The Natural Laws that Govern Our World

How Breakthroughs are Different From Continuous Improvements

When we do improvements to a product, service or any other things, we are making an attempt to increase or reduce something related to it. This could be an increase in terms of the product or service's performance or its consistency in delivering its desired outcomes or the value the creation process brings to the consumers. Improvement could also come in the form of a decrease in the externalities the product or service brings to the environment or society, or a reduction in the complexities of moving it through its value chain or in lowering of prices the consumers have to bear for these products and services.

Diminishing Returns of Continuous Improvements

There will be costs in bringing about these benefits and the organisation will continue commit to doing improvement up to the point where the costs of the improvement equals to the benefits derived from it. This means that there are diminishing returns in all kinds of continuous improvement.

However, what is the driver for this and what could we do given this reality? To appreciating these, we have to first understand the natural laws that govern the technologies that create and operate the product and service, bring the product and service to the consumers, and deliver the value in the product and service to them. Let's go through this thought experiment to let me illustrate this driver to you.

Let's assume that there is a big rectangular field near our house. Surrounding this field are barbed-wired fences, and there are two gates facing each other diagonally across. These gates are linked by a L-shaped cement-paved pedestrian walkway. We have to use this walkway everyday because this is the only way to get to the train station from our house. The diagram of the houses, field, gates, walkway and train station is presented below.

Several years later, the local government had decided to improve the walkway by tearing it up and repaving it. The new walkway has shortened the distance one has to travel between the two gates. Since then, there have been no further changes except repaving works because of its wear and tear. You have written to the authorities about the needs for further improvements and they have always told you that this is the best they could come up with. Why is this so?

Constraining Effects of the Governing Laws

This comes about because there are no more ideas capable of shortening the distance. Further changes could only be motivated by a fundamental shift in the natural laws that govern the whole scheme of things. Look at our walkway again and we could see Pythagoras' Theorem (a2 + b2 = c2) as the natural law that is now defining the distance between the two gates. According to the theorem, the shortest distance between two opposing corners is directly across. The construction of all other point-to-point walkways are frivolous and a waste of public funds because nothing is shorter than this. If we could shift this natural law that governs the field, we can find new avenues for new improvements. In this thought experiment, the theorem is capable of being re-expressed to focus the equation at different perspectives but in its simplest form it is incapable of being reconfigured. This explains why the current layout is the best solution given the constraints imposed by the current law.

So, how could we identify new avenues for improvements when we are unable to instrument the natural laws? We do this by examining the variables in the natural laws. In the thought experiment, the law that dictates the length of the diagonals is the Pythagoras' Theorem and the equation is:

a2 + b2 = c2

In this equation, we know that the sum of the length and breathe of the field will always be longer than the route that cuts diagonally across the field. We also know that there is a positive relationship between its length and breathe, and its diagonal. This means, the shortening of the diagonal requires a proportionate reduction in the dimensions in either or both the length and breathe of the field, which will cause the reorientation of the opposing gates. If this is feasible, this wlll become a new source for improvement up to the point where these movements no longer have meaning.

Motivation for Breakthrough Thinking

When these dimensional entities are invariable, the diagonal is constraint and nothing could change this. Now, we need to innovate to find a breakthrough in the way we think about shortening the route. We question not about how to reduce the distance to reach the station fast. We ask about how we could reach the station quickly, and we may consider using the travellator, which allows us to expend less energy to perform the task and arrives at half the time. We have leave behind distance and adopted speed as the new mode of thinking for breakthroughs. This means, in breakthroughs, we need to become aware of and avoid being influenced by the current natural laws.

Why is this so important to the innovation practitioners? This is so because the true defining difference between do continuous improvements and creating breakthroughs rests in recognising whether we are working within the confines of a current natural law or transiting out of it to be into another. Without this awareness, we will forever be confined by the current laws and only capable of doing improvements.

This article was 1st written on 19 May 2009.

Copyright 2009. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Human Resource Investment Is Not About Spending But Creating Opportunities for Learning

Critical Facotors of Innovative Organisations No. 7

Usually, when we think about investing in people, our immediate thoughts are about training and development. While these are essential, they cannot be seen as the ends to a cause. Often, it is this misplaced emphasis that is the source of frustration for many Human Resource practitioners.

Ends Versus Means

In the 'ends' mentality, people are just sent for training and development, and it is expected that results will follow without considering what could have happened after the learning interventions. When this section of the value creation process has been truncated, Human Resource practitioners lost the mechanism to translate the learning individuals may have gained at these training and development events into human productivity at the workplace. In this space, lt is a challenge to separate the benefits of these investments from the financial results of the overall performance of the organisation. There are consequences with such a difficulty. It includes management assigning lower priorities to people development and seeking avenues with seemingly less dubious and more direct impact to productivity, like outsourcing or reconfiguration of the labour-machine mix, to improve the organisation. These will severely constraint the roles human will play in creativity and innovation in the organisation, which could lead to the decline of a nation.

