to acknowledge that I was unprepared and were not efficient enough. Attention to details are crucial. There must be enough homework or preparation done. After several mistakes, eventually I learnt and I always be prepared.

A manager would always prefer someone like Sasha instead of Masha. And, of course, Sasha would be compensated much better than Masha because she is much more efficient and intuitive. Sasha is result-oriented while Masha is task-oriented.

On the other side of the coin, the wife of the author mentioned a contradictory outcome to Masha and Sasha in today's world.

''In today's real world,'' she sadly suggested, ''Sasha and Masha would both be making the same salary. Union rules, tenure, Equal Employment Opportunity and all sorts of governmental regulations would insist on it. Not only that, but if one of the two boys has to be fired, it won't be Masha. Count on it. He doesn't pose a threat to the boss's position!''

Times change. And with it ''the moral of the story.''

I agree it is very true also, especially if Masha is a good player of corporate games /politics or Masha's boss is very much the same.

Corporate Games aka Office Politics (Part 2)

First of all, I would like to thank my mentor for writing this part for me. Additionally, he told me there is a total of 16 corporate games. I never thought it can be that specific and I definitely curious to know more. So, there will be a lot of articles coming on this topics.

I encourage you readers to direct any questions you have about corporate games in the comments of this post. I shall get my mentor to answer your questions. He warned me though, the corporate game players are going to hate him (and me, since this is my blog) for all these exposures. I guess the last thing I will be affected both emotionally and spiritually is to upset all these players. I, basically, may even be elated to do this.

Here it goes:

Why does corporate games exist and rising?

Statistically over 65% of Malaysians are unaware of what their future holds in their work life.

It is actually a phenomenon which have been observed for the past few years among the working class at the age of between 20-30 years old.

There are primarily 4 reasons to such phenomenon:

Firstly, it is noticed that after graduation, most people would (with the exceptions of rich sons and daughters of the upper class) simply apply for any jobs that are available due to the pressures of the unemployment. "What happens if I don't get a job? What are my peers going to think of me? What will my parents say? How am I going to get the things I want?" That would be some of the thoughts in their minds. This we call, "The Pressure Point".

Secondly, after working on a job which they have not thought through carefully, the people would be hunting again for another job which they thought would be a better job than the current one, thinking "Hey, now that I have some working experience, I can get a better job with my qualification". But in actual fact, they are again considering the pay package as a major factor rather than the job which suits them in the long term. This we call, "The Monetary Factor".

Thirdly, within the companies of which they are working in, they had noticed that some people actually did not work as hard as they ought to be. And some were not as smart and efficient as they should be. But they managed to get promoted, getting authority and also making the "big bucks". So, after the observation, they are now beginning to learn what we call "The Corporate Games". Play their cards right, stick with the herds, play along with the crowd, bully the weak, make use of others, ignore the feelings of others. The list goes on and on. Suddenly, they thought they had found the shortcut to success. "The Corporate Games", so we call it.

Lastly, after being a seasoned "player" for a few years and playing their games, some actually "lost out" due to being exposed of their inability to perform. It can also be the herds had broken up , or they have failed once too many times to cover up. But try as they may to maintain their positions for "survival", they would resort to the most vicious of all corporate games, i.e. they sabotage others. Playing the back stabbing trick, the traps they laid out to their targets, the false achievements which they claimed away from others. The bad things go on and you do not want me to delve into that right now. This we call "The Ultimate Games".

For every beginning, there will be an ending. So, someday, a true leader comes along, hired by the company to "clean up" everything. Thus the day shall be the end of the players.

So, if corporate games are way of life, why don't these people succeed in their life permanently? The answer lies in the most basic law of nature, that is, as the Chinese saying goes, "For every mountain, there is a higher mountain". No matter how good they are, there is always someone who is more skillful in playing games.

Corporate Games aka Office Politics (Part 1)

Why don't you blog about Corporate Games? I think it will be an interesting topic. My mentor said this to me one day.

Yeah, right. Interesting. But the problem is I am like a kindergarden student when it comes to Corporate Games (aka Political Games) . I did remember the first day I was in the kindergarden school. There are several scenes where some kids threw tantrums, thrashed things and screamed to go home. I am proud to announce I was not one of them as I sat quietly and waited for my first lesson. Ironically, for corporate games lesson, I feel like I want to be like the kids who wanted to go home.

