Bad Boss

I have trouble sleeping last night. It is a regular cycle. Every year around this time, I will have a bad spell of insomnia. This pattern started three years ago. What does the title has to do with insomnia? Performance review and pay increase! The last two years I was not satisfied with my PR and PI. They were well below my expectations. This year my company has change the system in order to recognise high performers. We have multi-rater feedback(360 feedback) and a forced ranking system of high performers, solid contributors and need to improve.

I heard stories of 360 feedback and how others can sabotage you. So I was a little concerned. I was not satisfied with the old performance system either. My boss just write it up on his way to Asia. He use only the negative things he see and hear. This year with 360 feedback, my performance review was good. In fact my boss has to use the comments that were in my 360. He however still insist to rate most of my leadership skills "meeting expectations" even though there were a couple which should have been rated "exceptional".

With "calibration" i.e. forced ranking and rating from 1 to 9 with one being why are you still in the company to nine you have exceptional leadership skills and exceeds expectations, I received an eight. My boss thought it should be 7. He gave me a merit increase that is below the average(midpoint) of range allowed. Clearly, this is to signaled that I do not deserve even the midpoint of the increase. I was very discouraged to say the least.

Considering I have grown the sales and profits significantly i.e. profit grew by 100% annually for and Sales by more than 30% for the last 3 years, it is a strong signal he thinks I am not valuable to him. I have to re-consider my career option.

Love for Books

I call myself a booklover. A lover of books? I always enjoys reading. I used to go to MPH. It was the largest bookstore 20 years ago. I always buy many books during the MPH Book Bang! Then there were 10% discount. Today, Times and Kinokuniya gives you 10% discount if you become their member. Competition is a wonderful thing.

Before Borders come to town, I love to go to Borders and Barnes & Noble in US. MPH in my younger days had the best selection until Borders arrived in Singapore. Then Kinokuniya decides SuperStore is best way to be competitive. Since then the book scene has changed. All smaller bookshops are gone. There was WordShop and other specialised bookstore that no longer exists today. Another place where the selection is broad and the books are free is the library. All hardcovers to boot. Even library today has modernise and has books that are "good bad books". That books that enjoys popularity but not considered literary works.

Times has changed. It is the best of times.

Japan

Does the environment impacts our behaviour? I just return from Japan for my annual visit to see my Customers. One of the feedback I get is I am now more Japanese. I no longer say no and objects like American. Instead I apologise and says we will investigate and get back to them. I have no idea this was their impression. My first visit to Japan was four years ago when I was still living in Canada. I had spent 3 years there. I was new to this job and was planning to move only just before the new year so that our boys will start school in Singapore. It is interesting to get this feedback as I am not aware this was the impression I was giving to my Japanese Customers. Fours years in Asia, I have become more Asian again. I will always speak Singlish. In the last two years, I started to use dialect more frequently. Over time, the environment has impact on my behaviour...I have become more Asian again.

Developing Leaders

This morning I spend my time in a Hewitt seminar on developing leaders. Two companies present their case. Hearing success stories add a lot more faith at least for me. There were lot of data and studies to support the leadership development program. At lunch during I had an interesting lunch partner whose job is Human Capital Development with a local company. He is of the opinion after collecting data from his own company successful leaders and interviewing them is let nature takes its course. When asked, the successful leaders all have the same answer. They enjoys developing others. It is not something they do because they have to! The key is it is part of the leader's manifestation, his DNA so to speak.

Two books were recommended. One is Double Digit Growth and the other, Talent Pipeline.

Baby on my lap

Was thinking on what to update when my youngest son request to sit on my lap. He is the baby of the family. It is a nice and warm. I am very lucky to have 3 boys. We are all at 3rd level in our home. This is where my home office is. Just last week, all the boys have to do their studies in the library just behind my office. Now I have plenty of company during the evening and at night. I usually work in the evening and now we work together as a family. Mum is coaching no. 2 right now. We number our boys, eldest B1, middle B2 and B3 for the youngest. Reprimanding become a lot easier as I get their names mix-up every time I am ruffled.

Tonight is good as B1 is sitting on the floor just beside me reading, B2 in the room with Mummy coaching him on his homework and B3 on my lap while I write this blog and listens to music. Sigh! how I wish it is always this peaceful.

Korea

Travel today is so common and it seems almost everyone travel for work and for pleasure. Well, I was up in Seoul last week for three days. I had meals with my customers and my colleagues. This is why losing weight is such a huge challenge and gain weight is as easy as ABC. The biggest regret I have is my lack of talent for language skills. I have a hard time picking up Korean, Thai, Tagalog or Japanese. I do not spend time on other language other than English. It will be good to understand other Asian languages even if I don't speak them. The good and bad thing is all my counterparts learn English. So they speak to me in the language I am comfortable with. Still there are lots missing when they discuss things in their own language and then tell me I should know. It is the filter that I regret.

