Entries from November 2006 ↓

J’ai eu que cette semaine l’hommage fait par l’ami Georges, pour mon cher professeur de mathématiques, de 1960! Que des souvenirs!Je suis tout à fait d’ accord avec l’hommage de Georges car ils sont pour la grande majorité bien éduqués, les étudiants qui ont passé sous sa férule. Mon appréciation de Paul Cheung est surtout « il était avant tout un homme déterminé dans ses actions tout en étant à l’écoute des autres. »

Je vous livre le texte :

HOMMAGE A PAUL CHEUNG

Pedagogue, ami, accompagnateur, catalyseur, voila comment nous qualifierons celui qui nous a quittes il y a seulement quelques jours. Son nom et sa silhouette, ainsi que son intonation et ses tics, resteront toujours graves dans le coeur de ceux qui l’ont connu. D’abord comme enseignant de mathematiques, ensuite recteur, puis mediateur enthousiaste aupres de plusieurs generations de ‘ Simmarians ‘.

Un temoin fidele

Paul Cheung fut le temoin privilegie d’une epoque pionniere qui vit le lancement d’un projet educatif temeraire dans un contexte difficile, les annees 1950-60. A ce titre il se devoua corps et ame a la realisation d’un ideal digne des grands educateurs de tous les temps : ‘ mens sana in corpore sano’ . Proposer un enseignement integral ( ‘an all-rounded education’ ) enrichi d’une formation chretienne avec pour objectif l’epanouissement de la jeunesse mauricienne dans le cadre verdoyant et spacieux de l’etablissement de la rue Ambrose a Rose-Hill. Jeune diplome de mathematiques tout juste rentre de Londres, il trouva la l’occasion de commencer une carriere d’enseignant avant de fonder une famille dont les membres aujourd’hui disparus sont toujours l’objet d’une affection partagee. Qui plus est, il demeura fidele durant cinq decennies a ce projet educatif beneficiant d’abord de l’apport des Freres-enseignants de la Congregation lassallienne, puis assurant au mieux de ses moyens la transition d’une epoque a l’autre, a chaque etape d’une reorientation decisive du projet initial concu surtout comme un service d’Eglise non-sectaire propose a la communaute mauricienne toute entiere.

Un enseignant-ne

Paul Cheung ‘jouait’ avec les elements d’algebre, de geometrie et de trigonometrie comme d’autres avec leurs instruments de musique preferes. Il savait motiver les moins doues, tant sa maitrise du sujet etait entrainante et convaincante. A la maniere des jesuites il faisait la part belle à la repetition, la revision et l’emulation, s’efforcant de faire repasser les notions acquises a travers la pratique soutenue des problemes. C’etait un enseignant-ne qui savait aussi stimuler et mettre en garde contre la complaisance avec une rare bonhomie. Genereux, il se preoccupait peu de ses honoraires, pourtant modestes. L’eleve importait plus que le ‘client potentiel’. Le repetiteur etait attentif a la condition socio-economique de l’eleve.

Un homme-pont

L’homme s’est toujours souvenu de ses anciens eleves, et grande etait sa joie de les retrouver avec leurs epouses de longues annees apres. Sa memoire etait vivace, son dynamisme inepuisable, sa gentillesse contagieuse. Il a toujours souhaite la perennite de l’experience scolaire, non pas a travers la nature figee dse souvenirs personnels mais l’action soutenue des rencontres et autres manifestations conviviales qui reunissent les eleves de differentes promotions. Il est dommage qu’il fut dans l’impossibilite de se joindre a nous lors de la commemoration du 50^e anniversaire du college St Mary’s en decembre dernier, car il n’etait pas au pays.

Un temps bien utilise

Empruntons à Seneque ces lignes adressees a son disciple :

« Rien, Lucilius, ne nous appartient ; seul le temps est a nous. Ce bien fugitif et glissant est l’unique possession que nous ait departie la Nature ; et peut nous en chasser qui veut. Telle est la folie des humains qu’ils se sentent redevables du moindre cadeau peu couteux qu’on leur fait, cadeau remplacable en tout cas, mais que personne ne s’estime redevable du temps qu’il a recu en partage, alors que le plus reconnaissant des hommes ne pourrait le rendre. » ‘ Sur la brievete de la vie’, Lettres a Lucilius

En tout cas, cher Paul, vous n’avez pas perdu votre temps.