Unlike the 'ends' mentality, the 'means' perspective recognises that the true value of training and development is in their transference at the workplace. There are follow-throughs that practitioners recognise as important and they put these into practice and build them into their corporate policies and governance structure to facilitate the actual transference of knowledge, skills and attitudes into creative ideas, innovations and entrepreneurial activities at the workplace. These are the financially accountable results of training and development.

Creating Opportunities for Learning

Some follow-throughs include:

• Creating opportunities for people to interact with those who have successfully used the skills, practice what they have learnt, give them a sense of contribution, and make the skill become second nature to them.


• Exposing the people to different roles so that they experience innovation from different perspectives. In doing so, they obtain a better appreciation of the roles and functions of innovation.


• Taking the routine and mundane work out of people so that this could translated into spare time for them to look at the future instead of overly focus in dealing with the past in the 'now' space.


• Giving people the freedom to experiment and space make errors and mistakes so that true learning could happen.

Innovative Organisations See the Larger Picture

Highly innovative organisations are capable of differentiating the larger picture of creating opportunities for the transference of learning from spending money mindlessly. They appreciate the full extent of the value creation process for investing in people and the amount of work involved, many which is beyond the scope of training and development, and the responsibilities of the trainers. They have avoided the zero-sum game of making the trainers the scapegoats for learning failures and went beyond managing the superficial aurora of learning successes.

Here is an interesting video that talk about giving people the opportunities to use their learned abilities:

Here are the links for the other critical factors of innovative organisations:

• No 1. Purpose Driven Organisation

• No 2. Understanding the Demonic Nature of Vision

• No 3. Risks of Playing No Games & Being Off the Board

• No 4. Fearless Organisation Environment

• No 5. Openness is in the Eradication of Fantasies

• No 6. System of Authentic Sharing

• No 8. Stun-gunning Your Organisation into Inventiveness

• No 9. Focus on the True Purpose of Celebrating Success and Contribution

• No 10. Fully Appreciating the True Meaning of an Innovative Team

This article was 1st written on 19 May 2009 and 7 July 2010.
Copyright 2009 and 2010. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Managing Innovation at the Organisational Level

Strategic Importance of Innovation in Organisations

I have written much about the limitations of continuous improvement and the role of creativity in injecting new avenues of improvement into an organisation and in thinking outside the natural laws that govern the technologies that define a current produce, service or process.

Each time a new source of improvement or breakthrough is found, the propensity for innovations come into existence. The capability to identify this source and the capacity turn it into innovations is an advantage that organisations must afford to have in order to stay competitive.

From Managing Innovations to Managing the Engine that Creates Them

However, organisations cannot depend on a single improvement or innovation to stay competitive. In a dynamic market, competition is nearly perfect and organisations do not have long periods to enjoy the gains from their own innovation. The lifecycles of products, services and processes are getting shorter as more organisations have learnt to innovate and are capable of taking their own innovations to the market.

This means organisations need to move away from managing an innovation or a number of innovations; seeing them from conceptualisation to commercialisation, to managing the pipeline that creates these innovations. This is the engine that is capable of producing new innovation to replace the ones that are currently decaying in their lifecycles.

However, to manage innovation at this level, Organisational Development (OD) practitioners need to recognise the kinks in the pipeline. These kinks are the outputs of an overactive organisational immunity system working against all things that may create instability ln the organisation's current social order and topple its existing structures. This means, innovations do not flow through the organisation very well and regular interventions are needed to nudge the ideas and the innovations that come from them forward.

Seven Kinks of the Innovation Pipeline

Before we talk about the types of intervention, let's examine these seven kinks in the pipeline:

The Challenges of Imperfect Market

There are many individuals in organisations with ideas and solutions. Equally many are individuals looking for them. The challenge is that there is little knowledge in the market who and where these suppliers and buyers are and this create exchange inefficiencies in the organisational market of ideas and solutions.

Projectisation Challenges

Many ideas with breakthrough potentials are often given up because very few individuals are willing to stick their heads out to turn these into projects in order to draw value out of them. This does not mean that the motivation for enterprise is found lacking amongst the employees in the organisation. It suggests that people are turned off by the organisation's aversion towards uncertainty, its unforgiving nature towards failures, and an overly myopic focus on short-termism.

Challenges of Time and Space

Project teams face much inertia when they try to get their projects started. Some of these include finding the right members, right problem definition, and right range and scope. When things become tough, there is always a tendency for these teams to fall back on routine work methods and proven solutioning approaches, and symptomatic rather then underlying fundamentals issues get solved.

Challenges of Social Constraints

Research has revealed that leaders have the tendency to unknowingly introduce organisational and social constraints that prevent creativity and innovation to flourish in their own organisation.

Organisations may formulate and implement seemingly well meaning policies that have unexpected consequences that constraints the flow of ideas or innovations within the organisation. Organisations have both formal and informal structures that govern the distribution of power, influence and control between stakeholders. The flow of ideas and innovations in the organisation could be channelled or halted by these elements and the leaders needs to be sensitive to their use and the impact they create.

