iphoting's Sink

The closure of the COMPSERV | CST camp which I’m fortunate enough to have graced have taught me many many things even despite my occasional absence due to ‘remedial lessons’, aka concentration camp.

The greatest thing that hit me is that leaders are generally born; great leaders are born and then made into one, either due to their environment or by training. From my observations, I’ve noticed that all leaders have a distinct type of personality or trait in their character. The composition of the various characters traits and the adaptability or suitability of the context will determine if a leader is truly good in that context.

The second greatest take away is that the concept of strategic planning is a difficult one to grasp for many people. Conventionally, most organisations have a vision and a mission-statement. These two statements provide the guidelines from which decisions regarding strategic direction are to be made. That is, decision made or approved with respect to strategic direction should, to some extent, positively contribute to the mission-statement and as a whole, the vision, of the organisation. Things which goes against the mission-statement and/or vision needs to be thoroughly inspected for risks and effects for the long run and if the short-term benefits are worthy for the trade off.

Believe it or not, many people think that the implementation of these goals or strategic directions is the hardest part, but I beg to differ. From my (albeit limited) experiences and observations, the identification of goals and definition of the strategic direction(s) an organisation needs to take is the hardest of all. Getting these identified and stated clearly and in an informed manner is the prerequisite of being a good leader. This is so as it is always ideal to begin everything with the end in mind. To be able to see the end requires a good deal of thought and foresight – traits usually found in good leaders. And to be able to begin in the right direction requires one to have a vision.

After narrowing the goals and directions to something achievable, a good leader should be able to identify key components and opportunities in order to achieve such goals. Things under the organisations’ direct sphere of influence will have to be worked on or tweaked to align with the vision and goals set. This will allow the organisation to begin its track towards the goal; a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Having a vision is one thing; seeing a path to it is second; then, walking the path is the key to success.

A strong and good leader would be one who can identify the vision, see the paths that lead to it and the opportunities that lie ahead, and then, motivating his people to work as one towards the direction of the goal. This leads to another concept called team synergy. Teams with good synergy can multiply their potential and output over another similar team without synergy and oneness in aim. Though personalities of individual team members might affect this synergy, the best leaders can motivate and influence them to the extent that these team members change their believe systems to fit the leader’s and then, work as one onto the grand vision that the leader has placed upon them.

One such great example is Steve Jobs. Larry Tesler has this to say about Jobs when Jobs had to leave in 1986.

People in the company had very mixed feelings about it, everyone had been terrorized by Steve Jobs at some point or another, and so there was a certain relief that the terrorist would be gone. And on the other hand I think there was incredible respect for Steve Jobs by the very same people, and we were all very worried what would happen to this company without the visionary, without the founder, without the charisma.

Emphasis by me, which I think speaks for itself and about Jobs.

In a dragon-boat, people who row in the boats must be synchronised, in pace and in direction. Any deviation will result in reduced synergy, leading to lower efficiency and lower net total power (work) output. A team with people pursuing only their own agendas is a disunited one; one which can fall easily when crisis strikes and can give up easily upon difficulties faced. A leader unites and motivates team players; team players make the Team and team synergy possible.

On the other hand, a person with all the traits of a good leader, without the respect of the people of which he has command over, will find things a magnitude more difficult. However, if the person is able to win over the respect and trust of the people under his command, he will become a priceless leader.

However, people who are not team players should be left out of the team, so as to prevent their self-centered desires cripple and possibly demoralise the team, creating situations which the leader has to personally manage and handle, resulting in opportunity cost.

Over and above just pure leadership, there’s an aspect of management which a leader needs to be able to handle. I think that leaders with sufficient management skills over a core group of people who will in turn manage a larger group of people the most effective way of moving an organisation (with more than 6 members) forward.

But of course, the concept of leadership is extremely subjective that the above is my take on it which I’ve found the most effective.

Statistically, such leaders only in a probability of 1 - 5% in a population. The slightly greater composition would be managers, with the majority as followers who die to defend things as they are and in the state that they have found, regardless of efficiency nor practicality.

Ideal theory X managers follow the vision and goals set out by their leaders and then get people to compliantly and optimally achieve such requirements through work assigned and monitored. Conversely, Ideal theory Y managers follow the vision and goals set out by their leaders, but leave most workers to their own devices and ensures that workers are well aware of the visions and goals, with full faith that they can achieve them in the work that they produce.

The best managers that a great leader can have would be a hybrid theory XY manager which allows the nitty gritty implementation details taken care of and managed (micro scale management), leaving the leader to manage on a macro scale and continue working on strategic direction as the world is a constantly changing place.

