Due to the extremely slow connectivity I’ve been experiencing over the last few weeks, I’ve decided to suspend my blogging activity momentarily. I don’t know why but for some reason it takes me forever to even enter my blog, let alone publish it. I suspect it’s because of the ongoing cable links issue problem which I’ve heard will be rectified sometime this week. It sucks to have to do this, but then again it’s just going to be for a short time, at least until the connection improves, which I hope won’t take long.

Just a quick aside, the reason why I didn’t blogged much for december is simply because my relatives were down for the christmas holidays. Hence yours truly had a full time job of playing host and tour guide for 2 whole weeks. So yeah, I plan to lay low for a while and just take it easy for abit.  Heh, funny as you grow older, you realize you need a slightly longer time to recharge your batteries, and I’m not even past 30 yet!!! Oh well, different bodies, different responses I guess :)

See ya all next year :)

Note : This is a back-log post

Yes this year, has been truly an year filled with a myriad of experiences. And given the recent developments in my life, I don’t see any signs of slowing down.

As I write this piece on my bed, stacks of magazines on home and deco lay beside my bedside lamp. Yes yours truly is now into the home improvement and deco design! All this only came about fairly recently when we (my brother and I) decided to buy a place of our own. Yes that’s right I’m going to be a home-owner pretty soon. And the sweetest thing about this property is that it’s an actual house with land by the side, which means, gardening could be a future hobby of mine some day!

But for now, I’m soaking everything that’s related to home design like a sponge, starting with the kitchen! Yes I’m a guy and I’m looking at kitchen countertops and cabinets! It’s really quite interesting to broaden your knowledge and learn about something which has always been thought to be a “feminine” thing. Yes I consider, or at least I USED to consider anything to do with the kitchen or home deco and design to be classified under “women interests”.

But the fact that I’m now into it, I think just goes to show that … well I’m growing up! A year or two ago if you were to ask me whether I would be interested in such things, I would have sincerely said “NOPE!”. But I guess sooner or later you gotta grow up and … in the words of the well-known phrase of Russell Peters - BE A MAN .

There are things you just got to do and see to as you get older. I have to be candid though, it’s overwhelming; getting absorbed into this whole home deco ‘project’. I had spent more than an hour today at the bookstore going through books on home improvement and design.

But I gotta admit, like most of the experiences that I’ve gone through this year, (except for mum’s death), it’s enjoying. It’s enjoyable to learn something new, to read up with enthusiasm in your mind as you try to absorb and understand everything as much as you can.

Tomorrow morning, we are going back to the house to meet up with the agent and I’m going to use the time to study in greater detail on the house and the rooms.

Next year is sure gonna be an interesting one

Nothing at all. Zip. Nada

No time to even catch up on my readings, let alone time to blog. In some ways it has been great to spend the entire week with my uncle and his family. I’ve never done such a thing like this before (i.e - spend the entire week doing nothing but taking them around day after day to visit places).

I have thought up quite a number of ideas to write for my blog, alas, I have much to write, and much to do. It also doesn’t help that the internet has been fairly poor over the last couple of days. I’ve not been able to log into my dashboard properly and frankly, everything seems just slow on the net. I don’t know whether it has anything to do with the cable disruption in europe, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is so. With major cables
being affected, most traffic will be routed through other networks, thus causing heavy traffic and bottlenecks at some important locations.

Oh well, that’s what happens when you depend on technology abit too much at times.

I clenched my teeth as I counted the number of times my biceps were flexing. I could feel the tension on both my biceps as I lifted those 10kg weights on each hand. Straight ahead was a wall-like mirror where I was observing my progress.

“Twenty!”

I exclaimed as I brought the weights back down. Yes, ladies and gentleman, like many of the typical young corporate yuppies you have heard, I too have joined the gym. I guess what really got me into joining a fitness club here was the fact that I had finally come to terms that I needed to exercise if I wanted to stay fit and continue functioning properly in my daily life. Up until now, my exercise had only consisted of weekly futsal games. I didn’t even like jogging in the area near my place because…well I found to be plain and simple boring.

But I guess I can’t run from the fact that in order to renew my body and keep it in “optimum” levels, excercising was a gonna be a must in my weekly habits. Although the membership isn’t cheap at all (190 bucks a month!) I gotta say it’s a step for me towards the right direction. And I have to admit after my sessions every time, I do feel a whole lot better, both physically and mentally.

But my membership is only gonna last me for 3 months (Hence that’s why is $190) and after that I have the option of renewing my membership for the rest of the year if I want to, which I think is great because rather than paying $150 for a 12 month contract commitment, paying a little bit more for just a quarter will allow me to assess whether I will want to still continue gymming.

