The Journey Within

“Think outside the box!” This has become a business mantra. It’s so abused that I wonder if the people chanting them knows what box are they talking about! Do they realise what does the box mean? How does the box relate to thinking? Hey, it’s just a box, whether you’re thinking inside it or outside it. So what’s so special about this box?

I think people have forgotten what this box represents. Nobody journeys within the box anymore. We are all just too eager to think outside the box, only to realise that we have never actually understood what the box is. We don’t take our time to understand the behaviour of the box, what is the box made of, what can the box carry… We sometimes don’t even know the size of the box!

The box is meant to define the edges of a problem. When we are trying to solve a problem, we’ll need to know exactly what problem it is that we’re trying to solve! It sounds obvious but that’s where the box comes in. Let’s say I have an email problem. Now, an “email” is actually not a problem. So you’ll have to be a bit more specific than that. So I say, I receive a lot of emails. Good. It’s more specific, but again, that’s still not a problem. Receiving a lot of emails do not qualify it to be a problem. Everybody receives emails. So what is your problem? Let’s say, I can’t cope with the daily emails I received. Now, this statement has defined the problem a bit more. It has given some edges to the box. We have the problem words “can’t cope” and we have a time dimension to the problem as well (daily). Let’s face it. If time is not an issue, we don’t actually have much problems in this world…

Although “cope” may still be a bit vague, it is sufficient for it to become a problem to me. This is how the box is defined. This is only when you can think outside the box, or if you choose to, even tear up the box. Make daily emails a non-issue. For example, you can remove your email address altogether. Life as a virtual hermit does give a sense of peacefulness.

From that extreme, you can choose to delete your emails as you get them. Be as ruthless with them as possible. Report more emails to be spam if it’s the newsletters you can’t seem to unsubscribe. You can always politely unsubscribe them first. You can filter your emails to go straight to a black hole folder. For the really important stuff, you can do them first, or assign an action label to them e.g. Review, Read, Reply, Call someone etc and do them later (at some pre-defined time slot that you set aside daily).

All these thinking can only happen AFTER you’ve defined the box. It can only happen only when you see the box, or make the box visible. An email problem can be a very large box like “I can’t seem to get rid of the million of emails in my current inbox”, or “I think it’s because I procrastinate whenever an email comes to my inbox”. In this case, you’ve actually defined 2 problems – 1 about your current state of affairs, the second one is how to deal with all emails in future, as they come in.

See how important it is to define the box?

So, whenever someone ask you to think outside the box, spend a few minutes to think inside the box first. Venture into the box. Try to see the box. Define the box. Appreciate why the box exists in the first place. Search the box. Examine the box. Understand the box. The box may be bigger than you think. The material may be more flexible than you think.

Only then you can “think outside the box” (whatever that means…)

You can stretch the box. Deform the box. Make the box smaller. It’s all a matter of perception. Then, “thinking outside the box” is just a by-product of your thought process. There is actually no box.

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I know the mantra. We should all work smart. I mean, who doesn’t want to work smart? Who doesn’t want to work shorter hours, be less stress, work more effectively, be more productive, etc. It sounds like it’s the only way to work! Working hard is just stupid. There should be just one type of work, and that is work smart. And yet, we all still work harder than ever… Continue reading »

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It has been a while since I last wrote anything creative. Most of my writings have been dull unexciting pieces of junk that passed as compliant writing at work. BOOOORING!!! I can’t imagine writing any more of that without some other outlet. I’m not saying I’m a very creative person, but I was once told that if you don’t use any part of your brain for any period of time, that part will deteriorate. I guess if conventional wisdom still holds true i.e. that the right brain controls creativity, my right brain must be shrinking to the size of a peanut (assuming it was larger than a peanut previously). See what I mean by compliant writing? Even the size of my peanut has a disclaimer.

How can someone actually miss writing? It’s only one of the many actions that can be performed anytime, any day. There are tonnes of other daily actions that can be done, limited only by your imagination. But why miss writing? Something must be bottling up inside. Something that needs to be released. But what?

It’s that time of the year again – performance appraisal. I haven’t been through that in a while. For the past year since I last started my job, I haven’t given that much thought. No thought = no record. I haven’t been keeping record of my performance, just enjoying the work I do. I suppose someone must be keeping track of my work. I guess I will find out soon. How am I suppose to enjoy work now? Now that I know I’m going to be measured every step I take, every fart I make?

