"ALWAYS DO

WHAT NEEDS TO BE  

DONE

WITHOUT

WAITING

TO BE ASKED."

This "Ultimate Expectation" seems like common sense. But, please do not confuse with what sounds simple with what is easy to do. Take the above message to heart and become skilled at applying it in your own job and circumstances. Apply it on a daily basis in your work. And accepting this challenge is paramount to your success in your career as well as in your life.

Happy Working !!!

A buddy just brought over a DVD, titled "The Happening" to me two days ago. It was an exciting thriller about how a couple and a young child survived the sudden outbreak of an enviromental crisis at a particular region in The United States. What was initially suspected to be a terrorist attack by everyone was eventually filtered down to the unleashing of airborne neurotoxins that causes all those who breath to commit suicides or suffered other terrible deaths.

It was worth spending my time watching "The Happening". By the way, have anyone of you seen it?

Not bad. Interesting and shocking. I like it and I guess that it may worth your time if you are into scientific thrillers.

Have Another Happy Day Again !!! 

"How does one achieve success in a battle?

I believe that it is essential to understand that battles

are won primarily in the hearts of men. Men

respond to leadership in a most remarkable way.

Once you have won their hearts,

they will follow you anywhere."

Just praying and wishing that our leaders of tomorrow can put the peoples interest above their personal ambitions and self-interests.

Have A Great Day!!!

"To the winner, there is 100 percent elation,

100 percent fun, 100 percent laughter; and

yet the only thing left to the loser is

resolution and determination."

We are currently treading into a very uncertain political future.

Politically we are no longer stable at this point in time. Too many factors has come into play and is becoming .......... I really dread what the future will be for all of us?

Will the above serve as a food for thought for all who visits this blog ...........

Have a Happy Day!

"Being part of a football team is no different than

being part of any other organisation - an army, or

a political party. The objective is to win,  to beat the

other guys. You think that is hard or cruel?  I don't

think it is. I do think it is a reality of life that men

are competitive, and the more competitive the

business, the more competitive the men. They

know the rules, and they know the objective, and

they get in the game. And the objective is to win -

fairly, squarely, decently, by the rules, but to win."

Games are fun only because there are referees and there are rules to follow.

Just imagine, football without rules would be an athletic riot.

Our Stock Exchange without rules would be an entrepreneurial riot.

The unfortunate thing is this is not so in politics. I have no objection whatsoever that our leaders can try to win the hearts of the people if they can play by the rules.

The reason is with the recent steep fuel hike in this Country, the cost of construction has also gone up by at least 30 percent. As such, at this point in time, should our housing developers be allowed to carry on with their traditional practice of 'STB' (Sell Than Build) or to support the new 'BTS' (Build Than Sell) concept which was proposed by our beloved Prime Minister.

In view of the higher cost of construction, the reality to our Developers is that the more they pre-sell today, the more they could lose.

To the house buyers they anticipated the risk that they may have to face when buying a property today. I mean, "everyone knows very well who is going to build something only to end up losing?" So, what could be the best option for both sides?

Could it be the 'BTS' concept? With it, our Developers can be assured of making money as their prices will be peggged on the current land and building cost plus the profit element, while house buyers are assured of actually owning a completed unit.

To those working people, who are rushing to buy a new property, this could be a costlier option but the risk is minimised if I may add. But, the decision is yours.

Meanwhile, have another productive week ahead!

On Monday, there were traffic jams everywhere due to the many roadblocks around Kuala Lumpur. Motorists were caught stranded in the traffic gridlock and were late for work. The roadblocks were set up in anticipation of a public demonstration. But, nothing materialised.

Meanwhile, a motion of no confidence by the Opposition against our beloved Prime Minister was rejected in Parliament today as well.

On Tuesday night, Malaysians all over the Country were able to watch a live telecast for the first time a format quite similar to the American presidential candidates style debates on fuel hikes by the de facto leader of PKR, (a political party) Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and our Minister of Information. 

