PROGEM III - Management Theory Revisited

It was more than 2 weeks since I last posted any entry to this blog. Well,as I mentioned in my last blog, I was off to Hyatt Regency Resort Hotel in Kuantan from 21-31 May attending what the company termed as the PROGEM III or the General Manager Program under the Talent Pool/Succession Planning program.



As this course was almost similar to the MDP program by MIM I attended for the last 6 months or so, I don't intend to list down details of program schedule but suffice to mention several of the course instructors and also to highlight some good management theory I learnt in the span of almost 2-weeks.


The program was handled by National University of Singapore's Business School utilising several very experienced Professors from the the same U and also from other universities such as the Peking University of Beijing. There were 32 other participants from the company and most of them are older than me in terms of age. I enjoyed most of the lectures particularly by Prof Lee Kai Sheang, a Malaysian residing in Singapore, on the topic of Sun Tzu Art of War. I like this topic very much because it relates the War Strategy of the ancient chinese to the modern world of doing business. A few case studies were used in this module and in my opinion going through those case studies really helped in understanding the Sun Tzu's theory.


I also like the topic on Understanding the Service Economy and Marketing by Prof Keh Hean Tat from Peking University. He is also a Malaysian hailed from Taiping and two words can describe his knowledge on marketing strategy, committed and bold. He is also relatively young compare to the other Professors but his sheer determination to master this topic was clearly reflected on his presentation style in class.


The very first day of the PROGEM III course was instructed by Prof Trevor Wilkins from NUS. He is actually an Australian residing in Singapore. He started the class with the broad overview of the course content and his own topic dealt with Financial Management. He is I would say from the old school of thought judging on his style of teaching. He still depends on transparency projector as opposed to using a power point for presentation in class. As he put it, "investments are design to create value, and don't spend money until it can guarantee return".


He stressed the importance of financial management and in his opinion, no other performance measure other than financial KPI will fit and 'fair' to everyone. Key points of his module are on Finance Decision (source of fund), Investment Decision (Use of funds) and the dividen issue (use of funds). Prof Wilkins also highlighted the result of the pre-course survey that each of the PROGEM participant need to respond. Most of the issues raised were HR related and according to him this is actually a popular issue in many other organisations. We were also told to prepare a project for each sub-group created for the course. I have been appointed to lead my group and at the moment we are still undecided on the two projects which we have proposed. Most likely, the topic chosen by me on interconnection between Malaysia and Singapore will be chosen for our group.

Other topics covered during the PROGEM III include Business Law by Prof Philip Chin and Efficiency and Fairness in the Energy Mark by Prof Lim Chin, dean of the NUS Business School. There was also a session on Human Capital Management by Prof Gilbert Tan from SMU Singapore. He used to be a policeman before becoming a lecturer in the university. A very enthusiastic person and according to him, he trained for 1-month in Police Academy in Kuala Kubu Baru some years ago. The followings are the photos of the three professors in respective order.




In my opinion, the 10-days PROGEM module was very useful because it kinda add more info to me on business issues on top of what I have already obtained through my Mini MBA courses organised by the MIM. At the moment, I am feeling much more confident in handling issues other than technical and engineering surrounding my career in this company. I am hoping that with all the money the company has spent on me to build up my management skill I can be a better leader in the future and hopefully, the management will be able to see something valuable on me that they can entrust me to lead the company with full confident...insha'allah.

Management Development Programme: Phase 5 - Management Game

The final phase of the MDP programme was not a module per se but rather a game. Yes, a management game to be exact. The location for the finale of the MDP was held at the Residence Hotel for 1.5 day with 0.5 day briefing on the May 7th and actual game on May 8th 2007. The course instructor for this module was Mr Lau X X. Actually, Mr. Lau was so eager to start the briefing on day 1 that he actually forgot to properly introduce himself to the class. Until today I am in the dark of detail background of Mr. Lau to put them in this blog and I hope someone from my group will furmish me with this info later. Mr. Lau was assisted by Ms Fam Li Ling of MIM and her role was to help process the inputs for the game and also to distribute the results when they were available.