My mum is a boss. She works in her very own company. And they do appraisals as well. So when I asked how does she like the appraisals, my mum gave me the most honest answer I’ve heard of so far – it’s just a waste of time, it’s obvious who’s performing and who’s not. My kudos to that statement. I suppose for bigger companies, that might be difficult, but I’m sure at least 1 person will know what the other does. So why appraise anyway?

I guess one good thing about the appraisal is that it triggers my creative juices again. I have to be creative to make the seemingly trivial tasks seem appropriate, useful even, and makes a difference to the value I add to the company. It was tough at first, but once the lingo gets going, it’s quite difficult to stop. I talked about when my communication was good, when I improved the security of our files, when I organised the workflow, when I was the key person developing the campaign etc. Now all I have to know is – will my boss see through the smoke screen? It was a good smoke nonetheless…

To be continued…

Another disclaimer: This post should not be reproduced in any form. In particular, this post CANNOT be used against the author in any way. Legal action will be taken if this post was found in any particular form, referenced to the author, especially if it affects the outcome of the author’s appraisal. In the latter scenario, ILLEGAL action may also be taken.

One more disclaimer: Any illegal action taken cannot be referenced to the author of this post. There is no direct link that illegal actions performed are in any direct relation to this author.

One last disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. This refers to both the post and its disclaimers (except the last). Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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I am an employee. I have a fixed salary every month, for as long as I work with the company. I get some holidays which I can take anytime of the year. Of course, “anytime” is normally controlled by someone else, commonly known as “the boss”. I can “request” anytime, but it’s never “anytime”… Anyway, when I started my very first “paid monthly” job, I never view it as a job I was paid to do. I view it as a learning ground, a chance for me to show both myself and the world out there what I can do. So I feel sad when one day, not long after I started my first job, that “the boss” told me to just do it without questioning, because I am “paid to do so”.

Questioning is part of the learning process. Over time, you learn when to question and when not to question. But not to question AT ALL breaks the very meaning of learning. For me, understanding the purpose of what I’m doing determines the level of energy and intensity into that work. The stronger the purpose, the stronger the will power to make sure it gets done.

In a hierarchical company, the purpose is often lost through the chain of command. Sure, companies have mission statements, but how often are those statements translated to anything remotely close to the work being done on the ground? The only consistent mission statement is “to make money”. This measure on its own is not a good long term purpose for any company. Actually, what they fail to tell you is that this mission statement is incomplete. The full mission statement is not actually to make money, but to make money “in the short term” – to make money as long as the person on top is in charge of the company. Because the person on top knows that his time is short – either make a big bang out of it to prove his worth, or make big bucks out of his time before his time is up.

As a result of the “chain of command”, this mentality is translated to each section of the chain. So, as long as you’re head of some section, you will more or less succumb to the direction the “ultimate head” is telling you, whether you like it or not.

Can we turn this around? Should the fate of the company be controlled by a chain of command?

I believe this military style structure has its use in the past. Business schools have probably dissected this business model umpteen times to fill up a whole course. If so, there must be some solution to this, but why does the problem persist?

I guess the human civilization that we have come to be proud of its growth and technological prowess has failed to grow in the wisdom dimension. We can split the atoms but we can’t split the ego from ourselves. The only thing we have managed to split is our personalities. At work, there seem to be a different creature inhabiting the body. If you were to meet your co-workers outside of work, they would seem perfectly normal. But when you place them in a work environment, somehow, an invisible hand is guiding their actions. Hostile, defensive, insecure, yearn for power etc are some of the common traits of this new creature.

I didn’t mean to write so negatively about the corporate world. So here’s the challenge for myself and for you hopefully as well. We can’t change what’s out there, we can only influence. But the one thing that we can certainly change is ourselves. It’s difficult to go against the grain, but we can still choose to be true to ourselves without appearing that we are going against the flow. Keep a cool core, and as you build up your core strength, it will overspill. Just like the contagious laughter. Smile a little, and your co-workers will smile back at you, eventually!

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I like simple games. Some of the best games survive the test of time because of its simplicity. Think tic-tac-toe or tetris. In my trip to Mount Kinabalu in Sabah (Malaysia), some of the nights were spent playing a card game called bluff (or bullshit, cheat etc). It tests the ability to bluff your way through, and to call other people’s bluff. It was fun!