However, on the next day around noon Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was arrested by the police, less than an hour short of a deadline for him to present himself at the city contingent police headquarters for questioning over a sodomy allegation made against him. He was released on police bail the next day.  

Blogger RPK, Raja Petra Kamaruddin the editor of 'Malaysia Today', was arrested, then on police bail and was charged on Thursday with three counts of criminal defamation. One interesting note is that RPK refused to enter a plea to all three charges, claiming that they were defective and mala fide (in Bad faith). 

On the same day former Klang MP, Datin Paduka Dr. Tan Yew Kee, a former Wanita MCA (Women's Wing) Deputy Chief announced her resignation from the party after 20 years, saying that MCA (a political party) is no longer an effective platform to champion the people and nation. Her surprised resignation came at an unprecedented testing time in the party.  

Nelson Mandela turned 90 on friday.

Nicole, one of the very early visitor to this Blog will be celebrating her birthday this Sunday. For those who knows her well, Nicole is a very brillant lady, with a flair for numbers and is very capable in doing very detailed work. Nicole articulates well and posses very effective working relationship with those who works with her. As such, her colleagues will be celebrating her birthday with her today. To Nicole, yours truly wishes you a very 'Happy Birthday.' I truly pray that all that you wish for comes true on this day. Have a great day. And, 'May the Lord continue to shower you with His blessing on this special occassion!' 

Meanwhile, have a happy and pleasant weekend everyone!!!

You can have that position of responsibility and leadership as well.

All of us will have a great future if our leaders have the courage and the character to make bold decisions and to be uncommon leaders.

In this world, no leader wins alone. He or she will have to rely on the talents of others to control all the factors that go into a successful team play.

Another characteristic of an effective leader, is that they have a very 'high consideration factor'. In other words, even though he can be tough - a disciplinarian or a stern taskmaster - he is someone who does what he does because he cares. They are not concerned whether being known as Mr. Nice Guy or not.

They always want to make things happen.

Finally, like any effective manager or leader, I believe that each and everyone of us have the capacity to become larger and greater than what we are.

My parting question, "are you able to rise to the occassion?"

Note: This concludes my posts on uncommon leadership skills at this point in time. I may be posting more on this subject in the not too distant future.

"Can you buy nothing for one day?"

The "Buy Nothing Day" is not intended to boycott or protest against any party. The campaign is more towards educating the public to be more prudent in their daily expenditure. It is a good way to advise the consumers to adopt ways on how not to spend extravagantly and have new innovations in their life. 

For some, spending money has become more of a desire than a necessity. For others, splurging money on items has become a habit. This over-indulgence is even worse during festive seasons. There are also others who treat shopping as a way to reduce stress and escape from their worries. Hence, the challenge from FOMCA's "Buy Nothing Day."

Indeed, the "Buy Nothing Day" campaign is certainly a real test of character for the consumers to see how far they can restrain themselves. It also serves to educate consumers to minimise their spending and whether their money is well spent, or simply used or splurge gratuitiously.

Perhaps, the next "Buy Nothing Day" campaign should be more intensively promoted by FOMCA in order to create or generate greater awareness from the consumers at large nationwide. For me, from now on there will be a monthly "Buy Nothing Day" and then making it a weekly affair by the end of the year with the grace of God.

Once again, "can you buy nothing for one day, working people?"

It was reported that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia arrived in Madrid on Tuesday, the eve of an international conference in Madrid to promote dialouge between the world's main religions. This conference is organised by the Muslim World League following an initiative by King Abdullah, whose country is the birthplace of Islam.

Spain was chosen as the official site for the gathering because of its historical symbolism as a place where Muslims, Jews and Christians lived in peace under muslim rule between the 8th and 13th centuries. About 200 participants are expected, including representatives of the world's major religions: Islam, Christianity, Judasim and Buddhism.

This inter-faith conference is very much welcomed and such inter-faith dialouges should be promoted, held regularly and supported by all regardless of their faith, as it foster better understanding, promote peaceful co-existence and last but by no means least, a better world for our younger generations.  

