Monday, February 23, 2009
17 Success Principles - The Common Traits of Successful People
17 Success Principles - The Common Traits of Successful People
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Summary of Process Oriented Approach: A competitive Advantage according to Quranic Philosophy
Study of Quran clearly indicates that Islam demands us to act, perform and do our best. Results are from Allah SWT, the emphasis is on our actions, this fact becomes very much evident when we see Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) being informed multiple times in The Holy Quran that his duty is to warn and inform the people only: Say: "Obey Allah, and obey the messenger", but if ye turn away, he is only responsible for the duty placed on him and ye for that placed on you. If ye obey him, ye shall be on right guidance. The messenger's duty is only to preach the clear (Message) (Surah Al-Nour, verse 54). Furthermore it's also evident that our actions will decide our eternal fate: "… in his favour shall be whatever good he does, and against him whatever evil he does …" Surah Al baqarah, verse 286.
These verses (and many others) lay down ample emphasis on Muslims to keep their focus on their actions, paradoxically guarantying success; and describing inaction to be the determinant of failure, worldly and eternal: "By (the Token of) Time (through the ages). Verily Man is in loss. Except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy" (Surah Al Asa). Such a stress on action eventually develops a mindset which perceives results or success as natural outcome of actions i.e. you reap what you sow, actions bring results and right actions bring right results. It would be safe to assume that such a mindset ultimately cultivates qualities like persistence, determination, proactive attitude, thirst to improve, doing what's right, i.e. shifting our orientation toward process or the work content.
In business context, process oriented approach is paradoxical as it delivers results without allowing the individual to worry about them. The goal remains their but only to show the direction, only to judge that the path being followed is correct. The culture developed around such a concept is secure, people are candid, happy, and they get the job done on time and the exhibits other good things. The reason being, people here have no fear of any loss, what so ever, as their gains cannot be stolen, or lost, or depreciates with time. In fact their most valued achievable (knowledge, creativity, satisfaction to conscience) grows further when shared with others. People in process oriented culture remain at peace and tranquility, and on the path of continuous growth. The results keeps on flowing in, always reinforcing the fabric of the culture. Goal achievement and growth is always a natural outcome of a process oriented culture.
Please note that the fundamental root cause of all inefficiencies, wastages, procrastinations, organizational resistance to change, politics, etc is Fear! This is an inherent part of goal oriented approach. Lack of knowledge, skill, and experience also cause mistakes but it's only once. If mistakes are repeated then its fear, that is blocking the learning process. Fear of not reaching sales targets, fear of facing an embarrassing situation, fear of not reaching any personal goals (monetary or egoistic) etc. As natural instinct fear boost ego defensiveness, Fear creates a tunnel vision, it blocks thinking, it reduces empathy, it reduces synergy, and it increases selfishness. Fear can be a motivator, when the task involves only a single individual, but that's seldom in an organization. Interaction and team work is the name of the game, and fear alone makes it difficult or even impossible for the team to get synergize.
Realistically organizations are a blend of people who are 'goal oriented' and those who are 'process oriented'. Those organizations cultures where people are inclined more towards Goal Oriented approach has a propensity to die off in a shorter period of time as they are developed around tangible concepts like profit, brand image, market share, performance in stock market etc. since tangibles has perishable nature thus the organizations build around the same, behave like the same as well. Dramatically it can be said "since the 'ends sought' are perishable in nature, thus these ends itself takes the organization toward its 'end' ".
On the contrary those organizations which inclined more towards process oriented approach has a history of lasting multiple generations, for the simple reason they don't run after these tangibles rather treat them as a natural outcome of their actions, they in fact strive for things which are eternal in nature, thus bringing similar qualities within their culture as well. People comes, people go, the process oriented organizations remains intact for generation as shown by Jim Collins in his books 'Good to Great' and 'Built to Last'.
In such companies, the culture is not developed around the personality of the entrepreneur (for his pocket or profit) rather upon certain ideals, and universally accepted principles and a vision greater than the organization itself. This happens when it's about achieving something more important than the survival of the organization itself. Generically speaking the constituents of this vision should be the benefit and contribution to the humanity, the nation, or the community, the profit is indeed a byproduct and only treated as a need for survival, a means to achieve the vision.
Such visions are global; they cannot be achieved in totality, though paradoxically inspiring unbeatable and untiring action. They provide direction for the processes and an everlasting inspiration and energy for execution. The motivating energy felt by the individuals is the feature of their work, their activities (as Jim Collins proclaims in his book "Good to Great"), tasks or standard operating procedures designed around the organizational vision, naturally shifting their inclination toward process end of the spectrum.
Bringing oneself toward process orientation is more a matter of choice. Our inclinations are not hardwired rather they are a product of our choices based on our perception of externalities i.e. events which have been delightful, unusual or even painful in nature. The greatest misconception or misperception most people have that their fate is predetermined, i.e. they cannot choose to be in any different state of existence. If that would have been the case then why Allah SWT would have held us accountable for our actions? The concept of accountability in the hereafter is the greatest proof that our actions are our choice. And the result follows; right choice of action delivers favorable and flourishing results and wrong choice of actions: vice versa. That's the law of nature as designed by the Great Architect of the universe. The results are always promised as proclaimed many times in the Holy Quran.
"Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their goods and their persons. Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in Faith) Hath Allah promised good: But those who strive and fight Hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward," (Surah Nisa, verse 95)
In order to be process oriented we have to get our focus on the real satisfying and motivating factors which are learning, creativity and satisfaction of our conscience. In other words we must be very clear about the factual equation of causality between persistence and success. Furthermore we have to understand what is meant by success? Is it more wealth, more respect, a high profile job, sky rocketing standard of living? And if this is what we called success then would we be able really persist in our work if we focus on money and the so called respect and esteem or status attached to it?
The so called famous quote 'money can't buy happiness' (Washington Post, Monday, July 3, 2006; Page A02; Science Confirms: You Really Can't Buy Happiness) disagree just this. And it's obvious, and widely accepted concept, but seldom practically applied. Furthermore being a Muslim it's also imperative for us to understand the true source of satisfaction i.e. mentioned in The Holy Quran in Surah Ra'd verse 28 and 29: "Those who believe, and whose hearts find satisfaction in the remembrance of Allah. For without doubt in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find satisfaction. For those who believe and work righteousness, is (every) blessedness, and a beautiful place of (final) return." And when we do, the following eventually implies as well: "And whoever places his trust in Allah, He is sufficient for him." (Surah At-Talaq: verse 3), "And whoever fears Allah, for him Allah brings forth a way out, and gives him provision (rizq) from where he does not even imagine…" (Surah At-Talaq: verse 2~3).
"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." - Calvin Coolidge
If that's how our believes are aligned, then it's obvious to conclude in the context of the discussion that the focus should eventually be diverted away from the tangible goals and toward the process, actions, deeds, tasks, efforts, struggle, performance and persistence of course when inspired with the ultimate Vision of life; as that's where true happiness and satisfaction resides. And when we don't persists, disaster strikes, as warned in Surah Al Asar: By (the Token of) Time (through the ages). Verily Man is in loss. Except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy. Further to keep us on track, we have been foretold that our acts, deeds, behavior, conduct and struggle will be questioned in the final examination, not the so called ingredient of success such as wealth, respect and esteem.
Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said, "Man's feet will not move on the Day of Resurrection before he replies to 5 questions, he will be asked about his life, how did he consume it, his knowledge, what did he do with it, his wealth, how did he earn it and how did he spend or dispose it , and about his body, how did he wear it out.' (At- Tirmidhi)
The choice is ultimately ours …
(by Omar Javaid )
These verses (and many others) lay down ample emphasis on Muslims to keep their focus on their actions, paradoxically guarantying success; and describing inaction to be the determinant of failure, worldly and eternal: "By (the Token of) Time (through the ages). Verily Man is in loss. Except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy" (Surah Al Asa). Such a stress on action eventually develops a mindset which perceives results or success as natural outcome of actions i.e. you reap what you sow, actions bring results and right actions bring right results. It would be safe to assume that such a mindset ultimately cultivates qualities like persistence, determination, proactive attitude, thirst to improve, doing what's right, i.e. shifting our orientation toward process or the work content.
In business context, process oriented approach is paradoxical as it delivers results without allowing the individual to worry about them. The goal remains their but only to show the direction, only to judge that the path being followed is correct. The culture developed around such a concept is secure, people are candid, happy, and they get the job done on time and the exhibits other good things. The reason being, people here have no fear of any loss, what so ever, as their gains cannot be stolen, or lost, or depreciates with time. In fact their most valued achievable (knowledge, creativity, satisfaction to conscience) grows further when shared with others. People in process oriented culture remain at peace and tranquility, and on the path of continuous growth. The results keeps on flowing in, always reinforcing the fabric of the culture. Goal achievement and growth is always a natural outcome of a process oriented culture.
Please note that the fundamental root cause of all inefficiencies, wastages, procrastinations, organizational resistance to change, politics, etc is Fear! This is an inherent part of goal oriented approach. Lack of knowledge, skill, and experience also cause mistakes but it's only once. If mistakes are repeated then its fear, that is blocking the learning process. Fear of not reaching sales targets, fear of facing an embarrassing situation, fear of not reaching any personal goals (monetary or egoistic) etc. As natural instinct fear boost ego defensiveness, Fear creates a tunnel vision, it blocks thinking, it reduces empathy, it reduces synergy, and it increases selfishness. Fear can be a motivator, when the task involves only a single individual, but that's seldom in an organization. Interaction and team work is the name of the game, and fear alone makes it difficult or even impossible for the team to get synergize.