The game was a business simulation game of which the participants were asked to form four different groups and manage four different companies to compete against each other. The objective is to see which group will have the largest profit at the end of period five of the game allocated time. The summary of the company profile given to us all of us as following.

Palmtastic
Company Description

Palmtastic is a company that produces and sells personal digital assistants (PDA). A PDA is a small mobile handheld device that provides computing and information storage, retrieval capabilities for personal or business use, often handy for keeping schedules, calendars and addresses. It is known by different names such as handheld computer, pocket PC, handspring and palm top.

Palmtastic is a comparative new company. The owners are more interested in developing new products than running a company. They have hired you to give the professional management to the company. Their demand to you is that you make significant profits so as to enable them to develop profitable and technologically advanced products.

Palmtastic has two products: Product A is an entry level PDA and Product D has more features and functions. The differences between the two are in terms of its screen resolution (mono and color), Storage (2 & 8 MB) and Battery type.

Competition is very keen with more companies entering the market. Marketing is a major parameter in determining demand.

A discussion with the Board of Directors has shown a certain, but restrained, desire to inject new share capital, if necessary. The maximum available is up to 3 million per year. Application for increase in share capital is usually at the first half of the year (odd periods). That is, however, dependant upon a preference dividend of 5.9% per annum, of any share capital expansion granted.

A meeting with the banker has also had a positive but restrained reception. The bank has agreed to consider increasing the maximum loan ceiling at the second half of each year (even periods). However, they are unlikely to approve more than 50% of the quantum applied for.

The length of a period is 5 months and all costs etc. are based upon this period length.

Winning Criteria:

The winner will be the team with the highest accumulated Profit & Loss account at the end of Period 6.

We were also briefed in detail about the game rules and regulation on day 1. The starting condition for every group is similar in the beginning and each group has got to plan and strategise to reap maximum profit. As of in the actual bisness climate, there are several decisions that need to be made on each round. The decision include number of products and type to be manufactured, pricing structure, cash flow control and also loan to be paid or made. These decisions were later translated into the inputs for the simulation on every round. The inputs from each group were then remotely processed by the simulation software located at the MIM office.


In the beginning our group did quite reasonably and able to make some profits. However, beginning with period 3, our cyber company suffered some losses and the overall profit carried from the previous periods was slightly reduced.Only after period four that we realised we have made a mistake and also misunderstood several key inputs. By that time, it was already too late to correct the mistake and as a result, our profit from period one to period five was cut into more than half and our company was the least profit making company among the four !

Although the management game was just a game, it taught us many things about business. One thing for sure, one must be brave to take a lot of risk in business and to understand economic climate and other surrounding factors. This is quite new to me being salary man all my life and I hope courses like this can help me to understand the market and business better to be a good manager in the future..

The assignmnet for this module is due on June 20th. We are asked to write a report on the game we played and explain the reason behind the decisions made. I hope I will be able to complete this assigment on time so that I can focuss on the PROGEM module in Kuantan starting on 21st May...insha'allah...

Management Development Programme: Phase 4 - Process Improvement

This posting is actually the second posting of the same topic as for some reason it did not save well in the blospot server when I first wrote it last week. There goes my 1 hour work on this blog but be as it may, I feel compelled to complete the MDP series in by blog for my future reference and as also as a serving reminder of how I enjoyed this programme.

Ok enough for that, the last topic for MDP Phase four was conducted by Mr. Mah Kong Howe on the topic of Process Improvement. Mr. Mah did not reveal his age to us but I guess he is probably about my age or younger judging from his facial appearance. Maybe Li Ling from the MIM, if you are reading this, you could enlighten me with the actual age of Mr. Mah for the benefit of all participants !. Mr. Mah is a certified professional trainer with the MIM and has a lot of experience in management training locally and also in the ASEAN region. He is indeed an excellent scholar on management training and he has won several awards from the MIM, RMIT and Maaastricht School of Management for his scholarly work and contribution on management trainings.


