Overinvest in People

I was listening to the audio abridged version of How to Become CEO: The Rules for Rising to the Top of Any Organization by Jeffrey J. Fox on my way to work. I have managed to read the book version of the audio MP3 a couple of years before but didn't have a chance to get a copy. In it, he emphasized something really important about people and employees which I really believe in: Overinvest in People. Think about it. If you are investing in something that you know would have a marginal return on your investments - whether it's that blue chip stock, real estate or your own business - wouldn't you be investing more? The human capital is far better than any of these investment portfolios as anybody has the capacity create and produce - they make things happen. Fox highlighted it in a way that companies should hire the best people and that they should pay for their employees' worth. He states that companies who save money on hiring only the people they can afford are headed for mediocrity. I always take the Asian culture in perspective every time I cite examples as we do not really believe in this principle. The result is a high turn-over rate causing a lot money in hiring, re-training and loss of morale among staff because a key team player "jumps boat." What would happen if your favourite NBA or NFL team suddenly thinks that their best player is not worth every cent of their pay? I doubt that the team will make it even in the initial round of eliminations. Same goes for organizations. Fox also mentioned about overpaying the employees. He states that if an employee gets paid about $20 an hour, he or she knows it. If an employee receives anything less than his or her worth, he or she will feel cheated. A savings of say $1 an hour will amount to $8 per day. But that is not worth saving compared to the loss that will result in the employee's behavior knowing that he or she is being cheated. There's just no way to quantify the amount of loss as an effect of low morale - drop in productivity, sabotage, theft, etc. But paying your employees more than what is expected of them results in high morale and increased productivity. This again highlights the concept on overinvesting in people. Try it out and see what happens. I've done my share of overinvesting in people in small, simple ways and have gotten some very good results.

When even the small things can make a very big difference

As a follow-up on the Double As blog post, I was on the phone almost 3 weeks ago talking to a cousin of mine and simply asking her about how she was doing. She was basically tasked to take care of her three nephews, all boys, as her sister - the boy's mom - had to work overseas. When the boys had a chance to visit their mom, she mustered all her memories and told me about how difficult it was raising the kids. And now that the kids were temporarily away, she felt a bit of ease from the responsibility and that somehow it was really tiring. As I was listening to her stories, I realized all the hard work she had to put in raising those kids and how sometimes she felt like giving up. When she was done telling her stories, I ended up telling her how what she has done to those kids had a positive impact in their lives and the lives of thousands if not millions of people worldwide. She was surprised with what she just heard. All along, she didn't realize that her "stressful unwanted" responsibilities had that much impact. She was trying to figure out what I was saying. Then I told her about my perspective. You see, raising kids, just like everything I can think of, is all about perspective. Some people think of it as a responsibility, I think of it as an investment. Whether we sow seeds of good or bad deeds, somewhere, somehow, we'll get some return. That's for sure. Some kids grow up to be world changers, other end up in the dumps. But there is more to it than that. Apparently, those kids - us included - would have the opportunity to touch and influence a thousand or more people throughout their lives. Now, what does that have to do with our responsibilities as parents (or even foster parents)? Whatever we do to those kids will impact the next generation and they will, in turn, decide how to change the world. As I was telling her about my perspective, I started citing one of his nephews and how he has become an influencer, touching the lives of more than a million Filipinos worldwide. Apparently, his nephew (who happened to be mine as well) won a model search competition and has managed to secure an talent contract with one of the media conglomerates in the Philippines. That being said, a face which used to be only familiar among relatives and peers has now become a public figure. With the media conglomerate's reach of more than 200,000 Filipino subscribers in the United States alone and all across Middle East, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Australia, imagine the impact of this face together with his story worldwide. That being said, she realized how what she had done for the kids did have an impact - not just in the lives of those kids but in those that they manage to influence in their lifetime. So, don't fret. Who knows that the small act you do today - for your kids, staff, or just about anybody, even the people you don't know - will have a profound impact on the world tomorrow. You might be growing the next Albert Einstein or the next Winston Churchill right across your living room watching TV

Empowering individuals with a Double A (a.k.a AA)

Question: What comes to mind when we say "Double As"?
Answer: A pair of pocket-sized batteries probably from Energizer

I was reading the introduction of Ron Clark's book The Excellent 11: Qualitites Teachers and Parents Use to Motivate, Inspire, and Educate Children when I happen to notice a very important note which he had made - understand the importance of the value of appreciation. In today's challenging and fast-paced work environment, organizations compete on the basis of efficiency and productivity. But I believe that the success of any organization lies in the human resource. Leading the organization in the next wave of changes requires a lot more than the usual budget, strategy, innovation and creativity (although these are still necessary ingredients to succeed). And this is where the importance of the double AA come in. People need a dose of appreciation and affirmation on a daily basis. This is the cheapest and one of the most effective form of rewarding your employees. The person who receives appreciation and affirmation will feel valued and will eventually be motivated in their work, thus, increasing employee productivity. This also helps build a productive and positive work environment. I believe that the Asian culture is not used to this kind of employee motivation. Most of the time, our way of thinking is that employees are hired to work hard. Recognizing them for something that they are expected to do can get way over their heads. But that in itself is counter-intuitive in a sense that the more an individual realizes that his or her work has value, the more motivated he or she becomes.

