Facebook Rants --- Leadership

The Technology Pope?

Do not challenge the status quo, do not struggle with a force that is not innovative, free-spirited or individual.

It's far wiser to follow wise to be orthodox, conservative

Leadership --- Direction, Charting

clueless is right,
because there's nothing wrong
with taking a position and creating options in a very dynamic situation.

slow is right,
because viewed at the correct level, every variable, every system slows.

high road is the only road
because it is obvious.

unstoppable leading this way ..

Leadership - Charting, Direction

clueless is right
slow is right

high road is the only road
everything has returned

I report for duty

unstoppable

this way.....

Essential Leadership Skills - Part 1

Essential because ...

First, you can't say, "It doesn't apply to me. I don't want to lead."
You have to lead yourself when

1. you are not led at all, or
2. you are poorly led.

Second, saying "I won't lead" is exactly like, "I won't decide." Choosing not to decide is a decision after all.

Third, as in "Planning is essential, plans are nothing," you need to know whether you are being led at all or not. Remember Kerry Mullis's "Who is minding the store?" You think someone is leading you whereas the truth is nobody is leading you. Such situations are not so uncommon and then what are you going to do about that lack of leadership?

What is a leader supposed to do?

A leader is supposed to lead. Huh?
Lead who? The followers or him/herself.
Lead them where? To what?
How?
Why?

Lead them where? To what?

1. I used to ask my honors classes, "Go to libraries, read, ask whatever you like. Then come back and read Paragraph 3 of Page 2 of my handouts. You'll see no one has thought about this before I did."
2. If this is an easy question, the answer should show in the first 10 pages of Google search results of a number of synonymous search terms and phrases. Why not try it now yourself?
3. If this is an easy question, the answer should show in the first 10 books of a number of categories in your libraries. Why not try it now yourself?

What is a leader supposed to do? Where does s/he lead the team?

1. Drucker : economic results
2. Ram Charan : R = MV, something. Maybe he means revenue or return.
3. Jim Kilts: (He qualifies his remarks as only suitable for consumer products) Do the top of P&L, then go to the middle, to improve the bottom. He means increased earnings.
4. Mao: Get and keep power.
5. Gandhi: Liberate your country.
6. Entrepreneurship book writers: Sales

What about political, educational, military, non-profit leadership?

What Buddha says

Please read, at least, the Jataka stories.

The answer there is trivially short,

embarrassingly simple and

eye-poppingly clear.

May you be able to lead comfortably and confidently yourself and those whose livelihoods depend on you.

Leadership : Timeless Basics

1. What is leadership?
   
   James Kilts, former CEO of Gillette, answers: seeing targets and mobilizing people to hit them. It is no wonder that Warren Buffet said of him as one of the businessmen who gave him "No baloney."
   
   
2. What if your targets are wrong?
   
   What if you didn't see so clearly when you set up those targets? Deng Xiaoping suggests ad hoc solutions and "groping for stones to cross the river."
   
   
3. Caring
   
   Mao Zedong when he was still good, was caring. He said good-humoredly of his troops that The Red Army soldiers are good at running.
   

Myanmar history has also taught us that leadership is all about clarity, options and risk management.

Above all, keep in mind the 6 qualities of a Leader ('Na Ya Ka') expounded by Lord Buddha:

1. 'hta-kywa' = energetic, energizing
2. 'noe-kyar' = vigilance
3. 'tha-nar' = mercy
4. 'thee-khan' = tolerate, forgive
5. 'way-phan' = feedback, comment
6. 'htaut-shu' = support, provide, take care

Leadership needs to be developed and exercised at all levels in our time. I hope my short list of just 3 items has helped you in your leadership journey.

A Letter to Mr. Barack Obama

on Nov 2, 2011

Dear Mr Obama,

In Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President, I read that

1. Once you felt like hiding "confusion or doubt" from your "seasoned advisers."
2. You also felt a big part of leadership is "projecting" "confidence" and "optimism" like FDR and Reagan.
3. Since putting America's best and smartest brains in a room still not gets you "perfect technical answers" to the problems, you were left looking for "philosophical underpinnings" and "principles beyond pragmatism."
4. At least some of your Economic advisers (esp Larry Summers and co.) felt they were "home alone."

The great George Washington had faced this before. He felt like an impostor and thought about saving himself form public shame by settling in some unknown Western territories. I think he's writing to one of his brothers in a letter.

The not so great JFK had faced this before, esp. after the Bay of Pigs op. I won't bother to talk about the not so great.

The great Abraham Lincoln had faced this before. But he's made of sterner stuff, and of more solid foundations than most of us. An anecdote may serve more to illustrate my point here. Once a group of bankers came to remind him the perilous financial situation of the Union during the Civil War.

Lincoln replied with this story. Once at night, a Presbyterian deacon tapped his door, and shouted "Arise Abraham. The Day of Judgement is come!", pointing to the shower of falling stars outside. Lincoln told the bankers, "But beyond the shower, I still saw the grand old constellations that I was so well acquainted with. No, gentlemen, the world didn't end then and nor will the Union now."

Please read Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan's seminal book, Execution.
If short of time, please read just 1 chapter in the book on "Leader's 7 Essential Behaviours".

With(Bossidy and Charan's words) "emotional fortitude" "inner security" "inner strength," the leader already has "a methodology for dealing with the unknown."

Please muddle along. And truly feel that that is real confidence, not of an artificial, manufactured, "studied demeanour."

Lincoln's "the grand old constellations" are still here for me.

I sincerely believe they are there for you too.

Good luck!

Yours sincerely,
kyaw kyaw naing, george

One-foot Fence Leadership

Source of Inspiration

Peter Drucker has advised in many places to focus on strengths and tolerate minor or some of even major weaknesses. Especially in Effective Executive and Managing for Results.

Warren Buffett remarks "I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over". A nice collection of quotes here.

Best of all, the Taoist thinker, Chuangtzu, mentioned here. The full poem is here. But please read the original too:

"Easy is right. Begin right
And you are easy.
Continue easy and you are right.
The right way to go easy
Is to forget the right way
And forget that the going is easy."

Conclusion

Let me do what I do best.
We'll let you do only what you can do.
We'll let you do what you do best.
We'll let you grow at your own pace.

When General Patten asks you to cross a river which all the map books mentioned as un-corssable, please do look at his trousers to see how high they have been muddied to see how deep the river is in reality.

I ask you to cross the river with me now, to jump over the fence with me now.

Leadership | Humble Hounds?

April 10, 2010

I'm referring to The Humble Hound article in New York Times.

Watson-like Summary

First of all, good leaders are humble. Therefore, they seek and find devices to compensate their weaknesses, and they budget for their failure "Every move is a partial failure, to be corrected with a next move ... "

Secondly, good leaders have "intense professional will” i.e. discipline. Therefore, they use the above-mentioned devices.

My Conclusion

1. David Brooks and Jim Collins haven't been in real leadership roles.
2. They haven't read or understood biographies of Mao Zedong, Gandhi, General Grant, Montgomery, President Lincoln and Reagan, etc.

My Reasons

1. Humility is necessary for leaders. But not enough. Groupthink-driven, consensus-seeking leaders will get no where. e.g Kennedy and Bay of Pigs ops?

2. Leaders have vision and will to impose on any situation and circumstances. I'm not preaching "mind over matter" stuffs, or Hitler-like "superman" "will" stuffs.
Given the same set of situations and factors, Jimmy Carter saw something and did something whereas Ronald Reagan saw something different and did something different.

Will discipline and humility compensate for such stuffs?

3. I believe in leadership processes. But they are more than humility and discipline.