Realistically organizations are a blend of people who are 'goal oriented' and those who are 'process oriented'. Those organizations cultures where people are inclined more towards Goal Oriented approach has a propensity to die off in a shorter period of time as they are developed around tangible concepts like profit, brand image, market share, performance in stock market etc. since tangibles has perishable nature thus the organizations build around the same, behave like the same as well. Dramatically it can be said "since the 'ends sought' are perishable in nature, thus these ends itself takes the organization toward its 'end' ".
On the contrary those organizations which inclined more towards process oriented approach has a history of lasting multiple generations, for the simple reason they don't run after these tangibles rather treat them as a natural outcome of their actions, they in fact strive for things which are eternal in nature, thus bringing similar qualities within their culture as well. People comes, people go, the process oriented organizations remains intact for generation as shown by Jim Collins in his books 'Good to Great' and 'Built to Last'.
In such companies, the culture is not developed around the personality of the entrepreneur (for his pocket or profit) rather upon certain ideals, and universally accepted principles and a vision greater than the organization itself. This happens when it's about achieving something more important than the survival of the organization itself. Generically speaking the constituents of this vision should be the benefit and contribution to the humanity, the nation, or the community, the profit is indeed a byproduct and only treated as a need for survival, a means to achieve the vision.
Such visions are global; they cannot be achieved in totality, though paradoxically inspiring unbeatable and untiring action. They provide direction for the processes and an everlasting inspiration and energy for execution. The motivating energy felt by the individuals is the feature of their work, their activities (as Jim Collins proclaims in his book "Good to Great"), tasks or standard operating procedures designed around the organizational vision, naturally shifting their inclination toward process end of the spectrum.
Bringing oneself toward process orientation is more a matter of choice. Our inclinations are not hardwired rather they are a product of our choices based on our perception of externalities i.e. events which have been delightful, unusual or even painful in nature. The greatest misconception or misperception most people have that their fate is predetermined, i.e. they cannot choose to be in any different state of existence. If that would have been the case then why Allah SWT would have held us accountable for our actions? The concept of accountability in the hereafter is the greatest proof that our actions are our choice. And the result follows; right choice of action delivers favorable and flourishing results and wrong choice of actions: vice versa. That's the law of nature as designed by the Great Architect of the universe. The results are always promised as proclaimed many times in the Holy Quran.
"Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their goods and their persons. Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in Faith) Hath Allah promised good: But those who strive and fight Hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward," (Surah Nisa, verse 95)
In order to be process oriented we have to get our focus on the real satisfying and motivating factors which are learning, creativity and satisfaction of our conscience. In other words we must be very clear about the factual equation of causality between persistence and success. Furthermore we have to understand what is meant by success? Is it more wealth, more respect, a high profile job, sky rocketing standard of living? And if this is what we called success then would we be able really persist in our work if we focus on money and the so called respect and esteem or status attached to it?
The so called famous quote 'money can't buy happiness' (Washington Post, Monday, July 3, 2006; Page A02; Science Confirms: You Really Can't Buy Happiness) disagree just this. And it's obvious, and widely accepted concept, but seldom practically applied. Furthermore being a Muslim it's also imperative for us to understand the true source of satisfaction i.e. mentioned in The Holy Quran in Surah Ra'd verse 28 and 29: "Those who believe, and whose hearts find satisfaction in the remembrance of Allah. For without doubt in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find satisfaction. For those who believe and work righteousness, is (every) blessedness, and a beautiful place of (final) return." And when we do, the following eventually implies as well: "And whoever places his trust in Allah, He is sufficient for him." (Surah At-Talaq: verse 3), "And whoever fears Allah, for him Allah brings forth a way out, and gives him provision (rizq) from where he does not even imagine…" (Surah At-Talaq: verse 2~3).
"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." - Calvin Coolidge
If that's how our believes are aligned, then it's obvious to conclude in the context of the discussion that the focus should eventually be diverted away from the tangible goals and toward the process, actions, deeds, tasks, efforts, struggle, performance and persistence of course when inspired with the ultimate Vision of life; as that's where true happiness and satisfaction resides. And when we don't persists, disaster strikes, as warned in Surah Al Asar: By (the Token of) Time (through the ages). Verily Man is in loss. Except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy. Further to keep us on track, we have been foretold that our acts, deeds, behavior, conduct and struggle will be questioned in the final examination, not the so called ingredient of success such as wealth, respect and esteem.
Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said, "Man's feet will not move on the Day of Resurrection before he replies to 5 questions, he will be asked about his life, how did he consume it, his knowledge, what did he do with it, his wealth, how did he earn it and how did he spend or dispose it , and about his body, how did he wear it out.' (At- Tirmidhi)
The choice is ultimately ours …
(by Omar Javaid )
Mind Power and Success
The mind plays an important role in achieving every kind of success and goal, minor, everyday goals or major goals.
With minor or day-to-day goals, one usually knows what he wants to do or get, but when it comes to major goals, most people don't know what they really desire. They desire to do something big, but they don't know what. You may have a vague idea, but this is not enough. To accomplish anything, and to use your mind power, you have to know exactly what it is you want to do. To focus your mind power on a goal, you need to have a clear and well defined goal. How do you go about that?
You have first to think or meditate, to find out what is it that you want to accomplish or gain. For this you need focused and clear thinking. This ability can be improved and strengthened by practice.
After discovering what you really want to accomplish, you need to come up with a plan for action. You need to know what you have to do first and how to proceed. All of this requires planning, which means using the power of the mind.
After deciding on a goal and coming up with a plan, you need to hold in your mind a clear mental image of your goal. You need to see it accomplished. This step requires that you use your imagination, which is another power of the mind. Not everyone can visualize clear mental images, but regular training of the imagination can do wonders. You may, for example, look at photos of what you want to achieve, and then close your eyes, and try to see it in your imagination. This will enhance your ability to visualize.
At this point you have to display patience, self-discipline and the power to persist in your efforts. This requires a one pointed mind.
Affirmations are another useful mental tool for you to use. What you affirm sinks into the subconscious mind, becomes part of the subconscious mind, and consequently affects your behavior and actions. If your affirmations are positive, they lead you to success.
Another important power of the mind is thought transference. You need to be able to transmit your thoughts to other people, who would aid you with your plans. Often, you have to persuade others to invest in your plans or to help you in other ways. It is not enough just to talk with them, you need to believe in what you are saying; you need to be enthusiastic and persuasive, otherwise they won't listen and won't care. You need to be able to reject your and their doubts. To be able to do so, you need concentration, control over your thoughts, willpower, self-discipline and patience. All these are mental tools and skills.
Motivation is another mental and emotional power that you require. How can you achieve anything if you are not motivated enough? To increase your motivation and enthusiasm, think often of your goal, about its advantages and benefits, and how it will change your life. Doing so, will strengthen and your motivation.
Your thoughts, which are part of your mind, possess power. The thoughts that you most often think tend to come true. If you pour your mental energy into the same thoughts or mental images day after day, they will become stronger and stronger, and would consequently affect your attitude, expectations, behavior and actions. These thoughts and mental images can even be subconsciously perceived by other people, who would then offer you help or opportunities. Your thoughts can also create what is usually termed as coincidence. They can attract into your life corresponding events, situations and opportunities.
Not every thought turns into reality. A thought has to be repeated often, and be tinged with emotions, in order to come true. Doubts fears and worries tend to destroy what you build with the power of your mind. This means that you need to clear your mind of negative thoughts and doubts. You might say that this is not possible, but it is, through proper training, which you can find at this website, in the articles, ebooks and books.
(By Remez Sasson/Success Consciousness)
The Power of Positive Thinking
Positive thinking is a mental attitude that admits into the mind thoughts, words and images that are conductive to growth, expansion and success. It is a mental attitude that expects good and favorable results. A positive mind anticipates happiness, joy, health and a successful outcome of every situation and action. Whatever the mind expects, it finds.
Not everyone accepts or believes in positive thinking. Some consider the subject as just nonsense, and others scoff at people who believe and accept it. Among the people who accept it, not many know how to use it effectively to get results. Yet, it seems that many are becoming attracted to this subject, as evidenced by the many books, lectures and courses about it. This is a subject that is gaining popularity.
It is quite common to hear people say: "Think positive!", to someone who feels down and worried. Most people do not take these words seriously, as they do not know what they really mean, or do not consider them as useful and effective. How many people do you know, who stop to think what the power of positive thinking means?
The following story illustrates how this power works:
Allan applied for a new job, but as his self-esteem was low, and he considered himself as a failure and unworthy of success, he was sure that he was not going to get the job. He had a negative attitude towards himself, and believed that the other applicants were better and more qualified than him. Allan manifested this attitude, due to his negative past experiences with job interviews.
His mind was filled with negative thoughts and fears concerning the job for the whole week before the job interview. He was sure he would be rejected. On the day of the interview he got up late, and to his horror he discovered that the shirt he had planned to wear was dirty, and the other one needed ironing. As it was already too late, he went out wearing a shirt full of wrinkles.
During the interview he was tense, displayed a negative attitude, worried about his shirt, and felt hungry because he did not have enough time to eat breakfast. All this distracted his mind and made it difficult for him to focus on the interview. His overall behavior made a bad impression, and consequently he materialized his fear and did not get the job.
Jim applied for the same job too, but approached the matter in a different way. He was sure that he was going to get the job. During the week preceding the interview he often visualized himself making a good impression and getting the job.
In the evening before the interview he prepared the clothes he was going to wear, and went to sleep a little earlier. On day of the interview he woke up earlier than usual, and had ample time to eat breakfast, and then to arrive to the interview before the scheduled time.
