Become a value creator.

Become a value creator is a HBS Working Knowledge article by Dina Gerdeman. After reading it, here are some important pointers I learnt:

1. "Value-creating" behaviour — doing a favour for the good of the organisation without expecting anything in return.

2. "Business is a team sport. It's soccer, not golf. Nobody plays by themselves and wins in business," 

3. In general, value creators work cooperatively with others to make the corporate pie bigger for all, whereas value claimers focus on taking more of the pie for themselves — like a thief steals for personal gain.

4. An executive can actively choose to be a value creator.

5. What goes around comes around. Executives shouldn't look to create value only because they hope to receive a favour or other reward in return.

6. The biggest predictor of happiness in life is good relationships. "If you have really good relationships, you have really good friends. You have people who have your back, who believe in you, who really respect you.

3 questions before your next fb post.

Have you viewed a terrible post. Did you get angry or embarressed after reading it. 
Here are some examples of worst Facebook post. 


(An international example)

(A local example)

How do you prevent having heated argument online? How do you avoid revealing important or private matters? Here are 3 questions you can ask yourself before posting what's on your mind:

Question 1, Is it worthwhile?
Will you get anything after posting it? Is it important? Is it time sensitive? 

Question 2, Will it harm anyone?
Will you hurt or condemn anyone? Will it cause the family members or loved ones embarrassment? Will it risk their livelihood?

Question 3, Am I going to lose anything if I don't pose it? 
What if you don't post it at the first place? Will the world lose anything without your post? Will you not get that promotion or reward if you don't click the send button?

I hope these 3 questions will assist you to filter your thoughts before you post the next thing that's on your mind.

Improve the quality of your listening

Listening to Julian Treasure made me realise that listening is actually a conscious thing to do. "Listen consciously in order to live fully".. I hear him say. It's such an important skill, but sadly very few of us do it well. He shares with us 5 ways for us to improve the quality of listening.

1. Stay silent.
Staying silent or quiet for 3 minutes helps us to settle down and recalibrate our hearing so we feel better.

2. Analyse the channels of sound.
We need to consciously get our brain to analyse how many sounds or things that create sounds are there when we are hearing something or when we are in a loud environment.

3. Enjoying the mundane sound.
The sound of the coffee mixer or the flush may no longer be an exciting thing for the ears however according to Julian, try to fix your ears on it and hear how the sounds are put together.

4. Change your listening strategy.
Julian says, you should consciously change your listening strategy or he calls it listening positions. If you are active, change to passive or if you are critical, change to empathetic. Notice what happens and see how you experience with it.

5. RASA when you are in a a particular role.
We live our lives in roles. We have roles such as being a leader, teacher, spouse, parent or friend. When we listen or communicate with someone, we can use this acronym "RASA", which refers to:
R- Receive, (Pay attention to that person so you can receive as much information as possible...)
A- Appreciate, (Make little noise like... hmmm, ok... to appreciate the person talking...)
S- Summarise, (Use words to summarise, like... so..)
A- Ask, (Ask question to know more..)

Try these methods and have fun experiencing it!

Extreme Productivity.

Here are 12 things I picked up after reading the summary of the book entitled:

Extreme Productivity by Robert C. Pozen. 

1. How many hours do you spend at work? What are the three main activities on which you spend the most time?

2. Some professionals have not carefully thought about their Objectives and Targets. They often neglect an important goal until it becomes a crisis, demanding their full time and effort.

3. One technique for not sweating the small stuff is to follow the principle of OHIO: “Only Handle It Once.”

4. Be clear about your goals for the trip and make sure your schedule reflects those goals.

5. Carry a canvas bag on the airplane with tools for sleeping (eyeshades, earplugs) and reading materials (hard copies and flashlight or computer/iPad).

6. If you want to be an effective reader, you have to know your purpose for reading and stick to it.

7. Writing is an essential skill for knowledge-based workers. They must compose documents to inform, lead, and persuade others both inside and outside their organisation. 

8. There is no other way to get comfortable with your speech than regularly practising it, so you can appear confident and natural.

9. You can get the most out of their employees by helping them achieve meaningful progress every day.

10. Whatever the management style of your boss, he or she will become your biggest fan if you consistently deliver high-quality projects on time and within budget.

11. Career planning is not a one-time event; it’s a continual process that has to be actively managed over a lifetime. At each step, ask yourself: what can I do next that will maximize my options in the future?

To start, establish some tentative Career Aims by critically evaluating your supply and the world's demand. 

12. What’s the point of getting more done in less time? The point is not just to build a more rewarding career, but to enjoy a more rewarding life. 

To drink or not to drink.

A client called me for a meeting. They wanted a presentation on how we were going to conduct a team building program. As we got into the meeting, everybody got sited and as we were talking, 7 cups of coffee came in. I was surprised because it's the month of Ramadan and as I know, generally wherever I go, no drinks will be surfed but I guess there's always an exception. 

Well there were 10 of us in the room and 3 were fasting so it made perfect sense why 7 cuppa's. I opted for plain water, so now it was 6 cups. Once my plain water was substituted, the meeting went on. 

After about 30 minutes, to my surprise I noticed that no one had their drink, not even a sip. Interesting I thought because I didn't take a sip either. 

The meeting went on for about another 30 minutes, and the same thing happen again. This time, it caught my attention. While the meeting was going on, I consciously had my peripheral vision on everyone's cup. I was trying to notice if anyone will just unconsciously pick up their cup and take that sip. 

Until the end of the meeting, no one drank anything and there where 6 cups of cold coffee with a glass of cool water. 

Why didn't anyone drink it? Why not even a sip? Was it that they knew that the tea lady makes bad coffee:)? Was it that the presentation was so engaging that the coffee didn't matter:))? 

Maybe there were some who wanted to drink but were not sure if their actions were inappropriate. So, as usual we wait for others, we wait for the 'social norm' and then we do it. Therefore, even if it's wrong because someone has done it, it gives us the approval that we can do it too. Not really a wise way of thinking but I'm sure the majority of us refer to social norms for a lot of things that we do. In this case, no one even tasted the drink. 

It's interesting to understand the 'social norm' in your organisation. Do people say because the boss comes in late to work, therefore they come in late. Others don't work hard enough, why should they be putting in more. The manager takes a longer break time, therefore they need to take longer break time. 

Social norm can be a very powerful way to enforce behaviour, good or bad. My suggestion would be that it will be great to follow the positive norms and don't participate in the negative norms. Negative norms don't bring any benefits but only complains and justifications. While positive norms improve us and allows us to seek opportunity. 

At the end, I was happy leaving the meeting. I know now that the team that was organising this team building workshop not only wanted to improve their staffs behaviour, so that they can have better norms, but they have a good norm, to begin with.