You only have one FIRST TIME

Recently, I had a new big boss and in our weekly meetings with him, a few of us were caught by surprise at his interest in details. Monthly reports that typically will pass without further questions got queried line by line.

At first, the joke was he had too much time. But after a few months studying him, and noticing his quick grasp of our work, I now know that his method was deliberate.

What I learnt from him was that you only have ONE chance for a first time.

When you step into a new job, there is only one FIRST time you see a paticular report or supervise a particular operation. Especially if you are in a relatively senior position, this is the chance for you to ask the fundamental, basic questions without the risk being seen as stupid or incompetent.

So grasp the first time. Go detail. Line by line, word by word, figure by figure to totally understand the concept.

Thinking Through (2)

This is a continuation of Part 1 here.
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So you have finished a piece of work and the next step is to seek the approval of your boss. And you can be sure he will be asking you questions about your work. So the next phase of thinking through is to ask the questions he may likely ask and satisfy yourselves you have got all ground covered.

But, do I know what questions will he ask? Try some of these.
Caveat: list below is not exhaustive.

1) Ask the basic/ fundamental questions. Bosses normally will not go into the detail at the outset because he knows he may be confused or led off-track. So he wants to make sure the fundamentals are correct.
- What is the aim/ objective/ purpose? (whilst the meaning of these words are essentially the same, you may find yourself giving different answers)
- What is the driver, ie why are we doing this?
- What is the basis/ argument and is this argument a persuasive one?
- What is the message? [spend a little more time on this]

So assuming your boss is satisfied with the fundamentals, he may now go into the details, ie the SUBSTANCE.

2) Going into the details
- Did you use figures, graphs, charts? If yes, are the figures/ trend accurate and what is the message conveyed?
- If the figures depict performance, are the figures impressive.
- Did you cite an example? If yes, is it an important example and is the example replicable?

3) The Unknowns
- What were your assumptions? It is all right to assume certain things, but you must know what these are and be able to argue why they remain as assumptions.
- Know what you do not know...YET. Cos you better find out before he does!

3 quick steps to better public speaking

1. Exude confidence
- Simply by showing that you are confident, the audience will be more interested in what you have to say because you appear to know what you are doing. When you sense this interest in them, you then in turn become more confident. A virtuous cycle!
(It helps of course if you have prepared a good speech.)

2. Eliminate fillers
- Kill all the 'Ahs', 'Oks', 'Erm', every single one of them. You will sound so much better.
- If you need time to think, just stop. Your pauses makes you seem sincere and serious in your task.

3. Don't read from a prepared script word-for-word
- Unless you are in parliament! but even then......
- Don't regurgitate whatever is on the slide. What's the point then of you presenting?
- Understand the concepts, use key points to remind yourself and elaborate the rest based on your understanding.

And an additional tip

4. Do not attempt to crack a joke unless you are Barack Obama or Jay Leno
- A bad joke or unappreciated joke is almost as bad as a boring speech.
- No toilet jokes, please.

How to say it?

For the first seven years of my work, I spent a great deal of time responding to complaints, both in written and verbal form. I have learnt to write simply but clearly and more importantly in a tone and choice of words that do not further antangonise a customer who is already displeased. I would like to share some of what I learn here in choice of words/ phrases to use. They are equally relevant in normal life.

'Want' and 'Need'
- Everyone has wants, so what's so great about your want. A need is different.
- There is so much difference in tone when you say 'I want you to do this' versus 'I need you to do this'

'Can' and 'May'
- Use 'may' when referring to your actions and use 'can' for others' actions
- E.g. May I use your toilet, 'you can use my toilet' instead of 'You may use my toilet', 'May I invite/request/have your permission'

'Could'
- 'Could' is a more polite form of 'can'
- 'Could I' instead of 'Can I'

'Please'
- Using 'Please' does not necessarily mean you are polite or courteous, e.g. 'Please do it'. Try telling your boss this!
- Say 'Could you please'

'I' and 'We'
- Distinguish clearly who are the subjects and owners of the action. If you are sticking your own neck out, say 'I' instead of 'We' so that you don't implicate others, especially your boss, unnecessarily.
- However, in sharing credit or positive news, always use 'We'.

Pronouns
- And whilst we are at pronouns such as 'We', be clear who the pronouns 'They', 'You', 'He' are referring to by stating their rightful owners right at the beginning.

'Think' and 'Feel'
- There is a distinct difference. If you 'feel' something, then the something must be an emotion, e.g. happy, sad, funny
- If the something is just an issue, then use 'Think'

Asking for something
- Try using 'could you pl let me have the report"

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Caveat: I do not profess to be an English expert. Feel free to let me know your comments so we can all improve.

Thinking Through

I remember many years ago, when I have just started work, one day my director propped over my cubicle wall and asked me, how do you decide what solutions to choose to implement? I then said I would choose the simplest solution to do because of the maxim the simplest is the best.

He half-shook his head and walked off!

Now, many years and moons later, I understand why he did that. The key is that even though the solution finally chosen may be the simplest, what has to take place prior is the now often heard cliche -- Think Through.

But what is thinking through and how do we think through.

