Distribution List

When I was in China, I got once a month an email from a colleague in Germany, because I was not taken away from the large distribution list. The contents of the emails were not really relevant to me, but I was happy to receive the emails from Germany, which did not happen to often.

Today I met her at a farewell party of a common colleague in Germany and I suddenly realized that I did not receive any emails from her for long time. I said to her: “I missed your regular emails.” She replied: “I changed my job a year ago and the new job does not require me to send such emails to a large audience.”

I smiled and responded: “That is pity. But could you please send out nevertheless monthly emails and put me on the distribution list, regardless of contents.”

We laughed. :-)))

7 Steps to Realize Your Dreams – Any Dreams

Step 1: Be crystal clear about your dream

Dreamers seem to be creative people and creative people tend to wander with their ideas, wishes and desires. However, if you are serious to realize your dreams, you need to focus only on one big thing. Being clear about this for a long enough time is the starting point of the realisation. There you gather sufficient energy which will be transferred to the materials. Your dream will be materialized.

Step 2: Ask the big WHY question

People are uncertain about their dreams because their dreams do not pass the big WHY test. Why do I have that dream? Would I approach that dream even I lose all my money or lose all your friends? Would I feel passion and love to approach the dream? Would I do every thing possible to achieve it? After asked all the questions: would I still like to approach the dream with 100% certainty? If the answer is yes, then the rest is just technique.

Step 3: Visualize the end results

Use your imagination to visualize what it looks like when the end results are achieved. Create a space in your mind and put all the elements of your dream into it. Be generous because in your mind really nothing is limited. Where are you positioned in that space? Do you feel really happy about the end results? If not, what should be changed to make you absolutely happy? Then change it. Remember, in your mind nothing is limited. You can revise your end results several times until you are absolute comfortable.

Step 4: Ask how to finance the project

Now this is the key part: you might first separate your dreams from the question how to finance it. Because it is so overwhelming that would become the blocking issue to act further. Google’s dream was to develop the best search engine in the world. And in the first years they did not have any revenue. The big money comes later. Youtube still lose money today. Think about that there are people in the business of giving away money. There is enough money in this world. What could be the models of financing the project to realize your dream?

Step 5: Generate continuously ideas to realize the big dream

The quality of your ideas is proportional to the quantity of your ideas you generate. Make a habit to generate ideas. Some ideas are just stupid, but that is the nature of ideas. Write down any ideas you can find. And manage your idea pool well. Sometimes my ideas are generated in my dreams in the night. Then I woke up and wrote down the ideas. Some ideas are coming from other people, people who are different than you or even people you dislike. Take any ideas from any sources. Speak with people in different industries. Do some thing unusual. The idea to write this article is inspired by a friend in a conversation about her career development.

Step 6: Sort out the best ideas that you can do immediately and do it

Ideas will only have impact if you act on it. Try first to sort out some cool, great ideas and act on it, immediately. Then see the results. Then adapt and change courses if you see fit. Act on ideas every day. Through your action you will generate more interesting, more useful ideas. And the most relevant fact about action is this: as long as you are acting toward your dream, you will imprint your dreams even more into your mind. And as long as you are acting toward your dreams your means will grow, your capability will grow and your determination will grow and your certainty will grow.

Step 7: Enjoy the life such, where possible, as if your dream was already realized

In fact the realization of the dream is not the state of the outside of you, it is inside you. It is your state of mind. Therefore to feel like if you already realized your dream is the most effective way to get there. What would you feel and think? How would you behave? Would you be more powerful? Would you be more loving? Would you be more generous? Would you have more fun? Just feel, think and behave like it. Remember, our mind does not need any time and space to go from state A to state B. Change your mind once, every thing else will follow.

How to Raise Children Effectively? Continued

Last Friday we went to an India Restaurant at the Hong Mei Entertainment Street to celebrate for my second daughter Katharine receiving the school certificates. We are all very proud that she ended up with the second best student at her level. We are proud because she was not always liked that as her sister.

After she graded from primary school to high school (Gymnasium), she was pending between the score of 2 to 4 (with 1 the best and 6 the worst). My wife tried to help her to be better and educated her to be more disciplined. We knew that she is intelligent and talented in many ways. But my wife and she struggled for a long time. And one day I decided to try a new method that I learned from leadership training: making the change seems to be easy.

One day in a very casual atmosphere I spoke to Katherine: “Look. Would you try one thing for me? Try to improve only one point in only one subject, what ever subject you would like to chose, while remain the scores for all other subjects the same during the next semester.” It sounded for her to be easy to achieve, so she promised: “I will try.”

By the end of the semester, she improved one point not only in one subject, but in three subjects. We were very happy. We did not make more ambitions goal for her, but told her: “That is great achievement. For the next semester, would you try only to improve one point for only one subject you chose, based on your current performance.” She confidently said: “Yes. I will try.”