Mr. Mah module focusses on understanding the basic principles underpinning the systems, process and value concept. In the class we were asked to relate specific technique to the organisation's needs and also to interpret the principles via class exercises and discussions. He also stressed the important of quality culture. One unique thing about his class was that everytime we resume after tea or lunch break, he would ask two volunteers to give quality slogan such as "Kualiti Teras Kejayaan" and and later he deliberated on the importance of this slogan.


Modern perspective on organization is that every organization is essentially a SERVICE, the only difference being that traditional manufacturers have more tangibles relative to the traditional services. Universal responsibility of managers include to develop synergistic relationships and to manage them continually.


One of the process improvement methodology and tools he taught in class was the CPM or critical path method. This is a very efficient method in determining ways to improve overall process duration and obviously I could see everyone in class grasped this concept quite easily. Another technique is process improvement taught to us in class was the PERT or Project Evaluation & Review Technique. PERT is similar to the CPM method except that a better idea of the duration of a particular process is obtained through building in the consideration of three scenarios, viz., optimistic, most likely and pessimistic estimates of each activity's duration.


Mr. Mah module is a good module in understanding processes and how we can improve them. The assignment given for us is to describe a process in the department which can be improve using the methods already learnt in class. I hope to complete this assignment as soon as possible as I have another 2 assignments from the previous modules yet to be completed. On top of that, from 21 to 31 May, I will be attending the General Manager's Programme at Hyatt Kuantan organised by the company under the Talent Pool programme. I already skipped the one in PD two weeks ago in favour of the MNC-CIGRE colloqouium and this time I must go or risk losing the oppurtunity to be part of this programme once and for all....

Management Development Programme: Phase 4 - Day 2 & Day 3

On Second dan Third Day of the 4th MDP, Mr. Chan covered the remaining topics of his module which are topics on Decision Making, Managing Conflict and Gaining Power/Influence.


Just to recap from day one, Mr Chan asked again on what are the things that a boss should give his subordinate to get the job done. The answer is we have to give our subordinates KASH, K=knowledge, A=Aptitude, S= Skill and H= Habit to motivate and inspire them to deliver thier jobs. Many people including me sometimes, demand a lot from our subordinates but at the same time being unfair to them. The thing is, to expect people to deliver, we must deliver first and this is in terms of giving appropriate training and resources to them.


Decision making is a set of eight steps that includes identifying a problem, selecting a solution, and evaluating the effectiveness of the solution. In the class, Mr Chan uses an example of making a decision to buy a car . We were also asked to play management game on decision making process, individual decision and group decision. The role-playing game for the decision making modules were the desert survival games. Styles of making decision can be best categorised as directive style, analytic style, conceptual style and behavioral style and in the class Mr Chan discussed in length about these using his own experiences and wisdoms.

On managing conflict, John D. Rockefeller used to say "I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than any other quality in a manager", stressing the point that conflict has to be managed properly. Of all challenges managers are least equipped with, interpersonal, intra-office conflicts top the list. Managers often lack the objectivity when conflicts arise because they lack the skills to transcend the tension. If not managed properly, conflict can lead to hostility, lack of cooperation, violence, destroyed relationships and company failure. If managed properly, conflict can stimulate creativity, innovation and change. Conflicts are often due to communication problems, structural design and personal differences. Most important things to do when addressing conflicts are to treat the other person with respect, to listen and restate to the other's satisfaction and briefly state our views, needs and feelings. They are five styles in handling conflict which consist of avoidance, accomodation, competing, compromise and collaboration. In class, we were given case studies and asked to explain the type of conflict handling method to use in different situations.


On gaining power and influence, Mr. Chan elaborated on the concept of power. Power is the ability of a person or group to change the attitudes or behaviour of others. They are two faces of power, personal and institutional. Personal Power is related to personal gain and is derived and characterised from expertise, attraction, effort and legitimacy. Institutional power is used to create motivation and to accomplish group goals. To illustrate the concept of power in the class, another role playing game was introduced to us by Mr Chan and this time it is a management role playing game called Dr. Rose Vs. Dr. Buckley.