My analogy is that thinking through is like drawing a map. Say you have a friend who has never been to Singapore and wish to make his way from the Woodlands Custom to Chinatown by himself but with a benfit of a map and directions.

A no think-thru solution will be hop on a cab and tell the driver to go to Chinatown. A slightly more detailed solution will be to inform where is the taxi-stand, how much are the rates, how long the journey will take, are they sur-charges and on reaching Chinatown, which location to alight, which are the sights to visit and etc.

An even more thought-through solution is to offer besides taxi, the option of taking public transport and that includes options like bus or MRT. So with each option there are the associated details. There is also the option of driving and correspondingly more options.

But you get the drift: the map starts off a blank sheet and the more you think-through, the more populated the map becomes and hence the more choices one can make.

For work, bosses like options because they need to manage risks and consequences and most importantly costs and their trade-offs.

In my next post (or posts), I will attempt to share some insights gleaned from my personal experience.

Moderating

I had the opportunity to moderate a sort of focus group discussion comprising senior members of my organisation. Although I have had many opportunities to witness different moderators in action over the years, and some very good ones like Prof Tommy and Kishore, it is quite different when one has to personally do it.

As part of my preparation, I pored through many websites googled using the key words 'moderator', 'discussion' etc to tap on the wealth of experienced moderators. With that, I was able to form an impression of how I should exercise this role.

At the beginning of the session, I informed everyone that my role was to keep the discussion going and to make sure that every one has a chance to speak. I also made a mental note not to influence the discussion by way of offering my personal opinion on the issues.

As the websites have forewarned me, I was not surprised that the starting phase was the most difficult and my aim therefore was to simply get through this warm-up phase by arrowing people to speak and not being overly concerned of the relevance they are making. I admitted I was rather lost at this stage as the comments made were rather off the mark and mother-hood. Both the group and this greenhorn moderator had to struggle to get the momentum going. After 20 mins or so, I could sense that the mood was getting better and the conversation was flowing.

To keep the discussion going, I found it useful to string together (1) points of views for background, current actions and actions going forward and (2) segregating people in their functional responsibilities, e.g. technology, operations.

Needless to say, my CPU was overclocking throughout the 90 mins taking down the main points, stringing them together, summarising them and leading the discussion to the next point while staying close to the topic.

To sum up my experience in the role of a moderator, it is to balance and manage the divergence and convergence of ideas. You need divergence to get the breadth but however need to converge the views so that they do not stray too far away from the theme.

I was quite happy when the Big Boss signalled for me to close the session and in his closing remarks say that the discussion was fruitful although initially he did not think the discussion could last the allocated 90 mins.

Water will find its level

This is somewhat related to 'Big Boss Shares' because he mentioned this phrase. I took it to mean that one will end up in a position suited to one's capabilities. I googled this phrase and found this very interesting blog post with the same title.

In his post, the blogger, apparently an officer in the US foreign service, contemplates the concept of promotion in the workplace after he has gone through another appraisal exercise and shares his insights.

Some nuggets of his balanced view and insight:

"...promotions are correlated to actual merit, but certainly not perfectly correlated."

"In my observation, chronic underperformers are those that avoid responsibility and refuse to make consequent decisions... In choosing mediocrity, they cannot be blamed for failure, but they also never have the opportunity to succeed."

"It is not only your right, but your proactive duty to ensure that you can make a contribution commensurate with your capacity."

Big Boss Shares (2) - Mee Pok

Big Boss says he is increasingly asking for no oil in his morning mee pok for a healthier lifestyle. But he says intelligent (himself?) people can often rationalise things to suit one's behavior.

He recalled he wanted to eat yong tau foo at the Ghim Moh hawker centre but the stall was closed. So he rationalised his choices and queued up for char kway teow instead.

He also remembered when he was in his 40s, when he hear the person in front of the queue ask for no oil in his meepok, he would wonder what kind of meepok it is without pork lard and oil!

I feel the same way now too, I still love my pork lard and prawn heads =)

Big Boss shares....

Big boss gave a rare informal sharing in office yesterday. Before the talk, he said that he is sharing as an individual. There were many interesting points I remembered.

The first anecdote he shared was Colin Powell's answer to a 2nd Lieutenant who asked Powell what is the secret to becoming a general. Powell said to work hard and deliver results everyday. The 2LT was excited and said that was all needed to be a general? Powell's reply was that was all you need to be a 1ST Lieutenant and you have to do it over and over again until you become a general.

The 2nd point I remembered he emphasised was the maxim "Do not reject tasks". It has now become a running joke in the office whenever our supervisor assigns us a new job. We look at each other and say "do not reject the task!"

The 3rd point I remembered was the readings he recommended. The 1st was the book "Talent is Overrated" and the 2nd was a HBR article titled "Managing Your Boss".

Three important considerations

I shared this with my fellow farmer (but now turned scholar) MK last week. Distilled from my year and a half observations of top brains at work, one must consider these three factors when putting up a piece of work, presentation etc.

1) What is the substance?
- could be statistics, principles, logic

2) What is the message?
- what do want the audience to take away.

3) Is it impressive?
- if it is not, be prepared to drop it.