Everybody Loves a Good Story

Everybody Loves a Good Story.

What Should I Write?

What Should I Write?.

(Let’s imagine that..) Today is 28 December 2012

Let’s take our time to visualize.

Today is 28 December 2012.

Are you sitting where you are right now?

Or perhaps, in 28 December 2012, you expect to be somewhere totally different..

A foreign land, maybe?

Whad did you in Quarter 4, Quarter 3, Quarter 2 and Quarter 1 (to get to where you are now, here in 28 Dec 2012)?

What obstacles do you see in hindsight?

How did you overcome those obstacles?

Who do you rely on for support?

—

Now get back to the present time.

Build your plan based on those points that you can visualize.

Should we turn off the Ipad during take off and landing?

Should we turn off the Ipad during take off and landing?.

Life is a RACE!!!

Rationalize

Anticipate

Communicate

Execute

The above points are purely my own thought exercise based on a decade of experience in Financial Service (and a quick 1 year stint in Strategy Consulting Firm).

Rationalizing is the process of formulating the strategy and initiatives to support it to reach the organizations’ goals. Of course, we need to perform all the study or research to ensure that we know the external environment (the usual PESTEL) and trends or ‘shapers’ of the industry. Knowing internal capability is an integral part of  this process as well — since you need to know the resources available (or to be available) to win the competition in the given environment. [Why ‘rationalize’? Because the essence of the first process is to ‘make sense’ and ‘consolidate’ both the external reality and the internal reality.]

Anticipating is another way of looking at RISK MANAGEMENT. We foresee possible events and prepare and attempt to mitigate the risks.

Communicating is delivering your message to all the accountable parties. How? All sorts of ways possible.. Verbal, written or combination of both.

EXECUTING is making things happen. This is where the rubber meets the road.

What’s next? Go back to ‘rationalizing’ after you perform the execution.

Ask the brutal question whether initiatives/the process/the program actually work.

Life is RACE!!! It could be a 100 m sprint or a full marathon or perhaps a Formula 1..

Visualize yourself this time next year winning it!!!

Have a great 2012!

End of Day Activities

Count your blessings.. (which are far too many to count)

Review your activities and always plan for improvement

Write Top 5 To Do List (both for personal and work related activities)

Kiss your loved ones good night.

Be at peace with yourself.

Holidays

It’s time of the year…
Time to celebrate.
Time to enjoy the company of your loved ones.

For retailers, it’s time to work hard — to win customers’ shares of wallet.

Some might even argue that most of holidays (if not all) are so commercialized, that we are losing the meaning of those holidays. They are just reduced to ‘shiny’ new things.

Well, the marketers might have done teriffic jobs in luring you to spend and spend some more through means and ways (all sorts of marketing communication channel)..

At the end of the day, we can ask ourseleves what actually matters most in these holidays.

Safe and happy holidays, folks.

Delighting Your Customers

Quality is …

Well, there are many definitions of quality. One that sticks to my mind is the expectation of customers towards your products and / services.

How do you know your customers’ expectation? By listening to their feedback or by getting the ‘voice of customers’ — so to speak.

When you meet the customers’ expectation then the customers are supposed to be satisfied; and when you exceed their expectation then they will be DELIGHTED.

I’d like to apply all the concept of ‘Quality’ above to improve this blog.

I observed that there’s one pattern of readership in this blog.

I’m not sure though whether this pattern will continue.. Is it a sustainable pattern? I don’t know.

So if you happen to view and read this, would you please leave your comment.

Therefore, I will be able to:

1) Get the ‘voice of my customers’ — which means, I will have the first hand knowledge what constitutes as ‘Quality’. For example, would you like to read more about personal development or brand management or strategy execution etc?

2)Meet this ‘Quality’ standard — by listening to the ‘Voice of Customers’

and finally

3)Deliver above and beyond the standard; so that I can finally DELIGHT the readers of this blog (read: THE CUSTOMERS).

Having written the above, I look forward to reading your comments.

Happy holidays, folks!!!

2012 Resolutions?

Do you have one? Or a list of the resolutions?

Did you have one for 2011?

How has it been in restrocpect?

100% achieved?

Or gone with the wind or evaporated into thin air in the 2nd week of January? (or even in 1st week of January)

My Two Cents?

New Year starts early (and often) people. I mean, Make your resolution now and review it often.

I’d like to leave with you with this:

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” Jim Rohn

Passion & Intensity

if you don’t want to watch the whole video, make sure you watch from 0.30 to 0.50

I’m no cello player.. The closest that I get to playing music is strumming the chords of guitars.. G, C, D, E..

Back to our cello players, the way they play the cello (especially from 0.30 to 0.50) shows that ‘INTENSITY’. You can just FEEL it!

How do they get there?

I know it’s quite an overly used word by this time – especially after Steve Jobs left us – but I can safely point out that the way these cello players get to where they are: PASSION.

Enjoy the music!