Did Your Parents Praise You?

Sub-Title: The Power of Feedback!

In an earlier posting I wrote about “Who Should I Be.”  That article outlined a process of thinking, planning and executing your career aspirations.  Now, I like to talk about how I got to know myself better.   For me, an effective way to get to know me better is through good feedback.  Unfortunately, getting good feedback is difficult.  There is a tendency for the people I know not to give me the “real thing.”  Their feedbacks are mostly very general and tended to be statements that didn’t hurt me.  I, too, had the same difficulty of giving accurate feedback to others.

Culturally or maybe by superstitious practices, Chinese parents in particular do not praise the children. Some even give their children nicknames after animals.  There is Ah Kow (dog), Ah Too (pig), or Ah Goo (cow).  This is to ensure that the bad spirits will mistake them for the animals and not harm the children.  When others praise their kids, the praises are quickly dismissed.  The parents may be proud of their children but they will not say it out.  It becomes very difficult to know if your parents are proud of you.  I learn to identify certain behaviors of my parents that indicated good and not so good feedback.  My mother cooking my favorite dish when I visited her could be positive feedback.  Then it could just be love.  Mom doesn’t have to be proud of me to love me.  Her love is unconditional.

Great Speech! I am so proud of you.

Getting accurate feedback at work is just as difficult.  It is our tendency not to hurt another person’s feeling.  So feedbacks are softened with non-specific statements.  I know that those bitter “pills” will make me better in the future.  Unfortunately many of us are not good at giving effective feedback.  So should I disregard them even when they are non-specific?  Of course not!  I learn to ask questions to clarify them and to try to understand what the person really meant.  My questions are to clarify my behaviors or actions – what did I do on that situation and whether it positively affected them.

There are also tools and instruments that can provide information about one's behaviors, characteristics and traits.  These instruments help me understand my tendencies, my motivation and what “turns me” on.  They are not a one-time snapshot of me but more so, given a particular situation, how would I act or react.  It is interesting to complete these assessments and to see how well one correlates to the findings.  I have used a number of instruments.  Some are quite specific while others generally describe my characteristics.  I have used Myers-Brigg’s Type Indicator (MBTI), StrengthsFinder from Gallup, Caliper Profile from Caliper, Life Style Inventory (LSI) from Human Synergistics and others.  Whatever the instruments used are, they will be useful if it can be interpreted well, plans made and actions taken to improve oneself.  So to know more about your inner self, get yourself profiled with an instrument that is validated.  Get a knowledgeable person to interpret the findings.  Use the results to develop a plan to become better.  Then constantly ask for feedback to understand the effect your actions have on people and results.

Despite growing up in a culture that does not give good feedback, I have learned to “find” myself.  I get effective feedback by asking clarifying questions and using the information to continue to improve myself.   Remember that a good feedback will contain 3 important elements.  These are the situation that necessitates actions, the actions you took and the impact or result of those actions.  When receiving feedback or giving feedback make sure those three elements are there.  I wish you well in your endeavor to give and get good feedbacks.

I Goofed You Shouldn’t

Sub-Title: Your Network is your Networth.

When I was the head of training, I had developed a good external professional network.  Each week I would get a call from them asking me if I could speak or present at their workshop or conference.  With each request I became increasingly arrogant with the value to my network.  If I agreed to the speaking requests, I could have one each week.  So I began to be very selective.  Not only was I sought after, but also I could call on my network to seek an opinion or to get help.  I had a very good network – or so I thought.

My career responsibility increased when I became a senior HR executive. With each passing moment I got more immersed in my work dealing with the internal issues of the organization and region I was responsible for.  Alas! I started neglecting my network.  I didn’t contact them as much and likewise they didn’t contact me too. Being a strategic HR partner took a heavy toll of my time.  In any case, I told myself that I have a good network.  Even when there is much lesser contact, I pride myself that I could refresh it when needed.

Over time I lost contact with many of my external network.  I made a major mistake of neglecting my network and I didn’t figure this step in planning for my next lap.  I realized my folly too late as I have already left the corporate world and into my next journey.  Letters and emails sent to the addresses I had were returned.  It was a very frightening time for me.

I spend the greater part of the first year of my active retirement re-establishing my contacts.  I am fortunate that I had a few people I could still call on.  They helped me re-connect with those that I was looking for.  I learned about on-line professional networks like LinkedIn and Plaxo.  I joined these and started rebuilding and re-establishing my network.  I wasn’t an easy task.  I had planned to be coaching and facilitating workshops during this time instead of rebuilding my network.  