Recently, I played a different game where we had to choose between red and blue chip. We were divided into 4 groups, and each group had to come up with a decision to choose red or blue. If you choose red, you will win at least 1 point from the banker if at least one of the other groups choose blue. If no one chooses blue, all groups will lose 1 point to the banker. However, if all of us chooses blue, then all of us will gain 1 point. The scoring system is as follows:

• 4 reds – deduct 1 point from each group
• 3 reds – red group +1 point, blue group -3 points
• 2 reds – red group +2 points, blue group -2 points
• 1 red – red group + 3 points, blue group – 1 point
• 0 red (all blue) – plus 1 point for each group

Naturally, in my mind anyway, all of us stands to win from the banker if we all chose blue. Although by choosing red, you have a higher chance of winning (since red wins at least 1 point 3 times out of the 5 scenarios), I was willing to give the trust to people around us that each of us stand to gain if we all choose blue.

I guess that thought was naive. Economics won. The rest of the groups chose red and we were the only group who chose blue. We loss 3 points. Due to this first round, the trust level sank and in the second round, all of us chose red, in which case all of us loss 1 point.

To make things more interesting, in the next round, a representative from each group can “negotiate” what chip they want to choose. So i vented my frustration of why didn’t they all chose blue where all can win. As a result of the negotiations, we decided to choose all blue for once. But i told them that I have now a very strong incentive to choose red because I have lost 4 points in total, whereas all other groups have not lost as much. We left it at that and went back to choosing the chips.

The result? 2 reds and 2 blues in the third round. Our group chose red and i don’t blame them. But there was an additional group who chose blue, who later admitted that they were trying to bridge our loss and at the same time won’t lose much themselves. The other groups who chose red later confessed that they were trying to scam the other groups.

In the 4th and final round, we were allowed to negotiate again. I gave up negotiating this time (i thought it was a waste of time!) and someone else in our group went. They were out there for very long, for something that is “just a game”. And after the long negotiation, the outcome was to choose whatever each group wants, because there wasn’t any trust any longer in any of the groups.

4th round result – 2 reds 2 blues

For something that’s “just a game”, it showed a lot of different characters of people, and the dynamics of human interactions in general. As much as I want a perfect solution to all, others may not. The solution? Always bear in mind that cooperation and competition will always work hand in hand. We need competition, otherwise the human race wouldn’t have advanced to the state it is today. However, cooperation will yield much better results, which is why there are so many open source movements, an example of which is wordpress, which is powering this blog you’re reading right now.

p/s: Incidentally, the push hands exercise I’ve been doing draws out this “cooperate vs compete” paradox quite vividly. As we learn to push, we will learn the principles of tai ji only if we cooperate with our partner. However, in a bid to win, we might lose the principles as well and forget that in order to “win”, we will need a higher level of cooperation! I can’t explain this further other than bid you to try push hands yourself, which is why this is in a foot note.

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We’ve heard of outsourcing. Companies are doing it. Employees are afraid of it. China (among others) is welcoming it. As a result, outsourcing has different meanings to different people. To me, outsourcing actually holds a deeper root than what companies are currently doing. It has become a convenient tool for us to relinquish our responsibility and pass it on to others.

I guess outsourcing is made popular because it lowers cost, improves efficiency and … (you can fill in the blank with all the business buzz words you can think of!). This is from the company’s point of view. However, a company is an invisible entity made up of humans (yes, us!!). The root of outsourcing can actually be traced back to us.

We have outsourced our health to doctors, gym instructors, yoga teachers, dieticians, health insurance etc. We have outsourced our work to our wives, our children, our colleagues, the printer, the computer system etc. We have outsourced things that we don’t like to people who are willing to do them for a fee e.g. cleaners to deal with the cleanliness, human resources (HR) to deal with the “staff issues”, accountants to deal with our payroll and our tax payments, teachers to deal with the education of our children etc.

This spirit of outsourcing has given rise to the blame culture, where the person you have outsourced to (the contractor) is expected to take full responsibility. The parent will blame the teacher for the low grades of her son. The employee will blame the computer for his inefficiency. The couch potato will blame the TV that he became a couch potato. The manager will blame her staff because a particular work was not delivered on time / with quality.

As any companies can point out, outsourcing carries with it a “reputation risk”, i.e. if the quality of the outsourced piece of work failed to meet the customer’s expectations, the company will suffer, and not the contractor. No matter how much compensation there is – the contractor will never take full responsibility.

Similarly, if we outsource our health to others, any failure on their part will only mean we suffer, and not them. No matter how much they can compensate us, they can’t compensate us our limbs, our loss organs, our very lives. Joining a gym doesn’t make you healthy. Attending regular classes of yoga doesn’t mean you know yoga. Subscribing to a particular diet does not mean you will lose those weight. We still have to be responsible for our own being.

