Visualized.Feel.Abundance

Hey Folks,

Let us do a recap of what we have talked about so far:

1) A Company (and by extension the bosses) will pay only enough to keep you on the job.
2) Globalization and Outsourcing gives a company alternative solutions to his manpower cost which can be significantly cheaper.
3) In the New Economy, you are paid a salary which is a function of what a company is willing pay to create/manufacture a service or product.

Now that I have given you a sense of what are the factors that could influence your bosses human resource policies (such as salary), it is time to take a look at how he is going to measure your performance.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
KPIs used to be the yardstick for measuring whether an organization has met it’s goals. It was later used as a yardstick for key employees and more recently, companies has adopted it for all employees in general.

It could come in various forms but it is generally a set of goals that would determine your performance for that year. Some call it goal setting exercise and others call it target setting. I just refer to it as KPI and it is usually an agreed target between boss and employee.

Since both party agreed on the KPI, there should not be any miscommunication right? Wrong! Both party only agree on the KPI, what most party failed to convey was what happens after KPI is met or not met.

The Employees Idea Of KPI
To an average employee, meeting the KPI means that they are entitled to the average pay increment and bonus. Exceeding the KPI means that they are entitled to better than average increment, better than average bonus and a good chance of promotion!

To some employee, if they were given a high standard of KPI, they may interpret as meeting the KPI means an automatic entitlement to a good increment, good bonus and a very good chance of promotion!

The Bosses Idea of KPI
Unfortunately for the employees, the standard interpretation of the situation for the average boss is this:

1) An employee is given a set of KPI that he should have no problem meeting for his given salary.
2) Meeting the KPI means that the employee is only good enough for the pay he is given.
3) Exceeding the KPI means the employee is good enough to be considered for pay adjustment and a bonus.
4) An employee will be considered for promotion when they consistently exceed their KPI and shows potential to handle more responsibilities.

As you can see there is a gap between expectations and that is where unhappiness usually begins.

So What Is Wrong?
Every company practices KPI and renumeration in a slightly different way but one thing I notice is that majority never say what happens if employees meet their KPI and the employees never ask! They usually quote “Your salary adjustments and bonus will depend on your KPI”. It doesn’t say exactly that “You will get your increment only if you exceed your KPI” but thats what usually happens.

So why don’t they say it out loud? I am not exactly sure but I have an idea.

It’s About Mindset
When the old economy model make way for the New Economy, the average employee either did not realize what has changed or they realized but do not know how to change or do not want to change. Maybe you can tell me your reason.

So why doesn’t the boss make it clear? I tend to believe that during the transition, it was abundantly clear for the companies with overpaid staffs. The signal was in the form of retrenchment and pay cuts. For the rest (such as new companies), I am not entirely sure. Maybe my readers who are also bosses can enlighten me in this aspect.

Cheers
James

PS: Next post is what everyone employee is waiting for! So stay tuned.

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Hey Folks,

Today I would like to share with you Stella’s (my little girl) manifestation. But before I do that, let me just recap on what she knows about the Law of Attraction and Manifestation.

Stella And “The Secret”
I remember that when we showed her the movie “The Secret“, about a year ago, the first thing she did was to wrote down what she wanted and paste it outside the main door to our house and a few weeks later, she got her wish in the form of a lucky draw!

Since then, we have always encourage her to dream and manifest and more importantly to take action to get what she wants. We observed that when she wants a particular thing bad enough, she will take action get it and she always start by asking!

Ask And You Shall Be Given (most times anyway)
For example, she wanted a balloon at a theme park but we wouldn’t get one for her. So she starts asking every stall owner where she can get one or if someone was holding a bunch of balloons, she will ask them for one. The thing is, she usually gets what she wants that way. She has gotten free drinks, extra serving of drinks, balloons, sweets, stickers, even not-for-sale items, etc

So can I say she really knows how to manifest? I still can’t say for sure. But we do know that she understands the need to ask for what she wants and what she desires. We always encourage her to dream and we encourage her to actively pursue her dreams. We always could tell if what she says she wanted was really what she desire - we look at her action.

What Makes You Take Action
Dreams come from thoughts and when you think hard enough and sufficiently, it turns into manifestation. Manifest sufficiently and you get the desire to take action and live your dream.

So by looking at what she does, we can tell how badly she wants it and if she was willing to work for it. But we still apply an acid test, we ask her to justify to us why she wants or needs whatever she was trying to get. It helps her to understand if she really needs it and to vocalize it in a logical manner. Whenever she desires something sufficiently, she can come up with a load of good reasons to justify it.

Stella And Her Manifestation
And it was such a situation that led us to 2 days of shopping and assembling her new work/play area. Take a look at these photos:

She did it again! Got a sales guy to part with his promotional stuff toy
- A cute trio of birdies (Mascot of LCD manufacturer ViewSonic).

