Leadership Lessons from the founder of Facebook - Mark Zuckerberg

You might be using facebook. Whether you are an active user or passive, you know people around you are spending so much of their time in facebook. It doesn't just become accidentally something big phenomenon and Mark was lucky that he's the founder of Facebook. There are leadership qualities behind him that makes facebook is still there and everyone still spending their most web browser activities on it.

Great leaders do things differently and some of the great leaders have something in common. It is not difficult to be a great leader. We just need to find a person who have made it, understand what are the principles that they use and copy.

Copying is not a straight forward process. As a human being, there is no chance for us to copy another person 100% because each and everyone of us is unique. But certain principle we can learn and we can apply what make sense to us. While some that does not make sense, we can just leave it away for other people who think it make sense to them to actually use it.

10 lessons from Mark Zuckerberg:

1. Get revenge on your exes.
2. Don't be intimidated by the boardroom.
3. Do what you are passionate about.
4. Leadership is the quality that will bring the best out of people around you.
5. Be the CEO and make sure everyone around you knows it.
6. You are only as strong as the team around you.
7. Don't be fazed by the opinion of those around you.
8. There is no excuse for non-commitment.
9. Don't let anyone tell the story of you.
10. You need to have the 'go big or go home' attitude.

Details as in the slides:

10 Leadership Lessons From Mark Zuckerberg from Sompong Yusoontorn

Small Mind Think of Small Things

Yesterday, I was fortunate to have a lunch with UTeM Assistance Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ghazie Ismail. Among topics that we discuss is about some people's behaviour.

Sekadar gambar hiasan

He shared with us some stories of the past (he was a senior management at MDeC since the establishment of MDeC). At that time some people complaint on some claims that they did not received because of approval has not been obtained. The amount is not too big, but the person making it a big issue. Then he asked, "If you receive this, will it make you rich? and if you don't receive it, will it make you poor?" Then you don't have to make it a big issue.

The lesson is, small mind people discuss of small things. People who think big will not spending so much effort of settling small little things, because there are more big things that worth to focus on.

When was the last time we arguing for just small little thing? Let us ask ourself, whether is it worth to worry about the small thing? Or should we shift our focus to bigger things that worth our attention?

THINK BIG PEOPLE. STOP DISCUSSING TOO MUCH ON SMALL LITTLE THINGS.

3 Qualities of a Great Leader

Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad

Tun Dr. Mahathir once said,

"To be a great leader, one needs to have good strategies, be knowledgeable and able to predict the future."

As suggested by Tun, great leaders must have these qualities:
1. Have good strategies
2. Knowledgeable
3. Able to predict the future

Predicting the Future
I have heard of this quote years ago. But at that time I was not sure on the meaning of the ability to predict the future. It came into my mind that there were a crystal ball that a leader might have, or something like the movie Nujum Pak Belalang.

However, keeping this quote in mind and as I move on, I have learn a lot from this quote. Now I understand that by seeing things around on what is happening now, you may be able to predict the outcome. If people are building highways today, so many things will happen. The land price might be increase. There will be more commercial areas to be developed, and so on. This is an example of predicting the future.

Looking into business perspective, if you know what is happening in a company, you might be able to predict the performance of the company. If you are into share trading, you might be able to predict the value of the shares. If you are an employee, you might know whether the company is sustainable, expanding or shrinking. You can make the decision on where you are standing then.

Tun Mahathir has the ability to predict the future. In a talk during Prestige Leadership Programme, Tun mentioned that he decided to build a bridge between  the mainland and Penand Island. At that time, people are criticizing him heavily on the project and label it as a waste for the country. He proved them wrong.  It happened again when he planned to build the KLCC and Putrajaya. The only reason why he stick with his decision is because he see things in the future, and how people will appreciate it. I personally think that the current government motto of "Zaman kerajaan mengetahui segalanya sudah berakhir" is not really a good motto. As a good leader, one must decide on what he think the best for the future. Not now! Yes, we can listen, but we need to decide what is good for the future.

Don't ask average people what they want, because they don't know what they wanted.

Steve Jobs once said,

 "It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."

and Henry Ford also said,

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Inspirasi dari pengasas EMKAY Group - Tan Sri Mustapha Kamal

Tan Sri Datuk (Dr) Mustapha Kamal merupakan salah seorang yang tidak asing lagi dalam dunia hartanah di Malaysia. Beliau merupakan pengerusi EMKAY Group, MK Land Holdings Berhad, Setia Haruman Sdn Bhd dan beberapa buah syarikat yang lain. Pada 26 Oktober 2013, Yayasan Universiti Multimedia telah dijemput untuk ke sebuah sesi bersama Tan Sri MK dan saya bersyukur kerana berpeluang untuk turut serta dalam lawatan tersebut. Seramai 37 pelajar menghadiri sesi yang penuh dengan inspirasi ini.

Tan Sri merupakan seorang yang sangat rendah diri. Beliau membahasakan dirinya sebagai Pak Cik kepada pelajar-pelajar. Beliau memberikan beberapa nasihat yang beliau rasakan perlu untuk beliau sampaikan kepada anak-anak muda. Disini suka untuk saya berkongsi dengan rakan-rakan pembaca untuk manfaat bersama.