This global survey sought the views of 115,000 people in 33 countries, including more than 2000 Malaysians.

66% of the respondents in Malaysia were happy with their career choice, 13% said they have made the wrong choice and 21% were not sure.  

This survey also revealed how employees feel about the quality of their education. Satisfaction with the quality of the Malaysian school system was moderate by international standards.

An overwhelming 83% of the respondents agree that post-school education and professional education should be more practical and less theoretical.

The highest level of support for school education came from India with 69 percent saying that it prepared them well for working life. This is followed by Puerto Rico (67%), Indonesia and Thailand (65%), Poland (61%), Canada and Hungary (59%), Japan and Mexico (57%) Malaysia and United Kingdom (45%) slightly lower than the global average of 49%. 

Regrettably, there are some who discovers that they are in the wrong career and is probably not as productive as they could be and may be missing out on a more fulfilling professional life. Are you one of those who is dissatisfied with your career choice or changes in your career?

Well, it is never too late to do something positive about it, working people.  

Happy Working !!!

"If you treat a man as he is, he will remain as he is;

but if you treat him as he were what he ought to be,

he will become what he ought to be and could be" 

- Goethe.

What a manager expects of his subordinates and how he treats them will largely determine their performance and career progress. When employees are expected to do little, they tend to do little. But, when they are expected to do much, they tend to fullfill that prophecy.

One characteristic of effective managers is they have the ability to communicate high performance expectations to subordinates that, more often than not, are fullfilled.

Besides, effective managers always establish clear standards (objective and not vague, subjective judgements) of performance and set standards of excellence.  

He can concentrate on the weaknesses, problems or the deficiencies and try to ammend them.

Or, to focus on building on the strenghts and assests of the people in his team.

Effective managers tend to build on the strengths of others and discount weaknesses. They ask themselves, where is my organisation strong? What are the strengths of my people? And, what are my own strengths? They can then capitalize on those strong points.

Instead of berating his employees, the effective manager encourages them. He is always reminding people of who they are and what they can do.  Thus, the orientation is towards the future and is always focused on what the employees can do.

It's been said that people should not be used. But, they want to be used! The key to achievement motivation, and the key to getting people excited at work; is to use them. Use them where they can be successful, capitalise on their strengths. Effective leaders are quick to upgrade their employee's job description and responsibilities, to give them demanding jobs.

Look for ways to increase their job enrichment potential, to increase the authority level of the jobs of your people.

In any management team you are going to have some superstar performers and you are going to have some second stringers. And, in any organisation, you are going to have two kinds of work - work that you can call 'problems' and work that you can call 'opportunities.'

If you assign your strongest player to a problem, you have just made a mistake. You have just sacrificed your future opportunities. Any opportunity is for example, a program that is developed today to help better serve the needs of tomorrow. Because it is an opportunity, it is not well-structured. It is going to take some sharp thinking to determine how to make the opportunity come to pass. So you want to assign it to a superstar?

A final thought, what are you going to do today?

One reason that you were put into a position of responsibility is because your management believes in you. They are betting on you, just as you as an effective manager, are betting on your employees. They believed that you have what it takes.

Ask yourself every morning, what one thing of significance will I accomplish today? This question will keep you focused not only on your Key Results Areas but also on the fact that you are one of the key strengths in your unit, a key strength that must be used to the utmost!

Effective managers understand The Pareto Principle or the often called 80-20 rule. Pareto noted that work is of two sorts; which he called the 'trivial many tasks' and the 'vital few tasks'.

The trivial many tasks are all the routine things you must do; the relatively unimportant things that you must do. About 80 percent of your time - the vast majority of it - is spent on the trivial many.

What time is left - about 20 percent, or one day in five is devoted to the vital few - the truly essential tasks, or the key results areas.

Effective managers are not going to tolerate a situation in which they must spend almost all their time doing busywork and for the most part ignore the key results areas. What do they do about it?

First of all, they delegate.

What should be delegated?

Many tasks that should fall under the category of the trivial many. Managers are the strongest member of the your team. Your time must be freed up. Give away work! You are after results.

