Quotes

I saw this quote last weekend at Stamford house, Eagle Art Gallery:

The heroes of our generation are not people endowed with supernatural abilities when they are born, but ordinary people with the will and determination to rise above each challenge…

I also like this quote. I forgot where I saw it this week

"If we discover that we had only five minutes left to say all that we wanted to say, every telephone booth would be occupied by people calling other people to stammer that they loved them"

Christopher morley

I also saw this quote provided as an MSN personal message by a female friend whom I admired.

"Mind over matter: don’t mind and it wun’t matter"


I like such meaningful quotes.. =)

Singapore is developing into an innovation hub

I'm back! I have decided to resume my musing on this blog because I think it can be theraputic to express my thoughts by blogging...otherwise, I may suffer an internal injury and cough out blood someday =)

I recently spotted an important news. GSK is creating vaccines from its $600 million plant in Singapore. I am certain that EDB provided some incentives to lure GSK to set up this plant in Singapore. That got me thinking about the effects of this investment

The plant will generate millions of dollars for Singapore's GDP and further diversify Singapore's economic sources. We will continue to see expansions in biomedical manufacturing, aerospace manufacturing and info-media productions. This will make us less volatile in times of recession as we will have more 'engines'to power us ahead rather than rely on the economy-cycle-sensitive financial hub, electronics manufacturing or property development.

The plant will need to recruit top biomedical researchers and scientists to produce high quality drugs and vaccines. Those who studied in the field of bio-medical will be highly sought after in the next decade.

The duration for patent protection for drugs is 25 years. We will expect more pharmaceutical patents to be filed in Singapore from increased public and private funded research and increased economic activity and returns. This is going to make local IP patent agents with bio-chemical background multi-millionaires! Under the Patents Act of Singapore, a patent for a local invention has to be filed first in Singapore, before it can be filed overseas, unless written permission is granted by IPOS.

1st Venture Capitalist Case Competition in Asia-Pacific!

Do it for yourself

I realise that people who are on the verge of being rejected; be it in work, in relationships often claim that they do a lot of things for the other party. Eg, gal A will tell boy B that she did this and that for boy B in the hope of savaging the relationship and hopefully B will not dump her.

I think this can be pretty wrong. Why?

Because these people who did a lot of things for the other party, are actually doing it for themselves. They want to seek approval and acceptance, so that they will not lose something, which they perceive to be reasonable valuable.

Hence, I believe there is no such thing as doing something for other people. You can only do something for yourself.

I saw a nice post in "forum" section in the ST newspapers today by Ms Isis Bernadette Koh Wan Jing. Extracted the poem, which is so meaningful to me.

People are often unreasonable,
Illogical and self-centred;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind,
People may accuse you of
selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful,
You will win some false friends
and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank,
People may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building,
Someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness,
They may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good that you do today,
People will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have,
And it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis,
It is between you and God;
It is never between you and them anyway.

Why consultants find it hard to learn

I remembered Chris Argyris wrote this wonderful article: Teaching smart people how to learn

In it, he explained that success in the marketplace increasingly depends on learning;yet most people do not know how to learn. What's more, those members of the organisation that are best at learning are in fact, not very good at it. And these people are well-educated, high-powered, high-commitment professionals who occupy key leadership positions in the modern corporations. (hmm, makes me think of all the scholars..heehee)

Here is an extract from his wonderful article. You can purchase the article from HBR.

Every company faces a learning dilemma: the smartest people find it the hardest to learn.

Most companies not only have tremendous difficulty addressing this learning dilemma, they aren't even aware that it exists. The reason: they misunderstand what learning is and how to bring it about. As a result, they tend to make two mistakes in their efforts to become a learning organization.

First, more people define learning too narrowly as mere "problem solving," so they focus on identifying and correcting errors in the external environment. Solving problems is important. But if learning is to persist, managers and employees must also look inward. They need to reflect critically on their own behavior, identify the ways they often inadvertently contribute to the organization's problems, and then change how they act. In particular, they must learn how the very way they go about defining and solving problems can be a source of problems in its own right.

