Maturity – A Person of Substance Do you aspire to maturity? Would that mean being matronly? Or would it mean being middle-aged, with hints of grey appearing already? Given a choice, would you want to be mature? Or would you want to keep playing the Peter Pan card of eternal youth? Does being mature mean […]
Inanities How often have you read a report about once-great entities now gone to the dogs? Have you noticed how often those entities are described as being “Victims of their own success”? What does that mean? I don’t know, do you? How do companies become “Victims of their own success”? After all, if your success […]
Playing to Strengths. Indeed. The Character First! definition of Truthfulness is Earning future trust by accurately reporting past facts. Various gurus would have told you by now that you need to be playing to strengths and not correcting weaknesses. Of course, they are right. How right? Let’s take a closer look, shall we? We are told […]
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, […]
There’s an app for that! There certainly is! With probably a few million apps in both the Apple and Android Play stores, people are either spoilt for choice or freeze. There are apps for any number of reasons. Play a game. Order something and have it delivered to your home or office. Ask for directions to […]
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 […]
Sharing and Giving IS Caring! I attended an interesting talk on “The Socially Savvy Organization” organized by the Direct Marketing Association of Singapore (DMAS) on 30 Jun 2016. Former CEO of Vocanic, Ian McKee, shared about the power of relationships and permissions-based postures in marketing. The point that social media is for sharing, not selling, […]
“Give me liberty, or give me death!” ~ Patrick Henry Clarity is greatly liberating, in the sense that decisiveness is enhanced by it. Since liberty is not the right to do as we like, but the freedom to do as we ought, then being clear how our convictions inform our actions opens up many degrees […]
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 […]
Very Busy “But I’m very busy,” you exclaim. “With what?” you might be asked in return. Busywork is no doubt the bane of productivity at the workplace. Then again, what IS “busywork” anyway? Dictionary.com says “…work assigned for the sake of looking or keeping busy…” and Merriam-Webster says “…work that usually appears productive or of […]
Hacks? Is it just me, or are you seeing more and more people posting about “life hacks” and “tricks” to magically get around problems and situations of every imaginable sort? What are your favourites? One of mine is about how to open a can of food if you don’t happen to have a can opener. […]
All of us have ideals in mind and heart. The world we live in, though, is far from perfect. Organizations are not perfect. People are not perfect. I am not perfect. Neither are you. We continue to see some people expressing their desire to do good and be good, and perhaps posting a thing or […]
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 […]
I watched a recording of a webinar that occurred three years ago. The main speaker was Bernard Marr, someone whose posts I read a lot on LinkedIn. The recording is about one-and-a-half hours long. Yes, I watched it all. Twice. My personal summary of it is that we need much more strategic clarity. I would […]
We hear about it so often. Don’t take care of the customers, take care of your employees. Then your employees will take care of the customers. In similar light, Richard Branson has been credited with saying “Don’t build the business. Build staff who will then build the business” or words to that effect. Check that […]
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 […]
I am fed up with people selling fantasies to everyone on their contact list. Exasperated by declarations of “It Will Be Great!” with no definite, organic steps in the right direction. Signs like “You Should Be Here!” make me shake my head at the foolishness of exploiting others. I’ve never read that classic called “The […]
An article on Quartz, “The concept of different “learning styles” is one of the greatest neuroscience myths“, posted on 03 Jan 2016 by Olivia Goldhill, presented the assertion by Paul Howard-Jones, professor of neuroscience and education at Bristol University, that some of what is accepted as neuroscience are actually “neuromyths.” One such neuromyth is that of […]
What is your dream? I’m assuming you do have a dream, of course. If you don’t, you might need to come and see me sometime. I said “dream” instead of “dreams” because there is one thing we all want in life, and it is manifest in many and different dreams. That one thing is referred to […]
Yes, we’ve all seen this, it’s been going around and posters on this pop up rather frequently. And, yes, maybe some of us feel that way at times. And, yes, some of us need to ponder if we’ve made some people feel that way more than once. At first glance, this saying seems painfully obvious. […]
Do you know of leaders who appear to be extremely busy, look worried all the time, are swift in submitting reports and excel at paperwork, but who seem to be accomplishing very little in terms of business results? You do? They are class examples of lazy leadership. Look further and you’ll probably find that their […]
Yes, strategy is much more than a business plan. The word “strategy” means different things to different people. I’m always interested in origins, so here is where it came from. You can look it up at the online etymology dictionary. Of the various definitions one can find, I think that this is one of the […]
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 […]
Really? Sounds like a leadership cop-out to me! Doctors make judgments about people all the time, it’s part of their job. If your kidneys aren’t functioning because you have a type of diabetes, then your kidneys aren’t functioning. Changing your lifestyle, habits and so forth may help to alleviate external symptoms, but your health is […]
“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 […]
Ah. Presenting the next scapegoat for the death and non-burial of the Science and Art of Leadership. The Annual Performance Review. Killed by isolation from a non-existent continuous review process. Killed by avoidance of accountability, as Patrick Lencioni might have put it. Killed by people ill-placed in positions of leadership. Killed by the Mummy of […]
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. […]
The expected answer to the question above would be “No objections.” Is that good? Is that the norm? I once heard Patrick Lencioni say that consensus is a four-letter word. I agree. Consensus is a convenient way of saying that we don’t like what you, the Boss, is saying, but we can live with it. […]
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 […]
Kate Thome wrote a three-part series on Executive Presence on LinkedIn recently. She discussed three kinds of observable behaviours which would indicate whether or not a person has that X-factor commonly known as Executive Presence. I call them tell-tale signs. Uptalk. This is when every statement you make sounds like a question from someone with a […]
What comes to your mind when you think of soft skills? Scoffed skills? If so, you need to change your mindset or continue hemorrhaging to death at whatever your current hemorrhage rate is. Soft skills are not some airy-fairy “I love you, Sister” kind of thing. They are actually much harder to develop than training […]
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 […]
“Over-regulation!” One of the concerns expressed during the recent PWC 18th CEO survey 2015, and which is not a new concern. And what is that? Simply put, the formulation of legislation to control the manner in which market players behave in terms which assume that the said players will act immaturely and avariciously regardless of their declared Mission, Vision and […]
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 […]
Have you ever been admonished about the way you dress? Or perhaps about the way you don’t dress? Have you ever asked why it is so important? Well, it actually is. I talked about some of that in a previous post. Now, I’d like you to reflect on the oft-quoted “Dress for success” mantra. When was […]
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 […]
I suppose most of us are people who fancy that we have style. Our speech seems to attest to that. Leadership style. Personality style. Presentation style. Preferred fashion style. Chinese style. Colonial style. Italian style. Stylish enough for you? In the song “I’m Stone in Love with You” by the Stylistics, some of the lyrics […]
Comments I made on the post by Suzanne Snowden on “Seven skills needed for tomorrow’s CEO.” What do you think? Skills? Competencies? Core values?
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.
Boundaries are essential. In fact, life would be impossible without clear boundaries. Yet, boundaries are also invitations for close coordination, leading to mutually beneficial exchanges. How do you see boundaries?
You must be logged in to post a comment.