Effective managers, before they pick up any new piece of work, before they take any action, always ask themselves: is this worth my time? Is this something that is going to improve the profitability of my organisation? Is this going to contribute to a better way of doing things? If the answer to those questions is 'no' - the effective manager will not do it.

Remember that success in management does not come in cleaning out your inbox every day. It comes from achieveing results. Thus, effective managers understands this concept and keeps it clearly in mind.

For effective managers to stay contribution focused, they always ask themselves, Why am I here? What really is the purpose of my job in this organisation? What does the customers need? What do the people I am here to serve require? How can I create customer satisfaction? How can I provide to my customers something better than I am giving now?

After answering those questions effective managers move ahead, making the necessary changes and bringing about the desired outcome.

There are literally hundreds of techniques that can be used to better control time, and effective managers use many of them. But, there is a set of time-management principles that they all tend to follow.

First of all, effective managers have a certain understanding about time. They realized that if they were to work on Key Results Areas - you cannot do so effectively within a short period of time. They know they must spend a big block or chunk of time to solve it.

Effective mangers know they cannot get a chunk of time without planning for it, so they structure what is called 'work islands' or 'time oasis.' They consolidate  the short periods of discretionary time that they can usually count on.

It is smart move to schedule this time oasis for a period of the day in which you find your energy levels generally high and you are fresher.

Yet another time management approach followed by effective managers is to examine crises, looking for patterns. Effective managers know that a recurring crisis is usually symptomatic of something that needs systematizing.

Some observations on time-management by effective managers are instead of adding personnel they tend to reduce the size of their staffs. When the staff is reduced, those who remain discover they do not have time to do certain tasks and begin to ask themselves what is more important? Thus, they begin to focus on only Key Results Areas and let all the 'nice-to-do tasks' slide.

Parkinsons law, "Work expends to fill the time available for its completion . By keeping a lid on manhours and new hiring, you will prevent work from expanding and force people to focus on what is truly important."

In addition, effective managers often cut back on the number of meetings that are held. Just too many meetings produce no results. The biggest single dollar waster for managers as a group are the meetings that they must attend. Sometimes the problem is how the meetings were run. Other time, the problem is that the meeting was not necessary at all.

Firstly, discourage and discontinue all unnecessary meetings. When a meeting is necessary limit attendance to only those who are needed. It is a smart move , at the start of the meeting, to calculate the anticipated cost and write it on the blackboard so everyone can see. At the end of the meeting ask those attending the meeting to answer in an evaluation form, this question: Was the meeting worth x numbers of dollars? If the general consensus is that the meeting was not productive, a review is conducted to determine why? 

Another technique for sound meeting management is to have a specific goal or purpose for every meeting and to spell out this purpose at the start. On the agenda list the most important priorities first. Discuss and decide first things first. Start and stop meetings on time. Hold the meeting at the proper time of the day, usually in the afternoon, so that they do not disturb anyone's time oasis in the morning.

Other suggestions on effective meetings management is that the chairmen should be trained to run meetings. Secretaries should take notes. You need someone who can get notes out quickly so that action can be taken.  

According to today's 'The Sunday Star' www.thestar.com.my newspaper, Baby Lai Yok Shan was every inch a regular, happy and bubbly baby - until one gets a glimpse of her left arm which is just a stub. If you could remember in my abovementioned post, baby Yok Shan's arm turned gangerous and dropped off after a Houseman at the Klang General Hospital inserted an intraveneous needle into a muscle instead of a blood vessel when the premature baby was placed in an incubator. 

The government has accepted responsibility for the mishap and offered an ex-gratia payment of RM 60,000 and to take care of Yok Shan's healthcare cost until she turns 18 years of age.

Yok Shan's parents has turned down the offer as they feel that the amount do not do justice to Yok Shan's suffering.

Taking everything into consideration, I am of the opinion that an ex-gratia payment of RM 60,000 in this particular case is deemed to be reasonably insufficient and unfair to baby Yok Shan. Besides, I would think that the government should take care of her healthcare cost for as long as she lives and should be accorded with more privileges and other benefits as well.

