Tag: Business

Risks and Rewards

As the saying goes, you’ve got to enter the lion’s den to get the lion. No pain no gain.

Taking risks is not something for everyone. After all, we have all the safety measures built-in to our system: from seat-belts to “frisk-machines”.

Yet, in business as in life, risk is part of life, just like death itself.

Risk is associated with fear. When consumer’s sentiment is said to be “healthy”, it means people are more willing to borrow and invest. In short, to spend.

When it is low, it means greed is suppressed by fear.

Spint has just completed its purchase of Clearwire.

It has been a long ordeal.

Back in 1999-2000, these enormous acquisitions would involve much more risks, yet much less time.

(Ebert, number 4 Worldcom purchased number 2 MCI by stocks).

It was a wild ride.

Then the dot.com burst.

The key here is spectrum.

We move very fast on the ground (wireline) and in the air (wireless).

ICT on steroid.

With strong appetite for risks, which requires strong stomach as well.

No risks, no rewards.

In Asia, we got Singapore, India which showed strong leaderships, capable of risk-taking (social engineering and IT, respectively).

Before 1997 Asian crisis, these countries were looked upon as Miracles.

Leadership is lonely at the top.

Unintended consequences and the urge to take the path of least resistance will undo any bold moves.

If a leader has chosen all the safe paths since college (taking courses that would ensure an A, and a career that was well paid with least sacrifice), then the result would be leadership who is risk-advert.

Play politics.

Becoming all things to all men.

Catering to the whim and wishes of the majority to win votes.

That’s their rewards: popularity and being well-liked.

But risk takers have a different play book. Not foolish risk, but calculated one.

Gut-checking. With a lump in the throat. Screw it, let’s do it.

Those who take risks also face fear just like anyone else.

But went ahead and made the call anyway.

It’s called judgment and maturity.

It’s called, for the lack of a better word, Execute.

And it’s an art, with lots of practice and pain-taking efforts.

Not without consequences, among which unpopularity.

No risks, no progress (think of the Challenger).

Think of Marconi and his wintry towers.

Think of all-solar crosscountry flight (Amelia Earhart would be proud).

Think of Hoover Dam.

And millions of inventors and risk-takers who lost their shirts. And in the case of the owner of Segway, his life.

No risks, no rewards.

Summer Sadness

Some kids revisited their Summer 1942. Coming of age.

Others, say in Vietnam, are ready for bigger stage.

A Linkedin connect started her SQUAR in emerging Myanma, just core viable product, to be perfected as time goes along.

Summer separation and sadness. Summer also brings reunion and reassessment.

It’s Q3 for business people.

Abenomics or any-omics, as long as Japan gets out its deflationary state. Egyptian want their first-year President out.

They have gotten used to protest and counter-protest.

Summer blockbusters range from the Great Gatsby to  Now You See Me (Now You Don’t). Abracadabra!

Or as our own Alan Phan, “say a prayer”, like a virgin.

I remember when California elected Arnold. The commentary back then was, “it doesn’t matter which monkey is in charge”.

The budget was way out of balance then.

Now, Gov Brown has imposed strictest order on the fiscal affairs of the State, used to be called, Golden State.

Surprisingly, Arnold was quoted in one of the beer consumption studies, which shows Vietnam at the top of the list.

Praying and drinking. Drown out our sadness and sorrow. Sharing our moments.

And never give up hope that our best days are yet behind us.

Summer Sadness. It brings understanding and perspective

In Norwegian Wood, our Toru Watanabe looked back at his last year in college, and suddenly, understood the deep pain college girl friends feel (two suicides, male and female to be fair).

We all had our 1942’s and 69’s.

Of eating dorm food and from vending machine.

Of all-nighter and crammed for finals.

Then, what’s next?

Be an entrepreneur or employed?

Looking forward or backward?

There will always be next summer.

But this summer is a hot one. An inconvenient truth.

Of torrential rain and perpetual austerity.

Of not much hope for an improved GDP anywhere.

Tourism is up as the temperature heats up.

Can’t find a decent paperback to pack along.

Be sure to wade the water and if things come along, as they always do, live your 1942 so you have something to think back in old age.

Best way to live life is to pretend to look back to the present from the vantage of the future, then live it to no regret.

No regret, no sorrow. No sorrow, no sadness. Summer or not. One’s happiness cannot be conveniently measured by a thermometer. But if there were such thing as Global Warming measurable from the outside, it should also affect what’s inside. Now, that’s something we can do something about. And it’s the most inconvenient truth about ourselves we often refuse to admit.

