As business leaders, our first instinct is often results speak for themselves. I don't care if the person is hardworking, kind or nice. If he is not delivering results, that's no good for business. However this is sometimes a short-sighted view. When the attitude and mindset are right, the organisation will eventually achieve results, and in a sustainable way. Values are more important than short-term gains, if we want to build a business which lasts.
"Ordering" not as in "commanding", but as in "arranging tasks in an organised way". One most glaring sign of the lack of leadership in an organisation is people don't know or don't care what they should be doing. They repeat the same routines without question. They continue doing what they are familiar with. They discuss and procrastinate, because no one has the will to make a decision and proceed. They wait for someone else to do it. To be an effective leader, you have to make those decisions, and be ready to take the blame. It is when everybody wants to avoid blame that organisations get stuck in a rut.
I was at Swiss Garden Hotel Melaka on the weekend, conducting a team-building event for a diverse group - from Russia, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and Cambodia. In one of the activities one team managed to make a poker hand of five of a kind! Impressive! I said I've only seen such in Stephen Chow movies.
The power of 100 entrepreneurs in a room. And this is not just a touch and go networking event or social gathering. This is a dedicated group, committed to help one another grow business. Thank you Lightkeepers!
I have met many business leaders who assume their people are by default lazy, incompetent and need to be constantly monitored. When you assume the worst in your people, it shows in your day-to-day behaviour and how you treat them. Then don't be surprised they end up displaying exactly these negative traits. Malice is rarer than you think. When you have positive expectations people want to live up to that. Believing in the goodness of humanity makes you a happier person who creates positive change.
I took this photo in a lift at the MyTown shopping mall in Cheras. What do you notice is odd about this? You might be wondering why is it that when pressed, the buttons for levels 3 and 4 light up in red, but the button for the Ground Floor lights up in green. You would be wrong. That green is not the button being lit up. The button has a bright green border. Also it is slightly protruding. If you press the G button, you will get a red light and it will be a red square within the green square.
This user interface designer has good intentions. The most frequently pressed button is the G, so it was designed to stand out (literally) and to have a green border. This helps users think less and they will more quickly identify the G button among the rest. Unfortunately what happened that day was a group of us got into the lift at Level 5 (car park) and we stood around for a long time wondering why the lift didn't move. All of us thought someone else had pressed the G, because it appeared to be lit up with a green light.
This is why design thinking is important. Good intentions are not enough. They sometimes make things worse. We need to be able to see from the users' perspective, in order to deliver the right solution to them. Leaders with good intentions are not enough. We need to apply design thinking so that good intentions translate to the right results for our people and our organisations.
When my office is Club Med Cherating, I don't mind working on a Sunday. :-) This was my Power Sunday with the Build Great team from Melaka.
I talk about motivating employees and the people we lead. But sometimes I too need help with motivation. I have been running an indie game...
