Why are we in the business?
August 30, 2012 6 comments »
Someone said it brilliantly, what keeps us apart from all our competition is not what we do but why we do it. The “why” has everything to do with our value as a company.
In his book, “Fixing the Game”, author Roger Martin talked about how businesses have gotten confused about their priorities and values as a result of over-practicing Capitalism
For decades, we have been indoctrinated to believe that our business goal is to maximize shareholder return. This becomes a short-sighted game we play....Read More
Mastering The Cross Cultural Competency
July 5, 2012 3 comments »
A Key Quality of a Successful Global Leader
For the last 26 years, I have consulted with many major corporations that have expanded their businesses all over the world. They have invested millions of dollars in manufacturing, sales, R&D, distributions, etc. in order to achieve their competitive advantage. Not every company succeeded or managed to keep winning the game. One of the significant reasons has to do with whether they have sufficiently competent people in the all the key positions to carry ....Read More
What Are We Ready To Let Go Of?
March 21, 2012 6 comments »
In the movie “Love Happens”, the motivational speaker worked to help the audience grieve their loss and take a step toward self-renewal. However, he had never grieved his wife’s death as a result of a car accident. After too many things have happened around him to remind him of the incongruity between what he preached on the outside and what he practiced in the inside, he finally let go of his guilt and loss and began his own healing.
Life seems to be a series of “letting go”. We need to die....Read More
Where Do We Go From Here?
March 8, 2012 9 comments »
I am going to be 62 this Wednesday. My personal trainer’s computer program that calculates my Body Mass Index says my body age is actually 43. I like her computer’s answer.
The government and my driver license say I am a senior. The movie theater sells me senior tickets. I am also qualified to get the “blue plate specials” for seniors at the restaurants. But I feel like a middle-aged woman who should have another half a life to live. But how would I live? Up to the age of 50, I was so busy pushing f....Read More
Where is the Humor?
February 21, 2012 6 comments »
Just when the sports world and the fans got swept up in the Lin-sanity where Jeremy Lin, the first Asian American player in the NBA generated so much excitement for the basketball game and became the “overnight sensation”, the excitement also stirred up the shadow side of our society.
Right after Jeremy Lin’s team New York Knicks lost to the New Orleans Hornets and interrupted its seven game winning streaks; ESPN headline included a racial slur, “chink in the armor”. Earlier, MSG Netwo....Read More
Can You See Me? – An Asian American Experience
February 13, 2012 8 comments »
Last Friday night, New York Knicks beat LA Lakers 92-85. I am not much of a basketball fan but I got swept up in the game because of Jeremy Lin, the Knicks’ point guard. Lin alone scored 38 points. To his fans, he represented a true “Cinderella” and an “Underdog” following a long road to the NBA. In New York, they call him “Lin-Sanity”. To me and all my friends at the dinner table, he represented the first Chinese American who made it to the NBA. When I saw his number 17 jersey, I cried....Read More
Why Do We Call Them “Soft Skills”?
February 7, 2012 No comments »
Sitting next to a young man on a flight from LAX to New York one day, we automatically opened our greetings with “what do you do for a living?” He said he worked for one of those big management consulting firms. When I told him I am an Organization Development Consultant, he twitched his nose a bit and said they did not focus on the “soft side” of their clients business. Having heard the terms, “soft side” and “soft skills” so many times in the last 26 years, I decided to examine what the....Read More
