Steve Jobs? Mother Teresa? Tunku Abdul Rahman? One leader who has greatly influenced who I am today is my previous manager Kim Loon. I no longer work for him so writing this won't get me a raise or a promotion. I learned from him that you can always take any work situation with a bit of humour, and you must genuinely care for and respect your people.
Who has influenced who you are today, and how?
"Amazon, Google and Apple all use this method I'm about to teach you to become the successes that they are today!" When you are able to associate yourself with the big names, people pay attention. You borrow credibility, even if you've never advised these companies or worked in them. This is also why people take photos with celebrities and hang them on their walls, both physical premises and social media.
What to do with this information:
When you are a buyer, recognise these tricks and don't let them affect you making the right decision. Don't hate marketers. It is their job to help sellers connect to their target audience. As a buyer it is your responsibility to understand the product and whether it fits you.
When you are a seller, this is a trick you can use. No matter how well you market, you must still have a good product if you want to stay in business. Do right by your customers.
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1. Encourage your counterpart to talk about himself, his experiences or his opinions. And listen. Many people are fascinating if you spend the attention to understand them.
2. Ask intelligent questions. It shows you are genuinely interested (which you have to be) in what she is saying.
3. Pause when talking about yourself to gauge the other person's interest level. Stop if he does not seem interested. Or let him ask what he's interested to know more about instead of rambling on.
The best conversationalist is actually the best listener.
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Instilling the value mindset is imperative if you want to help your team achieve high performance. We fall into habits easily ("that's how things are done") and often forget to challenge the value in what we spend our time doing every day. If Harry Beck hadn't challenged the value of how things were done, we might still be using London Underground / LRT / Monorail maps like this.
Pictures featured are the original London Underground map from 1908 vs the current London Underground map.
This and other tips in my book Every Employee an Entrepreneur:
低头遍地是小人，举目四方有贵人 - If you only look downwards, you will only see people who have wronged you. Lift your eyes, and you will find people who have helped you and who are ready to help you.
It's about where we focus. Yes there are people who mistreated us, used us, and held us back. But why not focus on those who have inspired us, guided us, and who are ready to support us? Reach out to them, and move ahead.
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One thing that always gives me a kick is when I find that my training attendees include some Sabahans. Being from the same place is always a good conversation starter. I will be early at the session and I start chatting with them to build rapport. It breaks the ice and makes the attendees (AND myself) feel more relaxed.
In the past when I onboarded new recruits to my company, I always introduced Edwin this way: "He is a great guy, because he is from Sabah". That puzzled the new recruit for a moment, until I continued, "by the way, I'm also from Sabah." Edwin and I never tired of this silly joke. Everyone else sitting near Edwin started smiling whenever I launched into the introduction of Edwin.
Where are you from?
Job interviews often end up being two liars presenting only their best selves to the other party. If you want to make your job interview more effective, one way is to get the candidate to actually do the work. Not just some simple, shallow aptitude test, but actually throw a real-life problem at them. When I interviewed Game Community Managers, I gave them real-life scenarios and asked them to write social media announcements. When I interviewed programmers, I gave them tough programming tasks designed by my lead programmer. One company when interviewing salespersons actually asks them to come work for a day alongside regular staff, and then asks the supervisor of the day to assess the job applicant.
Talk is cheap. If you can get the candidate to actually do it, you learn much more about the person and his/her capabilities.
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At work or in groups, we tend to underestimate how much others like us. People tend to believe that they like their partners more than their partners like them. This can result in less confidence, feeling less included, and being shy to ask for help. Leaders must consciously encourage communication, embrace vulnerability and create psychological safety for their teams.
- The Liking Gap in Groups and Teams by Adam Mastroianni et al, 2021
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I used to feel uncomfortable with the idea of business networking, because I felt I was meeting people with a selfish motive. I was greeti...
