About Learning Curve

Entrepreneurial Traits

2009-10-22T22:00:00.004+08:00

I started to gain interest in those successful figure who start from scratch as entrepreneur.
Hence, here is the summary of traits that share amongst all the entrepreneur.

1. Desire
If you don't want to success passionately, you won't do something that it takes to be successful.
Desire is the foundation that supports most of other characteristic.

2. Initiative
In the entrepreneur world, you start everything, nothing will happen unless you make it happen.
No one will do it for you, you need to begin the operations yourself.
Entrepreneur hit the deck early and go running again, looking forward for the challenge ahead. Never give up or let go.

3. Energy
They must always doing something with high level of energy.
Having a business is not enough. Several business on the run at the same time.
When business turn boring, they sell it and look for the fresh one.

4. Low Support Needed
You do not have the support or resources just like the big corporation. You do it yourself. That's why leverage on other people strength is important skills.

5. Ability to Thrive on Ambiguity
There is no structure & certainty in the entrepreneur world. You must exist in the environment that is confusing & has few answers at one time. You must accept the ambiguity in the world of business.

6. Perseverance
"Mental-Kuat" "Mental-toughness" determined to win & success. Don't quit easily.
Basic determination is to achieve some fundamental goals without attachment to any particular means for reaching them.

7. Responsibility
Accept full responsibility on the future. It is your own business, no one care more than you care. Nobody else will do for you.

8. Problem Solving Ability
Running your own business is an ongoing puzzle, long series of problems that must be solved. Particularly the problems that you do not know much about it. Business owners need to take lots of time to troubleshooting. Think about what problem is arise, and think about how to overcome it.

9. Power of Persuasion
Persuasive person, persuade people to do thing for you, buy from you, lend money to you.

10. Self Discipline
There are many things that you do not want to do, and sometime you need to force yourself to do it. Do whatever must be done. Control yourself.

11. Money Sense
Buying right, buy low enough, profit margin is higher. Pay too much you buy and fail to get enough you sell.
Spend too much on other things which do not link to profit generation, e.g. big car.
Careful on money always.

12. Self Confident
Confident in carry out the plan to gain knowledge & money. Keep in check. Over-confident sometime will kill.

13. Ego Development
They like themselves very much, proud of what they do about. Healthy ego is a good thing.

14. Market Awareness
Some people claim that perhaps an entrepreneur’s most significant discriminating characteristic is his or her sensitivity to market opportunities.
It's true that many people can be surrounded with tremendous market opportunities yet fail to perceive their existence.
One mark of entrepreneurs is that at every turn they see an opportunity to make some money.

Quotes

2009-10-11T00:34:00.002+08:00

Micheal Gerber
The entrepreneur is our visionary, the creator in each of us. We're born with that quality and it defines our lives as we respond to what we see, hear, feel, and experience. It is developed, nurtured, and given space to flourish or is squelched, thwarted, without air or stimulation, and dies.

The entrepreneur in us sees opportunities everywhere we look, but many people see only problems everywhere they look. The entrepreneur in us is more concerned with discriminating between opportunities than he or she is with failing to see the opportunities

The entrepreneur is not really interested in doing the work; he is interested in creating the way the company operates. In that regard, the entrepreneur is an inventor. He or she loves to invent, but does not love to manufacture or sell or distribute what he or she invents.

The entrepreneur builds an enterprise; the technician builds a job.

Henry Ford
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

Henry R. Luce
Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.

Stephen Covey
Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.

Will Rogers
If you can build a business up big enough, it's respectable.

J. Paul Getty
If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.

Harold S. Geneen
In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.

Tacitus
Reason and judgment are the qualities of a leader.

Rich Dad - Power of Leverage

2009-10-03T01:41:00.004+08:00

I like the word - leverage.

Let examine further from Rich Dad's perspective. Here is some summary adopted from elsewhere to share.

Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki

Retire Young Retire Rich, Robert Kiyosaki

"In the broad definition of the world, the word leverage simply means 'the ability to do more with less'. When it came to the subject of work, money, and leverage, rich dad would say, 'if you want to become rich, you need to work less, and earn more. In order to do that, you employ some form of leverage.' He contrasted that statement by saying, 'People who only work hard have limited leverage. If you're working hard physically and not getting ahead financially, then you're probably someone else's leverage.' He also said, 'If you have money sitting in the bank in your savings account or retirement account, then others are using your money as their leverage.

My rich dad said, 'People with leverage have dominance over people with less leverage.' In other words, just as humans gained advantages over animals by creating leveraged tools, similarly, humans who use these tools of leverage have more power over humans that do not. Saying it more simply, 'leverage is power'."

When you look back in history, 5,000 years ago, humans utilizing sails and the power of wind to propels their ships across the vast seas. Therefore, humans can carried more loads can cross the seas. Another example is that a bird utilizes its wings as a leverage tools to fly. Humans observed birds in flight, then used their minds to discover how humans could also fly.

"Give me a lever long enough and I could move the world." from Archimedes.

Take a look at your current income!

2009-10-03T01:08:00.003+08:00

I received a marketing mail from this famous learning centre. It went to my scam mail. Nevertheless, I think it worth for us to take a look at our current income.

Here is the sharing part,

1. Are you making more money than you ever dreamed of?
2. Can you afford to lose your job tomorrow (or quit your business tomorrow)?
3. Do the hours you spend on your job allow you plenty of time to spend with your family, lead a healthy lifestyle or lounging on the beach?

If you answered "Yes" to all three questions, there's no need to read further.
But if you answered "No" to even one question... then I want you to tell me:

1. What's it going to take to get you excited every morning?
2. Do you want to continue working 60, 80, 100 hours a week the rest of your life?
Probably not.
3. Do you want to be able to take time off to do what you want... whenever you want... without having to worry about affecting your income source?
Most of us would definitely say YES!

But if you cannot remove yourself from being directly involved in doing the work that generates the income, it will limit how much you can earn and the increase will be very slow.

This is because each and every one of us has only that SAME LIMITED amount of time each day. If you have to trade your time for income, you can only do so much...and there may be a ceiling to the amount of income that you can raise.

This is very much linear income. Linear Income is what you get when you work hard and get paid once for your effort...and most of the times it depends on the number of hours you put in. For example, linear income can be from your job that gives you your salary. Even as a consultant, you get paid based on a certain fixed amount of fee for certain hours.
There will be a limit to what you can earn with linear income and it depends on your time and fee or wage per hour. In order to increase income, either you increase your number of hours or get a higher fee/wage per hour. And if you stop work, your income stops too.

Passive income, which is what you want to aim for, is the type of income that you need not be involved directly. For example, rental from owning some property, royalties from a book, income from M-L-M, etc.

So if you seriously want to earn more and work less and be able to take time off whenever you want, you must start creating streams of income that do not require your direct involvement.
The sooner you can shift your work or business model to create more passive income, the sooner you can achieve personal and financial freedom.

As Robert Allen says:

Shift your streams of income from linear to residual.

Robert's 3 money mountains concept describes the possible multiple streams of income that can give you passive and residual income.

There are two basic types of passive income and we will also look at a third type that is not necessarily passive but can still help you earn more and work less.

Residual Income

This is the type of income that you can earn when you put in one time effort or work hard once and get paid for the rest of your life or over a period of time, whether you have to work on it anymore or not. This means you invest your time or money once and then get paid regularly over a period of time.

With residual income you work hard once and it unleashes a steady flow of income for months or even years. You get paid over and over again for the same effort.

According to Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen in the "One Minute Millionaire":

Prosperous People have always known two truths:

1) The Importance of Having Multiple Streams of Income
2) The Power of Residual Income

Do you now see the difference between linear and residual income?

So if you are smart, you will start shifting your income streams from linear to residual.
The secret of those who are rich and wealthy is not because they have more money but that they have time freedom! The trick is making money work for you instead of working for money.

So ask yourself, what percentage of your income is residual???

As you can see, you can have many different ways to generate residual income across a wide variety of businesses.

Do take note that this is slightly different from recurring income. For example, you may get recurring income as a coach or consultant on a monthly retainer, but you still have to put in the time and involvement and you will still have limit on your earning capacity...which is based on what you can produce.

Leveraged Income

Leveraged income or some may refer to as "Multiplex Income" means income that leverages from the work of other people. They help create more income for you.

A common example that has successfully applied this concept is the M-L-M industry. The key to success is the ability to leverage on your network of people or downlines to create the streams of income for you, in other words, making money off another person's effort (and this is also a win-win situation). A strong network or team will be able to create lots of income for you and you can be anywhere in the world, doing what you enjoy doing.

Franchising is another example where this type of income is generated. Leveraged income is awesome and if you combine that with residual income...you can be on the way to financial independence.

Active Leveraged Income

This is a term that describes income that is also leveraged from a group of people but will require your direct involvement or participation. For example, when you train a group of people and you charge based on certain amount of fees for each participant. The more participants you get, the higher is your active leveraged income.
Although you will need to be directly involved, your earning potential is multiplied by the group size of the participants in comparison to a one-to-one training.

How to Maintain Focus While Growing Multiple Businesses

We learned that we should have multiple streams or sources of income, especially those that can give us passive and residual income. However, as we build and build more businesses, we tend to get out of focus. So how can we maintain that momentum and focus while growing multiple businesses.

The reality is with these multiple businesses or projects, you will be dealing with multiple and sometimes conflicting priorities. It does not matter if you are doing this full-time or part-time, each and every MSI that you embark on can be an entire business. You must learn to juggle and maintain control and focus on them. If you are not able to, then we suggest you start and focus on your project one at a time.

Common myths about creating a passive, ongoing income

In an article by Kevin Bidwell on, he talks about the 4 myths of creating ongoing income and that we should dispel some of these myths surrounding the sales hype.

Myth One: Put up a Website and Sit Back and Collect the Checks.

Those of us who have run Internet businesses for a while can tell you: Making a good living on the Internet requires marketing, customer service and order fulfillment. Either you have to do it yourself or you need to hire someone to do it. Either way, having a website and selling your own products is often far from the "laying around on the beach while collecting your checks" image.

Myth Two: M-L-M Income is Residual Income.

Almost always a part of the sales pitch in networking is "creating residual income." While that is *possible* with M-L-M, it is very difficult to maintain. Here's why...

M-L-M income is built on three basic factors: new purchases by retail customers, the recruiting of new *wholesale* customers and the ongoing purchases by both groups. In order to have an ongoing "residual" income, you need to recruit, train and motivate a sufficient number of *leaders* who will then continue the process in growing numbers. This is rarely the case.
Instead, top leaders have found it is easier to build a large list of M-L-M "junkies" who they then take into one program after another. If you stopped joining new programs, your income would also dwindle within a few months.

Myth Three: Just Build Your Business and Hire People to Run It for You.

This does work, but it is often more of a nightmare than a dream.
At various times I have had anywhere from 0 to 15 employees. I have had many friends and clients with much numbers up to 1,000 employees. We all have the same opinion: Unless you have enough employees and profits to hire top quality managers, employees are a constant headache.

If you DO build a big enough, profitable enough, business and if you have the right personality, then building your business and hiring people to run it is a great idea.

Myth Four: Developing A Passive Income is Easy.

I don't want you to fall for this one, either. Developing a passive income will take some perseverance. The steps to getting it done are not difficult, but it requires one thing many people will not put in -- consistency. If a person does the right things, day after day, they will create an ongoing, growing income. If they try today, then one day next week, then one day a month later, they are unlikely to ever get there.

If you can dispel of these myths and avoid trusting in them, get ready to put in real effort and work towards a strong passive and residual income... and keep it up, in no time at all, you will be able to gain financial independence and choose to live your life the way you want to.

90% of the individuals out there who are in jobs or businesses know that creating multiple sources of income is the key to their financial future; however only about 20% actually go out and do something about it. The statistics do not stop there as out of that 20% only about 4% will actually create MSIs which really give stable solid cashflow.

If everyone knows that creating an MSI is important then why do only a few succeed?

1. Many of those who want to create an MSI would go into traditional MSI opportunities like Network Marketing, Unit Trust, Insurance, Land Banking, etc and a majority of them fail at it. It is not that these are bad ideas; it is just that it is not for everybody.

2. Then there are others who have lots of "income opportunities" to choose from but still fail because of their inability to manage and focus their limited time on them.

Why is this so? Creating an MSI will take time, effort and resources to get started, some even take a little work to maintain. Most people don't have the right mindset and stamina for this task and many do not have a large network of contacts. Most importantly, almost all don't really know how to leverage.