George L. Easton

Pour l’Amicale des Anciens

I invite you to read the above named article which is featured on the Wharton School Publishing dated 10 November.

I found that the different views given by the writers to be very pertinent and informative.

The point of view I adhere most to is:

“While Kendall Whitehouse, Wharton’s senior director of student and instructional technology, agrees that, in general, “there’s more noise than signal” in much of the blogosphere, he also stresses that this doesn’t mean that there is no value in blogs. In addition to following a number of individual bloggers whose opinions he respects, Whitehouse finds worth in the aggregate voice of the blogosphere. “Sites like Digg.com let you track what’s happening in the blogging world in near real-time,” states Whitehouse, and can “give you an instant snapshot of what topics people are talking about.” Viewed in this way, the blogosphere may exhibit the same “wisdom of the crowd” phenomenon of community-developed content sites like Wikipedia.”

We are more so today, in a maze where the reliable and the unreliable information are mixed and confounded. The questions are: How to select them? Who are the issuers of the blogs and how reliable are they? Is n’t it a practice of our discerning skills?

Enjoy accessing to the Wharton School Publishing!

Many in our country view Globalisation as a threat. The industries and companies who have been enjoying positive results up to now feel unsecured. Why? They established their businesses in an environment and found the appropriate niche within the given set. Now and in the foreseeable near future, the environment and conditions are changing the « Fit for purpose » is changing. The thrust brought by Globalisation movement with its battery of changes is pressuring us externally with the new world rules imposed by WTO. If you have not thought of your « fit for purpose » in the fast coming environment, you will definitely feel unsecured and panicky.

Can you alter or intervene on the external factors changing the scene of globalisation? I would bet that there is not much (to be euphemistic) or there is nothing we can about it. The rollercoaster is rolling! The set of conditions which very prevailing when we found our niche of business and giving us our live hood is no more there. We may attempt to delay the effect on us. End of the day, it will be only a provisional and temporary measure. We need to « Fit back to our purpose » fast.

Those who are agile see in Globalisation new opportunities. I am still in the euphoria of the lectures of Timothy Radcliffe to whom I listened last night and last saturday. He said that against the back drop of Mass Media pumping us fear and negativity all day,we have to be the angels of hope and better tomorrows. He is giving a lecture @ the University of Mauritius today.Agility and flexibility of mind and spirit are the qualities we should nuture to drive us. So,I choose to hear Globalisation equals changes, synonymus to opportunities and challenges. In an editorial of the newsletter of a consultancy firm, I read:

« Although the word is widely used, globalization is much misunderstood.

A common mistake is to see its impact in over-simplistic terms: Asia wins,

While Europe and the United States lose. A sense of the passing of America’s

hegemony is palpable, while the rise of China and India is seen as irresistible.

These are developments of epoch-making proportions. It is probably not an

exaggeration to point to the post-World War II boom, or even the Industrial

Revolution, as shifts on a comparable scale. It is a work in progress that may

take 50 years – and, what’s more, the outcomes are neither predictable nor

inevitable.

Globalisation is for many companies both a threat and an opportunity. It gives

access to fast-growing new markets, but it can also bring new and unknown

competitors who have matured rapidly in distant parts. For a large number of

products and services the notion of a purely national market no longer exists. »

If we see Globalisation as an opportunity then we stand to being able to find our « fit for purpose » and be successful.

I would suggest that we review our business under three sets of filters:

Market Strategy and business model (What to, Choice to find the fit?)

Organisation structure and Processes (How to?)

People (Who?)

In short, new environment bring changes which we have to proceed with fast. Do you want to be in the “has been” companies or part of the enterprises of the present & future? Changes bring its lot of challenges with opportunies yet to be discovered. Entrepreneurs your role is to find you’re “fit for purpose” and you bring in creative solutions yet to be rolled out.

I am indebted to my friend Donald Lam, a Mauritian friend working in the UK who provided me the inspiration to write this blog after reading the editorial of his company Siddal & company.