Challenges of Participation

Social interactions are always at the centre of creative ideas and innovations generation. The willingness of various players in innovation - the fund managers, entrepreneurs, protectors, advocators and promoter, to believe and participate in these interactions will determine the projects’ success.

Therefore, the quality and frequency of these interactions cannot be taken lightly and has to be cultivated over time. This requires the skills and acumen of the pipeline architects and the recognition that these players have to play two roles - the role of managing today and the responsibilities of managing for tomorrow now.

Challenges of Scarcity

The availability and accessibility to resources can make or break the project. Money is not the only resource teams need. They also need management approval, support and protection as these are capable of influencing the motivation, make-up and dynamics of the project team. Often, teams are frustrated and jaded because of the lack of such resources. Jaded individuals could create long term impact for the organisation as their existence always challenges the credibility and authenticity of management towards being an innovative organisation.

Challenges of Withholding Value

In a knowledge-based society, creativity and innovation is not constraint by the boundaries that separate spaces. Individuals and teams could choose not to contribute and they are equally capable of withholding the value of the innovation from the organisation and passing it someone they find worthy of receiving it. Individuals could start translating an idea created at one organisation in another. There is very little the organisation could do in terms of the policies that could be used to prevent the leakage of value from the organisation.

Managing Innovation in the Organisation is about Managing the Pipeline

It is therefore not surprising organisation has no problem recognised as being innovation when they managed these kinks well and those trying to be innovative find it to be a challenge to be one because they are doing the wrong things by copying them without understanding the underlying principles.

This article was 1st written on 29 April 2009 and updated on 15 May 2009.

Copyright 2009. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Space and Innovation, and their Relationship

Divisive Nature of Space on Wisdom

I have begun investigating into space and innovation, and their relationship in 2005. I believe that the way a space is configured at the workplace impacts the quantity and quality of creative ideas and commercially viable innovations produced by the organisation.

By dividing the space into smaller parcels and allocating these to different organisational stakeholders to facilitate labour division, specialisation and scaled economisation, people get divided and their collective institutional memory and tacit knowledge is also disaggregated, distributed and stove-piped within these pockets of space. While technology may support the retrieval, transmission, sharing and storage of information from and at different venues, the reintegration of these elements into their original whole and relaying it as wisdom between organisational members remains a challenging and costly affair for many practitioners of organisation development.

Politics are Built into the Space

The call for keeping wisdom centralised and intact comes from the recognition that innovation is a product of creativity that combines and recombines current wisdom into new forms of representation that transcend traditional arrangements and structures. This propensity to create is heightened when innovators gain access to a wider array of wisdom that exists in the various communities in the organisation. In a divided organisation, the dispensation of this wisdom is obstructed by the rights, influences and power one has over the wisdom in a broken-up space vis-à-vis some other spaces. While these are intangible, their physical representations like social boundaries, physical structures, and geographical time zones are. These barriers constraint the movement of people and the knowledge they carry. These undermine their chances of creating breakthrough ideas and innovations.

Channelling Causes the Creation of Dark Spaces

Inductively, one can conclude that there is an explicit and positive relationship between the configuration of space and the prospect of the organisation in producing innovations. The layout affects the movement of its occupants, who are the carriers of knowledge and wisdom in the organisation. This channelling effect determines the preferences of the occupants over the use of a certain passageway, corridor or access route. This means it is more by design than coincidence that the foci of a network and its social order is skewed towards those destinations where channelling plays a defining role in the given space.

Unlike explicit knowledge, which is observable, recordable and storable, tacit ones are more likely to be effectively transferred from one individual to another through interactions like conversation, discourse and collaborative work. The effects of channelling create pockets of vacuum in certain parts of the organisation where such interactions are disabled. These dark spaces lack the drawing power to bring in enough of people to generate the diversity necessary for wisdom to be created. They also provide little attraction to stem the flow of these resources out of the space. This makes the stay in the dark spaces short and this disables meaningful and fruitful interactions, which is essential in the creation of breakthrough ideas.

Limiting Factors - Scientific Management Principles

Nevertheless, the way businesses are structured today informs us that the artefacts of scientific management will continue to be the cornerstones of organisatíons. Productivity with labour division, controlled decentralisation, and scale economisation will remain the dominant forces in influencing the organisation of resources for competition. In the face of such an arrangement, innovation practitioners need to find creative solutions that allow them to leverage on the current sciences of organisation to cultivate ideas and harness them as commercially viable innovations. They need to create white clearings in the dark spaces.

A Toothless Elephants are Forever White

In the course of my work, I have worked with organisations keen in creating spaces for creativity and innovation. The experience has been mixed. I have come across organisations which had funded the building of innovation rooms for the sake of meeting some business excellence requirements without wanting to understand how the rooms were to be subsequently used. Many of their investments ended in waste and further development in this area was shelved given the rooms' low utilisation rates. Eventually, these white elephants were converted for other uses when new priorities surface.