Should those responsible for this mishap be severely punished as well?

What are your thoughts in this case?

A price hike rally was also held at the Kelana Jaya Stadium, in Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

On the other hand, a four hour downpour which started at 4 am wrecked havoc, caused flash floods which stranded motorists living in Klang causing many to report late for work especially for those working in Kuala Lumpur.

Our beloved Prime Minister, fondly known as "Pak Lah" to the people in this Country had finally set June 2010 to hand over reign to his Deputy

A Senior Immigration Officer and two businessmen from a foreign worker recruitment agency were among the seven people arrested by our Anti-Corruption Agency for the issuance of visas for foreign workers.

The latest happening, Nicol Ann David, the youngest crowned world woman's squash champion in 2005, is today conferred the title 'Datuk' on the birthday of the "Yang Di-Pertua (Govenor) of Penang." 

When you get what you want in your race for success,

and the world makes you king for a day.

Then go to a mirror and look at yourself,

and see what the guy has to say.

For it is'nt your mother or father or wife,

whose judgement upon you must pass.

The fellow whose verdict count most in your life,

is the guy starring back at you in the mirror. 

He's the fellow to please; never mind all the rest,

for he's with you clear to the end.

And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult task,

if the guy in the mirror is your friend.

You might be Jack Horner and a chisel plum,

and you think you're a wonderful guy,

But the man in the mirror knows you're only a bum.

if you can't look him straight in the eye.

You can fool the whole world, in all your years,

and get pats on your back as you pass,

But your final reward will be heartaches and tears,

if you've cheated the man in the mirror.

New managers sometimes fail to learn their craft. Then, there are some managers who fail to do their homework. Lastly, it is the failure of managers to continuously develop themselves. In short, the failure at self-development leaves many managers in a vulnerable position.

It is not enough to be busy. The question is "What are we busy about?"

For many, their job is one of frantic activity, rushing to and fro. They are busy from the morning till night, but what do they accomplish?

The sad fact is that many managers work hard and put in a lot of hours, but they contribute little. They focus on efficiency - they do many little things neatly. They focus on doing the things right. They are policy focused. They are always reacting to crises - they are concerned with urgencies and they are continually rushing about in fevered activity. Yet, although they are busy, they seem to accomplish very nothing. They are losers in management. 

The winners in management are those men and women who are effectiveness focussed. In other words, they are more concerned with doing the right things than they are with doing things right. This is not to say that doing things right is not important, it is to say that doing things right is subordinates' work. You as a manager, must concentrate on doing the right things. Your 'Key Results Areas'. 

Effective managers are those who want the opportunity for achievement in a leadership setting. One is not born with achievement drive. Achievement drive tends to come as a result of early childhood experiences and from parents who had high performance expectation.

As you consider your role in management, think about how you can make the future happen, how you can create conditions that will favour significant progress in your organisation.

The 7 basic functions of Managemnet are Planning, Organising, Staffing, Leading, Communications, Decision making and Controlling.

To carry out the above 7 functions, the manager must use certain resources. These resources are;

1. Manpower - the talent of devoted men and women.
2. Money - the funds in the budget.
3. Machines - the technology available  to you.
4. Methods - procedures, or ways of doing things that are available to you.
5. Materials - the goods you use to manufacture products or provide services.
6. Minutes - time. Time is a resource, and there is only so much of it.
7. Mission.

Of all the resources, the most important is manpower. It is the people who invent better machinery. The methods stem only from the brainpower of people. Materials are used by people. The minutes are the minutes of people on the payroll. And the mission can exist only within the heads and hearts of people.

Management is a matter of doing activities and tasks and using certain resources to achieve predetermined objectives. For many managers their work does not lead to the achievement of certain critical objectives - the 'KRAs' or 'Key Results Areas.' The 7 Key Results Areas are Customer needs, Economics, Quality, Productivity, Innovation, People growth and Organisation development.