Sebagai Manusia kita mempunyai nikmat berupa pilihan
Antara nikmat yang dinikmati oleh semua manusia ialah kita boleh buat pilihan. Dalam kehidupan, bermacam-macam pilihan yang boleh kita buat. Dan setiap pilihan yang kita buat akan menentukan siapa kita.

"The choice you make, makes you."

Dunia diluar sana adalah dunia yang kejam. Mereka tidak memandang sekiranya anda tidak mempunyai nama, jawatan dan pangkat. Itulah realitinya.

Cara Mencari Rezeki Yang Halal
Terdapat dua cara untuk mencari rezeki yang halal:
1. We have to do - kita perlu buat.
2. We want to do - kita mahu buat.

Sekiranya kita memilih what we  want to do, ianya less stressful. Kurang tekanan dan kita boleh hadapi segala cabaran kerana kita ingin membuatnya. Bukan terpaksa membuatnya.

Self-motivated
Sekiranya kita membuat sesuatu berdasarkan what we want to do kita akan bermotivasi secara sendirinya. What we want to do sangat berkait rapat dengan bakat semulajadi. Setiap orang ada bakat semulajadi. Cuba kita suruh Dato' Nicole David bermain badminton. Walaupun sama seperti skuasy memegang reket, beliau mungkin tidak boleh bermain dengan baik, sebaik beliau bermain skuasy. Sama juga kesnya sekiranya kita menyuruh Dato' Lee Chong Wei bermain skuasy.

Gratitude Can Increase Your Happiness?

"Gratitude for the abundance you have received is the best insurance that the abundance will continue."  

-- Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.

Can money buy happiness? For some, they might say yes. But that might not be the root-cause why they are happy. Money just a mean of someone's happiness. But what makes people happy? One of it is Gratitude.

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to you for reading this post. 
In this post, I am going to share with you 3 things:

1. 4 Tips on practising your gratitude. Simple way to remind you to be grateful.
2. An Experiment of Gratitude by Pancake. How you can increase your happiness with Gratitude.
3. When things get tough, how to express gratitude?

4 Tips on Practising your Gratitude

Fauzia Burke in her post shared her 4 tips on how to be grateful:

1. Keep a journal and write what you are grateful for every day. This to me will force you to find out what are the good things that you have and what are good things that has happened. It automatically shift your focus from looking into your life and create positivity within you.
2. Create a Gratitude Bulletin Board. Post on whatever you are grateful for and showcase it to people. While some people keep a manifestation board (things that have not yet happen), she puts on things that already happen. Because as quote above, that is the best insurance that the abundance will continue.
3. Practice Gratitude with Your Family. Sharing is caring. Fauzia recommend during meal time to share with family members on ups-and-downs of the day. Facing challenges also something that we can be grateful of because when we successfully faced the challenges, we are learning new things, we are actually growing. (Watch the video of Oprah at the end of the post).
4. Have Some Gratitude Reminder. Put some anchor on something happens to remind you to express gratitude; most of the time, the first thing we wake up in the morning. But you also can include normal activity such as when you close your door everyday to work to express your gratitude.

Best Practices are Stupid?

Well, the title sounds controversial. Yes, this is the title of the book written by Stephen Shapiro. He is the type that would challenge the status quo and promote the culture of innovation. Well true enough, if we follow what everybody is doing, we will become a mediocre. And he got his argument to back-up his statement. Steve Jobs said Leadership is about innovation. And leaders should not be a follower to follow what others did well. Furthermore, the best practice might not suit to our environment.

Innovation distinguished between a leader and a follower - Steve Jobs

Face it, the world is changing. As my previous post the world no longer looking for productivity or quality. If we are looking into that, following the best practice might help. However, we are now looking at Innovation. Innovation is creating something new, something different. But if we follow the traditional wisdom that worked in the past, how do you expect us to be different? How can we be innovative?

Latest Book by Stephen Shapiro

5 topics that has been discussed by Stephen Shapiro. (Watch the video at the end of this post) These 5 topics are:

1) Stop Asking for Ideas
2) Don't Think Outside the Box - Build a Better Box
3) Hire People You Don't Like
4) Stop Praising People
5) Expertise is the Enemy of Innovation

STOP ASKING FOR IDEAS
As we asked for ideas, people will contribute the ideas as many as they can. In the BP oil spill case, 123,000 submission of ideas. But guess how many ideas that really count? About a dozen. This means that 99.99% of the ideas goes to the drain. Think of how much cumulative time were wasted for people to think, input and the staff to screen and debate those ideas?

In engineering we studied signal-to-noise ration (SNR). In real life, the signal is things that really matters and noise is things that does not matter. Output is no good if the noise is too high. And most organizations are spending time for things that does not matter.

How to do?
Frame something that is solvable and let people contribute their ideas within that parameters. This will help people to focus. We don't need everybody to contribute in order to make the best ideas. But if that small group can focus, they can find great solutions without wasting to much of time.

Steve Jobs Thoughts on Life

People might see different things in life. But the way Steve Jobs see the world is different.

"Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is, everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you ... the minute that you understand that you can poke life ... that you can change it, you can mould it ... that's maybe the most important thing."

We can stick to the old perception of life is by default or we can change the way we look at things.

"And once you learn that, your life will never be the same again."

Watch the following video.