#SayaPejuang ...adakah anda seorang pejuang???

Sahabat saya Ahyat sedang berkongsi tentang erti pejuang

Satu perkara yang dikongsikan dengan saya pada pagi ini adalah tentang perjuangan. Ramai yang menyebut tentang perjuangan, tetapi adakah mereka sedar apakah itu perjuangan?

Siapa itu pejuang?
Mengapa kita perlu jadi seorang pejuang?

Jawapan ringkas: Seorang pejuang tidak takut akan bahaya.

Seorang pejuang tidak akan menyerah kalah apabila keadaan menjadi sukar.
Bagaimana kita boleh ambil konsep ini dalam perniagaan? Ramai yang berpendapat 2016 adalah tahun yang sukar. Dengan kejatuhan nilai ringgit, kejatuhan harga minyak, peningkatan kos sara hidup, dan pelbagai lagi. Ramai yang tidak jelas akan matlamat sudah tentu akan beralih arah dalam menjalankan apa juga perniagaan.

Tetapi seorang pejuang akan teruskan perjuangan mereka kerana ada sesuatu yang memberikan tenaga umpama dynamo di dalam badan. Mereka tidak akan keluar daripada masalah tersebut untuk mencari peluang yang lain, sebaliknya mereka akan terus memperjuangkan apa yang mereka perjuangkan selama ini, kerana mereka ada tujuan (Purpose). Tujuan inilah yang memberikan satu tenaga dari dalam - The BIG WHY.

Duit sebagai faktor motivasi?
Mungkin ramai menganggap duit adalah satu faktor motivasi. Saya bersetuju, tetapi saya tidak bersetuju sekiranya duit dianggap motivasi paling utama. Ungkapan 'cash is king' hanya benar dalam situasi-situasi tertentu.

Leading Effectively in the 21st Century - What can we learn from Top Companies for Leaders?

Leading in the 21st century could not only rely on 20th century wisdom. The environment is changing. The new reality is that we are living in a VUCA environment - volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.

AON Hewitt did a study on Top Companies for Leaders® and find out that top companies have certain characteristics:

1. They have self-aware leaders  who understand their personal strength and weaknesses, and use this information to become more effective leaders of others.

2. Build resilience in their leaders through stretch experience, encouragement and support for taking risks.

3. Identify and build engaged leaders who connect strongly with their people, and the team to organization's purpose and mission.

Problem Solving vs Problem Finding

I read an article of what employers want from the graduates. And one of the answer is problem solving skills. Is problem solving still the critical skills that industry really want?

There is an interesting research that explains this. In his book - To Sell is Human, Daniel Pink explain on a study by the Conference Board -  a well regarded Business Group in the US. They provide a survey to Employers and Education Superintendent, and asked them to rate the cognitive capacities that are most important on today's workforce.

Interestingly, both group are not on the same page. Education superintendent ranked 'Problem Solving' as no.1 but the employer executives ranked that as no. 8. They ranked the most important skills are 'Problem Identification.'

5 Marketing Lessons that I learned from Jay Abraham

"There are only two things in a business that make money - innovation and marketing. 

Everything else is cost."

- Peter Drucker

A photo of me with a replica of Jay Abraham

I attended a session with Jay Abraham, the legendary marketing guru. Some might called him the marketing wizard because of his ability to think of marketing strategies in any kind of business. While I posted some of the photos on the social media, some of my friends were asking me, "what did you learned from Jay Abraham?" 

To answer that questions, I decided to create this post so that it will benefits more people. I list down 5 most important lessons that I learn from that session.

1. Force Multiplier Effect
This is a strategies that Jay mentioned he model it from the military. Imagine you are in military, your enemy will have a certain kind of defence. It is not easy to break through that defence. But if you have a strategy to attack from multiple angle, you might have a better results.

This is what Jay means by Force Multiplier Effect. They attack the enemy from many force.
The goal is for that combined effect destroy the resistance.

Wisdom from the President - Prof. Tan Sri Dr. Ghauth Jasmon

Prof. Ghauth was the founding president of Multimedia University, the first private university in Malaysia, where I earn my engineering degree. With his leadership the university grew dramatically and ranked at top 200 universities in Asia in less than 10 years of it's establishment. 

Me with Prof. Ghauth and Prof. Rasat

Today I have a chance to meet him at our MMU Alumni Homecoming celebration. My intention is to meet some old folks during the university time, but very less from my batch were turned up for the event. However, from the short speech of Prof. Ghauth sharing his thought and wisdom makes me feel that the event was very fruitful to me at least.

Prof. Ghauth was the vice-chancellor of the University Malaya after building MMU from scratch for 11 years. He said that he was blessed because he was able to be at the top position of both public and private universities in Malaysia. He shared some of his view including the different challenge that he has to face running both universities.

Why Job Description is outdated why should we replace it with Job Mission

Many organization provide their employee with Job Description (JD). Every job description will tell people on what to do and sometimes, perhaps how to do it.  In my humble opinion, this work well in the past where compliance is very much needed.

But in this competitive environment, things have changed. People don't do routine job too much now, because the job nowadays is not to produce a certain set of rules. If the job requires a routine of a set of rules, a machine or a system could easily replace the job. The jobs nowadays require people to think, solve problems and move within the company's direction.

Today, job description is also been use for a person to define their territory and protect themselves from doing things out of their boundaries. If things were not clearly stated in one job description, they just can say that it is not part of their job, based on their JD. In case that a particular task was not define in anybody's job description, chances are that thing might be left over and no one to be blame.