He got the job because he made a good impression. He had also of course, the proper qualifications for the job, but so had Allan.
What do we learn from these two stories? Is there any magic employed here? No, it is all natural. When the attitude is positive we entertain pleasant feelings and constructive images, and see in our mind's eye what we really want to happen. This brings brightness to the eyes, more energy and happiness. The whole being broadcasts good will, happiness and success. Even the health is affected in a beneficial way. We walk tall and the voice is more powerful. Our body language shows the way you feel inside.
Positive and negative thinking are both contagious.
All of us affect, in one way or another, the people we meet. This happens instinctively and on a subconscious level, through thoughts and feelings transference, and through body language. People sense our aura and are affected by our thoughts, and vice versa. Is it any wonder that we want to be around positive people and avoid negative ones? People are more disposed to help us if we are positive, and they dislike and avoid anyone broadcasting negativity.
Negative thoughts, words and attitude bring up negative and unhappy moods and actions. When the mind is negative, poisons are released into the blood, which cause more unhappiness and negativity. This is the way to failure, frustration and disappointment.
Practical Instructions
In order to turn the mind toward the positive, inner work and training are required. Attitude and thoughts do not change overnight.
Read about this subject, think about its benefits and persuade yourself to try it. The power of thoughts is a mighty power that is always shaping our life. This shaping is usually done subconsciously, but it is possible to make the process a conscious one. Even if the idea seems strange give it a try, as you have nothing to lose, but only to gain. Ignore what others might say or think about you, if they discover that you are changing the way you think.
Always visualize only favorable and beneficial situations. Use positive words in your inner dialogues or when talking with others. Smile a little more, as this helps to think positively. Disregard any feelings of laziness or a desire to quit. If you persevere, you will transform the way your mind thinks.
Once a negative thought enters your mind, you have to be aware of it and endeavor to replace it with a constructive one. The negative thought will try again to enter your mind, and then you have to replace it again with a positive one. It is as if there are two pictures in front of you, and you choose to look at one of them and disregard the other. Persistence will eventually teach your mind to think positively and ignore negative thoughts.
In case you feel any inner resistance when replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, do not give up, but keep looking only at the beneficial, good and happy thoughts in your mind.
It does not matter what your circumstances are at the present moment. Think positively, expect only favorable results and situations, and circumstances will change accordingly. It may take some time for the changes to take place, but eventually they do.
Another method to employ is the repetition of affirmations. It is a method which resembles creative visualization, and which can be used in conjunction with it. It is the subject of another article on this website.
The other articles at this website, about the power of concentration, will power, self-discipline and peace of mind also contribute to the development of a positive mind, and are recommended for reading and practicing.
(by Remez Sasson/Success Consciousness)
The Power of Positive Attitude
by Remez Sasson
Positive attitude helps to cope more easily with the daily affairs of life. It brings optimism into your life, and makes it easier to avoid worry and negative thinking. If you adopt it as a way of life, it will bring constructive changes into your life, and makes them happier, brighter and more successful. With a positive attitude you see the bright side of life, become optimistic and expect the best to happen. It is certainly a state of mind that is well worth developing and strengthening.
Positive attitude manifests in the following ways:
Positive thinking.
Constructive thinking.
Creative thinking.
Expecting success.
Optimism.
Motivation to accomplish your goals.
Being inspired.
Choosing happiness.
Not giving up.
Looking at failure and problems as blessings in disguise.
Believing in yourself and in your abilities.
Displaying self-esteem and confidence.
Looking for solutions.
Seeing opportunities.
A positive attitude leads to happiness and success and can change your whole life. If you look at the bright side of life, your whole life becomes filled with light. This light affects not only you and the way you look at the world, but also your whole environment and the people around you. If it is strong enough, it becomes contagious.
The benefits of a positive attitude:
Helps achieving goals and attaining success.
Success achieved faster and more easily.
More happiness.
More energy.
Greater inner power and strength.
The ability to inspire and motivate yourself and others.
Fewer difficulties encountered along the way.
The ability to surmount any difficulty.
Life smiles at you.
People respect you.
Negative attitude says: you cannot achieve success.
Positive attitude says: You can achieve success.
If you have been exhibiting a negative attitude and expecting failure and difficulties, it is now the time to change the way you think. It is time to get rid of negative thoughts and behavior and lead a happy and successful life. Why not start today? If you have tried and failed, it only means that you have not tried enough.
Developing a positive attitude that will lead you to happiness and success:
- Choose to be happy.
- Look at the bright side of life.
- Choose to be and stay optimistic.
- Find reasons to smile more often.
- Have faith in yourself and in the Power of the Universe.
- Contemplate upon the futility of negative thinking and worries.
- Associate yourself with happy people.
- Read inspiring stories.
- Read inspiring quotes.
- Repeat affirmations that inspire and motivate you.
- Visualize only what you want to happen.
- Learn to master your thoughts.
- Learn concentration and meditation.
Following even only one of the above suggestions, will bring more light into your life!
(Success Consciousness)
Positive thinking.
Constructive thinking.
Creative thinking.
Expecting success.
Optimism.
Motivation to accomplish your goals.
Being inspired.
Choosing happiness.
Not giving up.
Looking at failure and problems as blessings in disguise.
Believing in yourself and in your abilities.
Displaying self-esteem and confidence.
Looking for solutions.
Seeing opportunities.
A positive attitude leads to happiness and success and can change your whole life. If you look at the bright side of life, your whole life becomes filled with light. This light affects not only you and the way you look at the world, but also your whole environment and the people around you. If it is strong enough, it becomes contagious.
The benefits of a positive attitude:
Helps achieving goals and attaining success.
Success achieved faster and more easily.
More happiness.
More energy.
Greater inner power and strength.
The ability to inspire and motivate yourself and others.
Fewer difficulties encountered along the way.
The ability to surmount any difficulty.
Life smiles at you.
People respect you.
Negative attitude says: you cannot achieve success.
Positive attitude says: You can achieve success.
If you have been exhibiting a negative attitude and expecting failure and difficulties, it is now the time to change the way you think. It is time to get rid of negative thoughts and behavior and lead a happy and successful life. Why not start today? If you have tried and failed, it only means that you have not tried enough.
Developing a positive attitude that will lead you to happiness and success:
- Choose to be happy.
- Look at the bright side of life.
- Choose to be and stay optimistic.
- Find reasons to smile more often.
- Have faith in yourself and in the Power of the Universe.
- Contemplate upon the futility of negative thinking and worries.
- Associate yourself with happy people.
- Read inspiring stories.
- Read inspiring quotes.
- Repeat affirmations that inspire and motivate you.
- Visualize only what you want to happen.
- Learn to master your thoughts.
- Learn concentration and meditation.
Following even only one of the above suggestions, will bring more light into your life!
(Success Consciousness)
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Management guru offers tough advice for troubling times
By Stefan Stern
What does a management guru have to tell us in the good times? Maybe not all that much. Keep doing what you are doing, they could say. Enjoy the proceeds of growth.
But today, in the depths of a crisis, how much more exciting the guru's task has become. And you can sense the glee of Ram Charan, the noted management writer, as he sets about his task in this new, slim book, "Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty: The New Rules for Getting the Right Things Done in Difficult Times."
What does a management guru have to tell us in the good times? Maybe not all that much. Keep doing what you are doing, they could say. Enjoy the proceeds of growth.
But today, in the depths of a crisis, how much more exciting the guru's task has become. And you can sense the glee of Ram Charan, the noted management writer, as he sets about his task in this new, slim book, "Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty: The New Rules for Getting the Right Things Done in Difficult Times."
"This is more like it," he seems to be saying. "Now I have something to contribute." And what he contributes is some stark, pithy advice on what business leaders need to do now to avoid disaster and prepare for a better future.
"Management challenges don't come any bigger than this," Charan declares at the start. "The economic peace of the past generation is over. We're in a war for survival, beset by fear, uncertainty and doubt."
Yesterday has gone, and executives need to change their approach.
"Management challenges don't come any bigger than this," Charan declares at the start. "The economic peace of the past generation is over. We're in a war for survival, beset by fear, uncertainty and doubt."
Yesterday has gone, and executives need to change their approach.
"Leaders must be prepared to make strategic, structural, financial and operational changes -- many of them drastic -- in a hurry, and with information that is at best incomplete," he writes.
This is all classic guru writing, stressing the extremity of the situation. But from Charan -- who has already brought us bestsellers such as "Execution" and "What the CEO Wants You to Know" -- it seems plausible. His forte is bold advice delivered with convincing rhetoric. And he has completed his new text just at the right time.
It is fuel-injected, back-to-basics stuff.
"You absolutely must have sufficient cash or credible access to it to weather the storm," he writes. "You can and should know your company's cash position every day. . . . Projects that once were evaluated on the basis of their return on investment now must be judged in terms of how much cash they consume and can generate, and how soon they can bring in cash."
This obsession with cash leads Charan to make a bold, counterintuitive suggestion: Give up increases in revenue and in market share. He refers to one unnamed chief executive who lost 8% of his sales volume after raising prices. "But the new prices stuck and the result was the security of improved cash flow."
If readers are still reeling from that, they will have to prepare themselves for further startling advice.
"The new reality is that, barring acquisitions, your company will be smaller two years from now than it is today," Charan writes. "You have to reduce your workforce and capacity . . . survival depends on cutting costs and raising cash . . . narrow your focus and concentrate on the core of your business."
"In the end," he says, "you will have fewer customers, fewer products, fewer facilities, fewer people, fewer suppliers -- and a stronger company."