After a year of rebuilding the network, my coaching and facilitating activities increased.  Now I can say that my network is my NETWORTH.  They have kept me active with challenging assignments.  I am so thankful for them.  Today, I have added another goal to my other three.  (See previous article, “Planning My Next Lap”).  My goal is to have a minimum of one contact – be it an email, a phone call or a text message – to every member of my network each year.  I am glad to say that I have achieved it and will continue to work on improving it every year.  Right now, I am averaging 1.5 contacts per person per year.

I goofed and you shouldn’t!  Never neglect your network.  You could just send them your personalize New Year greeting not just those forwarded ones.  Personalized messages, no matter how simple, are more sincere.  It shows that you have taken the time to craft a message to connect with them.  When time comes to seek help from your network, they will be there for you.  I know that my network came through for me.  I am blessed and grateful to have such wonderful people in my network!

Planning My Next Lap

A reason for writing these articles is that it is meeting one of my goals set out for this phase of my life.  I started thinking and planning for it some 8 years ago and 2 years before I went into active retirement.  I thought it was as simple as practicing what I have learned.  First list what you want to achieve, then analyzed where you are at and finally chart out how you want to reach your goal.  I turned on my computer and tried listing.  I struggled with what I wanted to achieve.  There were so many things and it was all over.  After some time, I did the next best thing.  I listed what I didn’t want.

I didn’t want be just playing a game or traveling or enjoying a hobby.  I wanted more than that.  I wanted activities that are intellectually challenging.  I wanted to keep my mind active.  I read an article long ago that scared me into action.  In the article it stated that an idle mind is a devil’s workshop and the devil is Alzheimer.  I had personally experienced a loved one going through it and I wanted to delay or prevent this situation for as long as I can.

In 2003, I started plotting the NEXT LAP of my journey. The people who touched my life have taught me a lot.  I knew that I could rely on their wisdom.   So, after much conversations and deep thinking, I finally identified 3 things I wanted.

1. Firstly, I wanted to continue to do what I did well in my career.  I was told by my managers, peers and staffs that I am good at coaching and developing individuals.  My 32 years of work experiences and targeted trainings have given me the skills to help individuals, who want to, move to a better position.  
2. The second area is to have a more integrated life.  This is not the elusive work-life balance.  It is not taking time away from one activity to giving it to another.  For me, it is about integrating my own life, my family life, my social life and my community life.  My activities should be integrated as much as possible.  For example, how do I involve my family in my social activities or how do I involve my work in my community activities?
3. Finally, share my experiences by writing a book.  I thought that I had enough stories from my life’s challenges to fill a book.

In some future stories, I shall write about how I did in each of them.  Since this article is about planning for my Next Lap, I will focus on this.

When I started this plan, I was still working in a corporation.  If I wanted to leave the organization in a good state, I had to ensure that there is a smooth transition.  It meant identifying activities for my functions and what I needed to do for the transition.  I made sure that I included developmental activities for me.  The chart showed a segment of the roadmap I created for my role transition.  I listed all my responsibilities down a column and drew out a time line for 2004, 2005 and Retirement Phase.  I then identified the actions needed for each functional area and the amount of time required.  Since this is a 3-year roadmap, I broke each year into quarters.  You may not be able to read the details on the chart but I am sure you understand the concept.  The dark green blocks were firm activities or plans.  Those shaded yellow were being worked on or negotiated upon.  This roadmap gave all parties involved a clear idea of my transitional plan.  I used this roadmap for my career conversations with my managers, mentors and friends.  After each conversation, some of the actions were modified and all parties concerned were informed of the changes.

This method can be used not only for planning retirement activities but also for any career and role transition.

• I started with what I like to do in 2 years from now.  Well it was more like what I didn’t like to do.  I chose 2 years as I felt I had sufficient clarity to plan specific activities.  One year is too short for me to take the necessary actions for change.   You should choose a time range that you feel comfortable with to enact the change and transition.
• Next I reviewed my strengths, skills and weakness to beginning charting my activities required for the plan and the transition.
• Then I adjusted the length of time required for each activity.
• Finally, I began my career conversations.  Talk to people that you trust will give you good inputs – as many as you can.  They may be your family, your mentors, the people that you work with and others.  You will know that you have a solid plan when the time comes.  If you don’t, so what?  Plans shouldn’t be locked in concrete.  It should be flexible enough to change with conditions and time.

Although it seemed simple, there were quite a bit of work.  The most important input to the plan is the conversations I had with a number of people.  I was candid in explaining to them what I didn’t want and wanted.  I asked them for their insights and the feedback on both the feasibility and the “feel good” factor.  Usually in such conversations, more questions were raised than answered.  The additional questions gave me new insights whether I could find the answers.

So start your planning your NEXT LAP now.  Talk about your plans frequently.  Be prepared to change them even after you feel you have the best plan.  The only constant is change.  With each change you will need to modify your plan.  Finally, enjoy the process!

Who Should I Be?

