The Learning Performance

Back from 5 days of family trip to Kota Kinabalu. Besides the family get-togeher and the inevitable mixed bags of joys and tears, I really want to tell you how much Sabah & Sarawak has to offer in terms of eco-tourism. And it one of the best in the world.


We spent a night in Kundasang, at the foothill of Mt Kinabalu. The scenery is breath taking to say the least. The soaring Mt Kinabalu in the mist is alluring sight, and the stories & folklores of the land complete the romanticism. You can't help but fall in love.

It is just wonderful. Go there and you will be thrilled.

In my training sessions, I've seen it over & over again. It does not matter how "tough" ones (male or female) look, there is a corner of his/her being that is hidding in a grey area with a sky-reaching fence and a blazing warning sign:- "dare you enter!".

That is self-doubt & fear.

It may be physical or spiritual or just plan imaginery.

Regardless, in many occasions, I've managed to help these individuals to over the self-doubt & fear. The tools I used are actually quite simple:
- through self assessments to understand the nature of the self-doubts & fear
- gradually build up confidence in the individuals
- building capability
- getting group dynamics help the individuals

A very typical example. In a outdoor team building event, a seeminly healthy young lady just couldn't get herself to try out the flying fox (by the way, despite what some purists think, team building event is wonderful training event to build teamworks). To cut the story short, after a series of exercises, and getting supports from the whole team, we managed to push & convince the lady into getting into the gears, climbing up the platform, getting hook into the fyling fox line, and woosh, off she went. And amazingly, afterwards, she wanted to go for the second round! Self-doubt and fear totally overcome.

Archieving greatness has not been trademarked by anyone. Everyone is entitled to do that. Just believe in yourself.

Last couple of months, I've been engaged in a Project Manager Cum Consultant in a project. The project entails study of enterprise business requirements with the aim of formulating an enterprise business blueprint for implementation of an ERP systems.

It is very interesting engagement. The PM role is pretty much straight forward. The exciting part is engaging top leaders of the company and business managers to align company vision, mission, KRA/KPI, from corporate level to SBUs. Invariably and not too unexpectedly, there was some discrepanies between what are said at the top level, and what get understood at the lower levels. Alignment of this nature is paramount importance within an organisation, and it just cannot be taken for granted that mesaages are being cascaded down concisely and pertinently, in ways to drive the organisation forward as a totally coherent unit. At certain point in time within the planning horizon, a self assessment must done to see if the alignment is very much intake as intended.

Just got back from three days of holiday in Bangkok. There has been a gap of 10 years or there about since my last trip to Bangkok. Despite what have happened politically over last few years, I could see Bangkok has progressed quite noticeably. This is post-1997 era. Development-wise, I noticed better transportation systems (MRT & BTS, lots of taxi!). There is just some kind of energy in the every fabric of the city. Even the English is well received, and guess what, even the taxi drivers could communicate in English, although very basic at that.

I guess that is what happen when to survive and progress, you have to be good. When the risk and rewards systems s purely based on how good you are, that is based on merit, things happen.

We definitely need that kind of concept. As an individual, as an organisation, and as a country.

So, how do you feel now that it is 22 days into 2010.

Shrugging off whatever sh*t (for lack of better word) that had happened last year, I do feel a bit of excitment and hopeful, to be honest. After all, it is a start to something, whatever something that might be, guess I would only know by the turn of next year.

Hope is a state of mind. It gives a positive vib, and put energy into your being. Thought things are stil looking kind of bleak, and the power-that-be (especially in the political areana) still going on putting misery into commoners such as you and me, I always has a serene realisation that it will turn alright in the end. It helps, like me, believe in God whom is soverign over everything.

New decade. New millienium. Let's has a new start.

In this time of troubles, keeping businesses afloat is invariably the only thought most businessman has in mind. How to survive through lean time? This remind me of the so-called good old days. The good old days were good:- great in fact as compare to these days. I remember the mid 90s to even early year 2000. We were not worry about not having business, we were worry about anything less then 30% margin. You remember those time?

But like everything else, good times do not last. I believe that time has changed, and the way to do businesses, or to run businesses, is vast becoming an art of science, with myriads of technology thrown in, and thus substaintally different from, say 20 years ago. What I meant is this. If you think you can do the same thing today as you did 20 years ago and think that still work for you (yes 20 years ago you might have made tons of profit doing that ways), then you are into a rude shock.

It is just not going to work anymore.

It is a matter of math really. 20 years ago, your profit margin might be say (conservatively) 30%. Nowsaday, in most industries, that has been slashed down to 5% or less due to intense competitions. A wrong decision that swings margin of error of 5% would not have done much damage when margin is at 30%, but would immediately put you in a lossing proposition at margin of 5%. You can't just take thing for granted anymore.

Each step is full of unseen traps that could trip you and send you to oblivion. Just look at those failed American companies!

So what do you do?

Let start with a mindset change. Trust me, gone are the days you can start a business in the garage and becoming like Bill Gates or Steven Job.

Equip yourself with tools and technology available and leverage those things. To do this, you've to be open minded. Unlearn, and Learn. Learning is a life-long process.

Move ahead. Like standing along a railway track, if you don't move, the train will pass you by.

What does it mean. It means: