THE GREAT MOUNTAINS

I read a book recently, the author described great leaders as great mountains. He said some mountains are so sharp and rocky at the top that it made people feel uncomfortable standing at the top of the mountain. Nevertheless, there are a handful of the great mountains that are flat at the mountain top. People feel comfortable and may not even realize they are standing at the top of the mountain.

I can’t help but to agree with it. A great leader is like a great mountain, knowledgeable, powerful, talented and strong! However, there are so many that made their subordinates, peers and others feel uncomfortable, forceful or inferior. However, a true leader is of course equally strong, influential and knowledgeable. But what made them different is others feel comfortable being with them. What is the missing link? These leaders generally are humble and considerate.

I have met many great mountains recently. I was invited to conduct a Train the Trainer Program in China twice recently. The training aims to transition a 6 days Management Program to the local Chinese trainers.

There are altogether 11 Chinese trainers, 5 ladies and 6 men. Guess what… there was 1 with a PhD degree, a few who have conducted Train the Trainer themselves, 2 with many years of Human Resource experience and have seen many great trainers and many more….

Well, with such background, I went in with great caution! …. To my surprise, I was greeted with warm welcome and smiling faces. These trainers are very knowledgeable but humble at the same time. They are willing to put themselves down as a student while learning and yet when being asked questions or invited to share thoughts, they are able to provide meaningful insights into the subject matters. Overall it was a very successful train the trainer program and all of them enjoyed and provided very good feedback about the training.

I can’t help but to recall the above story and at the end of the session share with them my feeling of them.

A GREAT MOUNTAIN, WITH GREAT ATTITUDE!

To my surprise, during the same session, many of them feedback and told me…

“Bryan, it was your sincerity that touched us,
it was your willingness to share that created these results!”

That’s where I realized the true meaning of The Great Mountains!

A Great Mountain - A Sincere Heart!

THE AWAKENING

Lunch in Bali, Dinner in KLIA, Supper in the Plane and Breakfast in Beijing…. I thought this is only something that is possible for the rich. Now I realized, it is also possible for a trainer to do so.

Recently, I was invited to speak and train in both Indonesia and China. In Indonesia, participants are generally well mannered and soft spoken. A respond that is similar to what we have here in Malaysia. On the other hand, in China, participants are participative, ask throught provoking questions and are very keen to learn. What a contrast!

Many people told me that people in China is very vocal but may not be open to new concepts or ideas. My own experience said otherwise. They are like sponge. Absorbing ideas, willing to raise their hand to answer, willing to volunteer and participate actively in activities.

I can’t help to compare my experience of the participants in Malaysia and now in China. Most participants in Malaysia treat training as half holiday, half learning. The key highlight of the day is ‘What are we eating for lunch’ or ‘Can we finish earlier today’. In China, training start from 9am, finish till 6pm. After that, participants still stay back for more briefing and in house activities. When I was first told that participants will be stretched beyond the official training hours, my first response was ‘this is not a good idea!’ However, again they surprised me! All participants are still actively participating in discussion and activities. It went on till 7:30pm…. Wow!

While they may be behind many of the developed countries, while they may still have some improvement areas, in many aspects they have shown strong potential and have grown rapidly over the years.

I began to feel concern for our people in Malaysia. Are you ready to compete? Are you willing to work hard and work long hours? And yet at a lower salary? Are you able to help your company to access the up and coming China market? What makes employers choose you?

The only way is when you are able to continue provides
VALUES
to your organization!

Equip yourself with the right skills and right attitude. Keep challenging yourself. Keep training yourself. Tap into others’ knowledge and experience.

Don’t learn the Hard Way
Learn the SMART Way!

LIVING IN NOW

What is real? When is real?

I have been reading a book lately and was provoked with the thoughts about when is real? The Past, Current or the Future?

Try to be in Now for 1 minute. Possible? I tried! And I realize many times my mind will wonder away… thinking of the future and remembering of the past…. But not ‘seeing’ what is happening now. Everyday we are living in the now, and everyday we are missing it by not enjoying in the now. Our mind tends to be…

…pulled by the past, regretting and resenting what has gone wrong or what has not happened

…pushed to the future fearing of what might happen or what might not happen

Fear and regret sucked all our energy away and as a result not able to enjoy the moment of now.

Sometimes we are very well disciplined that we set goals in our life and strive very hard to pursue it. Nothing is wrong with having clear goals in our life as it will help us to move effectively towards our destiny. A gentle reminder to you who set goals is not to forget to stop and smell the flowers, enjoy the scenery and give yourself a pat on the shoulder on the achievement you have so far.

LEVERAGING ON SMART TECHNOLOGY

It is 11:23am and I am sitting in the waiting room in KLIA waiting for my flight to Beijing. Tomorrow I will be in Qingdao, China preparing for my next training. With the frequent traveling recently, I learnt to appreciate technology even more.

Imagine the whole waiting and flying time is approximately 12 hours (one way). Yes, it is tiring and boring! What makes it worse is not all the time I am able to sleep (that’s the fastest way to pass time. However, with technology, I am able to do my work while on the move. I am able to read, reply e mails and prepare my training while waiting in the airport as well as in the plane. Sometimes, I find that I am even more productive while I am on the move since there are no other things to do while traveling.

While I am in Qingdao, I am able to call my Personal Assistant and friends in Malaysia using Skype or MSN. The feeling is I am not far from home.

One of my strong believes is that a new edge manager should always earn to leverage on technology. Whether you are on the move or not, technology will save you time.

I found that technology can easily increase my efficiency at work. It reduces the number of manual mistakes, speed up the calculations, allow what if analysis to be done quickly and even allow me to delegate and manage people more effectively.

Here are some useful ways I have learnt in leveraging on Technology to help me at my work…
1) MS Excel
- Massaging huge amount of data quickly to allow you to extract information to ease quick business decision making
- Build business model to allow what if analysis and to allow you to delegate the tasks to your staff without losing controls

2) MS Powerpoint
- Write for the Ears when preparing for your Business Presentation.
- Plant in triggers words so that you do not need to spend too much time preparing and rehearsing and yet it is still very presentable.

3) MS Outlook:
- Use it as your personal secretary to remind you of the tasks or routine tasks to be completed
- Use it to help building a new behaviour in your staff

We only have 2 hands with one brain and 24 hours a day. If you want to leave a balance life, it is important you must learn to leverage on Technology. It will free us up from the ‘doing’ and allow us to spend more time on ‘analysing’.

LET'S CROSS THE LINE TOGETHER

I have just finished a great Smart Excel session lately with a group of Accountants and Finance Managers in Malaysia. I must admit it is one of the best sessions I have for many years. Frankly, this group of participants is not easy to handle. They know what they want and are very good in their Excel skills. Despite all these, the participants are not only keen to learn but also actively participating in the learning.

During these 2 days of learning, I have not only covered the syllabus but also have shared so much as the participants never ‘let go’ of every opportunities. Nevertheless, to a committed trainer, nothing is more satisfying knowing the participants are learning and wanted to learn more. In fact, the learning has gone beyond what I can offer and participants have contributed by sharing on what they know and helped everyone, including me to learn. I must say, this is the type of training I am looking forward to, where we all…

This is in line with what I have been advocating… WINNING TOGETHER. As a manager in an organization, we need to value add in the business. Much expectation is on us to contribute, perform and help the company in one way or another. Sometimes, we are so engrossed in pursuing these that we have forgotten to help others to WIN TOGETHER!

Nevertheless, before you get too excited and wanted to share as well as help your organization to win together, you must also understand sometimes people are not aware of what they don’t know (Unconscious Incompetence). It is only when they realize what they don’t know that they will be willing to learn and thus improving themselves. Many have asked me how to do this.…

I felt reluctant initially as I feel that if they want it, they will come to me. However, I have spoken to a well known American Speaker about this recently and he told if you are serious about helping others, then don’t wait… take action! Thinking hard enough about this, I decided to take actions….

I am doing a...

Road Show
On
Maximising Performance through Technology

It is a 2 hours session where my team will visit a client that is serious about increasing its company performance by leveraging on its existing resources.

- If you feel you have benefited from my class,
- if you are genuine of helping your organization to progress,
- if you care about your colleagues and wanted them to do well, then help me to help you.

Drop me a mail now!

Help me to Help your Company!

I PAUSED & I ANSWERED

During one of the training I conducted lately, one participant asked me...

”Bryan, if you can only use one word to describe the role of a leader, what will it be?”