The main reason for these failed experiments is not because of the shortage of space or people with knowledge and wisdom. It is the lack of sharewares that enable meaningful and fruitful conversations, discourses and discussions to take place in these spaces. When the interactions are not meaningful, participants cannot find the purpose and motivation for attending and participating in these wisdom engagement gatherings. Spaces provided for these gathering are eventually unused. With proper channelling and availability of sharewares, we have the ingredients to build white space, as opposed to dark spaces.

Wiring Up the Space

As early as 2006, experiments to hardwire sharewares into the organisation's white spaces had begun.

Plan-Do-Check-Act or PDCA is the mother of all problem solving sharewares. What does it actually do and why is it so important? A process is a mechanism that times the release of a number of problem solving or consensus building sharewares to the participants at the most appropriate moment. It is important to time their release because there is a need to account for the pace of the conversation and learning during participation and overcome the forming, storming, norming and performing stages of a team as it grows it knowledge and experience.

My early attempts were confined to incorporating accelerated solutioning processes into spaces like meeting and work rooms. Several approaches were contemplated at that time and the more concrete ones are presented below:

• Hardwiring – This is the kind of wiring found in the iStudio of the Ministry of Education, where the innovation process described by John Kao was hardwired into the space. Here, the designer believes that breakthroughs could happen when participants experience total immersion in and strict in adhering to the prescribed process and hardwiring the process into the space guarantees such results. His process could be found scripted onto the walls and the fixtures are built and acquired to allow the participants to follow the given script.

• Soft Wiring – This is the type of wiring that was adapted by the Ministry of Defence for its innovation rooms. The layout and fixtures are designed and acquired to create an environment that is suitable for a finite array of processes. We were able to accommodate a range of layouts within these definitions:

• Very Soft Wiring – where the layout of the room could be copied from some where without the need to understand the influences and nuances of the process and environment on the team's performance.
• Semi-Soft Wiring – where the layout of the room is configured around a generic team work methodology and could be used for a finite array of processes. Here the influences and nuances of the process and environment on the team's performance are broadly accounted for during design.
• Softwiring – where the layout of the room is laid out around a particular category of team processes and could only be applied for a particular category of team work. Thus, if the room is fitted for prototyping, it could support all kinds of prototyping activities and nothing else. Here, the influences and environmental impact on team's performance are narrowly considered.

• Flexible Wiring. This kind of wiring combines the benefits of both hardwiring and softwiring but uses different technologies to overcome the challenges experienced when switching between these two kinds of wiring. Technologies are used to make the switch seamless. Taking this a step further, flexibility wiring includes the ability to strip down a team process into specific components and to have these combined and recombined with other strip down components of other team-based processes to form new processes. Thus, the idea of creating self-contain modules from pieces taken from different team work methodologies and supporting their execution within the space is the main thrust in its design.

I have left the public service in February of 2007 and is unable to follow-up and learn more about the outcomes of these experimentation with spaces. However, I have heard of initial successes during the early day of their implementation.

This article was 1st written on 17 April 2009.
Copyright 2009. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Goal Setting – Charting Your Future for Successful Breakthroughs

There are two worlds that we need to effectively manage in our lives in order that we remain successful. One of these worlds is the present and the other is our future. Both of these worlds are interrelated. Our future can only be created from the present but rarely are we able to create our future when the present is messed up by our past.

This programme is designed to help you deal with your present by unhooking the things that happened in the past, which are holding and preventing you from move ahead in life. When you life is free of the shadows of the past, you could then begin to chart and building your future with the present as your starting point.

Course Objectives

At the end of the course, you are able to:

• Manage your present with what you already have
• Charting and build your future from the present

Course Outline

Part 1: Managing the Present with What You Already Have

We have everything at our disposal to make it in life. Didn’t we survive our last birthday? Aren’t we doing alright at the moment? However, ‘alright’ is not always better. It is always good to uncover the things that are holding us back so that we could do even better in life. Our lives could be built from learning and self-discoveries, and this is the true nature of life.

Something is Not Working – Using ‘Tension’ as an Early Warning Devise

There are occasions in our lives when everything seems to fall apart. Most of us confront them by adopting strategies that may alleviate the discomforts these occasions brought on to us. Others just run away believing that they would go away at some point of time. Seldom do we recognize that the stress we experience comes about because situations have changed and our major life strategies no longer work.

In this module, we will play a game called the ‘The Journey to Kinderland’. In the game we will learn to use our body to inform us of things that are not working properly.

Where is it Not Working – Identifying the Source of the Tension

When we know something is not working, we usually put in more effort, time and money to turn it around, only to be disappointed because things get from bad to worse. So, what is wrong here? Actually, nothing is wrong. We are just blinded to the source that creates these tensions.

In this segment, we will learn the source of our problem by uncovering the drivers that derail us from our happiness. We will complete the Personal Derailment Profile, which may point us to the specific drivers that are causing the stress in our lives.

Looking for the Gaps – Things that You Could Do

No future could be built at any other time but today. Therefore, understanding the concept of time is very important and the question we must ask is what we should do to move ahead in life.

In this module, we will learn the true nature of time and its impact on your future. We will also complete the Linking Skills Profile to discover the skill sets we need to make the future more precise.

