I’ve been wanting to take a photo of the nest that mynahs keep using at the ground floor of the apartment block I live in. Every now and then, there would be the sounds of young birds cheeping and sights of adult mynahs moving in and out of the nest. The said nest was made […]
What’s this “Green Revolution” all about? People have been trumpeting about “new” stuff for about as long as there have been humans on this earth. No, there’s nothing new. People have always had a basic understanding of how to care for the environment and what work needs to be done to keep food and water […]
A thought just came to me, and it’s the title of this post. MP stands for Member of Parliament, and the terms “Manage Perceptions” and “Move People” came to my mind. The first rule of economics can be summarized as scarcity and tradeoffs, while the first rule of politics is to ignore the first rule […]
I saw this on LinkedIn’s “Today’s news and views” column just now. Does the farm industry need workers only now? Hasn’t there been a shortage of farm workers, just like healthcare workers, even from more “agrarian” times? And, speaking of “agrarian”, I have lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people, whether in […]
Most of us hear about not staying in our comfort zone, but to move out and try whatever it is we’re uncomfortable with. There is truth in that, of course. Just remember that something which doesn’t portray the whole truth isn’t truth, it’s deception. And what is deception? Get this – 99% truth! I’ve already […]
Are you worth your salt? Well, ARE you? Do you receive your salary, your pay, your commission, your fee, with great satisfaction, knowing that you have delivered much more than the pittance you received? I hope you do. As one wise man once said “There are two tragedies in life. The first is not getting […]
Confused? Really? There used to be a television series called “Lost in Space” which first aired in the mid-1960s. One of the characters was the “B-9, Class M-3 General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot” usually known only as “Robot.” The Robot is memorable for two phrases: “Danger, Will Robinson!” and “Does not compute!” It is […]
SOS – Supply Of Supplication Supplicants the world over beam their SOS signals every day. They ask for love, appreciation, fulfillment, excitement, purpose, gratification and so forth. This is besides the need for air, water and food so they can go on living. Increasingly, wants disguised as needs are also broadcast as SOS. We call this […]
Why a Post about M&As? I have read many posts and articles about Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As). There are more than a few forms of M&As. You can read more about them on Investopedia and elsewhere. I hope to briefly show here how the three “Whats” of “What?”, “So What?” and “Now What?” can be asked […]
Of Babies and Bathwater “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” is a very useful adage to keep in mind. I wrote some time ago about “Silos? Or Synapses?” In that post I emphasized that we ought to think in terms of synapses rather than silos. Lately, I’ve been seeing many posts about abolishing silos […]
Get the picture? Yes! So what? Make a movie! A picture paints a thousand words, so they say. If that’s the case, would it be true to say that a movie shows a thousand pictures? With audio thrown in, perhaps? It’s been said that if we change our words, we will change our world. Well, […]
Speakers Love Speaking? I get bored when I listen to many other people speaking as well. Few speakers can actually capture my attention these days. Why do I get bored listening to myself speaking? Does the same thing happen to you? Do you get bored listening to yourself? Wait a minute, aren’t speakers supposed to love […]
This is the way we do things here, we do things here, we do things here… It seems that there is a method to the madness, after all. Following a template ostensibly forged by older and much wiser heads since antiquity guarantees success, does it not? Of course it does! Our modus operandi, the method we […]
What Nokia’s boss is reported to have said during the press conference announcing Nokia’s takeover by Microsoft is making its way around. Reading it, and the comments following, confirms again that phrases like “Nothing succeeds like success” need to be applied judiciously. We need to know the context, the background story and, in this case, […]
Many years ago, we used to sing a silly campfire song which went something like: Says a thousand-legged worm As he gives a little squirm Have you seen a little leg of mine? If it can’t be found I shall have to hop around On my nine hundred and ninety-nine! Hop around, hop around Have […]
What comes to your mind when “viral” is thrown across your path? Do you see wildly popular content shared by millions of people across the web? Do you wish that you could create similar content? Are you anticipating millions coming your way, so that you can retire to a life of ease? Or do you […]
Somebody shared this on Marketing Weekly. I was intrigued and watched the whole video. Yes, all 55 minutes of it. Twice. Mark Ritson does make a lot of sense. With our Hellenistic mindset, we have again divided digital marketing from “traditional” marketing and so on. “TV and radio are dead” and similar catchphrases are trumpeted […]
And Master of Some. Forget about the other second part of the phrase which says “and master of none.” Master of None? Says who? Now, of course, given the span of human life, it would not be easy for anyone to become a Jack of ALL trades, but isn’t mastering a few trades reasonable? Does mastering […]
“If there is no pain, there is no business.” ~ Attributed to a prominent regional, (meaning around Singapore), Venture Capitalist. ~ “Before you build a better mousetrap, you’d better see if there are any mice out there.” ~ Has been attributed to Yogi Berra, rightly or not. ~ Have you had the above and/ or […]
Do these pictures give you a hint about what’s on my mind? Look up the origins of the words. Dogma seems to imply beliefs arising from one’s own thinking. Doctrine seems to add that the result of such thinking is due to belief that those who teach and impart it have done their homework, and […]
Stay Calm and Read On. Did the title cause you some unease? I hope so! It might move you to take positive action so that you can have a life of genuine ease. What do I mean by that? We are becoming more and more addicted to creature comforts. We want things instantly. We want […]
I’ve never been in the Navy or Merchant Marine. I’ve been a landlubber all my life. Having been something of a gymnast when I was younger, I suppose I’d be a little more adaptable to the pitching, rolling and yawing in heavy seas than the average landlubber, but I’ve never tried, so I can’t say […]