I paused…and I answered… 

“INFLUENCE” 

Look at World War 1 or World War 2, why do people charge to the battle field to kill themselves? Is it because they don’t treasure their lives?

Of course it is not!

… it is because someone, who we call, the leader has planted into their brains that if they love their country , they should defend their country even to the extent of sacrificing my life! All the leaders use is their WORDS! They use words to influence the thinking of others.

Are you Effective in using your INFLUENCING skills?

Let’s address some myths here. Some said…

1) Influencing is manipulating. I don’t do such thing!

2) I don’t like to influence because I don’t want to wear a mask! It is unreal!

Well, if this is how you feel, let me help you to see it differently…The difference is really …

Your Intent! (Your HEART )

IF YOU SET OUT TO MANIPULATE, YOU ARE MANIPULATING!
IF YOU SET OUT TO HELP, YOU ARE HELPING!

IF YOU ARE FOCUSING ON ‘HOW’ TO DO -> YOU FEEL YOU ARE WEARING A MASK.

IF YOU ARE FOCUSING ON THE RESULT-> YOU WILL FEEL AS REAL AS EVER!

There is nothing wrong with mastering influencing skills.

It is all in your HEART !

Mastering the skill give you the choice. Once you are empowered with Influencing skill, you can use it to help your staff, your company and even your children or the one you love.

Motivating them to strive in life!

If you are serious with your life… if you believe in becoming EFFECTIVE in your life, you need to MASTER your INFLUENCING SKILLS!

Think about it my friend! 

DO YOU LOVE YOURSELF?

This question keeps appearing in my mind lately. A simple question but yet many of us may not realize we are not doing it. From one question, I started to ask …

1) How much do you love yourself?
2) How do you know whether you love yourself?

3) What do you do to love myself?

Own big house, car and married is consider loving oneself? Then many people have them but do they love themselves? What about love? Loving others by sacrificing oneself, is that love yourself? Parents sacrifice themselves for the family, is that consider loving oneself? Going holiday every year is that consider love oneself? So what is loves myself? I don’t have answers….

Without loving ourselves, can we love others? If we feel we are lack of love inside, will we end up keep searching for love outside? And as a result, become too attached emotionally with the boy friend or girl friend or spouse as we feel that we need the external love to fill in our lack of love.

That’s why I decided to use this newsletter to gather more information about this and maybe can compile and publish the various feedback that I gather from all of you eventually….

Do take it as a test and see how many ways that you know in loving yourself and if you are interested to receive the compiled results, do drop me a line too… 

CHANGING THE COMPANY'S CULTURE

“Can a Leader change the culture without compromise?”

A friend who is doing MBA called me up and told me she is having her Leadership examination soon and wanted me to share some thoughts about Leaders and Culture. After putting the phone, I cannot help but to reflect on what I have said and wanted to write down my thoughts.

My answer is YES! Leader plays an important role in shaping the culture of a company. In fact, there is ABC in order to shape the culture….

Attitude: It starts from the general attitude and perception of the staff about things. The strong will influences others of what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’

Behaviour: Thoughts will affect the behaviour. How a staff behaves and how others should behave. Group pressure will be a key factor here.

Culture: Finally, if behaviour is practice long enough, it become the norm or generally called ‘the ways things are done here’. Whether you like it or not, culture will be formed. It is whether it is will help to move and build the organization or it will hinder the growth of the organization.

However, can a leader change a culture without compromise? I guess it very much depends on the leadership style and how much he can afford to loss. Most of us have this ‘heroic charismatic leaders’ image implanted in us since young. We have seen movies of leaders standing against the whole world to push things through and eventually proofing them to be right. Anyone tried doing it? What happened?

Well, there is something the movie did not show.…

Do you know how many have made it?

Do you know before they can stand against the odd, what have they been ‘planting’ in the people?

I feel that to change the culture, a leader needs 3 things…

1) Strong Faith: Know it is the right thing to do

2) Determination: Never give up Attitude

3) Planting Seeds in others

I feel that the first 2 points are self explanatory. However, I wanted to talk more about the 3rd point. With the rapid changes in technology, information is more readily available. At the same time, people generally are more educated. People can think and analyse things themselves and they do not like to be led blindly. If a leader forces certain culture down the throat of the follower without planting the seeds, one will find strong resistance.

