New Beginnings

2016 is shaping up to be a monumental year of change.

Source: WDA

I was glad to be accorded the industry title "Associate Adult Educator - Adult Educators’ Professionalisation, IAL" title (AAE) for all the years of hardwork in the CET (Continual Education & Training)/WSQ space.

I even made it past the stringent interview and selection phase by Spring and was offered appointment as "mentor" to the SkillsFuture Mentors Programme, which unfortunately, I had to decline in light of unfolding events (which I will elaborate a bit later).

In George Bernard Shaw's Man & Superman - this oft (albeit sarcastic) saying has been entrenched in urban legend: "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

After a decade, full-time (3 years) and independent (7 years) in HR training & development, leadership development, team building and process facilitation, I will be doing the reverse and returning to the "line", in a HR Development role. Wish me luck! I hope to have insights to share as I become more settled in the role - changing from industry-wide to an organisational focus.

So it was with a tinge of regret, a mix of excitement and trepidation, a dose of nostalgia and eager with anticipation that I delivered my last (for now....) public talk. I think I am gonna miss this the most but I hope in time, I will have other opportunities and platforms to share in my new role/capacity.

Cheers to New Beginnings! May you All have a great 2016 ahead!

August is NDP/NDR....2015 was a busy month of Talks!

In my last post of April 2015, I mentioned about the HR talks I do.I continue in this vein as Aug2015 was an unusally busy period for me with HCS doing 4 talks in total.

First up was 2 HR sharing sessions at DBS Academy for their HR folks as part of their "HR Power Hour" lunch talks, where I went in to share some current HR trends under the topic "A Better HR" and HCS followed up with information regarding our programs and the WSQ-HR certification.

Last year the CET East Campus (Lifelong Learning Institue-LLI) had it's grand opening and at this year's 2nd LLI Open House 2015, HCS was invited to speak and I was again given the opportunity. This time the focus was on the PMETs so I spoke on "Ace your Interview,Secure that Job!" in reference to our modules on Recruitment and Selection.

Finally, NTUC had a special event for over-55's. ULive Symposium 2015 is into it's 6th edition already and this time the talk was positioned as a "Lifestyle" topic - "Present with Confidence".

Much work goes into preparing the presentations but I enjoy the visibility and sharing my thoughts. It's good that I enjoy doing these things - which to many...is their # 1 fear i.e. Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking!

Cheers to many more occassions! 
With what I am seeing ahead on my calendar....there should be more posts soon.

HR Speak

  I have been fortunate to be associated with a few good partners who have provided opportunities for me to speak / share at HR events. It provides me a platform for sharing topics I am passionate about and also to allow me the opportunity for advocacy.

  Last September, the CET East Campus - Life Long Learning Institute (LLI) at Paya Lebar was officially opened and part of the festivities included an Open House by Caliberlink (WDA) and I was invited to share on the HR area and I took the opportunity to share on what it means to be "21st-century HR".

 

  It was very well-received and I had requests to do something similar again. That opportunity presented itself with a HR Capability workshop last month, by the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SCCCI) and SME@SCCCI. It happened during the national mourning for former PM Lee Kuan Yew, so it was poignant the venue @ SCCCI, I found when I arrived, was officially opened by then PM Lee in September 1964 (11 months before our independence).

  I am a firm believer of what Dave Ulrich has been "preaching" the past 2 decades or so - that HR must 'add-value' by being more 'strategic', in addition to tending to the mundane, transactional but necessary day-to-day activities of HR.

  HR has to be more 'business-minded', HR has to not only initiate change but sustain said change and HR needs to a strong advocate to cajole and engage stakeholders to align HR strategy to business strategy - so as to achieve above par business performance and sustainability.

   Imagine business owners, leaders, and "HR" (probably it was Personnel) back then on 9th Aug 1965 - the uncertainty, no turning back, making do and moving forward.

  Today, the business climate is described as VUCA - volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Companies with 21st-century HR will be the ones who succeed and be able to sustain their growth and development of their talent capital.

