Blowing in the Wind of Change

For the past 4 years, the wind of change has been blowing straight into my face. Different roles of job with some exercises of branch-outs, having to deal with a turbulent time. Getting used to a challenging moment of raising a baby kid turning to be a hyper-active toddler. Accepted a new job in a new company, only to find out that several months afterward a major merger was undergoing, jumping again into a different environment. Moved out to stay in an apartment-hotel, living on "high ground", less than a sixth of the size of my previous house.

I am pretty much OK with all those changes and, supposedly, still in a good shape. The people around me might not be feeling the same. This notion came into my mind, right after I delivered my presentation to a senior leadership team in one of our few business operating group. I am managing a project that would deliver a new business computing environment that would significantly change the way people work with business information. While in general they were aware of the upcoming inevitable future and the top leader was supportive at the end, I could sense great concerns from the audience and some blank faces. Yet, a voice of embrace was also present in conjunction with a faintest remain of old school of thought. A mixed of various degrees of angles in dealing with a technolgical wave of change.

Having been going thru a number of same presentations to various different groups, I was already on a high gear. On the latest session, I should have been back to a drawing board as it deals with field operations wit concerned focus on safety, operation excellence, and prodcution. Adressing a change management is becoming critical as it challenges the very basic of human nature: stability. It is natural that we would then be encountering some resistances.

When stuffs around us are in a state of flux, our established routines are disrupted. Consequently, we have to think of navigating our ways moving forward. And thinking is hard work, let alone going into an extra mile of efforts. However, when everything is in order, when going from any point A to any point B is straightforward, we would just need, as my old boss would love to say, a robot instead of creative human being, not to mention about highly paid managers.

Learning from past failures, corporations have been taking a serious stance on addressing change management in implementing any new major inititives brought in to an established business operation. It shall go two folds. People in charge of introducing new things that would shake out the business, have to be equipped with and wisely manage change management processes. It's not just a game of technical prowesness. Mastering techniques, financial matters, and "hard" stuffs are necessary but far from enough. Facts are that pace of adoption for people around us is and will always be not the same. If it's not managed correctly, it could screw up even great things, products, or innovation we are about to put in place.

On the other hand, leaders are expected to quickly and flexibly adapt and adopt - embrace change as a business fact of life. Sadly to say that we are witnessing many expensive managers not being able to cope with it. Even worse is to actively resist change. Last week, I had a chat with a Project Manager experiencing the case of resistance before. He noted that how much more productive we would be if those energy of resistant behavior be transformed and directed into efforts for adopting the change. Surfing the wave of changes, we shall be expecting some bumps along the road. A period of valley of despair would surface that needs to be dealt with and managed before reaching up to the summit.

"Be a good salesman", advised a colleague manager of mine in well knowing the business-technology innovation that we are about to bring. As the saying goes, the only people who like change are busy cashiers and wet babies!

Down to Gorky Park, sing Scorpions, listening to the wind of change. Blows straight into the face of time. The world is closing in. But there would be no magic of the moment. We strive to make it leap forward to share our dreams of tomorrow.

Mysteries of the Past

Last Sunday, I managed to go to the cinema watching Kung Fu Panda, a 2008 animated film about a panda named Po aspiring to become a kung fu warrior, despite his clumsiness, a fat guy working for his father running a noodle restaurant. As he worked to his destiny, he was chosen to be the Dragon Warrior to fight the evil snow leopard warrior Tai Lung. Dealing with "mission impossible" preparing from nothing to kung fu warrior to save the Valley of Peace, Master Shifu (or Grand Master Oogway ?) started training Po with an advice, yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, and today is a gift. That's why it's called a present.

It reminds me how precious is the present that we shall value every minutes of moment to be of something useful to prepare for the future, yet enjoyable and fun. A shed of light for a mystery tomorrow. How about a history yesterday ? Interesting to be aware of, yesterday's history remains to have a lot of msyteries -- the ones that, unfortunately, have been shaping our today and perhaps tomorrow.

