The dictionary defines wealth as:
1. [n] - the state of being rich and affluent
2. [n] - an abundance of material possessions and resources
3. [n] - property that has economic utility: a monetary value or an exchange value
4. [n] - the quality of profuse abundance
None of those definitions sound too bad, right? The quality of profuse abundance - I like that definition!
However, wealth as it is defined in the dictionary is only a small aspect of such a grand and often controversial word.
The definition of wealth can be quite divisive. Ask your family and friends how they define wealth and then sit back and enjoy the conversation! Ask any political candidate how they define wealth and you’ll get vastly different answers.
There is of course the capitalist definition of wealth which states that all wealth is earned, not distributed.
Conversely, socialism states that there is a more equitable distribution of wealth and wealth is better shared.
That being said, all political theories and ideologies aside, we know deep down at our core that there is more to ‘wealth’ than dollars in the bank.
Consider the following quotes:
“Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.”
-Henry David Thoreau
“Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.”
-Oscar Wilde
“Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time”
-Margaret Bonnano
So wealth is:
- Having time
- Having health
- Having quality of life
- Possessing freedom
- Finding inspiration
- Having peace of mind
- Wealth is having compassion
- Being loved
- Loving
- And of course money in the bank – how much money in the bank is defined by you.
And so on and so on.
I’d argue that wealth, true wealth, may be a combination of all of these things.
Wealth, when it is defined as more than simply dollars in the bank, when it is defined as quality of life, health, peace of mind and all of those things that do often come with financial security is a fine and wonderful thing. However, each attribute of wealth i.e. peace of mind, time, passion and dollars in the bank can be at risk if one focuses one attribute to the exclusion of all others.
For example if you live solely to have more money, you’ll inevitably lose time, quality of life, and quite frequently your health.
It’s a fine tightrope to walk.
Do you focus on earning money to support a better quality of life, to have more time and so on?
Or
Do you focus on quality of life and have faith that the money will follow?
It’s the whole success before meaning or meaning before success question.
Success before meaning.
There’s a well established school of thought which dictates that you work hard, you earn a good living, build a good life and then reap the rewards of your hard work. There are various scenarios this may entail.
For many it may entail spending 20 years working a 9-5 desk job, living frugally and saving as much money as possible. The reward is then quitting or retiring and living the life you’ve always wanted to live. Whether that means traveling, spending your days in your garden or workshop or starting that small business you’ve always wanted to start.
This is the place that many people come from. They spend their lives focused on the goal of achieving financial success and freedom.
While setting and achieving goals is a great thing, the problem with this mindset is:
1. One forgets to enjoy life while it’s happening and waits to enjoy it at some future date.
2. That date may never come
Meaning before success.
Another school of thought follows the path of doing what they love and hoping or trusting that wealth will follow.
Those who follow this school of thought believe that the goal to success starts with finding a business or trade you’re passionate about. Passion and desire breed wealth.
While it’s true that passion for your business or trade will bring about day to day quality of life, satisfaction and contentment – financial wealth isn’t a given. In fact there are many people who are barely getting by who absolutely love what they do.
Another option?
I propose that there is actually a third approach to obtaining wealth without sacrificing quality of life.
Starting an internet based business, yes even in today’s economy, can provide the kind of lifestyle and complete wealth you’re seeking.
Starting an internet based business, while it takes a bit of time at the outset to get a business up and running, once it’s established and you’ve automated as much as you can humanly automate and delegated the rest – the profits are in your pocket and you’ve as much free time as you can humanly stand. Time to live the life you’re dreaming of but instead of dreaming it, you’re actually living it.
Time to pursue your passions. Yes, this third option means the business you start doesn’t have to be something you’re passionate about. You can make your business your passion, however it’s not mandatory. You can in fact sell t-shirts online, make a mint, and not give a hoot about t-shirts.
Timothy Ferriss talks at length on this in his book “The 4-Hour Workweek”.
The concept is defined as the new rich or NR as he calls them. It’s the idea that it doesn’t have to be success versus meaning or wealth versus poverty or freedom versus being chained to a desk 9-5. Life, and wealth, can be defined by you.
Starting an internet based business isn’t as simple as setting up a website and watching the profits roll in. There’s a process. There’s a science behind profiting online. It begins with specialized knowledge.
THERE are two kinds of knowledge. One is general, the other is specialized. General knowledge, no matter how great in quantity or variety it may be, is of but little use in the accumulation of money.
-Napoleon Hill
Mr. Hill also goes on to say in Chapter Five of Think and Grow Rich, KNOWLEDGE will not attract money, unless it is organized, and intelligently directed, through practical PLANS OF ACTION, to the DEFINITE END of accumulation of money.
Now specialized knowledge is something you can possess, like knowing how to take apart and put back together a 1964 Ford Mustang blindfolded. It is also something you can purchase or acquire.
You can obtain specialized knowledge by:
- Participating in a mastermind group, hiring a coach, or finding a mentor.
- Going to school or getting specialized training
- Reading everything ever published on the topic including participating in forums and chat rooms on your chosen topic.
As we move through life and make our choices it’s nice to know that there are options. You can choose to live your life pursuing financial wealth at the expense of the other gems life has to offer, you can choose to pursue health, art and happiness at the expense of financial wealth or you can decide that you deserve both. You can decide that the world and its abundance are available to you.
The internet makes it easier than ever before. It gives you access to specialized knowledge and wonderful tools which enable you to automate almost every process and system required to run a successful and profitable business.
The definition of wealth can be quite divisive. Ask your family and friends how they define wealth and then sit back and enjoy the conversation! Ask any political candidate how they define wealth and you’ll get vastly different answers.
By: Mindmap to Riches
Sunday, January 23, 2011
How to Change Your Life by Changing Your Perspective
Would you like to learn a short-cut to success? One that will radically transform your life and bring you the success and happiness that you really want in your life? It is not as hard as you my have led yourself to believe. I'd like to share with you a very simple, very powerful way to instantly begin transforming your life.
It is called 'changing your perspective', and it is something that you have probably done many times in the past.
Has this ever happened to you? You are going along, experiencing all these big problems, and whining and complaining about how tough things are, how unfair life is, when suddenly you get one of these wake up calls and in an instant, your life, and your problems, don't seem quite so tough any more?
I am sure that it has.
It happens to all of us.
Life offers all of us many, many opportunities to grow into our full potential, but it is only when you are able to step back a bit and see your own life clearly that you are able to take advantage of your incredible potential.
So how clear is your perspective on your life?
Are you being real about your challenges?
Or are you making mountains out of mole hills?
In other words:
How real are your problems?
If you were to put your biggest problems down on paper and then you showed them to a stranger, would that person be blown away and say, "Wow, you have really got it hard!"
Or would they glance at your little list of problems and say, "You are kidding, right? These are your problems?"
What if your best friend came to you with the same exact list of challenges. Would you look at your friend's list and see those challenges as huge and unsolvable, or would you see them as easily overcome?
It is amazing how quickly a change of perspective can alter how you feel about the problems in your life.
What once seemed like a huge obstacle can instantly become a minor annoyance.
Everything, and I do mean everything, in life is relative, and you can always look around and see people who seem to have it easier than you do, people who don't seem to have the same challenges or the same problems that you have. You can see people who appear lucky or who seem to have been born in the right place or the right time.
But that is just one perspective that is available to you. That is just one way of looking at the world.
Here is another: You can also look around yourself and notice many, many people who seem to be worse off than yourself.
This approach may make you feel better for a moment, but it is not really any better. In both cases, you are comparing yourself and placing a value on your perceived problems, a value based on what you think other people are experiencing and not based on the reality of your situation.
But those are only two perspectives... there is another way!
The best choice is to allow yourself to see your life and your challenges as honestly as possible. When your life seems too hard or too challenging, let yourself step back and look for the big picture. Sometimes you have to force yourself to stop and breath for a moment, and pull yourself out of the picture, but you can do it.
Once you do, you will notice that there are many more options open to you than you thought possible. You are never stuck with just one way to see your life. Open your eyes and your mind to the true choices that are before you, then choose the most honest one.
Do that consistently and your life will never be the same again.
Would you like to learn a short-cut to success? One that will radically transform your life and bring you the success and happiness that you really want in your life? It is not as hard as you my have led yourself to believe. I'd like to share with you a very simple, very powerful way to instantly begin transforming your life.
By: Bob Crawford
It is called 'changing your perspective', and it is something that you have probably done many times in the past.
Has this ever happened to you? You are going along, experiencing all these big problems, and whining and complaining about how tough things are, how unfair life is, when suddenly you get one of these wake up calls and in an instant, your life, and your problems, don't seem quite so tough any more?
I am sure that it has.
It happens to all of us.
Life offers all of us many, many opportunities to grow into our full potential, but it is only when you are able to step back a bit and see your own life clearly that you are able to take advantage of your incredible potential.
So how clear is your perspective on your life?
Are you being real about your challenges?
Or are you making mountains out of mole hills?
In other words:
How real are your problems?
If you were to put your biggest problems down on paper and then you showed them to a stranger, would that person be blown away and say, "Wow, you have really got it hard!"
Or would they glance at your little list of problems and say, "You are kidding, right? These are your problems?"
What if your best friend came to you with the same exact list of challenges. Would you look at your friend's list and see those challenges as huge and unsolvable, or would you see them as easily overcome?
It is amazing how quickly a change of perspective can alter how you feel about the problems in your life.
What once seemed like a huge obstacle can instantly become a minor annoyance.
Everything, and I do mean everything, in life is relative, and you can always look around and see people who seem to have it easier than you do, people who don't seem to have the same challenges or the same problems that you have. You can see people who appear lucky or who seem to have been born in the right place or the right time.
But that is just one perspective that is available to you. That is just one way of looking at the world.
Here is another: You can also look around yourself and notice many, many people who seem to be worse off than yourself.
This approach may make you feel better for a moment, but it is not really any better. In both cases, you are comparing yourself and placing a value on your perceived problems, a value based on what you think other people are experiencing and not based on the reality of your situation.
But those are only two perspectives... there is another way!
The best choice is to allow yourself to see your life and your challenges as honestly as possible. When your life seems too hard or too challenging, let yourself step back and look for the big picture. Sometimes you have to force yourself to stop and breath for a moment, and pull yourself out of the picture, but you can do it.
Once you do, you will notice that there are many more options open to you than you thought possible. You are never stuck with just one way to see your life. Open your eyes and your mind to the true choices that are before you, then choose the most honest one.
Do that consistently and your life will never be the same again.
Would you like to learn a short-cut to success? One that will radically transform your life and bring you the success and happiness that you really want in your life? It is not as hard as you my have led yourself to believe. I'd like to share with you a very simple, very powerful way to instantly begin transforming your life.
By: Bob Crawford
Manage Your Time and Reduce Your Stress In 5 Simple Steps
If you find yourself doing a lot of unnecessary overtime or bringing work home more often, then it’s about time you change this routine. There are better ways to manage your time and reduce your stress - ways that don’t involve drinking a lots of coffee and pulling all nighters worthy of the energizer bunny.
Since you’re already neck deep with work, I won’t waste your time with pages of time management theories. In fact, I’ve limited myself to 5 simple ways to better manage your time and reduce your stress!
1. Avoid multi-tasking.
I know multi-tasking can appear to save you a lot of time, but that technique could backfire. A lot of people start out with multiple projects at the same time, and end up not being able to finish half of them.
To be more efficient, it’s best to finish what you have started before moving on to the next one in your to-do-list.
2. Get it right the first time.
Nothing wastes more time than having to do something over again. If you want to manage your time and reduce your stress, you’re going to have to do the project as best as you can the first time. That way, you’ll avoid having to make needless revisions.
3. Focus on your work.
Little things like taking coffee breaks, cigarette breaks, or even chatting with the person in the next cubicle eat away at your time.
If you have a gazillion thing to do, you have to stop taking so many breaks. When these breaks all add up, you’ll be surprised at how much time you have wasted.
However, it is a good idea to take a much-needed short break to recharge yourself, but only after you have fully focused on doing a task non-stop for an allotted time.
4. Get plenty of sleep.
Don’t be so surprised. If you want to manage your time and reduce your stress, you should be taking care of yourself. Your body needs to rest, so give it decent hours of sleep.
Staying up late can contribute to grogginess at work. When you suffer from lack of sleep, it shows in the kind of output you produce. It slows you down and even the easiest tasks can take twice as long to finish.
5. Don’t check your email sporadically.
Checking your email can take up more time than you think. The best way to check your email is to appoint a specific schedule for it.
Many gurus recommend checking your email after you’ve done all other important tasks. But if you find this difficult, you can check your e-mail once in the morning, and again before you finish your workday.
These are the 5 ways you can better manage your time and reduce your stress. I’m pretty sure you still have deadlines to catch, so I hope this article has helped you gain a better perspective on your work habits.
There are better ways to manage your time and reduce your stress - ways that don’t involve drinking a lots of coffee and pulling all nighters worthy of the energizer bunny.
Since you’re already neck deep with work, I won’t waste your time with pages of time management theories. In fact, I’ve limited myself to 5 simple ways to better manage your time and reduce your stress!
1. Avoid multi-tasking.
I know multi-tasking can appear to save you a lot of time, but that technique could backfire. A lot of people start out with multiple projects at the same time, and end up not being able to finish half of them.
To be more efficient, it’s best to finish what you have started before moving on to the next one in your to-do-list.
2. Get it right the first time.
Nothing wastes more time than having to do something over again. If you want to manage your time and reduce your stress, you’re going to have to do the project as best as you can the first time. That way, you’ll avoid having to make needless revisions.
3. Focus on your work.
Little things like taking coffee breaks, cigarette breaks, or even chatting with the person in the next cubicle eat away at your time.
If you have a gazillion thing to do, you have to stop taking so many breaks. When these breaks all add up, you’ll be surprised at how much time you have wasted.
However, it is a good idea to take a much-needed short break to recharge yourself, but only after you have fully focused on doing a task non-stop for an allotted time.
4. Get plenty of sleep.
Don’t be so surprised. If you want to manage your time and reduce your stress, you should be taking care of yourself. Your body needs to rest, so give it decent hours of sleep.
Staying up late can contribute to grogginess at work. When you suffer from lack of sleep, it shows in the kind of output you produce. It slows you down and even the easiest tasks can take twice as long to finish.
5. Don’t check your email sporadically.
Checking your email can take up more time than you think. The best way to check your email is to appoint a specific schedule for it.
Many gurus recommend checking your email after you’ve done all other important tasks. But if you find this difficult, you can check your e-mail once in the morning, and again before you finish your workday.
These are the 5 ways you can better manage your time and reduce your stress. I’m pretty sure you still have deadlines to catch, so I hope this article has helped you gain a better perspective on your work habits.
There are better ways to manage your time and reduce your stress - ways that don’t involve drinking a lots of coffee and pulling all nighters worthy of the energizer bunny.
5 Time Management Habits That Boost Your Productivity
Do you have good time management habits? If so, then congratulations! People who possess such habits are regarded as responsible, mature and successful individuals. They’re the kind of people who get things done, get promoted and are put in charge of important projects.
Not sure if you have what it takes? Then perhaps the time has come for you to develop them! To find out more, read on!
Time Management Habit # 1: Finish Your Tasks On Time.
When you set your goals, it’s important that you meet them within the given deadline. Those who can’t even finish what they set out to do, even with an extended time frame, definitely lack good time management habits.
Start with small goals that you’re certain can be met, and then work your way up.
Time Management Habit # 2: Be Enthusiastic.
When it comes to making the most of your time and getting things done, enthusiasm plays a big part. It is, after all, what motivates you to begin and follow through with a project.
Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by other things when you have a deadline coming up. Keep your energy high, so you’ll be pushed to stick to your schedule.
Once you lost interest, that’s when you start dwelling on less important matters and dallying when you should be working.
Time Management Habit # 3: Be Organized And Orderly.
Chaos and time management don’t mix. One good habit you might want to get into is being organized. Create a workable schedule and know exactly what comes before and after.
Simply knowing that you have “stuff” to do today doesn’t count. Sort out your priorities and stick to them.
Time Management Habit # 4: Stay Consistent.
People who flit from one thing to another are not always the most reliable when it comes to managing time.
To avoid falling into this category, it’s important that you stay consistent with your words and actions. Don’t say one thing and then do another. Follow through with what you first set out to do.
