Unhappy?

It happens frequently that we are unhappy with a certain situation. I have noticed that peoples’ reaction to undesirable circumstances can be separated into three categories. 

1. Take action to change the situation

Some situations are overwhelming and the thought may come up that, just on our own, we cannot change the circumstances. That is probably often correct, though we need to remind ourselves that big changes are typically initiated and driven by a single person e.g. Lee Kuan Yew being instrumental in building Singapore, Nelson Mandela leading South Africa to abolish apartheid. 

Maybe we don’t feel cut out to tackle such humongous tasks, but the message is that we shouldn’t underestimate ourselves. With true determination, we can achieve more than we think possible. 

2 Make the best out of it

Fair enough, then there are many developments which just happen and make our lives more challenging. When things go wrong we can always analyse and learn, not to repeat possible mistakes. Or find one way or another to deal with it, make the best out of it, and go on with life.

3. Complain

If we complain to the relevant party and get things settled, that actually falls under point 1, but, did you notice that a lot of people actually complain to the wrong people i.e. to friends about what is wrong in the company or to a colleague about the boss? 

No point complaining to a person that cannot address the issue. Yes, sometime it feels good if we complain and somebody listens to us. It is okay to have a bit of a massage for the soul. But, actually, it doesn’t solve anything and generally make you feel more negative or miserable, in other words, best to be avoided. 

Most people are happy to show a compassion when others are down, but I don’t know of anybody who loves to listen to ongoing complaints and moaning.

Adjusting - Why Always Me?

It is very common to see things differently and having a discussion to sort things out. When doing so I found that, at the extreme, there are two types of people.

The Fundamentalist

The fundamentalist is convinced that he is always right. Shuts out reason that doesn’t fit her view. Doesn’t listen and absorb others’ arguments, hence has immediate answers ready. Knows better. Not willing to change his mind. Can remember exactly the words being said in a conversation one week ago (which is about humanly impossible). Would use words like ‘you don’t understand’? Takes his assumption as a fact instead of first looking at known facts, then looking at possible assumptions, typically more than one, and then conclude.

Note – after a discussion the fundamentalist is as knowledgeable as before. If there was something to learn, he didn’t.

Note – when being challenged aggressively most of us tend to become a bit more fundamental. If you are a manager, be extra sensitive to this.

The Explorer

The explorer is aware that often he is wrong. Has often self-doubts. Willing to listen. Absorb new information that does not fit her current view. Often finds that her view can be improved. Or he can improve something personally. Willing to adjust. Willing to admit mistakes.

Explorers know to defuse discussions by avoiding personal (counter)-attacks, speaking with a reasonable voice, and arguing based on fact.

Note – Typically, the explorer is a bit smarter after a discussion.

Note – As the explorer is willing to adjust and improve, but the fundamentalist is not, it looks very often that the fundamentalist is winning an argument. This is sometimes frustrating for the explorer and explorers ask themselves ‘Why do I always adjust and the other party not?’ ‘Why always me?’

My comment

If you are an absolute genius, by all means, be a fundamentalist. Most of us are not, hence, I like you to take the mind-set of an explorer. And I suggest taking the burden upon you to improve yourself and learn.

Over time a few things will happen:

1. You get smarter and more mature as you are willing to see personal weaknesses and shortcomings in your reasoning. As a result you will also be more respected.

2. Don’t worry about sometimes you ‘giving in’. People around you will notice your maturity. Again – time will tell.

3. People around you will want to work with you, because they can develop a rich working relationship with you. (Nobody wants to work with a fundamentalist, unless another fundamentalist of the same ‘shade’). It is an absolute career booster if people want to work with you

The most important Success Factor

What’s the real diff between success (in a career / business)  or average?

There is an on-going quest to figure out the real traits that lead to success; integrity, competence, emotional intelligence just to mention a few. No doubt these are important traits, however, there are many people who also have these traits and still do not enjoy success. And, let's face it, some people are successful without having integrity, or emotional intelligence.

So, it is fair to ask – What is the real difference? I argue it is ‘Persistent Goal-Orientated Action’. That means we must have an idea what we want to achieve on long-term. Focus our time and mind on developing, reviewing, adjusting but mainly – at least 80% - on DOING things that bring us closer to the goal. Persistently, all the time.

