I had a chat with this young friend the other day.

I gave all the ‘bad advice’, literally things that I would tell the younger me, yet things I am not doing myself. Then… I figured that was the Millennial in me talking to the Gen Z.

Technically I am a Millennial. Yeap, I am not thaaatttt old. I possess some kind of rebellious blood. I quietly defy the norm, cuz sometimes it simply doesn’t make sense. Yet I go with the flow, cuz I value people’s happiness above mine (and I have been taught all my life that yield more peace).

To the generations after me, I lost track of the labels used on them. It doesn’t really matter to me. What matters is, they are young(er). There are plenty potentials ahead and the world is theirs to build.

Think it, do it.

The young ones seems to live by this mantra. Life is short. Yolo. That sort of thing.

They are really awesome to have around, especially when an objective is defined and they know the direction they should move towards. Sure they don’t know everything, but they are focused, they research and they learn very fast.

They are happy to share knowledge, yet at the same time they are smart enough to know if it becomes hard for them to share and to learn. They just move on. These are some guts many of us never had, which is why we put up with shit sometimes.

There’s always something better to do, something interesting to learn, something more value adding. Maybe this is the power of youth, the possibilities are endless. The fire in the belly to change the world burn bright and strong, and propels refreshing ideas.

What makes them different

I would attribute this to the huge media they are exposed to since the beginning of their life, the more affluent parents they have in this generation, the education they have received which empowers a lot of possibilities.

They are generally financially ok. Their parents have a certain lifestyle, compared to their grandparents from the post-war / boomers generation. Education across the generation is more congruent and not for the ‘privileged’ like the past generation.

These are perhaps what the bosses generalised of as being ‘presumptuous’, ‘know it all’, ‘impatient to learn’. However, these are values I learnt to appreciate a lot. Because I believe people I meet have some kind of smarts that I do not possess, and I believe together we can achieve a lot of wonders; and I believe no matter what, growth takes time.

Stay Curious

They are gonna be a fun bunch to work with. Yes I agree, they are not gonna be an easy bunch to teach. But thats really because they are wired to trigger self-propelled learning. Show them what you are looking, and they can build your vision.

But… As managers… Do we have a vision ahead of us? Can we articulate what we want? Are we ready to be humble enough to learn from them, while guiding them?

Today is the world where things move so fast. WE are gonna be obsolete, not them. They are the future.

If there’s so much talks bout embracing change (in technology), perhaps we should take a step back and embrace change (in people demography). To do that, we need to be better at being human. Be better at respecting perspectives and culture, be patient enough to unlearn and relearn, be better at bringing people together instead of dividing.

Note:

Theres a difference between being a ‘young and smart generation’ and being an ‘arrogant and brat-tish generation’. The young ones should know through all the media they read, now more than ever — no one tolerates a**holes, cuz your generation do not.

Alas, this is perhaps a ‘note to self’, hoping I won’t forget what kept the fire at the pit of my belly burning. Cheers, to the young ones.

The Young Ones was originally published in be.bttr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In 2003, there was the SARS outbreak.

I was young. Single, no kids in tow, in my early twenties and totally living the YOLO life. There was no Facebook, we were probably still in the era of 2G-going-3G GSM network. Those were the days, when media that could transmit over mobile phones was like that 2KB WAP message or an MMS. Oh gosh, such nostalgia!

Anyway, the point is — the main source of media back then was the newspaper and radio. News couldn’t have travelled any faster and further, it wasn’t any richer in content, it wasn’t shareable at a click. Maybe that’s why we didn’t find much reasons to panic, cuz we didn’t know better.

This outbreak was in the midst or perhaps the tail end of the 2000s dot.com bubble bust. Pretty tough times as businesses struggled to survive one blow after another, one day at a time.

Business Continuity

That was the first time, I realised the how critical business continuity was.

I read much about it in our textbooks. But I have never internalised its importance until that point. From economy to biological, shit can hit us one after another without warning.

I was working in a contact center. Business Continuity was part and parcel of our day to day. How we escalated issues, how we handover for followup — there was already a flow in how things were designed to keep going, even if we were suddenly absent.

