Get better! Not bitter!

Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc in the movie trailer "The Founder" started: How the heck does a 52 year old, over the hill, milkshake machine salesman build a fast food empire with 1,600 restaurants and an annual revenue of $700million? One word: Persistence!

We all go through hard times. Pressured in the workplace, stressed out at home, people are trying to make sense of their lives. Sometimes the hits just keeps on coming. Sometimes as soon as we raise our heads, it knocks us back down. Such is life.

The only reality is how we respond to it, whether it makes us better or bitter.

I have noticed that people who do well in life carry the ability to find the positive message in negative experiences. The biggest challenge is to stay focused on our goal in life, keep our energy positive and to keep going.

I have a great respect for toxic people. The same sort of respect I have for cockroaches and snakes. They suck the joy out of every situation. Often they are not actively seeking to destroy us, it's just that they weigh us down. We can't change people but we can distance ourselves from them. When we clear our lives of toxic people, we add years to our lives.

How many times have you lay awake at night imagining the aggravation someone put you through during the day? That person is sleeping peacefully without any idea that you are awake, thinking about him/her!

This much I know: we may feel very justified in our anger, but as long as spend our energies being angry at people, our rage isn't hurting them, it's crippling us. The answer for you and me is the same as it is when we deal with someone else who has offended us...let go and move on.

Macromanage rather than be a puppet master

When asked as to what is his leadership style, Piyush Gupta, CEO, DBS Bank responded: I try to strike a balance between thinking big picture and zeroing on the detail. On the one hand, you want to give people room to perform. On the other, being too far removed from the details can be extremely expensive. I compromise by choosing the few "make or break" agendas that I personally need to be engaged with. In other areas, I am happy to let go.

Dieters who pursue weight loss for autonomous reasons lose more weight than those who are pressured by others. Smokers who chose to stop smoking are more successful than those who feel forced to stop. Synonymously, when people are empowered to make their own decisions at work, they naturally feel motivated to excel.

Leadership is a zero-sum game. The more a leader demands from his team, the less the team members are able to demand of themselves, just like a helicopter parent and his overdependent child. With every controlling directive comes a demoralizing message: "Only I know what's best."

I try to foster autonomy by ensuring the team have a good understanding of why behind the what. I find that when people are given a meaningful rationale, they tend to invest more effort and view their contribution as important.

In addition, I define the outcome, not the process, giving the team or individual the flexibility to chart their own approach, however they see fit. My years of experience shows me that when they feel a sense of control and experience ownership, they take pride in their work.

Being a leader is a privileged position. What we say, how we say it, and why we say it make a difference in the lives of the people we lead.

Accept that we are not superhuman

"There is no subsitute for hard work," This line was repeated several times in the movie Walt Before Mickey which depicted that Walt's life was tough.....but not as hard as watching this movie.

Our culture loves dedicated  and committed people. You know the type: the first in the office, the last to leave, work 24/7, eager to take on a new project, months of unused vacation days. Many people confuse working long, hard hours with achieving results.

Don't get me wrong. I am not against hard labour. I have had my share of slogging through the nights and weekends. Perserverance plays a role in making our dreams come true.

Today, my redefinition of the term "commitment", is a single-minded sense of purpose that is fueled by the energy of a personal vision. Being exceptional is not about being everything and everywhere.

My leadership style has change dramatically. I now know that if I am leading by starting too many initiatives, the results are certain to disappoint. My experience has shown me that the best-performing teams put forth only three or four initiatives a year.

As an ex-footballer, I understand that pacing is a critical part of sports training. Busi-ness leaders, however, get into a cycle of setting impossible expectations for themselves.

Driving for results by adding pressure and tension blocks people's creativity and ability to focus, leaving them feeling inadequate or ineffective at coping with the circumstances - which undermines competence. The danger of drive is that it distracts people from what really makes them dance. When team members thrive, leaders don't need to drive.

Coaching my teen

Today, when I worked with ACE and coached him in preparation for the upcoming elocution competition, I was shuttled back in time to my heydays as state champion for two consecutive years.

Deep down, there is a part of us that wants to hold on to the days of our youth. I think that all guys  are gripped with those feelings sometimes.

The good news is that most of us are motivated by the same thing. We want to see our children grow up to be independent, self-sufficient adults who make sound decisions. On the face of it, then, we parents and our teenagers both want the same outcome. The devil, as they say, is in the details. While we both may want the same thing, we may not see eye to eye on how this is best accomplished, and we may not see eye to eye on what the best outcome is.