The pace of business has to be stepped up, he argues. What use is an annual budget at a time like this? What is needed is intensive, "hands-on, head-in" management. And realism tempered with optimism.
He divides his advice into a series of short chapters that look at separate business disciplines: finance, operations, human resources, the supply chain, sales and marketing, and research and development.
Some of the best tips have to do with people: Stay on the lookout for talented potential recruits worried about their future with their current employer. Make sure you are providing employees with lots of accurate and up-to-date information on the state of the business to combat "a constant drumbeat of depressing coverage by newspapers, television and blogs."
This is a slightly breathless primer, unsurprisingly so given the speed with which Charan has responded to the crisis.
But it will provide encouragement and sharp ideas to any business leaders feeling overwhelmed by the sea of troubles that confront them.
And don't look now, but after this crisis is over, the next one may be on its way soon. "Actions generate reactions," Charan says, "and many business leaders and analysts expect the next phase to be inflationary since so much money has been pumped into the world financial system."
You have been warned.
Stefan Stern is a columnist for the Financial Times of London, in which this review first appeared.
(Los Angeles Times)
This is all classic guru writing, stressing the extremity of the situation. But from Charan -- who has already brought us bestsellers such as "Execution" and "What the CEO Wants You to Know" -- it seems plausible. His forte is bold advice delivered with convincing rhetoric. And he has completed his new text just at the right time.
It is fuel-injected, back-to-basics stuff.
"You absolutely must have sufficient cash or credible access to it to weather the storm," he writes. "You can and should know your company's cash position every day. . . . Projects that once were evaluated on the basis of their return on investment now must be judged in terms of how much cash they consume and can generate, and how soon they can bring in cash."
This obsession with cash leads Charan to make a bold, counterintuitive suggestion: Give up increases in revenue and in market share. He refers to one unnamed chief executive who lost 8% of his sales volume after raising prices. "But the new prices stuck and the result was the security of improved cash flow."
If readers are still reeling from that, they will have to prepare themselves for further startling advice.
"The new reality is that, barring acquisitions, your company will be smaller two years from now than it is today," Charan writes. "You have to reduce your workforce and capacity . . . survival depends on cutting costs and raising cash . . . narrow your focus and concentrate on the core of your business."
"In the end," he says, "you will have fewer customers, fewer products, fewer facilities, fewer people, fewer suppliers -- and a stronger company."
The pace of business has to be stepped up, he argues. What use is an annual budget at a time like this? What is needed is intensive, "hands-on, head-in" management. And realism tempered with optimism.
He divides his advice into a series of short chapters that look at separate business disciplines: finance, operations, human resources, the supply chain, sales and marketing, and research and development.
Some of the best tips have to do with people: Stay on the lookout for talented potential recruits worried about their future with their current employer. Make sure you are providing employees with lots of accurate and up-to-date information on the state of the business to combat "a constant drumbeat of depressing coverage by newspapers, television and blogs."
This is a slightly breathless primer, unsurprisingly so given the speed with which Charan has responded to the crisis.
But it will provide encouragement and sharp ideas to any business leaders feeling overwhelmed by the sea of troubles that confront them.
And don't look now, but after this crisis is over, the next one may be on its way soon. "Actions generate reactions," Charan says, "and many business leaders and analysts expect the next phase to be inflationary since so much money has been pumped into the world financial system."
You have been warned.
Stefan Stern is a columnist for the Financial Times of London, in which this review first appeared.
(Los Angeles Times)
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Self Reflection Leads To Greater Success
by Kevin Eikenberry
If I could give you a tool or resource that would change your life in positive ways, change your results, create more happiness in your life and help you get better at anything you desired.. And if I could promise you that this tool would cost you nothing, require only yourself and could be used at any time...
Would you be interested?
I'll bet you would.
Now at the risk of sounding a little bit like a carnival barker or used car salesperson what I just told you isn't hype - there is such a tool. And you already possess it.
The tool is reflection.
I'm sure that you know people that have been on a job for 10 years and have continued to get better and better at their work. And you probably also know people who have been on a job for ten years, but it is like they have one year of experience, ten times. In other words, they never really reflected on their work and results and so nothing seems to get better. They don't seem to learn from their past experiences.
Which of these people would you hire? Which of these people do you want on your team?
But I'm Too Busy
The number one reason I hear for people not reflecting is that they are too busy. They are too busy moving from task to task, from project to project, and event to event. When they recount this challenge to me they end by asking, "When would I have time to reflect?"
Our lives are much different than were the lives our grandparents. 75 or 100 years ago in the evening people would gather around a table or sit on the front porch and sip iced tea and visit about their day. What they were doing was relaxing and, while not in a very structured way, they were reflecting on their day.
We all know that this type of reflection works because as one of the things we ask our children when they come home from school is "How was your day?"
We say we are too busy - that the reason we don't reflect is that we don't have porch time. Somehow we do find television time - and while there is nothing wrong with television - it doesn't allow us the space, time or opportunity to reflect as we sit watching it.
Other Reasons
Time is typically our excuse, but it isn't the only reason we don't reflect. We also don't reflect because:
- We don't think about it.
- We don't realize the importance of it.
- We don't value it.
- We don't think we know how to do it.
Hopefully reading this helps you get past the first reasons. Let me deal now with the last one - the issue of skill.
Examples
We all know how to reflect, consider . . .
- Sitting around a table with friends playing a card game. In between hands, people are talking about what they could have done, should've done, might've done - all of this conversation is simple reflection. And while some people playing the game don't like to "overanalyze it," spending that time in conversation about what just happened will make us better card players in the future.
- Or for those in a different generation, the reflection is the time they take between two rounds in a video game as they quickly think about what happened and how they do it differently the next time.
- Golfers quickly analyze their swing as they watch the trajectory of their shots, thinking about what worked and what they might adjust.
- And we do it at work, thinking about how the meeting or presentation went as we leave and move to the next item on our calendar.
So we know how, and we even do it sometimes, but how can we use this skill more successfully more often?
How to Reflect More Effectively
How to Reflect More Effectively
1) Make time
Reflection is about having time. We all have the time, regardless of how busy are schedules are.
- Reflect in the shower.
- Reflect on the drive to work (turn off your radio or your iPod and think).
- Reflect in the moments before you go to sleep.
- Reflect with your family as you eat a meal.
- Turn off the television.
There is time - we just have to carve it out.
2) Ask questions
Reflection is about thinking and questions help our brains think. Consider using his list of questions as your "starter set" of reflective questions - the questions to help you think about what happened and what you can learn.
2) Ask questions
Reflection is about thinking and questions help our brains think. Consider using his list of questions as your "starter set" of reflective questions - the questions to help you think about what happened and what you can learn.
- What worked? Why?
- What didn't work? Why?
- What does this situation remind you of?
- How can I use this experience?
- How does this experience relate to other situations I've been in? What can I learn for that situation?
- Knowing what I know now, what would I do differently next time?
3) Think more broadly
Don't just apply your thinking to how you would do this exact same task or respond in this exact same situation the next time. Our lives are too complex for that! Think about what you can take from this experience and apply to other related or perhaps even unrelated situations. Look for generalizations, patterns, tendencies and underlying principles. When we think more broadly we make our reflection time infinitely more beneficial to our lives.
This is some of my reflection on reflection. As we practice this skill we will get better at it and our results will begin to improve dramatically. Make the time. Ask the questions. And by all means apply what you learned. When you do this, you will make your life experiences your most precious source of learning, and your most fertile ground for your own success.
(SideRoad)
Friday, February 13, 2009
Future of Malaysia Economy - Dr. Patrick Dixon
Expect rapid economic growth in this country with growing population and pro-business government with well educated and energetic workforce. Comment following recent visit by Dr Patrick Dixon, author Futurewise.
Future Consumers, Lifestyles and Online Communities - impact of new technology, communications, wireless networking on business and personal life
Future of Telecom and Consumers. Belgacom client event - 700 CEOs and CIOs by conference keynote speaker Dr Patrick Dixon. Future of communications, marketing, management, leadership, virtual teams and virtual organisations. Virtual meetings and distance learning. Future bandwidth, video streaming demand, convergence and divergence of technology. Future innovations in communication. Strategy for emerging markets and developed markets.Banks will become phone companies and telecom companies will become banks. Mobile payment systems, micropayments, mobile phone credit card transactions and loans.All innovation is divergent - doing things different and better. But most companies focus on convergence on price, quality, features.image, branding, winning customers, online marketing and building trust. Consumer changes, preferences and lifestyles. Videoconferencing and virtual teams. Winning the war for talent - motivation and leadership styles.
How to make things happen: leadership, motivation and change management - by Patrick Dixon
Keynote for Welsh Parliament - change management, leadership and motivation by Patrick Dixon, conference keynote speaker to audience of nurses, doctors, public sector workers, local government, fire service, waste, water and utilitis, social workers and social services, politicians and members of Parliament.
Grow Your Market Share In A Volatile Economy
Bestselling author and business leader Scott McKain reveals three strategies that will grow your market share during times of slower economy. Learn the steps you need to take NOW!
Personalising risk management
By Julian Birkinshaw and Huw Jenkins/ Financial Times
Why is it that very smart executives can sometimes make extraordinarily poor risk decisions? This question has bothered observers of the business world for generations, but in the past 18 months it has gained extra importance as we try to make sense of the implosion of the financial services industry.
Of course, the problem of poor risk management is not confined to banking: sectors as different as oil and gas, pharmaceuticals and telecommunications have all experienced their share of poorly judged risks. But the banking industry, and the credit crisis in particular, provides a rich context for understanding where risk management goes wrong and how it can be improved.
In the years leading up to the credit crisis, most financial services companies focused on the formalisation of risk management, by developing multi-stage procedures with many signatories to evaluate and adjudicate on what risks were worth taking. They also relied on externalisation of risk management to a large degree – the use of expertise and approval from outside parties such as auditors, regulators and credit ratings agencies. We suggest that in future they need to give more attention to the personalisation of risk management. This requires greater quality of insight, greater personal accountability and a stronger support culture for risk management.
Personalisation of risk management does not mean throwing out the traditional systems and support structures. Rather, it means a subtle shift in emphasis from the management of a portfolio of risks to the underwriting of individual risk decisions. This approach is relevant across all sectors of the economy, not just to the world of financial services companies.
How do companies manage risk
Risk management requires companies to balance two distinct types of risks: the “false positive” risk associated with investing in a potential opportunity that does not transpire; and the “false negative” risk associated with failing to act on an opportunity that did transpire.
The consequences of false positive and false negative errors are very different. For example, if an oil and gas company is extremely cautious about investing in new oilfields, it can generally avoid costly false-positive mistakes in the form of dry wells, but it risks leaving money on the table that other competitors can pick up.
So how do companies manage risk? How do they bring to bear the necessary level of knowledge and expertise on difficult decisions? And how do they ensure that individuals act in the best interests of the company, rather than themselves? Historically, the answer to these questions was bureaucracy. While the term is often used in a pejorative sense, bureaucracy has benefits: namely, it encourages the development of formal rules and procedures that transcend individual idiosyncracies and historical orthodoxies. However, it also has many unwanted side effects: it can become overly rigid and specialised, it discourages individual thought, and it can lead to depersonalisation and a lack of ownership on the part of employees.
It is this last effect that is most salient here. As companies grow, they need to build formal systems to generate economies of scale and scope, but they need to balance that with the agility, personal accountability and freedom of expression that comes from a small, more entrepreneurial environment. While this point is often made in the context of innovation and creativity, it is just as valid in the management of risk.
Consider, for example, the winners and losers in the credit crisis. While there were certainly some notable failures among small players such as hedge funds, the big losses were borne disproportionately by the very large banks. This was partly because small financial services companies did not have the credit ratings or balance sheets to carry the so-called “super senior” tranches of the collateralised debt obligations that ultimately got the big investment banks into trouble. But it was also partly because the decision makers were close to the action, highly knowledgeable and personally accountable for the outcomes of their decisions. As one leading hedge fund executive commented: “We have robust informal systems, we communicate naturally, and we develop our own views on what risks to take. We get a return on our judgment.” This is the exact opposite of a bureaucratic system, and a world away from the thousand-person strong risk functions that some of the large investment banks had built up during the boom years.
To put it another way, there are three complementary approaches to managing risk in large companies.
•Formalisation involves using formal procedures and rules to evaluate and adjudicate on what risks are worth taking.
•Externalisation involves making use of the expertise and seal of approval provided by third parties – some required by law (auditors and regulators), others optional but widely used (credit ratings agencies). Both of these approaches are manifestations of bureaucracy – the former controlled by the company’s management, the latter controlled by third parties.
•Personalisation involves pushing the responsibility for evaluating and making a judgment on risk to those individuals who are making decisions.
While all three are necessary and used to varying degrees all the time, the recent evidence in banking and elsewhere suggests that we need to redress the balance back towards personalisation, especially in large companies.
Goldman Sachs, one of the best performers through the credit crisis, is frequently held up as the acme of personalisation. As Gillian Tett, FT global markets editor, has observed: “Employees [at Goldman] typically view themselves as being affiliated to the bank, not the business line, and there is a strong ethos of shared accountability.” But Goldman is the exception that proves the rule: the rest of the industry has relied heavily on bureaucratic approaches to risk management and the strategies of the major players have gradually converged over time.
How to personalise risk management
What does personalisation of risk management mean in practice? The concept has intuitive appeal, but many people struggle with how to balance the need for personalisation with broader systems of control and management. We suggest three necessary and supporting elements.
High-quality insight. Those who make decisions require good quality information, effective analytical tools and the competence to interpret this information. But it is rare for all these things to come together. It is more likely for decisions to be made with poor insight from self-interested sources, and with the relevant information fragmented across different parts of the company.
For example, one study has shown that mortgage loans securitised and sold on to non-banks in the early 2000s were far more likely to end up in default than when they were sold to affiliates of the originator. It is not surprising that banks that were selling loans had a different level of focus on the likelihood of default than those that held such loans to maturity. What is more surprising is that regulators and investors did not concern themselves more with this potential bias.
Effective personalisation of risk management is, therefore, about building a system that puts the right information into the hands of those making decisions, and then transforming that information into insight through experience.
Here is one example of how this works in a different setting. The UK police force gathers intelligence on a daily basis about criminal activities, community affairs and so on. Usually these are dealt with quickly and without note, but occasionally an incident escalates and becomes more serious. To better alert themselves to these escalations, the police have instituted a “critical incident” approach, in which an employee of any rank can call together a cross-force group to pull together all the available information about an incident, and make a decision on how to react. Critical incidents only arise occasionally, but they provide an effective way of quickly bringing to bear the disparate views on an issue and reaching a thoughtful decision.
Personal accountability. Effective risk management requires personal accountability, but most companies get this wrong as well. Sometimes there are too many decision makers, or the decision maker is too far removed from the action to feel any genuine responsibility. And often there is no link between the decisions taken and the rewards provided.
For example, in recent years, banks traded in risky securities to optimise short-term profits without giving due regard to the appropriate cost of capital or the long-term behaviour of these securities. Many people have argued that a large factor in the creation of the current financial crisis was this focus on short-term accounting profit and the reward systems aligned with it.
Instead, we need a system where personal accountability is rewarded, and where the individual or team with high-quality insight is also the one making the decision. For example, one of the basic principles that every airline captain knows is: make risk decisions at the appropriate level. Appropriate here means the level where the individual has the necessary experience and maturity to make a good decision. The captain may delegate specific decisions to engineering specialists or dispatchers, but the decision to fly the plane rests with him or her – not on the wishes of the air traffic controllers or the airline’s chief executive.
This logic has clear applicability to the business world. Some of the best performers through the credit crisis, such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, were well known for their collegial, team-based decision processes, built on open debate, intellectual honesty, and sufficient self confidence to take contrarian decisions.
Supportive culture. The informal norms of behaviour in a company – its culture – should support the principles of high-quality insight and personal accountability. But all too often, these informal norms end up undermining the effectiveness of decision making. Some companies exhibit a fear culture where bad news is hidden from top executives; some are purely mercenary, where everyone looks out for themselves; some suffer from chronic risk aversion, with almost zero tolerance for false-positive errors.
Of course, there is no simple way to build a supportive culture. It takes many years of consistent messages and actions from leaders. But there are, nonetheless, a couple of basic principles that can be applied.
One is the need for transparency of purpose. Consider, for example, a leading mining company that committed a decade ago to eliminating one type of risk: employee injuries at work. All leaders signed up to this goal, all employees were trained on the company’s safety standards, measures of lost-time injuries were monitored for all sites, and managers’ compensation was linked to safety. Today, all meetings – even those in white collar environments – start with a safety update. Safety thinking is deeply ingrained in the minds of individuals throughout the company, and the safety record is impressive. Cultural transformation, in other words, is possible when it is tied to a very clear purpose that everyone can identify, and when it is reinforced through consistency of action. To return to the police force example earlier, a key feature of the “critical incident” model is to acknowledge the efforts of the individual who calls it, even if it proves to be a false alarm.
The other principle is a refusal to simplify the big picture. Studies have been conducted of nuclear power plants and aircraft carriers where errors can have catastrophic consequences, and they have sought to understand how these “high reliability” organisations function. It has emerged that one of the key features is that individual employees – involved, for example, in routine maintenance activities – are expected to take responsibility for seeing how their work fits into the big picture. So, rather than compartmentalising every task, employees are encouraged to look across and to understand how their work has implications for others.
This approach has obvious relevance in the financial services industry. As one leading hedge fund manager explained: “We need to remain humble. I don’t claim I know the answers; that is the golden rule. Strengths become weaknesses in a dislocation. We make our biggest mistakes where people claim we are strong.”
Conclusion
The credit crisis was brought about by the accumulation of a large number of circumstantial factors, but it was exacerbated and ultimately triggered by poor risk management decisions, and structures, at many large financial services companies. By turning the spotlight on these weaknesses, we have identified some key principles for effective risk management, not just in financial services but in other sectors as well.
But there is one important caveat. Good decision making in the world of financial services is not just about making objectively correct decisions, it is also about making decisions in the context of rapidly changing market conditions. Even the best decisions can look foolish in retrospect if market forces change fundamentally.
So, if the first challenge is how to make better quality decisions, the second challenge is learning how to adapt them to accommodate the market. But that is a matter for a separate article.
Julian Birkinshaw is professor of strategic management at London Business School
Huw Jenkins is executive in residence at London Business School
The 10 Best Leadership Books of All Time
The task here at the Leadership Playlist -- to share must-reads from the world of leadership -- just got easier, thanks to The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, out this month from Portfolio. The authors, Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten, who run the business book publisher and website 800 CEO Read, list and review the 10 best leadership books.
And how did they choose them? "We had three litmus tests," Sattersten told me in a phone interview. "Was the book accessible and well written? Are its lessons applicable today? And, third, would we apply the insights in our own business?"