  Do you have 21st-century HR?

 

 





National effort to upgrade SME capabilities

Here are some interesting facts about Singapore's SMEs (small & medium-sized enterprises):-
-      there are 170,000 SMEs here
-      they make up 99% of Singapore's (registered) businesses
-      they employ 70% of our workforce
-      and contribute to nearly 50% of our GDP

I am part of the national effort to make our SMEs more capable, more efficient, more productive, more progressive - at least in the way they manage their staff, as part of HCS Productivity & Consulting - doing work especially with Spring's Innovation and Capability Voucher (ICV).  http://hcs.com.sg/v2/index.php/info/page/hr_advisory

Source: Straits Times

 

 

About 12,000 projects were rolled out by SPRING Singapore last year to help some 9,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through various projects aimed at boosting productivity and capturing growth opportunities. When fully implemented, these projects are expected to create S$8 billion in value-add to the economy and around 22,000 jobs. 

I am currently consulting for a less than 20 headcount SME with the owner as MD, wife/mother as Admin Manager and son as Marketing Director. Every little bit to help them ensure better human capital practices is a step to better management, better business and hopefully greater sustainability as a growing business and long-term employer.

Source: Straits Times

Singapore businesses ARE making progress, but I sense, not FAST enough to keep pace with business complexity, change, globalization and intense competition. I urge all HR practitioners in SMEs to do the right thing to encourage your business owners to improve and adopt good HR practices - it will BE the foundation of future business growth and innovation - I can almost guarantee it!

SPRING Singapore's ICV Scheme provides two $5,000 vouchers for SMEs to experience the HR Capability Toolkit, which provides the framework to develop the capability of the SMEs to systematically manage six key HR areas: 

• Manpower planning
• Recruitment and selection
• Compensation and benefits
• Performance management
• Learning and development
• Talent management

Why not take up the offer?!

Culture IS Leadership

Happy 2015! Wishing one and all a great year ahead!

This will be my 6th year as an independent consultant and I have had the opportunity to work with many organizations, leaders and management teams. And I can imagine all the efforts they have been putting in the last quarter of 2014 to lay out plans for 2015 - adjustments, re-alignments, re-structuring, large scale changes, strategy overhaul etc.

Many staff will always feel that management strategies are merely management whims and fancy hoping to catch on - if it does not work, try something else and hope it works, and often in an opposite 180-degree turn-around - the pendulum swings the other way.

My own take is it really boils down to - Leadership!

Leaders set the tone, mood and culture and if the organization intends to make changes to it's business, process or strategy, it MUST address the culture. Culture = Leadership.

When one talks about organization culture - you cannot Not know Edgar H Schein and his model of organizational culture from the 1980s. He offered the foreword on a recent work in this area called Leading Culture Change in Global Organizations (Jossey-Bass, 2012)
 

Authors Denison, Hooijberg, Lane & Lief make a compelling case, with relevant real-life case studies of companies, to support their assertions, that for successful culture change to occur, organizations need to manage these critical dynamics in order to remain competitive:-
-        Support the front line
-        Create strategic alignment
-        Creating a single culture out of many (esp in M&A situations)
-        Exporting culture (in a globalised, connected but diverse world)
-        Building In an emerging market
-        Building From an emerging market

Schein, who is professor emeritus at MIT, calls this "a milestone in the culture studies arena".

This was one of my holiday readings last December and I seriously recommend this to all managers and leaders who want to make and see, lasting and sustainable changes in their own organizations as they lead them into 2015 and beyond.

As this books famously says - "culture eats strategy for lunch!"

Get your culture right and everything will fall into place.



*Footnote: seriously, not kidding, just a day after I did this post,ST printed this on an ACCA study.

 

 

Adios 2014 - Hola 2015!

It has been a fruitful but very tiring Q42014 - now that my work year is done & dusted, time for some rest & relaxation to re-charge for 2015 - which is just round the corner!

