... in life and childhood dreams (memorable quotes from Dr. Randy Pausch--delivering his last lecture in Carnegie Mellon's "last lecture series"

"How do you measure a year in the life?" - The Rent

How about ... in Randy Pausch's childhood dreams?

"It's wonderful to be here. What Indira didn't tell you is that this lecture series used to be called the "Last Lecture". If you had one last lecture to give before you died, what would it be? I thought, damn, I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it!"

Delivering his "last lecture" in Carnegie Mellon's "Last Lecture Series" with 3-6 months left of good health, Randy talked about his life and his childhood dreams. For complete lecture video and transcript, they are available in Randy's website.

"So what are my childhood dreams? ... And there I actually have a picture of me dreaming. I did a lot of that. You know, there's a lot of wake up's! I was born in 1960. When you are 8 or 9 years old and you look at the TV set, men are landing on the moon, anything's possible. And that's something we should not lose sight of, is that the inspiration and the permission to dream is huge ... So what were my childhood dreams? ... Being in zero gravity, playing in the NFL, authoring an article in the World Book Encyclopedia ... Being Captain Kirk ... I wanted to become one of the guys who won the big stuffed animals in the amusement park, and I wanted to be an Imagineer with Disney ... OK, so being in zero gravity. Now it's important to have specific dreams. I did not dream of being an astronaut, because when I was a little kid, I wore glasses an they told me oh, astronauts can't have glasses. And I was like, mmm, I didn't really want the whole astronaut gig, I just wanted to float. So, and as a child, prototype 0.0 [slide shown of Randy as a child lying in floating-formation on a table top] But that didn't work so well, and it turns out that NASA has something called the Vomit Comet that they used to train the astronauts. And this thing does parabolic arcs, and at the top of each arc you get about 25 seconds where you're ballistic and you get about, a rough equivalent of weightlessness for about 25 seconds. And there is a program where college students can submit proposals and if they win the competition, they get to fly. And I thought that was really cool, and we had a team and we put a team together and they won and they got to fly. And I was all excited because I was going to go with them. And then I hit the first brick wall, because they made it very clear that under no circumstances were faculty members allowed to fly with the teams. I know, I was heartbroken. I was like, I worked so hard! And so I read the literature very carefully and it turns out that NASA, it's part of their outreach and publicity program, and it turns out that the students were allowed to bring a local media journalist from the home town. And, [deep voice] Randy Pausch, web journalist. It's really easy to get a press pass! So I called up the guys at NASA and I said, I need to know where to fax some documents. And they said, what documents are you going to fax us? And I said my resignation as the faculty advisor and my application as the journalist ..."

And he continued ...

"... Being an Imagineer. This was the hard one. Believe me, getting to zero gravity is easier than becoming an Imagineer ... And so I bided my time and then I graduated with my Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon, thinking that meant me infinitely qualified to do anything. And I dashed off my letters of applications to Walt Disney Imagineering, and they just sent me some of the damned nicest go-to-hell letters I have gotten. I mean it was just, we have carefully reviewed your application and presently we do not have any positions available which require your particular qualifications ... So that was a bit of a setback. But remember, the brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough, they're there to stop the *other* people."

But sometimes, some dreams are just out of reach. Talking about his dream of playing in the NFL, Randy said:

"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."

And in the end, he sums everything up nicely:

"Be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity."

"It's not about how to achieve your dreams. It's about how to live your life. If you live your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dream will come to you."

(And now, just for fun: ... in more sunsets ... this time from Le Mt-St-Michel in Normandie, France)

... in something "bigger": social responsibility that pays

A few years ago, out of curiosity I browsed around school rankings and I was trying to see if there were strong correlations between a school's rank and the average salary of its graduates. And it stroke me hard: in several professional fields of studies (medicine, law, and scientific research), there were definitely strong and negative correlations between rank and average salary, at least among the top tier schools.