During all the semesters she continuously put more efforts. And the result today is really impressive with the average score of 1.3. In addition she has a great interest and talent in music and playing well guitar.

I believe that because of the pressure in the industries the management often set too high goals for people to fail, not to achieve. And while people fail, they develop a habit of failing and lose confidence in achieving. Since they can not meet the goals anyhow, why should they bother even to make any efforts?

What we can learn from Katharine is to make changes or improvements seem to be easy, so we can succeed and we have the ambition to overachieve, not because of the pressure coming from outside, but because of the inner drive to be the best we can be!

3 Ways to Quickly Learn Any New Subjects: Visual, Auditive, or Kinaesthetic

In today’s dynamic environment you may need to often change job, move to other industry or location, or enter into completely different business as before. Quickly learning a new subject becomes the chief skill for your career, your financial success and your level of happiness. So what are the most efficient ways to learn a new subject?

The answer is “It depends”. You have three different main channels of learning: the visual, the auditive and the kinaesthetic. Most likely you have developed a preferred channel of learning a new skill. For lot professionals due to our current education system the preferred channel is visual.

If you are a visual type, you may want to start to collect as much as possible reading material for the subject. Thanks google you can find tons of documents, presentations, graphics, photos and videos on internet. Scan quickly all the materials you can find out. Then start to ask yourself a simple question: what do I want to achieve at the end of the reading journey? Be specific about your goals. The next step is to select top three materials which you believe will lead you quickly toward your goals. Then start to read and often pause and test if you have already achieved some of your goals. Revise your reading strategies, when you have the feeling that you are off the track.

In case you are auditive type, the best way to learn is to talk with the best experts in this area. Ask around: “Who are the best experts in the area?” Then schedule a time with them one by one by saying: “I spoke with a lot of people and found out that YOU are the expert in this subject. I want to learn more from you. Would you mind to spend one hour with me to talk about it?” Usually he or she will agree. And then before you go to the first expert, prepare a list of precise questions what you like to have answered. Before you go to the next expert, prepare another list, because then you already know a lot. At the end of an interview you can ask the expert: “Who else I should talk to be beneficial for me?”

Should you are a kinaesthetic type the best way is “learning by doing”. Volunteer in projects related to the subject or take seminars where there are role plays or where you can work on case studies. If you are lucky to be able to work on projects, speak with the project leader: “I am new in the subject and have a lot to learn, but my skills are communicating with people, I am good at influencing people to give their best, (or what so ever fits to you), may I use my skills to add value to the project, while I can learn?” If you meet a good project leader, then he and you will quickly figure out how to place you to contribute to the project, while you can learn.

Even though you may have a preferred learning channel, you can still combine the different learning methods to activate simultaneously all three main channels, visual, auditive and kinaesthetic. This holistic approach will deliver you the best learning results.

In case you have unlearnt to use one of the main learning channel, starting to play a music instrument will reactivate it, because you have to use your eyes to see the notes, while you are using your ears to listen to the music and playing the instrument with your hands. The best thing in practicing music instrument is that you learn while you are having fun. And having fun should be the key motivation for learning anything!

Motivation Factor Number ONE: Sense of Purpose

On the way to the office this morning, I observed 2 elderly people, maybe aged at 70, standing next to the traffic light, directing the flow of the walkers crossing the street. The temperature was 31 °C. Both of them wore a sign: Volunteer.

Then I observed some young, nice dressed ladies in the air-conditioned office building with the best views to the Huangpu River, got bored for what they have to do, waiting for the clock to reach 5:30pm, so they can enjoy the night life in Shanghai.

So I start to question myself what really motivate people to work, not just to do an ordinary work, but a job with passion, independently on how much one gets paid for. I reflected to my own 23 years working experiences with all the emotional ups and downs and came to the conclusion that people need strong sense of purpose to work with passion.

For me the purposes are

1) When the work has a component of personal development, either for me or for other people.

2) When the work really creates values, either for the company, other people or for myself.

If none of the above exists, I tent to switch off my light and fire. I will still do a job well. But I may not go the extra miles.

I am pretty sure that every one has his own sense of purpose. The manager’s task is to find it out and to design the job for the subordinates such that it makes sense (of purpose) to them.

Good Manager and Bad Manager

On the shuttle bus back to home my human resource colleagues and I discussed about what is the definition of a good or bad manager. I offered the following definition that surprised them and also myself. See if you would agree or disagree:

Good managers make from bad employees good employees.
Bad managers make from good employees bad employees.

Let me give you an example. Some years ago I was about to hire an employee and before the final decision I called his current manager and asked, how would he rate this employee’s performance from the scale 1 to 5 with 1 the highest. He said 3 to 4 the best cases. He told me the reasons about his judgment and I listen carefully. Finally, I asked him what he would recommend me to do to make this employee grade 1 by end of this year. He hesitated and said: “You do not really want to do so.” Meaning, he is hopeless, do not even try.