Would like to take this opportunity to wish my Associates, Partners, Colleagues & Friends

 

A Merry Christmas and a Great 2015 ahead!!!

 

Developing "deep skills" for the Future!

  The year is coming to a close and sentimentalism and nostalgia take hold - time to take stock!

  As you know, I have been very involved in WSQ training for the past 5 years - time flies, am into my 6th year already. 2014 marks the 10th anniversary for WSQ and rightly so, the authorities from the education, vocation, workforce and manpower sectors are all taking stock to path the way for a different approach for the next 10-20 years to ensure our workforce are properly skilled to cope with the new economy.

  The CET2020 Masterplan is a strategic review on what the Singapore workforce will need to continue to contribute to and build a vibrant economy that provides good jobs for all. The setting up of the SkillsFuture Council is timely to get the key relevant stakeholders together to chart a new course for the Singapore workforce and they met for the first time just this month.

 
  The SkillsFuture Council, led by DPM Tharman Shanmugaratnam, decided to tour the newly set-up CET hub in the East - Lifelong Learning Institute @ Paya Lebar as a wrap up to their first meeting and I was "fortunate" to be chosen to have them visit my training class @ HCS when they did their tour on 7Nov2014.

  You can see the "entourage" accompanying DPM Tharman in the 2nd pic which included SkillsFuture Council members, WDA Chief Exec Ng Cher Pong, Dy CE (not in pic), HCS CEO Mdm Ho Geok Choo, David Ang (former Exec Dir of SHRI and currently on HCS's management team) etc.

  The focus on "deep skill sets" is something I abscribe to, back to even the "old days" of the apprenticeship approach to ensure niche industries can continue to find talent and grow. I guess Donald Trump got it right, after all.

  I look forward to this new phase as we set our sights on CET 2020!






 

Social Learning

There can be no doubt that technology today is a true-enabler. Cisco last year estimated that by 2050, there would be 50 billion (internet-)connected devices. Some say, based on estimates today of 8.7 billion for 2012 and the historical rate of exponential growth capable in tech, this would seem even conservative. By 2020, the number of internet users would reach 5 billion.

And by 2020, it is estimated that at least 2 billion smart handheld devices will be in use with direct, immediate and constant access to the internet or the "cloud". Almost all of your employees have one now already - just observe the BYOD discussions and early adoption attempts today, let alone in 6 years time.

Hence it is an opportune time for organisations to review how they are "learning".

The trend of moving away from formal, face-to-face trainings/learning to more technology-based, informal ways of exchanging information, ways to store/extract/analyze data, social learning etc can only accelerate.

In my work as a facilitator, I am seeing more organisations harnessing informal social learning like Communities of Practice, Learning Circles and adopting blended and/or E-learning approaches for better employee engagement, better learning outcomes, better time management etc.

Many are even creating internal Knowledge Management (KM) approaches like internal blogs, forums for social sharing, knowledge capture - from the mundane of best caterers to use for office functions to more cutting edge innovation / idea sharing of best practices or tried practices.

 



Jane Hart's work on the Social Workplace Learning Continuum will help  organisations understand where they are in their evolution, where some of their current or planned future interventions are on the scale, and perhaps ascertain if they need to be even bolder in their transitioning away from their formal learning processes.

 

Where are You in your social learning journey?

 

Learning Moments

Today, there is a cacophony of opinions, propositions in the area of e-learning, m-learning, blended-learning, knowledge management (KS), performance support (PS) etc.

One of the pioneer thinkers in this area has been Seymour Papert - an MIT mathematician, computer scientist and educator. He is one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, as well as an inventor of the Logo programming language. He has worked on learning theories, and is known for focusing on the impact of new technologies on learning in general and in schools as learning organizations in particular.                                                                                                                            Source: Wikipedia

He once famously said: "You can't teach people everything they need to know. The best you can do is position them where they can find what they need to know when they need to know it."

