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 […]
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 […]
At this writing, the question of whether the Scots go their own bonny way has yet to be decided. Ironically, as I took in more news on the subject, the song “When a child is born”, popularized by Johnny Mathis, sprang to my mind. What happens when you think of a child being born? Do […]
On 17 Sep 2014, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam spoke about the need to adopt “meritocracy through life” at the official opening of the Lifelong Learning Institute, which aims to raise competencies in citizens, among other things. I was flicking through the news when this caught my eye. It caused me […]
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 […]
Recently, a few friends of mine had some sort of discussion about the Kra Canal and its implications for Singapore. A not-so-recent article on the subject was shared, which I thought still quite relevant and can be found here. I found that pretty interesting because I’d written a little something about it in a previous […]
Outstanding! Are you tired of trying to be different, trying to “stand out from the crowd” and trying to be “outstanding”? I have good news for you! Stop that nonsense! Your body is comprised of between sixty to seventy trillion cells. That alone makes you unique! So, why do you try so hard to “stand […]
Do you feel as if everything is happening all at once, that the sky is falling on you and you can’t find the energy to do anything? Well, try this. First of all, tell yourself, “Stop it!” No, you are not overwhelmed, you just need to regain focus. Once you feel a little bit more […]
You might think you’re getting paid too little for what you do, and what you contribute. On the other hand, if you’re really honest with yourself, you might actually admit to the fact that you’re really being paid far too much! How do you think you ought to be paid? By virtue of good pedigree, […]
Never Fail? Do you fear failure? Do you know people who say things like “I never fail, I only learn”? Well, I respect where they’re coming from, and I also know that language controls communications and controls our thoughts. It is not only a tad hypocritical to say that we never fail, it actually causes […]
I suppose you are familiar with terms like “Unleash your true potential”, “Awaken the Giant Within”, by Anthony Robbins, and many other similar ones. Have you ever stopped to think about who leashed you in the first place? The illustration of the mighty elephant being held to one spot by a frail stake in the ground […]
Are you a Boomer, Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z or whatever it is they call them these days? Is that how you want to be remembered, how you want to be defined? Do you allow others to label you and even take on those labels for yourself? More than that, how do you want […]
How important is networking to your business? To your career? Do you go to networking events? Do you still go to networking events? Do you network actively at events not specifically designed for networking? With whom do you network? How do you network? I hope you know the answers to all those questions, and that […]
Are you someone who is constantly “Thinking out of the box?” Is your organization known for “Out of the Box” thinking and innovation? Why? Do simple re-conformations and incremental improvements represent “breakthroughs”? How often do genuine “breakthroughs” occur, anyway? While you’re pondering that, has anyone realized what the “Box” actually IS? You know what Russian […]
The concept of “There is no second chance in life” appears to be quite deeply rooted in society. It is manifested in various ways. One of them was that if you as a young student went to one of Singapore’s Institutes Of Technical Education (ITE) then you’re done for. “It’s the end!” as some people […]
I had a rather refreshing conversation with a younger person this morning. It was refreshing because he was giving off good vibes about his developing and sustaining good relationships with his clients as well as his suppliers. He was able to provide details about how he went about doing so, and how he visualized growth […]
Of course I made that up. Of course I made that up just to get your attention. There is much talk about constant change and the need to be adaptable. There is little positive action in that regard. Here are two for you to chew on. Grow. I’m a growth maniac of sorts, I talk […]
Communities of Practice? A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a craft and/or a profession. The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book Situated Learning (Lave & Wenger 1991). Just because there’s a community doing it doesn’t mean it’s […]
There is an old song which goes “Killing me softly with his song…”, to which the title of this post alludes. The song describes how the writer went to hear a singer and was struck by how the singer seemed to describe her feelings and inner tormented being with his song. She wanted the singer […]
Blind faith in the immutability of the bell curve spawns quite a few fallacies, of which the title of this post is one. It prompts us to prefer “dumbing down” instead of “raising up”. Of course it does, it’s much easier to dumb down, gravity is in your favour! If we raise people up, that […]
I am always amazed at how people will argue endlessly with each other over “which method works better” or even “which is the right method” instead of taking a step back, recognizing the doctrine from which the methods sprang in the first place, and then exploring fresh ways of approaching the situation in question. We […]
If we eat, work, stretch and exercise proportionately, growth takes place. If we sit on the couch, drink beer and eat potato chips whilst watching TV and playing all sorts of fun and amusing games, growth occurs as well, just that I am not sure whether you would welcome such growth. We grow muscle, become […]
Somebody remarked the other day that he had ordered a meal at a McDonald’s Drive-Through. When he reached the payment and collection counter, he noticed that he had been given a Senior Citizen’s discount. Nobody had asked to verify if he was, indeed, a Senior Citizen and qualified for the discount. Puzzled, he wondered how […]
Sure. Like, how can you be prepared for things you don’t even know will happen yet? How can you be prepared for eventualities that you still have no clue about? Exactly. If you have read the original “Scouting for Boys” by Robert Baden-Powell, you would probably be able to answer that question. Since all of us […]
We hear of it all the time these days. Email, from being a handy communications channel, is now seen by many as a dreaded, insidious intruder. I’m not one of those many, as you can tell. Stop it! When are you going to grow up? Calling email a menace, labelling it as passe, is akin […]
Some of us prefer certain foods over other types of food. Still others eschew meats in favour of fruits and vegetables. Many today are warned against starch, and there are some for whom meat is the major portion of their daily diet. The saying that one man’s meat is another man’s poison seems to be […]