Last Saturday, I had the great pleasure and the highest privilege, I felt, to listen to a talk by Bro. Timothy Radcliffe on leadership. During his talk, to describe the present environment of today s world where fear, an acceleration of change and unprecedented uncertainty prevails, Bro. Timothy hinted us to read the works of Zygmunt Bauman to understand the phenomenon.

When I came back home, and as soon as I could afford the time, I went to my desktop to look for Prof. Bauman’s great insights. I struck my gold pot of luck. I found a lecture given to by Prof. Zygmunt Bauman to an EU organization: Lecture on the ANSE-conference 2004 “Value dilemmas as a challenge in the practice and concepts of supervision and coaching”.

Do you want to understand to which destination our society is moving to? What is From Solid Modernity to liquid Modernity? Do you want to understand what has become of loyalty of employees in a work environment? What are the new meanings of responsibility, working in project teams and emancipation in the liquid Modernity? Should you be interested in human behavior, I highly recommend you to read the lecture notes. I found it most enlightening.

Indeed, man management in today’s context is a subject I am very interested in and I think, is the greatest challenge & most vital to entrepreneurs. By the way,on the past Friday, I had a full day lecture on the subject “Comment Manager votre equipe, Confiance, delegation et sens du client” by Sylvain Lecoq.

Funnily enough I had the impression after studying the few articles from Prof. Bauman today as if on the Friday I had lessons on the practical aspect of management and now the understanding of the changing trends of managing in the near future.

Should you be interested in the philosophical aspect of Bauman works I would recommend you to read Dolan Cummings comment “the trouble with being human these days: Identity”.

Bauman has written a series of books on his “Liquid” vision.

“People are brand” says William Arruda, also called the Personal Branding Guru. Last week, with a group of Company Directors, we derived great pleasure and more importantly gained much insight for our work when we attended a seminar conducted by Helene LACROIX-SABLAYROLLES the dean of marketing of the prestigious French Business school: HEC.

Author of several business books of which the latest “Etes vous vraiment orienté client?” Helene enthused the participants of the seminar. She was given an evaluation score of almost 5/5 by the participants. She replaced the perspective of clients back in haze of Marketing buzz words, techniques and models particularly in today’s fast changing, finicky, volatile environment of zapping. She gave a new meaning to “Segmentation” of products as well as of customers. I found that the practical tools she proposed to extract from, express to and exude our customers in its entity to be most useful.

Bearing in mind that all enterprises should possess a distinctive Brand, she insisted that the enterprises has the duty to deliver on the promises of the Brand values.

We may take the question at a personal level. What Brand are you? Just like in your enterprises you would ask: who are we? What are our values, beliefs goals? How to our customers view us? Are we delivering our brand promises? I invite you to visit a web site which will name the brand you are, once you give your values and goals. Try it out.

This latter part seems very much akin to the exercises of knowing who we want to be and making it happen; I used to conduct in the 7 habits seminars.Looking back to those days. I still feel great joy and thankful to the yonder days and to participants who taught me so much on humans and their interactions.A special note of appreciation to a lady, now living in Australia Perth who assisted & accompanied me through a vast number of such corporate seminars.

Les juifs de l’époque de Jésus avaient 613 préceptes à retenir. Cela est une tache ardue et impossible et pourtant ce qui était impose par les pharisiens.

Ne sommes nous pas aujourd’hui désemparer par le nombre de choses a faire ? Trop de chose à faire, trop de préoccupations dans notre vie ! Trop information à traiter ! Information overflow !

L’Evangile de ce dimanche, me donne une leçon : Quel est le premier de tous les commandements ? Oui, posons nous la question de l’essentiel ?

L’Essentiel est donné. Jésus l’a donné en deux temps :

Voici le premier : Écoute, Israël : le Seigneur notre Dieu est l’unique Seigneur Tu aimeras le Seigneur ton Dieu de tout ton coeur, de toute ton âme, de tout ton esprit et de toute ta force ;

Voici le second : Tu aimeras ton prochain comme toi-même. Il n’y a pas de commandement plus grand que ceux-là.

En bref, les deux se résument en un mot aimer. L’amour de Dieu et l’amour de soi et les autres !

Dieu est lui-même amour.

Notre essentiel serait il de partager l’amour, de fructifier cet amour, de répandre l’amour ? Aimer Dieu, aimer soi même et aimer les autres !