But a huge crowd of shift-workers working in the Contact Center, means there’s risk of introducing virus at any time with the constant people movement. This presented a pretty high business risk as a contagion would mean that the contact center’s operations would be impacted due to quarantine orders. There were quick measures taken to keep the team safe, and I am thankful for their thoughtfulness till today.

Some other companies, had the mantra to their staff that they should ‘leave work that day, like they might not return the next’. Sounds morbid huh? But those were the days of desktops, on-prem-servers and 56k internet connections (omg!)— which means working from home was close to impossible for most.

This was 2003.

The Show Must Go On

I guess we live in interesting times. To be empowered with technology that help us ensure things never stop working (or perhaps to be burdened with technology to help the world ensure we never get to stop working 😐).

What was thought-provoking for me is this — Despite surviving the 2003 SARS epidemic, ‘Business Continuity’ is still not ‘top-of-mind’ for some businesses and teams today in 2020.

I am an evangelist of technology, and its interesting to observe that teams are actually kept so busy, that business continuity becomes so ‘low priority’ or ‘something we do when we have time money’. Thats a mighty huge risk yo!

17 years after the SARS outbreak, we face another epidemic of the covid-19. It drives deeper into my belief that some of these things must happen sooner than later…

1. Paperless: Why are we still passing papersss! Other than the sheer effort needed to organise them, the sheer space to store them; they are simply an unreliable way of keeping data. They can be altered, they fade, they yellow, they get ruined by water. You lose everything in a fire, and damn all the papercuts you get when dealing with them. And when shit happens, we should perhaps refrain from form filling at entrances. I semi-cringe each time I need to hold a pen…!
2. Cashless: During this period, I am incredibly thankful for cashless payments. No digging and exchanging of cash IS actually a peace of mind. I can commute, eat and shop with just my phone! On hindsight, dealing with cash means retail outlets need to be a little more careful to keep their staff safe, from all the cash exchanged.
3. Remote Working: Apart from higher productivity and legit reasons to be anti-social, remote working forces us organise work so that we can work from wherever we are, and wherever we feel like. Tbh, I really just love working from cafes, beaches and bars. But it’s also when you remote work, you send invites when you wanna speak to someone at length and not just randomly hijack their time along the hallways. 🧐 I still love the social energy from humans and open work space concept. But this redefines priority and respect for time and space.
4. Cloud-based anything: (Disclaimer: I have been in tech startups evangelising cloud for the last 10 years) But let’s really put things into perspective — today almost everything can be found on cloud. The very classic Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite… Even your browsing history and bookmarks on Chrome. You can technically access anything with a login id and password, and never lose a thing due to corrupted disk, blue screen, virus, comp crash etc. Even without the current Covid situation, how many of us still use hard disks for work? I started to relying more on cloud even for storage these days…

Beyond Business

Today, I am older and I have a kid and family to think for. I am more ‘vulnerable’ compared to that young me in 2003 (physically and emotionally, because I have more to lose). I learnt to start protecting myself, so that I can protect my loved ones. Besides considering the economic impact on my family should shit happen, I have to think about the emotional and mental impact. Protection becomes a long term plan, a strategy.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not having a panic attack here… But when you have a family, ‘continuity’ goes beyond just business. It is about living, it is about life.

I started thinking what would I want different as an employee, and what would I do different as an manager. For one, I guess my team should not need to make unnecessary choices. Like should I work from home when I’m sick… Like should I stay home cuz my kid is sick… Like in times of Covid, am I being judged if I stay at home. I want to work towards empowering people.

Just One Thing

The only thing I couldn’t decide if I want more or less of — is on-demand-delivery.

I have fallen in love with Deliveroo, Amazon and Redmart because I do not need to get out of home, to get any necessities to stay alive. Food cravings, groceries, electronics, anything under the sun really — there’s an app for them.

However, these are highly un-eco-friendly with the amount of cardboard boxes and bubble wraps used. It caused me a bit of trauma seeing the massive pile of waste from my last shopping spree..

And the tech-loving side of me didn’t like that beneath the technology, these are really human-intensive jobs. We rely on people to deliver these services, just because we are lazy. Yes yes, we are creating jobs for the otherwise jobless maybe… but bottom line is we have excessive needs and are lazy.

…. More importantly, these are not ‘zombie-apocalypse’ safe. What if my delivery man got ‘zombie-attacked’ on the way to me? 😱

Still, I thank them for lugging the supermarket loots because I didn’t want to. And for bringing me food because I am really such a lazy ass.