Just like outsourcing the cleaning job to others, it doesn’t give us the right to make a mess. Outsourcing the difficult “staff issues” to HR doesn’t mean we don’t have to deal with the particular colleague – you are still working with him on a daily basis, not the HR. Although we outsource the payroll to accountants, we however check this more dilligently than any other activities! Can we apply this dilligence to others?

Can we apply this dilligence to our health, our wealth, our work, our lives?

It’s sad to see we take outsourcing so literally. We outsource our depression to pills, psychiatrist, alcohol etc. We outsource our frustration to others who are weaker than us, to others who has less power/position, to the computer, to the wife, to the children, to the TV, through sports etc. We outsource our weaknesses to others through power, position, money, or any kind of leverage eg bribes, connections, incentives etc.

I’m not saying that outsourcing is bad. In fact, outsourcing has remained because it has been effective. Outsourcing is here to stay. But in the midst of all the outsourcing that you’re doing, try to remember:

• you can never outsource yourself

Please remember to put yourself back into any outsourcing agreements. The teacher can’t make you learn. Only you can learn it for yourself. The teacher can only be partially blamed. The pills can make you better, but it can’t cure the roots. Only you can cure yourself from within. Money, position, power – it can only get you so far, but if it comes from within yourself, others will appreciate you for it, and you will know that you have added value.

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Recently, my job has taken me to unfamiliar environments. It feels unfamiliar because everything is outside my comfort zone. Before accepting the job, I thought it might be a challenge to take it on. Now and again, I come to think that I might have bitten off more than I can chew. The frequency of this thought is increasing with each passing day.

While talking about this with colleagues and friends, I have been thinking hard if it’s the job that’s the problem. Ok, there’s plenty of work. That’s just a matter of managing it. The people around are ok, the normal office crowd. I think the more fundamental problem is the weak internal processes, which everyone is trying to fight on a daily basis. Correcting the internal processes takes a lower priority than doing a quick fix. That is why all these problems are surfacing at this point, after more than a decade in business!! The high staff turnover is quite likely due to the eruption of problems which have been simmering over the decade. Now that the stew is ready, the problems decide to leave the pot.

There’s two ways to look at this. A lot of problems means plenty of opportunities – the positive attitude. The negative part of me will say “there’s too many problems to be solved alone”. Of course, I don’t have to solve it alone, but the 2 sides remain, whether to stay and fight, or to stray and take flight.

Ultimately, the conflict lies in my perspective.

Should I just choose a view and stick to it? Whether or not it’s positive or negative, it’s still a view, and I can stop moaning to you about it. Or is there a third way? One that bypasses these 2 views altogether, making them irrelevant?

The question was not as easy as I thought, because the rebel in me would always want a third way, an elegant solution where problems would just fall on way’s side with a master’s stroke – the mathematician inside me likes the beauty in elegant solutions.

So, let’s phrased the question in a different way. What if I decide to start a family? Will my decision change then? Will I still be looking for a third way? Or will I just fight on because I don’t have time to think about these problems and search for the elegant solution?

Phrasing the initial question differently does not solve the problem. But it does focus your efforts on what really is important. I think there’s a bit of fire in me that think life is so much more than worrying about whether or not this is my fight. I say “a bit of fire” because i feel the flame is getting smaller by the day. The conflict in me is feeding on the fire, and I’ll need to refuel it often just to keep up.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the fire can just be let burn without adding fuel to it?

Could that be the elegant solution I’m looking for? Could that be the solution to so much of our problems? By looking for an open space where fire can be fire and burn as brightly as it’s supposed to burn? By looking for an environment where I can be who I am and let me flourish? It sounds like i’ve just stumbled upon the solution!

Now, all I need is to hunt for this open space, or create this open space myself. Ideas welcomed.

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Reason #1 – Dog collar

I have a dog collar around my neck, holding my identity just in case I get lost in the streets. It also allows me to get inside my master’s building. I was told it was for “security” reasons. It’s for my own protection.

Reason #2 – Performing tricks Continue reading »

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I have been wanting to try out one of those new(ish) hair saloons where all they offer is a simple haircut and nothing else. You buy a ticket, you sit in, you get your hair cut, and you get vacuumed (yes, vacuumed, as in sucked!), and you leave. I first read about this in Blue Ocean Strategy where one such hair saloon (QB House) was featured because it tapped into an uncontested market – no frills haircut. I finally took the chance to try one out.

I went to one called Okinawa (in Singapore). As with all successful business ideas, Okinawa is probably a copycat company of QB House (it could be the other way round! so don’t quote me on that). There is only one price since there is only one service – the haircut.

The cost of the haircut – $10. No more no less.