“Look before you leap.” “Think before you act.” “Logic makes people think, emotion makes them act.” Yes, we’ve heard all these before. Some of us might even be living by them. Level-headedness is more the exception than the norm. “Go with the flow” is often taken to the extreme and becomes nothing more than impetuousness. […]
Change. The only constant. We need to change in order to survive. What a chimera! As if we don’t know how to change, what to change and when to change. We even know why change and what we want to change into! Or so we think. Change implies flexibility. Adaptability. Tolerance. Patience. Determination. Decisiveness. Deference. […]
Does the title sound like a “Call to action” phrase? Of course. The structure is one of many types of such phrases. Do you know why there are so many types and varieties of “Call to action” phrases? It’s because they work. Do you know why they work? It’s because most people have a scarcity […]
Some people call for specialization. Our companies, our businesses, aren’t specialized, aren’t differentiated, enough, they say. Yet others call for greater diversification. We need to expand our repertoire in order to traverse the bumpy terrain of the business world effectively. Which is right, you might ask, and of course it is both. Businesses do not make […]
A comrade of mine recalled an incident when he was training cadets. It happened to be an offensive operations exercise, and the cadets had fared very badly. During the main debrief, which was of course after all the After-Action-Reviews (AARs), “Hotwashes”, or what I personally have come to disdain as “Hogwashes” and so forth. When the […]
Inducements to be normal are very powerful indeed. So powerful that individuals tend to remain silent and compliant when living in a highly “abnormal” society even when they feel things are not right. As a whole, we don’t want to believe the scientific evidence that the law of entropy is relentless and that the human […]
Are you cockily confident? Brazenly bold? Confidence comes from getting better at what you do, and having a right perception of yourself. Want to get more confident?
~ Take a couple of Aspirin and come see me in the morning ~ A Doctor Recently, NUS Business School produced a video which featured, besides Singapore Airlines and one or two other companies, the Narayana Hrudayalaya Heart Hospital in Bangalore, India. What had happened was that the hospital had industrialized open-heart surgery to the nth […]
Spoilt for choice? Only if you let yourself be spoiled! Get rid of false choices today! Have only viable choices, yes, even those that seem impossible.
“Top of Mind” has been foisted on us for too long. We need to get to the heart.
Do you buy on emotion? Not the best thing to do, although experts tell us that is what we do. Buy rationally. The good emotions will come because of that!
Everybody thinks they’re lucky and everyone wants to be lucky. Fortune does favour the bold. The bold are prepared. That’s why they’re bold.
Specific is terrific? Of course it is! But only when you know specifically what to be specific in!
Is it wet? Is it dry? Does it matter? Have we become so used to our rut we refuse to get out of it?
Are systems and automation wonders going to solve all your business issues? Hardly. YOU are! For that, you need to automate consciously so that your business can operate at the unconscious competence level. So you can focus on relationships.
Make your Job Descriptions better, get them out of the Intensive Care Unit! Make them useful, and don’t go the other way toward legislating them, either!
It’s not what you know, or what you think you know. It’s whether you know the whys and how to apply what you know.
There are many advantages you stand to gain when you hire veterans. Treat them well and you will gain even more!
Seems like an inexhaustible number, right? Wrong. Seven billion is finite. Seven billion can still be counted. I’m talking about our collective insatiable need to “Get this cheaper somewhere else. Never pay full price again.” Someone, somewhere, will always be selling it more cheaply, and we will never run out of sources of cheap goods […]
Put that stone down, lower your hackles and stop snarling! I’m not against PhDs. In fact, I’m looking to get a direct PhD myself, if there were one in a field I might be interested in! We’ve been far too caught up with certifications as a whole, and now the pendulum is swinging in the […]
Mankind has been searching for the elixir of youth for a long, long time. Anti ageing, the quest for youthfulness, indeed, the search for eternal life, is something innate in all of us. Even those who talk about an eternal blackness, of no consciousness, actually seek an unimaginably joyous eternity but sink into blackness because […]
That’s right – Lack of Self Esteem. Which is of course directly linked to lack of self-efficacy, which is related to subscribing to the wrong set of beliefs. Beliefs like taking “Don’t work hard, work smart” to the extreme. Like “Don’t worry, you are unique – just like everyone else.” And like “The customer is […]
Someone shared a post on “16 Ways to Put More Enthusiasm in Your Work and Life” by John Wood, and I was struck by how true the Law of Entropy is. The little drawing below came to mind, how different character qualities all support one another. In fact, we need all facets of our character to […]
In our journey towards excellence and being all that we are designed to be and to do, we often encounter turbulence, storms, heavy seas and other forms of adverse environmental conditions that seem bent on stopping us in our tracks. They take the form of naysayers, people who never remember anything good you’ve done and […]
Tired of your job? No one appreciates how wonderful and valuable you really are? Sack your Boss and become an entrepreneur? Sure, do that! But before you do, you might like to consider the following intrapreneurship qualities: 1. Are you REALLY good at your current job? Ask your co-workers. Not directly, ask around […]
There has been a spate of increases in grants, as in funding, as in monetary, being given by the Singapore Government in recent years. Of course, they are meant to encourage Singapore companies to become more productive, more entrepreneurial, more organized, get more research work going, and a host of other things besides. The amounts […]
Are you concerned about privacy on Facebook and other social media sites? Are you concerned with privacy online in general? Why, what big commercial secret projects are you handling? What’s the big deal? As we think about that, we might come to a realization that the big deal is US. It’s our inner voice, our […]
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