Career Planning

2009-08-28T13:30:00.004+08:00

Recently, I went back to university to share little on my personal experience to my junior. I can see their worries, doubt, confuse & uncertainty through their eyes. Perhaps, someday ago I was also just like them questioning on the future path.

Let me touch a bit on the career planning.

1. The career planning process enables the individual to start explore and gather information which enables them to gain competencies, make decisions, set goal & take actions. The progress speed is very depend on the willingness of oneself to advance & the reason faced during the stages of planning.

2. Steps which related to career planning,
a. You need to examine yourself to find out "Who are you?" as a starting point.
b. Find & explore career which is associate to your passion, interest, abilities & preferences.
c. Learn more about this career specifically to gain more understanding on it expectation, requirement, responsibility & advancement opportunity.
d. Narrow it to few career which you think it is best to suit you.
e. Get the right training & preparation for the career chosen.
f. Go get the job and track/ review your performance.

3. Some junior asked "What is the criteria of hiring employer look for?"
Briefly, there are 3 crucial element that make a different,
a. Communication Skills
b. Personality Development & Attitude
c. Knowledge & skill sets

Suggest you to find out more about the topic of career planning.
It really help you to focus on the path that you chose.

Stop Loss

2009-07-31T23:26:00.005+08:00

Someone told me that "Winning & losing is temporary, learning to win is forever!". Forget to tell you that what I mean here is stock market. Yes, trading on share at stock exchange.

With my 3 years experiences in trading game, I classified myself as amateur trader or just a new kid in the block. However, I am strive to quest and believe that one day I can develop or find the method/ formula to earn a living from stock market. Not to mention, actual field experiences, reading, consulting the experts, trial & error on new trading methods, keep track on market trend, index, country good & bad news & etc are my daily routine vitamin for a boost performance. Really exciting about my learning curve in share trading.

It is always a question of "How much to risk?"
Let together examine the case,

If you have RM 20,000 trading account, you may not risk for more than RM 400 on any trade you made. Methametic calculation is 2% of your capital. 2% should include the fees and commission paid for each trade.

Most amateur like me will shake my head, with very small capital said RM 10,000 ~ RM 200 to risk on any trade. It really shatter my quick profit dream. But the truth is for those professional outthere, they are thinking 1 - 1.5% is a better figure to risk on.

Remember, this is the amount of damage that market can do to you. Even if I have bad trade for 5 times in a string, 5 x RM 200 = RM 1000, account balance RM 9,000. Not bad, still not cripple my prospect. I still able to survive.

The rules is if you lose approximate 6 - 8% montly, you should stop trading and start to examine what went wrong in your trading strategy, method & market. Cooling -off period so called.

Step1: Stop loss immediately by remove your position from the market for each trade that turn to "bad trade"/ turn opposite direction from what you think before you enter the trade.

Step 2: Maximize your earning by examine the right time to exit when the market or price direction as per your predicted way - "good trade".

Repeat the step 1 & 2.

Ilustration: -
1st - 8th trade - apply step 1, total lose 8 x RM 200 = RM 1600
9th & 10th trade - apply step 2, total earning 2 x RM 700 = RM 1400
11th - 12 th trade - apply step 1, total lose 2 x RM 200 = RM 400
13th - 15th trade - apply step 2, total earning 3 x RM 1000 = RM 3000

Net RM 4400 - RM 2000 = RM 2200 earning.

Simple philoshopy, minimize loss via stop loss method during bad trade and maximize the earning during good trade.

Cone of Learning

2009-06-14T23:26:00.005+08:00

I realized that why I was not doing great back in the school. Our education system very focus on reading and hearing to lecturer/ teacher talking in the class. Guess what, after 2 weeks only 10-20% of what we read/ hear that we can remember. Those are passive learning.

It is not how much we learn matter, it is how much we can retain make our learning journey excited. I should find a training provider to provide me the active learning tools in order to help me reflect and retain.

Cash flow game invented from the Rich Dad Poor Dad "Robert Kiyosaki" is using the concept of "simulating the real experience". Worth to explore it for your chart to financial freedom, opinion only.

I realized that I am just another "Poor Dad" in this world!

2009-05-23T15:29:00.004+08:00

The RICH DAD's apprentice help me to reveal myself, soon I realized that I am just another POOR DAD in this world.

My head non-stopping thinking about it.

RICH DAD - I must become rich & wealthy because I have a family & children to take care.
POOR DAD - I cannot become rich & wealthy because I have a family & children to take care.

So different the way of thinking.

I still can remember the below from the well-known speaker told us,

1. People should do what they love to do
2. However, most people end up never do what they love to do

The above 2 sentences are contradiction each others, if people know they should do what they love to do but why still end up doing something else.
Why people end up never doing what they love to do?

You must have a lot of excuses or reason to justify it. So do I.

Dare not take risk
People do not get what they want due to they do not know what they want in the first place.
Fear
People are complacent, do not want to get in trouble in the something new
Opportunity not there

The reason that people do not end up doing what they want to do is because whatever they are doing now is just too comfortable, it is not great, not fantastic, not they really want but still go to work. Sometimes, they may even hate the job, or the company, or even hate the boss but they still go to work.

It is interesting to know people spend their time & effort doing something they really do not like to do but just because they are just too comfortable, not many changes, - Comfort Zone.

Don’t you think is interesting? Think about that.

Definition of Word “Wealth”
Big car? Big house? Possession on oneself? How much he spent? Did you realize that a lot of people have big car big house but also with big loan.

Wealth
Number of day forward you can survive/ maintain your lifestyle if you stop work – forever/ infinity

Which mean if you don’t want to go to work tomorrow, you never ever have to worry a day about the rest of your life because somehow somewhere there will be an income/ money coming to you and you will be taken care of. Isn’t that wonderful?

That’s the stage we are looking for. Financial Independent or Retirement
Retirement normally happen in age of 55/60/65 years. What you can do at age of retirement? Nothing much.

Will it be nice if you can retire in much younger age so called Financial Independent?
You wake up and have a choice to choose whether want to go to work or no. Once you have the choice you have the freedom & vice versa.

The fact is most people don’t have that freedom.

People need to go out there to make ‘MMM’ money making machine. MMM is a machine that you spend some time, effort & resources to create.

It is possible to make your own money making machine. But most of the Malaysia spend their time, money & effort to turn themselves to a money making machine to a company. Too busy in the work, no time for create your own MMM is a killer.

Become a MMM and create a MMM is very different. You might want to write down “how many days you can survive if stop work today?’ The ultimate goal is to increase the number of days.

In nowadays, making money is very easy. The only thing you need to do is working very hard. If you work hard enough sure you will make money, but create wealth is not about working hard is about working smart.

There is thousand of people out-there working very very hard everyday but never found financial independent. Working hard is not the answer for the wealth. Working hard on the right financial strategy then is the way to create wealth. Think about it. But where to start & how?

How come a highly educated people or highly professional sometime do not want to follow good suggestion? Because they think they know it already. Creating wealth also not depending on how high your education is. Our education never teach you about money or creating wealth, the teacher teach you how to become a great MMM (employee) to company.

If teacher teach you about money, I am more worry about that. Because most of the teacher are not wealthy.

About 70% of the population stop work today cannot survive more than 60 days.
I start to think more in-dept about the issue now.

Cash Flow Management - Robert Kiyosaki, RICH DAD

2009-05-23T03:30:00.006+08:00

That's not easy to learn by reading, if reading a book or article of "Rich Dad Poor Dad" then automatically can turn to rich, then everyone in this planet will be a millionaire. The fact that reading a book will not turn you to become rich. So, knowledge is not the key to rich/ wealth. Then what suppose the answer is?

NVM, recently I am interested to explore more on the cash flow management. Let see what RICH DAD said: -

1. Cash flow management is a fundamental and essential skill if a person truly wants to be successful in the B and I quadrant. Read financial statements of other companies so we could better understand cash flow management. To be financially literate.

2. Financial literacy allows you to read the numbers, and the numbers tell you the story of the business, based on facts.

3. It is shocking to see a perfectly good business go down just because the owners are not financially literate. Many small-business owners fail because they do not know the difference between profit and cash flow. As a result, many very profitable businesses go broke. They fail to realize that profit and cash flow are not the same things.

4. Business owners need to see the two types of cash flow if they want to be successful. There is actual cash flow and phantom cash flow . It is the awareness of these two cash flows that makes you rich or poor .

5. The ability to run a company from financial statements is one of the primary differences between a small-business owner and a big-business owner.

6. No purchase would be made if it were not justified by an increase in sales. Use strategy that increasing sales early than so we could spent for buying thing/ rental or hiring people. Do not spend first then only make sales. It is this attention to detail in the early stages of your business that will set the tone for your success.

7. A good cash flow manager reviews his or her cash position daily, looking at cash sources and needs for the next week, month, and quarter. This allows him or her to plan for any large cash need before it becomes a cash crisis. This type of review is imperative for a company that is growing quickly.

Tips from RICH DAD: -

1. Start Up
Delay taking a salary until your business is generating cash flow from sales. Advise keeping your full-time job and starting your business part-time. By delaying taking a salary, you can re-invest sales to help grow your business.

2. Account Receivable, AR
Invoice your customers quickly upon shipment of goods or when services are provided.
Require payment up front until credit has been established.
Establish a minimum dollar amount for orders before granting credit
Establish late-payment penalties as part of your terms and conditions—and enforce them
Speed up the receipt of cash, you may want to have your customers pay their bills directly to your bank.

3. Expenses, Account Payable, AP
Crucial part of cash flow is managing their own bill paying. Pay your bills promptly. Ask for extended payment terms up front. After you have paid timely for two to three months , ask for additional extensions on your payable terms. A supplier will usually extend credit for 30 to 90 days to a good customer.
Keep your overhead to a minimum. Before purchasing something new, set a goal for increasing sales to justify the expense.
Preserve your investors' funds for costs directly related to business operations, not overhead, if at all possible.
As your sales increase, you can purchase the overhead-related items from the cash flow—but only if you have set and achieved new higher sales goals.

4. General Cash Management
Have an investment plan for your cash on hand to maximize its earning potential.
Establish a line of credit with your bank before you need it.
To make sure you can move quickly to borrow if needed, keep an eye on your current ratio (assets over liabilities—at least 2:1 is good) and quick ratios (liquid assets divided by current liabilities—should be over 1:1).
Establish good internal controls over the handling of cash.
The people who record the cash receipts on the bank deposits are different from those who post it to the accounts receivable and general ledger.
Checks should be endorsed immediately “For Deposit Only.”
The people authorized to sign checks should not prepare the vouchers or record the disbursements and post to the accounts payable and general ledger.
The person who reconciles the bank statement should have no regularly assigned functions related to cash receipts or cash disbursements. (Our outside accountant does this.)

Establish a system for how to manage your cash, ongoing supervision is still essential.
Review your cash position and funding needs daily, and prepare early for additional funding that may be required for your expanding business.

Many people lose sight of cash management when their businesses become successful. This is a major cause of business failures.

Proper cash management (and therefore expense management) is crucial to the on-going success of any business.

Purchasing a franchise or joining a network marketing organization - cash management system will be provided, implement the system and oversee it. Corporate headquarters performs the accounting functions for your organization and sends you a report of your earnings periodically with payment.

BI Triangle

2009-05-17T12:48:00.006+08:00

Team, Leadership & Mission - Military Discipline

Cash Flow, Communications, Systems, Legal & Product - MBA (Business School Guide)

Total up - 8 Integrity of Business

Any one of above integrity's not functioning well, the company eventually will fail.

Adapted from Why We Want You to Be Rich by Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki

Robert Kiyosaki’s View: Think Big, Think Expansion

I grew up with two dads, and two very different perspectives on money and investing. My poor dad, my real father, was a well-educated, hard-working man who served as the superintendent of education for the state of Hawaii. He was a well-paid employee who ultimately died broke. My rich dad, the father of my best friend Mike, quit school in grade school but used his street smarts and entrepreneurial spirit to become one of the wealthiest men in Hawaii.

My rich dad taught me about “thinking big,” even though he did not talk about it. Instead, the words he often used were leverage and expansion. When he taught his son and me to think about the differences between leverage and expansion, he used the McDonald’s franchise as an example. He would say, “When Ray Kroc bought McDonald’s from the McDonald brothers, he leveraged himself. When he franchised McDonald’s, he expanded his leverage.”

Each of us resides in at least one of the four sections of the Cashflow Quadrant. Where we are is determined by where our cash comes from--paychecks or passive income.

Though financial freedom can be found in all the quadrants, the skills of a business owner and investor will help you reach your financial goals more quickly.