You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want

I went to a wake yesterday. It was Good Friday. Later I read in the papers that Johan Cryuff, the revolutionary who changed how the world saw football, died.

We move through endless cycles of days and experiences with an understanding that ceratin thingts will occue. After will be followed by evening. Night will come and after it dawn and morning. Life will end in death.

Whether or not we can recall the names of the last few Olympic Gold, Academy Award or Nobel Prize winners - I'll bet you can remember the names of two favourite teachers, or friends who stood by you. We remember the ones who cared.

And we can become one of those people who are held in others' hearts and memories long after we have passed from this earth. Next to simple acts of kindness, all our personal achievements pale.

What we do for ourselves dies with us, but what we do for others echo throughout the ages.

No one is born with kindness. It is an acquired virtue. We learn to dance by dancing. We learn to play football by playing football. Kindness is acquired by practicing kindness.

Each day is filled with endless possibilities to make a difference. It is not that hard, for really, it is a world full of people desperately hungry for sincerity, goodness and honesty. Have you received an unexpected email or letter of thanks or compliment? It is a wonderful feeling to receive such an email. Yet for most people it is a rare joy. Write one. Write an email to an old friend whom you haven't written to in a while. It takes less than five minutes of your time to make someone's day.

As a child, my father used to tell me, "You get what you give." Life has taught me that, like so many things my father said to me, it is a wise and true statement.

What does not destroy me, makes me stronger

People often tell me how lucky I am to have landed such a fun job. I'm sure luck played some sort of role, but for the past 27 years I have truly worked in overdrive. It has been challenging to get so far so fast, but it hasn't been the hard part.
 
The hard part has been - in both subtle and overt way - people ignoring the rules of friendly competition and working together. believe me, I have already been beyond the gates of hell. This has turned out to be one of the greatest ongoing lessons in my life...and it is a positive one. Things like an unreasonable customer, a disrespectful colleague and a micromanaging or bias boss give some people ulcers. Marital spats, financial troubles and a rogue staff give people high blood pressure. But I have to tell you. It has taught me in a very clear way that we can't allow people and events to ruin even a minute of our day, much less our lives
 
Those were not easy times in my life, but they certainly had value. I suppose it taught me a lesson of perseverance that I never forgot. And they have given my life perspective. The struggles, you see, made me strong.
 
I have often wondered if I would have become a success without these storms in my life. And it also makes me wonder how many other challenges in life will turn out to be blessings in disguise.
 
There's no "happy ending" to this obstacle story. It's a struggle I still deal with almost everyday. All I'm saying is, you don't have to look far to find discouragement, but if you believe in yourself, in your dreams and in your future, someone, somewhere, sometime will listen.

 

 

Leading high-achievers and other leaders

"We need to measure everything. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it, hence the need for all sorts of metrics," a General Manager insisted on this philosophy.

Mr General Manager, please reframe that belief. Of course, we need to measure many things in life and work. But, if we are leading leaders or high-achievers, we need to become more mindful of promoting driving but thriving - such as care, joy and gratitude - all not easily measured.

I am not a total megalomaniac. I recognize that many of the top talent in my team whom I am supposed to lead are smarter and more talented than me. Many of the them are themselves leaders.

Being a leader of other leaders is a privileged position.

I have since learned that we don't get the best out of these talented people by hitting them with an iron rod. That worked with the slaves in building the pyramids and great wall of China. With highly-skilled people whose influence are substantially above the average, we do so by gaining their respect and helping them understand that the impossible was possible.

When I was younger I was more inclined to be severe. I cringe when I think back to those days. Nowadays, I take a different approach. There is no benefit in engaging in public hangings. It humiliates the victim and does not do much to encourage those around him. While not always succeeding in the heat of the moment, I would try to reserve my severest comments for a private session with the individual.

I couldn't count the number of times where I helped my team members with personal matters, and I'm proud of the fact that they trusted me. In these situations I acted as a priest, father or MP - whatever it takes. Even to this day, some of my former team members still come to me for advice; this is a reflection of the trust that underpinned our relationship.

Unless you understand people, it's hard to motivate them. Everybody is different, and I came to learn that they all required different care and feeling.

I am not doing these things because I was trying to emulate Mother Teresa, I am doing them because I had gradually came to understand this back-door route to inspiring high-achievers