I haven’t met a successful person who does not display this ‘Persistent Goal-Orientated Action’.

Some philosophical notes on the subject.

- Goals are not chiselled in stone. Events, opportunities may require adjustments. Do so. Just continue to think big.

- One can lose many times and turn out a winner. Keep on learning from the defeats. Keep going.

 

- We can make many mistakes and recover. Ask yourself which mistakes you cannot make as they are unrecoverable. Avoid those.

- It is normal to feel defeated and miserable sometimes. Then just do that. Feel miserable for a while. It can be very cleansing for the soul. At some point you will realize that it didn’t solve anything. Back to action time.

- There is action that brings you closer to your goal and sometimes we are just doing things routinely. Habitually, see the difference between the two and focus on the first one.

- Most of us were put in front of a staircase, a few lucky ones on an escalator, i.e. most of us need to do the climbing ourselves. Success requires persistant hard work.

- There is a lot of unpleasant, boring stuff to be done but bring you closer to the goal. That is where persistence plays such an important part.

- There will be unfairness, adversity.  Again, that is where persistence is so import

Little Story, Big Insights 1

I just lost a big business deal. Losing a business deal is part of doing business and I can take this ‘in my stride’. At the same time, the client has been treating me in a very demeaning manner and, frankly, I still find this very difficult to cope with. 

Of course, the natural (emotional) reaction is to pick up the phone, argue and tell your client what you think of him, jeopardizing future business. Well, I didn’t do that, but went for a looong jog instead; my type of cooling-off exercise. After my 75minutes jog I sorted things out in my mind and my action plan.

As I finished my jog, I saw this elderly gentlemen walking very slowly and very gingerly with the aid of a walking stick. I greeted him and asked casually if he had a knee operation and he answered in an extremely cheery voice: ‘No, I had a spine operation 10 years ago.’ I showed some compassion as the recovery seems to take so long, again he answered in a very enthusiastic way: ‘I am very happy. I can walk so well now.’

Big Insight 1 – When you are really angry, find your own way to relax, get some distance to the cause of your anger. Then decide in a rational manner what you do next.

Big Insight 2 – The elderly gentleman had a much bigger problem than me and was still so friendly and cheery. So I cheered up as well. After all, my problem was a much smaller one.

Big Insight 3 – Problems are rarely that ‘earth-shattering’ as you think they are at the time when you think about them. Ask yourself ‘How many challenges, worries, and arguments did I have six months ago and they are totally irrelevant today?’

Time & Stress Management

There is a time to stop talking i.e. don’t waste your time, efforts (and nerves) and move on to use your time more effectively and pleasantly. Some example:

When you see no chance of winning an argument or negotiation. If your first, second, and third argument does not find any acceptance, your fourth won’t do it either.

When you complain about a situation, however, the person listening to your complaint has no influence to do anything about it. Move on, bring your issue up to the person who can address your concern.

Or, if the person who could do something about your complaint is not accessible to you, then don’t complain, rather think if you need to accept the situation or what you should do next. In summary, many people waste their time and complain to the wrong person.

When people do not want to take your, typically, well-intended advice or criticism. Normally noticeable, when the other party argues back without taking your point into consideration. If you don’t succeed after 2-3 attempts, walk away. 

 If the other person is not willing to learn.

Recognize these scenarios early, walk away; use your time more effectively for something else. This is also good for your mood.

Capable to Learn

I recently had a ‘classic experience’. One of my clients invited me to give a training session at their regional meeting. The objective of the training was to upgrade the skills of their sales staff as my client faces a particular challenge. They are very successful with small customers, however, not doing so well with their bigger, international clients.

In sales, relationships are always important. Though, when dealing with international clients the level of professionalism needs to go up as well e.g. powerful presenting skills, well-honed negotiation skills are required. And that was the focus of my training.

Interestingly enough, one meeting participant criticised me severely. His argument was that he could not use my formal sales approach in his country with his customers. Initially, he didn’t realise that I wasn’t going to share skills that would help to sell to his existing clients. Obviously, he has those skills already, otherwise, he wouldn't have sold to them. I wanted to train skills that would help him to sell to larger, international clients that were not yet his clients. In other words, he has not been successful with those types of clients.