The last day of Mr Chan modules covers the topic of motivating others, creating high performance teams and developing self awareness. Essentially, we need to ask ourselves on what do people actually want from thier Job?.



We must know how to motivate people to join and stay in the organization. We must also know how to provide incentives that motivate people to perform, to diagnose sources of performance problems and to apply appropriate methods to motivate employees to perform better.


Speaking on motivating people to stay in the company, one of our participants has already tendered out his resignation letter to the company. I spoke with him in length about his decision to resign and my conclusion is that he is just frustrated with the company and also the prospect that the company can give him in the future. Maybe, the money promised on the other side is better but whatever it is, I feel the company is losing a very good engineer that can contribute a lot to the company if given the chance. Sincerely speaking, I also don't quite agree with the company policy of renewing or extending contracts to the people who are supposed to retire. To me, if the company really wants to extend anybody, it should only be on the advisory or consultative capacity rather than occupying the same position. Nobody is indispensible and if we are 'forced' to retain people that are supposed to retire, that only shows our failure to trust the existing personel and also shows our failure to implement a successful succession planning program.


I leave it to Allah on the future of my career in the company knowing that I will give my best on whatever trials and tribulations that I will face along the way. People can come and go and those who wins is not necessarily the one in power but those with power who uses them with dignity and respect of others.

There is a lot of wastage in a low morale and demotivated workforce and it's our responsibility to avoid such things to happen. The key is perseverence and the road to success is always a hard one...

Management Development Programme: Phase 4 - Day 1

From April 23rd to April 27th, will be attending Phase 4 of the Management Development Program held at Residence Hotel in Kajang. This time, two modules were scheduled to be held during the the 5-day programme. First module from 23-25th April will cover the topic on "Essential Management Towards Result" and the second module scheduled for 26th-27th April will cover the topic on "Process Improvement".



The first module on "Essential Management Towards" result was presented by Mr Chan Leck, a 66 year old MIM Certified Professional Trainer. Mr. Chan has more than 33 years of experience in the corporate world. He retired as ASEAN Director of Operations and Board Member of Johnson & Johnson Malaysia. His area of management training include Leadership, Strategic planning, Developing Management Skill, Supply Chain Management, Purchasing Management and Logistic Management. He has vast experience in management skill training and has conducted extensive training programme, both locally and overseas. Mr. Chan holds an MBA degree in General Management from University of Hull (UK)and various other qualifications.


Mr. Chan divided his 3-day modules into 9 sub-modules which include the following.

1. Management Skills and Managerial Effectiveness
2. Building Trust
3. Communicating Effectively
4. Decision Making
5. Managing Conflict
6. Gaining Power and Influence
7. Motivating Others
8. Creating High Performance Teams
9. Developing Self Awareness

The nine items listed above are the key attributes towards successful management. Management is about getting the most output with the least input. Modern management thinking listed the required skill for managerial competence as planning, organising, leading and controlling skills. These skills are essential for effective management.

On the first day of his module, Mr. Chan also described in length the sub-module about trust. Trust is essential as it contributes to individual and organizational effectiveness. Trust is a willingness to ascribe good intentions to and have confidence in the words and actions of other people, Cook&Wall. Trust is essential as it can increase the speed and efficiency of decision making. It can also reduce conflict and costs of negotiation besides improving team performance. Trust also promotes organizational change and helps organizations survive crisis.


Trust is based on our perceptions of a person's trustworthiness. We are more likely to believe someone is trustworthy when they belong to the same identity and organizational groups that we belong to. In addition, we are more likely to rely on stereotypes when we are under time pressure. Our perceptions about trustworthiness of a person may turn into self-fulfilling prophecies.