Leaders need to plant seeds in others. Leaders need to win people’s heart. They need either proven track records from the past or able to envision, energise others, touching their hearts in believing it is possible. This people in turn will help to influence others.

Have you planted your seeds?

Have you envisioned and energised your team?

Have you touched people's heart?  

ARE YOU THE ONE?

ARE YOU THE ONE?
Am I suitable to be a Trainer?
What is the Secret to Becoming A Powerful Trainer?
Is Training an Exciting Profession?

Once a year, I intend to groom 2-3 trainers. Are you one of them? I remembered when I first heard comment about ... “Bryan, you are not the same as other trainer. Others just come here to do a job, but you somehow are not the same”. I didn’t understand what it meant until many years later.

Yes, there is a difference in doing a job vs doing something you like. If you like what you do, it will help you to go through the tough time. Remember, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. And if you enjoy it, the toughness will be the best environment to create breakthrough in you.

Breakthrough doesn’t happen in conducive and everything-ok environment.

Breakthrough happens when you are in challenging environment.

There are no doubts many challenges to become a great trainer! To be knowledgeable in a subject matter is just the start! Many times, the challenges are not from the technical knowledge but from within the trainer.

Nevertheless, becoming a trainer can be very rewarding. Receiving a standing ovation, having participants coming to you, looking into your eye, shake your hand firmly and sincerely said ‘thank you’ at the end of a training. To me, nothing is more meaningful knowing you have made a different in someone’s life.

Don’t go in for the monetary reward, go in because you sincerely wanted to make a different in others.

Because of the effort required to groom a trainer, I can only afford to focus on 2-3 potential trainers. Be prepared to work hard, be prepared to drop your ego to learn and work hard. If you are prepared….. 

If you are committed to learn,
I will share everything that I know!

ARE YOU THE ONE!

FINALLY IT IS BACK!

B.E.S. Program
(Be Excellent & Smart)

I recall mentioning to some of you about the teenager program that I used to run for the past 15 years… Finally, it is back. One of my participants, John contacted me and asked me to run the training again. He is now a tuition teacher and has more than 200 students. Time flies and it is difficult not to admit age is catching up!

He told me he wanted to run this program for a long time as he saw his old self in many of his current students. John has come long way years ago. The day of the training finally has arrived. Initially I was quite concern whether I will still be able to create the same results as it has been many years and my team of helpers are also new. 

Nevertheless, I told myself, no expectation…. Just be!

The day went passed. John, the team and I worked very hard trying to open up participants one at the time. Showing our care, willingness to be their friends and respect them as an individual. … One by one, they opened up and share their stories…..Divorced parents, single parent, dating at young age, rebellious kids etc As they share and open up, I also share with them the challenges parents faced and how they can take pro-active actions to change such relationship. 

Frankly, teenager program is most difficult to conduct as I need to ensure the teenagers like it and eventually open up to share and at the same time needed to address parents’ concerns. Nevertheless, when the teenagers share how they have taken actions (they need to do ‘homework’ everyday when they go home’) and how the parents responded, that’s where I told myself, no matter how tiring and how difficult, it is all worth it! If you have kids or know of someone with kids in the age between 15 to 20 and wanted to build a stronger relationship with them, then do leverage on this opportunities. 

BES PROGRAMME. THE BIGGEST BENEFICIARY ~~~ John

Talking about BES PROGRAM, it used to be a scary program and distanced by many. During school time, it has also be granted with a nick name as the ‘cult’. Initially, I thought it was the way I approached my friends that has created such wrong impression in others. A few years later, while having holiday in Pulau Redang, lying on the beach recalling past memories, I decided to ask some of my friends, who have not attended this program, why they call BES program a "cult"? They said, "You have changed so much after attending this program. You become a very good student. If this is not a ‘cult’ then what is this?"

Huge changes indeed! ….There was a rich girl, used to hang out with other unmotivated students and was courting a school drop out, decided not to study anymore after FORM 5. After attending BES program, she decided to leave the boy friend and further her studies overseas and left the group of unmotivated friends; There was another 2 brothers, who often argued with each others and treat each other like strangers, have hugged and become real sibling again after attending this program; There was another very introvert friend, have opened up and make many friends; Parents of another boy came to look for us and thank us for changing their son who used to only talk to them when he needs money.