Part 2: Working Your Future from the Present

Once we become aware of what is in the past that is ruining our present, we can now look at what we could do now to create our future.

Envisioning Your Future – Getting the Fog Out of the Way

We cannot talk about our future until we could see how it looks like. Once we have an image of the future, we get to be inspired by it, motivated by it, and our aspirations could propel us to great heights.

In this segment, we will spend time creating our own vision board. Through the board, we attempt to make as clear as possible our true desires and we represent these with pictures to enhance the clarity and impulse for them.

Translating Talk into Tangibles – Setting My Plans

We cannot talk about our future. It carries no value. We have to build our future from today, that is, it has to be now. This means that we need to have a plan. The plan calls on us to work towards a goal and it tells us if we are ahead or behind in our pace today into our future.

In this module, we will use a multitude of templates to work out a set of plans that we could implement immediately. If fact, we can begin to call on resources and support using the programme to kick-start our plan, inching a step towards fulfilling a breakthrough life. In order words, we are innovating our lives.

Breaking Out of the Box - Barriers to Your Innovated Life

'Think outside the box' is one of those management jargons that has been wildly circulated and widely used in many learning communities in the world.

But what does it really mean? What is the 'box' mentioned in the phrase? We have included an 'outside' in the maxim, how does the inside looks like? Since we know we need to 'think' to get out, then what kind of thinking should we use to do that?

In this module, we will learn the types of barriers we may be pre-disposed to and we will rely on the Opportunity-Obstacle Quotient Profile to gain this insight.

If you are keen to find out more about this programme, please contact Anthony Mok at spaceman@pacific.net.sg.

This article was 1st written on 17 April 2009 and updated on 22 Jun 2009.
Copyright 2009. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

System of Authentic Sharing

Critical Factors of Innovative Organisations No. 6

The networks in our community contain large reservoirs of information, experiences, knowledge and wisdom. In them, new perspectives are constantly being added to and insights are regularly being drawn from the collective membership of the community. In these networks, these sharing activities generate a higher propensity for individuals to see new connections that others cannot and with this ability, more breakthrough ideas could be produced.

No two networks are the same and not all kinds of network are capable of achieving this outcome. Networks, which members are highly mobile and possess good social interaction skills, tend to feel more empowered to share authentically in these social structures. They are also more capable of producing the outcomes described in the previous paragraph. Such dynamics do not happen overnight or by chance.

Conversation, verbal or written, is the start of all relationships, formal or otherwise. There are two pre-requisites for a good conversation - relationship and trust. When opportunities for prolonged conversations are missing, pairs, groups or teams of individuals cannot evolve from their formative-acquaintance form of relationship to reach a certain degree of normalcy where deeper forms of relationship and trust could be developed and built upon. When these are missing, the conversation stops and the network become dull and unsustainable. Since sharing takes place in conversations, the importance of engaging in good conversations becomes obvious.

In our society and organisation, we have what it takes to enable sharing. Much effort has been spent acquiring various technologies for sharing. These electronic-mechanical technologies include the whole array of input, distribution, storage, search, access and output devices where data, information and knowledge is collected, kept and shared.

In addition to these is another array of people-participation processes that could be used to bring people from different parts of the community or organisation to a single physical or digital location to create new data, information and knowledge. There are many such processes in the market and many go by their trade names of Knowledge Café, World Café, and Open Space Technology. However, these processes could be traced to the mother of all such people-participation processes of Consensus Workshop Methods and Focused Discussion Methods. These are collectively called Technology of Participation. For years, organisations have purchased and used these processes and the tools they offer in their value-creation operations.

However, organisations continue to report limited success in sharing and creating new knowledge even after amassing this amount of hardware and process-ware to enable sharing. Why is this so? The problem lays on the lack of a kind of software that enables authentic share; sharing that is built on relationship and trust. Communities and organisations need people-interaction software. The two key ingredients in this software are the art of inquiry and the language of sharing.

In the Art of Inquiry, participants in the sharing session are triggered to think, reflect and respond to a line of questions from different genres. This line of questions could be delivered in succession or presented together. The objective is to focus the participants to commit their thinking capability and capacity to a common space so that enough of thoughts could be generate for sharing later. In the Language of sharing, we recognise that honest sharing only becomes possible when participants are warmed up to each other and trust is present in the session. This language seeks to build what is necessary to strengthen, clarify and authentic the thoughts of an on-going conversation so that they are accurately communicated and understood by all parties.

Here is a video that talks about innovation and networks:



The organisation that has pieced together these electronic-mechanical hardware, people-participation processes and people-interaction software seamlessly, possesses the system for honest sharing and this is a competitive advantage of an innovative organisation in the market.

Here are the links to the other factors of Innovative Organisations:

• No 1. Purpose Driven Organisation

• No 2. Understanding the Demonic Nature of Vision

• No 3. Risks of Playing No Games & Being Off the Board

• No 4. Fearless Organisation Environment

• No 5. Openness is in the Eradication of Fantasies

• No 7. Human Resource Investment Is Not About Spending But Creating Opportunities for Learning

• No 8. Stun-gunning Your Organisation into Inventiveness

• No 9. Focus on the True Purpose of Celebrating Success and Contribution

• No 10. Fully Appreciating the True Meaning of an Innovative Team

This article was 1st written on 24 Mar 2009 and updated on 7 Jul 2010.

