At Sprint, my team is currently doing a project re-engineering business processes at one of the lowest-performing call-centers in the company. In short, we come to their site and tell them how they can make more money.

To visualize the new operating model that we recommended, the director of this call center demanded a that we show them a simulation of this new model. Just like any academics would tell you, simulation is a tool in which you enter some conditions and see how the outputs will look like. In other words, you don’t know what the end result is going to be. However, in this case, we already took them through detailed calculations to prove that this new system will work and it makes prefect business sense.

Even though this request seemed unreasonable, we did it anyways to make our client happy. Thus, I spent a tremendous amount of time developing a simulation tool that will visualize the new process. The simulation engine is a pain in the behind to develop because it has to think like my brain.

After the first showcase and several discussions, we figured out that what they meant by simulation is an animation of how the production floor will look like visually. Duh!

Lesson learned
People don’t always say what they mean to say, some people always don’t say what they mean to say, and some people always say what they don’t mean to say. Therefore, learn to interpret what the other party is communicating, take it with a grain of salt, ask a lot of questions, and ask exactly what they want. One of the things that I learned in TBP Leadership Skills Workshop is to paraphrase. For example, in this case, I could’ve asked for more clarification,

Call Center Director: “Can you guys show us some simulation?”
Me: “What exactly do you guys want?”
CCD: “I want to see how the production floor will look like at any given hour. Also, I want you to show … and …”
Me: “So, you want us to display XXX and XXX, so that you guys can check the ratio of supervisor per agent at any given hour. Do I understand you correctly?“

Why paraphrase?
   To get a more in-depth understanding.
   Show respect to the other party.

How to paraphrase?
   Listen closely and pay attention.
   Use your own words.

What are some phrases I can use to paraphrase?
   So you are saying…
   So you believe… 
   If I understand you correctly…
   Let me be sure that…

Yesterday, I went on a window-shopping trip and spent a good few minutes lollygagging at an Express store. My “I am a high-maintenance guy” disease kicked in, and all the two store employees and their manager ended up being my fashion consultants.

I had a very sweet conversation with the store manager. She shared her passion working at Express, the positive competitive environment at the company, and how Express rebounded from their bad performance + no-no style since last year, when the CEO Michael Weiss returned to the company. The conversation became even more interesting when she mentioned that her husband is working at a Sprint store nearby as a team lead. She complained that he was leading out of fear, totally opposite from what she believes in. She believes that if you lead out of fear, people will work to meet the expectation; if you make people have fun and enjoy their work, they will exceed expectation. Well said and enough said. Just look at Google campus and you’ll understand.

Following her argument, the second piece of the conversation grazes upon rewarding good behaviour.
Me: But how can you make them have fun? These people at Sprint call centers are only getting paid ten bucks an hour, while the complexity and stress-level of the job absolutely demands more than that. (Just for a frame of reference, one of my white-collar colleagues once uttered, “I am fortunate enough to graduate from college so that I don’t have to do this job.”)
Her: Yeah, but there are ways around that. You can motivate them by rewarding them the correct way. Just simple things to make sure that their good work is appreciated. Starbucks gift card, free phone, something like that. Remember, good work, if unrecognized, will not last.
Me: *starts contemplating*

I used to undermine the importance about all this fluffy, human-interaction stuff. At my previous company, we had something called “break bucks”. It’s a coupon that looks like a dollar bill, which can be used at company vending machines. My boss and I usually give them out to employees who volunteered to particiapte in our process imprevement team. I’ve always wondered why people were so excited to receive these break bucks, and why my boss was equally adamant about giving them out. Well, the answer is simple. The real value of the paper is one dollar, but the perceived value is much more than one dollar, plus the good, sentimental feeling.

So, three lessons from my 25-year-old fashion consultant:

1. People under pressure meet expectation; people having fun exceed expectation
2. Recognize good work, or it won’t last
3. Perception is more important than reality

Just received my first white belt stripe together with Lara. I just managed to attend 20 straight classes without absence! Not much yet compared to South East Asian champion, but I’ll catch up in no time.