The articles I have posted appeared to be a random selection of my life stories.  I hope that each story has helped you with some ideas or another option on how you can deal with your situation.  I know our situations are never identical but as long as the stories help being a catalyst to an action, I am delighted.

You may have noticed that each article has labels.  There is a structure to these labels.  The website arranges the labels in alphabetical order, but upon rearranging them, the labels look like this

• Knowing Yourself
• Aspiration
• Career Planning
• Managing Yourself
• Career Conversations
• Managing Others

When I started working, I had not figured these out.  I now have the hindsight and hopefully others can benefit from it.  Throughout my journey and until now, I have had the blessing and fortune of meeting people whom I could reach out to for help.  To these people I am thankful.  Many of them are written or will be written in my stories.  With this knowledge I have helped my coachees and those who seek my help with this process.

There are two areas that I have not touched on yet.  These are:

• Career Execution
• Constant Review

You may have your own algorithm for a successful career planning and execution.  If you do, congratulation! You are ahead of many that I have spoken to. 

For me, my career journey starts with knowing myself well.  Who am I really?  What am I capable of?  What are my strengths, my weaknesses?  How do I find out?  Knowing myself better will help me articulate my aspiration.  Sometimes a person should have more than one aspiration.  In fact I think everyone should have a plan B.  This will help make the career planning more robust.  Just like a game of chess, you may plan many moves and execute some of them.  The aim is the same – being successful.

Now that you know more about yourself, where you want to go and have made your plans to get there; the next action is to take the first step to begin the journey.  You need to manage yourself so that each step taken is aligned to your competencies and aspirations. Some steps may include gaining additional skills and knowledge. From time to time, during your journey, someone may present you with an opportunity.  How do you evaluate these opportunities?  Will the opportunity move you closer to your aspirations?  Will it help you gain additional competencies?  Opportunities may not always be presented to you.  Sometimes you need to seek them out.  How do you seek them? A good network and great career conversations will help you find out.

There will also be obstacles and derailments in your career paths.  How does you minimize these?  How do you get out of it?  Managing yourself and others well will help.  I think of others as those I come into contact with – my boss, my staff, my peers, my friends, my family members and my network.  The way you interact with them will determine your success in managing yourself and others.

Finally, one needs to get feedback constantly.  You need to know if where you are going have changed and if you have deviated from the planned path.  You must to know if you need additional tools, skills and knowledge to continue.  There are many things you need to know.  To find out, you will need to seek constant feedback and reviews to move forward.

As you read my stories, reflect on the labels (or steps) too.  I hope that both the stories and the steps can help you as you create your own exciting career journey.

A Great End To 2010

My year ended with the wedding reception of my youngest daughter in the beautiful island of Penang, Malaysia.  What a wonderful way to complete the year.  The build up to the wedding was exciting and filled with planning and execution.  I had to rely on all the experiences that I gained from work.  The evening had to be a memorable one for her.  I am happy that the reception went well and all the events went like clockwork.  Most importantly, the reception began on time and ended it on time.  I thank my guests for their timeliness and kind attendance.

I have heard horror stories of reception starting as late as an hour.  I didn’t want this to ruin the festive mood of my daughter's wedding.  From the tea ceremony to the bride’s and groom’s grand entrance, the activities occurred as I had planned them.  My guests were a beautiful mosaic of different nationalities, ethnicities and religions.  It is only appropriate to honor them with fun, good food and timeliness.  They started arriving at 6:30 pm.  Cocktails were served.  Family and friends gathered to chat and reminisce.  It was really a sight to enjoy.  There were laughter and surprises from those who haven’t seen each other for some time. 

 

The wedding guests were seated by 7:30 pm.  Dinner started at 7:50 pm after my wife’s and my welcome speech.  The atmosphere was party-like.  The tables were arranged to provide enough space for dancing.  The bride and groom choreographed their couple dance to cover the dance floor and all my guests had a clear view of the dance.  The Food and Beverage manager at the hotel was impressed that the activities were no more than 5 minutes off the schedule.

 

For those who were expecting a posting around Friday of last week, I apologize and seek your forgiveness.  I hope you can appreciate the number of things my wife and I had to do.  Life is returning back to normal and so will be my posting.  Be on the lookout for my next posting “Who Should I Be?”

Disagree and Build

I have got over the discomfort of agreeing.  There are times I disagree.  I needed to find a way to disagree without creating bad feeling.  If the disagreements are handled poorly, I felt that I will be judged as not supportive.  I wanted them to know I disagree but will continue to find a way to meet the objective.