Copyright 2009 & 2010. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

How Our Reasons Stop Us From Getting What We Are Capable Of Having

Active Listening Series No. 3

Steven and I meet regularly for meals and we will talk about things.

This was a conversation that we had one afternoon when we talked about aspirations.

'I like to have more training. Could you help?' Steven asked while we were walking towards a nearby foodcourt for our lunch.

'I want to but you have some limitations.' I replied as we walked into the foodcourt.

He asked, 'what are these?'

'What are some of the programmes you have wanted to do but we have never assigned them to you?' I asked as I was thinking about the meal I wanted to order.

'Like leadership programmes. Maybe helming engagements that have participants holding more senior appointments. I would like to do workshops as well,' he came back to my questions and suggested that we should have fried rice for lunch.

I followed with 'what is missing here?'

'What do you mean by missing?' he queried.

'What do you not have now that is stopping you from getting what you want?' I complete my line of questioning as I looked over my shoulder for a place to sit down.

'I need to be certified in the use of some profiling instruments, like MBTI and DiSC,' he replied.

I looked at him and asked, 'have you done anything yet?'

He said, 'No,' and I followed quickly by asking for the reasons.

'Well, you know I don't earn much. These certifications are expensive. MBTI costs S$3,500 and DiSC is at S$2,000. I don't have the money,' said Steven as he led me to an emptied table nearby.

I replied, 'but you could save or obtain a sponsorship from your employer'. However, before I could continue, he interjected by revealing his two key objections to these suggestions - saving had a long gestation period and the notion of serving a bond with his sponsor was unacceptable.

'Could you hear yourself?' I asked and started chewing my rice.

He asked, 'what do you mean?'

'Could you repeat what you have just told me?' was my reply.

He looked at me quizzingly, and said 'Are you referring to the difficulties of saving and getting bonded with my company?' He reproduced what he had articulated earlier and said 'Alright, I have said it. What now?'

I smiled and highlighted to him that he has taken his life lightly, and questioned, 'Could you tell me what these sound like to you?'

'They are the difficulties or obstacles', he replied.

I encouraged him to tell me more and he continued, 'Yes. These are my reasons why I couldn't do these certifications, and without these I couldn't conduct more programmes for reasonableyour company'.

'But are they real?' I questioned. He looked at me and provided a strong affirmation to my query. I asked again 'Are they real?'

'What do you mean by real? Of couse they are! If not, I would have completed the certifications some time ago,' he reiterated. 'They are the reasons why I am in my current predicament'.

'You mean these are your excuses for in-action!' I insisted.

'They are not!' He shot back.

'Let me try it this way. You said you cannot save. How do you know? Have you started on a saving scheme already? You said you cannot entertain the idea of being bonded? How do you know the sponsorship can only be secured through serving a bond? Have you personally spoken to the CEO of the company about alternative approaches in getting the sponsorshlp? Have you done these?

'No. I have not', as he leaned back after the hearty meal.

'Then, your claims are not real. The difficulties or challenges you had mentioned are just your excuses for not moving on with your life,' I continued to coach.

I could see that he was struggling with the idea and I began to give him the key insights into the concept of being reasonable.

I continued, 'What you have actually done is that you had labelled all your excuses as reasons. There is a distinct difference between an excuse and a reason. A reason is based on facts and an excuse is not.To ensure that your claims sound reasonable to yourself and real to others, you imbuned them with justifications, which are the 'becauses' that further insulate you from seeing the truth. Anything that does not fit into this reality is rejected. All these excuses and 'becauses' become your repertoire of stories and dramas used, instrumented and manipulated by you to explain the mechanisms that had deprived you of your breakthroughs. These forever protect you against having to take personal responsibility for your own life.

Your actlons and behaviours become the script of your life. It is through this script that you demonstrate the stories and seek affirmation from others. The social process for carrying these out over time helps with the editing, change and refinement of your script. All in all, this pretence that the problem is out there and not within you prevents you from getting what you are potentially capable of having. You have become accomodative towards everything that is found in your life script. You have become reasonable and your constant explanations ol what stops you becomes your racket'.

After much thought, Steven asked, 'You mean I should not be reasonable with people and things around me?'

'No. You cannot be unreasonable with others. You can come across to others as aggressive when you turn to the extremes. Besides, you could never change others. The only control you have to achieve breakthroughs and success is in yourself and for yourself. You could introduce the concept to them so that they acquire the space for greater things. This means you can only be unreasonable with yourself', I said.

'Unreasonable with myself?' Steven asked, 'How could I do this?'

'This is very easy. Just stop letting your excuses and becauses get in your way. They are not the reasons why you are where you are. Your excuses and becauses are. Only when you try, and in trying you encounter an obstacle, than that excuse becomes a reason but as human, we are capable of overcoming it. It is this simple!' I suggested.