Conclusion – Our knowledge and skills are perfectly suited to achieve what we have achieved so far. If we want to look at the next level of achievement, our current skill set may not be sufficient. We may need to learn something new, a different approach.

And that is how what we finally agreed upon. Of course, his current skill level was good; otherwise he wouldn’t be successful in the first place. For moving up we need more skills. That doesn’t mean necessarily discarding the old skills. We just need to learn alternatives and use them when appropriate. It is like one more weapon in the arsenal.

There is always I need to question your skill level regularly and be open to upgrade.

Relationship Skills

How to make a career? Shouldn’t competence be the most important?

I read somewhere a research that that is not true. The most important factor, a staggering 80%, depends on the ability to network / build relationships.

I found it difficult to believe; hence I asked some of my friends who did make a very respectable career.

So far I asked 3. All three confirmed that, though, difficult to measure,  being known to the right people and being in their ‘good books’ counts for more than 50% (at least) to make a career.

One reason is that judging performance is already subjective. Mostly, there is no unshakable truly objective way of measurement. People who like you will say ‘well done’; people who don’t will say ‘could be better’.

Takeaway points:

Actively look for opportunities and to talk to people, network.

Take every encounter with another person as a networking opportunity. Give people the feeling that you are happy to meet them, talk to them. At a beginning of a conversation, DO NOT contradict people. Spend more time asking for their opinion, how did they reach certain conclusions, listen well.

Project yourself always as positive (towards your job responsibilities and work environment), open (to change), supportive (to company policy).

Go And Fetch It

You are a very lucky person if there many people around you who mean well for you and would advise you purely having YOUR interest at heart.

There are, of course, more people around you who mean well for you and themselves. Meaning, they give you advice that is firstly good for them and a little bit good for you.

Does your boss give you career advice based on your interest only or also consider his situation?  My own wife (we are happily married for 26years+) tells me her mother told her not to go out with an ‘Ang Moh’(Caucasian) as  she may follow him back to his home country one day. Whose interest did have priority here?

Having all this in mind, never forget to look into the mirror and look at the face that you see in there. That is the one getting things done for you. I you want to get something, achieve something. Go, fetch it yourself. If you have a true mentor, then you are in the minority, and be very, very grateful for this.

Your Fault

During our recent holiday, I had an interesting experience. I was preparing a meal together with my daughter in her kitchen. I opened a plastic bag of nuts for later use and leaned the open bag against a pot. My daughter needed that pot for something else and took the pot. As she did not see the bag of nuts leaning against the pot, the bag fell over spilling the nuts all over the kitchen floor.

My instant reaction was to bark at her to watch out. Collecting my thoughts I mentioned that maybe it was not the smartest thing of me to lean the bag against the pot.

She only said: ‘No need for fault finding.’ And started picking up the nuts and I humbly started picking up some nuts as well.

To me a great lesson learnt or re-learnt. How often does it happen? Things go wrong. Both parties could be blamed to some degree and then the blame game started. Arguments erupt, fighting etc. I really admired my daughter for her reaction, like – it doesn’t really matter whose fault it is. Let’s rectify the mishap and go on having a nice day.

Hype Yourself Up

This is a regular feature in my leadership seminar. Based on the principle that you CANNOT NOT COMMUNICATE, think what message you want to communicate to the people around you. So you can decide what impression you want to make on to others and you will find that others then respond differently to you. You have a better chance to achieve what you want to achieve, even build up your self-confidence.

Example -  Always display  confident positive disposition (e.g. steady eye contact, leaning forward, making positive, and constructive contribution to a discussion, being engaged and interested; if you have concerns, bring those up much later only after a good rapport is established. People around you will respect (and like) you more. Want to work with you.

Can’t do it or think it doesn’t work? Think again, because you have done it already. Think about your last job interview or when you went for your first date to ‘woo’ the other person. See – It worked at least a few times.

Just keep going. Every interaction with another person is a window of opportunity to create an impression and then build on this. And take this with a smile, the dating was an example. I am not suggesting keeping on dating after you found the ‘right one’.

Decision Making

Decision Making

Do you want to improve your decision making? Here is a way.