                                                                              

I observed the participants and their interactions in many meetings.  Everyone was focused on the topic.  There were times when an idea is attacked.  But the presenter of the idea did not feel attacked.  I looked upon this exchange with wonder.  My culture indicated to me that an attack is an attack.  If you attack my idea, you attack me.  Participants in these meetings can discredit an idea and debate to great length the merits of the disagreement.  At the end of the meeting after all the argument, the parties that were on opposite side of the issue were chatting and laughing together.  It amazes me that there were no ill feelings.

I learned much observing them.  At the end of their debate the original idea evolved into a stronger one.  The original idea was built into one that everyone accepted.  This was wonderful.  It looks like I am painting a rosy picture.  There were times when things don’t go well.  Usually it is when the proposer felt attacked and did not want to budge from the proposed idea. 

The key is Building an idea.  I started with agreeing.  Now I learned how to agree and build.  I learned to make statements like, “That is a wonderful idea and should work well in Asia.  It will work even better if that is translated into local languages.  Thus, providing a budget for translation will ensure a successful implementation.”  After a short discussion on translation, the conversation moved to which languages and amount to budget.  It is not a debate of the need for translation.

So how do we DISAGREE?  For me, Build is again the key ingredient.  My observations led to conclude that I cannot just disagree and stop at that.  People expect an alternative – a build.  If you can’t find a build, then you may have to drop the disagreement.  It could mean that your knowledge of the topic is not deep enough or your conviction is not strong enough.

In a meeting on a development of a learning program that will be rolled out globally, there was a discussion of what motivates a person to act.  The case example was that both the TV set and the fridge broke down at the same time.  To make matters worse, the Super Bowl is televised live the next evening.  You had enough money to replace one.  Which one would you?  I disagreed with the example to be used.  I said something like, “I think a case study to force a person to a difficult decision is important to the program but to the audience in most countries in Asia, Super Bowl has no significance and an overwhelming number will select replacing the fridge over the TV.  This defeats the intent of making a difficult decision and a deeper understanding of the person’s need.  I suggest that we redesign this portion to enable local customization.  For instance, we may use a situation of a fridge and buying tickets home for the Spring Festival family reunion. In another country, we may use the World Cup with the fridge.

This conversation turns out to be more pleasant than just saying it doesn’t work without offering an alternative.  So, to DISAGREE, I learned to AGREE; then AGREE and BUILD; and finally DISAGREE and BUILD.

To Disagree, First Learn to Agree

When I was growing up, there were two aspects about speaking that I thought were important.  One is that you spoke only when you had something important to contribute.  Secondly, it is impolite to express your disagreement directly.

In the beginning of my USA assignment, I applied this philosophy to my meetings.  The sound levels at these meetings were much higher than those I had experienced.  The conversations flowed from one person to another without much pauses.  At times, a new conversation started before the previous one ended.  My ability to say anything was drastically limited.  I couldn’t find a break point to make a statement.  I comforted myself saying that it was all right. At the end, the problems were getting solved and the actions plans were becoming concrete.  So, although I didn’t say much, I was happy with the outcomes of the meetings and committed to the actions.  Saying anything, I justified, would just lengthen the meeting and added to the decibel.

My manager, after observing me for a few meetings, called me aside and asked me why I was so quiet in those meetings.  I told her that the meetings were going well and I didn’t need to say anything to disrupt the flow.  I agreed with their good suggestions and actions.  She listened and then asked me if I was really happy with the outcome.  I reaffirmed that I was and therefore didn’t need to say anything else at the meetings.

What she said next surprised me.  She asked me why I didn’t say that I agreed with the outcomes and supported the plans.  I argued that I took good notes and even showed her all the actions items for me.  In her collected tone, she said, “You really must say something in a meeting.  The participants need to know that you are there, not only in body but in mind and spirit.  If you agree with the outcome, tell them.  Tell them you will support the actions. I know you are committed to the actions and have always completed them.  But you must TELL them.”

It wasn’t an easy task.  I am not used to making such statements.  The words don’t fall neatly into place.  Taking her advice, I began to practice various phrases to state my agreement and support.  I wanted to ensure that what I say carried the message with SINCERITY.  I leaned to say words like, “That’s a wonderful idea!  I think the team in Asia can support that.”  I practiced many other statements, for variety, so that when the time came for me to use them, I have them handy.

Some may argue that making those statements make one shallow and superficial.  It may not enhance or even maintain the self-esteem of the person making them.  On the contrary!  I felt good making those statements.  More participants came up to me after the meeting thanking me for my ideas, contributions and support.  I felt great!  I meant those statements and my actions showed.  I am now a member of meeting – not only by association but also by contribution.  I am no longer perceived as a bystander.

My philosophy on speaking out has changed.  I am comfortable agreeing.  But, I must still be able to disagree when needed.  Is there a proper way?  Everyone has their own.  For me, I needed one more step – AGREEING AND BUILDING, before disagreeing.  That will be for my next posting.