Reflections

It seems like blogging is getting to be tiresome. My fellow bloggers whom I got to know and write are giving up or on the verge of giving up. I have stopped blogging for a while as well. My postings has been getting infrequent. It is not the lack of interest. The key reason was there were upheaval in the office. Now I have reconcile with the inevitable, I am back. Another reason is it is hard to be disciplined. I recall being admonish by my English teacher for not keeping a diary. My wife bought a book "No Sweat" published by Straits Times to help student with GP paper. I read it first. It has articles from Straits Times columnists and they are first rate. We do have gifted writers and journalists in Singapore. Reading articles by Janandas Devan requires powerful vocabulary and a dictionary by the side. I have to check the meaning every two to three words. I wonders if I could even attain one-tenth the abilities of these talented writers.

Write Dreams

Dreaming about being an author. Publicity of successful authors are abound - J K Rowling and Dan Brown. Both have attained worldwide celebrity status and of course financial success. Business books of proliferating. I buy them. It is getting harder to keep up reading them all. I always dream to be an author and a teacher. Maybe one day I will attain my dream. It is a challenge to write. I love teaching and coaching. So I have incorporate this in my work and it is very rewarding to see people develops and grows.

Chinese New Year

I want to wish everyone good health and good wealth for the new year. I have not updated this blog for sometime now. It has been busy at work and frankly was too lazy to update. Now I will make a new year resolution to update this blog more frequently.

One of my favourite blogger, Janice Wong has stopped. She found her new love in life and is exploring new dimensions after proving she could write and has published a book as well. My best wishes to her. I have not visited my other favorite blogger, Sze Li for some time too. She is starting in her career and have a bright future ahead of her.

Have a slow and easy first day. Brought my kids to visit their paternal grandma who is here to escape winter in Toronto and then to their maternal grandparents after for lunch. My eldest was concerned his hongbao was too little and keep pestering me to visit. Good thing is my sisters will be coming tomorrow....

Boxing Day

It started a good day. We had relatives over for lunch. My wife cooked mee siam. It was excellent. I had no idea she can cook such good mee siam. We had a good time with her family. I volunteered to send her cousin and aunt home. Her cousin was going somewhere else instead of home in Pasir Ris. So we decided to drop her off in Compass Point MRT. Immediately after I dropped her off another vehicle swerved right in front of me. My front right lights were broken.

Sigh! This is a boxing day I will remember. Will need to figure what to do next....

Kota Kinabalu

We went to KK in Sabah with everyone in the office and their family or significant other. There are a total of 17 including 6 kids. We had three days of exploring and trying out different activities. It was an excellent cap to our very successful year for the team. We went to Mt KK national park, Poring hot springs and flea market. I almost completed reading the book Only Paranoid will Survive by Andrew Grove.

The highlight of the trip was the canopy walk. I was expecting a wooden bridge where we can stop to see the life in a tree top. Boy! was I wrong. It was a rope suspension bridge using aluminium ladders and a narrow plank. The side was nylon netting. The bridge sways and wobbles with every step. Looking at the plank to take your next step means looking right down into the forest. Talk about acrophobia! Good thing I read the notice before stepping on the bridge. It says the rope can withstand 10 tons and nylon netting 5 tons. Still while walking and seeing holes in the netting strike fears. I was very proud of all my kids and my wife. They walk right through. I was amazed by the husband of my colleague who has to carry his two sons through the three bridges. He was walk through the bridges three times and twice with a kid on his arm and using the other arm to balance himself.

My youngest son, Lucas was very brave. He was right behind his mother putting his arms around her waist. I am so proud of everyone, my team, their family and my family! This is an adventure.

A good day

Back to my routines. The stress and joy of work. The progress in my reading. The calm in my work environment. Today is a good day. I wish everyday is like this calm, peaceful, no politics, no staff issues, just work and making things happen. Will more change be coming? Weathering change, being buoyant during time of great change is key to surviving and thriving.

Waiting for an answer for an email I sent to an old friend. Will my prayers be answered? I am very blessed. I believe I will thrive. How? I do not know. I will continue to pray for my team to do well in the upcoming changes.