I was invited to a soft-launch of a new mobile (iOS/Android) technology-based PS system just last week. This mobile learning startup won the Most Innovative Startup Award at Ideas.Inc. 2013. Hearing the very young (fresh out of grad school) Founder and CEO speak, in his jeans, jacket over t-shirt, was reminiscent of hearing a certain Zuckerberg, less than a decade ago.

The “app” probably finds itself in the sweet spot of performance support (PS) in the 3^rd & 5^th “moments of need”. The "Five Moments of Need" model (Mosher & Gottfredson, 2011) is a  model that captures both formal and informal learning tracks and needs. Bob Mosher & Conrad Gottfredson have also made significant contributions to the thinking on workplace learning.

The Five Moments are:-

# 1.  Learning for the first time (New)
# 2.  Workplace Learning (More)
# 3.  Applying what you've learned (Apply)
# 4.  When things go wrong (Solve)
# 5.  When things change (Change)

In Jane Harts 2012 Social Learning Continuum (this will be the subject of another post), the first 2 needs are best categorised as Formal and the other 3, Informal. And with an expected 2 billion smart handheld devices by 2030, the stage is ripe for an explosion of informal learning via assisted mobile technologies.

 

Are you ready for the future of learning?

Happy Year of the Horse!

吉中精神气势显，马不停蹄喜迎春

Best Wishes for a Healthy & Prosperous New Year!

 

 

Strengths-based

I am facilitating a 2-day workplan workshop this week for a corporate group when the matter of Strengths-based practice came up for discussion.

In 1998, Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D. (1924-2003) the Father of Strengths Psychology, along with Tom Rath and a team from Gallup, created the StrengthsFinder assessment. Gallup later introduced the first version of it's online version StrengthsFinder, in their 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book spent more than five years on the bestseller lists that started a discussion globally and challenged many to uncover and discover their top five talents.

In 2004, the assessment was renamed "Clifton StrengthsFinder" to honor its chief designer.

StrengthsFinder knows all too well that many of our our natural talents go untapped. And many hours, personal and organisation, much resources have been devoted to trying to fix our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.

More than a decade on, many organisations are still on the shoring up weaknesses approach, much to the detriment of organisational time, resources and energy. Worse, it does not add value to employee engagement, performance nor retention.

Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? Can your organisation become Strengths-based?

 

Merry Christmas & Hellooooo 2014!

 

Wishing One & All

A Blessed Christmas & A Happy 2014 ahead!



 

会认人, 会用人, 会做人 Talent Management Simply Put

He is known for his uncompromising attention to quality and service. He has a sharp intellect, notoriously well-read and has no patience for idle chatter.  He constantly refers to key management books like Good to Great, The Toyota Way (which is mandatory reading for all new hires within 6 months of joining his organisation), to illustrate how his organisation continues to top MOH’s customer service satisfaction surveys year after year.

He made sure I attended his organisations 2-day induction program for new employees before I conducted classes in performance management for his management staff so that I was familiar with the organisational culture and ethos. Such is his attention to detail. 

A pharmacist by training, Liak Teng Lit is Group CEO of Alexandra Health (formerly CEO of Alexandra Hospital), one of the 6 health clusters in Singapore. It is anchored by the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and tasked to look after the health of more than 700,000 residents in the North of Singapore.

He was speaking at a HR conference this week, where the majority of the audience were SME bosses, and he shared a talent management snippet from a person he said he admired greatly – billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist Li Ka-Shing.

In Mandarin, it simply says        会认人, 会用人, 会做人

会认人 – means being able to identify talent (and attract them to your organisation)
会用人 – means being to leverage and deploy that talent (to your organisation’s advantage)
会做人 – means to know how to treat people well & fairly (which will engage and retain talent)

This resonated well and deeply with many within the audience and his sharing that day was rated the best amongst all the assembled speakers.

For all the many management philosophies, principles, theories and even fads from the more well-documented and vocal West, the simplicity and elegance of these words, is just inspiring.

What are you doing today to Retain, Identify, Deploy and Engage your talent?
 