Time Management Habit # 5: No Breaks In Between.
It's important to have the discipline to limit your breaks. Some people give themselves a time frame, but end up taking too many breaks in between. These breaks are also distractions.
To avoid taking too many breaks, eat a good meal before you work. Take your bathroom break at the onset and work somewhere away from the television and other distractions.
Good time management habits can be acquired in time, as long as you have the patience and the passion to become a better and more effective person.
People who possess good time management habits can easily get things done. This article shows you 5 of those habits that boost your productivity.
Not sure if you have what it takes? Then perhaps the time has come for you to develop them! To find out more, read on!
Time Management Habit # 1: Finish Your Tasks On Time.
When you set your goals, it’s important that you meet them within the given deadline. Those who can’t even finish what they set out to do, even with an extended time frame, definitely lack good time management habits.
Start with small goals that you’re certain can be met, and then work your way up.
Time Management Habit # 2: Be Enthusiastic.
When it comes to making the most of your time and getting things done, enthusiasm plays a big part. It is, after all, what motivates you to begin and follow through with a project.
Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by other things when you have a deadline coming up. Keep your energy high, so you’ll be pushed to stick to your schedule.
Once you lost interest, that’s when you start dwelling on less important matters and dallying when you should be working.
Time Management Habit # 3: Be Organized And Orderly.
Chaos and time management don’t mix. One good habit you might want to get into is being organized. Create a workable schedule and know exactly what comes before and after.
Simply knowing that you have “stuff” to do today doesn’t count. Sort out your priorities and stick to them.
Time Management Habit # 4: Stay Consistent.
People who flit from one thing to another are not always the most reliable when it comes to managing time.
To avoid falling into this category, it’s important that you stay consistent with your words and actions. Don’t say one thing and then do another. Follow through with what you first set out to do.
Time Management Habit # 5: No Breaks In Between.
It's important to have the discipline to limit your breaks. Some people give themselves a time frame, but end up taking too many breaks in between. These breaks are also distractions.
To avoid taking too many breaks, eat a good meal before you work. Take your bathroom break at the onset and work somewhere away from the television and other distractions.
Good time management habits can be acquired in time, as long as you have the patience and the passion to become a better and more effective person.
People who possess good time management habits can easily get things done. This article shows you 5 of those habits that boost your productivity.
Happiness Is Being in the Present Moment
Love naturally flows out of the present moment, which is the only moment that exists. The present moment is what is real. When we bring a memory from the past, a fantasy of the future, a fear, a judgment, or any other self-centered thought into the present moment, those thoughts draw us out of the present-moment reality, where love and the potential for happiness exist, and into the ego's world, which is a world of discontentment, judgment, striving, and desiring. All of the pain in the world is created by identifying with such thoughts. The antidote for this pain is simply moving into the present moment and out of our thoughts about life, about ourselves, and about others.
One of the main ways suffering is created is by hanging on to the past by thinking about it and telling stories about it. We hang on to painful events at least as much as we try to hang on to happy memories, even though there is nothing left to hang on to. The past is gone, and all we have is a memory of it—a thought. Is a thought the past? Can a thought change the past or re-create the past? No. A thought is impotent, powerless. But it's worse than that: When you bring a memory of the past into the present moment, your experience of the present moment is changed. You are no longer experiencing life purely, but colored by either the pain of the past or the longing for the past. When you do this, you won't be able to experience the joy, love, and peace that are available in the present moment.
When we are fully in the present moment instead of absorbed in our thoughts about the past or the future or thoughts about ourselves and how our life is going, life feels good, we feel happy and at peace. However, if we bring thoughts into this moment that cause us to feel unhappy and discontent with the present moment, we won't experience that inherent happiness and peace. We will think that our life isn't good, that happiness isn't available, when it is.
Thoughts create our unhappiness, not circumstances. This is one of life's great secrets. It is a secret because it seems like the opposite is true—that if we could just get circumstances to change, we would finally be happy. But that just isn't true. Happiness is a potential in any moment, and it is what we bring into this moment through thought that causes us to feel unhappy and discontent with life. Memories are some of the most common thoughts that rob our happiness, but even fantasies of the future do this, simply because they take us out of the richness and aliveness of the present moment and into a made-up reality. The mind's reality is a two-dimensional reality; it doesn't have the fullness, realness, aliveness, or depth of reality, and it never will, no matter how engrossed in a fantasy we become.
Happiness is not found in thinking, as fun as thinking can be sometimes. Absorption in thoughts about the past and the future and about ourselves is not really fun. We feel compelled to think about ourselves, our past, and our future, but just notice how contracted and tense these thoughts make you feel. Such thinking doesn't result in happiness, but confusion, worry, fear, stress, and discontentment.
Forgiving and forgetting the past allows us to stay in the present moment, to drop the memories and attempts at fixing the past or being right and just be here right now and see what life is offering now in this moment. Once you allow yourself to really experience the present moment, you discover that it has everything you have ever wanted. It has the peace, happiness, contentment, and even excitement that you long for. When we are in the moment, we experience the excitement and adventure of not knowing what is coming next, and we also experience the joy our Being feels in being alive and existing in this amazing universe. When you come into the present moment, you come into contact with the real you, with your Being, which is in love with life and enjoying it all!
Love naturally flows out of the present moment, which is the only moment that exists. The present moment is what is real. When we bring a memory from the past, a fantasy of the future, a fear, a judgment, or any other self-centered thought into the present moment, those thoughts draw us out of the present-moment reality, where love and the potential for happiness exist, and into the ego's world, which is a world of discontentment, judgment, striving, and desiring.
By: Gina Lake
One of the main ways suffering is created is by hanging on to the past by thinking about it and telling stories about it. We hang on to painful events at least as much as we try to hang on to happy memories, even though there is nothing left to hang on to. The past is gone, and all we have is a memory of it—a thought. Is a thought the past? Can a thought change the past or re-create the past? No. A thought is impotent, powerless. But it's worse than that: When you bring a memory of the past into the present moment, your experience of the present moment is changed. You are no longer experiencing life purely, but colored by either the pain of the past or the longing for the past. When you do this, you won't be able to experience the joy, love, and peace that are available in the present moment.
When we are fully in the present moment instead of absorbed in our thoughts about the past or the future or thoughts about ourselves and how our life is going, life feels good, we feel happy and at peace. However, if we bring thoughts into this moment that cause us to feel unhappy and discontent with the present moment, we won't experience that inherent happiness and peace. We will think that our life isn't good, that happiness isn't available, when it is.
Thoughts create our unhappiness, not circumstances. This is one of life's great secrets. It is a secret because it seems like the opposite is true—that if we could just get circumstances to change, we would finally be happy. But that just isn't true. Happiness is a potential in any moment, and it is what we bring into this moment through thought that causes us to feel unhappy and discontent with life. Memories are some of the most common thoughts that rob our happiness, but even fantasies of the future do this, simply because they take us out of the richness and aliveness of the present moment and into a made-up reality. The mind's reality is a two-dimensional reality; it doesn't have the fullness, realness, aliveness, or depth of reality, and it never will, no matter how engrossed in a fantasy we become.
Happiness is not found in thinking, as fun as thinking can be sometimes. Absorption in thoughts about the past and the future and about ourselves is not really fun. We feel compelled to think about ourselves, our past, and our future, but just notice how contracted and tense these thoughts make you feel. Such thinking doesn't result in happiness, but confusion, worry, fear, stress, and discontentment.
Forgiving and forgetting the past allows us to stay in the present moment, to drop the memories and attempts at fixing the past or being right and just be here right now and see what life is offering now in this moment. Once you allow yourself to really experience the present moment, you discover that it has everything you have ever wanted. It has the peace, happiness, contentment, and even excitement that you long for. When we are in the moment, we experience the excitement and adventure of not knowing what is coming next, and we also experience the joy our Being feels in being alive and existing in this amazing universe. When you come into the present moment, you come into contact with the real you, with your Being, which is in love with life and enjoying it all!
Love naturally flows out of the present moment, which is the only moment that exists. The present moment is what is real. When we bring a memory from the past, a fantasy of the future, a fear, a judgment, or any other self-centered thought into the present moment, those thoughts draw us out of the present-moment reality, where love and the potential for happiness exist, and into the ego's world, which is a world of discontentment, judgment, striving, and desiring.
By: Gina Lake
3 Characteristics Of An Effective Leader That Are Vital For Success
What are the characteristics of an effective leader? Before we address that question, it is important to note that not all leaders are created equal. Some over promise but under deliver, while others prove just how deserving they are of their position.
Do you have the characteristics of an effective leader? Well, let’s see. Are you…
A Calculating Observer
An efficient leader knows how to make the most of a situation simply by observing the people around him. Through the cues he receives from others and from his environment, he is able to make sound decisions on what to do, where to go and how to respond.
As a leader, your observation skills are of the utmost importance. Likewise, you must also be careful not to give yourself away with careless facial expressions. A poker face keeps people guessing and also keeps you three to four steps ahead of everybody else.
A Good Communicator
One of the vital characteristics of an effective leader is having the ability to express himself clearly and concisely. Ask anybody who’s ever had to lead a team or follow orders - this is a must!
After all, how can you get your team to do what must be done when you can’t even tell them what it is in the first place?
Think of the generals who had command over entire fleets and armies in history. The most revered leaders were always those who were able to communicate what they wanted to happen to their men. With good communication, half the battle’s won.
A Precise Taskmaster
You know the saying, “if you want something done right, do it yourself?” Well, that’s not very practical at all.
If you’re a leader of a large group, you can’t possibly take on all the responsibilities yourself. As such, you need to learn how to delegate. This is one of the most important characteristics of an effective leader.
Take Steve Jobs for example. He’s not the salesman who convinced you to buy an iPod instead of a Zune during the rush sale at the mall. He’s not the person who shot the ads or the one who checked whether your particular iPod passed the quality test while it was being manufactured.
But he was able to appoint individuals who were able to take care of specific tasks - this alone makes him an excellent leader.
So, do you have the characteristics of an effective leader? Perhaps it’s time you take a good look at yourself.
Not all leaders are created equal. Some over promise but under deliver, while others prove just how deserving they are of their position. Do you have the characteristics of an effective leader?
Do you have the characteristics of an effective leader? Well, let’s see. Are you…
A Calculating Observer
An efficient leader knows how to make the most of a situation simply by observing the people around him. Through the cues he receives from others and from his environment, he is able to make sound decisions on what to do, where to go and how to respond.
As a leader, your observation skills are of the utmost importance. Likewise, you must also be careful not to give yourself away with careless facial expressions. A poker face keeps people guessing and also keeps you three to four steps ahead of everybody else.
A Good Communicator
One of the vital characteristics of an effective leader is having the ability to express himself clearly and concisely. Ask anybody who’s ever had to lead a team or follow orders - this is a must!
After all, how can you get your team to do what must be done when you can’t even tell them what it is in the first place?
Think of the generals who had command over entire fleets and armies in history. The most revered leaders were always those who were able to communicate what they wanted to happen to their men. With good communication, half the battle’s won.
A Precise Taskmaster
You know the saying, “if you want something done right, do it yourself?” Well, that’s not very practical at all.
If you’re a leader of a large group, you can’t possibly take on all the responsibilities yourself. As such, you need to learn how to delegate. This is one of the most important characteristics of an effective leader.
Take Steve Jobs for example. He’s not the salesman who convinced you to buy an iPod instead of a Zune during the rush sale at the mall. He’s not the person who shot the ads or the one who checked whether your particular iPod passed the quality test while it was being manufactured.
But he was able to appoint individuals who were able to take care of specific tasks - this alone makes him an excellent leader.
So, do you have the characteristics of an effective leader? Perhaps it’s time you take a good look at yourself.
Not all leaders are created equal. Some over promise but under deliver, while others prove just how deserving they are of their position. Do you have the characteristics of an effective leader?
How to Write Affirmations - Your Secret to Manifesting Success
Do you know how to write affirmations that really work? A well-written affirmation has the potential to change your life in many wonderful ways. Once you learn how to write positive, powerful affirmations you will have an incredible manifesting tool at your disposal. But to tap into their true power and to increase your manifesting success you have to be sure that you write them with the following guidelines in mind.
1. Affirmations are about YOU.
Every affirmation that you create must be written in the present tense for it to have any lasting effect on you. This means that you should begin your statements with the words "I am". Do not tell yourself that you will do this, that, and the other thing. Be bold! Say, I AM! This slight difference in wording makes a huge difference in the results that you will get.
Examples:
Weak: From now on, I will be on time.
Powerful: I am always punctual.
2. Qualities Over Things.
Great affirmations are never about the things that you want to attract into your life, they are always about the qualities that you want to develop within yourself. If there is a quality that you need to have in order to reach your dream you should include it here. Look at the things that you want and ask yourself, "What do I need to change?" Then incorporate your answer into your affirmation.
Examples:
Weak: I am wealthy.
Powerful: I am a smart saver and a wise investor of my money.
3. Be Positive.
When you write out your affirmations you always want to focus on the positive, and never the negative. This is central to the entire manifesting process, and is the core of the law of attraction principles. Spell out exactly what you want to create and keep your attention off of those things that you do not want. Every outcome that you do not want has a corresponding outcome that you do. That is where you need to place your attention.
Examples:
Weak: I am giving up fast food. (Giving up or quitting is negative!)
Powerful: I am a healthy eater.
4. Use Daily.
Now that you have written your affirmations it is time to actually use them. For the best results you must use your written statements every day. Not just on days when you feel like it, or when the sun is shining, or when you remember to. Every day. Once a day is good, but twice a day is even better. Read your affirmation aloud each morning and each night before you go to bed. Do not make excuses. When you make your affirmations a habit, you will soon see the qualities in your affirmations begin to develop in your life.
Learning how to write affirmations that really work is simple once you apply the four principles covered here. Start right now and create a set of powerful affirmations of your own. Be sure that you write them in the present tense, that they are positive, and that they are really about the qualities you want to develop and not the things you want. Use them twice a day and in no time at all you will discover yourself changing!
Do you know how to write affirmations that really work? A well-written affirmation has the potential to change your life in many wonderful ways. Once you learn how to write positive, powerful affirmations you will have an incredible manifesting tool at your disposal. But to tap into their true power and to increase your manifesting success you have to be sure that you write them with the following guidelines in mind.
1. Affirmations are about YOU.
Every affirmation that you create must be written in the present tense for it to have any lasting effect on you. This means that you should begin your statements with the words "I am". Do not tell yourself that you will do this, that, and the other thing. Be bold! Say, I AM! This slight difference in wording makes a huge difference in the results that you will get.
Examples:
Weak: From now on, I will be on time.
Powerful: I am always punctual.
2. Qualities Over Things.
Great affirmations are never about the things that you want to attract into your life, they are always about the qualities that you want to develop within yourself. If there is a quality that you need to have in order to reach your dream you should include it here. Look at the things that you want and ask yourself, "What do I need to change?" Then incorporate your answer into your affirmation.
Examples:
Weak: I am wealthy.
Powerful: I am a smart saver and a wise investor of my money.
3. Be Positive.
When you write out your affirmations you always want to focus on the positive, and never the negative. This is central to the entire manifesting process, and is the core of the law of attraction principles. Spell out exactly what you want to create and keep your attention off of those things that you do not want. Every outcome that you do not want has a corresponding outcome that you do. That is where you need to place your attention.
Examples:
Weak: I am giving up fast food. (Giving up or quitting is negative!)
Powerful: I am a healthy eater.
4. Use Daily.
Now that you have written your affirmations it is time to actually use them. For the best results you must use your written statements every day. Not just on days when you feel like it, or when the sun is shining, or when you remember to. Every day. Once a day is good, but twice a day is even better. Read your affirmation aloud each morning and each night before you go to bed. Do not make excuses. When you make your affirmations a habit, you will soon see the qualities in your affirmations begin to develop in your life.
Learning how to write affirmations that really work is simple once you apply the four principles covered here. Start right now and create a set of powerful affirmations of your own. Be sure that you write them in the present tense, that they are positive, and that they are really about the qualities you want to develop and not the things you want. Use them twice a day and in no time at all you will discover yourself changing!