When Kroc purchased the hamburger stand, he leveraged himself because the burger business could make money with or without him. And this is where most S-quadrant business owners stop: They keep their businesses small. When Kroc developed a franchise system for the small business, he expanded the hamburger business into the B quadrant.

You may notice I used the words franchise system, the key word being system. In my book Before You Quit Your Job, written for entrepreneurs, I write extensively about the B-I Triangle. The B-I Triangle is the diagram my rich dad used to focus my thinking and to teach me about the eight parts that make up a business.

Many entrepreneurs fail simply because one or more of the eight pieces of the B-I Triangle is weak or nonexistent. Whenever I look at a struggling business, I use the B-I Triangle as an analytical reference.

Notice that the word product is used to label the smallest section, and the word mission is one of the largest sections--as well as the foundation for the Triangle. This is because the product is the least important item in the B-I Triangle, and the mission is the most important. The mission is the spirit of the business; it is the heart of the business. Without spirit and heart, most entrepreneurs will not make it, simply because the road ahead is a hard one.

The world is filled with great products that fail. The products fail simply because they do not have the power of the B-I Triangle behind them.

When you study most successful businesses, you will most likely find a complete and vibrant B-I Triangle in action. A great business will have a strong mission, great leadership, a competent team of managers who work well together, excellent cash flow and financing, clear and effective sales and marketing communications, systems that work efficiently, clear and tight legal documents and agreements, and of course, a great product.

Most of us can cook a better hamburger than McDonald’s. But few of us can build a better business system than McDonald’s--which brings us to the word system again. One of the biggest differences between an S-quadrant business owner and a B-quadrant business owner is systems. Typically, the S-quadrant business owner is the system, which is why he or she cannot expand.
Far too many businesses are people-dependent. McDonald’s, on the other hand, is system-dependent.

It has well-designed systems. Regardless of where you go in the world, the McDonald’s business is pretty uniform. Most important, the company’s business systems are often run primarily by people with just a high school education. That is how good and how sound the company’s systems are.

I have looked at so many businesses that are top-heavy, staffed by highly educated and highly paid people who are working hard and accomplishing little. In most cases, these types of businesses focus primarily on people and not on developing great systems. A great team of highly paid people will fail without great systems.

What is the difference between an entrepreneur and a CEO? Making it as simple as possible, an entrepreneur is like a person who builds great race cars. A CEO is like the driver of the race car. If you have a great race-car driver but a poorly built race car, the great CEO will lose every race. Rarely will you find entrepreneurs who are great CEOs. Donald Trump is one of those people. So are Bill Gates, Michael Dell and Steve Jobs. These men can build great race cars and drive them.

In The Rich Dad Company--a Scottsdale, Arizona, education business that teaches personal finance and business to people worldwide through books, seminars and educational products--we have three people who are both CEOs and race-car builders: Kim Kiyosaki, my wife and co-founder of the business; Sharon Lechter; and myself. Sharon, also a co-founder, is excellent at both building and driving the race car. Kim and I are better at driving, but we do build parts of the car. I often say that I am the horn of The Rich Dad Company, and Sharon is the engine. I would definitely say Rich Dad is a team enterprise.

I have met many people who have become very rich in the S quadrant. Many are small-business owners who are excellent builders and drivers of small businesses. There are also people in the E and S quadrants who become very rich attaching themselves to B-quadrant businesses. For example, Tiger Woods is an S (and, in his case, S stands for superstar as well as self-employed or specialist), but much of his wealth comes from his endorsements of B-quadrant businesses. The same is true with some movie stars. They are S-quadrant individuals but associate themselves with B-quadrant businesses, such as Sony or Warner Bros.

Donald Trump says “think big,” and he builds giant buildings and megahit television shows. My rich dad said to expand, and he meant expanding the way McDonald’s did. Both are forms of thinking big.

Robert’s explanation of “Think Big, Think Expansion” is great and totally on point. But let’s take it one step further. Let’s not just think big, let’s think expansively. To entrepreneurs, thinking expansively includes seeing what is possible and making it happen. Entrepreneurs see the vision and call it good sense and inevitable. The rest of the world calls it innovation.

Recently, I read with interest about an innovation that was attributed to me. I was surprised because I had never thought of it as an innovation; I considered it just a way to combine two elements that might work well together. Years ago, when I was doing the first Trump International Hotel & Tower at 1 Central Park West in New York City, I decided it might be a good idea to build a condominium and a hotel together. It turned out to be an amazing success and has been duplicated by me and many others since.

So many times, innovation really results from common sense put together with uncommon thinking. It’s creative, but it’s about innovative assembly more than anything else.

Thinking expansively is just another way to innovate. Sometimes I ask myself, “What else can I include in my thought process to make it more comprehensive? Is there anything I can add that might enhance the project or idea I’ve got spinning around in my head?” Many times, I will tell myself that something isn’t quite right yet, because that automatically opens the door for more ideas to enter. I ask myself, “What am I not seeing? What else is possible?” Sometimes the answers wind up being innovative ideas. It’s not necessarily some secret process, but it is a process, and it requires concentration.

Robert, Kim and Sharon recently visited me at my golf course in California. I shared this story with them: My club has a beautiful ballroom overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the number-one golf course in California, but the room held less than 300 people. We were unable to accommodate many events (such as weddings) because our capacity was too small, so my management team’s answer was to enlarge the building.

They came to me with plans to remodel and expand the ballroom, which would cost millions of dollars and lots of time. We would have had to go through the permitting process and close for many months during construction, thus losing millions of dollars in business revenue--on top of spending millions of dollars to remodel!

As we were standing together looking around the ballroom, I noticed a woman having trouble getting out of her chair. The chair was very large, and she had difficulty moving it away from the table so she could stand up. In fact, the room was filled with these huge chairs. I had an immediate vision: We needed new chairs--smaller chairs!

This one idea not only saved me millions of dollars, it even made me money. We earned more money selling the old chairs than it cost us to buy the new gold Chiavari chairs. We are now able to comfortably seat more than 440 people in the ballroom and have increased the number of large events we host as well as the revenue we receive. No expansion of the building was necessary, and we had no downtime. So, I turned a project that could have cost me millions into a profit!

That’s the first step to visionary status--seeing something and knowing it could be different or better.

As I’ve said before, learn your lessons from as many sources as you can. Think and learn expansively. It won’t be expensive, but it can give you some big returns.

Rich Dad Seminar

2009-05-17T12:01:00.006+08:00

Quadrant from "Rich Dad Poor Dad"

Poor - Spend the money they have not earn yet
Middle Class - Running on the treadmill, earn money to pay bill

Rich & Wealthy - Money work for them

E - Security
S - Risky
B - Freedom
I - Risk

E&S - small game
B&I - big game

Different of Risk & Risky,
When you cannot affort to lose it, then it is risky.
If you can affort to lose it, then it is only a risk - calculated risk.

Money is just an idea, is the idea make the money, idea is come from thinking, thinking is free the we should THINK BIG.

Our Life Outlook - Where are you now?
Age Group
0 - 25 Education
25 - 35 1st Quarter
35 -45 Half Time
45 -55 3/4 Quarter
55 -65 Time Up
65 - 75 Extra Time
75 -85 Run out of Time

Is the buying or selling make money?
Buy. You must think about making money during buying. Then, make sure you buy "cheap", then sell high. The key is are you make a right decision during buying.
Buy an old house and "add value" to it and sell higher price.

Money is just a tool, create wealth is from 3 areas -
1. Stock Market
2. Property
3. Business

Investment in education is the right/ most important leverage.

Work with successful people but not little people. Little people means calculative & focus in small things always.

The rich invent money.

Earning 10,000 and 100,000, which you is better?
Most of the answer is 100,000.
But how about earning 10,000 per day and 100,000 per year, which one is better?
Definately is 10,000 per day.
So the question is not how much you earn, but how fast you earn.
Make money fast is an attitude. Because the mindset is right telling that if you do not make money today, no more time for tomorrow.

The journey from good to great.
The biggest enemy of great is good. Book "Good to Great" that read by Robert Kiyosaki. You better grab one and read it.

From http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/16/good-to-great-why-some-companies-make-the-leap-and-others-dont

Key Points

1. “Level 5 Leaders” - leaders who have both “personal humility” and “professional will”. These are not rock-star leaders whose companies go into decline when they move on. They are diligent and hard working - more bite than bark. Celebrity leaders often work for a time, but appear to be damaging in the long run, because they don’t create sustained results.

2. Get the right people on the bus - that has to happen before the “what” decisions are taken. That can change if you have the right people, but the wrong people will certainly make the enterprise fail

3. You must always be willing to “confront the brutal facts”. Don’t ignore reality in favor of what your hopes reflect it to become. Only by having accurate information can you achieve success.4. The “Hedgehog concept” means having a simple, extremely clear concept of what their business is. That business is something they can
a. Make money at
b. Be passionate about, and
c/ Be the best in the world at These are also known as “The Three Circles

4. A culture of self-discipline is critical, because it creates an environment where people work within a defined system, and yet, because the confines of the system are known, gives them more freedom to act within that system.

5.Technology is an accelerator, not an agent of change. Good companies use it to execute better, but it won’t save a mediocre company.

6.“The Flywheel” refers to the idea of momentum - keep pushing in one direction and you’ll build up a lot of it that will help you to overcome obstacles. Momentum is built a little bit at a time - it’s not a dramatic, revolutionary change, but constant, diligent work.

Summary
The idea that sparked this book was to answer questions about how good companies might become great companies, and how they went about doing so.

Methodology
The study looks at companies from 1965 to 1995, looking for those that, for 15 years, either tracked or underperformed the stock market, followed by a transition, and subsequently returning at least 3 times the stock market for at least 15 years. The goal was to eliminate “flash in the pan” success from the results. Further filtering was performed in order to ensure that companies also outperformed their industries, so as not to include spurious results showing entire industries that grew by leaps and bounds in a given period. Eleven companies were located that matched these criteria, and were studied in depth, and compared to competitors in their fields

The companies studied were:
Abbot Laboratories
Circuit City
Fannie Mae
Gillette
Kimberly-Clark
Kroger
Nucor
Philip Morris
Pitney Bowes
Walgreens
Wells Fargo

Level 5 Leaders

All the companies studied had what Collins describes as “Level 5 Leaders”. Despite sounding like something from a space-alien worshiping cult, what the term refers to is an individual who is very humble on a personal level, but who possesses a great deal of drive and desire to succeed, where “success” is not personal, but defined by creating something great that will outlast their time at the helm. These are people with an unwavering will and commitment to do what is necessary to drive their organization to the top. Most of the good to great executives discussed luck as an important factor in their success [and perhaps cynical readers of The Black Swan will agree with that assessment more than the factors Collins cites - davidw]. Level 5 leaders, are, in any case, the kind of people who do not point to themselves as the cause for an organization’s success. The chapter closes with a discussion of whether Level 5 Leaders are born, or made, with the conclusion that many people probably have the kernel of abilities and attitude necessary to attain that status.

First Who … Then What
During the transformation from good to great, rather than concern themselves first with the “what” - products, direction, strategy - the companies studied ensured they had the right people “on the bus” before anything else. By having a strong team, these companies avoided the pitfall of the “lone genius” CEO. For example, think what would happen to Apple’s share price were something to happen to Steve Jobs. “Great” companies are those that have a very solid foundation, and don’t depend on the brilliance of any one person.

The research indicated that compensation did not correlate at all with the “good to great” process. No particular compensation scheme appeared to be advantageous.

Also important was that, while the companies were “tough” places to work, they were because of the general high quality and hard-working mindset, not because of ruthless management. Some practical tips for how to be rigorous:

Don’t hire someone unless you’re %100 sure that they’re the right person. It’s better to wait and get someone that you know is a good fit.
Once you realize you need to fire someone, don’t put it off. Do it quickly and fairly, but do it and be done with it, rather than put it off.
Give good people good opportunities, rather than the biggest problems. Fixing problems makes you good, but taking advantage of the right opportunities can make you great.

Good to great teams were mostly composed of people who had a good sense of balance with the rest of their lives - family, church, and so on. Of course, they had a deep commitment to their companies, but not one that blinded them to the other important things in their lives.

Confront the Brutal Facts
One of the key factors in the success of the great companies was a series of good decisions. The good decisions flowed from the fact that they all made a consistent and thorough effort to confront reality, internalizing the facts relevant to their market. Having lofty goals can be good, but you can never lose sight of what the reality is on the ground, no matter how much you will it to be different.