The problems with trusting too few people is that we may become over-dependent on thier advice and interpretations. In addition, we may also fail to reach out to others who can provide a more complex view of situations. Trust in any organization must be managed properly. Some signs of mistrust is festering in any organization are lack of communication among co-workers, employer avoiding giving bad news, avoidance of meetings, deteriorating morale, increase absenteeism and blaming culture.

One way to build up trust among employees are through effective communication. Common communication problems include, words mean different things to different people, the initiation of a message provides no assurance it has been received and communication often become distorted as they are transmitted. Most important skill in communication is listening and in particular, active listening. In Malaysia, emphasis placed upon the basis of communication skills leaning more towards speaking well. There is insufficient emphasis placed on listening skill in school. Information overload results not only in the ability to block out irrelevant things but also relevant things. Mr. Chan also discussed the six steps to improve listening skills, which he called CARESS.



Mr Chan also made us involved in a management game called Winter Survival. The game was basically design to see the impact of individual and team efforts to survive a harsh winter condition after a plan crash. It is a tricky game, but it taught us a lot about good team effort and the need to trust others during death and alive situation. Day 1 was a good session and I attributed the lively and animated style of Mr Chan in class for such an invigorating experience....

Book Value and Accounting Principles..Is it Fair?

Continuing from my previous post, Day 4 and Day 5 of the 3rd Phase of the MDP programme focussed on the topic of "Finance Analysis for Managers". Financial analysis is the measurement of the financial impact of the levers of operational decision-making and management control. Being an engineer all my life, this is one topic which I really look forward to out of the so many modules of the MDP that I have to undergo.


The objectives of this module was to acheive a better understanding of financial statements, measure of financial performance and also to improve business performance. I was also hoping to properly understand the meaning of so many financial terms and jargons we normally encounter on daily basis such as ROI, ROA, book values, Income statements, Assets and Liabilities and many more terms which I bet my accountant friends will know it like the back of thier hands. In fact I have to admit, before this course, I always viewed finance as secondary to engineering. This is so especially to me ,from the system security stand-point and also being a die-hard technical man. However, to some extend, this module has somewhat altered my perspective on how we should view finance from a an accountant perspective and understand why certain seemingly unreasonable decisions being made in the company.


Over the years I have so many accountant friends. Some are good and some are better and some already left the company for greener pasture. But for some reason, I have never had the oppurtunity to properly sit down and discuss any issues related to financial statements or balance sheet of the company. Maybe, I was to be blamed because I never asked them or maybe they just thought the we the engineers have no business talking about finance! Well, thats life and our success in this transient world is still being assessed on how much asset or liabilities that we have and that is essentially a role of everyone's to play.


Ok enough for that, the finance module instructor was Mr. Vincent Loh who is an experienced management consultant who runs his own management consulting practice operating from Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong. He started his carrer in 1976 in London as a qualified chartered accountant. He has over 25 years of knowledge, exposure and management experience in business leadership and general management. His last posting before going on his own was as a Group GM of the Royal Selangor Group which saw thier best performing years during his tenure.For his age, I think Vr Loh is very enthusiastic and energetic person. He has very good english accent and his method of presentation is very lively and spirited. just take a look at the following photo of him in class to get an idea!


Mr Loh stressed that the golden rule of Finance is COMPARE. Our financial result will always be compared to our budgets, historical performance, KPIs Targets, Industry Norms and also, our competitors. Any public listed companies are legally required to issue Financial Statement at least once a year. Financial statement will enable the reader to evaluate the company's performance, it's customers, the suppliers and also, the competitors. The most important items to be read from a Financial Statements are Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement. The accountancy world has also some conventions or accounting standards (policies and guidelines) to be followed when reporting the financial statement. In general, the rules are similar such as Annual accouting period of 1 year, Income is recognised when it is earned and not invoiced, liabilities incurred by must be accrued for in accounts, short term (< 1 year) assets, long term asset (>1 year) and written off long-term assets over a period of years depending on thier useful life.