One part of kindergarden days that is similar to the initial learning of corporate games is that you never can expect what will be taught, who are your schoolmates, how they behave and how they will treat you. Sure enough I remembered the big fat bully aka the Bitch (ironically, the bully in my secondary school was in the same proportion of size, albeit in 2 times of the size). She used her appalling body and oppresive behaviour to intimidate the normal-5-years-old-size like me into following her command and "sharing" my lunches with her. Those who did not abide, would be the outcast and that's where they sat at one corner and nobody would play with them.

And then, you would also notice those so-eager-to-please doggy who followed her everywhere she went and anything she did, wagging their tails to her while barking at everybody else. And you know what, those group of people usually scored last in the class, except maybe the fat bitch. She must have some brains, at the very least, to lead a bunch of stupid people.

I guess kindergarden taught me more about corporate games more than anything else. I have been through some real corporate games, if you must know, and although I am still living healthily, I have escaped with some bruises and repressed eagerness to work in corporate environment. Still at kindergarden-level of knowledge in corporate games, I do not want to pretend I know a lot about it to qualify me to write a post (and good and bad news is I intend to write several posts). However, I think it is not hard to do some research to start something on these. Let us all learn together (that is always the intention of my blog) . Besides, my mentor will also share his experience with me. He is, after all, the master of tactics and strategy and that definitely includes corporate games. And he has seen it all. All the good, the evil, the kind, the mean, the black and the white of all that we had shared and experienced in this world.

Ok, let's go to the basic first in this part 1.

What is corporate game?

Edward B. Toupin said this:
A corporate game is an illegitimate means of getting things done. It is a way that people twist and turn situations to reach a specific goal. However, those people that don't play, risk their careers.

Politics and political maneuvering is the interpersonal conflicts and power plays that exist in most organizations. Among the specific actions commonly associated with office politics are intimidation, indirect communications, covert tactics for advancement, manipulation for control, indirectly telling the truth, hiding vulnerability issues, and playing for favors.

Politics came about as a way of handling intense competition. Generally, business itself is a competitive game ranging from simple tests of skill to full-blown battles. The game is driven by survival conditions induced by an expanding world market in which companies must continue to change and grow. There's a constant challenge to overwhelm the opposition, reduce costs, and acquire additional resources. All of these attributes trickle down through the ranks to cause individual battles for promotions, rewards, and recognition at all costs.

Another reason for office politics has to do with the hierarchical structure of most organizations. The higher you advance, the less room there is at the top. As long as people battle for the "corner office," workplace maneuvers will reign. This is where the most intense battles occur and where most people find that they are stepped on or pushed aside.

Stephen Ryan said this:

Every business is comprised of a variety of different systems, including information systems, human management systems, corporate vision dissemenation systems, marketing systems, fianancial accounting systems, customer relation management systems, health & safety systems and legal and compliance management systems, to name but a few. Regardless of whatever size of business you run, your MD will most likely be responsible for maintaining all these complex structures and your own performance as a manager will be measured against how well each of these systems are developed. To achieve this you may well implement performance appraisal systems such as KPI (Key Performance Indicator) analysis systems, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) measures and transparent, open and authoratitive reporting to the shareholders of the company.

With so many systems to maintain and be responsible for, you'd have thought that there would be little room for introducing ever greater complexity. Especially where this complexity involves the establishment of systems that are not open, not transparent, not ethical and not based on good business practices, but rather rampant - self-interest. "Political Games Systems".

When managers feel pressured by the responsibility of maintaining existing business systems, many of them fall into playing the game of politics. For many, this is a subconcious reaction to being squeezed. For others, it is a game to be relished. A game for lazy people, a game for con-men. For procrastinators. For people who would rather play games - than do things that make a real difference to the business.

We call this the "politics - replaces responsibility" syndrome.

Why you need to learn corporate games?

Improperly managing power and politics can make or break your career, cause many sleepless nights, and often has very little to do with your actual job duties. Many people who fail in their jobs do so because of political problems, not skill deficiencies. Many intelligent and capable people aren't as successful as they might be because they haven't learned to cope with office politics. Understanding why you might be having difficulty at work involves understanding the basic elements of office politics and why it exists.

Whether you decide to play or not, don't get caught in the middle. If you become the individual that battles politics, then you become the scorned of the organization. If you decide to stay out of it completely, then do your job and stay out. Those on the other end of the spectrum that play will respect your decision because that alone gives them less competition in their own battles.