A friend told me: "Why? Easy. You don't go to Harvard Med if you wanted to practice medicine--which is where the money is. You go there to learn how to find the cure for cancer and a solution to AIDS in Africa ... a Utopian dream that does not immediately--if ever, during this lifespan--pay off."

As a person, I've always wondered what life is and what life should be. And as an aspiring leader ... I continuously ask the question: what makes an organization better than others? How do you recruit and retain the best and the brightest? And how do you create value and earn a living (and provide comfortable livings for your followers) while staying true to your values?


The Wall Street Journal, June 19th 2007
Law Firms Willing to Pay to Work for Nothing

"Pro bono work at Big Law has evolved from an act of noblesse oblige into, at least in part, a business initiative. Law firms want strong pro bono programs as a way to recruit and retain top law students and junior associates, who are often more eager than their predecessors to do pro bono work ... The big firms are 'having to dig deeper to differentiate themselves,' say Esther Lardent, the president of the Pro Bono Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. 'Dedicating to pro bono is a way for a firm to say 'Our culture isn't entirely about maximizing profits, but about something bigger.' ... ": Ashby Jones

Harvard Business Review, December 2006
Strategy & Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility

"Successful corporations need a healthy society. Education, health care, and equal opportunity are essential to productive workforce. Safe products and working conditions not only attract customers but lower the internal costs of accidents ... Any business that pursues its ends at the expense of the society in which it operates will find its success to be illusory and ultimately temporary ... At the same time, a healthy society needs successful companies ... If governments, NGOs, and other participants in social society weaken the ability of business to operate productively, they may win battles but will lose the war, as corporate and regional competitiveness fade, wages stagnate, jobs disappear, and the wealth that pays taxes and supports nonprofit contributions evaporates ... Leaders in both business and civil society have focused too much on the friction between them and not enough on the points of intersection ... When value chain practices and investments in competitive context are fully integrated, corporate social responsibility becomes hard to distinguish from the day-to-day business of the company. Nestlé, for example, works directly with small farmers in developing countries to source the basic commodities, such as milk, coffee, and cocoa, on which much of its global business depends. The company's investment in local infrastructure and its transfer of world-class knowledge and technology over decades has produced enormous social benefits through improved health care, better education, and economic development, while giving Nestlé direct and reliable access to the commodities it needs to maintain a profitable global business ... NGOs, governments, and companies must stop thinking in terms of 'corporate social responsibility' and start thinking in terms of 'corporate social integration' ...": Michael E. Porter, Professor, Harvard Business School, and Mark R. Kramer, Senior Fellow, Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government

And, the truth is ... sometimes doing the good things is not only comforting ... but also makes strategic sense ...

In decisions, decisions, decisions ...

"It's better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.": Mark Twain

I stopped watching "The Apprentice" after the second season because Amy and Troy from season 1 were just irreplaceable. And I think the reason for that is that people seemed to have figured out the rule of the game. Donald fires people for bad decision, and it's hard to make a bad decision if you don't make a decision. Unfortunately, I guess this is the general rule of the game whatever you do.


The Wall Street Journal, November 8, 2005
Deciders Suffer Alone; Nondeciders Make Everyone Else Suffer

"Indecisive managers may not accomplish much. But on the long list of things they don't do is this: get fired. The not-so-little secret is that indecisions are often more frequently rewarded at the workplace than decisions ... Big bureaucracy abhors a decision, notes software-company executive Tony Tarsia. You can't be held accountable for something that doesn't happen ... Jonathan Gilbert and his colleagues at a high-tech company were confused after meetings in which a decision was supposed to be made but never was. 'What just happened?' was a frequent question. 'I have no idea' was the usual answer. They coined their own pathology for it: Decision Avoidance Behavior. It includes decision dodges such as unending questions, closing meetings without action items, requesting more data or study, angry outbursts in response to requests for a decision, and, of course, hiring a consultant whose greatest value was either to make a decision or get blamed for a bad one.": Jared Sandberg

Sounds familiar?