In this day and age of Lean, Six Sigma and a general frowning upon anything seen as superfluous, redundancies are remarkably reprehensible and classified in the same category as refuse. How dare I even bring the matter up, the Efficiency Experts would exclaim! Haven’t I gotten it into my thick skull that that’s how our […]
Pruning. Painful. Cutting away. So that new abundance may grow. Pruning is essential in so many spheres of life, not just in agricultural practice. One may prune branches, roots, remove excess foliage, even take away some initial fruit, in order that more fruitfulness may come to pass. Pruning must be conducted circumspectly, not too much […]
There are many analogies we could use in life. One is that of using thermals to soar above the madding morass of the unnatural state of things we call common. Another is a sense of hard work, labouring, being determined, pushing endurance to the limits, until breakthrough is achieved. There is a danger of overusing […]
Choices, choices, choices. Some we love to have, others we wish we didn’t have to make. Life is full of them. This or that. Now or later. Cake or cookies. Us or them. Innovate or optimize. Profit or value. Lead or follow. (Or get out of the way). The list goes on. In the previous […]
We live in an age of instants. Instant coffee, instant milk, instant music, instant weight loss, instant gratification. “It’s now or never!”, “Last chance to win great bargains!”, “If not now, when?” are phrases we are bombarded with constantly every day. Our culture predisposes us to act first, ask questions later. We are constantly encouraged, […]
I’ve written previously about how you ought to make your CEO redundant. Now, guess what? Yes, YOU! In fact, if you aren’t hard at work making yourself redundant if you happen to work for me, I will fire you the next chance I get! Huh? What gives? Remember what I said about two-thirds? If you […]
Trade routes have always been a key feature of international relations. Since sea routes are still the most economical form of transport, nations are inevitably concerned with keeping them open, and keeping them safe. Where possible, nations will also try to have shortcuts so that the cost of transport goes down. The Panama Canal and […]
So how do you get BIG? Being big means that you tend to affect those around you. You cannot help it, you are simply too big to avoid it. Size does matter. Does it mean, then, that the big fish will continue to eat up the smaller fish? Does it mean that the smaller fish […]
Offended? Why, are you an imbecile? Labels like “imbecile” and “moron” evoke feelings of contempt and damnation and most sensible folk would rather avoid their use. Which is exactly why I use them, since I can hardly be classified together with “sensible folk.” People don’t like to be called “imbecile” or “moron” and take offence […]
I call it the, you guessed, “Two-Thirds Rule”, and it’s measured in thumbs. With all the hoopla about burnout, work-life balance, need for white space and related others, I thought I’d share this for your benefit. Some people say life is a marathon. Some say it’s a series of sprints. I say it’s more like […]
You know what the Peter Principle is. The presupposition, which, I suppose, is at least based on some measure of observation, that in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. Since people as a whole tend to fall back on the “tried and tested”, managers would tend to promote people […]
Our old washing machine had died, and I was taking its body to the scrap metal dealer near our home. My son and I were pushing it along on our trolley. After we crossed the road to get to the scrap metal dealer, we had to negotiate a staircase downwards. Without thinking, we were about […]
Children play. Adults play. We all play. Why, play tell? Well, it’s fun, of course. It stretches the imagination. It helps us to unwind. It helps us acquire and maintain certain skills, especially psychomotor skills. It helps us to develop strong, meaningful relationships. At its most basic, child’s play is actually preparation for thriving later […]
I once made a terrible mistake while driving. I saw a “No U-Turn” sign and thought that I saw a “U-Turn” sign instead. Since I thought I saw a “U-Turn” sign, I proceeded to execute one, and narrowly avoided what could have been a rather nasty accident. Did my eyes trick me? No, they functioned […]
The Theory of Constraints is something that caught my eye recently. I was indulging myself in a STRATFOR video in which George Friedman was postulating that due to the unchangeables of geography, historical baggage, human behaviour and time in history, peoples and nations may aspire to things lofty and noble, and not arrive at where […]
Do you believe in surrounding yourself with people who are smarter or better than you at least in some way? Good for you! That shows that you are secure, mature and probably smart in your own ways as well! Intuitively, we all know that surrounding ourselves with people better than ourselves in some aspect or other […]
If you happen to be from the Band of Brothers I used to work with, or if you happen to be in HR or equivalent, you might be familiar with the term “Currently Estimated Potential.” It is meant to be an assessment of how far an individual is likely to advance given his performance so […]
Yes, you read it right. Quotes like “The Greatest Good of the Greatest Number” sound very good and noble. Think about it for a while and you realize that it is not the greatest number but the smallest number! After all, pyramids end at a point at the top, don’t they? And those at the bottom […]
Remember the “Twilight Zone” TV series? Purportedly about mysterious events and goings-on in the realm of the paranormal? Well, there’s a new zone, and it’s called the Comfort Zone. So much hype has been created around it, so I decided to weigh in. First of all, you can’t always be living outside your comfort zone. You […]
In Singapore, a few companies have made the news because they posted job ads worded in such a manner as to imply a preference for foreign workers over Singaporeans. This violated some legislation which stipulated that companies ought to have a certain percentage of Singaporeans already in their headcount before they could proceed to hire […]
I don’t know about you, but that sounds like an oxymoron to me. What is “wealth”? Health? Happiness? Large portfolios? The 5 Cs in great abundance? If you have great wealth and you think that your wealth can be destroyed, you are a very poor man. True wealth cannot be destroyed. What is destroyed, what […]
The sense of taste is the focus of a billion dollar industry. Although our senses of taste and smell aren’t supposed to be as discriminating as those of many species of animals, many of us still take pride in being more “discerning” than our fellows where tastes and aromas are concerned. We revel in being […]
In one of Tom Clancy’s novels, a Russian agent has been knocked unconscious and is being held by some Rumanian operatives. In order to verify that the unconscious man is, indeed, Russian, the Rumanian operatives rouse him and ask him a non-threatening question in Russian. The half-conscious man responds in Russian, and precipitates his swift […]
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