In a large organization, where it’s impossible to personally poke your nose in all corners of the company every day, it is crucial to create a climate where honesty is valued and honored. If people aren’t telling it like it is, those at the top may not realize the truth until too late. Some tips to create this kind of climate:

It’s often better to ask questions rather than dispense “answers”.
Encourage healthy debate. It has to be real debate, not a show put on to make people feel included. It should also not just be argument for the sake of argument - reach a conclusion and move on.
When things go wrong, investigate to avoid repeating the mistake, instead of assigning blame. If people are too worried about protecting themselves, it becomes difficult to honestly analyze and learn from failures.
Create mechanisms, “red flags” that allow people to communicate problems instantly and without repercussions, and in a way that cannot be ignored.

Amidst these “brutal facts” that must be faced, you must also have faith in your final goal. By maintaining this vision, and keeping your ear to the ground, it won’t be necessary to motivate people - if you’ve got the right people, they’ll be motivated of their own accord.

The Hedgehog Concept
The “hedgehog concept” refers to a parable of a hedgehog and a fox, where the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. The good to great companies were by and large built by “hedgehogs” - this doesn’t mean stupid - au contraire - it just means that they were able to focus on one big important thing that made their companies great. Sometimes it takes real genius to see through all the clutter and grab the one, simple, unique thing that gives you the advantage.

The “three circles” is an idea regarding how to find your “hedgehog concept”: think of three interlocking circles, representing

what you are passionate about,
what you can make money at, and
what can you be the best at.

At the intersection of these three things lies the winning target. If you can bring all three things to bear, you have found a way to excel. Learn to realize, as well, what you will never be the best at - those are things you must avoid, if possible. The economics of various industries varied widely, but the good great companies were winners, even within industries that weren’t rising stars. One consistent rule of thumb is to identify a ratio, profit per X, (where X could be customer, web site user, per unit sold, per employee etc…) and focus on that. Sometimes it may not be obvious.

Passion, on the other hand, does not come from executive rah-rah sessions with employees, but by doing things that make people passionate on their own. Passion isn’t something that can be forced on people, it has to come from a mission that they truly believe in, that’s more than just a paycheck.

Another practical suggestion is to create a “Council”, of between 5 to 12 people, to discuss and gain insights into the organization. It should meet regularly, not a one-time group. Its members should bring to the table a deep understanding of some portion of the firm. They need to freedom to speak their minds, and always have the respect of the other Council members. The Council exists to help the chief executive, not reach a consensus. It is an informal group, in the sense that it is not spelled out in official documents or org charts.

Culture of Discipline
Great companies have both an entrepreneurial spirit and a sense of discipline. They are both necessary - without the drive to try new things, and some degree of independence, a company becomes a rigid, stifling hierarchy. Without some sense of discipline, things begin to break down as the company grows.

The best companies have both latitude for individual action, as well as a culture of disciplined behavior. This begins, once again, with the right people. It’s useless trying to create rules to force the wrong people to behave correctly - it simply won’t work.

Instead, you need to find people who have an innate sense of self-discipline that doesn’t come from above. There is a big difference between having a “tyrant” that enforces a culture of discipline by fear, and finding people who naturally adhere to a disciplined approach. The former will disintegrate when the leader moves on, the latter creates a lasting system.

One helpful approach to discipline is to have a “stop doing” list. Stop doing the things that aren’t central to your business. Stop doing the things that are just clutter, but even more importantly, stop doing even things that might be seen as important, if they are not in your “three circles”.

Technology
“Great companies adapt and endure” - technology is not a differentiator in and of itself, but rather something that enhances great companies. They use it to further increase their leverage, in a conscious, directed way, rather than rushing to embrace it for the sake of its newness. Technology won’t light a fire where there is none, but where there is already good momentum, judicious use of technology can help accelerate it.

Technology is an enabler of change, not the cause of it - but the “people factors” must be in place before application of technology will do any good. Technology as a reaction - to the latest fashion, to the competition - was not what was found in great companies. These companies possess a drive all their own that pushes them to be the best in their chosen field, and picking the right technology is a natural part of that.

The “Flywheel” and “Doom Loop”
These two concepts represent positive and negative momentum. A flywheel is a heavy wheel that takes a lot of energy to set in motion - to do so usually requires constant, steady work, rather than a quick acceleration.

Great companies’ transformations were like this as well. There was no magic recipe or no ‘aha’ moment when everything changed. Rather, with everything in place, lots of hard work slowly but steadily got the great companies going faster and faster, with a lot of momentum. Once it’s in motion, all that stored energy tends to keep it moving in the right direction.

Conversely, the “doom loop” is the vicious circle that unsuccessful companies fall into, rushing first in one direction, then another, in the hope of creating a sudden, sharp break with the past that will propel them to success. Some attempt to do this through acquisitions, others through bringing in a new leader who decides to change direction completely, in a direction incompatible with the company. The results are never good.

The difference between the two approaches is characterized by the slow, steady, methodical preperation inherent in the flywheel, as compared to the abrupt, radical, and often revolutionary, rather than evolutionary changes within the company.

Built to Last
The results from this book were obtained without regards to Collins’ earlier work, Built to Last, but when all was said and done, Good to Great is what has to happen before a company becomes Built to Last. Much of what is present in Good to Great was present during the creation by their founders of the Built to Last firms. Companies that have endured have a raison d’être beyond simply making money - they have distinguishing and unique characteristics, goals and ways of operating that go beyond a simple desire to make money.

These core values are preserved, while tactics change continuously to deal with an restless, tumultuous world that never stops.

The “Big Hairy Audacious Goal”, a concept introduced in Built to Last can be either good (as motivation, something to pursue), or bad (if it’s impossible or a bad fit). Good BHAGs are those formulated from a deep understanding, whereas bad ones come from brash recklessness without regard for the actual values and capabilities of the company.

Why greatness?
Because it’s not really that much harder to be great than good, and if you’re not motivated to greatness, perhaps you should consider doing something else where you are.

Notes
Interestingly, CEO salaries don’t seem to be a major factor in terms of their correlation with “good to great” companies.

Making money cannot selffish, would you pay 10K to a person who can help you to make 1million? If your answer is no, then your destiny is broke and poor. No one will help you then.

Move from E or S to B,
Business that able to keep generate capital, use the capital for investment in I.

#1 Skills an enterpurener is generate capital
If product good, business suck then reinvent the business.

Cash Flow Management

2009-05-13T20:31:00.005+08:00

Do you know how important is the cash flow management?

Let me tell you a case below,
I want to buy a piece of land 80,000 sq ft near KLCC with RM10millions offered from the landlord.
However, I know that if the above deal made, the landlord need to pay government with the income tax of RM650,000.

I told him I have a way to help him save the above tax. Will you be interested?
Sure thing. Right.

The condition is, I will buy it with RM15 millions instead of RM 10 millions but he need to sell me the piece of land with RM1 buck in order to work out. And I will only pay him the RM 15 million after 6 months.

He agreed. So I get the land with RM1 buck. He save the tax of RM650,000

I get the land and approach the top -well known tenant to offer them RM35/sq ft instead of market price of RM 70/sq ft. 50% discounted rental price with one condition the tenant need to sign contract with me with 20 years guaranteed rental payment. So happen it deal successfully.
80,000 sq ft x Rm 35 = RM 2.8million * 20 years = RM 56 millions

Later, I approach the banker to take up a loan of RM45millions. Do you think the banker will grant me the loan? The banker ask me about only 3 questions.

1. Do you have 45 million fixed deposit inside any bank?
2. Do you have business which generate millions buck profit?
3. Who is your father? (He thought that I might be a someone rich guy's son dare to ask for RM45 millions loan)

All the above I do not have and even do not have a rich dad.
I only have a contract with top-well known tenant fix guaranteed rental income for 20 years.
Yes, the banker very happy to loan me the RM 45 millions for 20 years payback period after looking at the contract.

I pay the RM15 millions to the landlord for the land.
I use the balance of RM 30 million to build the shopping complex together with the top-well known tenant. The tenant will lease the unit/ lot out for business.
I gain the profit of RM 11millions.

How much you think I pay to build a shopping complex? Yes, I only fork out RM 1 buck.
What am I doing here? I am create a strong cash flow in the next 20 years of my life.

Do you see the important of the cash flow above?

Now, what is cash? Cash is a fuel of the business/ family that enable it to continue survive in a healthy manner. A business might due to economic downturn lead to a short time of no-profit or sales but without cash the business will die straight, it apply the same to a family. A family which have a big car/ house and furniture but do not have cash will not continue.

Therefore, do you agree with me that the in-flow and out-flow of the cash need extra careful monitoring and management.

My wife teach me a lesson here, you need to always "have sense of urgency in cash flow". You need to keep chasing the in-flow and control your out-flow cautiously. She is talking about financial security of a family with me. It is the same to apply in any business. The aim is to speed up the in-flow and slow down the out-flow.

No matter how good the profit is, if you unable to pay the labor or supplier before receiving your payment from customer, your business will not able to deliver any product/ services at all.
By practising reasonable cash balance is require but not too much. The money can use for other investment tool to earn interest or more money.

Important key point here that people used to trap in cash flow
1. Poor in credit management, submit delivery order and invoice late
2. Poor control in overhead and spending

I am still at the beginner stage to learn about cash flow. Perhaps you can share your experience with me.

Online Business

2009-05-06T10:38:00.005+08:00

Yesterday, I attended a free seminar name Internet Marketing Coaching Program and it is an eye opener for me and seeing how an ordinary engineeer turn to multi-millionaire in 4 years time. Action lead to results, however action are taken based on our inner belief/value system.

In order to change the result, we first must change our belief/ value and take action on it.

You won't take action on something that your mind not allowed/ do not belief. Think about it.

Some important note to take home,
in the past history, there are 2 major innovated system have changed the conventional business model to a powerful yet fulfilling the business objectives.

1. Franchise
2. MLM

The enormous business outcome of above 2 systems are worthwhile for us to understand more the concept/ operation/ technically how it work. In today business arena, who have the fastest speed to capitalize the opportunity is the winner. As part of my personal learning, I need to spend sometime to do some homework & research on the business model.

Internet, another booster for business growth, more and more traditional businesses start to create their company website, publish their company product & services online, even politician also started in the blogging world.

From the statistic, the value of annual transaction done online approximately USD 200 billion. And the matter of fact is the figure is growing every year with 10 -15% growth in value.

Just imagine if you can earn 0.0001% of USD 200 billion, equivalent to RM 200K/ annual.
Don't you think is nice. But the question to most of the people out there is HOW.

Why online business?
1. Low set up cost - domain & hosting cost very minimal (low/ no risk)
2. Operate 24hrs day & night - it still operate while you are holiday or sleeping at night
3. Global market - able to reach anywhere/ part of the world
4. Passive income
5. Advertisement is cheap - no flyer, leaflet needed.
6. High profit margin - something can up to 100% margin
7. Work from home

What people go online?
1. Surf for free information, looking fro product specification
2. Compare pricing & product
3. Socialize - facebook, friendster & etc
4. Communicate tools/ email/ e-card
5. E- commence tools

If you have a website/ blog which suppose to generate you income, there are three important aspects for maximizing the income.

1. Product/ Service
2. Website
3. Targeted traffic

Examine the above in details to identify where went wrong and improve it before you give up on the online business - cash cow.

What most people do outside to create income online?
1. Website for direct sales/ generate targeted leads
2. Sell back end product/ services through e-mail
3. Build relationship with customer
4. Branding themselves or company

What you can do for online business?
1. Create own product/ services
2. Drop ship product
3. Recommend affiliated product
4. Sell advertisement space
5. Joint venture with like-minded businesses
6. Sell others people's product by partnership or reprint the rights.

What kind of website?
1. Branding site/ corporate image
2. Sales pages, selling product/ services
3. Squeeze page to capture database

Donald Kirkpatrick Model

2009-05-04T09:10:00.003+08:00

Majority of organization view training as a luxury. Apparently, training budget always is the first one to slash during economy downturn or appear in any cost savings project. Most top executives and company decision makers think that the contribution of training to company achievement is unable to measure or assess and no real figure to justify the expenses.

Due to insufficient evidence to proof on the benefits and think that a lot of training investment is wasted, it is not surprising that you can see the organization put distance away from training activities. However, most of us is well aware that training as an essential function necessary for the success of the organization.

Who should bridge the gap between organization & training provider?
A single individual e.g. company director, training department head, training provider, both parties can make positive move to protecting the training function and increase its actual value & most importantly align the training to the business/ organization goal.

To justify the training expenses, we need to talk about effectiveness of the training to the personnel development.