Do you know how to write affirmations that really work? A well-written affirmation has the potential to change your life in many wonderful ways. Once you learn how to write positive, powerful affirmations you will have an incredible manifesting tool at your disposal. But to tap into their true power and to increase your manifesting success you have to be sure that you write them with the following guidelines in mind.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
How leaders can rebuild trust
THE dust from the global financial crisis may have settled, but one consequence is that many companies have lost the trust of their customers and corporate leaders are going to have to work hard to regain it.
“Think about all the bank failures that we’ve seen. We’ve seen huge institutions like Lehman Brothers fall apart. Who would have thought that? So people don’t have a lot of confidence and trust in the things that they depended on in the past,” said David M R Covey, COO of global operations at FranklinCovey, a leadership development organisation.
According to Covey, companies and people can rebuild trust and the way for them to do so is by “performing their way out of it”.
“The only way to get out of the current low trust environment is to behave your way (out of it) — start being trustworthy, start exhibiting actions and behaviour that will cause people to trust you,” said Covey, whose father is leadership guru Stephen Covey. The younger Covey was in Kuala Lumpur and Penang in December to meet business leaders in sessions organised by Leadership Resources (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd.
In order to develop trustworthiness, both character and competence are needed. Character includes values such as integrity while competence is a company or person’s skills and abilities.
According to Covey, trust-building is a long-term process and people need to change their mindsets, especially since it was a different sort of mindset that contributed to the global financial crisis.
“I think part of the problem was because of short-term ‘let’s-just-make-a-quick-buck-now’ mindset,” he said.
“But if you want to build a trusting relationship, you have to build for the long term. Warren Buffet said it this way, ‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and five minutes to lose it’.”
One point worth noting, said Covey, is that cover-ups never work and what leaders need to do is achieve congruence between their public and personal life.
“What we teach is that you need to live your life as if there’s a camera on you all the time, so that there’s no disconnect between your private and public life. A great example of that is Gandhi, whom I admire as one of the great leaders. You know, he had congruence between his private life and his public life. There was no secret, there was no disconnect.”
Covey told the story of a woman who approached Gandhi for help in getting her sugar-loving son to stop taking it. Gandhi told her to come back and see him in 10 days. The lady agreed and came back 10 days later and Gandhi sat down with the son and explained to him why sugar was bad and why he should stop consuming it. The son finally committed to give up sugar.
The lady asked Gandhi why he couldn’t have done that 10 days ago. Gandhi’s reply was that 10 days ago, he himself was still consuming sugar and therefore, he could not have taught someone else to give it up.
“That just shows you the kind of person he was. He wouldn’t teach a principle that he himself hadn’t lived,” Covey said
“Think about all the bank failures that we’ve seen. We’ve seen huge institutions like Lehman Brothers fall apart. Who would have thought that? So people don’t have a lot of confidence and trust in the things that they depended on in the past,” said David M R Covey, COO of global operations at FranklinCovey, a leadership development organisation.
According to Covey, companies and people can rebuild trust and the way for them to do so is by “performing their way out of it”.
“The only way to get out of the current low trust environment is to behave your way (out of it) — start being trustworthy, start exhibiting actions and behaviour that will cause people to trust you,” said Covey, whose father is leadership guru Stephen Covey. The younger Covey was in Kuala Lumpur and Penang in December to meet business leaders in sessions organised by Leadership Resources (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd.
In order to develop trustworthiness, both character and competence are needed. Character includes values such as integrity while competence is a company or person’s skills and abilities.
According to Covey, trust-building is a long-term process and people need to change their mindsets, especially since it was a different sort of mindset that contributed to the global financial crisis.
“I think part of the problem was because of short-term ‘let’s-just-make-a-quick-buck-now’ mindset,” he said.
“But if you want to build a trusting relationship, you have to build for the long term. Warren Buffet said it this way, ‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and five minutes to lose it’.”
One point worth noting, said Covey, is that cover-ups never work and what leaders need to do is achieve congruence between their public and personal life.
“What we teach is that you need to live your life as if there’s a camera on you all the time, so that there’s no disconnect between your private and public life. A great example of that is Gandhi, whom I admire as one of the great leaders. You know, he had congruence between his private life and his public life. There was no secret, there was no disconnect.”
Covey told the story of a woman who approached Gandhi for help in getting her sugar-loving son to stop taking it. Gandhi told her to come back and see him in 10 days. The lady agreed and came back 10 days later and Gandhi sat down with the son and explained to him why sugar was bad and why he should stop consuming it. The son finally committed to give up sugar.
The lady asked Gandhi why he couldn’t have done that 10 days ago. Gandhi’s reply was that 10 days ago, he himself was still consuming sugar and therefore, he could not have taught someone else to give it up.
“That just shows you the kind of person he was. He wouldn’t teach a principle that he himself hadn’t lived,” Covey said
To compete, Malaysia needs a leap of learning
We have all heard the saying “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. In fact, this assumption led those who undertook the process of re-engineering, de-layering and downsizing, especially during the 1980s and 1990s, to eliminate a large number of jobs held by middle-aged, middle management employees. As populations in developed countries aged, senior executives found that the major constraint during the economic boom which accompanied the new millennium was a shortage of skilled workers. As unemployment fell to record low levels, these leaders discovered that it was at least equally difficult to teach a new dog, old tricks.
What influence did the loss of middle managers, skilled at credit evaluation and risk assessment in financial institutions, across the developed world have in contributing to the cause of the global financial crisis? Perhaps we will never know empirically. But anecdotally, one such former credit manager was the caretaker of my apartment building when I lived in Australia. He was laid off by a bank in the mid-1990s and remains convinced that he lost his role in a downsizing exercise because of his reluctance to approve unsound credit applications.
In order for Malaysian organisations to improve their performance and compete on a regional and global stage, increasing the level ofi investment in learning is critical
During the last two decades of the last millennium, the popular theory on bank mergers was that value was extracted primarily through synergies derived from consolidation of back-office operations, head-office support functions and overlapping branch distribution networks. Hundreds and thousands of branch managers around the world were retrenched during mergers as their branches were closed. These “old school” bankers were usually recruited out of high school and trained in all aspects of banking, including credit evaluation, as was the norm in those days.
The current theory on value generation arising from bank mergers has changed because the previous approach led to substantial value lost through high levels of customer attrition. While consolidation of operations and support services remains part of the approach, acquirers seek to keep as many branches open as possible, preferably under the original branding, in order to minimise customer attrition and maximise distribution footprint because there is a strong correlation between footprint and market share in retail banking. Examples of this approach are Westpac’s acquisition of St George Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s acquisition of Bank West and Lloyd’s Bank’s acquisition of Halifax Bank of Scotland. One additional benefit of this approach is the retention of experienced branch managers.
Experts have concluded that one of the many reasons for the recent global financial crisis is poor credit underwriting standards and practices. Is it possible that the erosion in credit skills among front-line retail bank managers and staff, caused by specialisation in either sales or service without sufficient grounding in credit, contributed to these poor standards and practices? If this is true, swift action must be taken to address these skill gaps. This action will necessarily include a greater focus on and investment in various learning strategies not only by financial institutions but also by organisations that routinely extend credit to customers (for example, retailers and car manufacturers) if we are to ensure we avoid future crises.
The exhortation to invest more in learning is not a difficult one to make in Asia. Our cultures have revered education as a means for our societies and nations to leapfrog from developing to developed status for some time. As a result, both employers and employees across Asia have invested in and value the learning that is provided and received in the workplace.
Have all this time, effort and expense been as effective as they could be? Answering the question requires examination of the content delivered, methodologies employed, distribution channels used and the way in which training effectiveness is measured.
Most employers and employees in Asia tend to focus on technical skills and product knowledge, while paying insufficient attention to behavioural skills (such as selling, customer service, people leadership and managing a business). This focus, coupled with a desire to accumulate tangible evidence of education in the form of diplomas because they confer status in our communities, means that our approach to learning revolves around classroom training. Experience gained on-the-job, through “apprenticeships”, is valued less than in developed countries and the use of external, independent coaches for senior executives much less common. Similarly, many of our institutions have not invested in the infrastructure to shift compliance, technical skills and knowledge training to more cost-effective and time-efficient virtual channels such as web-based portals accessed via the employer’s intranet site and hosted on a third-party provider’s server.
When examining the approach of human resource and training professionals in Malaysia to evaluate the effectiveness of the training programmes they design and deliver, the Kirkpatrick Model provides a useful framework. In Malaysia, we tend to limit assessments of training effectiveness to Level 1 in the Kirkpatrick Model, which is the reactions of the participants to the programmes (this information is usually gathered via satisfaction surveys of the participants immediately after the end of the programme). Occasionally, the assessment may include Level 2 assessments which seek to understand the extent to which knowledge has increased, skills have improved or attitudes have changed (usually gathered via pre- and post-programme testing). However, if we wish to ensure that our investment in learning is truly bearing fruit we must extend the assessment of training effectiveness by incorporating Level 3 and 4 evaluations. Only then will we know whether behaviour has changed and whether results are being achieved.
In order for Malaysian organisations to improve their performance and compete on a regional and global stage, increasing the level of investment in learning is critical. However, in so doing we must also ensure that the training programmes we invest in are as effective as they can be. Malaysia’s aim to be a fully developed nation by 2020 does not require so much as a leap of faith on our part (after all “Malaysia Boleh”) but will require, among other things, a leap of learning.
What influence did the loss of middle managers, skilled at credit evaluation and risk assessment in financial institutions, across the developed world have in contributing to the cause of the global financial crisis? Perhaps we will never know empirically. But anecdotally, one such former credit manager was the caretaker of my apartment building when I lived in Australia. He was laid off by a bank in the mid-1990s and remains convinced that he lost his role in a downsizing exercise because of his reluctance to approve unsound credit applications.
In order for Malaysian organisations to improve their performance and compete on a regional and global stage, increasing the level ofi investment in learning is critical
During the last two decades of the last millennium, the popular theory on bank mergers was that value was extracted primarily through synergies derived from consolidation of back-office operations, head-office support functions and overlapping branch distribution networks. Hundreds and thousands of branch managers around the world were retrenched during mergers as their branches were closed. These “old school” bankers were usually recruited out of high school and trained in all aspects of banking, including credit evaluation, as was the norm in those days.
The current theory on value generation arising from bank mergers has changed because the previous approach led to substantial value lost through high levels of customer attrition. While consolidation of operations and support services remains part of the approach, acquirers seek to keep as many branches open as possible, preferably under the original branding, in order to minimise customer attrition and maximise distribution footprint because there is a strong correlation between footprint and market share in retail banking. Examples of this approach are Westpac’s acquisition of St George Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s acquisition of Bank West and Lloyd’s Bank’s acquisition of Halifax Bank of Scotland. One additional benefit of this approach is the retention of experienced branch managers.
Experts have concluded that one of the many reasons for the recent global financial crisis is poor credit underwriting standards and practices. Is it possible that the erosion in credit skills among front-line retail bank managers and staff, caused by specialisation in either sales or service without sufficient grounding in credit, contributed to these poor standards and practices? If this is true, swift action must be taken to address these skill gaps. This action will necessarily include a greater focus on and investment in various learning strategies not only by financial institutions but also by organisations that routinely extend credit to customers (for example, retailers and car manufacturers) if we are to ensure we avoid future crises.
The exhortation to invest more in learning is not a difficult one to make in Asia. Our cultures have revered education as a means for our societies and nations to leapfrog from developing to developed status for some time. As a result, both employers and employees across Asia have invested in and value the learning that is provided and received in the workplace.
Have all this time, effort and expense been as effective as they could be? Answering the question requires examination of the content delivered, methodologies employed, distribution channels used and the way in which training effectiveness is measured.
Most employers and employees in Asia tend to focus on technical skills and product knowledge, while paying insufficient attention to behavioural skills (such as selling, customer service, people leadership and managing a business). This focus, coupled with a desire to accumulate tangible evidence of education in the form of diplomas because they confer status in our communities, means that our approach to learning revolves around classroom training. Experience gained on-the-job, through “apprenticeships”, is valued less than in developed countries and the use of external, independent coaches for senior executives much less common. Similarly, many of our institutions have not invested in the infrastructure to shift compliance, technical skills and knowledge training to more cost-effective and time-efficient virtual channels such as web-based portals accessed via the employer’s intranet site and hosted on a third-party provider’s server.
When examining the approach of human resource and training professionals in Malaysia to evaluate the effectiveness of the training programmes they design and deliver, the Kirkpatrick Model provides a useful framework. In Malaysia, we tend to limit assessments of training effectiveness to Level 1 in the Kirkpatrick Model, which is the reactions of the participants to the programmes (this information is usually gathered via satisfaction surveys of the participants immediately after the end of the programme). Occasionally, the assessment may include Level 2 assessments which seek to understand the extent to which knowledge has increased, skills have improved or attitudes have changed (usually gathered via pre- and post-programme testing). However, if we wish to ensure that our investment in learning is truly bearing fruit we must extend the assessment of training effectiveness by incorporating Level 3 and 4 evaluations. Only then will we know whether behaviour has changed and whether results are being achieved.
In order for Malaysian organisations to improve their performance and compete on a regional and global stage, increasing the level of investment in learning is critical. However, in so doing we must also ensure that the training programmes we invest in are as effective as they can be. Malaysia’s aim to be a fully developed nation by 2020 does not require so much as a leap of faith on our part (after all “Malaysia Boleh”) but will require, among other things, a leap of learning.
Managing Gen Y
Since Gen Y, or the millennials (those born in and after 1980), started entering the workforce in large numbers five years ago, their impact has been felt by employers in all sectors. Currently making up about 40% of the Malaysian workforce, Gen Ys demand more perks, faster promotions and greater work-life balance than any other generation before them — and they’re getting it.
“It’s a fact that four in 10 of our workforce are Gen Y and that number will grow each year. As employers, you need to be able to talk and relate to them,” says Andrew Lee, managing director of Deloitte Consulting Malaysia. “While the numbers are high, the competition for top talent is still fierce and companies need to appeal to Gen Y to attract them,” adds Lee.
The central bank is not exempt from the war for talent. As Bank Negara director of human resource management Adhari Belal Din explains, Bank Negara’s Work-Life Balance initiative — which is still ongoing — was not aimed solely at Gen Y, but was launched “as part of a benchmarking exercise comparing Bank Negara with other top financial companies to address a slight attrition problem”.
“It’s part of our response to the evolution of needs among our staff — if it’s strong enough, the employer has to cater for it,”
“When it comes to attracting talent, companies need to understand that Gen Ys approach job-seeking with a consumer mindset. They will research all available information on the web. They know industry standards and what to expect. They want to be part of the best company with the best training,” explains Melody Wong, a Gen Y manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) HR advisory services.
Some managers may bristle at the idea that this newest generation of workers is in some way special, and that employers need to come up with HR policies that cater exclusively for them. After all, why should they get different treatment when Baby Boomers and Generation X had to work hard for their perks?
The fact is that Gen Y may not be special, but they are certainly different.
“Gen Ys are so distinct. Technology has enabled them to live in an almost alternate reality with very different perceptions of how the world works,” said executive director at PwC, Lim Chin Han, who was also present at the Jan 19 interview. These differences, adds Lim, a Gen Xer, may have led to several points of conflict between Gen Y and the older generations in the workplace — Gen X (born between 1965 and 1979) and Baby Boomers (between 1945 and 1964).
Lim and Wong are co-authors of the January 2009 PwC study titled Malaysia’s Gen Y unplugged which polled 346 of PwC’s 576 Gen Y employees on their views of the world of work in 2020, how they expect their environment to evolve, and the economic crisis. Gen Y, or millennials, make up some 62% of PwC Malaysia’s workforce. The Malaysian report was intended to complement the global PwC report Millennials at work — perspectives from a new generation conducted in September 2008.
One finding from the Malaysian study is that almost all (98%) respondents said working with strong coaches and mentors was important to their personal development. Formal training mechanisms like classroom and web-based learning, while still seen as important, were relatively less valued. This has ramifications for company training programmes and manager interaction with Gen Y hires. Managers find they can get the most out of them as mentors, much more than if they were to take the traditional autocratic approach.
“They [Gen Y] enjoy and benefit from mentors who can guide, groom and develop their career development,” says CIMB head of group corporate resources Hamidah Naziadin in an email interview on Feb 11. To ensure their managers have the right skills to manage their newest hires, CIMB has “tweaked” its managerial programmes, adds Hamidah.