For every decision that you make, write down the expected results. Compare, after the appropriate time, the actual results with the expected results. Typically, that will tell you something.

E.g. for myself I found out that I tend to be:

Too impatient - That means I can’t wait for the best timing or do not collect all available information.

Too optimistic – Most of the time the actual results turn out to be a bit lower compared to my expected results.

Learning point for me: For important decisions I need to take a bit more time to collect relevant information or analyse things. Secondly, I need to double check if my expectations are realistic.

I suggest you do the same analysis for your way of making decisions. Being aware of your own mind-set will help you to make better decision in future.

Look out for your Disposition

Look at people with whom you have regular encounters. They are likely to have some behaviour that you don’t fully approve of. Now, the funny thing is that sometimes you come across that behaviour and you will be able to take it in your stride. In other words, it is a small matter and you can ‘live with it’. On other occasions, you will find exactly the same behaviour as highly annoying. You feel like criticising, possibly ending up in an argument.

Why is it that sometimes the same behaviour is acceptable and sometimes highly annoying? Since it is the same behaviour, the difference must lie within us. It is our current disposition (towards the other person).

Why would our disposition change?

One reason is, we ourselves are a bit under pressure. Because of that, we become short-tempered and the other person has to suffer because of this. Not fair, is it? The solution is to bring to the forefront of your thinking, something like – today I am bit ‘edgy’, let’s think twice before I react to a situation.

Another reason could be that the other person has upset you already with something else and now this little behaviour is the trigger point for you to ‘explode’.  The solution is discussing the real issue early. Don’t just keep quiet and use a small, normally acceptable matter, to voice your displeasure. That is difficult to understand for the other party.

Maintain Responsibility

There is a certain pattern of executive behaviour that I observe quite frequently and want to bring to your attention.

An executive has, what she thinks, a wonderful idea and brings it up to the management. The management does not agree to that idea. Of course, it is always difficult to accept a rejection of an idea. As a result of this, the executive thinks – Well I have made my contribution, I will continue doing my job, but don’t expect any more innovative ideas from me. Also, don’t blame me for lack of results later.

An understandable human reaction but not a recipe for success. Success requires taking a rejection in your stride and still take ownership for the goal, or continuing to push the same idea, or come up with other innovative ideas.

 

Saint of Sinner

You may have read a newspaper article published in the Singapore Straits Time on the 11.07.12.

Headline: 25% of Wall St execs see dishonesty as a key to success.

I guess most people would react like me and think that this is outrageous.

When reading on, the article also mentioned, amongst other things, that 16% of respondents to a survey would commit insider trading if they could get away with it. (Explanation – Insider trading means obtaining privileged knowledge and based on that knowledge make a profit by buying or selling shares. Insider trading is illegal)

Using confidential knowledge for a personal gain? Don’t many of us have sometimes naughty thoughts like that and are tempted by it? I guess many of us have. It seems quite normal that sometimes we have unsavoury thoughts. This reminds me about the old saying.

What is the difference between a saint and a sinner? Answer: Both have a ‘little devil’ inside. The saint is just better in managing it.

Adversity

There are millions out there who are as smart if not smarter than you, working as hard if not harder than you, are as knowledgeable if not more knowledgeable than you. How can one succeed against such competition?

It is actually quite easy. Most people lose composure, have a good way of explaining why circumstances or people prevent their success, or give up too easily when things go wrong.

One key success factor is the ability to face adversity. We can all smile when the sun is shining; what if there are difficulties, lack of resources, hostile circumstances, crisis, and time pressure?

The key element to facing adversity is to stay clear-headed. Ask yourself ‘What can I do now?’ Focus on what is within your ability to do now to address the issue. DO THAT and put the things that you can’t change at the moment aside. Remember this key question ‘What can I do now?’ It distracts you from worrying and puts you into action mode, and frankly, that’s about all that you can do.

Discipline & Energy

When talking about leadership skills or traits for success, I notice that the above two are rarely mentioned, though, in my book, they are to be rated right on top.

It is relatively easy to think of a good plan or a strategy. It is easy to set good company goals or personal goals. That also seem to be the more ‘glamorous’ work.

Following that, the key to success is to spend 80%+ of the time to get things done.  Have the discipline and energy to take action all the time, for a long time.

