Elevan Simple Concepts to Become a Better Leader

Read this article on Linkedin. Decided to post it here in case I need it again. ************************************************************************************************************************************************************************ Being likeable will help you in your job, business, relationships, and life. I interviewed dozens of successful business leaders for my last book, to determine what made them so likeable and their companies so successful. All of the concepts are simple, and yet, perhaps in the name of revenues or the bottom line, we often lose sight of the simple things - things that not only make us human, but can actually help us become more successful. Below are the eleven most important principles to integrate to become a better leader: 1. Listening "When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen." - Ernest Hemingway Listening is the foundation of any good relationship. Great leaders listen to what their customers and prospects want and need, and they listen to the challenges those customers face. They listen to colleagues and are open to new ideas. They listen to shareholders, investors, and competitors. Here's why the best CEO's listen more. 2. Storytelling "Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today." -Robert McAfee Brown After listening, leaders need to tell great stories in order to sell their products, but more important, in order to sell their ideas. Storytelling is what captivates people and drives them to take action. Whether you're telling a story to one prospect over lunch, a boardroom full of people, or thousands of people through an online video - storytelling wins customers. 3. Authenticity "I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I've become. If I had, I'd have done it a lot earlier." -Oprah Winfrey Great leaders are who they say they are, and they have integrity beyond compare. Vulnerability and humility are hallmarks of the authentic leader and create a positive, attractive energy. Customers, employees, and media all want to help an authentic person to succeed. There used to be a divide between one’s public self and private self, but the social internet has blurred that line. Tomorrow's leaders are transparent about who they are online, merging their personal and professional lives together. 4. Transparency "As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth." -John Whittier There is nowhere to hide anymore, and businesspeople who attempt to keep secrets will eventually be exposed. Openness and honesty lead to happier staff and customers and colleagues. More important, transparency makes it a lot easier to sleep at night - unworried about what you said to whom, a happier leader is a more productive one. 5. Team Playing "Individuals play the game, but teams beat the odds." - SEAL Team Saying No matter how small your organization, you interact with others every day. Letting others shine, encouraging innovative ideas, practicing humility, and following other rules for working in teams will help you become a more likeable leader. You’ll need a culture of success within your organization, one that includes out-of-the-box thinking. 6. Responsiveness "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." -Charles Swindoll The best leaders are responsive to their customers, staff, investors, and prospects. Every stakeholder today is a potential viral sparkplug, for better or for worse, and the winning leader is one who recognizes this and insists upon a culture of responsiveness. Whether the communication is email, voice mail, a note or a a tweet, responding shows you care and gives your customers and colleagues a say, allowing them to make a positive impact on the organization. 7. Adaptability "When you're finished changing, you're finished." -Ben Franklin There has never been a faster-changing marketplace than the one we live in today. Leaders must be flexible in managing changing opportunities and challenges and nimble enough to pivot at the right moment. Stubbornness is no longer desirable to most organizations. Instead, humility and the willingness to adapt mark a great leader. 8. Passion "The only way to do great work is to love the work you do." -Steve Jobs Those who love what they do don’t have to work a day in their lives. People who are able to bring passion to their business have a remarkable advantage, as that passion is contagious to customers and colleagues alike. Finding and increasing your passion will absolutely affect your bottom line. 9. Surprise and Delight "A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless." - Charles de Gaulle Most people like surprises in their day-to-day lives. Likeable leaders underpromise and overdeliver, assuring that customers and staff are surprised in a positive way. There are a plethora of ways to surprise without spending extra money - a smile, We all like to be delighted — surprise and delight create incredible word-of-mouth marketing opportunities. 10. Simplicity "Less isn't more; just enough is more." - Milton Glaser The world is more complex than ever before, and yet what customers often respond to best is simplicity — in design, form, and function. Taking complex projects, challenges, and ideas and distilling them to their simplest components allows customers, staff, and other stakeholders to better understand and buy into your vision. We humans all crave simplicity, and so today's leader must be focused and deliver simplicity. 11. Gratefulness "I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." -Gilbert Chesterton Likeable leaders are ever grateful for the people who contribute to their opportunities and success. Being appreciative and saying thank you to mentors, customers, colleagues, and other stakeholders keeps leaders humble, appreciated, and well received. It also makes you feel great! Donor's Choose studied the value of a hand-written thank-you note, and actually found donors were 38% more likely to give a 2nd time if they got a hand-written note! The Golden Rule: Above all else, treat others as you’d like to be treated By showing others the same courtesy you expect from them, you will gain more respect from coworkers, customers, and business partners. Holding others in high regard demonstrates your company’s likeability and motivates others to work with you. This seems so simple, as do so many of these principles — and yet many people, too concerned with making money or getting by, fail to truly adopt these key concepts.