Try it out. Appreciate and affirm somebody from your team (or even anybody you know) today and see how it changes them. With the double As, it's not just the Energizer bunny who can keep going ... and going...

Leadership Lessons from Raising Kids

Proverbs 22:6(KJV) says "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

I normally hear this from Christians raising up their kids. The scripture specifically mentions the way we should raise our kids.It says "train" and not just "teach." More often, we simply teach our children how to live but not train them. Training requires skill. When you are a trainor (as I still am), you must have the appropriate skills to be effective because while teaching the concepts, you are also showing them how to do it. This is what differentiates teaching from training. Our children might be hearing our teaching but not seeing it being done. Then we are not training them. The proper way is to teach AND do. And training requires repetition.Which means you have to make it as a part of your system as if it were a habit. Talk about training our kids how to pray, respect elderly, go to church, etc. Now this is what the scripture means by "training up a child."

But what does this have to do with leadership? In organizations, we sometimes hear management being frustrated at their employees'/subordinates' performance. Top executives have become too engrossed with day-to-day operations. All they ever do is send memos (emails included) and deliver speeches during anniversaries, expecting the subordinates to be fired up and be enthusiastic. What's worse is that management expects a lot from their employees but their staff don't even know what and how to do what they are supposed to do to meet those expectations. It's like throwing a child in a pool and expect him to be an Olympic gold medalist. It doesn't make sense. What they have forgotten is that they need to "train up" their subordinates. Which means teaching and doing as well. And this takes time, not to mention effort. That is why mentoring and coaching plays a vital role in the success of an organization.

If we are managing an organization, let's consider how the scripture defines raising up kids. After all, don't we treat our organizations as such?

When managing by email is just not effective

In today's modern world where technology has become tightly integrated in business, email has become a very popular tool in business. From sending project proposals to congratulating a colleague, email has become a part of our daily communications. But the ease of use of this technology has become one of the reasons for ineffective management. Instead of holding a meeting with team members, email exchanges fill inboxes with comments about meeting agenda. Instead of walking a few meters, if not feet, away to shake the hand of the top employee, we shoot emails instead. Email has been one of the reasons for diminishing interpersonal relationship, which is a necessary ingredient in any organization. There are even public courses on managing by email. Although, the global economy has introduced such concepts as virtual teams which need to be managed virtually as well, there is still no substitute for plain and simple direct, interpersonal communication. Plus, this introduces a lot of miscommunication and sometimes consumes a couple of megabytes of hard disk space just to get to the point because the message was misunderstood (this hard disk space issue is a big deal to a lot of IT professionals, especially to those who manage mail servers). Managers expect a lot from their subordinates while overlooking one very important facet of life - humanity. People still need to feel that their inner desire to be treated as human beings, and not just means to an end as far as business entities are concerned, is met. People are people with emotional needs and sometimes, those needs, when met, define the difference between empowerment and discouragement.

I like what Fred Thompson, former CEO of Jane Goodall Institute, said about managing by email.
"I have a strong aversion to managing by email (also to cleaning out my mailbox!). If it's really important, I ask my staffers to care enough to phone me, or ... walk down the hall and actually see me. That gets my attention. It's always amazed me how people in offices right next to one another will persist in communicating vital information exclusively by email. I really hate it when someone confuses sending an email with taking ownership or accountability."

JCPenney, in a CareerBuilder job ad, has this to say about their store managers.
"Our Store Manger's are not walking around with a PDA checking off to-do's or sitting in an office managing by email. Our Store Managers want four-wall accountability, to get involved, engage customers and develop their Associates for bigger and better roles. In our promote from within culture we want leaders, not just managers."

One of the best examples of NOT managing by email I have ever heard was a story by Tim Sanders entitled The XBOX Story. His movie clip telling the story is posted on YouTube. Go check it out.

So I'm a Millenial - When the world does not adopt

I was reading an article by the Harvard Business School entitled How Will Millenials Manage? and was fascinated how I was branded. The article calls the next generation of managers as such. Here's a brief description taken from the article.

They are generally bright, cheery, seemingly well-adjusted, and cooperative. They'll pull an "all-nighter" for a good reason, but they won't let that kind of thing intrude regularly on their personal lives. Their work styles are sometimes confounding. They need to work in a social environment, often one that would appear to some of us as chaotic. This means, however, that they are very good at working in teams. They are good at multi-tasking, understand how to employ technology productively, and as a result can often produce good work at what appears to be the last minute. They are focused on their own personal development. They want an accelerated path to success, often exaggerate the impact of their own contributions, are not willing "to pay the price," and have little fear of authority. As a result, they are often not a good bet for long-term employment, because they are quite willing to seek other employment (or no employment) rather than remain in a job in which they are not growing. They want their managers to understand their needs and lay out career options.