I have coined the terms "single loop" and "double loop" learning to capture this critical distinction. To give a simple analogy: a thermostat that automatically turns on the heat whenever the temperature in a room drops below 68 degrees is a good example of single-loop learning. A thermostat that could ask, "Why am I at 68 degrees?" and then explore whether or not some other temperature might more economically achieve the goal of heating the room would be engaging in double-loop learning.

Highly skilled professionals are frequently very good at single-loop learning. After all, they have spent much of their lives acquiring academic credentials, mastering one or a number of intellectual disciplines, and applying those disciplines to solve real-world problems. But ironically, this very fact helps explain why professional are often so bad at double-loop learning.

Put simply, because many professionals are almost always successful at what they do, they rarely experience failure. And because they have rarely failed, they have never learned how to learn from failure. So whenever their single-loop learning strategies go wrong, they become defensive, screen out criticism, and put the "blame" on anyone and everyone but themselves. In short, their ability to learn shuts down precisely at the moment they need it most.

Read this article in full at www.hbsp.harvard.edu.

This is interesting because once, the CEO of one of my clients replied me with "The reason why we succeed is because we have a probia of failure" when I tried explaining to a group of leaders that failures are necessary for innovation to take place. He further explained that when there is a high profiled failure, its very obvious to all the colleagues that this person had disappointed and failed to achieve a result and that person would have difficulty climbing up the corporate ladder and therefore, people are less inclined to take risks and therefore, risk failures. When I think of all the corporate high-flyers, yeah, that makes some sense. These people are academically outstanding, rarely risk their necks and above all, excel in single loop learning and weak in double-loop learning.

Interesting trend

Recently, an increasing no of blogs were set up by CEOs or very senior management people.

I was thinking to myself about this and my understanding about them seems to indicate to this:

CEO are scrutinized by everyone and have no one to talk to.

Blogs are keeping CEOs sane.

Innovation and relationships: Of journey, project, milestones and deliverables

I was wondering about the lead and lag indicators of relationships recently.

If the lag indicator of innovation is that a successful prototype must reach the market in X weeks and be commercially successful, then the lag indicator of a boy gal relationship must be a successful marriage in X years leading to offsprings.

Big S, the elder of the twin celebrity sisters in Taiwan once said: "If you do not intend to get married, then what for go dating?"

I think both "innovation" and "relationships" have the same expectations; that with all good intentions, the end result should be satisfying. Hence, we all harbour good hopes.

However, at the same time, "innovation" and "relationships" cannot guarantee that all the efforts and pains will lead to a successful outcome. Often, its a judgement call and if one makes a bad judgement call, one still has to live with it.

Hence, while that "innovation" or "relationship" lasts, one should maximize the enjoyment from the journey, the learnings from this experience, so that one can be wiser for the next.

This brings to another questions- in "innovation" we treat it as a project, we have milestones. Should we treat "relationships" as milestones? Eg, marry each other after 3 years of dating etc?

I personally feel that marriage is a matter of "feel", which should not be set a deadline. Its a flexible milestone; if both parties are ready, then they are ready (this of course, cannot apply to "innovations" as the innovation sponsor will definately scream his lungs out at the project members).

If the above reasoning sounds fine, then what really is the lead indicator of relationships then?

Suppose the guy in a relationship is the 'investor' in a 'innovation' and the gal in a relationship is a 'project manager' in that 'innovation'.

For guys: the amount of time and $$ invested on the gal from the war chest? =) (innovation has the corporate venture fund to fund innovation and a lead indicator is the amount of projects funded)
For gals: the no of Ah bengs you can go out with before mum ask for marriage to a 'nice' guy so that she can recoup her losses for rearing her daughter till this day? (the no of failed trials you can afford before the innovation sponsor gives you the ultimatum before the sacking!)