Follow Up

I had mentioned here that my guy who I was promoting didnt think his title was "big" enough. In some way I agreed with him, so I wrote to HR to get them to change them designations for my department. "I'm writing in relation to XXX’s title after his approved promotion. When I requested for XXX’s promotion, the current structure for the Development team meant that the next step after Manager was Senior Manager. I recently found out that this is different for Sales or Global Sales in which there is an Assistant Director position. I’m asking if this can be applied for Development as well. The reason is that in a client-facing, sales and marketing oriented role like Development where we would typically meet decision makers and influencers, it’s highly beneficial that our representatives have a fancier title to smoothen the process and also give the other party the assurance that they’re talking to someone of some relative importance. I’m sure you can appreciate how important this is for the Development process. This is especially pertinent in a market like China where “face” and titles are so important. I imagine that this is the same motivation why Sales also has an Assistant Director position. Indulge me for a second because both of you don’t speak Mandarin. In Mandarin, people address us by adding a suffix to our family names. I’m addressed XXX VP and XXX would then be addressed as XXX Manager. An Assistant Director title would change the way people address XXX, whereas it’s the same for both Senior Manager and Manager. At least two of our competitors are doing it as well – XXX and XXX. I just interviewed a lady from XXX corporate Shanghai who was an Associate Director of Development. I understood that our company in the US also has an Assistant/Associate Director position as well. Having a better-sounding title would also improve our chances of hiring the right people for the role because we would then be in line with how talent in the market considers each move and its corresponding advancement. It’s at the same time a pride thing, which I'm sure you’d be cognizant of. My proposition does not involve the change in any pay structure (that’s a separate discussion in itself) but more a title change for external and client-facing purposes. I don’t see any downside to this financially. Moreover, we don’t yet have any Senior Managers in the Singapore development team that would require any changes on that front. Based on the above extenuating reasons, I hope you can consider changing XXX’s title to Assistant or Associate Director. I’m available for a call to discuss this further if you’d like. PS: I apologise for this long email. I felt strongly that the efficacy in which we did business in China warranted it. Thank you. " I succeeded.

