The verse from “The Illustrated Art of War” by Samuel B Griffith swirls around in my mind and comes to the fore from time to time. I am in the midst of lifelong learning and have been greatly blessed by Thomas Sowell and many others who are in the Hoover Institution part-time or full time. […]
The term “Content Consumer” has been with us for a while now. Have you wondered what it means? Are you a “Content Consumer”? Do you “Produce Content” for others to “Consume”? What is “Quality Content”? Would you say that you are a “Quality Content Consumer” and/ or a “Quality Content Creator”? How do you know? […]
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 […]
“Don’t Judge Me!” Heard that before? Said it yourself? What does that phrase mean? I’ve heard a few people saying that to me before, and this is what I think it means. Justification You know that what you’re doing isn’t right, that it’s not in line with what you really know and believe, deep down […]
This is a quote taken from Lao Zi, and he is of course the founder of the Taoist persuasion. There are a great many other quotes attributed to him, of course, and he is also known as the author, by and large, of the “Tao Te Ching”, which is the basic text of Taoism. Well, […]
Many governments around the world are acting to protect jobs, to varying degrees of success, that I can see. Protecting jobs is laudable and necessary, especially in times like these, during a pandemic. When you think about it, it’s actually throwing the spotlight on something many governments, corporations and companies have been trying to do, […]
I’ve had quite enough of being told to “Go down to their level.” Stop this nonsense. The only reason you go down to “their” level is to raise them up to yours. And the only reason you raise them up to your level is to raise them higher than yourself. One of my favourite quotes […]
Google yielded 1.2 million results when I typed “talent shortage” just before writing this post. The IT sector is currently complaining about a “shortage of tech talent” which, even if available, is seen to be “expensive.” Really? What are all our ICT graduates doing, then? When I actually started reading a few posts and articles […]
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 […]
I have decided to go with manual signups and manual maintenance of payment and membership records until I find a good system which I can trust to do that for me. As such, memberships are still available for a dollar a day, billed monthly. Contact me if you would like to join me and start […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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.
No one likes doing admin work. However, it is part of the package and doing it well has its own rewards.
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.
Feeling blase? Feeling, as some put on their social media statuses, “meh”? Your mouth has a lot to do with that! Switch from “Blah-say” to “Bon-say”!
Yes indeed. In the commodities market, that is. Not as in trading in commodities, but in treating too many things and too many people as if they were commodities. When we do so, the one thing that always comes to mind is price. Commoditization pushes price down by increasing consumption, maximizing efficiency, and large-scale production. […]
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 […]
You might be having some trouble being creative once people start referring to you as an “expert.” That’s because we as human beings tend to let the “expert” label go to our heads. Oh, sure, we all know that pride goes before a fall and all that, but we still let such compliments inflate our […]
I’m in one of those reflective moods that assail me from time to time. Hence, the title of this post. Seriously now, have you ever thought about how you will be missed? At the workplace, I mean. Ron Jenson once described how someone who was working in a large company had witnessed a colleague being […]
It’s a VERY dangerous thing! It is a very dangerous thing because we tend to believe that it is all we need to know about any particular subject. It is fine if we recognize that we know only a little, because then we continue asking questions and we try to integrate the increasing amounts of […]
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 […]
Yes, I wrote that. Pretty uncharacteristic of me, but I wrote that. Do you want to be rich? Why? What does being rich mean to you? Not having to work another day in your life? Being able to do all the things you’ve been wanting to do, but haven’t had the resources? What does “work” […]
Most people I know have no problems with producing results, fulfilling KPIs, chalking up the numbers, and so on. Production is no big deal. You do what you’re supposed to do, maybe make some small, incremental improvements, do your due diligence, and….. voila! … the day is done. Even if some innovative new thing comes […]
We can all expect similar responses, or perhaps reactions, if we bring up the topic of dressing well at work. Popular culture seems to have reacted against the perceived hypocrisy of being well-dressed and well-heeled outwardly, but being just the opposite inwardly. I suppose that’s where the term “stuffed shirts” comes from. The well-dressed of […]
Yes I did say it. Bullshit. This concept of us being in the 21st Century, and therefore us being more enlightened, is sheer nonsense. It is nonsense because our concept of “enlightenment” does not equal more maturity, greater depth of character, more kindness shown to others, more evidence of wisdom or a greater manifestation of […]
Someone must have started this. “We don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply.” In the context of the title we might have said, “We don’t listen to understand. We listen to profit from it.” When it comes to behavioral science and studies in leadership, I think many of us have only partial understanding of […]
Intrapreneur is actually the same as entrepreneur except it operates within the framework of a larger organization that the Intrapreneur does not own. I think that most of us are born with an entrepreneurial mindset already embedded within us. Tragically, this is eroded by the time we get to school and start working, and is replaced […]
You come into the job eagerly, with high expectations, perhaps a degree or two behind you, or perhaps with some years of experience under your belt. Your interviews had gone very well, and you look forward to making a big difference together with your new co-workers and managers. Yes, this is your dream job! Six months […]
We have all heard versions of “Clone yourself”, “Make copies of yourself” and the like. At the same time, we have been told to make our businesses “scalable” and therefore more profitable for ourselves. Making many copies of “I, Leader” seems to make much sense, for if the Mark I, Mark II and Mark ad […]
Yes, I’ve been referring to the organismic company for a while now. And yes, I’ve been coming across posts and articles talking about how to make “Industrial Age” companies more organic, how to have better Job Descriptions, how to have more flexible Organization Charts and how to better tap on the vast Knowledge Bank that […]
Have you ever been encouraged to “fire your Boss”? Have you thought about “firing your Boss” yourself? I wrote a little bit about this in “Wish You Could Fire Your Boss? Why? So You Can Take Over?” a while back, and I’d like to expand on this a little more. Think of all the reasons […]
Pacers. More people use them than perhaps we think. And I’m not only referring to pacers of the cardiac sort, but anyone, thing, or system that nudges us along, maintains a viable tempo and generally keeps us on track. Pacers are regulators. They help us get to a certain optimal norm, at least for a […]
But of course! Please stand in front of me. Now, bend forwards at the waist until your body forms a right angle with the trunk of your body horizontal and your derriere facing me. Ready? Prepare for the first kick. Say “Thank you!” Prepare for second kick. Say “Thank you!” Repeat process until inertia and […]
If Abraham Lincoln had been a Singaporean, he might have said something like “……that the systems of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth…” In a previous post, “A Fort Means A Lot. A Last Stand It Is Not“, I said that forts are meant for area domination, not […]
You’re hiring again? Great! Always good to hear of expansion and increasing business volumes. Just a minute – what did you say you were hiring? You DID say you were hiring? Hiring employees? Why are you doing that? You must be wondering what I’m talking about by now. After all, there are employers and there […]
John Hope Bryant wrote a post on LinkedIn, “Ride or Die“. It talks about a manifestation of the Pareto Principle where 20% of your workforce does 80% of the heavy-lift work. That looks very alarming to me, don’t know how you feel. Yes, having ADHD workers is not a very good thing. ADHD – Actively […]
I’ve been reading and hearing about people lamenting the fact that their leaders “aren’t strategic enough” for a long time now, and this seems to have been rising to a crescendo. So I thought I’d weigh in with a few pointers. I’d like to say right off the bat that I don’t view strategy and […]
You must be logged in to post a comment.