In "The Window and the Mirror"; In Humility and Will: Teams and Level 5 Leadership

OK ... back to work. I've started receiving emails inquiring what happened to my blog that had not been updated for 6 weeks. I really appreciated them, actually ... at least somebody is missing my postings, but dude! Bloggers need vacation too!

Six weeks ago I discussed how "teams and good performances are inseparable: You cannot have one without the other ..." But actually there's also something more to it. "We were lucky, to live in such a community where the concern for the environment is quite high..." I've heard them saying. "It forces us to be aware of what we use and what we discharge, and this puts us in an advantage in today's environment where energy prices is constantly climbing."

Harvard Business Review, September 2005 / Best of HBR 2001
Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve

"... Compare Bethlehem Steel and Nucor, for example. Both steel companies operated with products that are hard to differentiate, and both faced a competitive challenge from cheap imported steel ... (Yet) Bethlehem Steel's CEO summed up the company's problem in 1983 by blaming the imports: 'Our first, second, and third problems are imports.' Meanwhile, Ken Iverson and his crew at Nucor saw the imports as a blessing: 'Aren't we lucky; steel is heavy, and they have to ship it all the way across the ocean, giving us a huge advantage.' Indeed ... Iverson went so far as to speak out publicly against government protection against imports, telling a gathering of stunned steel executives in 1997 that the real problems facing the industry lay in the fact that management had failed to keep pace with technology.

... The emphasis on luck turns out to be part of a broader pattern that we have come to call 'the window and the mirror'. Level 5 leaders, inherently humble, look out the window to apportion credit--even undue credit--to factors outside themselves. If they can't find a specific person or event to give credit to, they credit good luck. At the same time, they look in the mirror to assign responsibility, never citing bad luck or external factors when things go poorly. Conversely, the comparison executives frequently looked out the window for factors to blame but preened in the mirror to credit themselves when things went well.": Jim Collins, coauthor "Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies"

In The Many Different Ways of Doing Things ... Ieper: Second Month

What make great leaders great? Socialist Europeans will be quick to answer: the team. True, but then, why are some teams better than others? To this, they will say: 'well, we have good, hard working people here in Flanders, ja?'

OK, fine. They are mostly right; at least based on my first impression. But we do have some good, hard working people in Memphis too.

Harvard Business Review, July-August 2005 / Best of HBR 1993
The Discipline of Teams

"We found that there is a basic discipline that makes teams work. We also found that teams and good performance are inseparable: You cannot have one without the other. But people use the word 'team' so loosely that it gets in the way of learning and applying the discipline that leads to good performance ... Teams differ fundamentally from (other) working groups because they require both individual and mutual accountability ... Think of it as a working definition or, better still, an essential discipline that real teams share: A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. The essence of a team is common commitment ... This kind of commitment requires a purpose in which team members can believe.": Jon R. Katenbach, founder and senior partner, Katzenbach partners / former director, McKinsey & Company, and Douglas K. Smith, organizational consultant / former partner, McKinsey & Company.

First, I don't think the people in Ieper are better, per se, but I strongly believe that we have a stronger team in Ieper. First, we are a small number of people. More importantly, we are all committed, and we all hold ourselves mutually accountable. If there's a problem, any problem, it's not uncommon for our support structures--such as lab, maintenance, or HR--to come forward, without being asked, and asked the production group what they can do to help remedy the situation. People seem to understand: it's not how many touchdowns he/she scores that wins the game.

From then on, it's just a virtuous cycle. When you know you can count on peers to do their part, there's the social pressure: you do not want to be the drag of the team. I've always wondered why in a country with such strong socialism influence, the company still felt highly entrepreneurial. I think I've found the answer.

The second--and more obvious--thing was that many people have been around for longer than I have lived. Not only this keeps all the expertise in house, but time also has helped the team gel together. I will assign this mostly to the fact that mobility in Europe is fairly limited and that the unemployment rate is a bit higher. But still, I also feel that the people-centered management style must have also helped.

And third, yes, I can see the work culture in general is a bit better. Again, with higher unemployment rate, there are a lot of reality checks going on.