Building a Championship Team

Read this article on Linkedin. Thought I'd post it here so that I can refer to it when I need it again. ***************************************************** It’s been a great year for sports fans here in San Francisco. The Giants won the 2012 World Series in baseball and the 49ers took their season all the way to the Super Bowl in football. These are two great teams that share one trait that has been instrumental to their success. The management and coaches of both franchises focused relentlessly on bringing in world class talent, nurturing their people and getting the best out of them as individuals, and more importantly, as a team. Winning, whether in sports or in business, always comes down to one thing: people. Hiring the right people and growing the talent quotient is therefore one of the most important responsibilities and might I add moral obligation for every manager in every organization. It is the one part of the job of every leader that will have the biggest impact in the long term. These are the eight strategies that I use to build championship teams: 1. Never stop looking • A pipeline for finding and bringing in top talent should be ongoing. There has to be investment in an ongoing process for continuously seeking and hiring the next star performer. This goes beyond your recruitment team - everyone in the organization should be empowered to look and incented to bring in talent. One of our best candidates recently came to our attention when a scientist from our team happened to see them programming in a local Starbucks. He was impressed with the code and invited them to visit us and meet with the team. LinkedIn is also an invaluable tool for our recruitment team to spot great talent. 2. Invest in the interview process • A typical interview is usually inadequate in screening the right talent. In the short amount of time allotted for interviews, a company has to decide on hiring someone they hope will spend many years working for them. It doesn’t add up. That means you have to spend the effort upfront and go where the talent is and evaluate their real work. Competitions at sites like TopCoder.com, American Regional Mathematics League, Google Code Jam bring talented people together where you have more of a chance to see what they’re made of. This is exactly the reason EA is hosting its first hackathon on March 16, it gives us a chance to get to know the talent pool better that goes beyond the short interview process would. 3. Hire for UNCOMMON strength • This is an old Peter Drucker principle that is an anchor tenet in my organizations. Most often interviewers try and hire for minimal of weaknesses, but everyone has their share of blind spots. Focusing on finding candidates who have the least amount of weaknesses will lead to mediocrity. Hire for uncommon strength and then put the person in a role that uses that muscle. 4. Don’t throw new employees into the deep end • As important as the hiring process is the onboarding systems of an organization. Many companies bring in new hires and after a brief orientation of the company policies and benefits, drop them into the deep end. It is expected that the new employees will learn on the job, or by working with an assigned mentor and by finding and reading anything they require. This is like hiring the best quarterback for the team and not teaching them the playbook. A structured onboarding process is instrumental to transform a new hire into a star member of a team. 5. SMART goals • Setting ambitious but clear and quantitative goal is helpful both to giving clear definition on what is success and removing any uncertainty on how it will be measured. Setting goals with the most clarity helps everyone in the team. We follow the simple rule of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Results Oriented, Time Bound) and ensure every goal is tied to the overall mission and objectives of the organization. 6. Empower • Empower employees to do what they do best. That doesn’t mean not to oversee or supervise their work. It does mean a healthy balance where individuals and teams can make an audible on the field of play so they can try new ways to do things better. Nothing brings out the best in a person then empowering them to dream and invent. 7. Respect • Respect different styles. Don’t mold everyone to be like you. Everyone has their own unique way of interacting and working. Respect and create an environment where this natural diversity provides competitive advantage to your team. 8. Make the hard call • No one bats 1000%. There will always be occasions when a role and the individual in it didn’t match well. Make the call early and help the person find the right position and fill the role with the right person. Prolonging this is harmful to an organization and all constituents. By creating an organization of world class talent, you’re creating a self-sustaining cycle because A-players hire and attract other like them. I use the term “talent quotient” as a proxy for the horsepower of an organization. I think of it as a simple equation to determine the health of a team – take the number of people you’d hire again and divide by the total headcount. This is TQ. I constantly do this math in my head to make sure I have a team of the best players and we are championship material.

Water

I have mentioned some time back that tap water isnt safe to drink here. That's pretty obvious. What people usually do is they rent a dispenser and then order a big water tank monthly to invert over the dispenser. Any hot water you need can then be boiled with a kettle. That's pretty standard really. I personally find that even this practice has some loopholes and areas that can be improved. For example, there's no way to clean the internal pipings of the dispenser and who knows how many people have rented it before you? Then the big water tank? You usually return it after it is empty, exchanging it for a new one. How clean do you think they wash it? So we get them to deliver individual four-litre mineral water to be safe. We think it's safe, until you start talking to other Singaporeans. Everyone has differing levels of hygiene standards. Some people think that even when cooking the rice, you need to use mineral water and not tap water. Then how about washing the rice? Then how about washing the dishes? Some people install a filter on their tap to get rid of some sediments. Then some people add an entire water filtration system beneath their sink. Then some people buy the Hyflux filter jug to filter it one more time. It's rather endless. If you want to incorporate everything that people use, and that's only from people we talk to, I wonder how much of usable water we would yield from inputting one-litre of water. Very soon, I'd need set up a water treatment plant at my balcony because I'm sure at some point it'd need some sun. I'd also have to hire a maid just to come in every other day to run the plant for me so that we have water to wash rice, cook rice, wash dishes and gargle. *sweat*

Promo or Slow-mo?