One thing you'll notice is that no one will admit to playing games; however, that is part of the secret of politics. You, on the other hand, cannot confront anyone for playing games; however, you can identify the games and learn how to manage them to suit your needs. Once you figure out how to do this, then your stress level will drop, and you'll be accepted in your environment.

The summary of the lessons are:
1. Understand and learn about corporate games. Do not be a fool to ignore it. Do not wait until you are played out or crushed in the game, then only you learn.

2. You do not need to play it to hurt people but DO NOT fight it. Learn how to manage it to suit your needs and to reduce your stress.

If you are a woman, there is no doubt you may be at a little more disadvantages compared to the other sex in the corporate world. You might want to look at the rules of the games for corporate women.

And for those who never really work in a corporate environment before, my advice to you will be - do try out to get a taste of the games while you are still young and fearless because the higher level you go in your career ladder, the more intense the corporate games will be. And you will definitely appreciate the lessons to tame your brashness.

Why, why, why

Do you always have excuses for failures or mistakes? Like when you created a product that fail to sell, you blamed it on the lack of features or the poor marketing.

I do not deny there could be many reasons for failures, but what I do not agree is the way how people conveniently blame it on other things other than themselves when they fail. I actually learnt this the hard way from my mentor. I have made a lot of excuses for my mistakes, until my mentor stripped them off me and I stood naked (of course, I mean this figuratively) and I got nothing to hide. Imagine yourself having nothing to defend yourself, nothing to shield yourself. It was unnerving for me at first until I began to understand why he did that. And I had to say it was a life-saving experience for me.

Imagine your life, where you complain and are not satisfied with some of the things that happen to you but you do not do anything to change the situations. Like while you feel you are not making enough money or the small business you started long time ago is not going anywhere, but you do nothing (or very less of what you should do) . Instead of spending the times to work to get the money or improve your skillsets, you go to enjoy and hoo-ha with your friends in every free times you have. Then, you continue to complain about not having enough time and you blame it on all other things except yourself and the choices you have made, which are apparently stupid.

That is where I guess most of us live in our own defense, denying that we are the one who actually screw up our life. Not other people. Not our family, not our bosses and definitely not God.

Well, my mentor, he made me came out of this defense. To stand naked to the truth that I was the one who had not been reacting to my life. I was the one who denied myself the chance to be successful.

The approach he used to do that is none other than the 5-Whys technique famously used in Toyota, one of the top quality rankings automative makers in the world. The method is simple. Just keep on asking whys until it get the bottom of the causes, where usually it becomes clear that the root cause is due to the individuals and not the weather, relatives, or economy, etc.

As preached in most of the self-help books, while at most of the times we cannot change situations or other people's behaviors, we certainly can change our thinking and responses. Thus, most of our mistakes and failures originate from ourselves. We are the one who should be in control. We should not let the external factors affect us or the results. That is also why we need to keep the 3 principles in mind when we do anything, to guarantee results.

Here are some examples on where the 5-Whys is used to get to the root causes of the failures and then act on them (change them or do whatever it takes!).

Example 1

Why we fail to sell this product?
Because customers find the product is not useful.

Why do customers find the product not useful?
Because the product does not really help them improve their revenues in business.

Why didn't we make or design the product to help customer to improve their revenues in business?
Because we do not know that is what customers want in the first place.

Why didn't we know that in the first place?
Because we do not do any market research or product analysis to come out with the proper product design.

Why didn't we do that in the first place?
Because we do not know that is necessary and we do not know how to do that.

Why didn't we know that and if we do not know that, why we do not ask for help? (notice the same questions are repeating?)
Because I am not capable. Because I did not do my job well as the head of department. Because I just do not have the knowledge and experiences to make this successful. (this is where it gets to the individual's mistake, where the general term "we" is stripped off and one have to take the responsibility to own up to one mistakes.)

In that case, why should we let you keep your job if you are not really doing your job well?
Because I learnt from this mistake and I know what are the right things to do next times.

And why should we trust you will succeed the next time?
Because there will be no excuses for failures and I will be solely held responsible for it.

I have to admit I exaggerated a bit here to make the point. But this process of asking whys are very important to get to the bottom of things and to take actions. Notice also the causes of the failure change from the product to the people or the team (we) and finally to the one who are responsible for the team result. (I).

In my experience, I encountered people repeating the same mistakes and given the same (or slightly altered) excuses each time for the failures. One of the people is ME, which I have vowed to change. And I am changing . Not trying to change (trying is not good!), I am definitely changing. No more excuses, right?