I was reading the Alexandria Link, a fantastic fiction epic by Steve Berry, a New York Times best seller. As Da Vinci Code is with a wild imagination sourced out of New Testament, the Link is for Old Testament. The Covenant of Abraham in Genesis is talking about a promised land God gave to Israel thru Abraham. The piece of land Israel is now occupying, an area of Palestine in the previous past (well, depending on how long we go back in history), a source of conflict in Middle East since 1948. The story argues about "lost in translation" from original source in Old Hebrew to Latin to English. Reversing it back to Old Hebrew, studying the contextual meaning, and mapping out the current region in question, the promised land points to the current West Arabia, not Palestine! It's becoming a shocking "fact" that would impact the course of history with a great deal of interests at stake. The source can be traced back to the legendary Library of Alexandria, buried into thousands of old manuscripts. This most information cache of ancient knowlledge vanished without trace 1500 years ago...

As with epic novel like this, a mixed of research study ("facts") and fiction construct the whole story landscape. Steve Berry sourced the first part from a study conducted by a Lebanese scholar Dr. Kamal Salibi in a book The Bible Came from Arabia. I had been reading books sourced for Da Vinci Code and other stuffs related to history and old scrolls, biblical manuscripts, and civilization. It's quite overwhelming. Things strucking me are that: how well we know about ourselves, about human kind, our origin ? How little we understand about history as accepted facts with so much ancient writings buried into nowhere, or kept in custody that open up prospects for a completely new meaning, the stuffs that would de-construct our current civilization history as we understand today ?

As individual, we all, I presume, have a bit of dark side of the past that we would try to forgive and forget. And make peace with it to free up our soul and mind for the better journey of the future. But for things dealing with humankind, stuffs that provide foundation of some beliefs, historcial revealation that could change the future....and probably events that could trigger a new source of conflicts.... it's realy a serious matter, and sensitive to some extents. And I could not just comprehend it all yet.

Master Shifu and Grand Master Oogway, yesterday remains a big mystery, no less than the future. Until we have the technology and wisdom, it will remain so before we could have a real history of yesterday. Let the mystery be for the future only. A long quest for the real truth of humankind.

Best CIOs in Indonesia 2008

Early morning Friday this week, I got a called from my former boss. He was talking about the Best 10 CIOs in Indonesia as he saw on the coverpage of a national magazine here. One of them was before working for us. Knowing some top guys, the industry, the business, and the community at large, my ex-boss was quite curious and wondering where are those guys hiding.

I shared with him that we knew of many people that might (or certainly) be on the top list. Just bear in mind, this is a result of processes for those willing to participate for this particular magazine. A total of 12 people was short-listed from 21 candidates that were identified and participated. Also, one of the general requirements is that the companies CIOs belong to shall be headquartered in Indonesia.

Nevertheless, I congratulated our former guy to make to the top 10 list. We notices few familair faces on the list as well. While few mentioned about implementing business transformation, the majority is still struglling about applications and integration. The criteria is developed arounf current challenges (complexity, roles of IT) and Individual achievement. This is in light of the evolution of CIO roles as laid out by the Panel from operational transforming to strategic.

Some can be learned about this result and those challenges the CIOs are facing. The remaining big chunks are still on general, typical, and average IT shops trying to help the business. It would be interesting enough if Warta Ekonomi, the magaizine, can look at the angle as to try to portary that IT is (part) of the business and run IT as a business. IT Doesn't Matter -- a debate quite a while ago from an article on the Harvard Business Review. The author then further published again in response to many feedbacks - Does IT Matter ?. I would like to keep on saying to my collegues that the 'ultimate' measure of IT 'success' could be simply sensed: senior level managment (CEO or the executive team) is to have IT come into their mind when about to make strategic business decisons.

The gap between theory and practice seems very wide when it comes to the CIO role, wrote Edaward Cone in The Accidental Strategist, CIO Insight April 2008. New research from CIO Insight indicated that a sizebale percentage of CIOs identify themselves as more tactical than strategic in their day-to-day affairs. Fewer than half of responding CIOs say they "create or co-create business strategy". Sixty pecent say they "contribute" to their company's strategy. Cone put it that tactical and operational jobs still matter.

One of the finding on this annual survey the magazine conducted is on the role CIOs perceiving about their jobs. On the top lists are 1) Adviser on improving business processes across the company, 2) Technology visionary. On the bottom lists (rank 15 and 16) are 1) product or business process innovator, 2) discover of new business opportunities.