In response to the desire of many millennials for opportunities to work abroad in the course of their career (88% according to PwC’s survey), CIMB has also instituted a Global Employee Exchange Programme which provides inter-departmental transfers or even cross-border opportunities. “It’s important for an organisation to provide the flexibility necessary to develop Gen Y employees and at the same time allow them to develop on their own,” observes Hamidah.
To keep Gen Ys feeling fulfilled, many corporations are incorporating policies that allow flexibility in terms of work hours, location and even job scope. PwC’s Work-life Plus Programme allows employees to choose flexible work arrangements that include 2½ to four-day work weeks and career breaks that allow up to three months for professional or personal development.
Attractive and creative reward and remuneration schemes are also key to keeping Gen Ys feeling fulfilled. “Competitive pay scales are just good hygiene. You have to go beyond that,” says Bank Negara’s Adhari. The central bank allows its employees to make “flexible claims” which can amount to several thousand ringgit depending on the individual’s employment grade to be used to pay “for anything from vitamins to gadgets”, says Adhari.
Yes, Gen Y can be demanding, and investing in strategies to attract and retain them can be costly. Low Choy Huat, senior executive and director of Accenture’s talent and organisation performance, estimates that the cost of replacing an employee is roughly five times the employee’s monthly base salary after factoring in the cost of loss in productivity, hiring and training. “The benefits of retaining them far outweigh the cost of replacing an employee,” he concludes.
Cost aside, companies cannot ignore millennials because their numbers are growing, and they’re here to stay.
“If we can’t retain or attract Gen Ys, we, as a company, will lose out,” says DiGi Telecommunications CEO Johan Dennelind. He acknowledges that by pandering to their desires, companies may be spoiling Gen Y workers. But it’s a price Dennelind is willing to pay if his Gen Y employees perform.
“They’re demanding, but we can be demanding in turn. If we give them what they want, we can demand high performance, for them to value our customers and adhere to our values and practices,” he says.
“It’s a fact that four in 10 of our workforce are Gen Y and that number will grow each year. As employers, you need to be able to talk and relate to them,” says Andrew Lee, managing director of Deloitte Consulting Malaysia. “While the numbers are high, the competition for top talent is still fierce and companies need to appeal to Gen Y to attract them,” adds Lee.
The central bank is not exempt from the war for talent. As Bank Negara director of human resource management Adhari Belal Din explains, Bank Negara’s Work-Life Balance initiative — which is still ongoing — was not aimed solely at Gen Y, but was launched “as part of a benchmarking exercise comparing Bank Negara with other top financial companies to address a slight attrition problem”.
“It’s part of our response to the evolution of needs among our staff — if it’s strong enough, the employer has to cater for it,”
“When it comes to attracting talent, companies need to understand that Gen Ys approach job-seeking with a consumer mindset. They will research all available information on the web. They know industry standards and what to expect. They want to be part of the best company with the best training,” explains Melody Wong, a Gen Y manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) HR advisory services.
Some managers may bristle at the idea that this newest generation of workers is in some way special, and that employers need to come up with HR policies that cater exclusively for them. After all, why should they get different treatment when Baby Boomers and Generation X had to work hard for their perks?
The fact is that Gen Y may not be special, but they are certainly different.
“Gen Ys are so distinct. Technology has enabled them to live in an almost alternate reality with very different perceptions of how the world works,” said executive director at PwC, Lim Chin Han, who was also present at the Jan 19 interview. These differences, adds Lim, a Gen Xer, may have led to several points of conflict between Gen Y and the older generations in the workplace — Gen X (born between 1965 and 1979) and Baby Boomers (between 1945 and 1964).
Lim and Wong are co-authors of the January 2009 PwC study titled Malaysia’s Gen Y unplugged which polled 346 of PwC’s 576 Gen Y employees on their views of the world of work in 2020, how they expect their environment to evolve, and the economic crisis. Gen Y, or millennials, make up some 62% of PwC Malaysia’s workforce. The Malaysian report was intended to complement the global PwC report Millennials at work — perspectives from a new generation conducted in September 2008.
One finding from the Malaysian study is that almost all (98%) respondents said working with strong coaches and mentors was important to their personal development. Formal training mechanisms like classroom and web-based learning, while still seen as important, were relatively less valued. This has ramifications for company training programmes and manager interaction with Gen Y hires. Managers find they can get the most out of them as mentors, much more than if they were to take the traditional autocratic approach.
“They [Gen Y] enjoy and benefit from mentors who can guide, groom and develop their career development,” says CIMB head of group corporate resources Hamidah Naziadin in an email interview on Feb 11. To ensure their managers have the right skills to manage their newest hires, CIMB has “tweaked” its managerial programmes, adds Hamidah.
In response to the desire of many millennials for opportunities to work abroad in the course of their career (88% according to PwC’s survey), CIMB has also instituted a Global Employee Exchange Programme which provides inter-departmental transfers or even cross-border opportunities. “It’s important for an organisation to provide the flexibility necessary to develop Gen Y employees and at the same time allow them to develop on their own,” observes Hamidah.
To keep Gen Ys feeling fulfilled, many corporations are incorporating policies that allow flexibility in terms of work hours, location and even job scope. PwC’s Work-life Plus Programme allows employees to choose flexible work arrangements that include 2½ to four-day work weeks and career breaks that allow up to three months for professional or personal development.
Attractive and creative reward and remuneration schemes are also key to keeping Gen Ys feeling fulfilled. “Competitive pay scales are just good hygiene. You have to go beyond that,” says Bank Negara’s Adhari. The central bank allows its employees to make “flexible claims” which can amount to several thousand ringgit depending on the individual’s employment grade to be used to pay “for anything from vitamins to gadgets”, says Adhari.
Yes, Gen Y can be demanding, and investing in strategies to attract and retain them can be costly. Low Choy Huat, senior executive and director of Accenture’s talent and organisation performance, estimates that the cost of replacing an employee is roughly five times the employee’s monthly base salary after factoring in the cost of loss in productivity, hiring and training. “The benefits of retaining them far outweigh the cost of replacing an employee,” he concludes.
Cost aside, companies cannot ignore millennials because their numbers are growing, and they’re here to stay.
“If we can’t retain or attract Gen Ys, we, as a company, will lose out,” says DiGi Telecommunications CEO Johan Dennelind. He acknowledges that by pandering to their desires, companies may be spoiling Gen Y workers. But it’s a price Dennelind is willing to pay if his Gen Y employees perform.
“They’re demanding, but we can be demanding in turn. If we give them what they want, we can demand high performance, for them to value our customers and adhere to our values and practices,” he says.
Building the intelligent organisation
I believe we possess all the resources and talent necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to ensure their fulfillment.
President John F Kennedy
Special message to Congress on Urgent National needs, May 25, 1961
Between 1957 and 1961, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union leaped ahead of the US in the space race by putting up the Sputnik satellite and launching its first cosmonaut. The twin shocks jolted the US into mobilising the collective will and resources of the country to a national commitment — a “firm commitment to a new course of action, a course which will last for many years and carry very heavy costs… ” was how Kennedy described it. In the same speech, he made an executive decision that could well apply to us today: “I am therefore transmitting to the Congress a new Manpower and Training programme, to train or retrain several hundred thousand workers... in new occupational skills over a four-year period — in order to replace those skills made obsolete by automation and industrial change with the new skills which the new processes demand”. It was a bold decision for it demanded a major national commitment; called for diversion of national resources, energy, intellect; and depended (heavily) on the success of galvanising a national discipline perhaps never done before. Above all, it gambled on the ability of the society to get itself up to speed, to change, to re-learn and to challenge itself.
I sat across from the CFO of a large public listed company over lunch recently. His frustration that afternoon stemmed from the seeming inability or disinterest of the organisation to do the obvious. “Isn’t it obvious we need such information to steer the ship?” “Isn’t it clear we need such investments to secure our future?” “Isn’t it well understood we need to capitalise on such opportunities?” And from that conversation, the subject of The Intelligent Organisation was born.
The Intelligent Organisation speaks of the character of an organisation having the capacity to reason, plan, comprehend ideas and create, overcome challenges and improve, learn and manage the network linking many parts such as human capital, processes and policies, technology, alliances and strategy. Kennedy understood this. He understood that while the US had tremendous capacity in terms of human, institutional infrastructure and capital assets, they were not being fully utilised. And he chose the vision of putting a man on the moon to excite the nation, to harness the will and energy of the people, to begin the work, and not least, to inspire. He had a tough job. And as a leader, so do you.
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969. Kennedy's bold decision led to the US putting the first man on the moon.
Leadership
Leading organisations today require more than good ideas and charisma. Ideas disconnected from a will and discipline to execute serve no purpose and yield no results; and charisma devoid of stewardship leaves no permanent value. The qualities of an individual that enable him or her to lead can include experience, integrity and sound judgment. The Welches, the Iacoccas and the Jobs of this world have in their own distinctive ways paved the path of leadership with discipline, foresight, creativity and other traits that have been the subject matter of countless management books. I have read many of these books, understood some of the traits, and attempted to practice them. I’ve made mistakes in a leadership position — wishing that I’ve not made that call or regretting I did not anticipate that opportunity. I say this knowing that even as lessons in leadership can never be fully perfected in practice, there are some we want to pass on to those we groom.
Common business purpose
The first is rallying the team to a common purpose. I use “purpose” as opposed to “vision” because a purpose denotes cause.
People get excited over a cause, not over a set of dry, worn, tired financial objectives. Purpose captures our imagination and instils self-belief, and points us in a common direction. United by common challenges and hopes we collaborate and help each other instead of engaging in scoring cheap political points. The primary role of leadership is to establish a common purpose built upon key elements such as mutual success, inter-dependency, service and stewardship. Leadership necessitates a firm grip to steer the organisation towards a working consensus. I reject as false the thinking that growth comes at the price of division — not unlike cellular growth.
Intelligent leadership focuses on addition, never division.
Steady nerves
The truth is, a working consensus can be rocked from time to time. Its fragility stems from the fact that it is a loose coalition of like-minded people seeking to work towards a common purpose. Too often — when circumstances are difficult, when challenges mount, and when results are absent — nay-sayers surface. They will say “We are not prepared. It is inevitable. We need to look elsewhere or rethink.” At this time, the challenge to leaders is not their ability to read tea leaves to search for the answer, or look to the stars for true north. The challenge — and the second lesson — to leaders is whether we have the self-belief to execute, to do the right thing, to stay the course. Taking the path of least resistance is the easiest thing, and it doesn’t take a leader to do that. Facing a failing economy, a widening budget deficit, questions surrounding his policies and divided opinions over the effectiveness of his administration, President Barack Obama in his 2010 State of the Union address acknowledged the anxieties and the fears, but firmly renewed his commitment to move ahead, reached across party lines and reminded those in positions of responsibility that in the face of adversity “… people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills”.
Intelligent leaders have the capacity to tackle tough problems, not become victims of circumstances.
Stewardship
Peter Drucker once remarked that one of the great strengths of Winston Churchill was that, to the very end, Churchill pushed and furthered young politicians. In other words, one of the most valuable legacies a leader can leave behind is the people he or she has nurtured. Leaders who left behind imprints and influence that have shaped our lives — our values, character and capacity to face crisis — and made us who we are today. These leaders who have come into our lives are remembered today as mentors, role models, coaches, teachers and institution builders. We recognise them as those who were the foundations of our institutions, and our foundations are stronger because of them. They understood that the mission matters, and they are servants. Drucker noted that when leaders have the capacity to maintain their personality and individuality, even though they are totally dedicated to the mission, the mission will go on after them. They have a human existence outside of the mission.
Otherwise they do things for personal gain. They become self-centred and vain. And above all, they become jealous.
Intelligent leadership leaves lasting legacies through the people it furthers, not temporary highs.
Teams look to leaders to lead, step up, take charge, influence and direct, and here is the reality — leaders don’t lose their leadership, they voluntarily surrender it. As challenges mount they are paralysed into inaction. As difficult circumstances, people and questions emerge, they lose their nerve. Instead of focusing on re-building consensus, raising ambition and self-belief, they become victims of circumstance themselves.
Intelligent leadership focuses on the tangible realisation of the common purpose. In so doing, it seeks to leave the organisation in a better state than when it first found it by building on commitment and understanding; responsibility and empathy; courage and common sense.
by Andrew Lee is an executive director and head of Strategy & Operations and Human Capital at Deloitte Malaysia’s consulting practice.
President John F Kennedy
Special message to Congress on Urgent National needs, May 25, 1961
Between 1957 and 1961, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union leaped ahead of the US in the space race by putting up the Sputnik satellite and launching its first cosmonaut. The twin shocks jolted the US into mobilising the collective will and resources of the country to a national commitment — a “firm commitment to a new course of action, a course which will last for many years and carry very heavy costs… ” was how Kennedy described it. In the same speech, he made an executive decision that could well apply to us today: “I am therefore transmitting to the Congress a new Manpower and Training programme, to train or retrain several hundred thousand workers... in new occupational skills over a four-year period — in order to replace those skills made obsolete by automation and industrial change with the new skills which the new processes demand”. It was a bold decision for it demanded a major national commitment; called for diversion of national resources, energy, intellect; and depended (heavily) on the success of galvanising a national discipline perhaps never done before. Above all, it gambled on the ability of the society to get itself up to speed, to change, to re-learn and to challenge itself.
I sat across from the CFO of a large public listed company over lunch recently. His frustration that afternoon stemmed from the seeming inability or disinterest of the organisation to do the obvious. “Isn’t it obvious we need such information to steer the ship?” “Isn’t it clear we need such investments to secure our future?” “Isn’t it well understood we need to capitalise on such opportunities?” And from that conversation, the subject of The Intelligent Organisation was born.
The Intelligent Organisation speaks of the character of an organisation having the capacity to reason, plan, comprehend ideas and create, overcome challenges and improve, learn and manage the network linking many parts such as human capital, processes and policies, technology, alliances and strategy. Kennedy understood this. He understood that while the US had tremendous capacity in terms of human, institutional infrastructure and capital assets, they were not being fully utilised. And he chose the vision of putting a man on the moon to excite the nation, to harness the will and energy of the people, to begin the work, and not least, to inspire. He had a tough job. And as a leader, so do you.
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969. Kennedy's bold decision led to the US putting the first man on the moon.
Leadership
Leading organisations today require more than good ideas and charisma. Ideas disconnected from a will and discipline to execute serve no purpose and yield no results; and charisma devoid of stewardship leaves no permanent value. The qualities of an individual that enable him or her to lead can include experience, integrity and sound judgment. The Welches, the Iacoccas and the Jobs of this world have in their own distinctive ways paved the path of leadership with discipline, foresight, creativity and other traits that have been the subject matter of countless management books. I have read many of these books, understood some of the traits, and attempted to practice them. I’ve made mistakes in a leadership position — wishing that I’ve not made that call or regretting I did not anticipate that opportunity. I say this knowing that even as lessons in leadership can never be fully perfected in practice, there are some we want to pass on to those we groom.
Common business purpose
The first is rallying the team to a common purpose. I use “purpose” as opposed to “vision” because a purpose denotes cause.
People get excited over a cause, not over a set of dry, worn, tired financial objectives. Purpose captures our imagination and instils self-belief, and points us in a common direction. United by common challenges and hopes we collaborate and help each other instead of engaging in scoring cheap political points. The primary role of leadership is to establish a common purpose built upon key elements such as mutual success, inter-dependency, service and stewardship. Leadership necessitates a firm grip to steer the organisation towards a working consensus. I reject as false the thinking that growth comes at the price of division — not unlike cellular growth.
Intelligent leadership focuses on addition, never division.
Steady nerves
The truth is, a working consensus can be rocked from time to time. Its fragility stems from the fact that it is a loose coalition of like-minded people seeking to work towards a common purpose. Too often — when circumstances are difficult, when challenges mount, and when results are absent — nay-sayers surface. They will say “We are not prepared. It is inevitable. We need to look elsewhere or rethink.” At this time, the challenge to leaders is not their ability to read tea leaves to search for the answer, or look to the stars for true north. The challenge — and the second lesson — to leaders is whether we have the self-belief to execute, to do the right thing, to stay the course. Taking the path of least resistance is the easiest thing, and it doesn’t take a leader to do that. Facing a failing economy, a widening budget deficit, questions surrounding his policies and divided opinions over the effectiveness of his administration, President Barack Obama in his 2010 State of the Union address acknowledged the anxieties and the fears, but firmly renewed his commitment to move ahead, reached across party lines and reminded those in positions of responsibility that in the face of adversity “… people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills”.