Staying Safe

Till it’s all over, lets all be socially responsible folks. Stay sane, stay calm and stay safe. We will brave through this damn virus, as one global people.

Because truly if anything, the biggest takeaway I have learnt is — It’s never just another person’s problem. We can stay away, we can hide but when time comes, we stand together because we can never win anything alone.

Keep Calm and Carry On was originally published in be.bttr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

‘A year older, a year wiser’, they always say when candles are blown and cakes are cut.

Truth be told… I think we all age, but not all of us get wiser with the passing years. At least, not proportionate to the passing years.

Wisdom

If Wisdom was a person, I kinda think she is probably like that weird relative who comes to visit you every year. Her presence is usually unfelt. You don’t talk to her and you don’t want to, because you are complacent and know-it-all that way. But she will be always be the weird aunty sitting at the corner of your birthday party — looking, hearing but not participating. When you are younger, you are taught that this aunty exists, but you are not sure how she is supposed to impact your life. No f*cks were given.

Then came that few years, where she seems to suddenly stops visiting. Like those years when puberty strike, or when ‘Life’ started happening, or those years when you struggle to understand what’s going on. It felt like she couldn’t be bothered anymore and had skipped a few years of visit. And you kinda forgotten she wasn’t there and retrospectively think — ‘Hell yeah, good riddance. I had more important things to deal with in life.’

And then one year she comes back knocking, with a big wrapped present in her hands. In it, was all the Wisdom in the few missing years, compounded and expanded. As you blow that birthday candle, sip whisky with your friends, talk bout the year that’s passed — and you saw that wrapped up present and curiously peel open that big gift. Then, you felt that tug in your heart, to realize — ‘oh boy, time flies. I am older now. I am Wiser now.’

Gift

But not everyone appreciates gifts the same way.

Some judges the boxes by its wrappers, pick the glossy and sparkly ones. They miss out on the ‘good stuff’ that they chose not to unwrap.

Some opens every box, gets spoilt for choice, then start wanting getting bored and gets disappointed.

On a less philosophical note, I am a very hard person to get a perfect gift for. There isn’t a lot of things I want that can be bought off the shelves. I can walk and browse shelves after shelves, shops after shops — and still buys nothing. I am THAT marketers’ nightmare — where they pay for my PPC, where I spend long time browsing their site, and then refuse to convert and click ‘buy now’. Hahaha!

The hubby says its easier if I would love that pearl earring, or diamond ring, that Prada or that Louis Vuitton. But he think, my heart hardly skip a beat when I open a box with these stuff. That actually made me laugh, cuz it sounds quite true.

Lessons

In recent years, much have happened.

I felt it was like an early onset menopause. Where nothing really made a lot of sense, the senselessness paralyses me, and this inability to act make me mad too. I felt like a dormant volcano becoming active. Like how puberty is happening again. The rage builds up within and I was like Phoenix discovering my mutant powers.

Things are much better now of course. I have found my zen and made my peace. Of course there are some lessons I learnt along the way. I think these are like my ‘compounded birthday gifts’.

Initially I can only respond with a very weak, Thanks F*cker. And now, I think I can lift my head up proudly and go with a grateful heart, Thanks.

1) Control

There are 2 definites in life, based on my simplistic non-science-based, non-data-driven analysis.

• Things you can’t control and
• Things you can control

We get upset when things we can’t control, crumble in front of us. And then we blame ourselves for not catching every falling piece. There is an innate sense of nobility in wanting to protect everyone and save the world.

We learn later on that — this is impossible. We need to recognise and respect that every entity in this world have their path and their journey. They make their decisions and they are responsible for their path. We can’t be responsible for them all.

BUT we are responsible for our own selves. We do what we can, within our own premise and domain. We can exile intruders or welcome these guests. We take charge and make things better.

Yet, this is where we fail quite badly. We always look outside ourselves but not within ourselves enough. Over time, we do not recognise what we are good at and what we are weak at. And then we lost sight of our selves, lost the positive vibe and feel the world weighing on us.

Falling down and getting up is part and parcel of life. Then we learn that we need to give ourselves time. To heal, to realign and to grow again.