Out of the box

We are urged to “think out of the box“, be creative etc..

Easier said than done. Having a liberal arts background, and traveled the world, I find it easier just get out of the box, then think from there.

Every place has its own charms and setbacks. Every place gets good and bad people.

Don’t assume, from the propaganda, that your place is best, and theirs worst.

Maturity comes only after you have examined and experienced places and people for yourself.

Ivory-tower and Ivy League people often organize “insulated” academic travel tours to stimulate cross-cultural thinking (most of the time, it’s West-East, and not East-West, although more Chinese can now afford world travel).

Out of these excursions, maybe emerge one diplomat or global business person.

Most came back, feeling good about one’s self that he/she is living in a well-off society, where Wal-Mart rules.

Then at work, they urge us to think out of the box once again. You can’t legislate morality, nor can you squeeze creativity out of workers.

After all, isn’t it written in company’s policies that when X happens, Y is the answer!

Without pressures, we tend to lean back into the path of least resistance.

Peak performance, heroism, and valor come in the middle of heavy fire.

One’s life and achievement are highlighted in those critical moments of choice.

This way or that way. One positive strain then another. Keep paying forward.

Keep finding that road less travel. Approach it from another angle. From other’s point of view. What you see depends on where you stand Hence, to think out of the box, sometimes, but not necessary requires one to be out of the box altogether.

I am out of the box, geographically. I hope I can see things in new light, before I too get settled into daily routine, which eventually blind-sight me. My itching and aching heart by then, will hear the call of the wild. That’s what short-trips are for.

To regain perspective, to see old things in new light. To feel refreshed. To love one’s place all over again. It’s not the place. It’s the people living in it, and how they make the most of its context. Can’t think out of the box when you have lived in it for so long.

Snow cover

It doesn’t matter what color your roofing is or the shape of your lawn.

Snow covers them all. In a blanket of white.

Wet and white.

Crushing underneath your feet, leaving foot prints and tire marks.

The power of (snow flakes) accumulation and its compounding effect.

Nature’s lesson to men: there is a season for everything.

Time to be born and time to die.

Nature is self-healing and self-correcting. It shows that nothing is constant  except for change (hint: hard times don’t last).

Go with time flow and season change. Resist not.

Stop playing God.

As if we could.

Born this way. But die some other way.

While alive, pay forward.

Stand tall. And ask not.

Sometimes I wonder what people living in the 60’s  regreted, because, now, we regret life in the 60’s.

When things did not break down as easily, when customer service picked up the phone and spoke your language, and people stopped to help strangers (Good Samaritan).

Now we got a labor surplus (and because machines got more efficient) due to population explosion (3 to 7 Billion). With density, we’ve got scarcity. And the pendulum swings from prosperity to austerity. Yesterday’s dream is today’s problem.  Yet the dream must go on, at least, a version that resonates. It will need new packaging and new label, over the generic, the organic and the authentic. Because if we don’t sell the dream, others will. And their version of snake oil would be worse. Albeit their pitch more perfect. Sugar-coated and snow-covered. Snow, like death, comes uninvited and buries everything. Snow buys us some time regardless what’s underneath. To reflect and to change course before all is revealed.

Dilemma and Decision

Leaders are tasked and paid to make decisions.

Hard calls. Tie-breaking calls. Go for the Gold, or take the safe route.

Coach Joe Paterno had a lot of wins, but many were taken away from him because of one mis-step.

Pope Benedict XVI , however, did call it quit (right timing).

And Tesla–Solarcity–Space X? the jury is still out on that one risky “pal”.

No pain no gain.

One good thing about this brutal Recession: it separates the wheat from the chaff.

The wheat here might be Indie-Capitalism, sports diplomacy, soft-power influence…

We simply cannot afford full-scale hardware-driven conflicts as in years past.

First the Soviet bloc folded. And now, the US with Sequestration.

Our machine has gotten ahead of us, the cart before the horse.

If only we could disrupt ourselves, or press “reset”. One other way is to review the old play book and give it another try.

For instance, it’s quite couner-intuitive since the IT industry migrates to the Cloud away from the office, Yahoo wants its workers to head back to it.

They will probably work out of virtual stations, with wi-fi and white boards, to lunch in play room like in nearby Googleplex.

