Crystal Ball Glazing - eZendir

In transforming China, policymakers are shifting away from a labor-intensive, export-oriented economic model to higher value added revenue-generating models. Consequently, wages are expected to rise ... Foreign investments are encouraged to move to sectors involving transfer of high technology ( automobile, information technology, healthcare ). With a well-educated workforce, it is par to this task and the middle class will grow, with it also domestic consumption. The push factors are higher labor costs and a huge market.
To ensure a sustainable, balanced growth - and real growth, it will need to ensure that productivity gain outpaces inflation rate. Thus it must invest in education in order to nurture better managers. It will need to groom a pool of local managers that can leverage on domain knowledge, information technology and relationship skills to forge a formidable competitive strategy. It will need managers who understand the market-oriented economy where supply and demand are dictated by market forces. To gain such skills in strategy roadmappng ( competitive advantages ), understanding value creation, risk management and creating innovative products and services, it will need its managers to be bilingual in order to articulate, communicate and execute ( ACE ) in an increasing globalised eco-system.

While shifting factories further inland can mitigate escalating wage cost concerns and exchange rate issue in the short-term, real solutions must be found to achieve sustainable growth.

Since 2007, labor cost in percentage term has been climbing in the teens and this can be seen as a determined policy to transform the economy. Taking a leaf off the Singapore experience where it embarked on this course in the 80s, the transformation is real and tangible. Can this occur for China?

By focusing on education - train, train and train. Chinese managers in order to be effective need to be bilingual so that they can absorb new ideas quickly and hasten the transformation process. Foreign managers, likewise, need to learn Chinese to order to stay engage while the great shift gain momentum.

It may well be that China can reach full employment sooner than later, and in that scenario, the tipping point will be reached. A new paradigm kicks in where the only effective managers are those that are bilingual in English and Chinese - lingua francas for commerce.

Replicating the success of Singapore and India combined, China can and will leapfrog to a higher dimension - with a dynamic private sector competing domestically and internationally. The outcome is a win-win for all like-minded stakeholders.

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Virtual Zenith, Nadir - Domain Knowledge, Information Technology and Relationship

eZendir for short ... We have embarked on a mission where the brand messages are clear.

Main - the most time effective and proven method to master practical business Mandarin;
When - now, it is too costly to ignore China; and
How - 4 hours per week via one-to-one online interaction.

It is the belief of the collaborators that the team has the wherewithal to deliver quality value proposition, with focus on innovation, meeting the unmet needs of the market.

Although the strategy is a sound one, we need to execute the plan flawlessly. As a team, we are aligned through our belief in our core ideology and seek out win-win outcome leveraging on our core values i.e. trust, empathy, diligence and competence.

We also recognise that mastering domain knowledge and information technology is a finite process, we also challenge ourselves to embrace the third pillar of success - relationship. In this connection, we seek out mentors that can guide us through their wisdom and deep insights of the marketplace that we are operating in.

We will have to be disciplined to drive the processes to ensure that we deliver Quality.

Some of the key challenges will include:
a) designing the program curriculum that will satisfy the unmet of the marketplace;
b) nurturing mavens, connectors and salesmen through word-of-mouth marketing ( viral ) to reach tipping point. We shall be guided by the marketing adage: six degree of separation in order to penetrate the market as quickly as possible.

As in all execution issues, co-ordination is key to success and we will install the relevant project management tools to map the timeline and track key milestones.

A good start will reinforce the trust factor so crucial for successful collaboration - Bon Voyage ~ eZendir!

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Rainbow And Colour of It All! Be Happy

Chasing rainbow and hoping to find a pot of gold at the end of it ...so romantic, so enticing...When we were more youthful and hopeful, we must have been memerised by such thoughts.

What is it that we are chasing? Riches or happiness. Will we be happy when we attain material wealth? Maybe .... perhaps not. So if we pursue happiness, if ever that is achievable, do we need material wealth? Taking a step back, we need to ask ourselves what is happiness? What does it mean to be happy?

We need to remember that life is a journey, and happiness our companion. What better option can we make? We can liken happiness to a transaction where we experience for a fleeting moment of ~ truth. In a transaction, we come into contact with a stimulus and how we response defines whether the experience is quality ( happiness ) or otherwise.


How is it that we feel more often than not that life remains unfulfilled? Could be that we lack quality experiences. Maybe it is the lack of empathy that prevents us from such experiences.