On talking about the new height of challenges, seems that CIOs are loaded with a heavy-weight busines expectation when CIO Insight describing that CIOs confuse operating a business with running a business. It's a tough job to be expected from the technoogy chief to really contribute to the bottom line, devising new ways to put more money in shareholders' pockets.

Would it be Career is Over if it's not delivering that way? Again, It would be quite a hot discussion if Warta Ekonomi could package it all with the above matters in spotting and selecting the next best CIOs of Indonesia corporations.

Beyond Computing, Above the Earth

On May 9, 2008, I was one of a 1,000 crowd waiting at Jakarta Convention Center for Bill Gates to give a Presidential Lecture. It was the very first visit that Bill paid to the country and had been a strong magnet attracting enthusiasm of people to watch.

I don't know why it's called a 'Presidential Lecture'. Probably, it was opened by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and moderated by Minister of Trade Mari Elka Pangestu that both stayed present, along with some other members of Indonesia cabinet and top brass, until the very end of the session. As the moderator introduced, it was part of Government Leaders Forum that regularly invites world dignitaries to deliver presentation to and have discussions with top brass in the goverment. It was the first time that GLF was made public to selectedly invited attendees with Bill Gates addressing the forum. And wherever countries he goes, he seems to make it sure that we would be with the country's numero uno.

Bill was talking about some IT progress and trend, how that technology can help some world issues, and addressing global health and program that his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is working on. He then introduced the audience with the latest Microsoft products, or I would say contribution to IT and community. Microsoft Surface is about a new wave of human interface with computers, a natural way of doing computing, a very human being nature. And Microsoft WorldWideTelescope that is (currently) made free for everyone to explore outer space - stars, galaxy, nebulae and the like. Both are quite impressive and promising (future) Microsoft undertaking. Bill also managed to applause creativity of Indonesia students, called on stage a team of students from ITB winning national software development contest.

Looking at the back, a crowd of students was at the upper balcony, seat allocation given to University of Indonesia, Swis German University, and Univesitas Pelita Harapan. The way the session was delivered. It's like a deja vu of sort of Student Studium General. While it's interesting, nothing is quite special and spectacular. Only Bill Gates in person that make it different and special. The Q & A session was very much controlled with 5 (five) questions were already pre-arranged. A Studium General would be more lively.

Expectations for interesting discussions were popping up when a schduled TV interview with Bill Gates would be aired few days afterwards. But then, the interview with RCTI channel was plain and dry. Creative Capitalism ? Microsoft bid for Yahoo - would it be a hostile take-over ? Competition playing field with Google - earth and outer space ? None was addressed, to name a few of interesting hot topics.

Nonetheless, a salute shall be for Bill Gates that dedicate his time now with his foundation for serious efforts to improving global health and education. The visit is good for Indonesia, in light of, among other things, Visit Indonesia Year campaigns, attracting more foreign investments to come in. A credit to Tony Chen, President Director of Microsoft Indonesia, of being able to help convincing Bill Gates to come visit, after a successful arrangment previously of meeting Presidnet SBY and Bill Gates in USA (Redmond ?). And the keynote speech from the President was quite good, rich, within the context, and with a good sense of humor. I just was wondering who was the speech writer.

For sure, Bill is now now beyond computing, leaving a legacy behind for Microsoft to go above the Earth.

High Tech and High Touch

Last week, a friend of mine dropped me an email tagged with a subject of “why to move”. He attached a long quote and a (seemed-to-be) book review on why that people leave a company. The guy, was before working with me, seems to be a little bit at the cross road of his career – or his current job to be precise.

One of the books mentioned caught my attention. First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, working for the Gallup Organization, published first in 1999 (?). The book is the culmination of over 80,000 interviews conducted by Gallup during the past 25 years. It definitely provides quite a solid reference. “What do the most talented employees need from their workplace?” Gallup surveyed over a million employees from a broad range of companies, industries, and countries. The most powerful discovery was this: Talented employees need great managers. The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.

I replied to my friend that it seems to be true. He responded back that it’s very true, not just seems to be true. OK, well noted. As it goes on saying, people resigns to leave the manager, not the company. Ironically, good guys most frequently end up with having bad bosses. A quoted survey from Fortune revealed that 75% of employees are suffering from difficult bosses.