In one of the company I worked in, during the span of 5 years, we encountered 4 of out 5 products failed to deliver the business values and revenues for the company. The 4 failed products are consecutive, which means only the first product are successful (maybe, out of luck) and for the rest of the products, we kept on repeating our mistakes and gave ourselves all sort of excuses to defend ourselves (and our jobs).

Example 2

This example is how my mentor had changed me, stripped down of all my defences and make me realized that I need to change and improve myself first before I can really do things efficiently. Of course, this is the summarized version. I hate to admit this but my defensiveness and stupidity were worse than depicted here. But I have learnt my lesson and dare to admit my mistakes so that YOU ALL can learn also and benefit from this.

So, how about YOU? Have you realize and admit YOUR MISTAKES?

Mentor: Why you made that mistake?
Me: Sorry, I did not follow what you have told me.

Mentor: Why you did not follow what I have told you? Did you choose to defy me?
Me: Sorry, I did not choose to defy you. I just forgotten at that point of time.

Mentor: Why you cannot remember what I have taught you?
Me: It did not register in my mind at that point of time. And I did not stop to think.

Mentor: Why is that?
Me: Because I did not listen properly, I am forgetful and I always do things on impulse.

Mentor: Why you are like that? What cause that?
Me: Sorry, it is my bad habit. Things are not organized and in place, that's why things are jumbled up and I cannot think and do things properly.

Mentor: And what you need to do?
Me: I need to change. I will listen properly. I will remember things. and I will always think carefully before I act. And most of all, I need to start to organize everything, so that everything is in place and I have a clear mind and space to do things efficiently.

Well, that are exactly what I am going to do and improve myself. So, the next time things screw up, ask yourself all the WHYS until you get origin of the problem.

3 principles in doing everything in life

My mentor told me these 3 principles on our first day of training. At that time, I just noted them down and never really give it a serious thought and practice.

Over the time, I saw him repeated this teaching to other people who were lucky enough to have chance to learn things from him. And I witnessed all the successful results when the rules are followed through each execution. On the other hand, I saw how things failed miserably when these rules were not being followed, especially when one missed out a step.

I can say this is the secret to success. Simple rules yet so powerful. It is the difference between people who always deliver on promise no matter what are the circumstances and people who always fail together with a set of reasons for their failures.

Here are the principles. These can be applied to everything you want to do in life, except maybe love.

1. Do homework/preparation

Before we start working on anything, we need to do our homework or make enough preparation. No generals or soldiers are going to go to the war unprepared. This is the same philosophy.

For sales people, preparation may mean studying the list of potential customers, competitors , understanding the markets, etc. It may also include qualification of the customers and coming out with the sales strategies.

For people who are going to travel to the foreign countries or states, it may mean studying the weather, what kind of clothes to prepare, places for visiting or shopping, things to buy and the expected prices, how much money to change to the foreign currency, etc. Also, we probably need to ask friends who had been to the same place on what to take note, especially things to beware of.

I learn this from my own few bad experiences in my recent trip to Beijing. I wish I was more prepared. But I am glad I realized my mistakes and are working for a big change now.

Thus, I think this step is most important but also most omitted by people, usually due to lot of common excuses and habits like procrastination, laziness, wrong priorities , not enough time or too rush. For e.g. , how many times you have gone to poor demo or presentations and wonder why the presenters are not well prepared? Or how many times you read through reports or proposals or resumes submitted to you and find there are still a lot of mistakes which should not be made?

It is important to spend enough times and efforts in doing the homework and ensuring a certain quality of the homework.

2. Be Focus

After we have done the homework, now it is time to start on the real work itself. We must be very focus to execute from start to end.

We must always finish what we started. We cannot quit no matter what. It is important that we do not quit at this stage as psychologically if we do, we may just continue to quit for the next and following tasks. And finally it becomes our habit to quit whenever things go wrong. And things always go wrong. That's why it is necessary for us to make it right.

Of course, not all the things are worth continuing. Sometimes we have to quit also if we know it is not possible for us to make it to the end or deliver the results we want. If we want to quit, the best time to quit is actually before or at the homework stage.

For sales people, focus may mean perseverance in making appointments with customers, doing presentations and following up until they close the deals.

3. Have Backup Plan

Never have one and only plan. Have plan A and plan B. Plan B is the backup. If plan A fail, execute plan B. We may also want to have plan C and plan D depending on the complexity and difficulty of the tasks.

