THE INCREDIBLE INVISIBLE MAN

I certainly admire the creative antics of the 'China' man in the following video:

[Source: Dr Marc Dussault, Personal Mastery weBlog]

D/OE vs SWOT ANALYSIS

Most people are familiar with the traditional SWOT Analysis tool.

Here's a new tool, designated as Defensive/Offensive Evaluation (D/OE), which is advanced by its creator as an effective alternative.

I like its extensive value creation process & vulnerability probing mechanism.

Take a close look. Explore possibilities with it. Here's the link.

A WISE QUOTE FOR MONDAY MORNING

"The entrepreneurial mystique? It's not magic; it's not mysterious, & it has nothing to do with the genes. It's a discipline, & like any discipline, it can be learned."

~ Peter F Drucker;

[The foregoing quote is my inspiration for creating & conceptualising a 12-month, 52-module 'Business School for Kids & Teens'. It will be one of my new projects in Indonesia, as the curriculum design involves the holding of 3 outdoor adventure camps - to inculcate risk-taking, team-building & leadership - of 3 day's duration each, to coincide with a breakdown of 3 semesters for the entire program.

Indonesia, with its vast & beautiful landscapes, has all the natural facilities for such camp venues.

Classroom learning will be combined with a multi- as well as an inter-disciplinary content immersion, in conjunction with project-based actvities, individual projects & group discussions, field-trips to businesses, interviews of successful entrepeneurs, portfolio assessment, sales bazaar or trade show, plus live presentations involving business plan pitches to a real-world venture capitalist panel.

The curriculum is even designed to include a career exploration module, to allow the kid or teen participants to consider a safer, alternative route - in order to gain valuable professional working experience - prior to embarking on an entrepreneurial initiative.

It will be a great opportunity to infuse young people with the entrepreneurial mindset. The entrepreneurs of tomorrow are in our schools today!]

THE DINOSAUR MENTALITY ON STEROIDS

This unusual post has been prompted by a recent event in my life, during which I have been dragged out of semi-retirement by my good friend, Dilip Mukerjea, to help him helm a project presentation to a bunch of supposedly intelligent professionals, who somehow acted so dumb.

The incident brought me into a seemingly confrontational encounter with one of the aforesaid professionals, who apparently reminded me of my past experiences in the corporate world.

I like to call it the dinosaur mentality, but this one was running on steroids.

Dinosaurs were supposed to have died 65 million years ago following a massive asteroid collision, but that didn't stop creative movie producers from coming out with celluloid dinosaurs.

I am referring to the wonderful trilogy of Jurassic Park movies, plus Godzilla, & not forgetting the earlier versions from Japan. They were my personal favourites as a movie buff.

Interestingly, as a teenager growing up with pains during the sixties, I was often mesmerised by the Flintstones animated television series, especially the hero Fred Flintstone, who often had to grapple with havoc created by his pet dino.

Naturally, I had also watched the two great Flintstones movies.

Back to the 21st century, especially to the aforesaid incident. Dilip & I had to face the crappy humanoid dinosaur.

Because of my desire to understand the science of irrationality, I went back to dig up some of my library books.

The first book that fell into my hands was clinical psychologist Dr Albert Bernstein's 'Dinosaur Brains: Dealing with All Those Impossible People at Work', which I had read during the late eighties.

At that time, I was a General Manager of a technology firm. I was attracted by one particular blurb from the book, "The key to thriving in the corporate jungle is understanding dinosaurs."

The findings from Dr Bernstein were fascinating:

- the humanoid dinosaurs are responsible people who act out unconscious fantasies of the primeval jungle;

- their principal default setting - in other words, primitive thought pattern - is called lizard logic;

- they prefer to work in crisis mode;

- they always try to gain dominance by blind aggressiveness;

- they delight in making other people look stupid & they always have the last word;

- worst still, they think that what they are doing makes perfectly good sense;

Gee Wiz! Dr Bernstein was right on the ball. The illustrative characteristics were manifested right in front of my eyes via the aforesaid gentleman.