In a war for talent, companies compete to find and keep the best employees. It goes beyond just monetary benefits. I realized that even having a good coach is not enough, although it’s quite a foundation before anything else. Years ago, I had a technically bright talented guy working for us. He resigned because of the job was mostly doing “technical housekeeping” dealing with old technologies. He wanted to pursue something more exciting in touch with “tomorrow technologies” as not to make his skill obsolete. Nowadays, with a new generation of bright young people coming from the market and schools, having been “living through daily routines with fancy technologies around”, it would becoming more apparent that technology-friendly workplace is a necessity to keep them stay and productive. A CEO once I was working for required me to ensure that all engineers, and virtually all employees, in the company get access to the Internet and just keep on monitoring its proper use. In contrast, in some other different environments of equal financially strong companies, the Internet is open only to those with very strong justifications.

Turning employees’ talent into lasting performance is still a big challenge for leaders. Numbers, targets, and bottom lines do communicate, but not enough to capture the heart as to get people moved to passionately work for excellence. A very long ago, as a manager I was drafting a memo for my Vice President to address some important issues to all VPs in the company. Once finished and OKed, I asked my boss as to who should broadcast the email distribution from, as I supposed that it would be issued from him to all VPs. He simply said that let it be issued from and by you, adding with a smile that “you are already at the same level with them”. It might be just a little from his part, yet had a psychologically profound positive impact to me considering his sincerity. In contrast, there was a case whereby a big boss drafted a memo ready for his manager to sign and issue. He might intend to help. But to a talented, senior people, it was discouraging.

The driving force behind great corporate performance is talented people working with passion for excellence with an engaged heart. Quoting Dr. Jim Harris in Getting Employees to Fall in Love with Your Company, today’s great managers capture the hearts of their employees thru focusing on three strategies: Live a compelling vision, Balance work and family, Celebrate and have fun.

High tech and high touch. A I-have-a-dream motivation meets with a platinum technology exposure.

The World of Prejudice

A friend of mine forwarded an email attached with 9 cartoon pictures of a bit sarcastic (?) jokes. The picture illustrates a monk sitting with an osario, as trying to depict a wise-man addressing his preach or words of wisdom. While the jokes can end our day with a smile, tagging it with Dalai Lama as mentioned in the email (not the cartoon, though) might become a concern in light of what's happening in Tibet-China nowdays. I am cautioning my friend as to observe a sort of diversity and culutral sensitivity as not to possibly insult any religious figure.

I don't know if I am thinking too much. It might just be a good joke and, as my friend responded back, needs to be read 'wisely'. I seemed to be a bit cautious, learning from a world-wide news coverage, concerns and uproar with regard to a 15-minute Fitna movie created and posted by Geert Wilders in the Internet (LiveLeak). Having briefly seen it, I would say that it's quite outrageous and too much out of proportion. Ducth Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkanende, was within the context as wisely noted that we believe it serves no other purpose than to cause offense. He continued as to remind that feeling offended must never be used as an excuse for aggression and threats.

Violence, let alone act of terror in any form, is out of question and shall not be tolerated at all. Sadly enough, the iceberg is sometimes rooted deep in the prejudice that people might not be aware of. As the dictionary goes on saying, it is an adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the fact. The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgements or convictions. Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion. We can find it anywhere. From the extreme one that could cause serious consequences to the light one that probably becoming a food of thought. Obama dressed in a Kenyan tribe clothing during a visit to Africa was a target of "issue". Finding that the biological father of Apple CEO Steve Jobs is a Syrian Abdulfattah Jandali "inspired" many with a lot of discussions that some ended up with a "what-if prejudice analysis".

Now and then. It travels fast with technology and media. In the World Debate on media hosted and broadcasted by BBC in the face of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Monterey, California (March 2008), Andrew Mwneda, a journalist from Uganda (?), complained that mainstream media in the west tend to convey prejudice instead of info. He was referering to news coverage about Africa that are always associated with disease, war, charity, disaster, and despair. The East-West different interpretation is apparent as Queen Noor of Jordania reminding about Iraq War in light of distortion, successful manipulation of information that the media was also taking part. However, Sergey Brin (Google co-founder), indicated that with Internet or Google people can see news they way the want to see it. And information is abundantly available, a more complete picture as not to cause any prejudice. People put a comment as a response in real time, unlike in the old media that would take a week or a month for a response to a news to be published.