BES PROGRAM is not a magical program. In fact, it is just another program that you can find in the market. You may ask what is so special about BES Programme? Does it provide a platform for students to grow? No! In fact it is a springboard for us to move forward avoiding many unnecessary road; saving us a lot of time and money; allowing us to be prepared for our future as early as possible;. So, what is it preparing us for? BES program is to prepare the one that is ready, ready for change, ready to breakthrough, ready to accept new knowledge and ready to learn. It does not require qualification, appearance, nor does it require any special qualifications. What it needs is one must enjoy and have fun. To enjoy learning and be 100% committed!

So, which of the above is John? 

“I am JOHN. Before I attended BES Programme, there are many sides of me whom others do not know. Many people thought I have always been motivated and active. The truth is….Rebellious – argumentative, go home late, stealing money and more.. Once I had an argument with my parents, To show my anger, I went to the corridor next to my house where my parents was operating a restaurant business and broke all the bottles. I sat right in the middle of all the shattered bottles. One of the aunty came over trying to talk to me. Instead, I took a bottle and threw at her…. She was so frightened, she ran off 

Bad Mouth & Talkative- many people said I will grow up becoming either a lawyer or speaker. Many times, I just say what I want to say and could not be bothered with other’s feeling. As a result, I was often asked to sit alone in the front row of the class. Something I dreaded most…

Bad temper & Sensitive- often I will fight with others over small matters. My brothers suffered the most as I tend to lock the bedroom and use the wardrobe and book shelf to block the door and no one is allowed to enter. Even if I feel hungry, I will not give in. Many times, my mom and brother will have to force open the door and beat me. Despite all these, I remained unchanged. Once I had a fight with a student, his mother came to my house demanding apologies. I rather be punished than to apologies.

Lazy-my teacher always complain to my parents that I am lazy. This is because I never complete my homework. Either I will copy or I will seek help from others. My acting is so good that it can win me the Best Oscar Actor award.

Righteous- I consider myself to be a little bit smart, always ended up in the first class and have never taken education seriously. I was indulging in computer game and even organising a group of students to play truant and rented the computer games centre for the whole day. As a result, I ended rank almost the last in the class.

Inferior, avoiding responsibilities- Once teacher asked the class has anyone participated in any speech contest? No one raise the hand, including me. (The fact is I have been participating in speech contest even since standard 1 to standard 6).

I thought that is how I will be spending the rest of my live, without any purpose and goals. Until I attended BES Programme，it changed my whole live. I learnt to respect others, being considerate. I remember one of my classmate wrote, “John, you have become a different person compared to 6 months ago！Of course, I still like to play computer game. Nevertheless, I have learnt to be more self discipline and manage my time better. As a result, I ranked 7th in my class. I started to participate in proper school activities rather than organizing computer game.

With courage and confident, I decided to organize 3 man basketball contest in Selayang Baru and manage to gather 20 teams to participate. I volunteered to be the basketball coach for secondary and primary school kids till now. I have also participated in speech contest.

Due to BES program, I manage to meet a group of good friends and learnt to open my heart to meet new people.

More importantly, I realized how hard my parents have worked; my rebellious actions had made them suffered a lot. There was once I needed to register for BES Program 2 and asked my mom for money. As she turned around to get me the money, she coughed as she walked back into her room. It suddenly dawned onto me that she has aged so much. I suddenly realized I have not had a closer look at her for a long time！　

BES PROGRAM affects my life，I hope this program and the spirit of this program will continue helping more teenagers. Lastly, allow me to share this quote…. “No one should give up and neither should you! We are there to support!”

A NEW YEAR, A NEW LIFE!

Retrenchment! Losing Jobs!

Looking into 2014 more bad news is on its way….

How are you coping?

Many people have been talking to me. Hearing what they said and their concerns, I have been wanting to write about this….

Yes, it will be a tough year ahead. Yes, people are losing jobs. The question is: Can you change this economic situation? I guess we all know the answer, it cannot be changed!

Instead of hoping that it will not happen, I said, do what you can. The cyclical change in economy is inevitable. However, it is also at this time that one will be tested in terms of how well they have prepared themselves during the good time.

If you find yourself….

