Engaged minds

My sporting and evergreen daddy had always been a big bear for us in the family!!  Thanks Dad for everything and the inspiration to remain positive, sporting, smiling, resourceful and never give up. I still remember playing cricket with him and partnering about 20 runs at the P&T colony; I was 19 and dad 52. My dad ensued that we in the family are well educated, travelled and experienced so every 6 months we were on the trains travelling to all parts of India. My dad and mom ensured that we received the best education and values - despite all odds with the family they enrolled us in a catholic English medium school which in those days was a luxury and ground breaking for the entire family that did not have any formal English education.   His work ethics, positive attitude, determination, and focus were his biggest strength to ensure success and happiness. We never knew of his hardships and the constraints that he and my mom faced.  Around 50, he...

Start interning early in life so that the opportunity can be used well to understand personal aptitude and attitude.  The benefits to companies and employees are immense and mostly unquantifiable thus every company must create opportunities for interns. Intern-ship is a great opportunity for both the young and the mentors to learn and unlearn. Teens have great potential and mentors have good experience; a combination could be potent value addition to the intern, mentor and the company. Teens have a very bright future, good journey ahead and are obvious risk taker and candid so make the best of the opportunity; teens can bring new ideas and perspectives that could be missing. Interns are also potential future employers or customers and also carry reputation and goodwill of the company.  Some useful tips for interns! ·     Enjoy to lean and unlearn; knowing yourself, your aptitude and a little bit about what you want out ...

The technology, trade liberalization, environmental friendly policies, and consumerism that brought the winds of change Over the past many years the developing world has adapted environmentally friendly high technology and focused on its high value added products, and standard of living resulting in a shift of manufacture of many low value added and energy intensive environmental hostile products to developing countries. The initial shift that happened about 15 years ago was to South East Asia, Korea and Taiwan, which created the Asian Tiger economies, and then manufacturing shifted to China. The low value added service activities, back office functions including software development was outsourced to India.   The developing countries also experienced an increase in their population, income and consumption, while trade liberalisation took root with the preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and international treaties championed by World Trade Organization (WTO), which in tur...

Gracing the lawns, dangling by the tree Singing great mornings with my soothing music Doting in the golden cage, humming for my master Honing for my freedom in the wilderness Gazing the world go by past the busy street Pensive of my plight, my master's and the world around Honing for freedom in wilderness are many other beings Placating and soliloquising myself, 'what's different? I ain't lonely' (This picture is taken in an posh alley in Asia. It is not an uncommon sight to see singing birds at the doorsteps of many posh homes in Asia. The birds adorn the lawns of expansive homes, are perceived to bring good luck and sing their usualearly morning melodious songs. It's a sad sight to see the bird cages dangling on the trees and compare their plight with that of the human life in Asia; life that is improving gradually with education, information and enlightenment  though more needs to be done)

It Lenin once said, “Trust is good, but control is better”; after many years I overheard this redundant statement in a converaation happening in a lift! The conversation between the leader and the young managers was hilarious as it quickly focused on people performance and how controls ensured; the young managers (smilingly?) nodded. We had to alight however my thoughts on the value of 'trust' lingered. Controls are important for all organisations as they promote responsible behaviour and accountability. Many managers and leaders don't agree nor undermine the importance of 'trust' as education, globalisation, and information technology enables communication creates self awareness, and freedom of choice for people.  Trust is the invisible glue that binds the wall and the wallpaper. The invisibility and intangibility nature and the perceived loss of control is what deters many leaders and managers in deploying trust.  Modern leaders and managers believe that   tr...

Don't give up nor loose your confidence nor allow anyone to dent it!  Humans are a sum of our memories and learning experiences which makes us, who we are and what we may become. Our memory has limitless capacity, it is just we need to focus on learning, clear the clutter, learning, unlearning and retaining the good.  There isn't ‘bad memory’ or ‘good memory’; what we learn and retain is purely related to our attitudinal. Memory as a long retention tenor!  Memory neither decays not fades nor is experience redundant. Memory recall and implementation of ideas thereof is easy and within our self-control. Past memories can be recalled and ideas implemented easily; people just need the right stimuli, motivation, confidence, the context and circumstances. Our memories can be dented and damaged by external forces – physical forces and disease or people. The former is clinical and takes a long time to recover (sometime irrevocable) whereas latter...

We pray for Mr LKY's soul to rest in peace!!  Our heartfelt condolences to Mr LKY's family and Singapore. You contributions to Singapore and it's people, your leadership and strong will to succeed and thrive despite all odds will always remain a leading case study and inspiration to many emerging markets and leaders to learn, action, ethically succeed and thrive ! Many thanks!