'I understand now. Thank you for helping me attaining this knowledge'. said Steven in an appreciative manner.

'I feel most honored that you have gotten what you are capable of having. Let's celebrate with lunch next week', I ended the coaching with the invitation.

'Sure! I will let you know what comes out from this awareness next week.' Steven replied as he walked by to his office.

'It's all about practice and you should begin now', I called out to his direction.

'Cool!' he called out as the doors of lift closes between us and I proceed to walk back to my routine work.

This article was written on 22 Dec 2008.
Copyright 2008. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

The Nature of Profiling

Ethical Issues of Profiling

In the course of my work on creativity and innovation, I have regularly profiled others and I have seen many of my peers doing similar. I have several concerns surrounding this sort of work and the main discomfort I currently have is ethics.

As qualified profilers, we are governed by a set of guidelines which informs us of the acts we could and could not take when dealing with the profiled individual and handling the information we gathered about him.

However, not much instruction is given to the profiled individual about how he should behave when profiled. I have seen some individuals who use the instruments on their subordinates and friends without the full understanding of the science and construct of these instruments. Such acts are unethical and down right dangerous, much like to a quack trying to manage a miscarriage on the operating table.

The other thing I frequently observed of profiled individuals is their gross misconception over the use of the information generated from the profiling exercise. I have encountered individuals, who acknowledge the accuracy of the profile, went on to share it with their supervisors, peers and subordinates with the sole intention of getting them to adjust their behaviours to these profiled individuals. I am totally taken aback by what I have learnt.

We cannot expect others to change for us. This is wishful thinking. We could only change ourselves, and the profiles give us the knowledge and power to do so. The science and construct of profiling is to help us to develop our character and growth ourselves as useful individuals. They are not instruments to dominate others or for social comparison.

I have yet to experience the scariest thing about the use of profiles on other individuals but I have heard stories about them being instrumental with the knowledge they have obtained about themselves and others. It is important that qualified profilers warn the profiled individuals not to side step into abusing their knowledge for personal again. There is a very fine line dividing personal growth and manipulating others with the special knowledge gained through profiling.

It is always good practice to warn the profiled individual about his responsibility when using the instrument and his profile. These are for him and for him only.

This article was written on 1 Oct 2008.

Copyright 2008. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Openness is in the Eradication of Fantasies

Critical Factors of Innovative Organisations No. 5

Openness does not occur in the space of the speaker.

‘Why is it so?’, Adam asked me one day when I was talking about openness again.

Well, when a speaker speaks, he does not just exercise his vocal cords. He also exercises his eyes and ears to read, hear, seek, probe and pick up information about the listener to determine his level of interest, support, and commitment to the message.

We are all social animals. We make stories about the listener through the information we pick up in our interactions and conversations. We also make stories about ourselves as speakers. Most of the time, these stories are not even true. There is nothing wrong about this. This is just a part of our inheritance as humans, and we use it very efficiently. We do all these - concluding, deciding, and reacting - in split seconds.

‘But won't the listener behaves like a speaker since he also listens and reads for information during an interaction?’, Adam asked.

I replied, ‘That’s true. That’s why things can become so vicious when conversations are entangled in circles of fantasies, and no one seems able to get out of it at all to keep the conversation at what it is rather than what it should be'.

‘This is scary. If this can happen between just two people, what will become to the organisation and the world if everyone does it?’, he exclaimed.

‘It is already happening - fightings in the family, politicking in the office, shootings in the schools, killings on the streets, and sanctioning less worthy countries. These manifestations arise from taking in what we believe to be true and not what is the truth’, was my reply and I continued, 'The people in such organisations and from such societies enjoys only a poorer state of life. They are less child-like, more risk adverse, and unlikely to bring in fresh mentalities since doing so problematic in a world that is authentically unreal'.

This is the bane of organisations and societies, arising from the stories they have made and held dear to.

Here is a video to understand the brain makes meaning:

Here are the links for the other critical factors of innovative organisations:

• No 1. Purpose Driven Organisation

• No 2. Understanding the Demonic Nature of Vision

• No 3. Risks of Playing No Games & Being Off the Board

• No 4. Fearless Organisation Environment

• No 6. System of Authentic Sharing

• No 7. Human Resource Investment Is Not About Spending But Creating Opportunities for Learning

• No 8. Stun-gunning Your Organisation into Inventiveness

• No 9. Focus on the True Purpose of Celebrating Success and Contribution

• No 10. Fully Appreciating the True Meaning of an Innovative Team

This article was 1st written on 20 Sep 2008 and updated on 7 Jul 2010.
Copyright 2008 and 2010. Anthony Mok. All rights reserved.

Thinking Outside the Box and Living the Future From the Past

Active Listening Series No. 2

'Think outside the box' is one of those management jargons that has been wildly circulated and widely used in many learning communities in the world.

But what does it really mean? What is the 'box' mentioned in the phrase? We have included an 'outside' in the maxim, how does the inside looks like? Since we know we need to 'think' to get out, then what kind of thinking should we use to do that?