This is also a very important steps but most people never work on this because they do no want the hassle to think of another plan to backup. They put their full bets on their main plan to go right and counting on their lucks, which are very silly.

Since sales is all about making numbers, it is important to plan it by playing around with the numbers. If the sales target is set to be 1 million for that year, make sure we are planning sales pipelines which is much more than that. If our target is to get 10 customers a week, make sure we make appointments with 30 to 50 customers. If product A may not be able to meet the target sales, have product B to start selling as the backup plan.

Let us all follow these 3 principles to ensure we are always winning in everything we do.

He who fails to plan, plans to fail.

Mindsets of young people today

This is my third consecutive posts on mindsets. And I believe this will be the best. But , unfortunately, this post is about mistakes that people make. I am sharing this with you so that you can learn from other people mistake instead of making your own.

I want to start off with my own mistake first.

I realized today I am too soft and lenient with the people I have managed so far. Terrible mistake. In a way, I am pampering the people and have not given them the chances to learn more, especially to learn from the hard way. Up until this point, I always think I am a good manager. I plan for people careers, I share things with them, I buy good books for them and I truly care about them as persons. This is also my another mistake. Because I care for them, I have already mixed my logics with my feelings and emotions until to the points I can no longer see their mistakes and hold them responsible for it. I cover for them, and I give them excuses to fail themselves and to fail me.

I become a pampering snob - pampering myself and people around me. I guess my ex-boss and other more matured people (please notice that I am not saying elder people because maturity does not always correlate with age.) were trying to tell me this before. Yes, most of the young people today is really too pampered. Honestly speaking, I choose to ignore that as I cannot quite get it at that point. That is until my mentor demonstrated this to me today. A demonstration that really make great impact on myself. He hit the right button. Real hard. What a great lesson.

So, I will tell you the mistakes that some people had made which are great deterrents for them in their career and life. In some cases, I have made the same mistakes. Because honest to God, I have quite an unpolished mindsets myself. And I am looking forward to change this. So, I hope everyone will.

1. Do not plan well and have their priorities wrong.

My friend made a terrible mistake today. He was supposed to have a casual appointment with a great businessman at 2:30 p.m. I am saying casual, because the setup is outside the company. He planned to go to blood donation before the appointment at 1:30 p.m. with his friends. His friends were late and ended up he went to the blood donation at 2 p.m. and was late for the meeting.

Unexpectedly (or should be it expected , anyway?) , the businessman refused to see him. He lost his chance because he had not planned well and have the wrong priorities. First of all, he need to realize this maybe a good opportunity for him and this opportunity maybe rare. He should never underestimate the values of a chance to meet and talk to great people.

And in the split seconds that he decided to go on with the blood donation even when it was already 2 p.m. and know that half an hour is probably not enough time to finish it and be on time, he had make a huge mistake even though it may seems like a normal things to do - to go on with the initial plan and do not adjust. Do not get me wrong, blood donation is as important as meeting a successful people to talk about career and life because blood donation may save someone life. But blood donation can be done after the appointments instead. Keeping to our words and showing up on time for the appointment is very important because time is always precious to everybody. Especially for people who are successful, their time is more precious.

2. Do not know what they want in life

I am always dissappointed when I come across people who told me they do not know what they want in life, in their career. Even when I try to tell them, "please think about what you really want in life and your career", it always end up the same. They come back to me and tell me they just do not know.

It is sad. Yes, maybe they are young. But, it is almost impossible for them to achieve anything if they do not know what they want in the first place. If they do not know what they want, they will not fight for it. Without fighting for it, they will not get it. Unless they get really lucky and manage to get to somewhere in life. But, how lucky they can be and for how long?

For me, I know even before completion of my college, I want to start my own business one day. I give myself 5 years to achieve that, which did not happen but at least I know what I want. I heard from a friend also what she wants is for the family to have a good life that in her late days , she does not need to worry financially. This is perfect for me too. Even though, she did not specify how to get there, but she has this picture and goal in mind. That is already enough.

One person told this , she thinks she wants her own career and do not want to be dependant on other people. She definitely wants a good life. But she is not very ambitious and are not willing to sacrifice. She wants to have her own life after work and should not be bothered with office issues whenever she is not in the office. And she said all these in a job interview. Surprised? Maybe she does not want the job at all, and fair enough, she is not going to get it. That comes to my next point also.

3. Do not want to sacrifice

I guess I am stressing on this in all my recent posts. Why do people believe good things come rolling without any efforts, I really have no idea.