With all these in place, it’ll make this organisation a lean and mean one, working fast and efficient towards great things.

It is one thing to be successful, it’s another to be influential. Organisations which are successful and influential, have a heart and love for people, society, and the environment in which they operate in, sometimes perceived as ‘value-addedness’. That’s the PR and HR side of organisations which most that are of sufficient scale care to invest heavily in, and possibly the reason why Economics lie on the theory side of things. Ethics.

With reputation, comes influence; with influence, comes power.

The power to define is the power to validate, where ‘define’ roughly equates to influence and ‘trend setting’ while ‘validate’ in this case means declaring what is right or wrong.

Well, if you managed to read thus far, why not leave a comment (if you have one) on the concepts and thoughts in this expository, possibly sharing your observations, experiences, and maybe nice thought experiments and examples.

That aside, I’ve barely touched on management and leadership styles, and most importantly, team players.

Briefly, team players are people who follow protocol, respect authority, motivates fellow team mates and provide the glue and synergy which make groups work, turning a mere group of people into synergised teams. A team player usually voices disagreements of a leader’s decisions in private and never in front of a group of people; in other words, never undermines authority whenever possible.

Update: Here’s another perspective.

Believe it or not, I went to school today for lessons, or so they claim there will be. The most educational part of school today was the record-breaking 5 minute-short assembly held at class. We had free periods all the way to 12 pm where we were promptly told to clean up the classroom and be dismissed.

Time wasting? No, absolutely not. Classroom bonding time with rounds of Bridge and Badminton, some went for Basketball and Munchkins too.

What didn’t occur to me was that today IS the last day of term 2 and that 4 weeks of school ‘holidays’, aka study season, would fly by and we’ll be back with exciting mid-year examinations. If I were to follow my conventional conventions for examination preparations, I would need to have started studying like last week, but this is special; IB is special, starting since last week isn’t even enough, even if I were to have done so.

Which means, I’m in a royally screwed position with a million and two things to do this ‘holidays’ and at the same time, still prepare properly for this all-so-important mid-year examinations.

I felt exceptionally sad and resigned today because so many teachers that I know are leaving, leaving those that I don’t know behind. In fact, as far as I can remember, all the intelligent teachers who taught me in my lower secondary years have all but resigned, for greener pastures and better life styles. Oh, how I miss them.

With the theory of Natural Selection, only the fittest would survive, but in this case, the fittest in office politics will survive. Competence is secondary, the ability to boot polish and look good to the boss is all that matters.

It is exceptionally disgusting that people who are to make decisions are incompetent in the field which they have to make decisions in; and they make all the bad ones, without getting fired.

The best rugby match that I’ve ever watched in my whole life live; it is THE most exciting and nerve wrecking match ever.

Still, congratulations to the team for very very commendable effort, well done!

I like the Newsboys band for the distinct tonality and rhythm.

Here’s Something Beautiful.

And my favourite, He Reigns.

Gosh, I’m down for the ‘revision classes’, aka Focus Camp, aka Concentration Camp, albeit free of charge this time. I’m doubling crossing my fingers and praying hard that I can get teachers whom I can learn something from. So far, I haven’t learnt much from the subject teachers which I’ve been down for thus far this year, and I hope a change might be good for a while. If not, I’ll just bring along the textbook and read it in class then.

I wonder what’s going to be taught in English, or if there’s even a point in attending such lessons.

My teacher, while frustrated and in vain rhetorically asked, “Why can’t anything work properly in this school?”

We all laughed out loud as the reason was so obvious.

At the beginning of the day, the teachers were ironically wasting time on how important it is to be wearing school socks (under the cover of our long pants) as it is within school regulation. I got confused for a moment as the rule book wasn’t officially amended nor were there such a declaration. At least, I wasn’t wrong in predicting that one of the few theoretical will actually come true, i.e. time will be wasted chasing and/or checking for students to wear them.

Yawn, yawn; I’m slowly catching up on lost sleep. Had a nice 10 hour long sleep yesterday, heavenly. Still, my todo list is long, with 5 entries left, out of the original 11.

Somebody asked why I believe in God, and Jesus specifically; I’ll give a long answer below.

I’ve dabbled with atheism a good third of my life and have never found the quality of joy and the quantity of miracles ‘reason’ can provide.

Seriously, how cool it is when I’m going to be late due to traffic jams, to be able to pray for morning assembly to be delayed for few minutes, just so that I can make it in time, or sometimes for it to rain such that there will be no assembly and thus no bookings? Reason will tell you that it isn’t possible; but with God, nothing is impossible. Personally, it has occurred every single time. Coincidence? Nah, if it happens whenever prayer is involved, I’ll call it a God-incidence.