This is how we are described, people who were born during the late 70's to the late 80's. It's fascinating how generations and their behavior changes with time. But not too many of us. Sad to say that there are still a lot of organizations and people who do not see how important it is to adopt thru the changes. And this is costly as far as businesses and individuals are concerned. One comment in this article points out, "Business which are not adapting, and remain married to the process of blindly searching for degrees and certifications, and who judge employee reliability based on "time served" at other companies are failing to attract, hire, or retain the high knowledge workers." I'm a victim to this kind of mindset. The hiring process for most organizations still looks for degrees and certifications instead of looking at the individual. Now, I'm not a big fan of Ivy Leagues and PhDs but one of the reason I am still keen on pursuing an advanced degree is to change this mindset particularly in the Asian region. There are a lot of talented individuals out there, most of them didn't even have a college degree nor a certification to flaunt but are a lot better at creatively solving problems, getting things done and, not to mention, making and keeping social relationships which is a necessity to being an effective leader. The reality still remains that a new generation is ready to take the leadership mantle from the older generation. But unless we adopt to changing times, we'll lose out on the next generation of leaders.

So, anybody looking for new recruits? You may have missed that one going out of the door after that very recent interview.

Seizing Opportunities

I'm back to blogging after a 17-day vacation in the Philippines. My pastor friend, Fred Abad from Cornerstone Christian Church in Quezon City, Philippines asked me to preach at their last service on the first Sunday of the year. What a way to start 2008! Let me highlight that I am not a pastor nor a preacher, didn't even go to Bible school or whatever. I am an IT professional focusing on Microsoft technologies (isn't that what my profile says after all?), a part of the professional workforce. What am I going to share to the congregation? During the last Sunday service of 2007, Fred happened to be talking about "Taking Risks" which, apparently, was taken from the series by Mark Batterson of National Community Church in Washington, DC from his book In a Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day (well, I did give him the resources). Now, I didn't know he was going to share that until I heard him speak. I guess God wanted me to share something from this book after all. I have been reading this series for more than a month now and I felt God telling me to share anything from this book with a touch of relevance. Like I said, I ain't no pastor. This is what I did.


Seizing Opportunities

Let me first highlight that I am not a pastor nor a preacher, not an evangelist, apostle nor a prophet. I didn't go to Bible school though I taught kids' Sunday School and vacation Bible School way back. I am an IT Professional, working for a global company. I'm like most of you - working thru a 9-5 job (although in our case, it is often more than that) expecting a paycheck at the end of the month. That's why when Fred asked me to share something, I just didn't feel comfortable. But I believe God is doing something in everybody worthwhile to tell. I'm going to share about seizing opportunites this 2008. This was taken from the book In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day by Mark Batterson. This book talks about Benaiah in 2 Samuel 23:20 and how he ended up to be in the Scriptures. Let me start off by telling you a story of two very popular icons. First, Starbucks. Everybody knows what this is. You've probably had a cup or two this week. But what's fascinating about Starbucks is it's success history. Let me quote Howard Schultz from his autobiography Pour Your Heart Into It


This is my moment, I thought. If I don’t seize the opportunity, if I don’t step out of my comfort zone and risk it all, if I let too much time tick on, my moment will pass. I knew that if I didn’t take advantage of this opportunity, I would replay it in my mind for my whole life, wondering: What if?


He had an opportunity and he seized it. The next icon is very popular to all burger lovers. You wouldn't believe that this giant burger chain was started by a multi-mixer milkshake machine salesman, Ray Croc. He mortgaged his home and invested his entire life savings to become the exclusive distributor of a five-spindled milk shake maker called the Multimixer. This became his gateway to McDonald's. Imagine investing your entire life savings and venturing on a business journey. Now, let me frame the concept of seizing opportunities from a Biblical perspective. Enter Colossians 4:5b wher it tells us to "make the most of every opportunity." I've taken these qoutes and lived by them ever since I've read about them. The first one is from
Whitney M. Young, Jr. (American social reformer, 1921-1971) who said, "It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared. " Over the years, I've come up with my own quote which says, "If you don’t have an opportunity, create one." I like what Mark Batterson said about seizing opportunities, "Seeing and seizing opportunities is an underappreciated dimension of spiritual maturity." And I thought spiritual maturity has something to do with simply praying and reading your Bible and going to spiritual meetings. I was wrong. God intend for us to experience life to its fullest. That's what Jesus came here for. And seeing and seizing opportunities should be a part of our spritual life. But how do we seize the opporunities that come? How do we know they're the right ones? I think the answer lies in Collosians 4:2 - PRAY. This gives us the sensitivity to see and seize opportunities, even if they mask themselves as problems or adversities. I pray that this 2008, may we see and seize opportunities as God wants us to. May we have the courage to step up and seize those opporunities that God has lined our way knowing that Christ intended for us to live life to it's fullest.


Click here to download a copy of the PowerPoint slide deck used in this presentation.