Analyse people whom you admire for their achievements. I am willing to bet with you, in 99% of the cases discipline & energy is a key trait to their success

Career Killers

The following was published in the WirtschaftsWoche No 38/06 and is based on a research done by the ‘Bund Deutscher Unternehmensberater’. Never mind that it is based on a research in Germany a few years ago. Certain information is just ‘universally applicable’. Here are the 10 biggest career killers:

53.3 % - Over-estimating own abilities and lack of absorbing criticism. Overly ambitious people seem to lose, sometimes, a ‘sense of reality’ and are less open to critical feedback. It is a fine line between self-confidence and being over-confident.

48.6% - Don’t understand the ‘unwritten rules’ – Most companies have some unwritten rules, breaking of which has a negative impact. It could be simple things like ‘nobody leaves the office before 07.00pm’ or ‘one doesn’t criticize the senior management though the senior management is always asking for open feedback.’

44.2% - Personal growth at a standstill. I think that is self-explanatory. Interesting piece of information. According to a research done by the Association of German Engineers 92% considered further training as important, though only 11% were willing to pay themselves.

38.3% - Ignores networks.  Market researchers found out that 60% of professional success depends on having good relationships with the right people (network), 30% because of good image, 10% because of performance.

31.8% - Aimless – Good goal-setting with the related action plan. Remember goal-setting is a planning and action instrument only and can be changed as well given new insights and opportunities.

29.9% - Not able to work in a team. Though, promotions are still based on personal performance the ability to work in a team is a required skill.

28.0% - Inappropriate humbleness. A balancing act is required here. You need to ‘beat your own drum’ without overdoing it.

11.2% - Ungrateful. People who help making careers do expect appropriate support in return. (When reading this I need to smile. Maybe Germans need to know that. I think Asians, and most readers of my blog are Asians, know this one already)

11.2% - Too self-assured. It is good to have strong conviction, but everybody should remain open to listen to other opinions and look carefully at facts that do not agree with their own opinion.

9.4% - Impatience – Being realistic on how quick a career can be made.

Advice

Are you miserable sometimes? Frustrated, not sure what to do? Here are two techniques:

- Ask yourself. If another person is in the same situation as you are right now, what advice would you give this person?

If you have a person in your environment that you hugely respect and admire ask yourself, what advice would this person give to you?

Both techniques remove you a step from the issue. That enables you to look more rationally at the situation and very, very likely some solutions will appear in your mind.

Admit Weaknesses

Are you willing to admit your weaknesses publicly? During my executive coaching sessions I come across such issues fairly frequently and I see a certain pattern evolving.

People do know their weaknesses, but, they feel very uncomfortably, or often insecure, about it. Then they develop a defence mechanism. When they roll out their defensive action, they actually appear ‘funny’ (or aggressive, evasive) and fall in discredit with others.

Example: (For the negative stuff i always quote myself) As a young executive I felt very unsure about myself as I did not have a university degree; even more, when I was a manager and many of my staff did have a better education than me. So, whenever the subject of education came up, I was very evasive and often down talked the value of ‘just theoretical knowledge’ that you get from a university education. No doubt, people listening to me would have frowned a bit, and certainly my comments were not to my credit. Let’s always keep in mind that people make general judgements about others based on little events, like a small conversation. So, I have to assume that people thought less of me after hearing such comments from me.

As I matured, I learned to speak more openly about this. I know I have competence, integrity, and the right attitude to do a good job. In my mind, that is pretty good already, enough to give me self-assurance. Whenever we talked about degrees I could confidently say: ‘Don’t have! I know, it could have been helpful in the early part of my career. But, it didn’t happen.’ At the same time I could also discuss the value of higher education without making any depreciating comments. As a result I came across more authentic.

Authenticity, that is my point.

- Be aware of your strong points. No harm ‘advertising’ these as well. That nourishes your self-confidence.

- Be aware of your weaknesses and be able to deal with them by having a plan to improve it, or, sometimes, the weakness is just there and you have to live with it. If your weakness comes up in a discussion, comment truthfully as things are. My bet is that many people will judge like me. People being able to talk about their weaknesses appear honest and full of confidence. No, not appear, they are!