1) Working about the same as you used to: You are the lucky one

2) Working harder than you used to: Congratulations! You are an asset to the company

3) Losing the job: It is not good but it can also be a blessing in disguise

Whichever categories you belong, there are learning for you….

The Luck One:

Luck will not be on your side all the time. Start to look at your work, take pro-active actions, attend training, improve your technology and interpersonal skills and ask yourself how else you can value add to the business.

Back to basic, understand facts & figures, tighten the financial control, raise more financial awareness among the non finance leaders etc. Play your role more effectively by focusing on how else you can become an effective business leader!

The Asset to Company:

Be patient. The sudden change and additional workload is definitely something not easy to cope. In fact, the older you are, the tougher you will find in coping with change. This is the time where you may need to invest more time at work and support from your family become important. While fire fighting, my challenge to you is find time to attend training.

Company recognized the additional workload that you are putting on. This may be the best time to request the company to equip you with more skills by sending you for training. Equip yourself with the right skills. Even if the company doesn’t pay, pay for it yourself! It is worth it! There are good quality training courses that doesn’t cost you too much money or time. If you have limited amount of time and money, then focus to improve your skills especially technology skills as it will immediately increase your productivity and help you to cope with the additional workload. Find the right courses that will meet your need. Ask me if you don’t know how to find them.

The Blessing in Disguise One:

Well, it has happened. This is the most drastic change and many may find it hard to cope. But allow me to congratulate you! Now, once again you can make a choice in your life.

Life is not just work. There are also your parents, spouse, children, health, love ones, dreams, friends etc that we might have neglected so far. The sudden change in life now is an opportunities for you to start again. Do some serious soul searching….

Ask yourself…

1) What are the things that you have wanted to do last time but because there is no time that 

you have not been doing?

2) Imagine you are on your dead bed and is on your last few breaths, what will be the thing that you feel you have not done enough or regret not doing enough?

In the book 8th Habits by Steven Covey, he said we all have an innate need to leave a legacy behind. We all have the innate need to contribute, to help others to grow. Consider doing charity work. Consider making a difference in other’s life…and in returns you will find your live to be fulfilled.

Life is short. Instead of worrying about what will happen, why not focus on accepting, embracing what is happening now. Making the best out of all circumstances and THAT is…..

THE BEST WAY TO REWARD OUR LIFES!

WINNING TOGETHER

I have been a workaholic for many past years (well at least that's what most of my friends said). The price that I have paid….. my health, my family, my friends and my own learning. This year is a special year for me.

In terms of work, there seems to be an inner desire for me to move into 'winning together a team'. Many friends, participants, contact, friend's friend have contacted me to seek advice and explore possibilities. I saw myself in many of them. I saw “the me” when I first started to explore on my own, in them.

If you have read my earlier newsletter, I mentioned I am starting a Train the Trainer (TTT) Group. Indeed, I have. In fact, I am starting a second group now. The 2 groups are different as they will focus in different core areas. I am keeping the group very small with the intent to ensure the right energy, attitude and focus on these people.

In terms of health, I started to practice yoga. It is an interesting 1½ hrs hot yoga that involves physical exercise, meditation and a lot of sweating. Some of you may know that I have skin allergy issue. Doctor used to advise me not to sweat so that I don't feel itchy. Well, after not sweating for so many years, I realize I don't sweat anymore. In my first class, there was only some sweat from my head by the end of the class. Now, my sweat drips down even after the very first posture. Sweating it out allow my skin to detox and allow my old skin to be removed. It feels great!

In terms of friends, I noticed I started to take initiative to organize gathering. Sometimes chatting with friends till late night, supporting each others and encouraging each other to progress in life. I must say I have a group of very good friends who has been around to support me. In fact, they have not only accepted me but also my family to be part of their friends.

In terms of learning, I decided to further pursue my interest in psychology. I have signed up for a 1 year course on Satir. A family therapy course about how a person's character is very much affected by the earlier childhood year and how all these needed to be addressed to allow a person to breakthrough and move on with life. I am also working closely with one of my IT friend to further explore and research on how to leverage on technology to be more effective and efficient at work. It is amazing to uncover new knowledge and learning.

This is a very year where many of the things that I neglected now started to happen and progress AGAIN.

The reason why I share this is to let you know many things are possible. What we need are good friends, good people and right opportunities around us to let it happened.