Big picture thinking. There is as much hype about it in the corporate world as in business school. Like a lot of people, I did not get it right.

The most common mistake is that defining big picture thinking as simply strategizing, and the execution is sombedoy else’s business. This has caused a lot of disconnect, chaos, and nonsensical policies in a lot of corporations [insert example here].

Thinking about the big picture is like rendering a giant puzzle pieces. Imagine a giant puzzle, the size of a coffee table.  If you look up too close, it’s gonna be tough to finish the puzzle, because you can’t tell how the other parts should fit. This is analogous to “I just do my own thing and I don’t care about anybody else’s job.” Look from too far away, you know how it’s supposed to look like, but you’ll have a hard time telling what goes where. This, on the other hand, is like saying, “This is what we observed, this is what you should do, good bye and good luck!” (This is what a lot of consultants are notorious for, by the way)

Between those two extremes, you have to find a sweet spot where you can see the whole picture, but still have enough visibility about the details. You want to know how your whole business works, what’s your position on the chain, and how you can support the others parts.

That being said, the term “big picture” is somehow misguided. What we want to see is not the big picture, but the whole picture. You want to step back from the puzzle board just far enough to understand how the whole thing works, but not so far that you don’t know how to solve the puzzle anymore. So, I believe I will coin the term “whole picture thinking”.

In the spirit of SOA, Lukas, Terence, and I worked on the paper and presentation using Google Docs.

Case Presentation on Saturday, April 12, 2008

Here goes the Executive Summary
When it comes to IT resources, business management commonly states it wants wants an agile IT infrastructure that will meet the changing needs of the business. However, IT infrastructure tends to age and become static. Over time, such infrastructure fails to meet a business’ evolving needs. Enter SOA.
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Five steps to disarm hostile audience. Will come in handy in a press conference. From a lecture of Prof. Gerald Meyers, author, speaker, former Chairman of American Motors, and an expert in the field of Corporate Governance and Crisis Management in business.
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There is a helluva difference between what we believe - what we want to be - and what we actually do. Compelling photographs and quotes from Robin Bowman’s Book “It’s Complicated: The American Teenager”.
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Even if you have authority over other people, if you abuse it, they will always find a way to get back at you.

The name “Law of The Hack” originated from a humbling story in sawmill:
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“Guide to Good Bread” from Zingerman’s Bakehouse:

People often ask us, “What’s the secret to your breads? What makes them so great: The oven? The flour? The starters? Well, in truth, there is no secret. All the things I’ve just listed contribute mightily to the flavor of the finished loaves. But far from being innovative, what we’re doing is is practically ancient history. When it comes down to it, we’re just baking bread the way it was done 150 years or so ago. If your travel agent could book you a time-based tour of turn-of-the-century Paris, or shoot you up to a small shtetl in Eastern Poland circa 1897, you’d find bakers who’d be baking breads the way we are at the Bakehouse. Granted, the technology has changed, and so has the music playing in the background. But the process itself is essentially still true to what out bread-baking ancestors were doing a century ago.

If there is a single “secret” to Zingerman’s Bakehouse bread, it’s time.

One of the major differences between baking authentic artisan loaves and baking bread that only looks like it, is the willingness of the baker to wait: to bake better-tasting traditional bread, you’ve got to get time on your side. From day one at Zingerman’s Bakehouse, we’ve worked to make that happen. It’s hard to fathom just how much difference time can make in a bread-its flavor, its texture, its cost. But time and time again (pun intended) we’ve tasted and tested and tried competitors’ breads. And every time we come back to the same timely conclusion: when it comes to comes to baking great-tasting, traditional bread, there’s just no substitute for time.

There are so many children nowadays stuck to their video game console or computer at home. Worse, you have games like The Sims and Second Life that enables virtual human interaction, discouraging real social interaction.

Kidzania is a both innovative and ironic concept. Innovative because it could serve as a place where kids can interact with each other and learn the value of human connection. Ironic in a sense that our society has become so segregated and individualized that you need a place like Kidzania to relive that connection.
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