For comfort (and model answer) we all have weaknesses, so have you. If somebody appears like not having a weakness, it only means that we don’t know this person well enough yet.

Building Relationships in Business

In my coaching experience, I frequently come across executives with competence, good track record, and integrity and yet do not progress as one would expect. Very often the reason for this is their inability to build relationships within the organization. Sometimes, I also sense executives mix up building relationships with ‘currying favour’ with others and therefor abhor it.
Let’s look at his issue from various angles. First of all, how do people make judgments about others?

Shouldn’t past performance and integrity be the deciding factor when judging an executive? It certainly should, but keep in mind that judging performance is already subjective. Two examples: Many years ago I had a target to triple sales in South East Asia, which I achieved. Some senior executives at HQ judged this to be an excellent achievement. Others commented that, based on all the support HQ gave me, it wasn’t really difficult. During another marketing role that I had, my turnover remained stagnant for 3 years. Some at the HQ were not impressed; other considered this to be an excellent achievement in view of the Japanese competition and the price erosion in our business. You see, when judging performance there is always a big element of the ‘judge’ being well inclined towards the other person or not, which is influenced by the relationship.

Also, how do we judge people? Rarely people sit down and make a comprehensive analysis on character or in-depths performance. No, judgment is strongly influenced by the encounters that a person had with you in the past or hears about you from a ‘friend’. Personal encounters typically have a stronger influence than other facts. Therefore, look at each encounter as ‘your window’ to form the other person’s impression about you.

Don’t start building relationships when you need them. It is too late and, by the way, too obvious. Build relationships ALL the time with EVERYBODY. It is the right thing to do. For practical reasons, keep in mind that you are normally not present when somebody talks about you. How they talk about you is influenced by their relationship with you. You also may have noticed that the world is a small place and somebody who may not be important to you at one time, may become very important at another time.

So, the ability to build relationships is a vital key factor for business success; note: an additional key factor to integrity and performance not replacing one of the two.

Building relationships, in my view, is NOT about smooching up to others. It is just behaving in an engaging and friendly manner.

Some tips to building relationships:

Let people experience that you are happy to see them and talk to them. (If you are really busy, just let them know that you are and fix another time to talk. Don’t somehow cut the conversation short without explaining.)

When people talk to you, be agreeable (keep your different view for a while), ask them more questions about the issue, listen and ABSORB (good chance you will learn something) before you bring up your own views and conclude. Read this one more time. Listening and asking questions for more understanding go a long way in building relationships.

A bit of gossip is okay, but say only good things about people (keep the negative views for yourself).

Be positive in your business discussions. (There are no problems, there are challenges. There are many circumstances or people that make your job difficult, but give the impression that you know how to handle it.)

Praise, when you observe something nice. Have a friendly word with others.

Learn to ask more questions instead of telling people what to do.

If you need to criticize or disagree then please do so based on OBSERVABLE facts, avoid accusation and judgements.

Criticize sparingly. There are too many of these self-proclaimed ‘do-gooders’ who keep on telling everybody what to do better and only because they have such good intentions. Essentially criticism implies ‘you are not good enough‘ and most of us just don’t like it and get agitated by it. So, if it is none of your business, doesn’t affect you, small matter, let it go, keep quiet.

Be transparent; explain why you do certain things or why you ask certain questions.

Be visible. Join activities, meetings, project groups, functions, associations, clubs, learning activities etc. You can only build relationships / networks when many people have interacted with you and can remember you.

And finally, here are two suggested exercises:

The next time when you are in a public lift, look at the stranger next to you and start a little conversation. Normally, I look at the person and observe something (particular hand phone / nice shoos / tie / handbag) Just ask. ‘Are you happy with that phone?’ ‘May I ask where you bought those nice shoes?’ The conversation will be short as one of you has to leave the lift soon. Good chance both of you will be leaving with a smile on your face. If not, never mind, you won’t see the fellow again.

Take note of everything that you say during a day and analyse what could be misconstrued by the listener as an accusation, or being judgemental. Some examples: What is your point (could mean can’t you express yourself properly). That didn’t work out well (could mean you didn’t do a good job). If you can’t observe anything judgemental in your daily talk, ask a good friend to observe you for a while and give you feedback accordingly.