Before that, can someone tell me what is training?
Training is a process of acquiring new skills, knowledge, competencies for the purpose of increasing one’s productivity. In another word, training is helping others to make production changes.

Measuring the effectiveness of the training is required to access on pre-determined objectives.
Relevant evaluation/ metrics need to identify so that evaluation can be done.

I believe there are types of evaluation method out there to evaluate the training effectiveness whether introduced from training provider or develop in-house from human resources department or training department.

Here I want to share on Donald Kirkpatrick 4 level training evaluation model – Kirkpatrick Model.

1st Level: - Measure the reactions of training program participants
Crucial for the improvement of any training because the satisfaction level is determined here Determine the perceptions of participants toward the training they are joining.

2nd Level: - Training assessment method
The amount of learning gained by the participant is measured to gauge the absorption of new skills, competencies, or knowledge gained from training content. Pretest (test done before the training) and post test (test done after training) are conducted in order to measure learning.

3rd Level: - Transfer level
Participants change their behavior in response to what they learn from their training program. This level determined the most accurate assessment of the effectiveness.

4th Level: - Assessment of training according to how the participate contributes to business results.
The assessment result is the good indicator for the company decision makers to relate the overall organizational success to training programs.

There are some common methods used include post-training surveys, regular coaching, needs assessment, metric evaluation & interviews with trainers and training managers by many HR practitioners in improving their existing training & development programs.

This is a fairly challenge to ensure the accuracy of effectiveness is measured & convey the message/ benefit in dollar & cent/ ROI to convince top management/ key decision makers on the investment worthwhile for mutually benefit employees as well as employers. I think training provider have a collaborate role to play here as well and not only leave it to HR practitioners or organization training head to crack the head.

Trainers today are feeling increased pressure to prove whether instruction is worth its cost. And calculating and presenting results becomes tricky when, despite training, workers aren't fulfilling level 3 that applying what they've learned to their behavior.

Summary of Kirkpatrick Model,

1) Reaction of student
What they thought and felt about the training
2) Learning
The resulting increase in knowledge or capability
3) Behavior
Extent of behavior and capability improvement and implementation/application
4) Results
The effects on the business or environment resulting from the trainee's performance

Ordinary People Can be Millionaire Property Investors and Landlords

2009-04-27T12:08:00.002+08:00

Here is some important note I was able to take home from the seminar,

Any property can generate positive cash flow to your account is another source of income.
E.g. You own a unit of terrace house with rental income of RM 1,200/ month vs. your bank installment of RM 900/ month. This property provides you positive cash flow of RM 300/ month.

Why rich or super-rich people like to park their money they earned into property?
Always have value
Best collateral
Excellent leverage, pay 10% & take control of 100% (not own yet) – if you have RM 100,000 you can take control 10 houses with worth of 1 million in total.
Hedge against inflation
Growing population
Peace of mind & for future
Proven to work
You are in-control over the property

Where is the best in Malaysia if want to invest in?
KL – Property value increase 2.61times in 17 years equivalent to 5.8% pa.
Johor – Average 2.57% pa.
Bukit Tinggi Klang – 33% pa.
Klang Valley & South Johor property value is increasing faster than Malaysia National growth rate. The rule is buying the property in high population area or fastest population growth area.

Just imagine if your property able to locate the blue chip tenant – McDonalds, Citylink, Secret Recipe, Tai Thong, Kurnia and etc. But the question is how to get this group of tenant.

2 key income sources from property:
- Receive rental
- Capital appreciation

Common mistake most investor made was lack of risk management. You shall develop a risk management checklist to ensure you are protected from the potential loss.

Strategy outline: -
Residential property
Positive cash flow
10 months rental to service 12 months mortgage
Create alternative strategy fro property investment

Tips: -
Buy ready built
Buy with tenant
Buy with reputable developer
Check who is the end financing banks for the developer
Buy property with good feng sui

If rent,
1. Check the background of the tenant if possible previous landlords.

Some questions for you to think of before you choose property investment as your alternative source of income,
What to do if……

Wrong property
Rental loss
Cannot rent out
Cannot collect rental
Slow appreciation
Missed opportunity

Make sure you learn enough before you actually invest because the price of the mistake is sometime permanent damage.

Re-educate Myself

2009-04-27T12:05:00.001+08:00

Recently, I am addicted to attend any seminar which able to provide new information & re-educate and strengthen my existing understanding/ knowledge in certain topic of interest. Yes, I am enticed to any free seminar in the town as my primary target of search.
It is a right time for me to re-phase/ re-visit my objectives of attending seminar/ talks & etc.

Objectives:
To re-educate & explore myself to any relevant topic of interest in order to gain knowledge/ understanding/ tips, market trend & happenings to hope for broaden my horizon of view.
To make useful contracts & friends in the business arena & market.

At certain stage of life, we are no longer a blank sheet just like a young naive little boy/ girl. We have built our belief and habit overtime from our parents, school teacher, education system, religious book & etc. We tend to shut off our learning opportunity by saying “I know already!”. We shall let go our arrogance/ ego for a while to absorb new things in our life. The most difficult barrier is not we do not have chance to learn, is we unconsciously shut off ourselves.

Ice Climbing

2009-02-25T20:14:00.003+08:00

For your watching pleasure...

Pass The Buck - TaiChi

2009-02-25T19:48:00.004+08:00

The real meaning of the above phase – pass the responsibility on to someone else instead of doing yourself. Be careful, the above intention is totally not like delegation. Another suitable word use to replace pass the buck is “TaiChi”.

The word “TaiChi” has reminded me one of my ex-colleague, Master Shifu Mr. P. I respected him the most on his TaiChi KungFu. He able to demonstrate his expertise in whatever field, occasion, platform, meeting & etc without any face change and voice tone change. When the time you notice his KungFu, the responsibility already on your hand already. That’s the highest element in pass the buck martial art I think.

Have you ever passed the buck? Most people do it often, the question is why face the hassle yourself when you can simple pass the buck to someone else to deal with instead of you right? I think the chances are you have done that as well. It may not happen in other place, however, that’s very common in the workplace.

In order to survive in workplace, we need to know how & when to pass the buck as well as how & when to avoid/ reject the buck from others.

Well, before we discuss more on above survival skills. Let review where does this interesting phrase come from, huh? Let me search from the net to find out some history of the above phase.

Quote from [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/pass-the-buck.html]

Poker became very popular in America during the second half of the 19th century. Players were highly suspicious of cheating or any form of bias and there's considerable folklore depicting gunslingers in shoot-outs based on accusations of dirty dealing. In order to avoid unfairness the deal changed hands during sessions. The person who was next in line to deal would be given a marker. This was often a knife, and knives often had handles made of buck's horn - hence the marker becoming known as a buck. When the dealer's turn was done he 'passed the buck'. Silver dollars were later used as markers and this is probably the origin of the use of buck as a slang term for dollar.

I think we need strike for a balance here.

If you pass the buck too often, people will notice and will not help you in getting the results as needed, believe me no one hope people take advantage on himself/ herself. In a ways pass the buck too often showing your irresponsible & selfish character. People will start walk away from you. Of course, there are someone who equipped with skill can pass the buck easily with support data/ justification & etc.

If you do not know how to avoid then end up you are the one who overloaded with lots of responsibility. It is a complete suicidal event if you take all the buck. You end up overwhelming with deadline and pressure. Eventually, either you become crazy drain out and give up. People will see you as incompetent, naïve, not smart enough to handle the situation, emotional & etc. My friend, if today you have too many things on your plate which more than you can handle, that’s an alarm signal for you to examine right now. Are you always the easiest target for others to pass the buck? Mm… better do something now.

I noticed the intensity of pass the buck increases along with my career growth. As when we grow up, the world & issue around us become more complex and challenging. We not only need to solve from technical side, also big crunch are from people side.

Today, I received a buck which I am quite reluctant to take on. However, due to I am still at beginner level compared to those “old bird” in the workplace, my sluggish avoidance response have lead to taken up the buck back to my shoulder, to my team shoulder, to my department shoulder.

Warning! Pass the buck might slowly engulf you without notice if you not manage & balance it properly.

Do you sense the potential threat coming?

KLK Bhd Q1 Profit Plunges

2009-02-19T22:27:00.010+08:00

KLK Q1 profit plunges 77.4pc

(Source: Business Times, Feb 19th 2009)

Kuala Lumpur Kepong (KLK) Bhd (2445) said its first quarter net profit plunged 77.4 per cent due to weak results in its manufacturing business and the drop in value of its listed investments.

Net profit for the quarter to December 31 2008 was RM65.8 million versus RM291.1 million in the same period a year ago.

Revenue was 5.8 per cent higher at RM1.88 billion.

KLK, Malaysia's third biggest palm oil producer, said it had to write down RM160.3 million in book value of quoted investments, out of which RM142.2 million was due to its investment in Yule Catto & Co plc, a supplier of raw materials to synthetic glove makers.

It said the carrying value in that company had been reduced to RM76.2 million, equivalent to its market price of 55 pence per share as at December 31 2008.

KLK's plant in China, Taiko Palm-Oleo (Zhangjiagang) Co Ltd, suffered a loss of RM33.5 million primarily due to a one-off write-down of inventories and this had dragged down the overall results of the oleochemical division.

Its nutraceutical plant in Singapore, Davos Life Science Pte Ltd, continued to incur losses amounting to RM9.4 million, compared with the loss of RM6.7 million in the same quarter last year owing to poor sales.

"Earnings from retailing declined significantly by 52.3 per cent to RM29.1 million from RM61 million in the same quarter last year as a result of weak consumer demand caused by global economic recession especially in the US and the UK," it told Bursa Malaysia Bhd yesterday.

However, KLK said, not everything is in the red as the plantations sector's profit had improved 14.1 per cent to RM294.1 million in the period compared to the same quarter in 2007.

"Our oleochemical operations in Malaysia have also continued to perform well," it said.

KLK expects its plantation business to do reasonably well although profit is expected to fall below that of the preceding year.

"We expect the group's profit for the current financial year will be much lower than in 2008," it said.

Today morning, one of my worker approached me to seek approval for his motorcycle loan. He happened to ask me to comment on the company performance & situation at current world credit crunch crisis. He is planning to buy a ~ RM 150K terrace house situated near to factory.

I quickly use the calculator to start doing the liquidity ratio check with him. The figure seem comfortable to both of us. I started to share some information about lock in period, current market package with BLR 5.95, repayment period, loan application procedure & etc. Besides, I also advise him to think carefully before make such a long term move. Nobody can guaranteed or predict future with 100% accuracy. I just told him whatever I think evaluate from my level of understanding & knowledge to the company. Overall, personally I think KLK group is doing good instead compared to others industry due to it strong core plantation division.

As a department head, I think it was a great experience to share the joy and worries with my employee. Tomorrow, I will going to share the above news to him. Sometimes, we need to make the call based on the limited information at hand. Manage the process and take responsible on it. Good Luck!

Exit Strategy - Have you prepared?

2008-11-04T23:15:00.005+08:00

I have taken quite long for me to recover myself from mentality drained out these two weeks on work & personal life. I started to realize that what “rich dad poor dad” mentioned about RAT RACE have slowly eroded my entire life. Typical executive out there after graduate from university will go through the same experiences like me, landed at 1st job, brought a car, getting married, brought a house, 1st baby delivery, changing job, paying debt, paying credit card & daily expenses, looking for better pay’s job & quest for how to get rich/ early retirement & etc. The more money you earn, the more money you will spent, the more money you are strive on.

Emotion tend to control our mind when we are dealing with money, we start to frighten about losing job/ losing our paycheck. We start too greedy when we have earned more. The cycle of “Wake Up, Work Hard, Pay Debt, Sleep” repeat for 30 years…… pretty bad huh? This is life I presume. Are you feel the same?

Recently I came across a story; “A” company just closes the deal to sell the company to company “B”, a large holding company that owned multi-national business. Alice was a Head of Marketing, a position she had held for 10 years, during which time she had doubled the market share and profits. However, in totally surprise that the new owners didn’t want her to stay on. It was really very simple reason, they already had a Head, he was their guy, and they wanted him to run the combined operation. The new owner expects her to leave the company in six months.

She started to realized that life was about to change, she started to explore what to do next. Worst still that, she had never updated her resume for years, had not taken a call from headhunter, turned down lots of offer and stopped actively networking/ expose due to heavy workload and travel had taken most of her time. She was not prepared and she had not seen it coming.

If you were to lose your job tomorrow, how prepared would you be? Are you prepared to react quickly to major changes within your organization? Are you ready to walk out from your job just because the ethical/ value/ self-esteem being challenged?