2) Time

Time is a paradox. We need to take time, to understand the value of time, and to realise we are running out of time. Complex much but you geddit?

Time is probably what makes poetry so romantic. Without which, everything would run into eternity. Dramas will go on forever. Heroes will never die. And gosh, that sounds like tragedy.

How much time can we really take, before realising we are taking things for granted? We can only have lesser of it in our lifetime. No money can buy us more. This is one thing we have no control over. We can’t waste time fretting over it, we can only use time planning and strategising properly. How do we then measure the ROI of the time spent? Are all ROIs on time measurable in the first place?

Last couple of years, I received many news of death. A friend once told me,

Many things will shape us as we grow older. Especially death.

Oh, how f*cking true…

In recent years, I had people near me ending their lives prematurely as they can’t deal with circumstances. I had people whose lives ended in their prime. And I had people who fought hard for their lives.

In each of these circumstance — I pondered over time, over loss, and over legacy. What are we doing with our time now? What do we want to achieve at the end of ‘time’? This is a learning process. Something that takes a while to crystallise before we know whats really important to us.

3) Respect

Control. Time. Respect. Why Respect though?

Somehow I think most our lives, we are taught to control. Control work, control tasks, control people. Then somewhere in our lives, we burn out from all that control and then learnt that time is running out. We forgot how to ‘go with the flow’.

Respect was something I learnt when discovering myself in this journey. I look up some lessons in pottery and I learnt to plant my garden. I hope I didn’t sound like I am experiencing mid-life crisis. :p

This all happened by chance. Where I got my first pot, propagated some from the young shoots and then subsequently got more plants for my balcony garden. Its wonderful to see growth, birds and butterflies coming. And along with it .. the pests as well.

I got inspired somehow too and started pottery classes. To make my own pots and mugs. This experience was quite mind-bending. There are some muscles in my brains I suspect was never activated. I had some kinda hands-eyes-brains coordination problems, haha! Other than that, clays have there own texture and temperaments.

In both processes, I learnt Respect.

We live together with others, work together with others. Physically living and working is no biggies. Just fulfilling an objective or tasks and we get along with our own lives. Living and working together — Thats the big deal.

Because its not just you or me anymore, its US. Together. What happens to you happens to me too. “When you take a dump, I will smell the stench too” that kind of togetherness.

At the end with each passing moment, life is always bout people we meet and things we create together.

That’s what makes blowing candles and eating cakes each year worth the while and meaningful. The 7 years have been exhilarating for me. Each year with a hidden gift, each year with something new and each year with little lessons that enrich me.

I am getting older. But am I getting wiser? I am not so sure. Each firm step comes with a sliver of doubt sometimes. But I learnt we live in borrowed time, and every moment is an added blessings. I look forward to my next cake and one more candle.

The first time I ever pondered over the word “Passion” was when I was 15. Some class discussion on “What is your passion?”

It is a rather big word to be honest. Even for the adult me today, not to mention for the me who was 15 year old. Back then, I only managed a very feeble “I am passionate bout Music”. Feeble because many years later, I would think back and laugh. Because I know very well that for myself — music is a good ‘space filler’, a good excuse to turn deaf on random conversations or noises around me, and a perfect excuse in most circumstance to pretend you don’t know what’s happening around you. It’s a good social reason to be antisocial. Music was hardly close to a passion. (On a side note, its quite laughable that we needed an excuse to be quiet and be antisocial these days. :p)

What’s Passion

So back to the one of the hottest trending keyword on social — “Passion”.

For a good part of my youth and my growing up years, I read plenty on this subject. And often, books and articles would advise us to be ‘true to ourselves’ and ‘follow your heart’. But the practical (or maybe Asian) part of me just cannot follow that like a religion. Something was missing.

These lines just seems too self-centered and too selfish. If I took a simplistic perspective, yeah I won’t disagree. If I only had a 10 min chat with someone I don’t know, yeah I won’t disagree.

But this ‘follow your heart’ thing just can’t be the full story.

Ouch… There’s Pain

People, their purpose and their sense of happiness always mattered a lot to me. I find myself feeling pained when I see people lost, in need of help, or struggling to get better — especially when I know things could have been better and easier.

It is like watching a butterfly metamorphosis in repeat mode.

