- Stop focusing so much on financial and material gain. It is not the only measure of success.
- Uncross your legs and arms. Open body language makes people feel less tense.
- Include your employees' spouses or partners at work events, social gatherings and on trips. Work is easier for your employees when they have support at home.
- Get out from behind your desk and step into the trenches. Sit next to employees, listen to their feedback, and walk in their shoes. You'll see things on the ground that you'll never see from the sky.
- Make your values mean something. They shouldn't just be words on your website or posters on your walls. Embed your values into your systems and processes. Hire by them, dream by them, fall on your sword by them.
- When someone asks you for a piece of advice, give it to them with enthusiasm and tell them to come back if they need more in the future.
- Talk face-to-face. Discussing important matters over email, text and Slack can backfire.
- Shut up and listen. Not only to what people say, but to what they don't say. The absence of words speaks loudly when you pay attention.
- Speak from the heart.
It was 2007 when we discovered his secret. While moving my father’s mattress, we found them: heaps and heaps of Singapore Pools 4D tickets. They were stacked in layers, a paper trail of lost hopes. What shocked us most wasn’t just the volume, but the stakes. He wasn’t betting a few dollars for fun. He was punting hundreds of dollars per draw—nearly ten times a month. At the time, my siblings and I were furious. Our father was a 79-year-old retiree. We wondered, with a mix of anger and confusion, why a man at his stage of life would need to win such "big money." What was he going to do with the money? We saw it as a reckless habit, a sign of poor judgment in his final years. Some of us would say, "If I were to give him money to buy 4D, why don't I use the money and buy 4D myself? At least I have better discipline". It has taken me two decades, and the experience of raising my own three grown-up children, to finally see the truth that was hidden under that matt...

Comments
Post a Comment