Mr Loh discussed in detail the definitions of Income Statements and Balance Sheet. He used the company's Annual Report since 2004 to get his message cleared to us. Along the way, he also cracked many jokes and also philosopical qoutes that never seized to amaze me. Although he is a very knowledgeable accountant, he has this tendency to blame the accounting worlds on account frauds and also accounting window-dressing activities occured worlwide. He told us that in accounting principle, value of people does not exist. In other words, people are not an asset to any company but they can be libilities except if they are David Beckham or Tiger Woods. Thats why accountants like the idea of corporate restucturing, layy-off and VSS so much when they are the CEOs !

We were also made to evaluate the company's financial performance from to 2004 to 2006 using the common sizing principle. Well, in engineering we would name it the normalise method when you choose a common denominator to get a per unit value. It is very obvious that the company has made so much improvement especially in 2006 when our Return on Equity (Net Profit/Shareholders Funds) is at 10.9% and our Return on Asset (Operating Profit/Total Assets) stood at 6.1%. Our gearing for 2006 is at 1.4 times and this is still below the industry's norm of 1.0. Just for comparison, the ROE of PLUS, YTL and Malakof are respectively at 25.6%, 15.3% and 14.8% which will put our company, very far from the top industry players. What struck me the most about the 2006 Income Statement was on the saving of 1 Billion we made on Fuel cost despite the steep increase in oil price last year. I really think that the management should order a thorough check on this and understand from where all the savings came.


Of course, they are so much that the company's does for the country that cannot be reflected in the accounting book values. As a public listed company with many social responsibilities, we developed people, gave scholarships, build university, build bridges, build communities and so many more that it will all go to expenditure in the income statement. Where or what are the returns for all of these then? well, that's beyond accounting principles. To me a good accountant must not only see success as simple as those shown on the annual balance sheets but also must also view it from the human perspective as well. Without good people, we can never acheive the improved Financial Performance as we got in 2006. I think it's time to really identify the good ones among us and reward them accordingly...

Why Change is Important..

I attended the third phase of the Management Development Programme organised by the company HR from 19-23 March at the Residence Hotel in UNITEN. I was very happy about the choice for the course location this time because driving from home, the travelling time is only about 40 minutes thanks to the LDP and the NKVE highways. I did not have to battle the rush hour traffic in the morning unlike last time when the location was at the MIM building in Jalan Ampang.


The first three days of the MDP programme focussed on the topic of change as the title aptly named "How to Manage and Lead Change with Impact". The instructor for this topic was Dr Lai Chong Teng, an associate consultant to the MIM. Dr Lai has more than 34 years hands-on experience in various management skills such as managerial in leadership development, customer service management, change management, process and quality management. He used to work in Telekom Malaysia and has vast experience working in overseas in particular with Telecom South Africa and Skytel.


Dr. Lai's lectures were geared towards the company's effort to introduce change. He described the T-7 project embarked by the company in a very informative and structured manner. Honestly speaking, before listening to his lectures, I was a bit confused and at times tend to ridicule the company's agenda of change. How could you not be baffled when you see so many posters and billboards telling you to change at places like the toilets everywhere at the office? I was told initially those posters were even sticked at men urinals before finally being removed due to internal complaints! Nonetheless, the T-7 initiative was actually designed with a noble intention but I think the task of communicating the intents to the masses was poorly executed.


We often heard that it is not the changes we take, but it’s the choice we make that determines our destiny.True to some extend but whether we want it or not, change is inevitable. We either change or be changed and the whole change process actually starts with a VISION. As in life, what drives us to continue working hard is the thought of becoming materially or physically better at some point in our life. Sometimes, we work hard just to survive. But to become better, we must change in many ways.



Almost constantly, we need to change our lifestyle or habits and sometimes we may even need to change our perception on others. Like Mahatma Gandhi put it, "Be the change you are trying to create". Change is never easy and there will always be many resistance towards change, even from our ownselves. For the company, the Vision as described by the current management is to be " among the leading corporations in energy and related businesses globally by 2025" and this vision is staggered into three milestones of Becoming the Best in Malaysia by 2007 (T-7), Becoming the Best in the Region (10/10), and becoming a global player by 2025. In order to achieve the vision and the targetted milestones, systematic way to chart the progress and acheivement towards along the way must be formulated.