For a moment of time, I tried all that I could to believe that God didn’t exist, but I didn’t manage. God through all his creation and wisdom, never failed to drop hints or to remind me of His omnipresent existence.

Surely, the ability to reason, or reason itself must have come from somewhere, greater and more encompassing that itself – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (Jn 1:1), where ‘word’ in this context refers to the Greek logos. But then, maybe this can be true?

But what about other Gods?

Then, I’ve also looked at other religions but none has so far to my knowledge, declared as clearly as Jesus have, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jn 14:6).

Ok. So Jesus declares that He is the way to God himself and itself. But then, how can I know that everything in the Bible is true?

Then Jesus declares, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Ma 24:35), which means that the Bible is true and will come to pass. ^[1]

If Bible is true, Jesus is the way to the Father, and logos comes from God, YWHW is the only God almighty, is so, then, it would require only either of the four previous axioms to be disproved for this whole premise to collapse.

However, to disprove any of these axioms, reason is surely not the way to do it. Neither should reason be the way to prove any of these axioms to be true as reason, as written, came from God.

This leads to a horrible circular argument which got me no where, but two decisions still need to be made. God exists? and which?

In my quest to answer the first question and to make the first decision, I came upon what is known to be Pascal’s Wager. Pascal “posits that it is a better ‘bet’ to believe that God exists than not to believe, because the expected value of believing (which Pascal assessed as infinite) is always greater than the expected value of not believing”.

This is why I decided to bother going through this troublesome motion to wonder if God exists. In the Pascal’s Wager chain of thought, it will be beneficial to believe that God exists, or at least investigate this question, which I’ve done.

If God(s) exist, then, which one is the God?

’Logically’, if God is to be God, He has to be the one and only God. How can God be under another God and still have sovereignty as God? Thus, God must be monotheistic.

Then, if God is God, I assume that He must be omnipresent. So, how do I find Him?

Of course, if He is omnipresent, speaking, or praying to Him should get the message across instantly. So I prayed (without saying it aloud so that nobody can hear and affect the outcome), “God, whoever you are, you should hear this and lead me to yourself. I want an experience and a real encounter with you”.

Henceforth, a series of ‘divine’ encounters with various people, events, and situations that finally brought me to where I am; a covenant with God that I be rooted in this church, nevertheless the situation, and that I will have an experience and journey of a lifetime. The very reason I’m convinced about Jesus because He rose from the dead and conquered the impossible; who else managed to do just that as prophesied?

After all, the very reasons I dabbled in atheism and other things was that I didn’t go through this thought process and that I haven’t managed an exciting and eventful personal relationship with God, even though I started off as a Christian.

Thus far, this Church has finally shown me the impossible. Faith in reality, miracles in quantities, generosity in actions, passion for God like none other, and most importantly, revealed God Himself through the trinity in reality and not just theory. The Power of the Word alive is something I can never forget and as the Psalmist says, “One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple” (Ps 27:4).

In this extremely brief recollection on hindsight, I have left out many points which I thought was hard to explain and require immense elaboration which space here does not permit. As such, feel free to chat with me with any questions you might have and I’ll try my best to answer.

In a nutshell, if you haven’t considered these questions on or about God, do take some time to give it some thought before it is too late; from what I have learnt, God respects free will greatly – even the decision in rejecting him.

Thus, before you quickly reject him, let me conclude by linking The Four Spiritual Laws and if you reject, The Consequences of Rejecting Jesus Christ if you choose to believe, is linked for completeness.

With that, I pray that your decision(s) that you have made, previously or now, will be something that brings no regret.

God Bless.

^[1] This is a very very brief explanation to the truth of the Bible. Look here for a more detailed write up.

Over the past days, I’ve been perpetually wondering to myself, “Why has my memory gone worst?” My ability to keep track of assignments and ‘to-do’ items from various facets of my life has apparently gone extremely handicapped, as compared to two years ago, despite my training in Bridge games and the like. Those days, I could keep track of every piece of work, even to the tiniest detail of font size or specific idiosyncratic requirements.

Something’s got to be wrong. I’ve been under the impression that I’m getting older with failing memory and can no longer track events, todos, requirements, situations, errands, mentally as well as before, but I was wrong.

Just today, I recalled my maths teacher talking about how a person can, conventionally over a long period of time, keep track of at most 15 items at a time, in a first-in-first-out (FIFO) fashion. It then occurred to me that my memory tracking buffer might have been overflowing.