Job Mission
What we need in describing a role of an employee is a Job Mission (JM). Job Mission is more about the goal of your role, which align to the greater goal of an organization. Job Mission provide empowerment of an employee where they will do whatever it takes to complete their mission. In this world, we are moving from compliance to engagement. We don't just want people to comply with our standards and rules, but we want to engage them so they will stay longer with us, provide the brain in providing solutions and add value to the whole organization.

High Income Nation - Are we training our people in the right direction?

Malaysia is moving towards high income nation. To realize the vision 2020, we set our target to achieve GNI per capita of US$15,000. One of the initiative is to train our people. Training has been seen as effective method to upgrade the skills and knowledge of the people. However, are we training our people with the right skills?


Upskilling and Reskilling
Malaysia is focusing so many initiatives to produce high income workers. Among top initiatives of the government including upskilling and reskilling. This is expected to produce a high income workforce through high skill workers.

The linkage between technical skills and soft-skills

According to Carnegie Institute of Technology, 85% of financial success is depends on one personality and the ability to communicate, negotiate and lead. Shockingly, only 15% of it due to technical knowledge. In other words, success in financial depends very much on soft-skills or what I called leadership skills.

This is not the only studies that has been done related to skills. In my previous post, I have mentioned that skills contribute on 14% - 22% (based on industries and descipline). Attitude plays a bigger role, which is the personality part.

Knowing this facts, are we in the right direction of building a high income nation with high income people?

Everyone Can Become A Leader

Everyone can become a leader. But that is not the question. The question is whether they want to or they don't. Leadership is a choice and I do believe that it is your responsibility to decide whether you want to be one, or you just want to follow someone, or some organization.

Tipping Point
Some people change after there was a situation that force them to change. I remembered Jim Rohn's story of how he changed after being broke and not able to buy a cookies from a girl scout. Worst, he was lying saying that he has one. That is his turning point of his life. Some people change because of frustration and some because of inspiration. Both are good change agents.

Vision and Mission
Most companies have this nice frame on the wall mentioning vision and mission. But some companies did it because all other companies have it, and it looks weird if they don't. Some did it because their consultant asked them to do so, without understanding the purpose of having it. To me, leaders must have a vision. Something that they wanted to change. From that vision, they create missions to support their intention. This will drive them internally to pursue their dreams. I believe people are not a lazy creature. They just don't have a clear vision of their life, or finding their purpose of their life.

Music and It's Application in Learning

Last year, as I went to the new IOI City Mall, in one of the home furnishing store I just have this mood of buying. The environment was set in such a way that people will ignite their sense of buying things because they give the feeling of comfort and elegance. I look at the sofa, it was really tempting for me to bring home one. The blue blanket was like waving it's hand asking me to bring home the whole bedding set.

As I get myself into the conscious mode, I noticed the music that they use was actually playing the role of putting someone emotion to a certain state so that it will ignite the mood of those who shop in the store. Everything was planned well. Music can really give some impact in the mood of a person.

People using music for different purposes. If you watch movies, you will feel the emotion of panic, romance or fantasy by the background of the music. Try to look in a horror movie and shut down the volume. You won't have that kind of effect, and you might totally eliminate the whole emotion of fear and your mind might start to think logic. Even question, why the director did such and such.

Using the right music to accelerate learning
In training, most people use music as part of their tools. However, some trainers use a certain music which inappropriate in terms of timing and wrong type of music. It will give a different impact and in some cases, participants might get confused subsconciously. I was in this training programme, with this good trainer. At the very end of the training, he put on a song for an activity. I just can't feel myself suit because the music used was just not right for that particular activity.

Inside the Mind of Cheryl Yeoh: 5 Powerful Lessons from the CEO of Magic

Successful people have a certain pattern that makes them successful. By learning some of the thought, we can take some valuable lessons. Most of the successful people might do it unconsciously but when they share their stories, we can can conclude into some certain principles.

Today, I attended Mindvalley's Project Renaissance featuring Cheryl Yeoh the CEO of Magic. Moderated by the founder of Mindvalley, Vishen Lakhiani (which was very awesome at hosting the session), Cheryl share some of her journey before becoming the CEO.

One of the accomplishment made by Cheryl was to build an app company called Reclip.It and managed to sold the business to the Wallmart. Some of the lesson shared during the session:

1. Entrepreneurship starts from young age
She learn to become an entrepreneur since the age of 8, where her mother made some unique batu seremban. She saw that opportunity and sold it to their friends at school. However, the teachers found out and doesn't like the idea. I remembered Roshan Thiran, the CEO of Leaderonomics shared about how in the US, kids were encouraged to become an entrepreneur. They sell lemonade since kids in front of their home. When nobody bought it, they learn an important lesson - location, location, location. Then they can improve from there. But us in Malaysia, most doesn't allow their kids to perform the act of entrepreneurship, including myself. I remembered when I started my business of trading sweets at the age of 10. When my grandfather found out, he asked me to stop doing it and focusing on studying. He said, if I don't have money, ask from him. But now, if I don't have money, who do I ask from? Perhaps BR1M can give some hope.

2. Selling is one of the crucial skills
Cheryl learn how to sell at a very young age. He went to one of the apartment at Glomac, Kelana Jaya and told the security that she was delivering something to someone staying there. She then knock from door-to-door selling his cabinet solutions. It turns out, to her, the ability to sell is one of the important skills to be successful. She added in one of the book she read that the author is not happy with Standford University because there is no selling course thought at the university level. How come the most important skills was not been taught in the university? She also jokingly mentioned that his father comes out with the 3 Cs of selling. 1. Convince. If you don't manage to convince step 2 is to Confuse. And you still didn't manage to sell then the third C is to Con.