First movers fear it is against their interest to initiate a discussion and the end result is that we miss an opportunity to co-operate. This can be categorised as a co-ordination issue. When there is a break-down in co-ordination, there will be no meaningful progress, and any underlying issue will be allowed to fester and there would be risk of a disorderly outcome. The likely scenario is a stimulus that is likely to attract a zero-sum gain, a positive response at the expense of someone's negative response. Is it possible to have a win-win outcome, where happiness can be shared? Can people really sit down and negotiate according to a set of rules , unwritten but underpinned by a set of common beliefs. If no, why not?
Again it is back to the coordination issue .... what is the driver when a certain course of action is selected? More often than not, we use price as the basis to find the equilibrium between supply and demand. We may have taken the short-term view that the best result will come .... from everyone in the group doing what is best for himself . However, John Nash has added a caveat "and the group". According to him, " if we go for the best ( by definition scarce )... we block each other. Not a single one of us is gonna get it. So then we go for her friends, but they will all give us the cold shoulder because nobody likes to be second choice. Well, what if none goes for the best? We don't get in each other's way, and we don't insult the others. That's the only way we win. "
The following questions can help us understand better what is preventing us from feeling happy?

a)when you are NOT achieving what you set out to do, would you feel upset?

b)can you work around the setback and find an acceptable alternative?

c) why is it so important to achieve your goal?

Goal setting is process-driven and you need to understand what are the steps you require to take to reach from here to there. Too often, we make quick and unsubstantiated assumptions, and as a result we are not able to get to our goal. There is no short cut and when you analyse your mis-steps you will realise what are the stimuli that trigger the negative response.

Dealing with human emotion is one of the most challenging and difficult tasks. There are myriad of moving components at play and we cannot control the outcome as interests are not completely aligned. Again we can identify the stimuli that trigger the negative response.

So fundamentally, we need to identify like-minded people with shared values to begin with. So how can we convince people that cooperation is better than competition?

When it comes to co-operation, we need to think big but act in baby steps. This helps to breakdown complex issues into simpler elements. We need to underpin the efficacy of our assumptions and execute the steps in logical sequence. Every successful step reinforces trust and with trust it is possible to overcome the coordination issue. Once collaborators are comfortable and confident that cooperation can result in a win-win outcome, the end-to-end processes can then take on a life of its own with its own ecosystem of checks and balances - and we can sit back and enjoy the ride and have happiness as our companion.

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Inno-cation and Quality Part V - Emotion, Rational and Moral

Angst, provocation, passion are elements of emotion ... without these, what will life be? Want and desire are essential to change. Emotion serves as the stimulus in uncovering your unmet needs ... and change comes about when your unmet needs are been fulfilled.

Unique idea that appeals to your emotion is a powerful connector. Art, as a media, helps to manifest that emotion. Yet emotion, left unchecked, can have bad consequences. It may degenerate and lead to an obsession or worse to an addiction.

Innovation which has been defined as something new and fulfilling the unmet needs, possesses an element of provocation to trigger and or entice a response. Hence coining the term "innocation".

Artists seek inspiration by understanding humanity through painting of nude or near-nude portraits which evoke unfiltered emotion. Go to any art gallery and you are likely to sample such works. Fire up your imagination, these works sure do!
After triggering the response, your brain very quickly internalise these signals, bringing you to reality by matching up to your set of value system.

This process of rationalisation allows you to judge whether the experience is of quality in accordance to your beliefs. As your values evolve, you may be more concerned with the dynamic aspect of quality that these experiences evoke.

Finally, society plays an important role in imparting moral values and hence regulating behaviour and setting norms. Society can only progress if it is willing to allow emancipation of the collective thoughts of its citizens. Presently emerging economies e.g. China, India, Brazil etc are at the cross-road of change. They seek to reinvent in order to attain the next level of economic development.

The question is whether society can learn lessons from history, avoid repeating past mistakes and make progress for the good of its people?

Similarly, organisations face similar challenges. They need to balance control and empowerment. Having shared values and common ideology help to solve a myriad of challenges faced by these entities.

Critical Success Factors

It essentially boils down to sharing reward. Here, we take a leaf from the proponents of Game Theory. First, one must work for the common good of the group so that the outcome is optimal to that group. Next, there must be an equitable way to distribute the profit. The goal is to encourage the heavers, while at the same time do not give slackers any chance to demoralise the group.

It will be interesting to see how many groups are perfecting the art of Game Theory that benefits the collaborators.

Selfish behaviour is the root cause for the break-down of the group!

In summary, to be successful in innovation,
you need:
a) the right core ideology i.e. values like courage, confidence and conviction,
b) the right people onboard,
c) coaching tool that would objectively measures value drivers, helping manage the resources more productively,and
d) provide proper rewards and incentives.


Strong leadership anchored with the right value system and driven by a simple easy-to-follow common ideology is the way forward ...

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