Thought it was time for me to go and passion gets you not too far. This article is a real good one. http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131024075342-42592294-can-founders-let-go-what-love-s-got-to-do-with-leadership?trk=tod-home-art-list-large_0

Budget Comments Kuala Lumpur, 25th October 2013 I like and love the strategic thrust on Inculcating Excellence in Human Capital in this year's Malaysian budget. Thank You Mr. Prime Minister. While there are some who would have preferred greater development expenditure and lower operating expenditure, some would even prefer a lower % deficit of the GDP, I think the budget has focussed on a key priority area: Human Capital, to improve the long term well being of the nation and our competitiveness. There are no short cuts to success. Education receives 21% of the budget. The commitment to implementing the Education blueprint and improving standards of English and upholding the importance of the National Language, emphasis on Entrepreneur development, supporting employers on the Minimum Wage Policy, the setting up for a private retirement scheme are positive initiatives. RM 400 million from the Human Resources Development Fund for employers for training, 330 million for Skills Training, Tax benefits for Flexible work arrangements, RM 100 million training allocation for the Indian community and 20 million for rural programmes are welcome at this point of time in the global economy.

Leadership & Innovation Leadership is all about inspiring and motivating employees. Motivated employees help organisations succeed as they are more productive than those who are non - motivated. The challenge with motivating employees is that it looks different for every person and every leader. There is a huge amount of information on leading stars. The same cannot be said of leading B players, the average performers who for some reason have not yet made an impact on the organisation. Yet, the B Players are the heart and soul of an organisation. They need continuous feedback from the manager to keep growing and keep contributing but herein lies the challenge. Managers find time to be a scare commodity. Two questions: how does the Manager find time and how do we give constructive feedback with the goal of inspiring the B player. Managers need to allocate a chunk of time on a weekly or fortnightly basis to pause, reflect and talk to colleagues. Professor Groysberg highlights the power of informal but purposeful conversations. The earlier a manager recognises that this is not an interruption to his or her own productivity, it is better for an organisation. And, how do we give constructive feedback. Relationships between people are gossamer threads connecting people and when feedback is perceived as critical and unhelpful, it burns of the gossamer threads. Constructive feedback is going beyond complimentary feedback and criticism. It is often considered an art because it involves insight into want to say and what not to say. Seeking the willingness of the B player to receive feedback and preserving the relationship after the feedback session is important yet the ‘conversation’ has to be forthright and crucial to be a game changer. It is indeed both an art and science. Ken Blanchard talked about one minute goals, praises and reprimands.

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Fathers Day

A nice quote sent by a friend: Everyone can be a Father but only a few have the attitude to be a Dad

January 2013 posting

Passion or Happiness I am a great believer in passion and that is the underlying theme of the book - Creating Your Own Rainbow. At the last Trainers Meet Trainers, I spoke for the need for passion and Prof. Thiagi while accepting parts of it kind of disagreed and said ‘passion gets you nowhere.’ I stumbled upon the term – the new generation of purpose driven leaders. And, I was intrigued to read Oliver Segovia’s comments – he talks about a friend who loved the liberal arts. As she was never keen on a 9 to 5 job, she pursued her passion, got her PhD and she was the happiest person anyone could know. Then came the economic meltdown and she suffered the anguish of an uncertain future. He goes on to say that while most of us work towards finding our dreams, that approach does not work in the competitive world today. He proposes - Forget about finding your passion. Instead, focus on finding big problems. Put problems at the center of our decision making process, it ia is about moving beyond you and becoming a valuable contributor. He adds that people working on the biggest problems are compensated in the biggest ways, not in a strict financial sense, but in a deeply human sense. For one, it shifts your attention from you to others and the wider world. You stop dwelling. You become less self-absorbed. Ironically, you become happier if you worry less about what makes us happy. He says it is critical to develop situational awareness, look into the problems in a personal way, connect with people working on big problems and taking time for you. I was stunned to hear his comments: “Happiness comes from the intersection of what you love, what you're good at, and what the world needs. We've been told time and again to keep finding the first. Our schools helped developed the second. It's time we put more thought on the third.” For more information visit Oliver Segovia at http://blogs.hbr.org