You planned and pushed very hard everyday to make sure your division/ department/ team/ subordinate move with aim/ strategy-focus plan. You make sure planning for successful implementation included contingency & mitigation plan to safeguard the company interest/ bottom line.

However, we might be too comfort till not to spent any time thinking about where we should go next, what kind of work find fulfilling or are we prepared financially & emotionally to leave the company at any time. Nope, we didn’t do that planning. We always hope for long term/ loyalty/ comfort zone. It that too risky to heard about? Yes! We need exit strategy. It’s all about handling risks.

Albert Einstein said “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity." We need to take calculated risk in order to stimulate growth, we need to move forward by taking a chance whether it is a new position in the company or outside the company. And, most important, it will allow you to do what you think is necessary in the service of growth—both yours and your company's.

I just want you to be aware that things can change overnight, and that those changes may require you to reinvent yourself. No matter how long you've been with your current employer or how secure you feel, no job is permanent. You heard people saying the only constant in this world is “change”.

Don’t you think that we shall in control and take-charge on the path that we choose, instead of let others choose for you. Being in control to make our career decision that suit to our best interest. "What's the worst that can happen? I'm ready to leave if this doesn't work out as per planned." You will get more confident to take necessary risks for success.

Am I right?

A letter to my UPM - KPM junior

2008-10-20T17:19:00.005+08:00

Dear KPM Junior,

First and foremost, I would like to congratulate you that able to enrol into one of the prestige engineering courses in local university. Although not many people know what is Process & Food Engineering all about, however it didn't bother me much at this stage. In fact, career advancement is not solely depend on our level of education. Some others factor such as timing, relationship, effort, hard & soft skills, personal determination & etc will blend together for one to be success. Of course, education is still a primary & crucial requirement. You definitely need it for entry level to land your 1st job. No doubt that a student with better results compared to another have higher successful rate if both are interviewed at the same time/ occasion/ company/ position.

There are few questions always pop up in my mind while I was a student like you,

What is the different between food technology/ food study/process & food engineering? How the employer going to differentiate it? Is that true that we as KPM student need to compete with food tech student to get a job? Food tech is more well-known in market, how to promote our course then? Senior always mentioned to me that he only able to utilize about 10% of his university knowledge to the workplace, do you mean that what I learned in the university is a totally waste? So cruel. During that time, I was so proud about engineering. Engineering student is different to others faculty student, our exam was a tough one and all in subjective no multiple choices answer, we are the smarter group with brighter future. Doctor, lawyer then followed by engineer, not bad huh at 3rd position. By the way, how is the food industry out there?

I think perhaps you have more questions than above that spin around your head, may be not. So what, let it be and will see the path when times come, why worries. Absolutely, one approach is totally forget about the future and stop worrying, focus on present/ now to study hard in order to acquire the most out of this KPM engineering course. Believing that after the last exam paper only start to think about it. No objection, you can do that.

Let me paint you some picture of the above questions.

Food and process engineering (KPM) is more to chemical engineering not much on food chemistry.

KPM or Chemical Engineering (ChE) student learn about design & invent new processes, process integration with mass & energy balance principle, optimization & reaction study, chemical chain of reaction, liquid liquid extraction, adsorption, develop flow diagram, HAZOP study & etc. Both are process-driven engineering where KPM focus on food & biomass whereas ChE focus on chemical substances, petroleum-based & etc.

Food tech are more toward chemist/ research & development requirement who involve a lot of experiments & test, analysis of reaction, internal bonding formation, chemical reaction, generate hypothesis & etc. All is related to enhancement & improvement on food itself not much on the method of processing.

KPM student not only able to work in food industry as well as chemical engineering field. You need not compete to food tech since both syllabus are totally different. We have so many batches of student already landed in the market not only in food industry, we are everywhere. Our KPM graduate able to perform at any career platform. Do widen your search and extend beyond food industry, you can be success as well.

As I mentioned early, education is just a tip of iceberg. It is essential at entry level, another big part is very depending on how you manage it. It's just a beginning of the life-long learning journey. We need to be humble and always seek any opportunity to learn. What so proud as an engineer? As engineering graduate, we are nothing if we stop learning & growth. In Japan, thousand of technicians in an organization who dirty their hand everyday doing the troubleshooting job, they are all engineer.

10% knowledge utilization? someone told me before that he have 0% utilization. Again, it's only matters if your ultimate aim is to become professional engineer and engage in consultant & design firm. Yes, then your job must be relevant.

You shape your own future, formal education is just one of the tool to help you "learn how to learn".

Wish you have a bright future ahead.

I will become a millionaire, will you?

2008-10-20T11:29:00.002+08:00

“What is your career objective?”
“What you want to achieve in your personal life?”
“Where you see yourself after 5 years from now?”

Those are the questions I always like to ask during the interview and performance appraisal session. Most people unable to answer the question and do not have clear plan for their future undertakings.

Personally, I found out that most people do not set personal goals in their entire lives. Either they do not care or have not thought of doing this, or do not know how to do it. They just live day-by-day basis and take one thing at a time.

Wishing will not bring riches. But desiring riches started with a state of mind that becomes an obsession, then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches, backing those plans with persistence which does not recognize failure, will bring riches. --- Napoleon Hill

They will keep complaining about the promotion that went to someone else but never think about taking up a leadership course to improve themselves. Unsatisfied with current status is a good sign for improvement but the more important is they need to know where are the weaknesses to improve.

It means that we need to set meaningful goals in our life to control the direction of our future toward success, prosperity and happiness.

If you have such a plan to follow, the chances of success are greater. Government has 5-year economic plans, businesses has strategic planning, so why we can’t apply similar concept for our life? Ok. What should we do from here?

Start with examine your current status and what you have already accomplished in you life. Put down as many as you can think of.

Identify the goals that you want to achieve and then think about what need to do next in order to achieve the goals set. Tabulate the action plans into 5 years plan either on paper/ exercise book/ computer or etc.

Goals can be very wide from financial freedom to skills acquire, money savings target, industry expertise knowledge, relationship building, open your own business, avoid liabilities, higher education, training & etc..

Write down whatever comes across your mind that you want to achieve and you can always adjust or amend the plans as you get on. In a ways, we practice effective time management as well.

Put into your 5 years plan. Your 5 years action plan must align and helping you to achieve your ultimate goals. Example, acquired certified financial planner course in 2009 list in the 5 years plan which fulfill ultimate aim of owning financial consultancy firm.

Current Status
Ultimate Life Goals
5 Years Plan

Review it every 6 months to adjust your speed and deviation from the plan. As we proceed, there are lots of unexpected disappointment and surprise as well. Don’t worry, take out the plan and start do some reflection/ relax to motivate.

A goal is merely a statement or good intention without a deadline and effort to realize it. Plan it and work toward it with hard work & consistency.

How many 5 years we have in our life? This is a very powerful tool to enable you to become a millionaire intellectually and financially.

Observe around, you will find the outstanding person to set as benchmarking. For instance, director of a MNC company with age less than 35, own personal business with handsome profit, outstanding awards, gurus of management, investment & elder mentor who reached early retirement to enjoy life.

I am reviewing my next 5 years plan for 30 – 35. How about you?

Technical Skills OR Management Skills

2008-10-15T20:03:00.008+08:00

Let me ask you a question.
Technical skills & management skills, which one is more important?

Recently, I had an interview with a fresh graduate from local university who would like to resign from his current job as Production Engineer in one of the well-known company where he spent almost 6 months in.

He claimed that the main reason for him to search for new job is he is too much involving in production management and not really fully utilize his engineering knowledge gained from university.

His job as Production Engineer need to ensure the plant is achieving target productivity & quality. In addition, he need to coordinate & liaison with maintenance, electrical, QC, safety & etc to solve and improve day to day routine operational issue. On top of that, daily plant performance inspection, production report, maintaining ISO system, manpower arrangement & training also part of the requirement as production engineer.

When ask about what kind of job nature he is looking forward, he explained his career objective and obviously he is looking for a platform for him to further polish his technical skills which obtained from university. In view from the background of chemical engineering, engineering calculation & design was his main job aim.

Of course, there is no right or wrong to choose your career path & interest. I personally respect his decision and direction he wanted to embark in.

Okay, what is technical skills?
Yes, perhaps the reason of why we need to develop our technical skills,

Employer willing to pay higher to hire those in-demand technical skills sound people. Definitely you can leverage the wages/ pay. More value we can extract from the technical we know. You can better prevent problem to occur by intelligently maintain & upgrade the plant technology. Reduce our frustration by knowing why breakdown/ fail & how to improve it.

How about management skills?
If you aim to climb the corporate ladder, management skills is the must for you to master it.
You need to know how to manage people in order to bring in flying color results. As leader, you need to leading workplace teams/ committees, organize meeting and conferences, coaching & supervise your subordinate on performance, solving problem & etc. You are no longer work alone or bog down to a specific task on hand, you are responsible for your team success & failure.
You need to set standard and develop control & monitoring measure, maintaining system & etc.
All above need strong management skills such as communication, leadership, coaching, influencing, problem solving, planning, team building, interaction, push for limit & etc. We called "soft skills".

My previous HR mentor once share with me when I was a fresh graduate,
As freshee, spent 90% of your time in developing your technical skills and 10% on management skills. Reduce the time you spent in technical skills and increase more time to pick up management skills as when you grow up in your career. As senior engineer, 60% in technical & 40% in management. It depends on how fast you want to go?

In order to be a successful manager, you need to have very good technical skills as foundation. You do not have time to spent on technical anymore when you are sitting on the top of the hill. You are required to look at big picture and holistic view and get your people to bring the results.

The earlier you prepare yourself with management skills, the more comfortable & more successful you are when you are on the position where management skills that matter.

What do you think?

Managing Up?

2008-10-13T19:53:00.010+08:00

Today I am going to touch on the dynamics of management. For those who encountered difficulty with your superior do pay extra attention here.

I assume that nobody is really completely qualified to be a boss. In the corporate environment, if someone becomes a manager, a supervisor, divisional head, dead of department, it is because that person has demonstrated some important skills, knowledge & ability. However, it always hold true that most of the manager are lacks some qualities on effective leadership. Of course, none of us are perfect in this world.

The question raise if you are a subordinate and report to a boss (unless you are self-employed), "Does your manager need managing?" Yes! Most manager need managing. The sad thing is that only few staff/ subordinate are able to provide it.

What I am trying to say here is the meaning of "Managing Up". It means you need to provide support to help your superior/ boss be as effective as he or she needs to be. In turn, the strategy help you to be successful as well.

You need to start evaluate your boss's weak points. Everyone has them. Once you notice, managing up is means helping to compensate it for your boss. E.g. You boss may know people oriented side and have weaknesses on the technical. That's a chance for you to tap the missing link, trust me that you will get what you want, need and deserve it as well as your boss. Remember, we are here to proof our boss is right not another way round. Again, I am not teaching you or telling you to manipulate the relationship or take short cut out of it.

Gain the mutual success with your boss is the key here. Having that kind of influence can helps you get your job advance & task accomplished.

Some of you said I have a problematic boss who very difficult to deal with. If you really understand and manage him/ her, always standby to assist in whatever situation, constructive, positive and create effective relationship, you will be his/ her blue-eye. To be the most supportive staff to your boss's agenda, needs & advantages, you gain the professional trust & integrity and in return your request will also being supported from your boss.

Come on, get your gun loaded and always loyal and support your boss even he/she is a Mafia's boss. Strive to protect and die for him/ her.

Can you do it? I am still learning about it until today.

Did you see it coming? - PART 1/4

2008-10-12T23:45:00.000+08:00

Is your antenna sensitive enough to pick up any I-didn't-see-it-coming moments? Lots of people get caught into the trap without knowing what's going wrong. Just in sudden, you are out from the team/ company, you are facing hard time of being blindsided at any level of your career. Have you realized and learned?

Here are 4 guidelines for making smart business decisions which I learned from an article and examined through the real life experiences. All 4 are interconnected each others and you will find that either one will be more relevant than another at different stages of your career.

# 1: It's Always About the Money

All companies, whether public or private, for-profit or not-for-profit, multinational or local-owned family business exist to bring money in the door. This simple fact affects you.

Believe me, money impacts your salary, you resources required to invest in a project, hire new headcount, contract negotiation, facility chosen & etc. It dictates whether ultimately keeping one company continue function or ditch into bankruptcy.

For those who are in sales & marketing line, you are more easy to see how your performance is impacting the bottom line of the business. For those who are involve in others contribution may in technical or administrative, however, what these people do is important to the financial health of the operation. Profit/ Loss (P&L) is a mathematical/ accounting marker for a company financial performance and is determined from money-in vs. money-out.