Model Class 2013

   Yesterday, I rushed off to attend my daughter's graduation after finishing a 3-day corporate training in Performance Management (PM) for Singapore's leading early childhood education and services provider.

   For my daughter, it has been a long and tiring school year, but she capped it off with very good results, distinction award in her CCA and a credible silver in NAPFA.

   More importantly, her graduating cohort of students and teachers, nominated her class "Model Class for 2013" - high honour considering it is an award garnered from both peer and teacher votes across the whole standard.

   Today in PM, many organisations are moving away from the traditional (supervisor only) review to a more balanced, unbiased and fair performance review by seeking inputs from other segments of the department and/or organisation.

   These peers (department colleagues or project team members), subordinates, other department managers, even partners - whom the staff being reviewed would have interactions with the past year, can also provide more insights into his/her performance, but more importantly, it can highlight other critical areas especially in key organisational values like integrity, teamwork, collaboration and innovation.

   These sorts of peer review, when done correctly, can enhance the performance review experience to ensure greater accuracy and fairness and in so doing, lead to better engaged and satisfied staff, who then have a greater chance of staying longer and performing for the organisation. In today's talent crunch, this makes good business sense.

   Is your organisation still in "traditional" mode? 

   Perhaps it's time to look at improving and enhancing your performance management system for better staff performance outcomes and also business results.

 

Shared Values (define a team)

Last month, I just finished one phase of a HR-consulting project with a client managing a growing beauty and F&B empire - in the last year alone, Singapore headcount increased by at least 30% and they are still recruiting and expanding.

It was no wonder then that the MD wanted to re-visit their company vision, mission, values - to ensure that they are clear(er) and perhaps more importantly, properly cascaded down through the entire organisation to each and every employee, not just the management ranks.
 
This reminds me of #13 of John C Maxwell's "The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork", published back in 2001, following his highly successful "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership".

John is known as America's expert on leadership and he wrote this follow-up in the hope of making teambuilding "simple to grasp, retain and (be) put into practice."

In it he writes about how "values can help a team to become more connected and more effective" and that "shared values are like" glue to hold people together so they can reach their fullest potential as a team, a foundation for teams to make (special) things happen, a ruler to help set the standard for team performance, a (moral) compass to help teams make (right) decisions, a magnet to attract like-minded people to the team and finally to allow the team to form a unique identity of their very own.

Are you ready to empower your team to business success?!

Policy Letter #4

I was doing a Managing Diversity module this week but this time, post BE2013 and the SGP White Paper, the messages and discussions seem more real, urgent and intense.

This was a group of future Chief People Officers* who will need to make sense of their own organisational diversity and make it work with their management and programs to drive innovation and employee engagement - hopefully, they will be as inclusive as possible.

In the D&I space, IBM is well referenced with their very established program, which is already far advanced to many organisations and even countries. They would be described as a "comprehensive proactive organisation" for their D&I initiatives.

For IBM's Diversity 3.0 to work, it has to be driven from the very top echelons of the corporation and cascaded thru the entire command and control function. They do it very well, cos they have been at it for sometime now...since the EO days to today's inclusive corporation.

A shining symbol of the values they espouse for their D&I initiatives can be traced back to this letter from former Chairman and CEO Thomas J Watson. They even did a very inspiring video.

This letter was written 60 years ago in 1953.

source: IBM

 

Diversity=about the "Mix", Inclusion=how the "mix" works well together!

Are you ready for a truly diverse and inclusive workforce?





*CPOP is registered to Human Capital Singapore

心想事成 , 万事如意

金龙腾飞辞旧岁 , 玉蛇起舞迎新春

Wishing One & All A Happy & Safe

Lunar New Year!

 

Season's Greetings

It's been a busy year but I am glad I ended it working on projects with new partners. It never is easy moving out of status quo / comfort zone to do new things, even for a consultant advocating embracing, managing and leading change. Ironic? No..., just human nature.