I’m honestly skeptical though whether these fitness gurus can help me gain weight. I did confess to them that I wanted to gain more weight and look abit more…”meaty”. And they did assure me, that with proper dietary meals and exercise, it is possible. In theory that’s quite obvious, but I have always contented to the fact that I will never gain weight no matter how much I try - it’s just not gonna happen. But anyway in the midst of all my cynicalistic view, I am curious to see if this time around, things will be different for me.

So I guess it isn’t really hard to see what will make it into my 2009-New Year’s Resolution list eh?

Jewish Proverb

In my last entry, I mentioned that politics is one of the culprits behind management crap. Too often time politics get in the way, and we often see the “fruits” of it within a short period of time : unqualified executives warming the seats of important poisitions and making poor decision choices.

Now as humans, granted one of the attributes that we all share in common is our need to learn. And part of learning requires making mistakes, that’s a natural byproduct of our lifelong learning process. And of course, they higher we go up in life, making mistakes naturally becomes costlier.

But another thing I have observed is, the higher we go up, be it whether it’s in our careers or our own lives, the harder it gets for us to admit our faults. I have seen this happen too many times in my workplace, especially among my supervisor and managers.

I have always wondered -

Why is it so hard for someone to say sorry for something?

Why is it so difficult to admit it was your mistake?

Is there some unwritten rule that says apologizing makes you look weaker?  Okay maybe you might hang you head low in shame for a couple of days, but so what? Humbly accepting your mistake with sincere humility actually can help improve the situation because people have already AKNOWLEDGED the problem and it’s time to move beyond the issue and concerntrate on finding what to do next.

I say this method works because I’ve gone through it myself. I remember being a project manager for one of my IT network projects, we had done a fanstastic job with implementing the network system, but we missed out on a small part, the installation of the network printers. Rather than pointing who is to be blame for it, I immediately took up to responsibility and told my management “okay so we made a mistake, we overlooked the printer, what do we do now? How do we recitify this?… How do we move forward from here?”

Although management was a little unhappy about that incident, coming clean with the error and pressing to move on really helped the whole project. Admitting to the client we overlooked the printer and promising to rectifiy it immediately helped pacify the client and we could move on. 

Sadly, most executives are too proud to admit their mistakes. They’re too proud to say “okay we messed up, what do we do from here, what contigency plans can we take?”  

Rather what do most executive do? They look for scapegoats, someone to shoulder the blame for them. They complain about how the other party has not been working properly with the team, or they complain about the individual not pulling his weight blah blah blah.

Someone else, just not me is their attitude

True, there are instances where it’s really the other party’s mistake, but most often than not, whether it’s someone else’s mistake or fault, very few will actually own up and try to stir the team. In a crude way, when shit hits the fan, no one wants to be near it.

Instead who’s to shoulder all this? Indirectly it’ll be the lowly powerless employees. Suddenly just because of somebody else’s error and refusal to bite the bullet, lowly employees get pressed to the wall ; they’re forced to complete their deadlines, they’re forced to stay back late, they’re forced to produce flawless work in a ridicioulous time frame. 

Management’s mistake, no one takes the blame, lowly employees take the shit.

If only we had senior managers who had the balls to admit where they’ve gone wrong and just carry the team back to the original goal, now that would truly be a real leader…

Winston Churchill

That quote above sums up a great deal what most management don’t do.

Doing what is necessary

I left off my last post with the thought that the reason management crap happens is simply because it’s seats are occupied by crappy people.

I’m learning this new term about client defination at my company. I don’t know whether it’s a coined or generic term, but consultants generally prefer to work with people whom are identified as drivers. This exclusive term is usually reserved for project sponsors, typically those who are sitting in upper management who have a considerable amount of influence on a project. Working with management drivers can really assist in ensuring a successful project delivery.

However not everyone is a driver, and definitely not everyone operates on such principles.  If you ask me, most management crap stems from a very simple cause, lack of the right people on top. In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins addresses this clearly. In order to build a great company, Collins asserts that top management should “get the right people on the bus to sit at the right places”, meaning getting the right people to do the right things.

It’s a rudimentary concept to be honest, it’s definitely not something novel or wrapped with an shroud of complexity.  Get the right people to do the right things. But too often that doesn’t happen now does it?

Why?

Well because of something which I’ve always loathed ever since I entered the corporate world : Politics.

If I could some up office politics in a sentence it would be this : It’s good (assuming it favours you) for you , it’s bad for the business.

We all know it, yet it’s so rampant in our working cultures today. We end up hiring 2nd grade executives because of preferential treatment, and ignoring the 1st class well-suited-for-the-position individual. I can never understand exactly why management does this, (hire somebody less qualified for the job), except maybe the only justification they can offer is “I am comfortable working with him”. So instead of getting the right people on the right bus to sit in the right seats, we end up getting wrong people to sit in seats not meant for them.

