Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label Managing People

People are not Stupid, they are Ignorant, Deluded and Unsure

Every time I hear someone saying that so and so is stupid, I cannot help but wonder: if you give this person $100, will he be stupid enough to reject it?  If a person can survive until today, how can he be stupid?   As a educator, I believe that there are no stupid people in this world, there are only people that are ignorant, deluded and unsure.   Ignorant Most people are ignorant of the important facts of life (read 'The 7 Myths of Life' at here ) due to the being brainwashed by the mass media. For example, most people still expect things to remain the same when in life nothing stays constant and everything is in a state of flux at each passing moment.   Ignorance also means knowing but not knowing how to apply , and knowing how to apply but never apply due to delusion .   When people are ignorant, we an educate them, but we cannot force them to learn, for if they learn things unwillingly, they will not apply the new learning and will remain ignorant.   If people rem

Managing People When Times Are Bad

As a person that has gone through many formal (e.g. MBA) and informal training, I realize that very few teach us how to manage the business in a downturn. Turn open the newspaper and you'll find talks advocating "how to build a brand that lasts", "how to increase sales easily" etc. Most of them are talking about how to do things in a normal economy. But we know that currently the economy, especially Singapore, is in decline. There is no growth in the July to September 2013 Quarter. In short, hang cheng pai or 行情坏! In bad times, here are the 5 things you must do to manage your team: Need not use money as a motivator - because everyone is cutting bonuses, if you just maintain last year's bonus, you're already paying higher than market!  Leadership is most critical . In good times, even if you have a lousy or absent leader, the business will still grow. But now if your managers are a little ineffective, you can see all the ill effects in the business.