However, although without doubt Ieper is the highest-performing facility in our company, I can always make a defendable case that Memphis is the most innovative. So it's not that the people in Memphis are of lower quality. I will always challenge this assertion. Memphis simply had to evolve to its different sents of challenges. We had to learn how to do twice as many product changeovers yet still scored a decent downtime. We had to figure out how to keep track the ten times the number of raw materials, five times inventory level, and twenty times different processes and product types. We had to manage the complexity. And I can say that we did this better than anyone else in the company (nobody else had had to do it). But as the cost of growth, Memphis simply has grown too big, too fast. See the definition of "team" again.

Simply put: Ieper's resources have been deployed to skin the few products that it makes; Memphis's resources have been deployed not to "solve the world's hunger" but to find creative get-arounds that work ... Ieper may know the science better, but Memphis knows the engineering better.

Managing for Creativity

In my previous post that had generated some buzz, I wrote that most people are not (directly) motivated by money. They work because they feel appreciated for what they do.

In today's environment where almost everything is outsourced, is heavily commoditized, and is highly deregulated, most competitive advantages no longer come from access to certain technology, certain raw materials, railroad access, or political connections. They often come from how effective an organization can "exploit" the only thing that's internally controllable: its own "creative capital". Though "exploit" might sound to be a negative term, it really is not. Take SAS.

Harvard Business Review, July-August 2005
Managing for Creativity

"Creative people work for the love of the challenge. An InformationWeek survey of tens of thousands of IT workers confirms that theory: On-the-job challenge ranks well above salary and other financial incentives as the key source of motivation ... SAS recognizes that 95% of its assets drive out the front gate every evening. Leaders consider it their job to bring them back the next morning. It takes roughly six months to get a new worker up to speed in terms of technical knowledge, but it takes years for the employee to truly absorb a company's culture and forge solid relationships.

(And) people who are preoccupied wondering 'When can I fit in time at the gym?' or 'Is that meeting going to waste my whole afternoon?' can't be entirely focused on the job at hand. The Oprah Winfrey Show, 60 Minutes, and lots of newspaper and magazine articles have publicized the perks SAS lavishes on its employees, but the company isn't just doling out treats willy-nilly. Not only do the benefits make workers more productive, but they also help retain those workers, reducing the company's expenses for recruitment and replacement ... the managers (in SAS) clear away obstacles for employees by procuring whatever materials they need. Larnell Lennon, who leads the software-testing team, describes his job as 'Go get it, go get it, go get it'. When his people come to him asking for a software package or financial support, he doesn't pepper them with questions. If it's a reasonable request, he takes care of it. If the outcomes aren't up to snuff, it's a different matter ... Some have described SAS's philosophy as 'Hire hard, manage soft.' But 'Hire hard, manage open, fire hard' is more apt.": Richard Florida, Professor, George Mason University, and Jim Goodnight, CEO, SAS Institute.

Moments of Greatness

Each time I was asked: 'what was your career-best moment' or 'what was your greatest leadership achievement'; my answer had always been: 2003 Zhengzhou, China, production facility start-up. That was my defining moment. More than two years ago. This is not to say that I accomplished nothing since then--though I probably did slack out a bit since then :) It was just ... different. I believed this moment had helped my career advances in many big ways. People saw what I did and remembered me for what I did; despite--and not for--how young and inexperienced I was. Ask anyone involved; and they will tell you just that.

There I was, in Zhengzhou, China ... given the opportunity and responsibility to support a plant start up. I was only 23 years old, barely 18 months out of school.