Last night, after publishing my recent blog on Branding, I had a skype call from Toronto and my caller discussed on the theme. I recalled an article that I had stored and which sold the importance of branding.

“The circle of innovation” and was written by Tom Peters way back in 1997. The points raised then are still very pertinent today and perhaps more so in Mauritius which lags behind in market innovation. You will find for quick reading a one page summary of the book. I am a great fan of Tom and have been watching videos of him and reading his numerous books. Wow! A very energetic speaker he is and very convincing in both content as well as style.

By the way, Tom Peters maintains a blog which I read regularly. He is very generous and offers for free his latest speeches and lectures. I enjoy reading them.

Tom Peters preview of Innovation

I became obsessed with innovation because my clients, in effect, begged me to.

With global competition heating up, company after company–banks, insurers, Big Six accountancies, brokerages, office-furniture makers, packaged-goods firms, software and pharmaceutical houses, engineering services firms–tell me: “My service or product is becoming commoditized.”

If the other guy’s getting better, you’d better be getting better faster–or you’re getting worse.

Translation: It’s innovation, stupid.

And “It” applies to my career, your career, the six-person training department, and the 60,000-body behemoth.

My new book, Innovation, is about one BIG idea: innovation–a “top-line” obsession. And it’s about 15 discrete, biggish ideas. The Circle of Innovation is the overarching idea. Here’s a quick preview.

1. Distance is dead. We’re all next-door neighbors. Incrementalism is innovation’s worst enemy. Mid- to long-term: Business is about augmenting the top line, not cost minimization.

2. Destruction is cool! CDO: Chief Destruction Officer. Easier to kill an organization–and repot it–than change it substantially. Learn to swallow it: destruction is job 1 (before the competition does it to you).

3. You can’t live without an eraser. Forgetting–not learning–is the highest art. Think: organized forgetting, strategic forgetfulness. How? Cherish waste, silliness, failure. Ready. FIRE! Aim.

4. We are all Michelangelos. Convert every “jobholder” into a business person. Convert every job into a business. “Business” is a very different–and more encompassing–word than “empowerment.” Keys: trust and respect; Michelangelos of Housekeeping; Michelangelos of Telemarketing. Boss as relentless architect of the possibilities of human beings.

5. Welcome to the white collar revolution. If you can’t say (specifically) why you make your company a better place, you’re out! As of Now: Me, Inc.! Take me immediate responsibility for change! You (me) are a brand. (Perform a personal brand equity evaluation now!) There are no guarantees, and that can be liberating. Stomp out indentured servitude to BigCorp.

6. All value comes from the professional services. Make staff units the vital centers of intellectual capital accumulation, rather than the prime sources of bureaucratic drag. Tool: Turn purchasing (HR, IS, Finance) into Purchasing, Inc.–a full-fledged professional service firm–devoted to transformational projects and awesome client service!

7. The intermediary is doomed. (Big) organizations without employees. Every task your organization performs is performed better (higher quality, faster, more imaginatively) by some hyper-fast specialist (somewhere) who lives, eats, sleeps, and breathes the narrow task. Flat is too modest a term. (By far.) We are gutting the “center” of vertical enterprises. The intermediary is dying or dead! Hail the disintermediated network “organization”–transparent to its customers (and all members of the value-creation chain).

8. The system is the solution. Systems are the glue in ephemeral, network “orgs.” Great systems are not about “nuts and bolts.” They can be beautiful. Systems Engineering Dept.? No! Dept. of Beauty? Yes! It’s way beyond reengineering.

9. Create waves of lust. (Almost) everything works. Quality per se is not the advantage it once (recently) was. So: Just shout “No!” to commoditization (of anything) /me-too/look-alikes. Embrace: WOW!!!! lusted-after products and services. Ultimate sin: When we do it “Right,” It’s still pretty ordinary.

10. Tommy Hilfiger knows. In a (very) crowded marketplace . . . branding is (far) more important than ever before. It is . . . the age of the brand! Anything can be branded (e.g., chicken, milk). Branding is as much for very wee outfits as for Levis or Nike or starbucks or Intel (Inside).