At various stage, we want something more than we already have. We seek what we think is missing. We seek what we think can be found out there. In the pursuit to making ourselves get to the perceived ‘happier’ state, we go through some pain.

At this point, we could choose to disregard the pain and go back to status quo. Live life happy and not fix anything that ain’t broken — but somehow we are not wired that way. We are just stubborn that way.

Therefore, we start shortlisting what to suffer for, in order to reach the ideal state. We choose to go through the pain, in hope of a potential state of happiness.

Red Alert

Now, at this stage, there is actually a certain level of danger.

For some people, it is the point of no return. They charge forward and can’t go back anymore. What’s done cannot be undone. The perceived fruit of happiness is imagined with such sweetness, one cannot un-imagine or retract their steps.

For some people, the hope of a better tomorrow is so strong, that they numb themselves to the pain they face.

This is dangerous, because all of us have a threshold of pain. The pain might break you, or make you unbreakable. This is a huge part of the metamorphosis process. This is where irreversible change happen. This is where the temporary adrenaline works wonderfully well — like anaesthetic, until it runs out. A little like running the marathon, where the adrenaline pushes you past your usual limits, and then excruciating pain kicks in when u start to rest.

To me, I thought this is where the ‘follow your heart’ advise fails. At this point, if you have no inkling of pain in this process, you might suffer a literal seizure and die in the process. Especially if conditioning was done very poorly before the journey begin.

For those who have done their homework and is willing to brave through this path, you might start to find some philosophical similarities of your journey to that of Frodo. Haha!

Choose Your Poison

Now, we all know life can be a bitch. More often than not, we are dealt with the ‘damned if you do; damned if you don’t’ card. And instead of choosing the better choice, we need to think of the lesser evil. Maybe sometimes, we need to choose a greater evil over a shorter span of time, so that it brings long term happiness.

I begin to believe — finding your passion is merely the first step. That is the spark that will always keep your heart pumping, keep your spirits high and heads up — even in your dark days.

When you know what kind of pain entails in that journey — you find strength. You steel yourself, steel your heart and steel your mind for what’s to come. This becomes your energy and stamina, to help you stand up each time you fall.

Now, you will need to choose your poison. Because this then become your purpose in the new journey. You know this might suck life out of you, you know this might kill you. You know like falling in love, you might fall out of love. You know like everything else that gives you a sense of euphoria, you might get your heart broken.

But as this journey has a life of its own, you just keep going. Going. Going. Going.

Poison. Drink me.

I have been in startups in the past decade. I have seen the rise and fall of individuals, teams, companies, partnerships. I have seen successes like no other and I have seen many personal stories of sacrifices and heartbreak.

We are humans after all.

Poison — the word has a negative, harmful underlying meaning.

But even the medicine our doctors give us when we are sick, are labeled ‘poison’. I think these substance changes the genetic makeup of our selves. Some make us weaker, some make us stronger. Some propel us into someone we never thought we will possibly become. Some poison makes us limitless.

So, choose your poison. Take that bottle and drink it up. Be like Alice, in wonderland.

Promises

Now at the end when u embark on this adventure, be wary of promises. No one can make you promises. Neither can yourself. Maybe you should learn to never. Haha! Sometimes that’s seems like the recipe for instant failures and instant heartbreak.

Broken promises are bad for experiences, bad for branding. I guess from time to time, we gotta come to terms that we are just not in a position to promise things cuz there’s no real way of delivering it as yet. It might feel awkward saying ‘no’ and more comfortable saying ‘yes’ — but why risk it.

Passion

No one will see or understand what goes on within you. You walk your journey. You suffer your suffering. You revel in your euphoria. There is so much others can participate and celebrate with you, but there is so much more that goes beyond what they can see or hear.

If you manage to see beyond all this, then I think what goes on within you is what they call passion.

I am no mathematician but I have derived a formula for it. I think this says what it is in essence.

Passion = Doing (Value > Pain)

Maybe just maybe — for as long as we are doing it and we see that the value surpasses the pain we feel… that’s passion.

And that’s what’s worth pursuing relentlessly.

Choose Your Poison was originally published in be.bttr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Customer Support. The go-to team when you need help. They fix things, they make problems go away, they find solutions. They are fairies sent to make organisations feel humanly again.