Harvard Business Review, July-August 2005
Moments of Greatness: Entering the Fundamental State of Leadership

"I call it the fundamental state of leadership. It's the way we lead when we encounter a crisis and finally choose to move forward. Think back to a time when you faced a significant life challenge ... First, we move from being comfort centered to being results centered. Second, we move from being externally directed to being more internally directed. That means that we stop complying with others' expectations and conforming to the current culture. Third, we become less self-focused and more focused on others. Fourth, we become more open to outside signals or stimuli, including those that require us to do things we are not comfortable doing. We are adaptive, credible, and unique ... By entering the fundamental state of leadership, we increase the likelihood of attracting others to an elevated level of community, a high-performance state that may continue even when we are not present ... When leaders do their best work, they don't copy anyone. They draw on their own values and capabilities.

To get started (to reenter the fundamental state), we can ask ourselves (the) four questions ... Am I results centered? ... Am I internally directed? ... Am I other focused? ... Am I externally open?": Robert E. Quinn, Professor, University of Michigan Ross School of Business in Ann Arbor

Your Company's Secret Change Agent

Harvard Business Review, May-June 1996
Reaching and Changing Frontline Employees

"We have watched employees turn the slogan Quality is Everything We Make into Quality is Everything We Fake... The frontline workforce is not sprinkled with a handful of cynics; it is cynical through and through.": T.J. Larkin and Sandar Larkin

Harvard Business Review, May 2005
Your Company's Secret Change Agents

"Learn from the people
Plan with the people
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know
Of the best leaders
When the task is accomplished
The people all remark
We have done it ourselves": Lao Tzu

"Newton was right: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In organizations, that reaction comes in the form of avoidance, resistance, and exceptionalism ... The trick is to introduce already existing ideas into the mainstream without excessive use of authority. Why use a sledgehammer when a feather will do? ... People are much more likely to act their way into a new way of thinking than to think their way into a new way of acting.": Richard Tanner Pascale, Associate Fellow, Oxford University, and Jerry Sternin, Assistant Dean, HBS

Fresh out of college when I first started working, one of my first bosses Darrell told me, "Yeah, go ahead with your proposal. But make sure you work with the operators. First explain what you're trying to accomplish, then ask them if your solution would work."

As a fresh engineer then, I could not possibly out-think the operators. So you could also say that I was following Darrell's advise more out of necessity than anything. I listened to each of their opinions and worked really hard to get those that make sense implemented. And those that didn't? I explained to them the potential problems of those ideas and hinted alternative solutions that were (made to sound as if) built upon the operators' originial ideas. Somehow, the operators were adapt to change.

But as I grew comfortable to the processes, I began to overrule the operators a lot more often. I began to get lazy and stopped pushing hard on plant management to get things done from their part. While I still drove these initiatives to completion, somehow these changes never sticked. Lesson learned.

Long-Term Vision, Short-Term Focus

The Wall Street Journal, April 5th, 2005
Chiefs With the Skills of a COO Gain Favor as Celebrity CEOs Fade

"I'm only as popular as the company's last quarterly results": Mark Hurd, CEO, H-P

It's the eternal debate over long-term vs. short-term interests. We have often accused our managers and CEOs of sacrificing long-term goals for short-term gains. But the generally accepted fact is that the best-run companies are those who maintain short-term focus: GE, Siemens, Dell, ... In the meanwhile, all the "invent" companies out there sooner or later will realize or have realized that they have/had been using their long-term dreams as excuses for underperformances.

Harvard Business Review, January-February 1989
Companyism and Do More Better

"Rowing harder doesn't help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.": Kenichi Ohmae

Dreamers and visionaries make great leaders, we hear. But the problem with dreaming without executing is that it gets you nowhere. The problem with long-term vision is that you can only guess what is there beyond all those obstructions along the way. So the short-term gains may not be so evil, after all. Taking a note from Finance 101: "a dollar now worths more than a future dollar; a dollar in hand worths more than a promised dollar". It is important to establish checkpoints to earn the short-term gains as well as to ensure you're headed in the right directions.