Intelligent leaders have the capacity to tackle tough problems, not become victims of circumstances.
Stewardship
Peter Drucker once remarked that one of the great strengths of Winston Churchill was that, to the very end, Churchill pushed and furthered young politicians. In other words, one of the most valuable legacies a leader can leave behind is the people he or she has nurtured. Leaders who left behind imprints and influence that have shaped our lives — our values, character and capacity to face crisis — and made us who we are today. These leaders who have come into our lives are remembered today as mentors, role models, coaches, teachers and institution builders. We recognise them as those who were the foundations of our institutions, and our foundations are stronger because of them. They understood that the mission matters, and they are servants. Drucker noted that when leaders have the capacity to maintain their personality and individuality, even though they are totally dedicated to the mission, the mission will go on after them. They have a human existence outside of the mission.
Otherwise they do things for personal gain. They become self-centred and vain. And above all, they become jealous.
Intelligent leadership leaves lasting legacies through the people it furthers, not temporary highs.
Teams look to leaders to lead, step up, take charge, influence and direct, and here is the reality — leaders don’t lose their leadership, they voluntarily surrender it. As challenges mount they are paralysed into inaction. As difficult circumstances, people and questions emerge, they lose their nerve. Instead of focusing on re-building consensus, raising ambition and self-belief, they become victims of circumstance themselves.
Intelligent leadership focuses on the tangible realisation of the common purpose. In so doing, it seeks to leave the organisation in a better state than when it first found it by building on commitment and understanding; responsibility and empathy; courage and common sense.
by Andrew Lee is an executive director and head of Strategy & Operations and Human Capital at Deloitte Malaysia’s consulting practice.
Planning and implementing succession
Most organisations adopt one of three basic talent management strategies. The first is “grow from within” whereby a majority (but not all) middle management and senior executive positions are filled through internal promotions.
The second is “buy from the market” wherein a majority (but again, not all) middle management and senior executive roles are filled by acquiring talent from the market. The third is a hybrid of the two approaches above where middle management and senior executive jobs are staffed in almost equal portions from external and internal sources.
While building bench-strength is critical regardless of which approach is taken, it is especially important for organisations pursuing the “grow from within” talent management strategy. This is because it is unlikely that such organisations would have built the infrastructure and capabilities required to recruit large numbers from the market if they are unable to find suitable candidates from the internal pool for a majority of their middle management and senior executive vacancies.
Succession planning therefore is critical for organisations with a “grow from within” talent management strategy.
Succession planning goes beyond merely building bench-strength. In order for organisations to succeed at succession, they need also to be able to consistently implement their succession plans. This is where most organisations falter. The success of organisations like Shell and General Electric in not only building bench-strength but in consistently pulling-through recruits from their graduate and management trainee programmes to middle and senior roles within their organisations over many decades have inspired others to attempt similar talent management strategies, but not always with the same degree of success.
So what distinguishes organisations that succeed at succession and those that do not? Organisations that plan for succession and implement these plans well have a strong commitment to actively manage talent which is typically evidenced by the investment of significant time, effort and financial resources to this endeavour.They demonstrate this investment through regular and rigorous sessions during which the board (in the case of senior executives) and senior executive teams (in the case of middle and lower management) review, discuss and debate not only the past performance but the future potential of employees below them in the hierarchy. During these sessions, capabilities and development-needs are identified.
In addition, formal training, executive coaching, project and overseas assignments, rotations into new roles and promotions are all considered in a full suite of possible learning solutions designed to leverage the individuals’ capabilities, address their development needs and stretch them for growth.
Effective succession planning sessions have the following characteristics:
1 A mindset whereby the organisation and not individual business units or leaders own the talent;
2 Frank, rigorous and impartial discussion and debate;
3 The use of objective assessment techniques and methodologies to supplement performance evaluations of the individuals in the various roles they have held within the organisation; and
4 Thorough preparation by all facilitating, participating in and supporting these sessions.
The talent mindset mentioned above is usually driven top-down by the board and chief executive officer and if these critical officers of the organisation do not embrace the ethos that talent is owned by the organisation, then effective succession planning cannot take place. An atmosphere of open and robust debate can only be created if the organisational culture is such that the people participating in the succession planning sessions can freely express their views and are comfortable challenging each other’s views in a respectful manner without impacting day-to-day teamwork.
Where assessment centres which utilise psychometric tests, simulations, group activities and behavioural event interviews are becoming more common in Malaysia for recruiting purposes, similar approaches for assessing an employee’s promotion potential, in what are often called development centres, are less common. The use of development centres can often provide very detailed and objective data to supplement annual performance evaluations which typically comprise the employees’ output in their roles and on-the-job observations of their behaviour. The capability of the organisation’s human resource function and infrastructure to collate and report all relevant data and the willingness of participants in the succession planning session to spend the time and effort required to prepare convincing arguments for or against individuals at the succession planning session also contribute to the effectiveness of the resulting succession plans.
Perhaps the most important output of these sessions is the identification of promotion opportunities, timeframes and activities required to be undertaken prior to promotion. This output forms the core content of rigorous succession plans in most leading organisations today. However robust these plans, there is no guarantee that they will be implemented.
Organisations that measure the success of their succession planning initiatives by the percentage of critical roles within the organisations that have a complete succession plan or by the average number of named potential successors for each critical role are focusing on the wrong metrics. The ultimate test of the effectiveness of succession planning, especially for organisations pursuing a “grow from within” talent management strategy, is the ratio of vacancies staffed internally versus externally.
During the height of the economic boom during the first half of the last decade, many organisations, especially in the financial services sector, experienced high levels of turnover as competitors poached entire teams from each other. These tactics placed a great strain on the succession plans of most organisations, especially those that relied on a “grow from within” talent management strategy. We can only speculate as to the part the resulting loss of institutional memory, risk management skills and reduction in care and responsibility for the long-term impacts of their actions had in causing the global financial crisis.
by Dharma Chandran is a human capital partner and performance and reward leader with Ernst & Young Far East Area.
The second is “buy from the market” wherein a majority (but again, not all) middle management and senior executive roles are filled by acquiring talent from the market. The third is a hybrid of the two approaches above where middle management and senior executive jobs are staffed in almost equal portions from external and internal sources.
While building bench-strength is critical regardless of which approach is taken, it is especially important for organisations pursuing the “grow from within” talent management strategy. This is because it is unlikely that such organisations would have built the infrastructure and capabilities required to recruit large numbers from the market if they are unable to find suitable candidates from the internal pool for a majority of their middle management and senior executive vacancies.
Succession planning therefore is critical for organisations with a “grow from within” talent management strategy.
Succession planning goes beyond merely building bench-strength. In order for organisations to succeed at succession, they need also to be able to consistently implement their succession plans. This is where most organisations falter. The success of organisations like Shell and General Electric in not only building bench-strength but in consistently pulling-through recruits from their graduate and management trainee programmes to middle and senior roles within their organisations over many decades have inspired others to attempt similar talent management strategies, but not always with the same degree of success.
So what distinguishes organisations that succeed at succession and those that do not? Organisations that plan for succession and implement these plans well have a strong commitment to actively manage talent which is typically evidenced by the investment of significant time, effort and financial resources to this endeavour.They demonstrate this investment through regular and rigorous sessions during which the board (in the case of senior executives) and senior executive teams (in the case of middle and lower management) review, discuss and debate not only the past performance but the future potential of employees below them in the hierarchy. During these sessions, capabilities and development-needs are identified.
In addition, formal training, executive coaching, project and overseas assignments, rotations into new roles and promotions are all considered in a full suite of possible learning solutions designed to leverage the individuals’ capabilities, address their development needs and stretch them for growth.
Effective succession planning sessions have the following characteristics:
1 A mindset whereby the organisation and not individual business units or leaders own the talent;
2 Frank, rigorous and impartial discussion and debate;
3 The use of objective assessment techniques and methodologies to supplement performance evaluations of the individuals in the various roles they have held within the organisation; and
4 Thorough preparation by all facilitating, participating in and supporting these sessions.
The talent mindset mentioned above is usually driven top-down by the board and chief executive officer and if these critical officers of the organisation do not embrace the ethos that talent is owned by the organisation, then effective succession planning cannot take place. An atmosphere of open and robust debate can only be created if the organisational culture is such that the people participating in the succession planning sessions can freely express their views and are comfortable challenging each other’s views in a respectful manner without impacting day-to-day teamwork.
Where assessment centres which utilise psychometric tests, simulations, group activities and behavioural event interviews are becoming more common in Malaysia for recruiting purposes, similar approaches for assessing an employee’s promotion potential, in what are often called development centres, are less common. The use of development centres can often provide very detailed and objective data to supplement annual performance evaluations which typically comprise the employees’ output in their roles and on-the-job observations of their behaviour. The capability of the organisation’s human resource function and infrastructure to collate and report all relevant data and the willingness of participants in the succession planning session to spend the time and effort required to prepare convincing arguments for or against individuals at the succession planning session also contribute to the effectiveness of the resulting succession plans.
Perhaps the most important output of these sessions is the identification of promotion opportunities, timeframes and activities required to be undertaken prior to promotion. This output forms the core content of rigorous succession plans in most leading organisations today. However robust these plans, there is no guarantee that they will be implemented.
Organisations that measure the success of their succession planning initiatives by the percentage of critical roles within the organisations that have a complete succession plan or by the average number of named potential successors for each critical role are focusing on the wrong metrics. The ultimate test of the effectiveness of succession planning, especially for organisations pursuing a “grow from within” talent management strategy, is the ratio of vacancies staffed internally versus externally.
During the height of the economic boom during the first half of the last decade, many organisations, especially in the financial services sector, experienced high levels of turnover as competitors poached entire teams from each other. These tactics placed a great strain on the succession plans of most organisations, especially those that relied on a “grow from within” talent management strategy. We can only speculate as to the part the resulting loss of institutional memory, risk management skills and reduction in care and responsibility for the long-term impacts of their actions had in causing the global financial crisis.
by Dharma Chandran is a human capital partner and performance and reward leader with Ernst & Young Far East Area.
Rules for getting “super rich”
From music to fashion to flim, TV and other businesses, Russell Simmons -- who is worth more than $100 million -- seemingly has the “Midas Touch”. In his new book, Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All, he wants to show you how you too can achieve super richness.
Simmons grew up in a middle-class neighborhood where he has noted, "the only entrepreneurs we knew were the numbers guys and the drug dealers.”
He has come a long way and some would even say he’s become the epitome of the American dream.
After attending City College in New York, Simmons began his music career in the late 1970s. He started small by managing and producing artists like Run DMC and the Beastie Boys.
In 1984 he partnered with award-winning producer Rick Rubin to create Def Jam Recordings which led to the making of mega-stars Foxy Brown, Ludacris and Jay-Z, just to name a few. He helped take hip-hop mainstream. In 1994, Def Jam was sold to Universal Music Group with a final price tag of $300 million.
Just like the legendary Midas, Simmons realized the fruits of his golden touch are not all they are cracked up to be. “People I guess pursue money to be happy and money doesn’t really make you happy,” he says. “[Being] happy makes you money though;” in order to find that happiness one must “start from the inside out.”
After many more musical successes, Simmons saw a crossroads between hip-hop and style and in 1992 started a fashion company called Phat Farm. It was hugely popular and made him millions. He went on to add additional brands to the empire including Baby Phat, Run Athletics, Argyleculture and American Classics.
Now, as Chairman and CEO of Rush Communications, Simmons' philosophy is spiritual and based on the inner peace he has found from 15 years of practicing yoga and meditation. So without further ado, here are: Russell Simmons’ Top Principles to Super Richness
#1 Give Your Talents Until They Can’t Live Without It“Wake up in the morning and find out what you want to give as opposed to what you want to get,” he says. “Through this practice of becoming a good giver you become a good getter.”
Simmons gives examples of many of his former selfless, tireless and upaid interns that went on to greatness, including Sean Combs, Kevin Liles, and Julie Greenwald, recently named COO of Atlantic Records Group.
“Those who focus on being good servants usually attract the most in the end,” he says.
Basically, offer your talents and skills for free and the rewards will find you.
#2 Relentlessly Pursue Your Goals Without Appearing Needy
Simmons’ law of attraction says: “when you chase things, they will always run from you.”
This principle goes hand-in-hand with principle number one by virtue of the more you give, the more good that will just find you.
#3 If You Don’t Love it, Leave it Alone
This is not only the idea that you should do what you love and a wealth of richness will follow, but the idea that you should only do things you are “karmically” comfortable doing.
“People can sell anything,” from bombs to drugs, he says, even though there are very serious ramifications to those actions. “I want to stress that making money just for the sake of getting paid is a pedestrian activity that you can rise above.”
If you don’t love it, don’t do it.
#4 Let Go of the Results“You really have no control over the results, you have control over the action," he says. “So make sure you perform your action and your duty well.”
In the accompanying clip, he explains that he has no recollection of his very first paycheck, but says he certainly does remember making his first good record.
“All I could think is ‘when my friends hear this record’ it will make them so happy,” he reminisces. “Do things you love. Do things that you have faith will make other people happy and that will give back what you give them.”
#5 Get Open“You want to always be open, creative and fluid as possible, and never become rigid, old or tight,” he writes, encouraging readers to let loose and lower your defenses.
And if you're thinking these principles are easy for someone worth millions to say, Aaron asks him about that too in the accompanying clip.
The Joy of Giving
Simmons' list of his successes are deep but the endeavors most important to him may be those that go along with his first principle listed above. The idea of being a “good giver.”
He is known globally for not only his business acumen, but also his commitment to philanthropy. Simmons has devoted an entire division of empire to charity and non-profit work.
Russell Simmons is also the author of New York Times best-seller, “Do You!”
Simmons grew up in a middle-class neighborhood where he has noted, "the only entrepreneurs we knew were the numbers guys and the drug dealers.”
He has come a long way and some would even say he’s become the epitome of the American dream.
After attending City College in New York, Simmons began his music career in the late 1970s. He started small by managing and producing artists like Run DMC and the Beastie Boys.
In 1984 he partnered with award-winning producer Rick Rubin to create Def Jam Recordings which led to the making of mega-stars Foxy Brown, Ludacris and Jay-Z, just to name a few. He helped take hip-hop mainstream. In 1994, Def Jam was sold to Universal Music Group with a final price tag of $300 million.
Just like the legendary Midas, Simmons realized the fruits of his golden touch are not all they are cracked up to be. “People I guess pursue money to be happy and money doesn’t really make you happy,” he says. “[Being] happy makes you money though;” in order to find that happiness one must “start from the inside out.”
After many more musical successes, Simmons saw a crossroads between hip-hop and style and in 1992 started a fashion company called Phat Farm. It was hugely popular and made him millions. He went on to add additional brands to the empire including Baby Phat, Run Athletics, Argyleculture and American Classics.
Now, as Chairman and CEO of Rush Communications, Simmons' philosophy is spiritual and based on the inner peace he has found from 15 years of practicing yoga and meditation. So without further ado, here are: Russell Simmons’ Top Principles to Super Richness
#1 Give Your Talents Until They Can’t Live Without It“Wake up in the morning and find out what you want to give as opposed to what you want to get,” he says. “Through this practice of becoming a good giver you become a good getter.”
Simmons gives examples of many of his former selfless, tireless and upaid interns that went on to greatness, including Sean Combs, Kevin Liles, and Julie Greenwald, recently named COO of Atlantic Records Group.
“Those who focus on being good servants usually attract the most in the end,” he says.
Basically, offer your talents and skills for free and the rewards will find you.
#2 Relentlessly Pursue Your Goals Without Appearing Needy
Simmons’ law of attraction says: “when you chase things, they will always run from you.”
This principle goes hand-in-hand with principle number one by virtue of the more you give, the more good that will just find you.
#3 If You Don’t Love it, Leave it Alone
This is not only the idea that you should do what you love and a wealth of richness will follow, but the idea that you should only do things you are “karmically” comfortable doing.