Of the 10 leadership books that made the cut, four were authored by On Leadership panelists. Authors Covert and Sattersten gave me a quick, Twitter-style run down on each.
1. On Becoming a Leader, by Warren Bennis. "His message is, you can't be a leader until you know who you are. It's that simple," said Sattersten. "Once you know, you have amazing ability to lead successfully."
2. The Leadership Moment, by Michael Useem. "It's a book you read for the stories, not because you're looking for a solution," Covert told me. "I think the stories sit in the back of your mind, and when you reach a crisis situation -- which so many people are right now -- you can call on them." (And yes, I am related the author, he's my dad.)
3. The Leadership Challenge, by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. "It's the first book your read on leadership because it offers such a compelling model for thinking about leadership," said Sattersten. "You can use it as a basis for looking at everything else you encounter."
4. Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will, by Noel Tichy and Stratford Sherman. The book, about Jack Welch's leadership at GE, is the story of "the great corporate turn-around story of the 20th century," said Sattersten. And not because GE was faltering when Welch took charge -- on the contrary, said Sattersten, GE at the time was running "an acceptably profitable business," and yet still Welch was able to implement major changes. "It's like Tiger Woods changing up his golf swing at the top of his game," added Covert.
The other books on their list are:
Leadership is an Art, by Max De Pree
The Radical Leap, by Steve Farber
Leading Change, by John Kotter
Questions of Character, by Joe Badaracco
The Story Factor, by Annette Simmons, and
Never Give In! Speeches by Winston Churchill.
Covert and Sattersten also said they'd add recently published Tribes by Seth Godin to this list if they could update it.
With many saying Wall Street has witnessed a massive failure of leadership, I asked Sattersten and Covert if they'd like today's leaders to read these books. Answered Sattersten: "Yes, I'd like them to read the books. But what I'd love more is for someone to actually lead us."
(By Andrea Useem/Washington Post)
(By Andrea Useem/Washington Post)
Royal Professor Ungku Aziz reveals secrets to success
KUALA LUMPUR: What are Royal Professor Ungku Abdul Aziz's secrets to success? One of them is to read nine books.
This includes Harvey Diamond's Fit for Life, Not Fat for Life, Edward De Bono's Thinking Course, Tony Buzan's Mind Map, Head First and The 36 Strategies of the Chinese: Adapting An Ancient Chinese Wisdom to the Business World by Wee Chow Hou and Lan Luh Luh.
Others are Jim Collins' Level 5 Leadership, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Nicollo Machiavelli's The Prince on the Art of Power and Leader's Window by J.D.W. Beck and N.M Yeager.
The 87-year-old voracious reader said the books provide an insight on how to be good and successful leaders.
Citing an example, he said Edward De Bono's Thinking Course promotes lateral thinking.
"The book teaches you to think differently," he said in his lecture "Quest For Success" as part of the Merdeka Award Lecture Series. He was a recipient of the award last year, in the education and community category.
Ungku Aziz said a good leader would have intelligence, credibility, humility, courage, and discipline.
He also said a good leader would be able to spot opportunities during crisis.
"Every crisis opens up opportunities," he said.
Later, when taking questions from the floor, Ungku Aziz said successful people were those who had resolve because their minds were strong and were resolute in reaching their goals.
"At the same time, humility is important, too.
"I'm happiest when I go to a kampung and people tell me 'you macam itu universiti punya' (you look like the person from the university)," he said to laughter from the floor.
Others are Jim Collins' Level 5 Leadership, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Nicollo Machiavelli's The Prince on the Art of Power and Leader's Window by J.D.W. Beck and N.M Yeager.
The 87-year-old voracious reader said the books provide an insight on how to be good and successful leaders.
Citing an example, he said Edward De Bono's Thinking Course promotes lateral thinking.
Ungku Aziz said a good leader would have intelligence, credibility, humility, courage, and discipline.
He also said a good leader would be able to spot opportunities during crisis.
"Every crisis opens up opportunities," he said.
Later, when taking questions from the floor, Ungku Aziz said successful people were those who had resolve because their minds were strong and were resolute in reaching their goals.
"At the same time, humility is important, too.
"I'm happiest when I go to a kampung and people tell me 'you macam itu universiti punya' (you look like the person from the university)," he said to laughter from the floor.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Improving Your Time Management!
Ashworth's Lisa Bryde explains how to improve your time management skills!
Phil Van Hooser - The Fear of Failure
What scares you? Leadership expert, Phillip Van Hooser describes the four universal fears common to everyone and discusses the fear of failure.
Losing Your Temper is Costly for Leaders - Phillip Van Hooser
Leadership expert, Phillip Van Hooser shares a true story that shows just how costly it is for leaders who can't control their temper. Don't make this leadership mistake.
The Best & Worse of Customer Service
A new survey ranks companies on the quality of their customer service.
Phil Van Hooser - A "Wow" Customer Service Example
Phil Van Hooser, keynote speaker and prolific author on customer service issues, shares examples for creating "WOW" customer service experiences.
Scott McKain -- Customer Service Lessons from "Taxi Terry"
Business leader and #1 bestselling author Scott McKain speaks to a national sales audience of a top retailer and shares insights gleaned from an experience with a one-of-a-kind cab driver, "Taxi Terry."
8 Steps to Delivering an Exceptional Customer Experience
Learn about the eight most effective strategies and best practices you can take to cost-effectively optimize the customer experience.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Investing in Communities: Opportunities at the “Base of the Pyramid’?
by Michelle Brown / CSR Asia
Faced with recession, the response of companies to global development challenges will need to be more strategic. For many years, companies have been called on and expected to ‘do more’ in tackling global and local development challenges. At the same time, there is a growing enthusiasm for new approaches to addressing social and environmental challenges that embed a spirit of entrepreneurship and good business practices. Can strategies to engage new markets at the ‘base of the pyramid’ help make a real difference?
Faced with recession, the response of companies to global development challenges will need to be more strategic. For many years, companies have been called on and expected to ‘do more’ in tackling global and local development challenges. At the same time, there is a growing enthusiasm for new approaches to addressing social and environmental challenges that embed a spirit of entrepreneurship and good business practices. Can strategies to engage new markets at the ‘base of the pyramid’ help make a real difference?
Charity and philanthropy alone is not going to get us there. If we want to improve the impact that business can have on communities and on development we can’t rely on charity. Many global companies use a guideline of ‘one percent of pre-tax profit’ to guide their community contributions. With this equation, despite some companies arguing otherwise, it is reasonable that with falling profits we could see ‘falling contributions’. This is not to say there is not an important role for philanthropy – I believe there is; but there is also ‘good philanthropy’ and ‘really bad philanthropy’. It also can’t be used to define an overall approach to CSR. Community investment can be one part of CSR. Like other aspects of business, companies should be able to track and measure their community investment and understand the value for both communities and for the business. Investing to build sustainable communities is a must for business. While we can continue to encourage companies to not forget about the community and to work to address poverty and underdevelopment, we need to help create new partnerships for business to have a positive and sustainable impact on communities.
Alongside this trend, companies have been looking to understand how to engage with new markets. CK Prahalad pointed to the potential ‘fortune at the bottom (or base) of the pyramid’ (BOP) in his influential book, a reference to the billions of people who are not recognized in traditional companies’ target customer audience. This book and the other writings of Prahalad and Hart were also influential for business audiences stressing the need to recognize the poor as creative entrepreneurs and not as ‘victims’. This also follows good practices espoused over the decades by development agencies. BOP theory presented itself as a strategy for companies to alleviate global challenges and tap into potential markets at the same time.
For those concerned with pro-poor development and poverty alleviation there have been some interesting reports released in 2008. All of them call on companies to focus on building sustainable communities with their core business. Last summer the UNDP released a study on ‘Growing Inclusive Markets’, which was a compilation of case studies written by 50 authors throughout the world. Recognising the contribution that micro-finance has made in this area, the authors looked for case studies from across other sectors. Cases from Asia included in the research were:
- Coco Technologies: a Philippines company that produces geo-textiles from waste coconut husks. It is a growing and viable business that has created an additional income stream for coconut farmers, helped to empower rural women, and reduces waste.
- Huatai’s work in China’s wood-pulp production for the paper industry is referenced. They provide alternative income sources for local tree farmers and add to the incomes of about 6,000 rural households.
- Lafarge’s work in Indonesia is noted for the positive outcomes in rebuilding cement-based homes and businesses in post-tsunami areas. The structures provided homes for employees and the wider community and also helped the company showcase cement structures.
- Narayana Hrudayalay, the Indian Hospital group has developed an insurance programme for low-income patients.
- Tsinghua Tongfang’s affordable computer for rural areas in China
- Smart in the Philippines provides mobile telecom products and services for low income and overseas communities. Its distribution system, using SMS technology, allows merchants to re-sell minutes, taking a commission on every sale; in essence creating a business opportunity for 450,000 entrepreneurs and proving telecom access to communities previously underserved.
Another interesting partnership in the region is between Danone and Grameen in Bangladesh. In 2006 they joined to form a new company called Grameen Danone Foods, which is a social enterprise. Initially focusing on affordable dairy products, the enterprise also plans to get involved in biogas and solar energy. Clearly these are examples that are ‘good for business’ and ‘good for communities’.
In reference to the BOP strategies of multi-nationals, Prahalad and Hart (2002) note that “it requires a radical new approach to business strategy”. Their research pointed to the fact that initial strategies of large companies to tap into the BOP failed because they looked at the poor only as consumers as opposed to partners in production and distribution. The strategy cannot be alien to the communities in that it wishes to serve. While early attempts were applauded for making an effort, many simply didn’t work. Many BOP strategies have not been successful because they saw the poor as a homogeneous group of consumers and, by their strategies, often created excess packaging and engaged in unsustainable business practices (Welford, 2006). Learning from the past, companies that are successfully engaging the ‘BOP’ are shifting from ‘selling to the poor’ to ‘business co-venturing’.
