SINGAPORE SHORT STORIES

It grates on my nerves these days ordering from one of the premier food catering companies, in Singapore. A sales executive called May from that particular company cannot make it at all! Reasons for my anger: 1) Sent an email for order, took me 1 week and 2 phone calls for her to get back to me. 2) And when she got back to me, after so late, she asked for certain details of my correspondence, gave them to her, took me another few days and calls for her to respond, and when she did, she got the particulars wrong! 3) She got my name wrong despites constant and repeated reminders that I do not have another surname after that. 4) And I must tell you that her email to me does not have any personal thing message at all, just repeat the computer thinggy here and there so much so that all her emails to me are all identical despites my anger has risen to such a certain extent and has reflected that in my email. She simply does not want to apologise but simply repeat the same computer sta...

Emblazoned in gold on the ‘Contact us’ webpage of a company’s website which I recently visited were the contact particulars of the company’s General manager, its representatives from the respective sections, down to the company’s receptionist. The webpage impressed me and I am sure, visitors to the website, who have enquiries pertaining to the company’s products and services. Such a layout of the company’s contact provides visitors a bird eye’s view of the appropriate contact person to forward his enquiries. How customer-oriented the layout is, and many might, say of the company. I wrote straight to the General Manager of my enquiry to see how the General Manager of this seemingly customer-oriented company would handle my enquiries. One day passed by without any revert from the company, then two, three and four. In the late evening of the fifth day since my email to the company, I received a call from an operations executive of the company. To my horror, he did not have the slightest i...

A lousy manager is also one who could not discover the hidden talent of an outstanding individual and casts him aside, giving promotion opportunities to those who have no talent but nevertheless know how to ‘curry favour’ , ‘wayang’ and ‘impress’.

Leadership is both born and nurtured. People often say leaders are born, but who on earth is not born? (just a joke). In the past, I was clearly not a leader. I was shy, socially apprehensive, very pessimistic, super quiet and have very low level of self-esteem; I was a follower. That was in the past, somehow luckily over the years, enrichment and motivation books start to mould me into a more confident man who is more proactive in life, vocal and socially adapt. I have broken out from my cocoon, which has enveloped me throughout the majority of my youth. Though late, I am still lucky to have broken out from this cocoon for some never would. I have enjoyed life more and have made full use of life now. My turning point in life from my previous clone came about when I happen to pick up one of the many dozens of books bought by my father from China during his business trips. These books, all in Chinese were gathering dust inside our cupboard when one day out of boredom and having exhauste...

Much has been said in management literature on the differences between a manager and a leader, but in reality, a majority of managers I encounter are not leaders, worse, some do not even possess the basic knowledge and practice of management. Ironically, some other people I met, who do not carry the formal offical ranks or titles of managers are real leaders. These leaders also double up as coach and mentors; they effective build people who build effective teams which translate into excellent organizations. It is myopical to assume people having status like 'managers' and 'scholars' are leaders. The proof is in the pudding.

Do not underestimate the impact of your managers on your life. With many being employees spending large chunks of their life working, it is a definite and golden truth that the quality of work life parallels that of one’s personal life. And the quality of one’s work life is shaped largely by and impacted upon by the managers one have; therein lays the importance and impact of managers on your life. If one has a stifling and irritating boss, one returns home at the end of the day, troubled, beset and irritated by the whole affairs of the office. The bad experiences, frustrations one has with his managers are carried back home and in all likelihood translate to frustrations, anger or apathy towards one’s parents, spouse, sibling or children. It is paramount that managers have good management skills, and it is even more critical that they are there, in the manager’s seat because of competence and not because of seniority or because ‘he is a scholar, so he is good’ kind of mentality the se...

As one leadership guru says, if one comes under a manager with a leadership lid (or ‘capacity’) which is lesser than that of himself, two things are bound to happen: One, the employee will find it stifling to be under the command and control of the manager, deemed an ineffective under in his eyes and there will be rebellion. Two, the employee will quit after sometime to ‘escape’ from the control of a less-than -effective leader. Are leaders born? The answer is a resounding YES as which man is not borned?

Yesterday, I attended a talk on leadership presented by a director of one MNC in Singapore. The speaker was an eloquent, fantastic presenter, who peppered his speech with live anecdotes and practical examples. Personally, I myself had read books after books on leadership. And taking the presentations that I had attended and the books I had read on leadership in totality, there are definitely myriads of leadership definitions in the world today! Personally, I view leadership as the following: a. Taking charge of yourself before taking charge of others b. Having discipline and the means to work with people. c. Being an exemplary example to others, with a clear direction to lead others. These are just the main salient points of what I believe in leadership. I believe leadership must start with oneself. It is unfortunate to witness that in some organizations, people climb into leader positions not by capability but by perceived capability and by some other means. One will only know the eff...

Organizations depend on people and managers are critical to organizations. Managers need to be credible people, who are good leaders and who is able to motivate subordinates to excel in their work. There are tons of management tenets and mantras which I will not repeat here, one can read on these elaborated text. It is stifling and irritating to work under bad managers when you know you may be better than him or her and when your talents are constantly being stifled.