And we didn’t even buy any LCD screens.

We started out shopping with the aim of getting kiddish (in Stella’s term, it’s anything pink!) looking. So we looked around for pink computer case and I didn’t realized how tough it was to find one, all other cases we came across was BLACK with an occasional blue, red, beige or while. Not only was pink case difficult to find, pink computer tables were non-existent (certainly not in Sim Lim Square - the famous electronic and computer hangout in Singapore). But with a little persistence, we finally found the perfect table at IKEA (our famous Swedish Furniture Mall) along with a pink chair :P. Check this out!

Now look at our girl. Totally engrossed in playing her game on her new PINK computer, at her new PINK desk and sitting on her new PINK Chair!

You can click on some of the images to look at a larger version if you want to. Did you guys notice the pink pig wrist rest and the pink pencil case on her desk (just beside the LCD)?

So that was what we got ourselves into over the weekend. We manage to attract the correct furnitures and items (a little bit of focus and some persistence does help) to make Stella’s Dream come true!

What’s The Moral Of This Story?
Sometimes we have dreams that are completely beyond our means to achieve (you can’t expect a 6 year old girl to have the resources to buy and assemble those stuff right?) but it doesn’t mean there is no hope. You can still achieve your dreams by getting your questions heard by people with the right resources or people with the right connections.

I hope you enjoyed your weekend because we sure enjoyed ours

Love,
James

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Hey Folks,

Lets talk about something most employees who care for their livelihood would never dream about saying to their bosses. The word we are talking about here is “NO” and by that I mean “No” to assignments/requests/demands given by their boss.

My Reasons For Saying “YES”
I used to be a “YES” employee, everything that was ever assigned to me, I’d take them. Even if I don’t know a thing about it or even when I was already drowning with my current assignments. So why do I always say “YES”? Here are some of my reasons (thoughts actually):

1) I fear of being branded (or marked) as
- Insubordinate or rebellious
- Unable to Multi-task
- Inefficient or Ineffective
2) I want to be on the good side of my boss
3) I felt that I have no choice but to accept because he is my boss
4) I want my promotion
5) Or simply, sometimes I just don’t know how to say “NO”
6) Or worst, I fear I be shown the door if I say “NO”

So did the “YES” man attitude work for me?

Saying “YES” Was Good
In the beginning, all was well. I could handle all the assignments and demands and completed them quite well. But I did end up attracting more assignments precisely because I did them well and never say “NO”. But that was what I wanted, to prove my value and get a promotion.

I did get my promotion and attracted even more responsibilities and more challenging assignments. Again a good thing because I still could handle them. But good things are good if it is not carried to the extreme. Occasional overtimes are OK, especially if it is part of the nature of your job (such as finance department being extra busy during periods where they close their account books). But the moment you start taking so much assignments that you consistently do overtime, you will start to attract the “not so good” things.

Saying “YES” Was Not So Good
Fatigue starts to set in and you start losing family/personal time. You will get irritated or lose focus easily because of fatigue. And finally, your mood gets affected, negative thoughts starts to creep in and you start attracting bad things. At this point, you better learn how to say “NO” to your boss. Well, actually, you should start saying “NO” selectively well before this.

If you carry on accepting assignments at this point, you will soon find yourself juggling between so many assignments that you start to be inefficient and more critically, you start making mistakes and blunders that you could not afford! That could become fatal! Fatal to your career, that is.

So How Did Saying “YES” Attract This Mess
So why did it happen the way it happened and how did saying “YES” turned from being good to being bad? It all started with my thought! Go back and take a good look at the reasons that influenced me to say “YES”. The only positive thoughts in there were “I want my promotion” and “I want to be on the good side of my boss”. But the rest of my thoughts prevented me from saying “NO” when it was necessary to say it.

Different Thoughts, Different Results
So what if my thoughts were:

1) I need to understand what I need to do to get a promotion
2) I will complete my assignments as efficiently as possible
3) I will not accept a task, with ample reasons, if I cannot handle it
4) I will learn from my boss, ask for guidance whenever possible
5) If I had to accept more assignments than I can handle, I must have the resources to complete them

If I had these thoughts in the first place, I would have said “NO” where necessary and will not be afraid to ask for resources or extension of datelines if the assignments cannot be declined! See the difference?

Why Saying “NO” Can Attract Good Results
By saying “NO” to your boss, you indicate to him that there is a problem. Explained to him what the problem is and negotiate something out of it. No bosses wants his project to end up in flames, right? Think positive. Giving you a new assignment may mean he isn’t quite sure of your current work load or he is still testing the limits of your capabilities. So tell him that you have reach it by saying “NO”! Because the other option is to go down in flames!