Unit cost, selling price, profit of margin, bottom lines, cost savings project, return of investment, depreciation cost, labor cost, efficiency, opportunities cost, capital expenditure, logistic cost, training cost & etc are the fuel, lifeline, energy & the pulse of company as well as yourself as part of the game. Come on get used to this idea and learn how the flow of money works, who's involving & make earning or loss, how you fit into it... Come on guys, perhaps you need to pick up a book/ training/ seminar on "finance for non-finance manager". Always think "money matters".

Keep your eye on the money and never forget how important it is to you, your career, and the success of the company. In my experience, whenever anyone says, "It's not about the money," they really mean that it's all about the money................

Trainer As Profession

2008-10-07T23:42:00.005+08:00

I attended a Certified Professional Trainer preview at PJ. Here I summarize the important key points for those who interested to become a Trainer as profession.

MSI - Multiple source of Income
- Passive income e.g rental, loyalty & etc
- Passion income e.g career that you love & enjoy to do at the same time bring income, hobby & passion oriented.

Benchmark from HRDF, for average trainer income approximately RM3,500/day.
China recorded the highest paid of ~ RM7,000/ day.
China & Indonesia have highest growth potential due to human resource improvement is critical for business.

In the markets, 20% are really good & quality trainer however 80% are just so-called "entertainers"

Attributes of a Trainer?
1. Passion to share, self fulfilling activity
2. Teachable - to become a great teacher, you need to be a good student first
3. Determination - character

Five Keys - Successful Trainer
1. Be really really GOOD
2. Find a niche, choose to be different & expertise in subject matter
3. Measure & deliver results, Jack Phillip "How to measure training result", how to charge based on results, how to measure soft skills.
4. Start somewhere & then keep learning
5. Learn marketing, branding & packaging your product

As a trainer, never work alone. Need to leverage the risk by building networking.

The ultimate value of a Trainer
HELPING OTHERS TO MAKE PRODUCTIVE CHANGES!!

Training Competency,
You need to competent enough to carry out the specific training subject, e.g sales training must go with trainer work relevant experiences.

Training Infrastructure,
Freelance/ part time/ attachment to training company/ set up own training company & etc.

Training Opportunity,
Part time trainer with flexible hrs, competent trainer in organization, own home based training, contract with training providers & building business using training

Networking & collaboration is very important amongst trainers & develop contacts.
Are you interested to become a Trainer as profession?

Thank You Letter

2008-10-07T22:37:00.009+08:00

"Thank you" is related to emotion of appreciation. I would like to discuss here is the use of heart-based positive emotion technique to sustain/ influence sustainable states of appreciation through thank you letter.

Using the thank you letter and follow up letter after the job interview can be an effective way to gain more attention from the employer while enabling you to display a more professional approach to the job search.

The function & benefits of the thank you/ follow up letter are: -

1. To show positive emotion or appreciate that interviewer spend their precious moment with you on the interview session

2. To reinforce again that your skills/ ability/ knowledge (KSA) which able to tie them with the job requirement

3. To show your professional approach & sincere seriousness toward your career.

4. As an advertisement to remind the interviewer again to gain chance to stand in-front of all the candidate

Lots of people just forget about it or they procrastinate till it is too late and almost pointless already. Come on, take the opportunity to sell yourself.

Sending a thank you letter is as important as interview preparation & it is not easy to write as well. However, in these days of Internet you can find lots of template and example for free as guidance to write your own thank you letter.

It is important to take notes during the interview process to jot down the important key points delivered from interviewer. The notes can later assist you on the letter writing at the same time show to interviewer on your seriousness and attention to details. Unless you have a photographic memory otherwise do practise note taking. No harm.

Remember, to ask for business card from the each of the interviewer. Sent the letter to all of them separately. example, 2 different interviewers with 2 different thank you letters.

The effective timing to sent the thank you letter is not more than 24 hrs from the interview end.
Best timing is within 8 - 12 hrs after the interview end while interviewer still fresh in mind. If you want to keep the ball rolling make sure you do not loose the moving momentum.

Always start the letter with the 1st paragraph of official appreciation & how you enjoy the interview. Make it real & practical comment on people, environment, future prospect, learning opportunity & etc.

Followed by 2nd paragraph with interviewer strong remarks on certain job requirement. Polish again by matching the skills you can contribute to, relate it again to your experience. Discuss a particular aspect of the job that you find appealing to you.

Last but not least, to reiterate your interest to the job again. You must shown that you love to work in this company. Show your enthusiasm & positive looking forward for the hiring outcome.

Again, the best thank you letter format is come from your sincere heart. No artificial feeling or emotion build in. If you skip the letter, perhaps you do not want the job either caused you do not care.

As interviewer, personally I will review again on the candidate suitability when I received a thank you letter. 2nd interview opportunity is granted normally if hiring decision was unclear. It always is a plus point to your interview session.

Thank you letter is just one of the tool that can enhance your hiring probability & chances. No guaranteed. To win the interview, there are still a lot of factor which interviewer is looking forward from you.

Treat yourself as "Product" and sell it to your potential employer.
Why employer must buy you? Think about it.

Success

2008-10-06T17:59:00.009+08:00

Let's do some self-reflection on the below several questions,

To be honest & open to yourself,

1. What is the meaning of success to you? What is success to you personally?

2. Are you far apart of your success path?

3. What have been done & going to do to climb the ladder to the top?

4. Are you satisfy with your current achievement/ status?

Recently thought about these questions and couldn't’t quite come up with an adequate answer on my own.

How about you?

Isn't somebody who has made it to the CEO position of a Fortune 500 company truly successful? I do not know. What do you think?

The meaning of success comes in many forms, and many definitions. It depends on what you are searching for in life, and searching for in business. It really depends on the perspective of life you have. Of course there must be many levels to success.

At one level you must overcome your own personal desire/ entice/ demons. e.g laziness. The next level is when to try to prove yourself to the world. You need to compete, you win and you grow in power, riches and confidence. However, success not only measure from materialistic point of view only.

Success is about using your power, position and all your resources to make a positive difference in this world, to leave a positive legacy & contribution behind.

Do you agree?

Strategy-focused Workforce

2008-10-01T00:58:00.004+08:00

I firmly acknowledged that human capital is a source of value creation to a company, indeed is a company asset in today's knowledge-based economy.

HR are expected to lead its development, so-called natural custodians/ owner of human capital development. However, most organizations lack of strategic planning process to link the human capital to the organization strategy, inconsistent way to measure, track & benchmark the ROI (return of investment) of human capital.

As part of the organization/ management who have subordinate reporting to you, development of the people are inevitable for success. KPI-driven or Balanced Score Card (BSC) system are the tools that commonly use to create strategy-focused workforce.

The future of the HR function shall very interesting & crucial for company to better align HR strategy with business strategy. HR function have transformed into business partner on human capital support which aligned the organization manpower to the strategic management system. Normally, HR will lead or champion the whole process.

The Balanced Scorecard offers a framework to manage and measure human capital and provides an integrated strategic planning process for HR. It was proven in lots of company out there benefited from e.g. increase customer satisfaction.

Beside their basic function of payroll, employee welfare, training & development & etc, it is clear that human capital development is another priority on top of above. This positive developments shall emphasize on & explore to create strategy-focused workforce.

No doubt, human capital development is a very wide topic & no-boundary across the nation/ community/ organization & family. I am no means to offend any HR expertize out there, just to share some thought and thinking to learn more in-dept to understanding on it impact/ implication to the organization building.

Free Book: "The Unwritten Laws of Business"

2008-09-17T21:51:00.002+08:00

One of my favorite things to do is to roam through MPH/ POPULAR/ Bookstore, pick up interesting books and flip through them taking notes.
I like to read book and article during my spare time to improve my vocabulary at the same time expand my view of horizon in this world. It was the most worthwhile investment I can think of.

In order to ensure our learning curve always steep enough, we need to made commitment to listen to those who are there to lead. We all need coaches, people with a bit more experience, people who can see past the forest. Not only should we listen to them we should be very thankful that they are part of our lives. If you do not have habit to read book/ article, start now. Believe me, you will get a lot of insight/ ideas/ advice from the author. Your cognitive thinking style will change to be more perceptive, open for new things and mature as an adult. My parents always told me, "If you do not quest for improving, one day you will be forgotten or past tense."

Recently my boss shared one of the book was called "The Unwritten Laws of Business" with his subordinate. I really appreciate this kind of good wills to share the good things around.

I am thinking to give away this book as free token to you for encourage the culture of sharing and book reading. I will select one of the best comment I get in my blog to give away the book. The winner will announce in my blog once I received 40 comments/ opinions. Hope to see the great participation rate.

10 Most Frequently Asked Interview Questions

2008-09-15T21:44:00.004+08:00

Always prepare the answer prior you go for the interview,

I will illustrate the reason behind why these questions being asked & advice on how to strategies your answer.

The person who represent employer to interview refer as "Interviewer".
The potential candidate that looking for job refer as "Interviewee".

1. Tell me about yourself
Not all the interviewer are well-prepared before step into interview session in view of their busy & panic schedule everyday. Normally, this question being asked by interviewer to buy some extra time to quickly recall or browse through your resume. However, do not come to a conclusion that all interviewer are not prepared. You can really differentiate & notice that by observing the interviewer response during answering the question. This question is the open-ended question which required long explanation & elaboration. Practice this one because it falls into that important first three minutes when many interviewers make their decision about you as a potential candidate. Focus your answer on business not personal examples unless being asked for. Give the interviewer a precise outline of your business experience and skills, no longer than two minutes.

2. Why did you leave your last job? (Why you want to change job?)
Interviewer want to know the real reason what have made you come so far for interview. Based on the reason, interviewer would like to find out how's your decision making processes. Remember to tell the true reason/ truth positively, don't even think about manipulate the answer. Downsizing, merger, job eliminated due to restructuring or any inevitable reason as victim of circumstances. You have no other choice beside looking for job. Do emphasize again that you are looking for long term career even in your previous or prospect employer. If you want to talk about disagreement with management, style of boss, new boss brought in his/her own people, need to broaden experience & etc, do make sure that you are not critic/ bad-mouthed about your previous employer. You need to explain in diplomatic way which strike balance in between.

3. What are your strengths & weaknesses?
Interviewer want to match your strengths with the job requirement. Make sure you back with evidence/ proof of demonstration of such strength. Do some literature research or ask around what is the plus-point requirement of being a Chemist for instance. Here is your opportunity to score points, especially for the things that are difficult to indicate on a resume alone. List your real strengths, not the superficial or vague statement. Example, "I have the capability to identify the skills and talents of my staff thus utilize those skills effectively in order to achieve the objectives of the company. Let me quote an example when I was a team leader in Project A ........". For the weaknesses, do not attempt to switch negative to positive remarks. Never admit a significant weakness such like that "I get impatient with procrastinators because I always get the job done on time". Believe me, interviewer know the trick very well. Just show your honesty to tell your weakness & always back up with your action plan to overcome it. The most important sometime is the interviewer value the people who know their weaknesses well and always seek ways to improve it from positive perspective. Last but not least, do not answer that you hardly have any weaknesses. Nobody in this world is perfect.

4. Where do you see yourself in 5 years time from now?
The type of question is to help the interviewer to gauge the interviewee on his/her driver factor for success. Interviewer believe if oneself have long term or short term goal tend to have more chance to do go work & accomplish more. You might not need to be very ambitious, somehow, you need to show the interviewer on your step by step plan. Not necessarily achievement on position only. For instance, you can break to two with short term plan (3-5 years) & long term plan (5- 10 years). "In 5 years time I see myself as a departmental head in QC with well-balanced management & technical skills to lead my team to achieve company key indicators as well as bring impact to the bottom line of the business. During this 5 years, I need to pick up management skills such as leadership, influencing, time management, quality of work & etc. In term of technical skills, I would like to master the machine operation function, equipment troubleshooting, audit, customer complaint handling & etc." Your answer of what you want to be and support with what knowledge/ skills/ ability you going to pick up in order for you to achieve that. Remember, you only able to shoot the right requirement if you understand the job requirement well. Ask around with your senior/ parents/ friends who have the experiences in company to find out more. Always look for few advice.

5. What is your career objective?
Career objective always refer to what is the career means to you personally & professionally. How does the career objective drive or motivate you. Career objective should be very missionary, visionary, balanced between work-life & clear. "My career objective is to acquire as much as possible knowledge towards greater person to contribute my effort to organization, company, society, community & country."