And so the bus journey goes on.  Using the analogy of the stinking flower I mentioned in Part I, the foul scent is not detected until the bus is well down the road. By then, problems are already cracking up and staring to show around, yet due to pride and ego, top management refuses to admit and be humble about it.

Which brings us to Part III of Why Management Crap Happens.

More humility, pride and ego in Part III.

As I write this, yes my project, like many other “thousands” I hear from my fellow consulting colleagues is in a mess. And because we carry the immaculate title “CONSULTANT”, we’re supposed to be the experts in fixing things and cleaning messes.

Heh, I sometimes think the word “professional cleaners” or “waste disposal experts” would be perfect monikers for Consultants, because in essence that’s what we are sometimes.

But I don’t want to talk about “10 top ways to clean Management’s Problems” or expound on ” Best practices for handling Management Crap”. I want to bypass the immaculate an inmortal consultants and go directly to the souce

“Why does Management Crap happen in the first place”

I will admit, I’ve only been slighly more than 2 years in the workplace. While I may sound callow with my thoughts, I feel I must still try to explain this topic. At least it’ll be refreshing to hear this from a junior employee. :P

How does crap come in the first place? Take any projects that you know; why is there so much problem when it comes to a project? I honestly do not know whether some of my colleagues take time to reflect on this; I’m pretty sure majority would just go with the flow and treat it as part of “the project life cycle”.

But is it really? Granted every project has it sets of challenges, but crap is different from a challenge. A challenge is a situation where it has the potential to impede the project, or the problem itself is in it’s infancy stages.

Crap on the other hand is the result of mismanagement, poor decision making and judgement, and a lack of governance. Crap is the corollary of the set of challenges that arises and is poorly addressed and manage.  The unique attribute about crap is that it only flourishes after a certain period of time. It’s not felt or known until then. You could liken crap to a smelly flower. So long the foul-smelling flower doesn’t bloom, you can’t detect it’s stench, even though you do know it’s the type of flower which will produce a foul scent when it blooms. Rather than “nipping the bud”, you choose to ignore it.

“Ahh it hasn’t still bloomed yet”

“Maybe it won’t bloom, so why worry?”

“We’ll nip the bud later” (but that later doesn’t come)

One of my senior project executives from my previous company once made this observing comment

“We’re operating in a reactive culture, we should instead be operating in a proactive culture”

Words of wisdom? Bah, what if I told you that that “sage” seem-like observation is actually in one of the most famous best-selling self-help books in the market?

Don’t believe me? Go ahead and google Habit # 1 in the 7 habits of Highly effective people

What really irks me the most, is not so much that people make mistakes. Like I said, every project has it’s challenges; with almost absolute certainty, given the fact that we co-exists with others in our environment, there is bound to be problems in every project.

However the the problem that really gets to me is the notion that some people never learn.  It’s very disheartening in some ways to know that these people who make these mistakes (of overlooking potential land mines,  excercising poor judgement, and at times not behaving as a project sponsor or director) are well beyond their forties. These are seasoned individuals who have been in the working world long enough to know  how projects work, the potential pitfalls in a project.

I might be demonstrating my “callowness” when I say this, but I personally believe that every project has a substantial chance of being properly implemented and executed, given the right “conditions”.

And when I say conditions, I am not referring to an “idllyic ” scenario. I’m well aware the world is flawed, or in some situations, overtly flawed. But I believe in the power of the individual.  In fact, my experience in many projects, if anything, has strengthened my belief in the power of the individual.

But that’s where the “crap” begins in the first place, in the minds, souls and bodies of these “crap” individuals.

More on this in part II

Risky is one thing, the thought of having go through the excruciating pain again for the other tooth was enough to put me off.  Having a father who is a dentist, I grew up my entire left being fearless of the dental chair. In school, whenever we had our routine dental check ups, a couple of my friends would agonize in terror as they await their turn to visit the Dentist. It was a different experience for me, I wouldn’t allow the trainee dentist to do anything as I would often have to explain that my dad is a dentist and therefore I would get the necessary work done by him instead.

But the operation over the weekend has got to be my worse experience of all time. No amount of self inflicting pain (i.e - pinching my arm) could match or help me cope with the pain that was coming with extracting the wisdom tooth. It was so painful so much so I actually cried halfway and pathetically pleaded with Dad to stop.

The anesthesia did little work even with 2-3 injections to numb my gums. I gotta admit in my entire life I have never had to undergo so many injections just to pull out a stupid tooth, but I guess this was serious.  At the end, Dad decided to apply a stronger dose of anesthesia which finally did the trick.  I gotta admit, going in for the second time around (where he used the stronger anesthesia) was not something I was looking forward to. All throughout the day I was thinking of the pain and whther I should just cancel the whole thing and come back another time.

But the pain was also to great to bear. There were nights before this where I had to crush a couple of ponstans and take them just to cope with the profuse pain.

I’m just glad it’s all over and boy what a first dental experience for me!