Summary
So do you still think saying “NO” to your bosses is necessary a bad thing? Not necessary, you just need to know when to say it and how to say it. Nows your turn to talk! Share your experience and views even if you don’t agree with what I said. It is always good to have both views so we can compare and learn from them
Love,
James

PS: In my article, I always refer to someone as “HE”. The boss(es) need not necessarily be a “HE”, It’s just easier and less cluttered then writing he/she all the time.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Hey Folks,

Lately, I have been hearing a lot of negative feedbacks from friends and ex-colleagues when we met up over a cup of coffee. The usual concerns include:

- Unreasonable Datelines
- Bosses Who Can’t Make Up Their Minds
- Overworked And Underpaid
- Overloaded With Assignments
- Unappreciative Bosses
- Too Much Overtime

When In Doubt, Ask And Clarify. Never Make Your Own Assumption.
This is the single most underutilized tip! I still don’t understand why most employees don’t ask any questions when they are given an assignment? They just accept whatever instructions or assignments that was tasked to them without so much as a “Can I clarify ….?”. Are they afraid of looking stupid for asking the obvious? Probably but I would like to share with you this quote:

“The only stupid question is the one that was never asked!”
- Author unknown.

Most employees make assumptions when in doubt. They assume that their boss knows what he is doing. They assume that certain condition holds true. They assume that whatever they just figured out was what their boss wanted. The least anyone could have done, was to clarify with their boss if their assumptions were true. It’s that simple. If you are not sure how to ask and not look stupid, here is my practical example:

Me: Boss, can I have a moment to clarify with you about project X you passed me this morning?

Boss: Do you need to? I thought my instructions in the file was clear!

Me: Oh, it was but I just want to make sure that I got it right the first time. Wouldn’t want to make your project look bad if I got it wrong.

Boss: OK, go ahead.

Now you get your chance to outline HIS instructions as you think it should be and he will prompt and correct where necessary. It’s a simple technique that will not make him look bad, letting him know you care for his project while not sounding like an idiot. More importantly, you get your questions and assumptions verified. Wasn’t tough right?

Work smart, not hard
Most people I know are hard workers. They work very hard day in and day out. They work hard for each project and each assignment. They work so hard that when there is a real need to work hard, they could not raise to the occasion because they have have totally exhausted all their reserves.

What I suggest is that you should consider to work smart instead of hard. So how do you work smart? Here are my recommendations:

• Work Efficiently - When you are at work, focus on the job and cut back on non-essential activities such as chit chat, coffee breaks, surfing the internet, etc.
• Automate Repetitive Processes - Always be on the look out for task that are repetitive in nature, especially if it is a long and tedious process that repeats daily, weekly or monthly. This type of task are the best candidate for computerization and generally more cost effective to do so. Not to mention that it saves you a lot of manual work!
• Work Within Your Job Scope - I know many of my friends are a helpful bunch but many times they help others at their own expense! I strongly suggest that you focus and complete the task in your own job scope first then help others with your free time and not the other way round.
• Ask For Returning Favors - If you never ask for any returning favors, you WILL be taken for granted and that will attract an unlimited request for favors. By asking for returning favors, you will ensure that only those who are willing to help you back will ask for your help.

Put this recommendations into proper practice and you will find that working is not only manageable but enjoyable too. Overtime and overload will be a thing of the past. Plus, you will start attracting colleagues who work with similar mindset! Now that is a powerful thought.

Work VERY Hard when it matters
There are times when the company really needs you to work hard. Such as during project delivery or implementation, during a company crisis, accounts closing week or end of financial year (if you are in the finance line), etc. It is during these situations that you should volunteer to help out, make yourself visible, draw on your reserve and work your heart out. Why do you want to do that? Well, since it is unavoidable, we might as well make it count and make sure the management know about your contribution.

If you work on a regular basis and the company will take you for granted and treat it as a norm. But if you work smart regularly and put in the extra hard work where it matters, the company will treat you like a prized employee that is willing to sacrifice for the company in times of need. See the difference?

Never Go To Your Boss With Problems Only
Two staff brings the same problem to their boss. The first one explains the problem and ask the boss for a solution. The second one explains the problem and offers 2 or more possible solutions. Which one do you want to be? Better not be the first one because that fellow is known in Boss term as “Complainer”! The second one is a innovator will find himself in middle management sooner then he will realize.

Most bosses love thinking staffs who can see a problem as offers a solution but they chronically hate complainers! Oh, if you can explain the problem, offer 2 or more possible solution, analyze the pros and cons then make a recommendation. You are destined for top management!

There you have it, 4 simple tips for the smart employee that I am sure you want to be or already is. Put them into good practice and your days at work will never be as “hard” again!

Love,
James

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