Well, the advance of Internet technology and information access, global business operation and social interaction shall bring people of the world getting closer and closer. Physically and virtually, yes. Mutual understanding and respects are keeping on improving. Yet, it might not be at the speed and scale we all are expecting for the peace of mind. To make the world a much better place to live in. As such, inter-faith dialogue, socio-cultutal engagement, and embracing diversity are something of significant importance to be encouraged. It shall be based on pluralism and tolerance. It's not the game of blame, as one of the cartoons mentioned above "preaching" to err is human, to blame someone else for your problem, is strategic. Or my cab driver here in Jakarta that quickly slammed "It's CIA" referring to a poltical figure here, a former presidential candidate that often made statements that difficult for the grass roots to understand and digest. Anything bad or dirty work or things incomprehensible, people seems to prejudicely stamp or label it with CIA.

It shall be a conspiracy of kindness offered to all stakeholders of the blue planet. Respect and dignity, in one-go with freedom of expression. And be wise to see any act of individual as opposed to a state's policy or action as not to draw excessive repsonses that would trigger a further negative chain of reactions. As Sir Paul McCartney conveys a meesage in Ebony & Ivory --- There is good and bad in everyone. We learn to live, we learn to give each other what we need to survive, together alive.

A perfect harmony. Sound like a utopia?

Escape the Past, Invent the Future

In a Q&A session after our GM presentation on re-organization, vision and mission, upcoming projects, and global undertaking, one of our guys posed a question about job security. I had no idea what prompted him to ask this question as he is one of our high performers. Perhaps, he was voicing concerns that some others might have.

The classic response was that we are working in a big enough company, on the top lists of Fortune 500, operating globally with diverse energy production and opportunities. Region-wise, two third of the energy demand would be coming from Pacific rim, with industrializing China hunger for more and more energy. On personal space, I was adding to remind our guys to keep on maintaining professionalism and preparing for the future in light of the next generation of skills (probably some of our guys were not quite comfortable with this notion). Referring to the best-seller Competing for the Future (Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad), we shall be ready to escape the past, do something to invent the future. An old book, yet still inspiring, that I bought a few years ago in Houston. Hamel and Prahalad indicated that inability to escape the past and inability to invent the future are great company diseases that make them failed.

As for our professional life, it is human that we all are proud of our great achievements in the past, and frequently that we are content with current performance that breed success. The one, among other things, that we might get trapped with this is that "success confirm strategy" mindset. We keep on doing things in the same way with the same thinking as it's already "proven" before that it makes us "success". We might "win" in the past because of abundant resources and it gets into subconsciious mind that "resources subsitute for creativity". The landscape of the future would require us to creatively adjust from time to time our approach to success. It might not be an immediate future, yet we need to get prepared. The "blue ocean" of the future is opportunities for those ready with new skill sets to tap in and reap the benefit. We have been seeing, for instance, that "customer subscription-based fee" is replaced with "ads revenue stream" in the business model such as Google, Yahoo and the like.

First thing first would be a question as to how that we have strong enough radar screen as to capture the fish of the future. How do we get in touch with the future. More importantly, do we have the courage to cross borders and go beyond -- out of current comfort zones. Let alone, if the risks are clear and the rewards (whatever huge it might be) are still a possibility. As Robert Kiyosaki (in Rich Dad Poor Dad, or other books I did not recall), we are always waiting for a green light. The light will never turn green, we have to make it green!

Get our mind to smartly read any leading indicator while wisely enough to deal with lagging indicators. Success of the past is a sweet memory, but it would not necesary be a ticket for a future success. In an interview wih Newsweek published this week, Dalai Lama said that "we don't talk about the past. We are looking to the future" when asked about his relationship with Beijing, recalling about meeting with Chinese leaders in the past for being reminded that Tibet has been part of China for centuries and being requested to state for no separation guarantee.

Do something. For the better future.