Dr. Lai described in detail about the change agenda of the company in a very systematic way. According to him, there are basically four steps towards a systematic implementation of a change programme. I like to summarize the four steps in the following manner for the benefit of all.

Envision of Journey-->Light the Path-->Mobilize Resources-->Leverage the Gain

The Envision of Journey consists of 3 main principles involving the following.
Creating a Change Leadership Team--Escalate the Urgency--Clarify Vision

Light the Path is essentially strategizing the steps towards the vision and consists of 4 main principles as following.
Formulate Strategy--Identify Initiative--Develop Roadmap--Communicate Change

Mobilize the Resource is about managing resistance towards change and consists of 3 main agenda listed as following
Formalize Structure--Deliver Result--Manage Resistance and Barriers

Leverage the Gain can only occur after all the above have been achieved and it consists of 2 main ideas:
Increase Change Momentum--Anchor Change in Culture

During the three days, Dr Lai showed us numerous examples of how change in people and culture can have impact to the well being of an organisation. There were also several video presentations on change management and I think those videos are really cool as a training aids.

Out of so many ideas, philosophical thoughts and qoutations thrown to us, the one that struck me the most is on the question about " Should the change in the culture of an organisation comes first before we can change or vice-versa ?". According to Dr Lai, it's better to change the people first. Changing culture is just like changing a habit and bad culture is about bad habit. To change a bad habit, we need to change many things, environment, process, work attitude and also perception. Once those are changed, we will see a new culture being developed and that is what actually any management would like to see. Now I can better understand why the company is nagging on those having thier daily breakfast in the canteen every morning. This habit of taking a break in the canteen is in the management's view points, a bad habit that needs eradication and they also see this as a barrier to thier vision. How do we change this ? I'll leave it to you to ponder.

At the end of the three day course, Dr Lai asked us to eveluate a case study on change management as a group. IMHO, the case study was fairly starightforward and was not really a brain-cracker to say the least. We were also asked to take a simple objective type quiz to test our understanding what had been taught in class. Unfortunately, I could not say that I am proud of what I got in that test :-((...it just showed that I really need a change in my attitude towards managing courses like this in the future..



Well, after three days of intense lecture on change, I can only conclude that change management is all about changing's people attitude towards becoming more organised and desciplined. As long as we are alive and have to deal with people, we will never cease from having attitude problems facing us as we ourselves, are also human. Patience, perseverence and honesty are a must if we are to impact change on others. After all, leadership is not about exerting authority but about effecting our influence on others, and what better way to achieve that none other than we change ourselves first.

What Does it Take ?

The final day of the Management Programme started with a good note at least to me as I managed to join the morning breakfast prepared by the organiser with the rest of the participants. The Friday morning rush hour was no different than any other weekdays as it took me almost an hour an a half to arrive. I made it a point to tell the organiser that for Phase 3, please use the company's conference venue in UNITEN to avoid this non-productive hours spent on the road. I sincerely hope that they got my message loud and clear.

The class started with a question asked by Tuan Syed Hamid Al-Habshi, the course instructor. The question was "what does it take to be a world class company?". To answer this question, Tuan Syed played a video presentation for about 20 minutes and asked us to observe key points highlighted in the video. Well, I did not write down the name of the person in that video but enough to say that he is a Caucasian from South Africa. His video content is superb though and I managed to list down the seven criteria for becoming a world class company.

1. Differentiation - Every successful company today has some sort of uniqueness in their product. Take Coca-cola for instance.

2. Focus - A successful company always gives a lot of focus in their product to maintain an edge over the others.

3. Thinking Global - To be successful, always have the global target no matter how small the company is. IMHO, this is an understatement. We must not be content with the'juara kampung' attitude as the real challenge is in this small planet but not limited to our backyard only.

