Lessons from a certain CEO on your career

Be a Busybody:

In a big company, your role is often very specialized and the things you do will naturally be of a narrow scope. Achieving mastery in what you do is desirable, but it is also important to know a bit of what is happening around you, on a macro scale. This is to say that it is good to be a busybody, in a smart way, and talk to people from other departments. From your conversations, understand the different processes in different areas as well as their perspectives.
The advantage of being a busybody is not only some knowledge of the various operations of the company, but unwittingly you gain visibility in the organization. Senior management will come to take note of your curious antics and when the opportunity arise for a project which often needs cross-department knowledge, you will have a high chance of being considered for the role.

Balance.. Life is a marathon

.... and so is your career. Remember, your working life can span up to 40 years... or more. In the current generation, I believe many hold the dream of retiring at 40 or even earlier. Mr CEO has seen many people burnout after working day and night for the first few years of their career. In the long run, the winner goes to the one still running the race.
It is thus important to have a work-life balance. Mr CEO takes joy in spending time with his family, especially his wife whom he holds dearly.

Take care of your people

Your success depends a lot on how you treat your people.
For your staff, if they clear their KPI (key performance indicator), make sure they get their well-justified reward.
A question comes up from the audience on how does he monitor so many people. The answer to that is that he has sub-managers to monitor their respective groups. This answer is obvious in my opinion, but to really do that well is a challenge which requires both leadership and charisma
Lastly, your people also include your customers. Make sure that they are happy using your products.

Get a Mentor

Lastly, having a mentor can add to your value. It is important to get a good mentor. Good mentors hear you before saying its a stupid idea. The choice of a mentor seems to be a great discussion point. I would try to blog about this in my next posts.

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Why Hire Management Consultants?

You pay hundreds of thousands for these men in suits. Most of them are younger than you, some are just fresh our of college and they speak like they have been in the industry for many centuries. Are they credible, and is it worth paying such a huge sum for their services?

Given the significant success in the management consulting industry speaks volume about the value of the services Management consultants bring. Some are tangible while others intangible: 

The database

Large Management consulting firms like McKinsey have an immense database accumulated over years of market research. This is the main reason why those young chaps have the confidence to speak louder than you during meetings. They based their recommendations over solid market data. This asset of information is what many companies lack

A clear, unconflicted 3rd party opinion

Having worked in your company and in this industry for a few decades, you might already have some ideas cast in stone which impedes you from making an objective analysis of the situation. Consultants have a broader perspective and can possess knowledge and benchmarks which are exclusive to them. They are not conflicted and they can offer advice from a position unaffected by biases of your company.

A lifeline for change

Management consultants especially from established companies like McKinsey or Bain would bring with them an aura of credibility. To get a proposal approved, officers can convince the management team better if the change is proposed by McKinsey or Bain. 
Some companies might be in an unfavorable situation and need the best advice as soon as possible. Management consulting is like their lifeline and they are willing to pay for it.

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3 tips on writing a letter to reject a proposal

There are times where you would encounter a need to reject an application or proposal, and you have to do it tactfully. This happens when you are in a position where a hard reject is the wrong thing to do. 

Here are 3 tips on writing a proposal rejection letter

1) Never say NO

A truly skilled rejection letter does not directly says no, but is still strong enough to convey that the proposal didn't make the cut. In the context of love, you can notice that a mild rejection comes in the form of  " We are different" rather than " No, I don't like you."

2) Mention good things

Massage their ego by praising their strengths and accomplishments so far. Recognise what they have done well, and then go in for the kill. "While your company has garnered significant sales in a short time and generated positive publicity, we note that there are a few key criteria in question."

3) Ask questions

This should be your key "weapon" of rejection. Probe on the weaknesses on the proposal so that the applicant knows their proposal is lacking. Depending on your style, you might want to mercilessly list down all your doubts rather than having a back-and-forth ball game which will take a much longer time.

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Miscommunication in business

It is very important to state clearly what your objective is to let the party know where you are coming from. This gap of what the customers think is important and what you think is important must be bridged. 

For example, you might think function is a key feature but really what your customers wants is the product must look good. To accomplish this, conduct surveys with your potential customers and understand their need. You will have a clearer picture of what the majority thinks. 

To win customers, this miscommunication needs to be eradicated to grasp and provide what they truly need.