11. Become a connoisseur of talent. Recruit diversity! Hire crazies! Make revolutionary renewal everyone’s (literal) Job 1. We are all RDAs: Rapidly Depreciating Assets. Therefore: (Continuing) Vitality=(Continuing) Commitment to (Bold/Formal) Renewal Programs by everyone.

12. It’s a woman’s world. Women purchase. They are purchasing agents for well over half the U.S. GDP (commercial and consumer goods). Almost no Big Co.–financial services, healthcare, autos, business services–“gets” catering-to-women-as-premier-purchasers. Why? It takes total transformation–not a “women’s initiative”–to take advantage of this bizarrely neglected commercial opportunity No. 1.

13. Little things are the only things. As markets get more and more crowded, design is often the best “tool” in services and manufacturing for sustainable differentiation. Sad fact: Most companies do anything but OBSESS (e.g., Braun-like, Sony-like) on design. Personal design sensitization is Set No. 1: Home in on (open your eyes to) the pervasive role that design plays in damn near everything–signage, forms, typeface, color (a big deal), etc.

14. Love all, Serve all. Even today a ridiculously small number of sizable firms seek a sustainable edge through incredible service–Disney–or caterpillar–style. To get from (tawdry) here to (Olympian) there takes a wholesale commitment to nothing less than reconceiving the way business is done in your market or niche.

15. We’re here to live life out loud. Transformational leaders will eschew “hands off.” They will be bizarrely focused, tell the truth, and live life on the LUNATIC FRINGE. Revolutionary times call for revolutionary zeal and leaders. Those 15 ideas equal one big idea: Innovation should be your top-line obsession

The last week, we saw on the news, a series of seminars conducted by Laurence Danon, PDG des grands magasins “Le Printemps” for l’Association mauricienne des femmes chefs d’entreprises (AMFCE).

She promoted and argued on the value of Branding. I am pleased to share with you, more specially to the entrepreneurs amongst you, a short reading on communicating your brand and its 5 communication steps.

As such, a brand may be a product, services or even you. Do you market yourself to your entourage, friends or boy/girl companion? Come to think about it: we all need to do so!

Five Communication Steps

To communicate your brand (and your promise) to your target market, Scott Randall of the The Executive Club recently renamed Vistage International suggests the following:

1. Create awareness. People can’t do business with you if they don’t know you’re out there—no matter how good your product is. Building awareness starts with the basic tools of advertising, public relations, newsletters, direct mail and all the things you do to promote your products and services in the marketplace. It also involves the salespeople who get in front of the customer each and every day. How they dress, what they say—everything they do should send a consistent message about your brand. Make sure you have identified your differentiators before you start generating awareness.
2. Get on your customers’ short list (consideration). Make it easy for people to say that you qualify to do business with them. How do you get on your customers’ short list? Identify their purchasing hot buttons and incorporate them into your brand messaging. “Listen to the buzzwords your customers use again and again,” suggests Randall. “They will tell you what your brand promise is.”
3. Establish your differentiators (preference). Consideration answers the question, “Why should I buy this product?” Differentiation answers the question, “Why should I buy this product from you?” Find out what it is about your business or your business model that separates you from the pack. Beware of terms like “service” and “quality.” These have become benchmarks in most industries and are no longer true differentiators.”Don’t expect an ad agency or PR firm to answer the preference question for you,” cautions Randall. “That’s your job. Their job is to take the differentiators you have identified and communicate them to your customer base in the most effective manner.”
4. Study your purchase process. A brand is about experiences. Look closely at the process customers go through to buy from you and assess how difficult or easy it is. Examine everything you do—from purchase price to delivery to exchanges, returns and satisfaction guarantees—and look for ways to improve the experience for the customer. Make the purchase experience as pleasant as possible, and don’t make guarantees you can’t live up to. A pleasant purchase experience combined with a pleasant brand experience leads to customer loyalty.
   
5. Make it difficult for customers to leave (loyalty). Once you have customers in the door, don’t let go. Once they buy, know who they are and get permission to start a dialog. Know the buying cycles for your customers and get permission to contact them at appropriate times during the cycle (but never spam them).

In a nutshell:

1. Establish your differentiators

2. Get on your customers’ short list

3. Make it hard for your customers to leave.