At the end I trusted my instinct and hired him. First, I figured out, what he is really good at. Second, I figured out, what would motivate him. Then I called him for a meeting and told him: “I see in you great potential to grow in the organization, because you always create a positive environment. When you focus on your strengths and do the things you can do best, I see for you the possibility to take over my job, when I move on.”

During the whole year I tried to reinstall his reputation by giving him responsibilities he could handle well and he liked to do. We had constant feedback sessions about how to improve the performance and the perception of other people. By end of the year, his achievements are recognized by a lot of people, including my boss. This employee got a deserved promotion.

I remember a statement by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “Treat them as they are, they will become worse. Treat them as they should be, they will become better.”

What Are Your Employees Really Looking For Most?

I meet weekly a manager for lunch to discuss management issues we face. And here is the conversation once we had:

I: “What do you think is the most important thing all employees are looking for?”

He: “hmmm...”

I: “They are all desperately looking for recognition.”

He: “How do you come to that conclusion?”

I: “Why do you think they work hard until late night? Why do you think they come to ask for promotion or salary increase? Why do you think they are sometimes lack of motivation?”

He: “They want to earn recognition, claim for recognition and strike for recognition.”

I: “But why do we pay so little attention to giving recognition?”

He: “Because we do not get enough recognition ourselves, so why should we give to others? We are more often beaten up than recognized.”

I: “Yes. This is the turning point. Even we do not get enough recognition, there are no logical reasons why we should not give it freely and generously to others. It is for free in most cases and there is immediate return. The more you give recognitions to others, the more you will receive from others. It is similar like love.”

He: “This is really a great conversation. Thanks.” :-)

I: “You are a quick learner.” :-)

Why Didn’t You Take More Initiatives?

Years ago a friend of mine moved to a new department within his company and got a bad boss. The boss was not really a bad person, but had no clue at all what leadership means.

My friend was very bright and highly motivated to work hard and to change the way how things were done inefficiently in the department. One example: every one kept the information for himself. There is no central data base for things with common interests. And if you need some information, you need to go to certain person to get it, again and again.

But his boss felt threatened by the dynamic guy, and stopped everything the young man initiated. The boss told him that he was not entitled to do such things, because that was the job of the boss.

Slowly the young man realized that he would go no where with his ideas, energy and initiatives and decided to imitate the way how his "good" colleagues were doing, namely just followed the orders of the boss and did exactly what was told. The relationship between him and his bosses had improved. There were no argues any more. The department was doing the same thing with the same inefficiency as before.

In the year end review however, the performance of the department was moderate and the boss got a warning from his boss. He called every one in the department afterwards and tried to motivate them to do more next year. After he called my friend in his office, he told him: “Your performance is moderate. You do everything well what was told ONLY. But you can do much more. Why didn’t you take more initiatives?”

How to motivate Chinese employees?

If you belong to those managers, who haven't figure out yet how to motivate Chinese employees, here I offer some thoughts for you to consider.

I have spoke with few friends who have lived in Germany and then moved back to China. Majority of them are either owners of a company or General Managers for China operations of a German company. They told me that the Chinese employee do not really take initiatives, they are general not motivated, unless you push them, set pressure to them or warn them to leave.

I asked them: "Then they are motivated?" "Yes, but only if you hold the pressure. When you take away the pressure, they go back to the old mode, namely do what you told them precisely or less."

That is exactly the point. Generally there are only two ways to motivate anyone in the world, Chinese included: the first is avoiding pain. The second is gaining joy. The only difference is that the first will stop, when you take away the pain. The second one will last, because human being is thirty for joy. So far the theory. How would it look like in the reality.

I usually start with an employee, after I got to know him with a statement: "My job is to make you happy. Your job is to make yourself happy by doing what you have to do." Then I would identify the needs of him coming day in and day out into the office. What are those needs then?

The most critical need for people I deal with is the need of being important. What could you do to make people feel important? How about taking time to talk with them, listen to their concerns and their interests? How about explaining to them in which way is what they do is critical for the entire business? How about taking them for lunch or having celebration after a deal is closed?

The second critical need is the need of development. It is not just a salary increase or a promotion. By the way, how often can you do this every year? It is about the continuously mental progress by doing a better job or doing a more difficult task.

Then there is the need of fun in the job. Yes. Highly motivated people are doing things they absolutely like, or even love to do. So I would always ask the question after job interview: "would this person do the job even for free?" Certainly it is just a hypothetic question. But this is the really test for motivation.

There are surely other needs that should be fulfilled in a job. Please do a test, select one employee you like and ask the question: "How can I make your job more enjoyable, beside money?" You will be amazed, what will come out. If you can realize those needs, they will stay with you even you would suggest them to leave.