Execution without Excuses

I have always wondered if our company is the HP of the personal computer world. We do not do rocket science, but fortunately we do sit inside some huge walls of economies of scale and know-hows created by high capital and technological intensity required in our industries. Still, the following quotes from Michael Dell might hold true even for our industries:

Harvard Business Review, March 2005
Execution without Excuses

"I founded the company over 20 years ago with $1,000 in starting capital. By contrast, Compaq had been launched two years earlier in Texas with some $100 million in capital. That's an unbelievable difference. Dell bubbled up through a kind of Darwinian evolution, finding holes in the way the industry was working. We didn't become asset-light just because it was a brilliant strategy. We didn't have a choice.": Michael Dell

(In the "Lean Enterprise" training, we learned how the "sea of inventory" covers all the rocks of process imperfections and wastes. Big companies sit on huge levels of inventories so they will never have to bump these rocks. But because they don't see these rocks, big companies generally do not have as much incentives to continue moving forward towards perfection.)

"People Quit People Before People Quit Company"

"People quit people before people quit company." I'm not sure where I heard this first. When I tell others that I don't work for money, they'll snap back "yeah, but you're different". Am I? I might be on the extreme end of the spectrum, but I believe most people are--in most way--like me. We work because we feel appreciated; and that by working harder, we will learn more and therefore, the more we will be valued by our supervisors and our company.

Harvard Business Review, February 2005
Transforming an Industrial Giant

"First was the very simple message: Be number one or two in each business, or you will not be successful ... The second thing I admired about GE is that people are really the most important thing. I always wondered why they have such excellent people. Was it just that they pay more in the U.S.? I realized it was their people development program--Section C.": Heinrich von Pierer--CEO, Siemens AG

Harvard Business Review, April 2004
How Fleet Bank Fought Employees Flight

"The results of the analysis seemed to suggest that inadequate pay and heavy workloads were the key drivers for turnovers. Management tried to address some of these concerns by tracking market pay more systematically and by offering more flexible working arrangements ... Yet to Fleet's surprise, turnover rates continued to rise rapidly. Indeed, many companies have found little relationship between what employees--particularly departing employees--say motivates their behavior and what actually does.": Haig R. Nalbantian, Principal, Mercer Human Resources Consulting, and Anne Szostak, Executive VP and Director of Human Resources, FleetBoston Financial.

So Fleet utilized some kind of a "Design of Experiment" method by changing several variables and observing the impacts of the variable changes on turnover rates. The following is the top 5 variables that reduced Fleet's turnover ratio:

1. Promotion within the past year reduced turnover rate by 11%
2. Incentives reduced turnover rate by 8%
3. Continuity / same group supervisor within the past year reduced turnover ratio by 7.5%
4. High school educated employees on average had a turnover rate that is 5% lower than their college-educated counterpart.
5. 10% reduction in layoffs reduced turnover rate by 3%.

On the other hand, the following variables had less than 1% impact in reducing turnover rate:

15. 10% market pay adjustment
14. One-point increase in regional unemployment rate
13. One year increase in tenure
12. Increase in local market share from 10% to 20%
11. 10% reduction in worked / scheduled hours

Money does matter, but not as much as how it matters. Promotions and incentives go a long way in telling people how much they are valued, while a simple market pay adjustment might convey the message that "we have been underpaying you all along".

A Taboo on Taboos

Are we in a commodity business; should we compete on price, or should we be competing on quality and customization? Are our Marketing and Research & Development adding value, or are they the unncessary evil? Can we be Intel, or should we become a Dell?

Harvard Business Review, February 2005
Breakthrough Ideas for 2005

"A reporter sniffing around PeopleSoft's user conference last fall was surprised by what she didn't smell: fear. Despite the sword of Damocles suspended over their investments by Oracle's hostile takeover bid, customers discussed 'comfortable subjects regarding PeopleSoft's business administration programs, such as new features they'd like to see in the next version--rather then whether there will even be a next version' ... The worst thing about elephant in the room is that if you ignore them long enough, they become invisible. That's what happens when companies avoid subjects because they are politically dangerous, socially unacceptable, or just too dire to contemplate. The result can be a failure to anticipate predictable developments and consequent errors in the strategy.": Leigh Buchanan, HBR, Senior Editor

