Mar 04

Guts and Glory – The Success Recipe

Leadership 1 Comment »
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Daniel Soh is an old friend of mine in the executive search business. Over the years, he gave up the hopes of placing me within the burgeoning Asian technology sector as I was focused on building my business at Brocade. As time went by, we switched our association from being a ‘headhunter’ and ‘client’ to being good friends and trusted advisers. We met a couple weeks ago to discuss an article he was writing for one of his internal publications and he asked for my views on what it takes to build a successful organization.

Over the last 10 years Asia Pacific has grown in stature as a strategic and significant market for Brocade. We rapidly grew revenue, share, people, footprint and infrastructure. To respond to Daniel’s question, I cannot concoct a panacea that will deliver surefire results for every organization – I wish I could!

My formula for success is more a blend of many small thoughts and practices coupled with incredible execution. After persistent probing from Daniel on what the driving factors for this transformation were, I put my mind to work. I realized that the transformation rode on a set of common and consistent principles that most people are aware of but honestly lack the guts or even the desire to practice. No doubt ‘Success’ is a limited membership club!

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Sep 06

Expanding Business Real Estate – what is viable?

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Singapore Business Expansion Real Estate

Photo provided by Wikipedia.org Keyword "Singapore"

Alternative business hubs are an important planning agenda item for the governments of all hot Asian economies. Hong Kong and Singapore have evolved traditional residential quarters like Taikoo Shing & Tampines in recent years into residential, business and recreational destinations. Gleaming with great infrastructure, glitzy commercial and retail outlets and satellite offices of prominent organizations from financial services, technology and media. These hubs help average out real estate valuations providing alternatives to owners and tenants and drive a more holistic economic development process.

What normally makes business districts sought after are location and critical mass of businesses, shopping and entertainment options. While building new business hubs might ease the congestion and soaring rentals, they will need to provide suitable alternative value propositions, similar to what the original business district does, to be considered as an alternative.

See Singapore’s Property Guru or iProperty for resources guides in the Singapore market; and Service Corp. for help in Hong Kong.

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Aug 10

Leadership and Rugby [Video] on Leadership

Leadership, Workskills 2 Comments »
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I’ve written before about the persistence against all odds, along with other characteristics of true leadership in In Need of An Inspiration.

Here’s a snippet of that article: Balanced Nonchalance, this is the one that makes the biggest difference. It is an ability to blend and balance the state of inspiration and the commitment to the vision or end goal with the acceptance of the present. Realization and acceptance of a larger purpose rather than the immediate goal. Reining in stress and anger.

Our best performances at work, sports or in social settings come when we do not force things nor get ‘over strung’!

Our actions flow smoothly, effortlessly but synchronously – yet they all happen in a seemingly nonchalant state – a state of balance! Watch the champions in every field and you will see what I mean!

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Jul 21

Focus – The Path to Perfect Execution!

Leadership, Workskills 1 Comment »
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Whether it is golf, tennis or other categories (especially individual sports), watch the intense gaze of these top pros between strokes, as they go though their motions or during a game break. Their eyes are focused but the gaze seems to be far away – looking at nothing, totally insulated from whatever surrounds them! They are actually mentally playing out their next moves on a high res mental video screen over and over. Seeing exactly what they are going to do next, soaking in it, visualizing it – then they take every conscious thought off their minds and execute that mental video. Sure enough the result is quite close to what they visualized if not better. I have tried this myself when playing and depending on my preparedness and commitment, I sometimes do get the result.

Why sometimes? Why not always? The key to successful visual results is “Preparedness”. Quite obvious, right? Trust me, I have come across many instances where I have seen trained professionals going out into execution mode without adequate preparedness … now that does not work, regardless of your caliber!

Follow this with very hard work (no shortcuts here!) regardless of your talent and thoroughly practice the skills Continue reading »

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