There is an old story in China. One day, a farmer passed by the wood and saw a rabbit accidentally hit the tree and died. He took the rabbit home and cooked it. He had the most wonderful dinner in his life. That got him thinking. Life can be as good as this. Why he had to work hard for it? So, the next day, the day after next and days that follows, he sat nearby the tree each days and waited for another rabbit to hit the tree and die. In times, he completely ignored his farm and it became totally useless. So, do you think the farmer can survive? How many rabbit do you think will hit the tree again?

4. Do not have enough fighting spirit

If you hear success stories from successful people who have make it out on their owns, one thing you may notice is that these people may have some very terrible past, like maybe have been or have been on the verge of bankruptcy, cheated, and even suicidal attempts.

They are successful because once they are reborn after the trauma, they fight a lot better and with greater spirit.

5. Do not want to take risk or venture out of comfort zone but want a fast rewards

Think of this. A person that is given a good salary and have a good position in a company. But the company is struggling at times, makes some mistakes and the person feel lost sometimes in what she is doing. So, an opportunity come along that may have potential to change her life and give her what she really wants in life. But she ask , is it going to be the same in 2 years time, that she will back to where she is , doing what she is doing today, making the same mistakes?

There is absolutely no guarantee in everything, right? Opportunities are only opportunities if one grabs it and know how to turn it into rewards. Otherwise, it will just be the wind flowing by.

If we have a good opportunity and we do not live up to it or not scale up to do the job, we cannot blame anyone but ourselves. If we want to stick to what we are doing even without the clear direction and unwilling to take the risk, then maybe we should forget our the fast rewards and instead think of the progressive rewards we will be getting - promotions and salary increase. Both rewards for good depends on how one thinks.

6. Do not feel confident

When one say, I want to build something great, but I really do not know whether I can do it because I do not have much experiences and the past experiences I have is all but failures - they are giving themselves excuses to fail. So, if the next product really fails, they will say, 'See, I already said I have no experience and we do not know what is really the right thing to build. '

Be confident. Say and believe you can do it. Say 'I want to make a million in x years'. Do not say 'I want to make a million in x-y years provided the market is good and I am lucky.'

7. Do not ask enough (intelligent) questions

Always be prepared with questions to ask. Do not assume things. I am sure everybody does not know everything. There must be some questions to ask to explore more things and to get other people to share what we do not know.

Always ask questions . Intelligent one. Only when you ask, people can give you more. Nobody want to spoonfeed people.

If you meet successful people, ask how they do it. Maybe, most will not tell you exactly how they do it or you may not be able to digest the information and execute accordingly, but still ask anyway. One day, you may just get lucky and someone may just say 'Come, let me show it to you'.

Always have a mind that wonder why things are the way they are. Then, take action. Always take actions.

My mentor told me this interesting story of when he went to his first class of psychology. There was a woman standing in front of everyone and started to strip. Everyone wondered what was going on and whether they were in the right class. My mentor, he got out of the room, not because he did not want to continue looking at the naked woman..LOL, but just to check the classroom no. to ensure that was the correct class . Of course, the class was right and he got immediately right back in (u should know why..LOL) . After he got in, the professor asked his name and what he was doing. He have done the right thing that day, because while everyone was wondering on the same thing but very unfocused (because of the naked beautiful lady), he actually acted upon his wonder. Well, from there onwards, his professor like him very much and he became a very good mind and people reader.

So, such a long list of what I have learnt today. I hope this ring a bell to someone. And I hope people who are making these mistakes will acknowledge this and start to change.

Yes, we all make mistakes and our mindsets are programmed from childhood until now through what we have experienced. The key is to continue to grow our mindset to the correct one.

I shared this article last time with my ex-colleagues. I think it is still very applicable to all people.

Through more than three decades of systematic research, she has been figuring out answers to why some people achieve their potential while equally talented others don’t—why some become Muhammad Ali and others Mike Tyson. The key, she found, isn’t ability; it’s whether you look at ability as something inherent that needs to be demonstrated or as something that can be developed.

What’s more, Dweck has shown that people can learn to adopt the latter belief and make dramatic strides in performance. These days, she’s sought out wherever motivation and achievement matter, from education and parenting to business management and personal development.

So, you may not really be an intelligent or very talented person. But all you need is hardwork, sacrifices and someone who may be able to guide you to the road of success. Everything else can be trained.

Also, that's why even if you are making mistakes today, please do not give up on yourself.