Two Sides of the Brain

I was recently accused by my close friend of sacrificing a long-term dream for some short-term gains. My thought-process and the discussion were a lot more complicated, but yes, I might have made some impulse decisions. Which, according to The Wall Street Journal / adapting a report from the Fortune magazine, was a human-nature:

"Why is it so hard to save for retirement? It may have something to do with how our brains are wired. When researchers at Princeton University's psychology department ran brain tests on undergraduates, they discovered that humans are of two minds, writes Justin Fox in Fortune magazine. The research showed that when it comes to money matters, part of the brain is hard at work making calculations and weighing options. But when participants in the study opted to get their money now, the more primitive limbic system of the brain 'lit up as if it smelled dinner.'"

Wanted: A Continuity Champion--The Case for Staying On Course

Don't get me wrong: I have often been praised (and cursed, too) for my persistence in driving changes.

But sometimes, I can be (and need to be) stubborn too. I believe there are times when you can't change just for a change's sake. And this includes my job. Sometimes there are disagreement, and sometimes you don't get treated fairly. But you will get this everywhere in any job.


Harvard Business Review, February 2005
Breakthrough Ideas for 2005

"The ability to champion change is the very mark of a leader, we hear. Change agents are sexy by business standards. They battle strong vested interests and mankind's reluctance to rock a boat, even (or especially) if it leaks. Change will not happen without their heroic assistance ... the defenders of status quo too often appear to be--and are--knee-jerk naysayers who champion the wrong continuity. It's more glamorous to be Napoleon (who gained and lost an empire in little more than a decade) than Hadrian (who gave the Roman Empire a stability that endured for generations) ... But 'coping with change' can mean standing firm against a tide. 'Setting direction' can mean staying the course. Part of the leader's job is to evaluate the threats and opportunities that change creates.": Thomas A. Stewart, Editor, HBR

And sometimes, the discussion also turned to my present career. Some people think that I would be better off doing something different, because some think that I have accomplished quite a lot. Well, I take that as a compliment, but, really?

I recognized that I had done many good things. But humbly, I too recognized that I might not have done them as well without the support of the team and the environment that I currently had. And this is why I do not seek always seek change just for a change's sake.


Harvard Business Review, May 2004
The Risky Business of Hiring Stars

"Our data showed that 46% of the research analysts did poorly in the year after they left one company for another. After they switched loyalties, their performance plummeted by an average of about 20% and had not climbed back to the old levels even five years later ... Most of us have an instinctive faith in talent and genius, but it isn't just that people make organizations perform better. The organization also makes people perform better ... When researchers studied the performance of 2,086 mutual fund managers between 1992 and 1998, they found that 30% of a fund's performance could be attributed to the individual and 70% was due to the manager's institution.": Boris Groysberg (Assistant Professor, HBS), Ashish Nanda (Assistant Professor, HBS), Nitin Nohria (Professor, HBS)

Flipping Without Flopping

Can we change our mind? According to Professor Kramer from Stanford Graduate School of Business, we can ...

While decisiveness is important in leadership, acknowledging a mistake and take an appropriate correction is also important. And sometimes, in this constantly changing world, it is required.

I too may have to make a change of plan soon ...

Harvard Business Review, February 2005
Breakthrough Ideas for 2005

"Flip-flopping is not the same thing as indecision - roughly, the inability to arrive at a choice. Rather, it means altering a stance after a choice has been made ... It is a way of saying that I'm wiser today than I was yesterday.": Roderick M. Kramer, Professor, Stanford GSB

Re: DZZP Start-Up Success

Zhengzhou, People's Republic of China
January 20, 2003, 09:47 AM China Standard Time

To: Anthony
Cc: Everyone else in Memphis

Greetings from the Land of the Dragons! And Happy Sheep (Goat) Year!