That’s my team. They are very awesome folks. Awesome because they are very patient, knowledgeable, humble and smart people.

When I first joined, there were 4 members in the team. By that time, all of them would have been in the team for at least a year or more.

I was a little apprehensive tbh. What if they don’t like me? What if they don’t understand what I’m doing? What if I am not as smart as them? What ifs, what ifs, what ifs.

But of course these were unfounded.

They were eager to share their learnings and experiences with me. My team was very patient to explain things to me and they were my best teachers. They were objective and tells me things in plain vanilla, which is very important especially in a remote team. I loved their simplicity and sincerity. I think that is the basis of Customer Support excellence.

Their strengths come together beautifully and I start to see a dynamic team forming. They are strong in their own ways, and they work well together even though everyone is virtual. At the point of writing this article, we have never really all meet together..!

So I begin thinking of their path — trying to find out what they like and what their dreams are. And I’m hoping I’m able to connect the dots, so that I can help propel them further.

They are still young. The possibilities ahead are endless!

Customer Success

So, finally after many hectic months, the team moved from Customer Support to Customer Success team. Hectic months before was due to us “supporting” business and customers.

No biggies you might say. But I think it all starts with the mind. What we tell ourselves and tell others everyday is important. Its that seed, watered with the right thoughts, that germinate into a strong seedling.

I had been thinking for a long time … why stop at “Support” when you have the power to inspire and propel “Success”?

You see — when you support, everyone wins — You, yourself and the business. But ‘Success’ lets everyone win bigger. We will inadvertently look at the holistic picture to help customers succeed. We build better relationships. In the process, we help businesses succeed. And we succeed too.

Other than solving problems at this superficial level, we learn to look deep and to think deeper. We learn to be responsive to needs, instead of being reactive to demands. We grow together with our customers. Our customers become our friends and partners.

It’s like instead of giving you a hand, we give you a pair of wings. How super awesome is that?

Imagine

Imagine — if we focus the journey to be on the customers. The team will obsess over my customers’ needs and their successes. And me — I work on ensuring the team’s success.

I believe we have what it takes to amplify this together. I believe we have everything we need to make this work.

Not because we have “everything”. But we have the most important ingredient — the winning team.

Supporting Success was originally published in be.bttr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For a while now, I have dabbled with helping organizations with digitalization. It definitely is not an easy journey. Introducing the foreign concept to them, helping them with ‘basic’ questions, guiding them step by step — sometimes it can get rather challenging. However, I found a deep sense of purpose helping business owners achieve more.

Maybe this is what they called passion? I certainly hope so.

I have worked with business owners digitize marketing channels, worked with tech guys redesign their websites and platforms and more recently my focus has been on digitizing operations. Operations — like your folks in HR and Finance. In smaller setups, HR and Finance could be a one person’s job. While some might say what these business owners require are nothing complex, it should be simple. But that’s exactly it — its never simple.

In Singapore 99% of the companies here are Small Medium Enterprises. Access to quality technologists don’t come cheap. And when they do get access — conversations are never easy. The ‘chicken and duck talk’ begins at this point. Most times, when I speak to these folks; they feel ‘cheated’ because what they had understood is different from what’s delivered. The difference in lingo and expectations can be painful sometimes. At the end of the day, they still had to pay for whatever delivered, as these are not within their expert domain to debate or argue.

It’s this sense of ‘powerless-ness’ that makes me want to help business owners more. I don’t think this is something that can reap me extraordinary profits, because with these crowd a lot of time is spent educating, servicing and supporting.

But it does give me plenty to think about. If technology is key, how do we then help these people?

Digitalization and Automation

We have been speaking bout digitalization for at least 3 decades now. Most companies recognize by now that automation is key to survival.

In most of my conversations with customers and colleagues, I have always found myself reinforcing the purpose of digitalization. It’s almost surprising actually that in each conversation, I could almost come up with a new reason to reaffirm that this route could almost never go wrong.

This is where you see plenty startups springing out like mushrooms after the rain. Each with a pain to address and a problem to solve with the smart use of technology. I am kind of certain that for every problem you can think of now, there’s probably a start up somewhere working on it.

‘Never Go Wrong’

Now — what could go wrong with digitilization?

That’s exactly what can go wrong — digitilization.