Dilemma and Decision.

Work and life balance.

Private cloud or complete virtuality.

Hybrid or plug-in EV.

Key Stone or kicking the can.

21st-century dilemma requires 21st-century leadership.

Who among us are ready and willing to step up to the plate!

He who lives in a glass house refuses to throw stones.

When looking at the game from that standpoint, executive’s high exit bonus  is not such a bad deal. It would cost more for them to stay on than to leave. Zappos learned this and paid its new employees a bonus for leaving than for sticking around. It’s the culture, stupid. Decision or dilemma.

What happened to “Next Level”?

If you followed job ads or start-up pitches, you would be hearing “Next Level” multiple times back then..

In the 90’s it was “synergy” (M&A terms). Before that “re-engineering” (The Japan that can’t say NO). Now, it’s “collaboration”.

The Recession inadvertently served as an Editor who cut out words that don’t fit with the times.

You can’t promise “Next Level” when all you do is cost-cutting, the same with “growth” in the time of austerity and sequester.

The best we can hope for is “business as usual” i.e. keeping the lights on (and the heat).

Housing crash created excess inventory, abandoned homes – sold for $1.00- and owners turned renters.

What we thought was security turns out to be insecurity.

ADT stickers, still visible, serving no purpose.

It’s not “safe” to live in your own home when the whole neighborhood were foreclosed.

Now we need the return of synergy and neighborhood watch.

We need neighbors and community.

To come back to the question, what happened to “next level”. The bubble busted.

It has reached its limit, speculation that is.

The quants are hard at work.

The marketers are not , since  companies are not expanding.

Everyone is busy “collaborating” i.e. cost sharing, ride sharing and burden sharing.

In down time, we rediscover the value of inverted synergy.

Like roommates in the dorm, or our parent’s couch.

Hard times don’t outlast tough people . Hang in there, until we meet again, at the Next Level.

Personality as motivator

Besides fun, fear and need for recognition, each of us is motivated by an unique set of triggers.

Some are expressive e.g. talk it out to then realize what they think.

Analytical people, however, weigh the pros and cons before opening their mouths.

Amiable people just empathize, feely-touchy and are good listeners

Social folks love to smok’em at barbecue parties: the more the merrier.

Finally, the quickest of all are the Alpha-Male types: shoot first aim later.

Most managers have been managed by other managers, who in turn, pass down the command-control model.

Just Do It!

And they are right half of the time.

When workers left their company, nobody bothered to do a post-mortem.

It’s like a death in the family. To be politically correct, nobody should mention the “others” who are no longer “us”.

Write if off on the left column, as burnt rate, from attrition.

Even in warfare, military historians take years of reflection and review to extract “lessons learned”.

Companies cannot afford this. Just hire new staff. Invest in new head counts.

The (vicious) cycle starts again. One motivational model imposed on various types off workers.

My way or highway.

The best middle manager is the one who can negotiate and walk the fine line between corporate interests and line workers/market expectations, between Wall Street and Main Street.

The best leaders are ones who can detect conflicting signals sent up and down the chain. Without the people carrying out strategies and tactics, things don’t move. But to move so fast in the wrong direction is much worse. (see Matterhorn or My Lai Massacre).

It boils down to attitude, aim and action. Recent article in the NYT shows that people who adjust their course mid-stream (after examining underlining assumptions)  can pivot to success. It’s not difficult to apply the right mix of motivators. But first, one needs to be self-motivated and undergo self-examination (ego? pride? face-saving?).

And this process is hard. Look yourself in the mirror, know all the weaknesses  and seek redemption. That’s when things start to turn. There is no coach that will yell at you. Just an empty locker room at half-time. Helmets off. Sweat and tears. The score board doesn’t lie. We are all behind, to face imminent loss. And worst of, loss of self-confidence. Seek the right mix of motivators for your team, yourself and your families. Tough-love yourself.

The build-up

It’s like a can of worms, once opened, can never be put back.

Yet, that’s what makes us human: from A to B, we insist that a straight line is not the shortest. We have to factor in free will.

Even God respects that (by not forcing us to move quickly through Foxconn-like assembly line).

Our current network has also been designed that way: cache, redundancy, self-healing and load-balancing just to process data from point A to point B.

Our neuro-plasticity performs millions of calculation in milliseconds. “If you can read my mind”, “you won’t read that novel again because the ending is too hard to take”. Most recent finding tells us that we change more than we would admit (evolution in personalities). NYT 01-04-2013.