“People can sell anything,” from bombs to drugs, he says, even though there are very serious ramifications to those actions. “I want to stress that making money just for the sake of getting paid is a pedestrian activity that you can rise above.”
If you don’t love it, don’t do it.
#4 Let Go of the Results“You really have no control over the results, you have control over the action," he says. “So make sure you perform your action and your duty well.”
In the accompanying clip, he explains that he has no recollection of his very first paycheck, but says he certainly does remember making his first good record.
“All I could think is ‘when my friends hear this record’ it will make them so happy,” he reminisces. “Do things you love. Do things that you have faith will make other people happy and that will give back what you give them.”
#5 Get Open“You want to always be open, creative and fluid as possible, and never become rigid, old or tight,” he writes, encouraging readers to let loose and lower your defenses.
And if you're thinking these principles are easy for someone worth millions to say, Aaron asks him about that too in the accompanying clip.
The Joy of Giving
Simmons' list of his successes are deep but the endeavors most important to him may be those that go along with his first principle listed above. The idea of being a “good giver.”
He is known globally for not only his business acumen, but also his commitment to philanthropy. Simmons has devoted an entire division of empire to charity and non-profit work.
Russell Simmons is also the author of New York Times best-seller, “Do You!”
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Best practices for project management
CLEAR and adequate project management systems, good risk management and measurements of project success aligned with corporate goals are some of the keys to effective project management identified in a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
The study, sponsored by Oracle and titled Closing the Gap: The link between project management excellence and long-term success, surveyed 213 senior executives and project management experts worldwide in September 2009. The report is also supplemented by in-depth interviews and desk research and focuses on six project-intensive industries— industrial manufacturing; architecture, engineering and construction; utilities, oil and gas; chemicals; aerospace and defence; and mining and metals.
While survey respondents are almost unanimous in recognising a need for good project management, many admit that more than a quarter of their projects are late or over budget. One reason identified in the study is that only 40% of the organisations surveyed follow formal project management practices for all projects — regardless of size and scope.
Furthermore, only a fifth use a standardised set of project management tools.
Tom Bourgeois, chief project engineer for Shell International, who was interviewed for the study, warned that a lack of standardised tools can “lead to trouble” as in his experience, project managers using multiple tools that don’t integrate can be overwhelmed. “You are just begging for errors, and the bigger the project, the harder it is to find the mistakes,” he said in the report.
Confusing risk management with contingency planning is another problem identified by the study. While 48% of respondents say that adhering to project management practices helps them manage risk, only 26% evaluate how effectively they have identified and managed risk as part of the project review process. According to the report, the risk process is often looked at only when problems occur.
Equipping project managers with the tools they need and promoting good management skills and behaviour is an ongoing process for many project-focused companies. More than half are continually working to improve their methods while 82% offer some level of project management training. The report added that training, mentoring and other development activities for project management professionals should be tied to specific skills gaps and career planning — this reinforces the necessary skills.
How a project’s success is measured is also essential. According to the report, projects should not be measured purely on meeting time and budget goals. But more than half the respondents surveyed don’t measure a project’s return on investment and three-quarter of them fail to ask clients if they are satisfied with project outcomes.
These companies are missing out on a valuable part of the project management process, observed Ajay Malhan, senior vice-president of project and development services for Jones Lang LaSalle, India in the report. The global real estate services firm conducts project reviews with the team, clients and contractors to evaluate problems that arose and discuss if they could have been better handled. “This process is considered a huge value-add by our clients, and it wins us a lot of repeat business,” said Malhan.
The report also found that project management skills have helped companies remain competitive during the worldwide economic crisis. For companies who are looking to improve, many admit the downturn underscored their shortcomings and is forcing them to “do better”.
Many companies are changing how they manage projects, with 40% investing more time in project planning and due diligence, 39% measuring project outcomes more frequently and 37% conducting more frequent project reviews to assess risks and overall value.
The report concluded that to make the most of the lessons learnt during the downturn, leaders need to “take a hard look at the methods their organisations use to select, manage and measure project outcomes, and align those methods with their long-term strategic objectives”.
“Leaders who continue to do so when economy rebounds will garner the greatest long-term success,” it said.
Written by Emily Tan, The Edge Daily
The study, sponsored by Oracle and titled Closing the Gap: The link between project management excellence and long-term success, surveyed 213 senior executives and project management experts worldwide in September 2009. The report is also supplemented by in-depth interviews and desk research and focuses on six project-intensive industries— industrial manufacturing; architecture, engineering and construction; utilities, oil and gas; chemicals; aerospace and defence; and mining and metals.
While survey respondents are almost unanimous in recognising a need for good project management, many admit that more than a quarter of their projects are late or over budget. One reason identified in the study is that only 40% of the organisations surveyed follow formal project management practices for all projects — regardless of size and scope.
Furthermore, only a fifth use a standardised set of project management tools.
Tom Bourgeois, chief project engineer for Shell International, who was interviewed for the study, warned that a lack of standardised tools can “lead to trouble” as in his experience, project managers using multiple tools that don’t integrate can be overwhelmed. “You are just begging for errors, and the bigger the project, the harder it is to find the mistakes,” he said in the report.
Confusing risk management with contingency planning is another problem identified by the study. While 48% of respondents say that adhering to project management practices helps them manage risk, only 26% evaluate how effectively they have identified and managed risk as part of the project review process. According to the report, the risk process is often looked at only when problems occur.
Equipping project managers with the tools they need and promoting good management skills and behaviour is an ongoing process for many project-focused companies. More than half are continually working to improve their methods while 82% offer some level of project management training. The report added that training, mentoring and other development activities for project management professionals should be tied to specific skills gaps and career planning — this reinforces the necessary skills.
How a project’s success is measured is also essential. According to the report, projects should not be measured purely on meeting time and budget goals. But more than half the respondents surveyed don’t measure a project’s return on investment and three-quarter of them fail to ask clients if they are satisfied with project outcomes.
These companies are missing out on a valuable part of the project management process, observed Ajay Malhan, senior vice-president of project and development services for Jones Lang LaSalle, India in the report. The global real estate services firm conducts project reviews with the team, clients and contractors to evaluate problems that arose and discuss if they could have been better handled. “This process is considered a huge value-add by our clients, and it wins us a lot of repeat business,” said Malhan.
The report also found that project management skills have helped companies remain competitive during the worldwide economic crisis. For companies who are looking to improve, many admit the downturn underscored their shortcomings and is forcing them to “do better”.
Many companies are changing how they manage projects, with 40% investing more time in project planning and due diligence, 39% measuring project outcomes more frequently and 37% conducting more frequent project reviews to assess risks and overall value.
The report concluded that to make the most of the lessons learnt during the downturn, leaders need to “take a hard look at the methods their organisations use to select, manage and measure project outcomes, and align those methods with their long-term strategic objectives”.
“Leaders who continue to do so when economy rebounds will garner the greatest long-term success,” it said.
Written by Emily Tan, The Edge Daily
Selecting teams for success
A new CEO is appointed and immediately begins to hire executives from his previous employer to replace incumbents in roles directly reporting to him. These new executives in turn begin hiring people that they have worked with into the roles that report to them and this process is repeated through several layers within the organisation until new employees occupy a majority of the key positions in a short time period.
It is a familiar scenario which leads to accusations of favouritism and nepotism from displaced employees and employees who remain. The new leaders have different ways of doing things and from their new-found positions of power, begin imposing these on legacy employees. Restructures based on “spill and fill” staffing processes are used to implement these personnel changes, further compounding the disruption to business continuity and increasing feelings of instability among the original employees. While the influx of new executives brings innovative ideas, it also leads to a loss of institutional memory as long-serving employees depart.
As the previous roles, qualifications and track records of the new leaders become known either through casual conversation or diligent research via “Google”, the consternation regarding this “invasion” increases because the new leaders, on paper, compare poorly with those they have replaced
The resulting disunity is counter-productive for the organisation. So, why do boards permit this scenario to occur when a new CEO is brought in from external sources? The reasons may be less sinister than initially thought.
The external appointment of a new CEO is usually an indication of one or more of the following:
• The failure of the board and former CEO to unearth and develop potential successors from within the organisation;
• A signal that the board wishes to take the organisation in a new direction; and/or
• The board was dissatisfied with the former CEO’s leadership and performance.
In the case of the latter two possibilities, the board expects the new CEO to bring in some new leadership talent to enable more radical changes to be made and tends to provide more latitude with regard to hiring than would otherwise be the case. In fact, new CEOs who are unable to attract any new talent to the organisation may disappoint a board hoping that the appointment would lead to a turnaround in performance or a significant change in direction. While this explains why boards may be willing to countenance many significant changes to the senior executive ranks following a change of CEO, it does not explain why new CEOs tend to hire people familiar to them into these critical roles rather than attempt to work with the talent that they inherit or source the best available external talent from a broader set of sources.
While bias and nepotism are possible explanations for the new CEO’s tendency to recruit former colleagues, the frequency of this occurrence suggests that we would need to believe that the vast majority of CEOs have these less than admirable traits. Perhaps there is another explanation that better reflects the true motivation of new CEOs. The increasing compensation levels required to recruit senior executives and the decreasing tenure of these executives in their roles imply that hiring senior executives is a risky proposition. While assessment techniques have improved such that methodologies based on assessment centres, for example, can yield up to a 65% success rate (a vast improvement compared with the 10% success rate for unstructured interviews), CEOs may prefer to rely on their own assessments of talent gained in actual work situations.
Even if the executive in question has certain weaknesses, the new CEOs may believe that they are able to staff the person in roles that leverage the executive’s strengths but protect weaknesses from exposure. In other words, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”. The CEO’s believe that working with an executive with whom they have successfully worked with in the past is lower-risk than working with an individual who may have better credentials or have a superior track record but whose working style may not be compatible with the CEO’s. Given that the success of the CEOs is often dependent on the performance of those reporting to them, it is easy to understand why new CEO’s may adopt this conservative approach to selecting their teams because in their view, it reduces the risk of failure. Nevertheless, there is a downside to this approach.
Executive teams which have worked together repeatedly in one organisation after another are unlikely to challenge each other’s views or methodologies. This lack of questioning or true diversity in management style and thought patterns detracts from the creative tension I mentioned in my previous article as necessary for effective organisation design. Undoubtedly, this over-familiarity within senior executive teams was a contributory cause of the current global financial crisis as there was insufficient dissenting voices within executive and board rooms warning that the lending binge fuelled by high levels of liquidity would ultimately lead to a credit crunch. In addition, there is no guarantee that executives the CEO has worked with successfully in the past will be able to adapt their style sufficiently to succeed in the circumstances faced by the new organisation.
The solution is for senior human resource professionals to become more familiar and confident with the leading-edge selection and assessment methodologies available today. Even more important will be their ability to convince new CEO’s on the value of ensuring that their leadership teams need to have a balance between new executives who bring creative ideas into the organisation and existing executives who have valuable institutional knowledge and the experience to implement changes effectively.
Written by Dharma Chandran is a human capital partner and performance and reward leader with Ernst & Young Far East Area
It is a familiar scenario which leads to accusations of favouritism and nepotism from displaced employees and employees who remain. The new leaders have different ways of doing things and from their new-found positions of power, begin imposing these on legacy employees. Restructures based on “spill and fill” staffing processes are used to implement these personnel changes, further compounding the disruption to business continuity and increasing feelings of instability among the original employees. While the influx of new executives brings innovative ideas, it also leads to a loss of institutional memory as long-serving employees depart.
As the previous roles, qualifications and track records of the new leaders become known either through casual conversation or diligent research via “Google”, the consternation regarding this “invasion” increases because the new leaders, on paper, compare poorly with those they have replaced
The resulting disunity is counter-productive for the organisation. So, why do boards permit this scenario to occur when a new CEO is brought in from external sources? The reasons may be less sinister than initially thought.
The external appointment of a new CEO is usually an indication of one or more of the following:
• The failure of the board and former CEO to unearth and develop potential successors from within the organisation;
• A signal that the board wishes to take the organisation in a new direction; and/or
• The board was dissatisfied with the former CEO’s leadership and performance.
In the case of the latter two possibilities, the board expects the new CEO to bring in some new leadership talent to enable more radical changes to be made and tends to provide more latitude with regard to hiring than would otherwise be the case. In fact, new CEOs who are unable to attract any new talent to the organisation may disappoint a board hoping that the appointment would lead to a turnaround in performance or a significant change in direction. While this explains why boards may be willing to countenance many significant changes to the senior executive ranks following a change of CEO, it does not explain why new CEOs tend to hire people familiar to them into these critical roles rather than attempt to work with the talent that they inherit or source the best available external talent from a broader set of sources.
While bias and nepotism are possible explanations for the new CEO’s tendency to recruit former colleagues, the frequency of this occurrence suggests that we would need to believe that the vast majority of CEOs have these less than admirable traits. Perhaps there is another explanation that better reflects the true motivation of new CEOs. The increasing compensation levels required to recruit senior executives and the decreasing tenure of these executives in their roles imply that hiring senior executives is a risky proposition. While assessment techniques have improved such that methodologies based on assessment centres, for example, can yield up to a 65% success rate (a vast improvement compared with the 10% success rate for unstructured interviews), CEOs may prefer to rely on their own assessments of talent gained in actual work situations.
Even if the executive in question has certain weaknesses, the new CEOs may believe that they are able to staff the person in roles that leverage the executive’s strengths but protect weaknesses from exposure. In other words, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”. The CEO’s believe that working with an executive with whom they have successfully worked with in the past is lower-risk than working with an individual who may have better credentials or have a superior track record but whose working style may not be compatible with the CEO’s. Given that the success of the CEOs is often dependent on the performance of those reporting to them, it is easy to understand why new CEO’s may adopt this conservative approach to selecting their teams because in their view, it reduces the risk of failure. Nevertheless, there is a downside to this approach.
Executive teams which have worked together repeatedly in one organisation after another are unlikely to challenge each other’s views or methodologies. This lack of questioning or true diversity in management style and thought patterns detracts from the creative tension I mentioned in my previous article as necessary for effective organisation design. Undoubtedly, this over-familiarity within senior executive teams was a contributory cause of the current global financial crisis as there was insufficient dissenting voices within executive and board rooms warning that the lending binge fuelled by high levels of liquidity would ultimately lead to a credit crunch. In addition, there is no guarantee that executives the CEO has worked with successfully in the past will be able to adapt their style sufficiently to succeed in the circumstances faced by the new organisation.
The solution is for senior human resource professionals to become more familiar and confident with the leading-edge selection and assessment methodologies available today. Even more important will be their ability to convince new CEO’s on the value of ensuring that their leadership teams need to have a balance between new executives who bring creative ideas into the organisation and existing executives who have valuable institutional knowledge and the experience to implement changes effectively.
Written by Dharma Chandran is a human capital partner and performance and reward leader with Ernst & Young Far East Area
Keeping top talent in a down economy
How do managers boost the performance of employees when business is down? That question is the focus of a new book by Sylvia Ann Hewlett. Top Talent: Keeping Performance Up When Business is Down explores the wide range of tools and techniques available to employers struggling with both how to motivate and keep the loyalty of workers and managers.
Hewlett, a graduate of London University, is an economist and the founding president of the Centre for Work-Life Policy, a non-profit think tank, where she chairs the “Hidden Brain Drain”, a task force of 50 global companies and organisations committed to fully realising female and multicultural talent. In addition, she directs the Gender and Policy Programme of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
In 2009, Sylvia Ann Hewlett Associates formed an alliance with Booz & Co, focused on helping organisations leverage top talent across the divides of culture, gender and generation. Here, Hewlett talks about what it takes to keep top talent happy today.
Hewlett: Be proactive about nurturing,supporting and making sure your top talent know they're important
In good times, companies say people are the most important asset. In bad times, they get rid of them. Is that a paradox — or hypocrisy?
At the heart of the problem is that a lot of the top performers out there feel totally ignored and out of the loop. Their bosses are perhaps focusing on the clamouring clients in this recession or on the vapourising bottom line. And these top performers feel that they’re being taken for granted.
Many bosses seem to think that, with a 10-plus per cent rate of unemployment, they can rely on their best people putting their nose to the grindstone and delivering 110% day in day out. But that’s not true: There’s a lot of alienation, a lot of disengagement.