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What do bosses do?

Bosses, the seemingly evil creatures who at the same time stealthy to the extent that you are unsure of what they are doing behind those closed doors, if anything. Well, I sure hope your boss is not like what I described! There are definitely better bosses out there. However, not all bosses are transparent. Sometimes you are just not aware of what their actual role is, as you and your colleagues are doing all the work. Here are some clues on figuring out what your bosses actually do.

3 Role of bosses

1. QC work

Your boss should be in a position to know good or bad work when he sees it. One of his roles is to make sure your work is up to standard before someone outside or higher up gets to see it. After all, he is responsible for your work.

2. Manage the team

He is also the caretaker of the team as he takes care of the welfare and issues of the team. Remember that time your baby was sick, who was the first person you talked to?

3. Strategize

I think a key attribute that bosses should have is to play the role of the planner. They should be able to plan the long term objective of the team and implement new measures to achieve that. ( This might not be required from a middle-level boss, but definitely a good to have)

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When Hiring, go for attitude rather for aptitude

You'd think, “sure, they’re a pain but they produce such high quality work I’m willing to put up with them.” Big mistake.  One bad apple spoils things for everybody.

When it comes to hiring for a startup, it is more important to see that the candidate is 200% eager to do the job, rather than hire someone experienced who expects to be treated like a superstar.

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Business Idea with a Cause

The unfortunate accident of luxury ship Costa Concordia was reminiscent of the Titanic. Amidst the sorrow, it struck me that there is a possible design flaw in current cruise ships. And there could be a new selling point for cruise ships.

Ships have been designed with the ship as the focus. If we look at the Titanic, it was build with the hardest materials and boasted to be unsinkable. The money was spent with the ship in mind, focusing on the ship but not the passengers. If we could design a revolutionary ship with the passengers in mind - yes the ship could sink, but a passenger could always escape from this ship - it would make all the difference. For example, instead of having passengers from the lower floors escape to the deck, design and construct emergency escape routes  in the low level of the ships where passengers could jump in and land on the lifeboats for evacuation immediately.

And thus, I think a good idea for the design direction of the new ship to focus on safety systems and escape routes. The cruise ship need not be unsinkable, but its passengers are definitely "undrownable". People might pay for the high level of safety.

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How to make your business scalable and some examples

The key thing to look in the potential if the business is it's scalability. It may be losing money, it may be stagnant currently, but if it is able to grow it's capacity while  decreasing the incremental cost securing and supporting a new client, it's scalable. And being a scalable model adds value to your business.

How to make your business scalable (PPPC)

Product

try to standardize your production and keep to a standard product. Think apple. They have only one product the iPhone, and you can observe similar parts used across their Span of products. This gives them the advantage to be able to produce morevolume for less amount.

People

 if the business depends on a star player and cannot survive without him,  naturally it is harder to scale. To expand operations, we need to break away from exclusive skills held by few to pervasive knowledge such that more people can run the show, increasing the capacity to grow. To achieve this, some sort of training program or knowledge- sharing sessions should be in place.

Processes

Operations and processes should be kept as simple as possible. They should also be standardized as far as possible. In that way, expanding the company would be mostly repetition of the same thing and can tap on existing infrastructure for support. Identify suitable areas of the business which can be outsourced, transforming your fixed cost into variable cost.

Customers

Leverage on your customers to reduce resources on certain tasks. Some process need not human intervention and can be passively accomplished. For example, instead of getting a staff to take their orders, use a computer/ self-service kiosk for the customers to input their orders.

What are some examples of scalable business?

- a grocery store. Below the maximum capacity,  You can restock and extend your operating hours to increase sales. This does not require a large additional capital investment.

- selling your licensed software is scalable. You can sell as many copies of your software once developed and the cost to support the customer should not be more than the cost of goods. Successful SaaS(software as a service) models is able to easily scale their operations and expand their client base to all over the world.

- remember the overnight sensation drawing app "draw something"? That is also an example of a scalable business as they built something that was efficient, fast and easy to scale. They had the capacity to accommodate 50 million downloads - the processes were kept up and running throughout.

Thus, the potential of being able to garner millions of customers is very attractive to investors. To fully maximize the value of your business, refine your model such that it is easier to scale up.

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