6. Why you think that you are suitable for this job?
Interviewer want to find out how you able to match your strength/ skills to the requirement of the job. If you not sure about the job requirement, you can ask the interviewer to clarify before you answer the above question. Think about what special traits/ benefit which make you outstanding compared to others candidate. Normally, for 1 open vacancy there are tons of resume for short-listed, say the interviewer meet 10 person and to select 1 only. You must inform/ show the interviewer you are special & outstanding compared to another 9. Work hard on the good attitude you can bring to company. Attitude is most important for the interviewer not how good you know sometime.

7. Tell me how far you know about our company? (Interviewer's company).
Interviewer would like to find out how sincere you are toward this job. Not much of how much you know, but more on what effort you have put in to know the company/ job. Interviewer believe the person have strong interest in the job/ company only he/she will find related information of it. Show to the interviewer you are interested in the position by quote latest news/ company portfolio/ mission & vision & etc. Special tip to you, when you step into the company lobby or waiting room, instead of reading your resume do look around on the material hanging on the wall & environment setup. Sometimes these are the inner company value/ culture which you can pick up immediately with your observation. Interviewer will impress on your observation.

8. What salary are you looking for?
Interviewer will try to gauge how much you think you worth for. And it is a tools for future salary negotiation. If you are in 1st interview, do not shown that you are eager for salary negotiation. Leave this to the final session to discuss only when employer & you are willing to offer & accept the job. Do not give an impression that you are only care for money. Advice for fresh graduate, as long as it almost about market rate do accept it. You should evaluate the job/ company on what kind of development the company can provide you. Will this job provide you a platform to learn? "May I know what is the salary range for this position?" you can asked if the situation permit you to do so. "Company A is a well established & well known in the market, I believe that company can provide a competitive package to the suitable candidate". "I would like to evaluate the whole package instead of salary only, such as EPF, training opportunity, yearly appraisal average increment, chance of promotion, medical benefit & others." Stress on package always and do not reveal your intent salary until last minutes. " "It is too early for me to judge on the salary now, I would like to find out more" then followed by clarification questions.

9. What is the biggest achievement in your life?
Associate the achievement with the job requirement, e.g. analytical skills require in Engineer position, your achievement must able to show the quality of analytical skills. Elaborate your achievement with key leanings and improvement step. Interviewer think that person who are not satisfy with his/her performance will always seek for room to improve.

10. Do you have any questions to ask? (to clarify?)
Make sure you prepare the questions list. Rules of thumb, 3 -5 questions will do. "What is the company plan for the near future?" "What is the company working culture?" "What are the challenges of the position?" "Was this a new create vacancy or people left the company? May I know why people left the company?" "What is the key initiatives that company are working on to ensure profit making?" Remember to ask questions related to job & the company not the benefit that the company can provide.

Value Ladder

2008-09-14T22:57:00.003+08:00

Climbing the "Value Ladder" for all the university graduate,

The very 1st question that all the student/ graduate need to ask themselves is
What do you want to be?

To continue successful in this increasingly competitive working environment, all the graduate need to equip themselves with right attitude, knowledge, skills & ability. Graduate need to ensure that you are improving in a consistent way and always must strive to climb the value ladder with your employer and become vital part of top performer who contribute to success.

The Value Ladder start from foundation, 1st level, 2nd level, 3 rd level & 4th level.

Foundation
- Deliver necessity competency that meets requirement.

1st Level
- Deliver good quality (effectiveness & efficiency) of work which contribute to task accomplishment.

2nd Level
- Provide good management services & support to subordinate or interdepartmental relationship

3rd Level
- Contribute to Company Business/ Departmental Strategy or issue.

4th Level
- Contribute to the whole organization/ community/ industry

The value increase cumulatively from foundation to highest level. Each level required different skills set & competency to excel. Upon climbing the value ladder we add extra bonus on your career portfolio, for instance as Executive at foundation whereas as Senior Director at 4th Level.

Example,
Fresh graduate enrol in a multinational company as project engineer
Level - Foundation
What are the require competency/ skills set to become a project engineer?
Pick up & start develop the necessity requirement once being identified prior graduation.
Opportunity never knocks twice at any man's door, opportunity knocks for people who are well-prepared.

The rules of thumb for career advancement is "always prepared for next level".

Fixed Income Vs. Variable Income

2008-09-13T15:58:00.003+08:00

I have a habit to browse through Internet searching for any latest market business news on the company/ industry especially related to present employer.

"Net profit for the quarter to June 30 2008 jumped 66 per cent to RM245.36 million while revenue was up 50 per cent at RM2.03 billion"

"Plantations profit was significantly higher due to strong palm oil prices and higher fresh fruit bunch yield. Its manufacturing division continued to perform well."

Hooray! If the positive outlooks above were shared with anyone who worked in this respective company, I believe the first remarks ever to make "The year end bonus shall be great!".

Although we know that the most happiest people is the owner of the company, however, we as fixed income worker really hope that the owner will reward us with big money in the year end. The employee who have direct contribution to the bottom line & profit is hoping for big leap in salary adjustment or promotion.

Fixed income here refer to stable/ constant monthly salary/ wages from your employer paid to you which exchange your time spent to the company activities/ issue/ target. The salary scale is based on years of experiences & education background. You do not have the definite power to control it. Of course, if you are the one who always deliver outstanding performance, not need to mentioned that money will definitely chase after you. The question is how many outstanding workers in a company? 1, 2, or 3? Are you in the statistic/ pool of performer?

What I trying to say here is the fixed income group are the people who have steady income per month without any surprise to expect from. The only opportunity to alter the income in this group merely depending on how much of the year end bonus payout, salary adjustment & chance of promotion. The rest is quite fixed in a sense. And the 3 comes only with your work performance. If you are in this group which thinking to earn more & want stable life, you better work out a competitive strategy/ plan on how to let your performance speak. Work excellent is the key to unlock the potential of fixed income group.

Whereas variable income group, I think self employment is one of the example that unlock earning power, you work hard and you get the rewards all to yourself/ company only. There is no superior or bosses raking in the fruitful labour/ effort/ energy you put in. There is no fixed income correlate with the amount time that you spent, you even can have flexible working & relax time. However, you really have to work very hard to see any return or otherwise will happen.

Sales incentive payout to the salesman depend mostly on how was the sales performance in terms of volume and revenue. The amount is different for every month/ quarter/ yearly. I shall consider it as one of the example for variable income group as well. The payout is proportionate to the effort you put in to bring in sales.

Come on, that's your choice ultimately.

Fixed Income
- Hassle free/ use time to exchange money/ reactive influence on the income scale/ stable & consistent/ controlled work time need to clock in out as designate timing/ secure & low-risk.
- Earning power purely depend on individual capability to acquire how much of "year end bonus/ increment and promotion."

Variable Income
- Use effort to exchange money and normally fair & proportionate/ active influence on the income scale/ up & down/ flexible work time/ insecure & high risk.
- Earning power is unpredictable and have higher potential due to no limit cap.

Whatever you decide, be absolutely positive you are making the right choice for you and your family, discuss it with them as they will play a vital part in your success, work hard and retirement may come sooner than you think.

A Journey of Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step

2008-09-12T22:45:00.002+08:00

I have successfully conducted my very first time of "Full Day" group training program which comprises of 17 people from various department QC 3, E&I 3, Logistic 2 & Production 9. Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is my most favorite program amongst all the training courses I attended in the past 6 years of my working life. Relly fortunate & appreciate that this program was introduced to me when I was an fresh graduate. It played an important & crucial roles in my personal life improvement & career advancement.

The course have provided me a lens to examine my own personality as well as others. In addition, it offered an affirmative ways to look at myself and needed area of improvement. The individual benefit is far more than I can articulate/ explain here.

Quoted from Lao Tzu statement “True Power -- Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

Evaluate from typology or physcometric, the most common used in the market are MBTI which examine on personality based on 4 dimension, DISC observing in different situation using clue/ indicator to gauge on behaviour & Whole Brain Dominant Instrument HBDI working on cognitive function profile. I highly recommend you to learn & master at least one from the above three.

Human capital development/ education & training/ coaching & consulting are the areas which always interested me & coincidental it match to my personality profile of INFP. This single step, in a ways have provide me an confirmation & confident to what I really want in my life. In this early stage, experience & exposure to multi aspects will further enhance on my knowledge, skills, ability (KSA) bank. I believe that this is a learning curve as I quest for long time & looking forward to embark in this interesting profession soon.

Do you think that interval progress evaluation can help oneself to identify areas which improvement needed. Remember, we need to always challenge our self to ensure our learning curve is steep enough.

Area of Improvement:-

1. Time Control - Bit nervous on the program might overrun or under utilize from the schedule duration. I was checking on the time too often and it indirectly disturb my thought on the topic and the audience/ trainee might have perception of the trainer was not well planned & organized.

2. Flow Of Information - Jumping from one topic to another, repeated the same point, preparation on the information flow insufficient. Audience/ trainee might confused and need to re-arrange the information as part of puzzle.

3. Energy Drained - Feel tired physically especially leg pain due to long duration standing, exhausted at throat due to long hour talk.

4. Response to the Group work/ Presentation/ Case study - Inattentive to the details of discussion or presentation from the trainee. Sometime unable to use trainee response to provide feedback.

5. Training Aid - Poor image on video clip (low resolution) and sound/ voice not clear. No flip chart paper facility.

I am looking forward for my next "Full Day" training scheduled on 19th Sept. This time I will deliver my best.

Survival of the Company Culture

2008-09-10T09:27:00.002+08:00

Working in local company which required adapting to the working culture always is the most challenging part to care of, especially when you have worked with multinational company experience before.

Here I illustrate one of the major different between the above two organization regardless of the company size/ profit/ share price & etc.

Multinational (M) Vs Local Company (L)

Controlling & Decision Making
M: You have exact or full-fledged accountability and responsibility come with your position hold in the company. What is the meaning of full-fledged? For instance, assume that you are the departmental head. You are required to exercise the full control & monitoring on decision, strategy, action, plan & etc which directly benefit to the department. Company hired you because of your capability & competency well-suited to the respective position. Management put most trust on your work as long as your performance are aligned with company mission & vision. In a nutshell, you are a "real/ true" manager. Your are the person who is trusted to empower the right job to the right person. You are more free hand to carry out your task as long as it fulfil the budget, timeline, ethical code of the company.

L: You hold the position where both of your hand is tie. Almost every single thing which you want to do must refer/ consult your top management. Normally, the top management here is referring to few key decision maker only. I can bet you will in big trouble if you never consult them prior. "Consult" might not a right word here, i think "follow" is more appropriate here. Some friends share their though with me that even up to buying a pen also need to go through top management. These people able to bring your career high far to the sky and also can make you drop to the deepest drain simply depend on how they like you. Sometime performance might not so important, in opposite, loyalty & seniority was putting heavier weight. And all the employee or your subordinate aware that the controlling power is on these few key management staff and not anyone in the organization. In a ways, middle executive/ management will have tough time to deal with this unique situation.

Key Learning

Local Company
1. You need to identify fast who is the key decision maker, have the full influencing power on oneself promotion, salary increment, money spending & etc.

2. You need to always observe around the hidden agenda behind the top management to avoid step into a trap/ become victimize of circumstances.

3. You need to learn how to ensure the key decision maker are satisfy on yourself as an individual not much on your work.

4. You need to identify the person who are very close to the key management & allies with them. Normally they have the information faster than anyone in the organization. Their 1 sentence remarks is better than any 10 sentences remarks. Perhaps, you can spotted them always walk beside with the key management. They involve in most of the important meeting although sometimes the issue was not related as well.

5. You need to learn how to heal your wound from time to time, normally you are required to take all the blame when something wrong.

6. You need to learn how to let go your personal value sometimes. Fairness, integrity, honesty sometimes being manipulate to get thing done.

7. You need to always make sure the key management is well-informed. If possible, get them approve all your action before doing.

8. Well prepared & secure any opportunity to present yourself when meet with key management

9. Show undoubted loyalty to the company. Do not reveal anything on job unsatisfactory/ looking for job/ complaint about company.

10. Learn to convince them on company constraint when deal with your subordinate.

11. ................................
12...............................

Although the above seem like negatively presented, however it is the most realistic approach in order to survive and success in this kind of environment.

We need to treat it as part of our learning curve as well. Extract the positive essence always.
Nevertheless that local company can be very successful whereas multinational can go bankrupt as well & vice versa happened in the world.

Let's be a strong & mindful "culture adapter" in any different environment, any place, any time & any position.