So that I don't forget

After been around in many places, whether as a visitor, a temporary resident or as an employee of different companies, firms or member of a team, I've learnt a lot along the way. There's no ending to typing all of them out, so I just have to do my best.

One thing that I observed, and I would say most people will agree with me on this, is that there's always more lessons learnt on what NOT to do as opposed to what to do. Failure is the best teacher. I concur! Failure on other's part is the next best teacher, and I have benefited greatly from this.

Career wise, I've learnt a great deal from not only the different places I've worked at, but also from my teachers, family, parents, grandparents and friends. In the past year or so, my life has been quite focused on the windowless office I sit in. I am soaked in the intense humidity of office politics, feeling sticky and hard of breath from time to time due to bad decision making and pathetic show of leadership in the company. Talent management is always a problem at every place I've been to. Every place has different degree and spectrum of inability to use the right talent the right way, and this place has its big share of that.

What's talent management? Well, here's my humble take on this subject. On the superficial level, it is being able to capitalize every ability that an employee lists on their resume. Once I was working at a relatively small firm. The marketing department wanted to have a Chinese article translated because the title mentioned the company's name but no one had a clue what it says. So just when they were about to send it out to a translation firm for who knows how much, I took over the article and translated the whole thing and emailed it out to every one in the office within 30min. All for the petty intern hourly rate they were offering me. Later that day, I was in the rest room and I ran into this guy who was in charge of the company's Chinese operation. Basically, the company was trying to explore their chances in China and he was the head of this operation. So he looked at me and said," So you know Chinese?" I looked at him and said," Of course!" Then he looked at me weird.... not that he thought I was weird, but weird that he never knew I speak Chinese. That's an in-house talent untapped and wasted. Oh btw, I had it big and clear on my resume when I applied for the job. Apparently no one cared.

Then there's the deeper level of talent management. Every employee has his official title or job content. May be he's a tech support answering calls from a remote place. May be he's responsibility is to make decisions based on a fixed set of information fed to him every day. May be he's just told to uphold regulations based on a black and white rule book. However, what is he passionate about? What is his aspiration?

Passion cannot be contained by job description. Aspiration cannot be limited by job responsibility. Without going into the details, all I can say is, no matter how passionate or aspired the team members are, a team can never get ahead of its leader. It's up to the leader to venture into areas of uncomfortness to allow aspirations and passion find its belonging. In another words, if you have to limit your staffs what they can do to make their jobs better, you really need to step aside instead.

Watching the on going war between different managers, directors, VPs etc and observing all the sourness, bitterness, anger, despair, regret... It is easy to say that I don't want to be like them if I am ever a leader. So here's where I mark my lesson as a reminder for the future me:

If I manage to have my own team of folks, being a leader, within five years of building my team, I should be able to step down from my leadership role for one year, appoint my most trusted man and exchange role with him.

You may ask what's the meaning of this? Firstly, building a team of people is not just about collecting a bunch of hands to do the job, but cultivating competence and confidence. If I cannot trust my guys, when what good am I for as a leader?

Secondly, building a team is also about building self-leadership among the members. My role is not to tell them what to do, but to help them lead their own efforts. The collective result will be far more effective because the ingredient of passion is involved, and the influence will be phenomenal because it is led by aspiration.

Thirdly, and most importantly, as a leader, I must be able to, and never forget, how to be a follower. Only when I can constantly be conscious about how it is like to follow, I will be able to lead. No one is born a leader, all of us come from somewhere. If I am a leader, I owe it to everyone else who supports my role. So here it is, perhaps I will look back at this entry one day down the road and say,"Oh yeah, I almost forget about it, got to make it happen tomorrow!"