If innovation and relationships are indeed linked, the common understanding would be: a lot of efforts does not necessary guarantee that you will see any returns, but if you do not try, you will definately never see any returns. (you miss all the shots you never try)

Need to harness the strengths of your teammates? I recommend Team Management Profile

In today's world, we often need to work in teams to complete projects. A team can be defined as a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose and who are working independently to achieve specific performance goals using an approach for which they hold themselves accountable

Therefore, to fully reap the talents and strengths of your teammates, you would need to first identify and understand their strengths.

With this in mind, I attended the Team Management Profile Accreditation course last year to find out more. This is what I found out:

Hehe, I am a creator/innovator with minor roles of reporter/advisor and explorer/promoter. This makes me well-suited for my job as a consultant on innovation! Well, thank God I am able to make my passion my profession!

If you want to know more about TMP, here's more info:

The Team Management Profile, -Wheel and -Index (™) from Dr Charles J. Margerison and Dr Dick J. McCann constitute a method particularly useful for assessing work preferences in team context, and can also be used for assessing individual and organizational preferences.

Why work preferences in team context? Because people practice what they prefer so they become proficient in it and then, they take pleasure from it. Unlike MBTI, Team Management Profile (TMP) does not only provide information about an individual, about also in a team context.

Work preferences are measured in four main ways. First, preferences for extroverted and introverted work. Second, the balance between practical and creative work. Next, the influence of analysis and beliefs in decisions. Fourth, the extent to which you want to work in a structured or flexible way. These factors combined have a powerful influence on job choice, job satisfaction, motivation, teamwork, learning and development, and career moves.

This provides 8 team role preferences that people can perform in the Team Management Wheel (fig):

1. Reporter / Adviser. Supporter, helper, tolerant; a collector of information; he dislikes being rushed; knowledgeable; flexible.
2. Creator / Innovator. Imaginative; future-oriented; enjoys complexity; creative; likes research work.
3. Explorer / Promoter. Persuades, "seller"; likes varied, exciting, stimulating work; easily bored; influential and outgoing.
4. Assessor / Developer. Analytical and objective; developer of ideas; enjoys prototype or project work; experimenter.
5. Thruster / Organizer. Organizes and implements; quick to decide; results-oriented; sets up systems; analytical.
6. Concluder / Producer. Practical; production-oriented; likes schedules and plans; pride in reproducing goods and services; values effectiveness and efficiency.
7. Controller / Inspector. Strong on control; detail-oriented; low need for people contact; an inspector of standards and procedures.
8. Upholder / Maintainer. Conservative, loyal, supportive; personal values important; strong sense of right and wrong; work motivation based on purpose.

The Linking Role is shared by all team members. Work preferences reflect the psychology of the emotions and desires that you and others bring to the job. Where there exists a low alignment, or mismatch, then people tend to either adapt the job to their preference, or move to another job.

Usage of the Team Management Profile. Applications

Has been used by over 1000 organizations in more than 100 countries for:

• Teamwork improvement.
• Project staffing and management. Work allocation.
• Basis for continuing professional / individual development.
• Basis for leadership and talent management. Counseling.
• Cross functional teamwork communication.
• Recruitment and selection, career development and promotion.

Strengths of the Team Management Profile. Benefits

• Particularly useful for putting together and managing project teams.
• Strengths of people are leveraged in teams.
• While individuals should be encouraged to work in areas that match their preference, it is the responsibility of the team as a whole to make sure all types of work are covered.
• Understanding work preferences, both your own and other people's, are vital to successfully managing colleague and client relationship, and improving personal performance.
• What we prefer we tend to practice, and what we practice is where we tend to perform well.
• Focus is on personality in work, less on personality / life in general.

Assumptions of the Team Management Profile. Conditions

• Work preferences are important to people.
• People tend to practice what they prefer.
• People perform better in those areas that match their work preference.
• People do their best to ensure that these are satisfied in their jobs (or they will move on elsewhere).