Reflections

My mum is here to visit. She arrived Changi airport at 12:45pm. She look healthy and happy. She is full of life. I am very happy to see her in this state. She is on wheel chair and has difficulty walking. Her cheerfulness bring cheer and joy. She has also gain weight. She will be living with my younger sister who is recovering from breast cancer. I hope she has a good time here. She brought letters and food from Canada. I do miss Canada. It is winter now. I like the spacious house we use to live and I love the fireplace. It is nice to look out of the window when it snow. This are good memories. The negative is winter is long and shoveling snow before going to work can be a drag. Summer is great. We have summer hours which mean we work longer hours from Monday to Thursday and take Friday afternoon off. Many time we can take Fridays off. A three day weekend. We can go fishing, drive up north, explore the rest of Ontario. Lifestyle is different from here. We have only shopping malls in Singapore. Would be nice to live in Canada for a while...

Manila

Back to Manila. It is a city full of good looking people, traffic jams and jeepneys. The food is good(as usual from a Singaporean). Crossing the roads take bravery and courage. Makati is like our Orchard Road. What I like about Manila is the range of bakery - Goldilocks, Red Ribbons, Saint Cinnamon, French Baker, etc. Even Breadtalk is here. I find the bakery here offers a nice range of breads, pastries, cakes... dare I say even better than Singapore. I loved the ensaimada buns with cheese, butter and sugar...mmmm yummy! I will buy some and bring back home.

I am up early this morning. Had my swim, did a little meditation and pray for help in the office. Do I feel much better.

Lousy week

I have a hard time coming up with the title for this message. My feelings are in a turmoil. My division looks likely to be "integrated" into a bigger team. Looks like the small team that work for me will be gone. It is sad because I had spent time and energy building up this team. We have so much synergies and we are a high performing team. We grew our sales by more than 30% year on year for the last 3 years and profits doubled this year and the year before. 4 years ago when I join, we were doing over US$2 million in sales. This year we will have more US$2 million in operating profits. It is an achievement that makes me proud. We have 7 in our team when we started four years ago and today we have on 6. We have done more with less!!

I had dinner with a colleague last night. YP suggested I should start and do my own business. I have demonstrated my capabilities and why am I working to enrich shareholders? Very good point. Most people around me make the same observation. I have to reflect why. This is the 2nd time I have turn around a company that makes losses into profit and continue it profitable growth. I wonder why I am too scared to make it our on my own. YP asked how much does it cost to register and start a business in Singapore. I told her money is not the issue.

Why? Why? Why?? Why am I afraid to start? Why not keep all the profit for myself? Why not work in a company I own? I can now train and develop my staff. Recognise and reward them base on my own philosophy instead of someone else. She knows I love to train and coach. Start a consulting company, she says.

The time has come. The fork in the road is coming up fast. It is time for me to take the road less travelled.

Ex-colleagues and friends

Today, I have visitors. One from US and the other a bosom friend of her come over to visit. Both are ex-colleagues of mine since 1989. Long time ago. We catch up with news and talk about anything and everything. Shared our current job responsibilities, family. our aging parents, etc, etc... We have a wonderful time. I wish we can do this more often. We are all so busy with our lives, kids, work, exercise, relaxation, entertainment that we forget friends are the social glue to our lives. Mei and Chris are wonderful friends. I really their efforts to stay in touch and continue to touch my life.

Reviewing Work

I was reviewing my piece on Work and realise it reminds me of that some men would say the same things about women. The one etch in my mind is "Women! Can't live with them, Can't live without them." Probably the same holds true from the women's perspective!

Work

What is work?
Work help fill the time
Work give meaning to life
Work keep one occupied
Work is fun
Work is stress
Work is hard to live with
Work is hard to live without
Work is bring you up
Work is bring you down
Work bring joys and provides for the family
Work is love
Work is also pain
Why work??

Books, books, more books

Yes, I have not updated this blog for some time... after reading Janice Wong's reason for not updating was that someone make her upset. I realise my reason(or excuse rather) is laziness. Janice did not wish to write so that she may regret later. I was just "busy".

I've been going to the bookstores and the proliferation of titles is amazing. Many times, I wonder how to keep up with my favourite pastime - reading. I love management and leadership. There so many titles nowaday. I enjoyed Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, Henry Mintzberg, Gary Hamel, ... the list goes on and on.

I used to read a lot about occult, astral travel, Edgar Cayce, meditation, buddhism. Recently, Dalai Lama is in my reading list. I live to read. Call me a bookworm.

Bangkok

I love to browse bookshops and book stores. In Bangkok airport, there are lots of bookstores. Although the selections are not wide, they do carry interesting books. If you like Buddhism, there are lot of books on Buddhism and Thai monks. If you can read Thai, there are plentiful of titles by monks. Obviously, Buddhism is widely practised in Thailand.

My business partner and friend, Sammin, a very capable, young and pretty lady is a devoted Buddhist. She just visited a temple who house AIDS victims, all kids. She does donations to help repair temple's roof, build school, repair and maintain rundown temple. I respect her a lot. In my opinion, she is doing good deeds and maintaining good karma. She is another model for me to emulate.