Hey, needn't thank me ... I am the one who really needed to thank you and everyone at DPT in Memphis. I gained all the lessons, skills, and experience (uhm, and the awards too) while working with y'all. Everything that I learned was what made the impact on my assignment here with DZZP. Stephan in his email made a mention on that story of the two school builders. One says that he's building a school, one says he's helping educate our children. Well, we do our part in solving China's problem in feeding its 1.3 billion mouths, and in improving these 1.3 billion people's nutrition, health, and living standards. And more importantly: in educating these Chinese people on modern engineering techniques and management concepts.

Your baby sister plant here in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, People's Republic of China officially started up at 11:45 AM January 15th 2003, China Standard Time. I presented Allan--our plant's general manager--with the 2nd pound of product. I got to keep the first pound (there's another story about this ... hint: that sample port is right on top of the transfer line that utilizes a blower).

This is one heck of an experience. I think we probably faced more challanges than what you would starting up a plant in the United States. First of all, it was probably more like starting up Phase 1, as we are pretty much in the dark here trying to start everything up from almost a complete scratch. P3, MSP, and MS2P were built around the same technology so everyone was familiar with everything ... due to time and budget constraint, we are stuck with some Chinese engineering and equipment sets. Things don't work the way they are supposed to. And with Niro's screwed up design that caused more problems that benefits. Couple this with no experienced operators to help training ... people with most significant process experience would be Jon and me. Second of all, we don't have the luxury of using natural gas as an energy source (heavy oil burner makes this plant perhaps the most difficult to keep up of all DPT's). Third of all, we are dealing with some different types of people here, with totally different culture, educational background, and perspective in looking at things. We have engineers that don't believe that thermodynamic laws apply. We have operators that keep shutting things down (steam, water, electricity, cooling systems, burner, etc) because they keep thinking we are wasting energy (we still couldn't convince them that we are wasting even more resources when shutting things down because then we would be causing some downtime). We have lab people that don't want to use their brand new oven for experiment because they think it's too nice. We have maintenance crew that let our dryer down for 6 hours because they wanted to finish building a table instead of fixing our pipes. And the worst part ... people just practice what they believe and what they are used to regardless what is logically makes more sense.

Alright, some exagerations to that.

But honestly, I won't trade this experience with anything. All set and done, I'll be able to say: been there, done that. This is in no way easy ... pretty painful I would say. But what I gained, what helped me grew up faster ... are what made me feel how lucky I am to get this opportunity.

By the way, I started composing my own list of "you've been in China for too long if ..." I'll add more to the list as we go on ...

You Know You Had Been in China for Too Long if…

10. When your fellow American tries to talk Chinese to the Chinese taxi driver, you try to help the taxi driver by translating your friend’s words into English. You say “ni hao” and “xie xie” to everyone that looks Asian, even when you are in Chicago airport.

9. When your friend asks what food you just ordered in a restaurant, your simple answer would be “it is famous in China and is good for health”.

8. You start believing that all thermodynamic theories are some piece of craps invented by American conspirators.

7. “Medical stores” and “art shops” have “another meaning” to you. (The Chinese are so prudent that you can't openly discuss anything about sex ... this being said, you could find more porn books and sex shops in the streets and malls of Zhengzhou than you could in the streets and malls of Los Angeles! When we confronted the Chinese about this, they replied lightly: "Oh, those shops are OK, because they sell medical devices!" or "Those are not porn ... those are art!")

6. You think you can dress any way you want and tell other people it’s the new style (and the next day they will all try to dress the way you do).

5. You wear long johns everywhere throughout the winter--you think electric and gas heaters are bad for health.

4. You turn off all utilities after doing 2 hours worth of work to save energy although that means you will have to spend 8 hours the next day with a steam gun unfreezing water lines. Then you do 2 hours worth of work, shut utilities back down, and go home. You prefer to work harder than to work smarter because you think working smarter will put people out of jobs.

3. You learned that “No smoking” does not really mean “no smoking”.

2. You learned that no does not always mean no after all. And you learned that “yes” or “OK” 90% of the time means “no”.

1. You wake up one day and scream, “Screw you guys, I’m going home!!!”