So, to give it a test, I sat down and recalled a list of work that I would need to have completed within these two days:-

• Business IA (touch up)
• ToK Essay (touch up)
• Chemistry Pract 23
• Chemistry Ionic Eq Tutorial
• Physics Pract 13
• Physics Tutorial D4-5
• 4 Chemistry makeup Practs
• World Literature Essay
• King Lear Extract 18 presentation
• CAS file
• Extended Essay (touch up)

That list alone is 11 items long and it consists only of school related work. I’ve got other ‘to-dos’ lists from church, household, friends, family, and much more. In fact, I’m having difficulty in just keeping track of the number of lists I have, not to mention, the items within each list. Then, there are appointments and events (such as birthdays) to attend and keep track of. Yes, I do have a Palm (thank God) but I try to avoid using it so as to continually strengthen my memory.

Despite the number of things which I’m obliged to do, I’m glad that I have the honour of being allowed to do them. IB has been quite an experience for me as it gives me a slight taste of what working life is like, i.e. everyday is a test, and that there are no ‘school holidays’ after the daily tests; making mistakes or not meeting deadlines not only entails a scolding from your boss, but a possible sack from higher ups.

This has certainly has given me new chances in time management and work prioritisation; slowly but surely, I’m learning how to, despite the crazy schedules and work load, continue to keep in touch (in terms of meet ups) with the friends I have and to spend time making new friends, strengthening and building relationships, and networking for the future.

The important things that I’ve learnt from both school and church is that life is like a constant juggling of balls. Balls can represent God, work, family, friends, play, relationships, people, and more. However, each ball is made up of different materials, have different characteristics, and behave differently when handled (or mishandled).

Of the balls mentioned, the most significant is that family, friends, relationships, and people, as these balls are made of glass. Once mishandled and neglected, they will fall straight to the ground and shatter; making the process of piecing them together doubly hard, requiring double the effort.

Work on the other hand, is a rubber one. If you drop it occasionally, it will still bounce off the floor and come back at you at full force. Feel free to mishandle it once in a while to take care of the other more precious balls when need be; just remember to catch this rubber ball once in a while, so that I wouldn’t fly away into nothingness.

The most amazing one is God. Catching that ball makes life a lot easier if you do catch it, as it helps you juggle the rest. However, more amazingly, if you do let God juggle the balls for you, you’ll get to see cool moves that you can never ever imagine with your bare hands, and more and more balls will and can be kept in the air easily. The only requirement is to let God handle the juggling and one or two more additional balls that God wants to juggle.

Still, that’s purely the juggler’s decision and he is free to take over or step aside anytime.

There’s this very fascinating and fun little application for the Mac platform, djay, which allows “you [to] control and mix your whole digital music collection with two realistic virtual, interactive turntables and both record and transmit the audio in real-time over the Bonjour network to other connected djays”.

Headphones or sound generating devices for ears, not for the hearing impaired, has suddenly surfaced in large amounts since the rise of the Apple iPod music device. 5 years ago, iPods were a rare sight, so were earphones. But to those who owned such devices, we stuck to a code of conduct with earphones, as a manner of courtesy to others around us, also known as etiquette.

At first, it started off with the Sony Walkman, which changed the perception of radios, once thought to be for-your-tables only. It made listening to wireless music possible, without the need to lug the heavy machines around. However, due to the limited nature of radio waves and that the Walkman did not reach an iconic status compared to that of the iPod, and earphones then were a selective sight.

Then, the white earphones came. I repeat, white earphones. For a moment, people started noticing, “Hey, what’s with those white earbuds? They look cool”. That, with Apple’s legendary ease of use and the intensive marketing machine brought music listening with earphones to a new height.

The once exclusive and obscure device, earphones, suddenly become accepted as a fashion statement.

However, the etiquette of earphone usage did not follow as closely, leading to extremely rude behaviour by people who have no idea of what they had done.

Back then, there were two basic rules. First, either remove your earphones completely or leaving both in your ear when communicating with people. Having one side plugged in and another dangling is extremely rude as it is a signal that ‘my music is more important than you’.

Second, do not listen to music using earphones when around a group of people, whether with acquaintances or close-friends, or even with potential acquaintances. It should be fine with strangers if you do not plan to have any form of contact (verbal or otherwise) with them. Listening to music using earphones can also be used as a sign to say, “I don’t want much verbal contact with you”, or “I’m just posing”.

Subsequently, with earphones slowly becoming mainstream, I wonder if the above ill-mentioned conventions are still in effect.