My sense is that half of the workforce is spending more than half their time looking for their next job. I think the flight risk — as well as the productivity losses — that happens because bosses are out of touch with how their workers think and feel [even their best workers!] is enormous.
You commented recently that the loyalty rate among star performers has now plunged from more than 90% to 53%. Why has that happened?
Top performers feel neglected, and many of them are struggling by working in companies with broken business models. Imagine being in a company within the financial sector right now — or the pharmaceutical industry or maybe the media industry.
There is massive turbulence in those industries, and those working in such companies feel that they’re not involved in figuring out how to help move their company forward. They also feel that somehow they’re not nearly as important as they used to be. They’re struggling by working within depleted teams, given that many of their peers might have been fired over the last couple of years.
If you are working in a company today, the odds are you’re doing much more work with less help or resources. In our surveys, we find that 20% of employees are working nine hours more than just a year ago. So, the pressures are intense and the recognition of effort is very low. Obviously, there’s a lot of disengagement, a lot of turning off of trust and loyalty to the company and its bosses.
How many people are totally engaged in their work?
Only 10% to 20% of people in any organisation are fully engaged. There’s a mass of people who aren’t really one way or another, and then there are people who are actively disengaged. A UK study released in October, the Watson Wyatt survey, confirms that the engagement level of top performers is down 25%. This is dangerous.
Keep in mind that the top performers are the most mobile, the ones who can get new jobs easily. When a company lays off workers thinking it will be a boon to the bottom line, they’re being myopic. The top talent, the people who were not laid off, are most likely to be among the survivors, the ones who will have to work harder and feel underappreciated as a result. And these are the folks who can get jobs most easily on the outside, who can even cross over to other sectors.
The smart employer needs to place this task at the top of his or her agenda these days: Be proactive about nurturing, supporting and making sure your top talent know they’re important.
Are your observations and advice applicable to all industries?
I think right across the board, as we pick up our heads from the economic rubble and try to find renewal and growth that, no matter what sector you’re in, it’s your collective workforce brainpower that’s going to be the big driver of success tomorrow.
And that’s true in basic industry, it’s true certainly in science and technology, true in the media, on Wall Street or in the oldest economic firms in the City of London. It’s really across board; we now have a knowledge economy that’s highly dependent on innovative thinking by top people in order to spur the next wave of corporate growth. Ignoring your best people right now is a definite business risk.
Do you see some companies that revere their top talent?
In the most recent research my team and I conducted, we focused on 30 different companies. Half of them are on Main Street, more locally owned; the other half are on Wall Street or in a larger city. What we found is that there are some very important top-management interventions that really are working, in terms of ratcheting up engagement, re-igniting effort, making sure that people can really fire on all cylinders even in the midst of a great recession, when perhaps bonuses are rare and pay raises are again something that many companies can’t pony up.
You’ve said that such companies have a ‘no spin’ culture. What do you mean by that?
One thing we find is that silence and mystery, feeling that you’re not in the loop, is corrosive for all employees and particularly for team leaders who are trying to figure out the best ways to lead their teams.
On the other hand, we found models of openness. For example, Jeff Bewkes at TimeWarner, a company that is now only half the size it was 18 months ago, found that having an open luncheon [basically, a kind of bull session] with his junior-level as well as his high-potential people made a huge difference.
Those who came to the luncheon came away feeling they were on Bewkes’ radar and that their views were being included in his mind in terms of trying to recreate the business model. It’s his effort to break down the barriers and make sure that people across the company are in the loop in terms of figuring out where the company’s going.
So, communication is crucial?
Totally critical. Google, for instance, is another case study. It has always had something called TGIF [Thank God It’s Friday]. It’s a meeting within the company, Friday mornings, at which folks at the Mountain View, California headquarters — but also around the world via a website link — are able to ask all kinds of tough questions of the senior executives.
The tradition at Google is that you can ask anything you like, and it’s honoured and it’s answered. That tradition has made all the difference in this year of knocks and downturns and all kinds of stuff; even a company such as Google has found it’s tightening its belt in various ways. This is a method of making sure that there’s transparency and honesty vis-à-vis where the company’s really going.
What else should companies be doing to get the most out of their top talent?
Of the management initiatives I’ve seen, one of my favourites is the endeavour to use time as currency. People feel pressured everywhere, packing their days with too much work. A mini-sabbatical or the ability to do a four-day week for a few months makes all the difference if you want to rekindle loyalty to the boss and to the company’s mission.
KPMG in the UK has done a very good job on this front. Just last winter, it was facing the problem of needing to cut payroll by about 20%; but it didn’t want to fire any of the best people. So KPMG offered 11,000 professionals the following choices: (a) They could go to a four-day week and take a 20% pay cut, (b) they could take a mini-sabbatical and again take a pay cut, (c) they could do both of the above and enjoy a real chunk of personal time off or (d) they could stay precisely where they were.
Guess what? Some 80% of the KPMG professional staff actually opted for one of the time-enriching options.
KPMG managed to hit its savings figure without any redundancies; and engagement went through the roof because employees, both men and women, in this very time-starved, pressured workplace understood that they were being given the choice to take a little real time in a way that wasn’t stigmatised. Because the time off was seen as helping to boost the health of the company, no one was seen as being a loser or as being less valuable to the company than someone else. As a result, all kinds and levels of employees took this option.
It was one of those win-win situations in which top management understood that, today, giving employees time as an incentive, as a reward, can work. I find this is particularly true in an environment in which it’s really hard to conjure up financial incentives to boost morale and loyalty.
Keeping top talent means a company won’t have to recruit as hard when the economy does turn positive, doesn’t it?
Absolutely. And another great benefit can result from tapping into the altruism that employees have, particularly in difficult years. So many workers these days want to do something about climate change or healing the planet or saving lives. Companies like Pfizer and Moody’s have decided to give their top talent an opportunity to give back.
The Pfizer example is very interesting: Last winter, realising that there was a morale issue throughout the company, it started a programme called Global Access, which was a new business initiative at Pfizer that attempted to create low-cost healthcare solutions for the working poor around the world; it partnered Grameen Bank, the micro-finance lender.
About 19,000 employees at Pfizer wanted to engage in this programme because they thought that it was so wonderful that their company was in the business of doing good in the world. It became a huge engagement tool, especially for Pfizer’s younger employees and its female employees — both sectors of the workforce that wanted to give something back to their communities.
This business of including some altruistic give-back option in the incentive structure is a win-win situation, especially now when workers increasingly understand that there are a lot of people who could be helped by special programmes such as Global Access.
You have written nine books. Is there a common theme?
Yes. I’ve done a lot of writing on how best to manage high-performing women, minorities and multicultural workplaces. The interesting link is that many of the motivational drivers are the same for, say, a 37-year-old woman trying to decide whether to stay in her career or go home and spend more time looking after her kids, or a 35-year-old Hispanic man who’s trying to decide whether to stay in corporate America or start his own small company.
What makes the most difference is whether the corporate employer can pony up rewards that go beyond the pay cheque, whether it can offer the employee the ability to give back to the community and whether it can operate on a flexi-time basis, which provides employees some control over when and how work gets done. Those items are very important both to the woman and to the Hispanic worker.
Written by Des Dearlove & Stuart Crainer
Hewlett, a graduate of London University, is an economist and the founding president of the Centre for Work-Life Policy, a non-profit think tank, where she chairs the “Hidden Brain Drain”, a task force of 50 global companies and organisations committed to fully realising female and multicultural talent. In addition, she directs the Gender and Policy Programme of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
In 2009, Sylvia Ann Hewlett Associates formed an alliance with Booz & Co, focused on helping organisations leverage top talent across the divides of culture, gender and generation. Here, Hewlett talks about what it takes to keep top talent happy today.
Hewlett: Be proactive about nurturing,supporting and making sure your top talent know they're important
In good times, companies say people are the most important asset. In bad times, they get rid of them. Is that a paradox — or hypocrisy?
At the heart of the problem is that a lot of the top performers out there feel totally ignored and out of the loop. Their bosses are perhaps focusing on the clamouring clients in this recession or on the vapourising bottom line. And these top performers feel that they’re being taken for granted.
Many bosses seem to think that, with a 10-plus per cent rate of unemployment, they can rely on their best people putting their nose to the grindstone and delivering 110% day in day out. But that’s not true: There’s a lot of alienation, a lot of disengagement.
My sense is that half of the workforce is spending more than half their time looking for their next job. I think the flight risk — as well as the productivity losses — that happens because bosses are out of touch with how their workers think and feel [even their best workers!] is enormous.
You commented recently that the loyalty rate among star performers has now plunged from more than 90% to 53%. Why has that happened?
Top performers feel neglected, and many of them are struggling by working in companies with broken business models. Imagine being in a company within the financial sector right now — or the pharmaceutical industry or maybe the media industry.
There is massive turbulence in those industries, and those working in such companies feel that they’re not involved in figuring out how to help move their company forward. They also feel that somehow they’re not nearly as important as they used to be. They’re struggling by working within depleted teams, given that many of their peers might have been fired over the last couple of years.
If you are working in a company today, the odds are you’re doing much more work with less help or resources. In our surveys, we find that 20% of employees are working nine hours more than just a year ago. So, the pressures are intense and the recognition of effort is very low. Obviously, there’s a lot of disengagement, a lot of turning off of trust and loyalty to the company and its bosses.
How many people are totally engaged in their work?
Only 10% to 20% of people in any organisation are fully engaged. There’s a mass of people who aren’t really one way or another, and then there are people who are actively disengaged. A UK study released in October, the Watson Wyatt survey, confirms that the engagement level of top performers is down 25%. This is dangerous.
Keep in mind that the top performers are the most mobile, the ones who can get new jobs easily. When a company lays off workers thinking it will be a boon to the bottom line, they’re being myopic. The top talent, the people who were not laid off, are most likely to be among the survivors, the ones who will have to work harder and feel underappreciated as a result. And these are the folks who can get jobs most easily on the outside, who can even cross over to other sectors.
The smart employer needs to place this task at the top of his or her agenda these days: Be proactive about nurturing, supporting and making sure your top talent know they’re important.
Are your observations and advice applicable to all industries?
I think right across the board, as we pick up our heads from the economic rubble and try to find renewal and growth that, no matter what sector you’re in, it’s your collective workforce brainpower that’s going to be the big driver of success tomorrow.
And that’s true in basic industry, it’s true certainly in science and technology, true in the media, on Wall Street or in the oldest economic firms in the City of London. It’s really across board; we now have a knowledge economy that’s highly dependent on innovative thinking by top people in order to spur the next wave of corporate growth. Ignoring your best people right now is a definite business risk.
Do you see some companies that revere their top talent?
In the most recent research my team and I conducted, we focused on 30 different companies. Half of them are on Main Street, more locally owned; the other half are on Wall Street or in a larger city. What we found is that there are some very important top-management interventions that really are working, in terms of ratcheting up engagement, re-igniting effort, making sure that people can really fire on all cylinders even in the midst of a great recession, when perhaps bonuses are rare and pay raises are again something that many companies can’t pony up.
You’ve said that such companies have a ‘no spin’ culture. What do you mean by that?
One thing we find is that silence and mystery, feeling that you’re not in the loop, is corrosive for all employees and particularly for team leaders who are trying to figure out the best ways to lead their teams.
On the other hand, we found models of openness. For example, Jeff Bewkes at TimeWarner, a company that is now only half the size it was 18 months ago, found that having an open luncheon [basically, a kind of bull session] with his junior-level as well as his high-potential people made a huge difference.
Those who came to the luncheon came away feeling they were on Bewkes’ radar and that their views were being included in his mind in terms of trying to recreate the business model. It’s his effort to break down the barriers and make sure that people across the company are in the loop in terms of figuring out where the company’s going.
So, communication is crucial?
Totally critical. Google, for instance, is another case study. It has always had something called TGIF [Thank God It’s Friday]. It’s a meeting within the company, Friday mornings, at which folks at the Mountain View, California headquarters — but also around the world via a website link — are able to ask all kinds of tough questions of the senior executives.
The tradition at Google is that you can ask anything you like, and it’s honoured and it’s answered. That tradition has made all the difference in this year of knocks and downturns and all kinds of stuff; even a company such as Google has found it’s tightening its belt in various ways. This is a method of making sure that there’s transparency and honesty vis-à-vis where the company’s really going.
What else should companies be doing to get the most out of their top talent?
Of the management initiatives I’ve seen, one of my favourites is the endeavour to use time as currency. People feel pressured everywhere, packing their days with too much work. A mini-sabbatical or the ability to do a four-day week for a few months makes all the difference if you want to rekindle loyalty to the boss and to the company’s mission.
KPMG in the UK has done a very good job on this front. Just last winter, it was facing the problem of needing to cut payroll by about 20%; but it didn’t want to fire any of the best people. So KPMG offered 11,000 professionals the following choices: (a) They could go to a four-day week and take a 20% pay cut, (b) they could take a mini-sabbatical and again take a pay cut, (c) they could do both of the above and enjoy a real chunk of personal time off or (d) they could stay precisely where they were.
Guess what? Some 80% of the KPMG professional staff actually opted for one of the time-enriching options.
KPMG managed to hit its savings figure without any redundancies; and engagement went through the roof because employees, both men and women, in this very time-starved, pressured workplace understood that they were being given the choice to take a little real time in a way that wasn’t stigmatised. Because the time off was seen as helping to boost the health of the company, no one was seen as being a loser or as being less valuable to the company than someone else. As a result, all kinds and levels of employees took this option.
It was one of those win-win situations in which top management understood that, today, giving employees time as an incentive, as a reward, can work. I find this is particularly true in an environment in which it’s really hard to conjure up financial incentives to boost morale and loyalty.
Keeping top talent means a company won’t have to recruit as hard when the economy does turn positive, doesn’t it?
Absolutely. And another great benefit can result from tapping into the altruism that employees have, particularly in difficult years. So many workers these days want to do something about climate change or healing the planet or saving lives. Companies like Pfizer and Moody’s have decided to give their top talent an opportunity to give back.
The Pfizer example is very interesting: Last winter, realising that there was a morale issue throughout the company, it started a programme called Global Access, which was a new business initiative at Pfizer that attempted to create low-cost healthcare solutions for the working poor around the world; it partnered Grameen Bank, the micro-finance lender.
About 19,000 employees at Pfizer wanted to engage in this programme because they thought that it was so wonderful that their company was in the business of doing good in the world. It became a huge engagement tool, especially for Pfizer’s younger employees and its female employees — both sectors of the workforce that wanted to give something back to their communities.
This business of including some altruistic give-back option in the incentive structure is a win-win situation, especially now when workers increasingly understand that there are a lot of people who could be helped by special programmes such as Global Access.
You have written nine books. Is there a common theme?
Yes. I’ve done a lot of writing on how best to manage high-performing women, minorities and multicultural workplaces. The interesting link is that many of the motivational drivers are the same for, say, a 37-year-old woman trying to decide whether to stay in her career or go home and spend more time looking after her kids, or a 35-year-old Hispanic man who’s trying to decide whether to stay in corporate America or start his own small company.
What makes the most difference is whether the corporate employer can pony up rewards that go beyond the pay cheque, whether it can offer the employee the ability to give back to the community and whether it can operate on a flexi-time basis, which provides employees some control over when and how work gets done. Those items are very important both to the woman and to the Hispanic worker.
Written by Des Dearlove & Stuart Crainer
Time to splurge or save?
IT’S bonus time! After a “barren” 2009, N. Sheila is looking forward to the one month bonus that has been bandied about through her company’s grapevines.
In the past, the 28-year-old engineer would splurge on a new wardrobe but this year, she intends to settle her credit card debts first.
“The money will come in handy,” she says, adding that recent hard times have taught her the value of money. If there’s extra cash to spare, she intends to spend it on a short holiday in Bali next year instead of a more expensive destination.
According to the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF), an estimated 4.68 million private sector employees are due for bonuses over the next few weeks, while 4.4 million workers will benefit from salary increments.
Based on MEF’s latest survey, companies will pay up to an average of two-month bonuses.
“Generally speaking, things are looking much brighter,” MEF executive director Shamsuddin Bardan says.
Firms are doing much better this time around, he notes, referring to the economy that was previously affected by the global financial crisis.
Shamsuddin says their survey shows that the capacity for companies to pay out yearly bonuses has increased from 50% in 2009 to 80% this year.
Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK) CEO Akwal Sultan points out that bonuses given by companies are either contractual or performance-based, adding that the bulk will be based on the latter.
Akwal advises those who get contractual bonuses to plan their spending early on.
Rajen Devadason, a Securities Commission-licensed financial planner with MAAKL Mutual Bhd, believes that not all bonuses will be paid out this year-end, but at various points throughout 2011.
Regardless of when these bonuses are paid out, Devadason says it is imperative that working adults base their household budgets and cash flow projections on confirmed monthly income.
He believes the average Malaysian may end up squandering his or her bonus money.
“Three months after receiving the bonus, they will find it difficult to tell how exactly their lives improved.
“On the other hand, there are those who will wisely use the extra money to strike a balance between enjoying some short-term benefits and securing greater long-term financial strength through judicious saving and investing,” he adds.
Devadason says it would be unwise for people to use their year-end bonus to make up for cash shortfalls during the year.
Money that flows into their bank accounts in the form of contractual and especially ex-gratia bonuses should be treated with extra care and respect, as it will allow for significant long-term financial improvement.
1. Settle high-interest debts
Whitman Independent Advisors Sdn Bhd managing director Yap Ming Hui’s advice is for all credit card debts to be settled first because of the high interest rates for payments that range from 13% to 18%.
“It is not easy to get the same rates on any investment,” he adds.
Akwal concurs, saying that unpaid credit cards cause debts of individuals, especially youngsters, to pile up. He says people will start paying the minimum amount, leading to higher compounding effects.
Once credit card payments are paid off, we should look at settling personal and housing loans so that principal and daily interest are lowered, he adds.
2. Money in reserve
The general rule of thumb is to always have at least six months of living expenses in reserves, says Yap. For instance, if your cost of living is RM3,000 monthly, you should have at least a RM18,000 buffer.
“If there is an emergency, you will still have cash and won’t have to sell anything off,” Yap explains.
Akwal says that these savings could be in the form of saving accounts, unit trusts or even a gold investment account.
“The important thing is that you can withdraw quickly in an emergency.”
MIDF Research’s chief economist Anthony Dass, meanwhile, suggests a portion or 30% of the extra cash inflow be saved. One can also invest in inflation hedging instruments, given the expectation of higher inflation in 2011.
3. Treat yourself
Akwal believes everyone deserves a treat and depending on how much you get, this could be in the form of a holiday or a meal.
“This will be the last sum you get in the year and some part of it should be used to pamper yourself,” he says.
“If you can’t afford that overseas holiday, then bring your family to our local destinations. They are just as beautiful, and it will support our tourism industry.”
4. Give to charity
If you think times are hard, then spare a thought for charitable organisations that usually work on tight budgets. In uncertain times, individuals and companies generally cut down donations, making it more difficult for charities to operate.
In Malaysia, there are many charities and NGOs that require assistance in cash and kind.
“It is good for the soul to be generous towards those less fortunate. Well-chosen charities should be selected to receive anything between 1-10%, of the net bonus,” Devadason suggests.
5. Repairs
That car of yours badly needs a touch-up? Or your house pipes are leaking? This would be the best time to do those repairs says Akwal.
6. Understand your investment
Those without investing experience or time should consult a professional financial adviser licensed by the Securities Commission or Bank Negara.
Whether you plan on investing in the property market, stock market, unit trusts, gold futures, you should always know how it works, says Yap.
“The most important thing is that you know how the investment operates and the risks involved.”
Yap points out that there are some risky get-rich-quick schemes that promise high returns where the methods of how the income is generated is not explained.
“Be cautious, especially if the returns are high,” he says, adding that many people have been stuck in quandaries despite the constant reminders on such schemes.
Akwal’s advice is to invest in something familiar and not because someone tells you to invest in it.
“Many people have lost money this way,” he cautions.
7. Investment
The golden rule of investing is to never put all eggs in one basket, says Akwal.
“People should diversify their investments - whether it’s in the stock market, investing in property or unit trusts.”
“For instance, if investing in the stock market, spread out the investments into different portfolios such as agriculture, plantation and the construction sectors.” Anthony also suggests investments in the form of forced savings like EPF, insurance, unit trust, equities or even properties to take advantage of assets inflation.
Devadason says it would make sense to flow a portion of your bonus into short-term bank fixed deposits of say one-month on auto-renewal, to catch any potential overnight policy rate (OPR) hikes by Bank Negara in the coming year.
Another portion, he adds, can be used as ad-hoc injection into existing equity unit trust funds (of good pedigree), which might currently show losses to significantly lower the average cost of your units and increase the chances of making larger percentage gains in the future when greater equity recovery kicks in.
More sophisticated investors can broaden the asset class exposure of their personal retirement portfolios by adding international equity funds to diversify away from excessive Malaysia-centric equity exposure.
One can also include carefully chosen money market and bond funds to add stability to those vital long-term portfolios.
“Those willing to do additional homework might consider increasing both agricultural and precious metals exposure in their portfolios,” he says.
In the past, the 28-year-old engineer would splurge on a new wardrobe but this year, she intends to settle her credit card debts first.
“The money will come in handy,” she says, adding that recent hard times have taught her the value of money. If there’s extra cash to spare, she intends to spend it on a short holiday in Bali next year instead of a more expensive destination.
According to the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF), an estimated 4.68 million private sector employees are due for bonuses over the next few weeks, while 4.4 million workers will benefit from salary increments.
Based on MEF’s latest survey, companies will pay up to an average of two-month bonuses.
“Generally speaking, things are looking much brighter,” MEF executive director Shamsuddin Bardan says.
Firms are doing much better this time around, he notes, referring to the economy that was previously affected by the global financial crisis.
Shamsuddin says their survey shows that the capacity for companies to pay out yearly bonuses has increased from 50% in 2009 to 80% this year.
Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK) CEO Akwal Sultan points out that bonuses given by companies are either contractual or performance-based, adding that the bulk will be based on the latter.
Akwal advises those who get contractual bonuses to plan their spending early on.
Rajen Devadason, a Securities Commission-licensed financial planner with MAAKL Mutual Bhd, believes that not all bonuses will be paid out this year-end, but at various points throughout 2011.
Regardless of when these bonuses are paid out, Devadason says it is imperative that working adults base their household budgets and cash flow projections on confirmed monthly income.
He believes the average Malaysian may end up squandering his or her bonus money.
“Three months after receiving the bonus, they will find it difficult to tell how exactly their lives improved.
“On the other hand, there are those who will wisely use the extra money to strike a balance between enjoying some short-term benefits and securing greater long-term financial strength through judicious saving and investing,” he adds.
Devadason says it would be unwise for people to use their year-end bonus to make up for cash shortfalls during the year.
Money that flows into their bank accounts in the form of contractual and especially ex-gratia bonuses should be treated with extra care and respect, as it will allow for significant long-term financial improvement.
1. Settle high-interest debts
Whitman Independent Advisors Sdn Bhd managing director Yap Ming Hui’s advice is for all credit card debts to be settled first because of the high interest rates for payments that range from 13% to 18%.
“It is not easy to get the same rates on any investment,” he adds.
Akwal concurs, saying that unpaid credit cards cause debts of individuals, especially youngsters, to pile up. He says people will start paying the minimum amount, leading to higher compounding effects.
Once credit card payments are paid off, we should look at settling personal and housing loans so that principal and daily interest are lowered, he adds.
2. Money in reserve
The general rule of thumb is to always have at least six months of living expenses in reserves, says Yap. For instance, if your cost of living is RM3,000 monthly, you should have at least a RM18,000 buffer.
“If there is an emergency, you will still have cash and won’t have to sell anything off,” Yap explains.
Akwal says that these savings could be in the form of saving accounts, unit trusts or even a gold investment account.
“The important thing is that you can withdraw quickly in an emergency.”
MIDF Research’s chief economist Anthony Dass, meanwhile, suggests a portion or 30% of the extra cash inflow be saved. One can also invest in inflation hedging instruments, given the expectation of higher inflation in 2011.
3. Treat yourself
Akwal believes everyone deserves a treat and depending on how much you get, this could be in the form of a holiday or a meal.
“This will be the last sum you get in the year and some part of it should be used to pamper yourself,” he says.
“If you can’t afford that overseas holiday, then bring your family to our local destinations. They are just as beautiful, and it will support our tourism industry.”
4. Give to charity
If you think times are hard, then spare a thought for charitable organisations that usually work on tight budgets. In uncertain times, individuals and companies generally cut down donations, making it more difficult for charities to operate.
In Malaysia, there are many charities and NGOs that require assistance in cash and kind.
“It is good for the soul to be generous towards those less fortunate. Well-chosen charities should be selected to receive anything between 1-10%, of the net bonus,” Devadason suggests.
5. Repairs
That car of yours badly needs a touch-up? Or your house pipes are leaking? This would be the best time to do those repairs says Akwal.
6. Understand your investment
Those without investing experience or time should consult a professional financial adviser licensed by the Securities Commission or Bank Negara.
Whether you plan on investing in the property market, stock market, unit trusts, gold futures, you should always know how it works, says Yap.
“The most important thing is that you know how the investment operates and the risks involved.”
Yap points out that there are some risky get-rich-quick schemes that promise high returns where the methods of how the income is generated is not explained.
“Be cautious, especially if the returns are high,” he says, adding that many people have been stuck in quandaries despite the constant reminders on such schemes.
Akwal’s advice is to invest in something familiar and not because someone tells you to invest in it.
“Many people have lost money this way,” he cautions.
7. Investment
The golden rule of investing is to never put all eggs in one basket, says Akwal.
“People should diversify their investments - whether it’s in the stock market, investing in property or unit trusts.”
“For instance, if investing in the stock market, spread out the investments into different portfolios such as agriculture, plantation and the construction sectors.” Anthony also suggests investments in the form of forced savings like EPF, insurance, unit trust, equities or even properties to take advantage of assets inflation.
Devadason says it would make sense to flow a portion of your bonus into short-term bank fixed deposits of say one-month on auto-renewal, to catch any potential overnight policy rate (OPR) hikes by Bank Negara in the coming year.
Another portion, he adds, can be used as ad-hoc injection into existing equity unit trust funds (of good pedigree), which might currently show losses to significantly lower the average cost of your units and increase the chances of making larger percentage gains in the future when greater equity recovery kicks in.
More sophisticated investors can broaden the asset class exposure of their personal retirement portfolios by adding international equity funds to diversify away from excessive Malaysia-centric equity exposure.
One can also include carefully chosen money market and bond funds to add stability to those vital long-term portfolios.
“Those willing to do additional homework might consider increasing both agricultural and precious metals exposure in their portfolios,” he says.
Take control of your life
HAVE you been getting little sleep and rest because you work late every night and get up early every morning? Are you burning the candle at both ends, working too hard, and tipping your life out of balance and your body out of shape?
If you ask yourself “When did life become all work and no fun?”, you will probably end up blaming your current work or your boss. Spare them.
What your life has become is not because of these factors or any other groundless excuses you can think of. It is about the decisions or choices you make. We all know that life is not just about work.
As a white-collar worker, you have been dragged to your current state of being a slave of time. Time has suddenly become the omnipotent force over you. Time is indispensable. It is what you need to complete your tasks on hand, or to spend for a picnic with your family and friends.
Today, you have many options that are aimed at taking your life back to its normal state. These remedies include more paid vacation leave credits or time management programmes that teach you how to prioritise between and among tasks.
There are a lot of possible solutions out there. However, there is one formula that offers a comprehensive approach towards achieving the work-life balance that many professionals and executives dream of.
Think “Spam” or staying positive, active and motivated to keep your professional career on track and your personal life back.
Here are ways to be a work-life professional:
1 Set goals
Goals are the key drivers of work-life balance, so make sure you identify them. What are your personal and life goals? With the goals in place, try to visualise the look and feel of success you have in mind. Regular visualisation exercises motivate you, taking you closer to your destination. Keep in mind that effective goals are S.M.A.R.T or specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.
2 Plan and prioritise
Planning and prioritising are the skills required in gaining control of your time. Develop a game plan months or even years ahead to ensure that the work you do each day helps you to achieve your goals and objectives in the long run.
Set realistic timelines and clear to-do lists. You should be able to identify which tasks are urgent and important; urgent but not important; not urgent and important; not urgent and not important. Do not leave these great ideas on paper, act on them now.
3 Assess your efforts
After taking the necessary steps towards achieving the goals you have set, give yourself some time to reflect on your performance or effort so far. Ask yourself these questions: “How satisfied am I with my effort?”; “How else could I have done a particular step, if the situation was different, or the conditions changed?”; “What is within my control?” and “What is not within my control?”
4 Motivate yourself constantly
Adopting the right mindset and attitude towards stress ensures a rewarding experience. Stress is a neutral condition and is totally dependent on how you view it.
Having less time for more work may appear daunting to some; but for others, it is considered challenging, even motivating. They get an adrenaline rush and their creative juices start flowing at the thought of pushing their capabilities beyond their comfort zone.
Take the sensible approach. If work is stressing you out, because you just have too much to do, perhaps you could talk to your supervisor about the situation. Work out a realistic schedule to complete the tasks. Try to calm your mind with positive self-talk - tell yourself you can meet your deadlines and do a good job.
Balancing work and life is to have the right to enjoy your life while you are learning and living. When you are happy at home, you will be happier at work!
Always remind yourself that you have the right to feel good, to be strong, to work smart and to be in control of your life.
*Article by Angeline V. Teo, a worklife coach and expert. She is the founder and principal consultant of d’Oz International, a leading learning and development solutions provider.
If you ask yourself “When did life become all work and no fun?”, you will probably end up blaming your current work or your boss. Spare them.
What your life has become is not because of these factors or any other groundless excuses you can think of. It is about the decisions or choices you make. We all know that life is not just about work.
As a white-collar worker, you have been dragged to your current state of being a slave of time. Time has suddenly become the omnipotent force over you. Time is indispensable. It is what you need to complete your tasks on hand, or to spend for a picnic with your family and friends.
Today, you have many options that are aimed at taking your life back to its normal state. These remedies include more paid vacation leave credits or time management programmes that teach you how to prioritise between and among tasks.
There are a lot of possible solutions out there. However, there is one formula that offers a comprehensive approach towards achieving the work-life balance that many professionals and executives dream of.
Think “Spam” or staying positive, active and motivated to keep your professional career on track and your personal life back.
Here are ways to be a work-life professional:
1 Set goals
Goals are the key drivers of work-life balance, so make sure you identify them. What are your personal and life goals? With the goals in place, try to visualise the look and feel of success you have in mind. Regular visualisation exercises motivate you, taking you closer to your destination. Keep in mind that effective goals are S.M.A.R.T or specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.
2 Plan and prioritise
Planning and prioritising are the skills required in gaining control of your time. Develop a game plan months or even years ahead to ensure that the work you do each day helps you to achieve your goals and objectives in the long run.
Set realistic timelines and clear to-do lists. You should be able to identify which tasks are urgent and important; urgent but not important; not urgent and important; not urgent and not important. Do not leave these great ideas on paper, act on them now.
3 Assess your efforts
After taking the necessary steps towards achieving the goals you have set, give yourself some time to reflect on your performance or effort so far. Ask yourself these questions: “How satisfied am I with my effort?”; “How else could I have done a particular step, if the situation was different, or the conditions changed?”; “What is within my control?” and “What is not within my control?”
4 Motivate yourself constantly
Adopting the right mindset and attitude towards stress ensures a rewarding experience. Stress is a neutral condition and is totally dependent on how you view it.
Having less time for more work may appear daunting to some; but for others, it is considered challenging, even motivating. They get an adrenaline rush and their creative juices start flowing at the thought of pushing their capabilities beyond their comfort zone.
Take the sensible approach. If work is stressing you out, because you just have too much to do, perhaps you could talk to your supervisor about the situation. Work out a realistic schedule to complete the tasks. Try to calm your mind with positive self-talk - tell yourself you can meet your deadlines and do a good job.
Balancing work and life is to have the right to enjoy your life while you are learning and living. When you are happy at home, you will be happier at work!
Always remind yourself that you have the right to feel good, to be strong, to work smart and to be in control of your life.
*Article by Angeline V. Teo, a worklife coach and expert. She is the founder and principal consultant of d’Oz International, a leading learning and development solutions provider.
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