A useful and recently updated resource is The Base of the Pyramid Protocol: Toward Next Generation BOP Strategy by Erik Simanis and Stuart Hart (Cornell University: 2008). ‘First Generation’ BOP attempts failed because they did not adequately understand the market or consumers. The BOP protocol points to a ‘Second Generation’ of BOP initiatives, which brings MNCs into partnership with local communities creating lasting value and measurable impact. Companies can help to develop social enterprises that can in turn help them to better understand and reach a new market. But for some companies, this can mean a very different way of doing business. Local participation and a ‘bottom-up’ approach to product development are seen as crucial for such ventures to work. Furthermore, success will be measured not just on the financial viability but also on the social value created.
The Protocol walks readers through both a preliminary research and development phase and a community based planning phase. Research and development involves selecting the project site; creating multi-disciplinary teams and selecting community partners. The planning phase involves working together with communities to develop and build an initial prototype. The protocol also provides a Code of Conduct on BOP business strategies that calls for the following:
- Design businesses that increase earning power, remove constraints, and build potential in the BOP
- Ensure that wealth generated by the business is shared equitably with the local community
- Use only the most appropriate – and sustainable – technologies
- Promote the development of affected communities as broadly as possibly in ways defined by the local people themselves
- Track the “triple bottom line” impacts associated with the entire BOP business system
- Monitor and address any unintended negative impacts associated with the business model
- Share best practices with local partners to the extent possible
- Report transparently and involve key stakeholders in an on-going dialogue
- Commit to increase community value regardless of the business outcome
Those working in this arena argue that we need to understand and measure the social, economic, and relational aspects of communities that engage in BOP projects in order to understand the full impact.
Interest in this continues to grow; even the Journal of Consumer Marketing recently had a whole edition dedicated to engaging with poor consumers. Will more companies use the ‘slowdown’ as an opportunity to ‘get ahead’ in new markets? Can co-creating social enterprises provide the answers? Thoughts? Ideas? Good examples? Lessons learned in Asia? Please get in touch.
Reports and publications mentioned in this article:
- CK Prahalad and Stuart Hart. 2002. ‘The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid’. Strategy + Business. January edition.
- CK Prahalad. 2005. ‘The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid: eradicating poverty through profits’.
- Erik Simanis and Stuart Hart. 2008. The Base of the Pyramid Protocol: Toward Next Generation BoP Strategy.
- Richard Welford ‘MDGs and BOP’’ in CSR Asia Weekly, Vol.2 Week 34 (23 Aug 2006). ■
PowerPoint Presentation Skills
Preparing your next PowerPoint presentation doesn't have to be too taxing. Yes, it's true that the medium has its problems. But you can solve most of these problems by being more choosy with the PowerPoint palette.
So when you are ready to prepare your next PowerPoint presentation here are ten essential tips:
1) Typeface. Choose a typeface that your audience can read on your presentation screen. Experiment with a serif Typeface such as Times New Roman and sans-serif typefaces such as Arial and Verdana (Format: Replace Font).
2) Font. You want your words to be readable by your audience – so aim to use a font with a point size that is fully legible: 16 point or 18 point, perhaps (Format: Font).
3) Colours. Your choice of typeface colour is also important (Format: Font: Color). Some colours will be less visible to your audience than others. Greens and reds can be indistinct on a white background. Blues and blacks have more visibility. Don't forget to consider your background colour scheme (Format: Background).
4) Bullet Points. It's the bullet point list that creates most problems for your audience. There are either too many bullet points, too many words per bullet or just too many lists in a presentation. They work best when you want to summarise or signpost direction. This is what we've done. This is where we are going.
5) Images. Aim to use images as effective visual metaphors in your presentation (Insert: Picture). They will enhance and support your speech. Make sure that your pictures are big enough to fill the screen.
6) Video. Use video and audio files in your PowerPoint presentation when you have the opportunity (Insert: Movies and Sounds). It's an ideal way to build interest and keep your audience engaged.
7) Charts and graphs are key to many presentations (Insert: Chart). Remember to keep the charts big, without too much distracting detail. Don't mix them with bullet points. It weakens their impact. Try to use the "build" technique (Slide Show: Custom Animation). Your chart can build itself as you speak – based on rehearsed timings or your mouse click. Very effective.
8) Special effects can make or ruin a presentation. Try to be selective in your choice of PowerPoint effects (Slide Show: Animation Schemes and Slide Show: Slide Transition). Don't allow the special effects to be more memorable than your message.
9) Talking. Avoid the temptation to look at your PowerPoint projection when talking. Each time you do so you lose engagement with your audience. Use the Fn F5 shortcut on your keyboard to toggle your notebook display and your projection display. You can glance at your notebook screen without losing audience contact.
10) Remember the point, turn and talk technique for PowerPoint. Point at the screen, turn to your audience and then make your point.
PowerPoint gives you some exciting tools for your presentation to be truly successful. PowerPoint's visual and multimedia effects can be stunning. Just beware the trap presented by too many special effects and the standard text layouts.
(Timetomarket)
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Napoleon Hills 14 Secrets to Success
1. Render more service than I ask people to pay for.
2. I engage in no transaction, intentionally, that does not benefit all whom it affects.
3. I make no statements that I do not believe to be true.
4. I have a sincere desire in my heart to be of useful service to the greatest possible number of people.
5. I like people better than I like money
6. I am doing my best to live, as well as to teach my own philosophy of success.
7. I accept no favors from anyone without giving favors in return.
8. I ask nothing of any person without having a right to that for which I ask.
9. I enter into no arguments with people over trivial matters.
10. I spread the sunshine of optimism and good cheer wherever and whenever I can.
11. I never flatter people for the purpose of gaining their confidence.
12. I sell counsel and advice to other people, at a modest price, but never offer free advice.
13. Which teaching others how to achieve success, I have demonstrated that I can make my philosophy work for myself as well, thus "practicing what I preach"
14. I am so thoroughly sold on the work in which I am engaged that my enthusiasm over it becomes contagious and others are influenced by it.
From Napoleon Hills book The Master Key to Success.
Positive Mental Attitude - Napoleon Hill Foundation
Napoleon Hill held a Positive Mental Attitude as his foremost desired quality in one's journey through success. This clip is in honor of his message and how that message is being passed on from one generation to the next.
Newton - Positive Mental Attitude
Cross Country Coaching Legend Joe Newton talks about having a positive mental attitude.
Brian Tracy - Persistence, Entrepreneurs & Millionaires
Brian Tracy talks about how failure is to be expected before you reach success.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Dealing With People Who Drive You Crazy!
Video clip of a presentation made by Dr. Joel Freeman in the presence of court clerks at a conference in Orlando, Florida.
Teamwork and Collaboration - Cisco CEO John Chambers
Cisco CEO John Chambers explains how abandoning command-and-control leadership has enabled the company to innovate more quickly, using collaboration and teamwork.
SWOT: Assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of your business with SWOT analysis
One of management's trustiest tools is the SWOT analysis. You take a calm, cool look at the organisation's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Then you seek to capitalise on the Strengths, Eliminate the Weaknesses, seize the best Opportunities and counter the Threats. Could the magnificent success of Microsoft, with its 90% gross margin and $9 billion of cash, really be threatened? In a brilliant study in Worldlink magazine, Howard Anderson has shown that the answer is Yes - a dozen times over. Although the threats are specific to the software industry, they are also generic. Try them on your own firm:
1. Could newcomers (including breakaways from your own company) create damaging competition?
2. Is there an equally powerful force in the market which could muscle into your territory?
3. Is there a rival technology or other differentiator which could come out on top?
4. Are you weak compared to the competition in a key market segment?
5. Is the market developing in ways that favour competitors more than you?
6. Could your customers takes major sources of revenue away?
7. Is there a major area in the market where you lag rather than lead?
8. Does a competitor have a stronger hold on your biggest customers?
9. Is there a growing market where you are being left behind?
10. Are there environmental/regulatory threats?
11. Could unsuspected challenge arrive from outside the existing industry?
12. Is your market too broad for all threats to be safely covered?
AN INTIMIDATING LIST
The thirteenth question, of course, is whether, if any of the dozen apply to your business, you are doing anything effective to counter the Threat or, better still, to convert Threat into true Opportunity. It's an intimidating list, even for mighty Microsoft, especially when you see the names of its leading enemies: Sun Microsystems, the big banks, Cisco, Compaq, Netscape, Oracle, SAP and IBM. The latter giant provides Anderson with his starting point. Could what happened to IBM afflict Microsoft? His company, The Yankee Group, had been deeply impressed by the Strengths deployed by IBM in 1982 - and not surprisingly.
IBM led in every important market of the time: mainframes, communications, mainframe storage, mincomputers, and personal computers. It earned more profit than the next nine computer firms generated in total sales, spending more on R&D than they made in earnings. The Yankee Group concluded that IBM was therefore invulnerable - yet the giant was about to embark on a prolonged slide that, amazingly, leaves its market value lagging behind both Microsoft and Intel, and by no small margin, either. IBM's $86 billion of mid-1997 market capitalisation compares to $149 billion for Microsoft and $124 billion for Intel: IBM should plainly have held on to its old strategic investment in the latter. How could the Yankee Group's assessment be so spectacularly wrong?