Seek those who bring the best version out of us.

Schools have done us disservice. Instead of ” edu-care” (bring out of us that which were already there), they try to put in and force fit the curriculum (which purportedly were carefully and thoughtfully designed by those who themselves had been force-fed).

Hence, we perpetuate and produce a planned society of “cogs” in the wheel whose heads are full of doctrine and dogma (stove pipes). No wonder we have problems communicating.

When something is introduced into the “system” (such as Free Will) with no scripted response, chaos and confusion are inevitable.

Like it or not, we are all in perpetual motion, but mostly in maintenance mode. Like an automobile, with engine revving and wheels churning, but is all jacked up, hence staying put.

Frustration leads to lack of confidence and enthusiasm.

Lack of  enthusiasm and lack of  passion give way to compliance. Dead men walking.

The build-up that eventually blows up.

Those who plan well factor this into the system. Controlled release.

Call it vacation, sabbath. Whatever. But  in a grandeur scale, individuals and institutions need periodical audit. How are we doing? Making any progress?

You look pale. Where is the fire? the light in your eyes. What has put it out?

“If it makes you happy, why the hell are you so sad?”

Get off the line. Go off grid. Go native. Go nature. Go free.

At the very least, be Live Man Walking, and not Dead Man Walking.

Do us and yourself a favor. Let not the build up blow you up. Man’s free will and God‘s (or Government’s) pre-determination. A tug of war for the soul, survivingg and not stifling.

World on wheels

You want to see wheels at work, you come to Saigon.

(Baby) strollers, scooters, (food) stalls, all on wheels.

But instead of having you walk up to a vending machine, here the merchandise come to you. Ladies in cone hats would walk about with all sorts of knickknacks on their shoulders: toe clippers, wallets, key chains etc….

At night, snack vendors come around the neighborhood, waking everyone up.

“Banh gio”.  KFC, Pizza, Hot noodle bowls all delivered on wheels.

It’s a 24/7 world on wheels. Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.

They finally put the canal fences up, but the “river doesn’t flow through it”.

Saigon used to be known as the Pearl of the Orient.

Neither Paris nor London, Saigon is a synthesis of every strand and shape. Young people from the country side pour in and mix in to form a kaleidoscope. It is as if the old energy from a mix of Cambodian and Chinese were not enough. Now with young and old, East and West, it is transformed into something unrecognizable. Perhaps a Singapore of the next century.

I live next door to a young couple. Their son is just one year old, barely taking baby steps. In the morning, mom would be walking vending machine. In the afternoon, Dad would walk around shoe-shining. The boy is well cared for. The boy has just got a toy automobile for Christmas. The young couple were discussing about buying a Nokia phone.

The future of Saigon. Of Vietnam. Soon they would save up enough for a scooter. Nuclear family on wheels. The kid after all had already got his wheels.

World on wheels.

The You

It’s like Who is on First, or the Who.

It’s you who is the Who.

You need to get the bugs out to uncover the better version of yourself.

Everything up to this point is payload: family advices (ill or good-will), the institutions (and college loan) and work places.

Some of us found out the hard way: friends at work are not friends, and friends off work cannot work together.

We cater to popular taste (Aviator sunglasses, and soon Google glasses) or the opposite (I dare you wear those tie-dyed 60’s T-shirts).

I am half way through Fraction of the Whole. The Australian writer charges out of the gate with a daring debut, hilarious and deeply philosophical.

Australian fascination with Ed Nelly. But he raises a great point: how can you stay the YOU, when pressure for conformity (credit card approval within 60 seconds, Macy cards etc…) from all directions mold you into a WE (a number).

I realise a striking parallel: in Vietnam, they ask you to buy a lottery ticket every time you sit down (and be a target). In the US, they ask you to open a credit card account every time you step up to a cash register.

Baby boomers had one thing right: they question the system to which they belong. The minute we turned off our brains, we might as well be dead.

We are where we are today because many men and women before us questioned the status quo (yes, wireless can travel the distance and through walls).

Yes, Voice can be delivered over IP. Yes, video as well.

Yes, yes, yes. Don’t tell me No,no,no.

I don’t want to be the YOU. I am the ME. With strength and weakness, with burden to bear, and blessings to bestow (you too).

Please stay the YOU, the better version of YOU. You will see. When everyone does that, we have a better world, if not more interesting.