Organization

1. Organization can have multiple level of administrative and management.

2. But it will means nothing if it's been topped by monkey and dog.

3. Looks good in books but not in reality.

4. Sorry.

Strategic Planning

Image from http://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov

Lots of firm know what is strategic management and what is strategic planning. But most of them, just ignore the importance of strategic planning. Why? Here I listed few points that contribute as a cause.

Why NO Strategic Planning

• Lack of knowledge of strategic planning
• Poor rewards structures
• Fire fighting environment
• Waste of time
• Too expensive to implement
• Laziness
• Complacency

However, if strategic planning been done in a right ways, it can turn to be very effective and will benefited the firm. Effective strategic planning must consists few elements as below:

• People process > paper process
• Words supported by figures
• Simple and non-routine
• Challenging assumptions
• Underlying corporate strategy

Strategy

Image from http://www.nicclark.com

Can I conclude it as 3 process of strategy? Whatever it is, it still the 3 steps that need to be done by strategist out there when doing strategy planning.

Strategy Formulation

• Vision & Mission
• External opportunities and threats
• Internal strengths and weaknesses
• Long term objective
• Alternative strategies
• Strategy selection

Strategy Implementation

• Annual objectives
• Policies
• Employee motivation
• Resource allocation

Strategy Evaluation

• Internal review
• External review
• Performance measurement
• Corrective action

As for strategists, the data that had been gathered, need to be analysed and organised. Otherwise, it will bring no value to the data itself.

SWOT Analysis

1. For external and internal assessment.
2. Strengths and weaknesses (Internal).
3. Threats and opportunities (External).
4. Can be upgraded into SWOT Matrix where SO (Strengths-Opportunities), WO (Weaknesses-Opportunities), ST (Strengths-Threats) and WT (Weaknesses-Threats) can be listed and evaluated.
5. Widely used for Strategic Management, mostly in planning.

Porter's Five-Forces Model

1. Used for external assessment.

2. 5 threats to be considered.

• Rivalry
• New Entrants
• Suppliers
• Buyers
• Substitutes

3. Stiff competition from rival in the same industry (MAS and AirAsia).

4. New entrants in the business that need to be monitored (Emergence of Berjaya Air).

5. Suppliers might be considered as a threat if they are very few and powerful. Need to minimized the threats by using backwards or forwards integration.

6. Power of buyers should be estimated clearly. If buyers is so powerful, they need to be listened or the services or products will be abandon by the buyers because they can opt for other services or brands.

7. Substitutes might be available in certain industry and might not applicable in some industry. Communication industry might face a lot of substitutes products but airlines industry for example, might not had any substitutes.

8. Porter's is very intelligent. Even in 1980's..he already can sense and predicts cause and effects of the external environmental assessment.

The Story of Appreciation

Credit: Emel from Asrulsyah

One young academically excellent person went to apply for a managerial position in a big company.

He passed the first interview, the director did the last interview, made the last decision.

The director discovered from the CV that the youth's academic

achievements were excellent all the way, from the secondary school until the postgraduate research, never had a year when he did not score.

The director asked, "Did you obtain any scholarships in school?" the

youth answered "none".

The director asked, " Was it your father who paid for your school fees?" The youth answered, "My father passed away when I was one year old, it was my mother who paid for my school fees.

The director asked, " Where did your mother work?" The youth answered, "My mother worked as clothes cleaner. The director requested the youth to show his hands. The youth showed a pair of hands that were smooth and perfect.

The director asked, " Have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes before?" The youth answered, "Never, my mother always wanted me to study and read more books. Furthermore, my mother can wash clothes faster than me.

The director said, "I have a request. When you go back today, go and clean your mother's hands, and then see me tomorrow morning.*

The youth felt that his chance of landing the job was high. When he went back, he happily requested his mother to let him clean her hands. His mother felt strange, happy but with mixed feelings, she showed her hands to the kid.

The youth cleaned his mother's hands slowly. His tear fell as he did that. It was the first time he noticed that his mother's hands were so wrinkled, and there were so many bruises in her hands. Some bruises were so painful that his mother shivered when they were cleaned with water.

This was the first time the youth realized that it was this pair of hands that washed the clothes everyday to enable him to pay the school fee. The bruises in the mother's hands were the price that the mother had to pay for his graduation, academic excellence and his future.

After finishing the cleaning of his mother hands, the youth quietly washed all the remaining clothes for his mother.

That night, mother and son talked for a very long time.

Next morning, the youth went to the director's office.

The Director noticed the tears in the youth's eyes, asked: " Can you tell me what have you done and learned yesterday in your house?"

The youth answered, " I cleaned my mother's hand, and also finished cleaning all the remaining clothes'

The Director asked, " please tell me your feelings."

The youth said, Number 1, I know now what is appreciation. Without my mother, there would not the successful me today. Number 2, by working together and helping my mother, only I now realize how difficult and tough it is to get something done. Number 3, I have come to appreciate the importance and value of family relationship.

The director said, " This is what I am looking for to be my manager. I want to recruit a person who can appreciate the help of others, a person who knows the sufferings of others to get things done, and a person who would not put money as his only goal in life. You are hired."

Later on, this young person worked very hard, and received the respect of his subordinates. Every employee worked diligently and as a team. The company's performance improved tremendously.

A child, who has been protected and habitually given whatever he wanted, would develop "entitlement mentality" and would always put himself first. He would be ignorant of his parent's efforts. When he starts work, he assumes that every person must listen to him, and when he becomes a manager, he would never know the sufferings of his employees and would always blame others. For this kind of people, who may be good academically, may be successful for a while, but eventually would not feel sense of achievement. He will grumble and be full of hatred and fight for more. If we are this kind of protective parents, are we really showing love or are we destroying the kid instead?*

You can let your kid live in a big house, eat a good meal, learn piano, watch a big screen TV. But when you are cutting grass, please let them experience it. After a meal, let them wash their plates and bowls together with their brothers and sisters. It is not because you do not have money to hire a maid, but it is because you want to love them in a right way. You want them to understand, no matter how rich their parents are, one day their hair will grow gray, same as the mother of that young person. The most important thing is your kid learns how to appreciate the effort and experience the difficulty and learns the ability to work with others to get things done.

The "big five" are broad categories of personality traits. While there is a significant body of literature supporting this five-factor model of personality, researchers don't always agree on the exact labels for each dimension. However, these five categories are usually described as follows:

1.Extraversion: This trait includes characteristics such as excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness, and high amounts of emotional expressiveness.

2.Agreeableness: This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection, and other prosocial behaviors.

3.Conscientiousness: Common features of this dimension include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviors. Those high in conscientiousness tend to be organized and mindful of details.

4.Neuroticism: Individuals high in this trait tend to experience emotional instability, anxiety, moodiness, irritability, and sadness.

5.Openness: This trait features characteristics such as imagination and insight, and those high in this trait also tend to have a broad range of interests.

These dimensions represent broad areas of personality. Research has demonstrated that these groupings of characteristics tend to occur together in many people. For example, individuals who are sociable tend to be talkative. However, these traits do not always occur together. Personality is a complex and varied and each person may display behaviors across several of these dimensions.

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