I had mentioned here that I wanted to one of my guys and he performed quite well in his annual review. What I didnt follow up to post was that the approval to promote came one day before I left Shanghai for Singapore for my CNY holidays. I was glad to be able to give him the good news of the promotion before he went back home for CNY. I was also happy to do so, so that he can be proud in front of his family with pay increment and promotion. What I wasnt expecting was that he felt that the title wasnt "big" enough and asked for another title. He also felt that the bonus scheme that he was on wasnt too fair. In some ways i agreed with him but that didnt mean that I wasnt disappointed that he wasnt as happy as I was for him. Im glad he wasnt too adversarial. So it's back to the drawing board to write another few papers. Partly because I somewhat agree with him and partly to maintain harmony so that he will be a happy worker.

Hesitant No More?

My secretary always ends off her emails to me or to external parties with "Pls do not hesitate to contact me should you require any further assistance." I asked if this was in her email signature. No, it wasnt. So I told her, first of all, use "Please" instead of "Pls". I hate short form. Then I told her there's no need to include this line when she emails me. Because, I definitely wont hesitate to come to her if I need anything. It's all about communicating in a more real and sincere manner, than boiler plate "nice-sounding" text. Hope i dont come across as too dictatorial.

Pick Up

Taxis here are relatively easy to get, which is why we dont think we will be getting a car. Plus our condo helps us call a cab when we need one and it comes quite quickly even in the mornings. The apartment is quite high-tech for China. There's a system to communicate with the guard downstairs and he will call us to come down when the taxi is here. Except when it rains. I waited more than an hour the other day when it poured in the morning. Waited at the lobby, surfing around and playing games and there was another girl waiting there as well. I could tell she was from Singapore when she spoke on the phone and then she heard that i was from Singapore too when I called my office. She then spoke to me to ask about my cab situation and made some small talk. She was actually quite pretty and presentable but because I was ahead of her in the queue, I didnt want to be "familiar" with her lest I feel obliged to be chivalrous and let her have my cab. But then, she spoke to me first. My cab came and then I made a split second decision to let her share it with me. Split second decision was made so that Someone will know someone else in the building so that in future, she will have a 照应 when I travel. There you go, picked up a girl for the first time in my life and it was for Someone. I feel so noble at times.

Crowds Crowds Crowds

There have been many posts here on how crowded it is here in Shanghai. I think I have stopped saying "This one takes the cake" because I think one mountain will be higher than the other mountain. We saw this crowd of people waiting to go for dinner at 4:30pm on a Sunday outside a restaurant serving Xinjiang food. Most of them were looking expectant and poring through the menus. Probably need to try there some day since Xinjiang food is mostly meats.

Positive Influence

I like nice-smelling rooms, so i bought this diffuser for my office when I first came. It's at the top of one of my cupboards, near the vent. Then the other day, I saw this on top of my colleague's cubicle. Exact same brand but different smell! I'm pretty amazed it's the same brand because I bought mine at a tiny little shop. I'm a little freaked but they say imitation is the best form of flattery.

Back!

I find myself increasingly apologising for not updating my blog more often. It has been rather hectic here after the CNY break. Clients are back to work, colleagues are back to work. I like it like that. I hate it when things need to be done and stuff need to be approved but someone is on leave or whatever. Very disruptive for work. In any case, Someone followed me back to Shanghai this time for a month. So it’s a month of home-cooked food (yummy!) and doing dishes (boo  )

Recruited!

YAY! The person that I had been hoping to hire signed on the dotted line
the other day.



I actually pulled her from my previous company. I'm now waiting for her
to inform them where she's going and I'm going to get an earful from
them. Haha. Oh well.



Did I mention that I was looking to hire two people? One down, one more
to go.

Spicy Mummy

I sometimes thought why would people buy kaya from Yakun and chili from Pu Tien. That revelation struck me when we were eating at Pu Tien when I was back in Singapore. The chili there is to die for and chili is super hard to find in Shanghai. We bought a bottle and trotted it back. I never knew it's called Spice Mum until i took a pic of it. I have already ate it as a complement to a couple of meals already. Very yummy and in some ways it reminds me of home.