The ATM-like box just at the entrance only accepts cash, and only in $10 notes. So I took out my $10 bill and stick it into the machine. Out pops a card. It’s a recyclable card. I collected the card and went into the saloon to sit down. A cash-only system. What a great business model. And there’s no more need for a cashier, no need for maintaining accounts, no need for checking and rechecking the cash register. Powerful stuff.

Waiting time – 5 minutes.

I gave my card to the hairdresser, told her how I want it to be cut and there she goes. While sitting in front of the mirror, the woman beside me opened up her mirror to collect her handbag! What an ingenious idea. And that’s not all, every single piece of tool has it’s place in the cupboard. The comb, the gel, the vacuum, the clipper, the water spray etc… And for the hygiene conscious, there’s a small microwave-like box where the scissors and combs are kept under what seems like UV light. I’m not sure how much that contributes to hygiene though…

Time from start of cut to finish – 15 minutes.

And that includes the AirWash system sucking the cuts nestled inside my new found hair style. I checked my face, my neck, and my shirt, not much residual hair bits. Final test – washing at home. Again not much hair bits fell out. If I were to put a number on it, I would say there is 80% less hair bits coming out of the wash compared to my normal haircut. That is quite a significant reduction! Vacuuming rather than blow drying does make a difference!

All in all, it’s a really good idea both in a business sense and in the value it is providing. It does no fancy stuff like colouring, perming, rebonding (that’s a new word for me by the way) etc. All it does is focus on the basic – the haircut. In focusing on the basic, all other things required to give you your haircut is cut down to a minimum, no fuss style. Paying for your haircut is a matter of sticking in a $10 bill. The hairdresser won’t need to even worry about manning the cash register, thus focusing her efforts on haircut. All tools are properly laid out and put back in their respective place. Again, the focus is on haircut, not to find where Clipper No. 3 is. I especially like the storage behind mirror. No more worrying about your coat or your handbag on the seat behind you. The AirWash vacuum system reduces amount of hair on your head and on the floor. Shortening the cleaning time.

See how focusing on the basics gives us, the consumers, great benefit? By doing the basics very well, consumers benefit, and if consumer benefits, the business benefits. So if you’re planning on doing business, get the basics right. A great counter example would be my experience at a Japanese restaurant.

In summary, let the basics be your guide, both in business, and in life! It’s like focusing on your normal days as oppose to your “special days”. Let’s make our everyday activities fruitful and productive instead of focusing on the next salary increase, the coming bonus, the next rung in the corporate ladder, graduation day, wedding day etc. After all, normal days dominate most of your life compared to special days!

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We arrived at a Japanese restaurant serving one of those conveyor belt type food (yuck! but the wife likes it, sigh…). Someone came over and the conversation went like this…

waitress: Alakar or buffet?

us: er… we want to sit there..

waitress: A la carte or buffet?

us: oh.. what’s the difference?

waitress: (handing us the menus for the different options) here you go. Alacar you can choose this this and this. Buffet is anything on the belt.

wife: can we sit there? (the table has four chairs near the converyor belt)

waitress: Only if you have 4 people during peak hours.

me: is now peak hour? (it’s 12pm on saturday, i thought i ask)

waitress: yes

me: ok, we’ll sit by the conveyor belt. (and after sitting down…) we’ll have a la carte.

waitress: i’ll take the menu from you. (after a few seconds…) actually if you’re going a la carte you can sit at the 2 person table and we can bring your food to you.

us: (looking at each other in perplex, we stood up) ok.

That was (almost) the exact conversation that took place. After sitting down, I did think why the process for sitting down was SOooo difficult. I just wanted to sit down and eat! I don’t want to understand your whole business process and requirements – like designated sitting area, how you price your food, what are the differences between a la carte and buffet, your peak and non-peak hours etc. Of course I could have answered her first question and probably that might be easier. I was thinking more of “let me sit down and decide”, which i think is a perfectly sensible strategy. After all, it’s lunch time, i would rather grab a seat first!

If any of you own your own business, or if you have the power to influence or change a business design or decision, please… KEEP THINGS SIMPLE! Remember what you’re trying to do. Remember what product and service you’re trying to provide. Remember what’s the main purpose of the product or service. For example, the purpose of a restaurant is to sit down and eat. Not stand, wait, understand, decide, sit, realise wrong “business” decision, understand, rant, stand, move, sit.

And don’t get me started on the food… oh, did i mention i don’t like sushi?! just the raw stuff. always doesn’t sit well with my tummy. I’ll need more of those to build up the immune system.

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