By the way, Dr Bernstein had even narrowed down his 7 coping strategies in dealing with lizard logic.

Other books that had appeared in my quick foraging included:

- 'The Dinosaur Strain', by corporate consultant Mark Brown - this one is more about disempowering mindsets & how to reset them;

- 'Mean Markets & Lizard Brain: How to Profit from the New Science of Irrationality', by Professor Terry Burnham - this one explains why lizard logic often screws up our money making initiatives;

- 'Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions', by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at MIT - it's worth reading, especially for understanding human behaviour better;

- 'Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness ', by Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein, both professors - this one is quite an interesting read, even though it is tied to behavioural economics of the American scenario;

Nonetheless, there is one consensus or rather common denominator from all these books:

Our brain is divided into two operating parts:

- the executive brain, where rationality & logic prevails;

- the lizard brain, so to speak, responding more to emotions, present needs, pleasure, temptations, instincts, & pain avoidance;

Sad to say, we continue to share part of our brain with our cold-blooded cousins, & evidence from the above experts had proven that we have very little control over it.

We just have to live with it.

I certainly like what maverick guru Seth Godin has recently exhorted, while launching his new book, 'Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?':

"You don't need to be more creative. All of you are actually too creative. What you need is a quieter lizard brain.

The genius part is getting the lizard brain to shut up long enough to overcome the resistance."

His contention is that our lizard brain is the source of resistance.

For many of us, I reckon this tactical approach is quite an easy thing to do, but for that particular gentleman, regrettably, I don't think so, because Dilip & I also had an earlier but unexpected encounter with him several weeks ago. For a man of his standing, his negative thoughts were horrendous.

I really feel sorry for all the people who have to work & live unwittingly at the mercy of his mesozoic logic & disconnected behaviour.

A WISE QUOTE FOR THIS WEEK

“There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”

~ William Shakespeare;

[Dilip Mukerjea has alerted me to this wonderful quote, which he had in fact learned when he was just a primary school kid in a top boarding school in India. He brought it up during the course of an email conversation, when we talked about the propensity of some fellow beings, who would prefer to sit idly "on the fence", so to speak, despite having opportunities standing right at their doorstep.]

TIMEOUT WITH GOOD FRIENDS FROM INDONESIA

Last week, my good friends from Indonesia, Alex & Santi, popped into Singapore on their way to Kuala Lumpur.

Upon their arrival at the Fullerton Hotel in the late morning, we met up at the Cedele coffee joint in Raffles Place, where I took the opportunity to introduce them to my good friend, Dilip Mukerea.

Together with their eldest son, Victor, now studying in Singapore, all five of us took a short MRT train ride to Raffles City, where we had a quick lunch at the Din Tai Fung steamed dumpling restaurant. The foregoing picture was shot outside the restaurant.

We later adjourned to the nearby Toastbox for local coffee & tea.

Interestingly & coincidentally, & also without knowing each other, Alex & Santi runs their own Superbrain training outfit in Jakarta ever since the nineties, while Dilip Mukerjea's debut book was entitled 'Superbrain', released during the mid-nineties.

By the way, Alex has the entire collection of Dilip's books, including 'Superbrain', all specially autographed by the author.

If everything goes according to plan, arising from the lively discussions on that day, Alex & his family may eventually be the first family of budding authors, with expert guidance from Dilip, of course.

[Incidentally, Alex had written a self-improvement book from the spiritual perspective, released in Bahasa Indonesia, entitled 'If You Want to be Rich, First be Rich', about five years ago. He is contemplating writing his second book, & I have volunteered to be his storyboard guide.]

IT'S A VUCA WORLD!

Appended below is a great presentation by technologist Denise Caron on VUCA, which stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity.

It's a VUCA world - CIPS CIO March 5 2009

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