In the first place, never concentrate just on your own or anybody else's Strengths. That's highly dangerous, partly because they can so easily turn into Weaknesses. Thus IBM's domination of mainframes, and dependence on them for the bulk of its profits, became an incubus as the market moved away to the PCs from which Intel and Microsoft drew their super-growth. The latter's similar domination and dependence in PC operating systems almost moved from Strength to Weakness as the Internet took off - and Gates was much nearer than his 'two years away from failure' when, with a mighty effort, he reversed engines and poured billions into Net, software probably just in time.
Second, market share and leadership by size are not strongpoints in themselves. In PCs, Compaq was able to exploit a world share of around 3% far more effectively than IBM, which had three times the market. The issue is how the market share, whether leading or not, has been achieved and sustained. Is the product or service perceived as superior? Is it cheaper? Is the distribution more effective? Is the cost level lower? Is speed-to-market faster? Are customer requirements met more accurately?
REACTION IN CRISIS
In the case of Compaq v IBM, curiously enough, the answers were all negative. Compaq had no significant advantage in product, distribution, costs, price, speed-to-market or customer satisfaction. But in the money-losing crisis into which Compaq suddenly plunged, it reacted radically on every point to create a stronger platform than its rival. The cost ratio, for instance, came down from 31% to 12.5% - an astonishing performance - as new products were launched at high speed, and the premium price policy was abandoned in favour of leading price levels downwards.
The key Strengths at Compaq were therefore intangibles, as were the Weaknesses at IBM. The smaller company was able to react and reform at speed; the larger could only react slowly and reluctantly. So the Yankee Group's second error was to concentrate on static Strengths, which are the results of past performance, rather than analysing the factors which will govern performance in the future. Even IBM's massively higher R&D spending was irrelevant in this context - the quantum of expenditure was less important than the uses to which its results were being put. The Yankee research consequently missed the low rate of conversion of R&D into saleable products - clearly shown, for example, by the strange RISC saga.
IBM's discovery of Reduced Instruction Set Computing, primarily the work of a technologist named John Cooke, was potentially a big winner, since it much enhances the performance of smaller computers. IBM, though, didn't use its own discovery in a work-station until 1990 - three years after Sun Microsystems and twice as long after RISC's availability. How could such absurdity be allowed? The explanation is that RISC was resisted by people who were dedicated to extending the 360-370 mainframe architecture. That's a perfect (or imperfect) example of how Strength turns into Weakness. Exactly the same mindset also allowed Compaq to seize the advantage, and a market share of nearly one third. in client-servers, powerful PCs which serve networks.
The resilience which IBM's rivals have shown, compared to their opponent's fateful conservatism, rests on people. In any industry today, the brighest and best employees are aware that their own SWOT analysis could lead to breakaway. They could stay with the company and develop their ideas within its embrace. But fragmented markets and booming stock prices, coupled with increasingly plentiful venture capital, offer a constant temptation.
Keeping people one by one, buying them off, so to speak, is no solution. The company has to create a culture that's so attractive, so hard to leave, that the retention rate will remain very high. In other words, Putting People First has to be the base strategy. An unhappy workforce is both a Weakness and a Threat - as British Airways has recently found. Its resurgence was founded on a programme actually called Putting People First - but, after a pilots' strike threat last year, in late June cabin crew and ground staff were equally alienated.
Look at what Fortune magazine calls the 'four-pronged approach' adopted by chief executive Bob Ayling, and the missing element is immediately obvious:
1. Develop a marketing plan with universal appeal
2. Help employees understand the company's global vision
3. Benchmark off mistakes that others have made in the past
4. Select the right partners for joint ventures overseas.
MISSION STATEMENT
The wording of the only reference to people is curious. So long as they 'understand' that BA wants to be seen as a global airline, not a national carrier, that's fine. But consider this quotation: 'At a recent employee gathering in New York, none of the 75 people in the audience could remember the company's... mission statement' - which was only a single sentence. To put it mildly, there's not much point in a mission that everybody has forgotten.
The massive facelift on which BA is engaged went down well with the same audience ('there were audible oohs and ahs when images of the new planes and tocket jackets flashed up on a big screen.') The author's conclusion was that; 'If you give somebody a product they can be proud of and tell them why it's changing, you stand a good chance of helping them sell it better.' That is far from the truth. There are some key questions that need to be answered:
1. Have the people helped to create the new product?
2. Did they contribute to the thought processes that led to change?
3. Are they constructively involved in deciding how to sell the product better?
The answers at BA appear to be negative. One report accuses Ayling of being someone who 'may not have grasped the finer points of dealing with real people, as opposed to numbers on a page.' The curious issue here, though, is that BA has confronted similar problems before. Some of its managers have learned the powerful lesson that change accomplished through people is far more effective than change forced upon them. In the last 1980s, the troubles with its engineering division became so acute that management was forced to take a strike, keeping the airline going with white-collar labour, until the unions capitulated.
Alastair Cumming, the manager in charge, concluded that 'very determined management' could only go so far. Unless the employees could be positively involved and their willing support obtained, further progress would be impossible. The results of changing the management culture - from order and obey to cooperation - were spectacular. Cumming sold off its engineering overhaul business to GE, cut staff numbers by 500, and took £38 million out of costs in the first year - without any dispute. Once improvement had become the shared objective, and the necessary tools had been provided, examples soon abounded of employees taking the initiative in raising quality and reducing cost.
The BA engineering exercise rubs in the point that the SWOT exercise needs to be in two parts: internal and external. The first category includes matters like R&D strengths, engineering know-how, the cash in the bank, and so on. But these are passive. The second category is what actively turns the physical assets into achievements in the external world. This was brought home to me forcefully by reading Ryuzaburo Kaku's account of how he devised the two plans - in 1972 and 1982 - which converted Canon into, first, a premier Japanese company and, second, the world technology leader that it is today.
INTERNAL DEFECTS
The process, according to Kaku's article in the July-August Harvard Business Review, began with a meeting at which the young Kaku argued that Canon's obvious weakness of the time (a cash shortage so severe that it couldn't pay dividends) resulted from internal defects: 'poor decision-making and bureaucratic organisation'. Given his chance, Kaku 'radically decentralised decision-making, redesigned the organisation' and 'poured resources into R&D'. As the fruits poured forth, Kaku developed his ideas on 'kyosei' or 'a spirit of cooperation'.
He describes kyosei as a five-stage journey, starting with economic survival. That's where the vast majority of companies stop - making reliable profits from strong market positions: just like IBM or BA, in other words. But Kaku argues that this stage is not enough - the company must move on to cooperation between management and labour. Salaries, bonuses and training are all involved in this process: 'The two sides are in the same boat...sharing the same fate'. Plainly, this is the stage where BA has fallen short. Instead of emulating his own engineering side's later enlightenment, Ayling is adopting the strong-arm methods of its former, unhappier days.
Even cooperation is still not enough - 'this stage of kyosei can become so inwardly focused that it does little to solve problems outside the company'. Kaku goes on to call for cooperation with both suppliers and customers and with communities. Suppliers, for instance, are 'provided with technical support and in turn deliver high-quality materials on time'. But even that's not enough. In this third stage, 'companies often focus so much on local and national problems that they neglect global problems' - which leads on to Kaku's next two stages, globalism and partnership with governments.
Now, for most businesses these two stages seem infinitely remote - though globalism, thanks partly to the Internet, is a rising force in many markets today, and may well become decisive. But Kaku's five stages raise a crucial point: nothing is ever enough. No matter how great your Strengths, how limited your Weaknesses, how minimal the Threats and well-taken the Opportunities, there is always a next stage. The organisation must continually challenge itself and move onwards and upwards. An encouraging internal and external SWOT analysis is simply a foundation - an encouragement to do better still, and then more.
Nevertheless, the foundations laid by Kaku, together with the principles of employee cooperation which he used, make an instructive guide and form a penetrating two-part questionnaire:
1. Have you formed a large overall ambition? (Canon's was to join the top ranks of global companies and move from cameras to all-round high-technology manufacturer).
2. Have you set aggressive, long-term performance targets for every part of the organisation?
3. Have you got the right set-up? (Canon formed a matrix with three main product lines as vertical pillars, linked by three horizontal activities - manufacturing, marketing and R&D).
4. Are you investing heavily in all the horizontal activities?
Turn from Canon to BA, and the four questions would reveal similar foundation strengths, starting with the fact that it carries more passengers than any other airline. Its planned alliance with American Airlines should create a dominant force in an industry where BA already boasts the highest profitability. Its plans to cut costs and employment by radical reorganisation, including the outsourcing or disposal of services, will add to the Strengths and ward off any Threats. But the whole edifice (including those plans) rests on the next four questions based on the Canon experience:
5. Have you eliminated all distinctions between different types of employee?
6. Have you based excellent employee relations on investing in high salaries, extensive training programmes, generous vacations., etc?
7. Do you dislike and seek to avoid lay-offs, early retirements,etc.?
8. Do you make it a prime objective never to engage in confrontation with your employees?
Here BA's answers are far less satisfactory. Yet the two parts, the strategic exploitation of commercial assets and the creation of a one-company, cooperative culture go hand-in-hand. You can see the fruits of Canon's two-part octet in a decade of growth in net profits by 20% annually, with sales rising at 9%, and the return on both sales and equity more than doubling. In copiers and desktop printers, its main products, too, Canon is world leader. To take today's abundant Opportunities in like style, against multiplying Threats, never forget that Strengths can become Weaknesses - but, equally important, Weakness can be turned into Strength.
(by Robert Heller/Thinking Managers)
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