Ironic but its not far from the truth. Digitalization is a change process. It takes heavy investments — in time and money. You need to be very clear with the process before you map out the change. You need to get buy in from stakeholders. You need money to make sure you get the help you need. You need to convince secondary stakeholders for further buy in. You launch, you iterate, you start this process all over again. It’s not easy.

But this is the change process that we need to constantly live and breath in this technology age.

Humanizing Technology

Truth be told, digitalization can be less painful if one knows to focus ruthlessly. Focus at the core, focus at what’s most important, prioritize on that 1,2, or 3 things that is critical to businesses or teams or clients; you will almost get somewhere easily.

But humans are either easily excitable by potentials and opportunities; or we are greedy and think we can fit all the eggs in our small basket. Often forgetting that, the eggs might fall and break in the process.

I think now that we got the science right, we should start focusing on the art.

The art of getting work done, the art of working together and the art of being simply human. We are so driven by outcome sometimes that we forgot bout the humans in all processes.

Empowering People

I am not a techie or a marketer by profession. In a corporate function, I fall into the Operations quadrant. In this quadrant, we get work done. And to get work done, manual work sticks out like a sore thumb because of the lack in tech skills.

That’s the general folks in my world. And that’s kind of how my customers function too.

Technology is readily available to help automate job functions. Now, if we could take the next step in making technology more human friendly, I am sure digital adoption would take flight.

This next phase of humanizing technology is already here. Are you ready?

Humanizing Technology was originally published in be.bttr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I had a conversation recently with a young student. She said:

“What your company do is something so …. un-HR”.

My company builds cloud-based payroll SaaS.

I was very amused. In a very innocent way, what she said was very thought provoking. I didn’t pay much heed but this line came back to me later. I then realised, what she said was so true.

1) Media

I read an article and here’s what it says bout HR focus for 2019.

These areas include attracting quality talent (59%), building employer brand (32%) and enhancing efficiency of the recruitment process (30%).

Keywords: #talents #employerbrand #recruitment

Google for HR, and you get tons of articles on employee engagement, talent crunch, global workforce, people and culture and so on. The soft skills needed to fuel the world today, the soft skills which is so needed to be developed in managers today. So much to do and build, yet so little time.

2) Academia

Then, there are the schools.

During our undergrad years, we studied bout people and their motivations; organisational behaviors, management thoughts, international HR, etc. The theories behind business thoughts and global markets; and how we should learn to look at the big picture.

We walk out of the school gates with lofty dreams and passionate drives to make a dent in this world. Because that’s what Steve Jobs say and that’s why we studied so hard for. And it gets more interesting in a typical Asian family setting cuz the parents certainly “didn’t pay expensive school fees for you to be lesser”.

No one ever mentions operational needs to be fulfilled by HR. The paperwork, the work permits, the interviews, the payrolls that needs to happen — as long as your business is operating and hiring people. Even if you have the unhappiest, most disgruntled team — sorry man, your payroll still gotta run.

And that is the “generation gap” today.

We enter workforce thinking and expecting all these to be automated. Obviously — because no one ever talks about it. It’s invisible. It’s sometimes an afterthought even. It sometimes becomes the “skills that you acquire as a professional”.

I get the part of it being a ‘skill’ when you learn to manoeuvre amongst regulatory policies, labour laws and company policies. And that’s precisely why I think we can do this more efficiently with less pain.

So why aren’t companies changing?

Digitisation is often a journey. It cannot be plug and play because the most important thing you seek to change is often not the job — but the people’s mindset.

To be honest, change is scary and it’s not painless.

There is a price to pay. Be it time, effort, teachings, learnings, trainings, rectifying errors, changing policies — it can be a highly uncomfortable and inconvenient price to pay.

But is it worth it?

Well if we weigh the price of change vs the cost of not changing, I’d think it’s worth it.

Cost of not changing — I’m looking at how much it will cost your business when the personnel retires from her post one day. How are you gonna attract the next wave of talent? How are you gonna stay relevant in the business, if your team starts becoming “obsolete”.

At the end of the day, you learn and you grow. You will be one step ahead from those who decided not to change.

Digitising businesses

This is the buzzword today, and it’s not without reason. This is not a new idea, it’s been around for the last 30 years at least. But we do have businesses who resists going digital.