With the holiday season upon us, I would like to take this opportunity to thank partners, colleagues, clients for all their support this past year and wish each and everyone of you - A Blessed Christmas!

 

May you also have a Great & Safe 2013 ahead and let us not forget

"The Reason for the Season."

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

 

 

Leadership Vision

Last week, I spent 3 days at one of the training rooms inside the Supreme Court, working with a team involved in the legal industry on a leadership module about change management. Participants included the Chief Executive, Directors and Senior Managers.

On the second morning, as I waited patiently for security to check my credentials and clear my vehicle for entry and parking, I noticed a small visual display just above the card access slot, it displayed upcoming events of the week at Supreme Court like overseas visitors etc.

The other screen shot, perhaps reflective of the current state at the Singapore judiciary with a new Chief Justice just coming onboard on Nov6,  was a very poignant reminder to me about the role of leadership in managing and leading change. The message read as follows:

“ Vision without Action is a Dream …
                                           Action without Vision is a Nightmare.”

The power of visioning by leadership cannot be underestimated, especially in this age of employee engagement and with the different generations and needs at work, in particular the Gen Y.

The leading authorities on leadership are single-minded about this value.

In his seminal work on change management, John P Kotter shared his “8-step Change Model”  in his 2006 book Leading Change with one step being “creating a vision for change”.

Management guru Ken Blanchad also expounds on the topic of leading through change, shared about the need for leaders to provide an inspiring vision by “envisioning the future”.

Leaders must have clarity of purpose and be clear about how to go about achieving, in addition to providing guidance about the way it should be done. So ensuring clarity of vision, mission and values is NOT an out-dated notion, but a management imperative for continued organizational success.

I am currently consulting with the Managing Director (MD) and senior leadership team of a very successful  beauty and food & beverage group here in Singapore. The MD was recently named Tourism Entrepreneur of the Year 2012.

After more than a decade of tremendous growth and expansion, this life-style group finds value in re-visiting their vision, mission and core values to ensure better alignment across the entire empire by each and every employee, as they prepare to meet the challenges of today and grow in the future.

In the book “Roosevelt :  1940-1945 - Soldier of Freedom”, James Macgregor Burns wrote:

      “Where does leadership begin?... Where change begins.”

 

 

Maverickism

It was the call sign for the fighter pilot character played by Tom Cruise in the hit movie Top Gun which propelled him to Hollywood stardom.

And recently when I conducted a talent management training, the participants and I had a lengthy discourse about the pros and cons of having “mavericks” in the organization when I introduced the term to the more familiar mix of core contributors, high potentials, leaders and critical roles.

As Cruise’s character typically portrays – mavericks shun the dictates of the group, tend to be poor team players and generally low in the “agreeableness” quotient. Yet they also have other qualities that can save the day – as in the movie.

In a recent study due to be published later this year in the British Journal of Psychology, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the University of New South Wales, Australia (UNSW), suggests that for businesses to be more competitive in the global market, they need to be more resourceful and make greater use of the talents of mavericks within their organizations.

Dr Elliroma Gardiner of LSE and Professor Chris Jackson of UNSW said in a statement dated 4th April 2012 that “being a maverick is more than just having an idea or a hunch pay off, it is about taking real risks and achieving in a way that is unique and unexpected”.

Mavericks are described as independent thinkers, creative problem solvers, quick decision makers, and goal-oriented individuals. They are open to new ideas and are risk takers, usually extroverts who are highly persuasive in gaining support for their ideas.

Real life mavericks in the corporate world include Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and also Sir Richard Branson - who started his own airline Virgin Atlantic to challenge the mighty British Airways, and which has become one of the more if not most profitable airline in the world.

Gardiner and Jackson go on to say that "understandably, some aspects of the maverick personality profile, such as risk-taking and low agreeableness, might make some hiring managers quite nervous. However, our research suggests that when combined with other traits, such as extroversion, creativity and openness, the results can be quite positive.”

Do you have a maverick in YOUR organization?