4. Perpetual Spirit of Innovation - I totally agree with this idea. By right, we should have the constant paranoia to improve in every aspect be it in reduction in operating cost or maybe just to improve our existing work processes. The Japanese know this very well indeed as they have the word 'kaizen' to illustrate it in their language. For now, I can't think of any word in Malay that could explain this.

5. Sensitive Radar System - Knowing the changing environment and people's changing behavior are critical for any company's survival. Strategy must always be reviewed and revised to cope with change. Microsoft for instance totally dropped out their plan for Microsoft Net when they realise that the era of Internet is on the horizon and quickly strategy's their business in the Internet related software.

6. Retention of Talent - This is what I feel the most important point for any company's to adopt. Good talents are best to be kept and nurtured for they are the future leaders of the company. The key is retention and NOT recruitment.

7. Social & Environmental Responsibilities - For some reasons, I do feel this is a bit difficult in the Malaysian context as companies within the GLCs are always subjected if not haunted by the political masters and subjected to all sort of regulations. I wonder it's the same for other private companies or IPPs.


To compete with the reputable global companies, one must at least achieved the 5x10x10 target, which means 5% ROR for ten consecutive years, and 10% annual growth rate. Impossible?...well not because this number is minimum compared to companies like INTEL, Coca-Cola, 3M and Microsoft.

Later, we were asked to derive and list down the company's so-called Strategic Priorities after much discussion and deliberation amongst the five subgroups in the class. The priorities were listed in a 'tilted Pyramid" format as shown in the picture.


Out of so many visions, contradicts, strategies and plans, we finally managed to nail-down the most important things that we believe can be done fast and without requiring large budget request. We were also asked to come up with a project to address the strategic initiative or plan and this assignment is due in three month time. My group has appointed me as the convener and we are to develop a kind of Web-Portal for members of the MDP2 to upload or download any information on management and business, a kind of web-based resource center for MDP2.


The final act of the day was...showtime!...we were divided into three groups and our 3 final assignments were; to tell a success story of the company in the future as envisaged in our visions complete with photos and animations,to write a lyrics and sing the song in class, and the third one was to act as in a drama, with the theme of the company already being successful. My group was assigned to write the lyrics and we did not do a great job for this as understandably, writing a song is not exactly a child's play. Nonetheless, we did what we have to do and complete the task albeit not to our satisfaction.

At about 5.25pm, the MDP programme is officially over. I personally thanked Tuan Syed for the class and hopefully we can meet again in a different occasion...Alhamdulillah.

Vision: Turning Dream into Reality

Second day of the Strategic Thinking, Planning and Implementation Module involved even greater participation from the participants. Today, we were asked to categorize all the visions that we created the day before into several lists. Here are the vision categories that we had come up with for the company.

1. State of the Art Technology
2. Conducive Hi-Tech Working Environment
3. Trusted and Reliable Supply Quality
4. From Local to Global
5. Professional and Enhanced Working Environment
6. Customer Service Excellence
7. Gold Mine

The class was also asked to conduct the SWOT analysis briefly but I think what Tuan Syed really wanted us to learn was not detailing the SWOT but rather listing up the contraditories to achieve our visions.

VISION-->CONTRADICTION-->STRATEGY-->ACTION PLAN

We managed to list many contradictories to achieve the vision but not before we were asked to analyse the Cash Register Problem.

The Cash Register problem is just to prove that if one is to decide on his own, he or she tends to make more mistakes as compared to a collective decision. I thought this kind of a case study is very interesting indeed as it proves that a person is best to work in a group and achieve more in this manner. From the contradictory list, we were again asked to classify them into several categories. From the list, there are things that we believe easiest to resolve albeit there are also things beyond our control, e.g. External factors vis-a-vis political interference.


During lunch time I sat next to Tuan Syed in the dining room. To my surprise, he is actually the brother of a friend of mine whom the last time I talked to was in 1988 during the company's Out-Bound School programme. What a small world !..just curious, Tuan Syed if you are reading this, is Tuan Syed Osman Al-Habshi your brother ?