Business and Money Tips

Many people always tell me (as their coach) that they will start doing the right things when they are more ready tomorrow. Some people say that because currently their career is doing fine, they don't need any coaching or upgrading.  Others claimed that their bosses did not intend to promote them (as there are no such promotion opportunities) and as such they have not started to think about learning on their own.  "I'll learn when I get there", is what they say.  I'm sure you can recognize this: many people live day by day.  They will upgrade their skills when they're feeling confident and good.  Since currently there is too much workload to handle, they will wait until tomorrow when things are more stable to pick up learning. Meet Joe - the person that lives as though there is no tomorrow. Joe makes use of each day to the fullest: he will grab opportunities as they come along.  He does not improve himself or embark on self-learning according to his wh

I'm sure many of you have this experience: you wanted to teach your child or staff something, or you wanted to send them for training for you think they lack certain skills.  Chances are that your child or staff will reject your teaching.  They will tell you things like, "I already know what you are going to teach me", or "Let's not waste time on things that we already knew". Many bosses would accept such reason and conclude that the staff or child does not need the teaching.  Is that true? The only reason your staff or child can reject your teaching is that they know more than you.  The only way to demonstrate this knowledge is from their doing and action.  So the next time when they reject your teaching, you can tell them, "I'm happy that you already know what I'm going to teach you.  Can you demonstrate what you know in your work?   If it is demonstrated that you know more than me, I would like you to be my teacher, is that okay for you

Mention 'work hard' and many equate it to be toil, suffer, to be on tenterhooks, sweat, labour, fret, tolerate and even slog.  Truth be told, working hard is a virtue that all successful people have.  I have yet to see a self-made man that has never work hard.  If you want to get rich, you need to work hard.  In fact, working hard is not the same as hardworking, as when you are working hard, you may not realize that you are working hard.  For work has become a joy , and working hard is second nature as you are just fulfilling your calling. If you enjoy your work and work your enjoyment, work is never hard at all and you'll never need to retire.   Understand that work hard is not hard if you work with your hearts. If you find that your work is hard, it's hard for you to work hard. Hard words make work hard (read here for full article).  Heart words make hard work not hard.  A manager's job is to make people work hard, not make people's work har

It pains me to see some employees that are so qualified and hard-working but they seem to be stuck in their careers. In fact they have the 7 Fetters of Employees that prevent them from becoming star contributors. Some of the fetters are created by their managers, others are due to organization culture, and some due to habit. Know the fetters, remove them and you will be on a different path. The 7 Fetters are: Having No KPIs. Many managers do not have have KPIs for their staff at all. As a result, employees are just working on a roller coaster - many ups and downs but they will end up where they begin - no improvement at all. For without goals we will all perish.  Having Too 'Ambitious' (Unrealistic) Goals . This is the opposite of Having No KPIs, but is more than that. It is about the KPIs that so far in the company's 10 year history, only 2 people out of 50 have hit the goals. In fact such high goals make many employees give up instead.  Having No Teamwork . No

At the beginning of every training session I normally ask my students why they are here.  Inevitably I get answers like, "I was told by my boss to attend", "I have to come for training or my boss will not be happy" and "Do I have a choice?  Coming for training is part of work, right?" I would often counter what they said by saying, "That means you are forced by your boss to attend this training, right?"  The whole class would erupt into laughter.  I then thank them for their honesty and show instant appreciation to their boss (who could be inside the class). Indeed the best reason for coming to training is no reason, that is, come because of being forced by bosses.   As we know, training is not playing or social activity, very few people, maybe less than 0.01% of the population, would attend training on their own.  Most people need their bosses to force them to attend training.  The reason is that many employees feel that they know a lo

In our training and coaching sessions, a question people often ask is: what is the first step to take if you want to improve your performance at work?  My answer is: Realize that Your Boss is Not Crazy. Many people often feel that they are not in control of their destiny at work and believe that it is their bosses that determine everything at work. Even if this is true (of course we don't for a moment believe in this), you can still control your fate at work.  Just start to realize that you are in control and you can do something about it. For example, you can improve your performance by becoming more efficient and more effective.   Efficiency is doing things right while effectiveness is doing the right things . You can put in more hours or even come back on Saturday/Sundays to clear the backlog .  Or you can take up some training to improve your skills, knowledge and attitude .  You can also seek help from your seniors. In fact there are countless of ways that you can d

Unknown to many people, many people are actually adding work at work and not adding value.  You see, when one person is untrained in his work, he is not only not doing his work, but adding work to his colleagues.  Similarly, when people have poor inter-personal skills , they create work friction and lots of misunderstandings. As a result, their bosses have to step in, run team-building trainings, and put in extra manpower, all just to get the house on order. Studies done by International HR consultants indicated that only about 30% to 50% of people are actually adding value in their work.  The rest are just adding work!  Worse still, some employees are adding trouble at work.  For example, they make careless mistakes and mislead customers.    So the key to success in management is to ensure that your people are adding value at work.  Here are 7 ways that all employees can do to add value in their work: Do Self Quality Control and Self Audit .  This will ensure that things ar

We all know how hard it is to find a  good boss.  If you happen to be one, you can do the following 5 things that will make all your  employees  want to work for you without remuneration: Believe in them .  This must be the biggest reward for any person, for we often see doubters but hard to find people who truly believe in us. You believe that they can do beyond what you’re seeing now, that they are self-directed and can be trusted at all times. Such strong faith will turn all ordinary employees into extra-ordinary employees. Train them . Yes,  training  is considered a luxury in many smaller companies but all big MNCs over-train people. The 3 most important skills that you should equip your staff include  communication skills ,  people management skills  and  leadership skills . You must train people without condition.   Do not demand that they must return the benefits to the company, for doing so is not really training but just a trading transaction.  True train

Often in my training courses, my participants would like to share with me their problems at work and ask me for advise. The advise I gave them is to solve problems in a 3-Step SAD way:  Step 1:  See the problem as what it is, not what you wish .  Reason is that if you  don’t exactly see what the problem is, you're going to perpetuate it.  Y ou are already in reality, all you need to do is to see it. All problems at work, be it sales, cash flow or people management, can be summed up in two words: Human Problems. Settle the human problems and you'll settle all problems.  Human problems can be in the area of motivation, morale, competencies, distraction, complacency, leadership, communication, inter-personal skills, teamwork and compliance.  Step 2:  You don’t lack ideas, strategies or solutions to your problems. S o stop blocking yourself and attend to what’s going on .   When you really attend to the problems, the solution is obvious.  For example, my clie

This is very common: You've given clear written or verbal instructions to your team and they have repeatedly done things in their own way and not follow your instructions.  Should you give up or fire them up? Based on training and coaching over 81,131 people in 13 countries, we found at www.AsiaTrainers.com that there are 5 reasons why people don't do what you said: They don't understand the importance of following your instruction .  They think that doing things their own way is okay because you as the boss, manager or leader may not know or bother about it.  Your Action: Educate them that it is not okay to not follow instructions and you will bother about it all the way.  There is no negative consequence for not following your instruction . Because it is more comfortable for them to do things their own way, they will naturally not follow your instruction. This is human nature! They don't buy-in to the benefits of following your instruction . In short, they don&

Of course here we are are talking about a boss that is not easy to manage, like micro-managing, bossy, very demanding or frequent change in temper.  There are several practical steps that you can take to Manage Your Boss with Ease as follows: Look for Patterns - watch for behaviour swings, like Mondays or month-end or quarter-end when the boss is under tremendous pressure to perform.  Be prepared and don't do things that will add pressure, like applying for leave or asking for day off.  Pre-empt Needs. Once you know what triggers them, it's good to be pre-emptive by flagging potential problems before they escalate and offer solutions. The simplest way you can be pre-emptive is to ask the question: "What are the one or two things that I can do to make your work life better?" Show Empathy . Your boss is under pressure to produce and if you understand this plight that he is facing, you will be more understanding and there will no issue of how to manage your bos