Do not be afraid of the pain you will face when you take the first step, there are many out there to help you. But be very afraid of the pain that will come if you didn’t, help might not always come on time.

Pain: Is it all worth it? was originally published in be.bttr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

That’s one of the most “useless” question in the usual employee engagement survey. “Useless” because most managers don’t know what to do with “Best friends”. Most of us are trained to manage tasks and deadlines but we are not taught to know how to leverage on these natural human chemistry. It is more art than science when it comes to converting this metric into an actionable item.

‘Best friends’ are also scary because when the people’s voice is strong, managers fear they lose power or control. Therefore they sometimes unconsciously do a ‘divide and conquer’, and perhaps unconsciously encourage politics in the workplace.

I am fortunate to have worked in a place where the bosses are open and encouraged open-ness. We were objective-focused in the early stages of the business and these basic elements made it so easy to build camaraderie and make good friends. We worked hard together and had a lot of fun — and these becomes bonds that truly lasts a long time.

We frequently have cross-functional exchanges randomly in open spaces and over coffee. We share our learnings and our pain. We call out each other’s bullshit and work out challenges — together. Even though we are all doing different tasks and work. This is what they call “culture” perhaps. One that become a way of how work is done. And for the bunch of us — this becomes a way of life.

Today, we are great friends. Through rough times, happy times; and we still share, bounce ideas, learn from each other professionally. We kinda grow together.

This is perhaps the pinnacle culture of startups. One that many founders tries to emulate. While some are naturals at creating one, most are learning.

So, why are best friends important?

For bosses who want to 10x your company — the answer is performance. When you have that natural human connection, people share more and learn better.

For employees in a company — the answer is happiness. When you find humans whom you can connect with, at your best and at your worst — you can stride on in life knowing someone out there always have your back.

People. Performance…

Maybe it’s time to ask yourself if you have friends at work.

“Do you have a best friend at work?” was originally published in be.bttr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The alarm went off.

My boy pretended to still be asleep. It’s his second day of school.

I nudged him.

D: “The sky is still dark! Nobody wakes up when the sky is still dark!”

M: “Of course people do. Come let’s wake up happily and cheerfully.”

Seriously, wtf did I just say. Hahaha!

First Thought

Parenthood is full of ironies. “Expectations vs reality” smacking you back at your face in real life. What you say and what you really think kinda contradicts most times. And while we tell our kids they cannot lie, we do that every-f-day. Hahaha!

Second Thought

Well, something parents did to ‘brainwash’ us, kinda set the tone for happiness. I remembered springing out of bed when alarm rings, happy to be the first to wake up and happy to be ready before sunrise. That was happiness. I looked forward to the day; I looked forward to having fun!

Something else happened in the last 20years — that added weight to that spring in my toes. Hahah! Life happened, maybe. Or the lack of life.

Time to inject more fun into life yo!

Third Thought

Ultimate sign of aging is when you find so much nostalgia simply by looking at the daybreak sky. It kinda comes back in full circle.

While I was seriously full of grumps when the alarm went off, and I was so tempted to snooze as usual — I had to be a ‘role model’ and be the sunshine before daybreak.

I had to wake up, put on my “smiling face mask” and think like Cinderella waking up to all the birds chirping and mice singing. Hahaha!

And guess what…. It’s been 20 years since I found joy waking up at such ‘unearthly hour’. And it does feel some kinda wonderful.

Now, let’s see if I still feel this way tomorrow. 🤩

“Repeat a lie often enough and it will become the truth.” 🎭

Good morning, world!

6:00AM was originally published in be.bttr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Recently I had the great pleasure of mentoring a bunch of undergrads for a project. It was quite a wonderful and empowering experience.

Their questions made me rethink my whats, hows and whys. I looked deeper into my journey and reaffirmed my purpose and intent.

There was plenty of candid sharing. Hopefully I have helped them see a world of possibilities ahead of them upon graduation; as they have ignited the spark of possibilities in all that I pursue.

The project is now completed and they got me a pen to thank me. So strangely touching to receive a gift! Hahah!

It’s lovely to be young, learning and discovering — like them. It’s wonderful to be seasoned, weathered and still discovering — like me. 😊

So, I tried to mentor some kids was originally published in be.bttr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.