There are many answers that need to be found in these questions. Let's revisit active listening and the second conversation to see what these concepts could inform us.

We will have different encounters that give us a variety of experiences throughout our lives. Some are of our choosing. Others are entrusted upon us out of circumstances. There are the ones that had given us happiness and left us with many enduring memories. There are others so nasty that we just wanted to forget, even to walk out of life to end them all.

In Pursuit of Happiness

Humans are such calculative creatures. We will do anything and everything to stay in a space that enables us to keep doing, having and being with things that delight. In the face of frustration, anger, sadness, hardship and pain, we employ the same or with even greater amount of energy do the opposite. We are just creatures into self-preservation.

So, we create, develop and use strategies that help us keep receiving those experiences that we want and strategies of un-having, undoing and un-being with those that we want to avoid. We identify triggers that cue us to these strategies and they become heuristics that are hardwired into our sub-consciousness, like lines of instructional codes, defining who we are and how we should behave.

The process of creating these strategies could be over in a moment and it occurs only in our second conversation and no where else. With time, we forget the very reasons for these decisions and the exact time they were made. When we progress further into time, the strategies themselves become silent, leaving us with nothing but cues that instinctively trigger us into action, and clues for those perceptive few, whom we intimately know, of the many decisions we had made long ago.

Living the Future From the Past

In making each decision, we created a psychological pact with time that commits us to a future that is bounded by the singularities of our past. It is in these decisions that we had made, committed to and eventually forgotten that form the lines of the box in which we now live; the invisible barriers that allow or prevent us from really doing and having something, or being who we can be. These are the boundaries that shape the box, and inside its space, we are always restricted from accessing the source of our own breakthroughs and restrained in many ways on how we could authentically live our lives.

These decisions are not made from a singular time but throughout life; yesterday, today and tomorrow. We will continue strategising, determining cues and making commitments into the future to enrich the nature of the boundaries that enclose us. We add, shape and change the decisions we had made in the past, now and future. We do these to ensure that we are better at surviving the harsh realities of a world of having, doing and being; all in the pursuance of happiness.

The Silence in the 3rd Conversation

We know the nature of our second conversation. It is selective, evaluative and judgmental. We know because we could hear it as it happens and, therefore, are capable of stopping it or letting it run. We have a choice there.

The third conversation is different. It is totally silent. The third conversation was a second conversation that had taken place and ended ages ago. Metaphorically, we could envisage the third conversation as an all powerful recording of an old second conversation that was written into our psyche, now speaking and controlling from within without its frequency and vibration ever being felt. This means that while we may not be able to explain why we do what we had done, these behaviours are never random. We cannot stop these behaviours at the conversational level like the second conversation since it cannot be heard. Choice cannot be exercise here.

The intervention has to be executed at the source.

In Love With Myself

Let me tell you a story.

We have been attached for more than a decade now but I had never really loved my partner until in the recent few years.

Of course, you are shocked by both the revelation and my honesty. Most, who had heard of this, were, but hold that thought for a moment. Do not judge me yet. Let me finish my story. You will get something out of this. I promise.

Why was I not in love?

You see. Some years ago, before I met my current partner, I was attached to someone whom I loved but we broke up. Being my first relationship, the aftermath was bad. It was a disaster, with school, work and sports in tow. I had depression and it lasted for about eight months. I did not recognise it after many years later.

Those were eight months of self-blame, sadness, hatred, and pain, and I had made a decision then. I must protect myself, at all cost, against feeling the pain again. The strategy was simple. I was to never break up again. I reasoned that when there was no break-up, there will be no pain.

I was attached again and in those years I was stressed. Stressed by what? Stressed by the fear that my partner not wanting me. Stress by my effort of reading cues that may signal an impending break up, which was exhausting me. Stressed by the readiness to respond immediately in the event of a mishap. Stressed by the need to respond at each sign of trouble. Each time she seemed to be unhappy, I appeased. Each time she seemed to be angry, I apologised. Whatever I did was about signalling her how important she was to me and that I was the right one for her. I was focusing on the 'what if .....' .

This was a long relationship. With time, I had forgotten the reason for the stress. With time, I had forgotten why I was doing all these. I was like a machine; just responding to the triggers of doing, having, and being safe but this was never a relationship I wanted because it was a sorrowful one. I was never happy. I did not know that being safe was this painful as well. I was not in love with my partner. I was surviving the relationship. I was in love with myself.

Getting Our Breakthroughs From the Past

I was not aware of my predicament. Why? Because I had forgotten that second conversation that had happened ages ago. It had become totally silent. It has morphed into a third conversation, talking to me and controlling every direction I took. It was too silent to warn me of the perils I was in. I was totally disempowered. That was until one night four years ago.

How did I stop the third conversation? I went back in time.

To go the source of my breakthrough, I have to accept that nothing in my actions is co-incidental. There is always a cause and the resultant effect. My actions, the effects, point to the source of the cause.

So, I went back to a time where I first encountered this uneasiness of being incomplete and I uncovered the driver of the third conversation. By cognitively going backwards in time, I dig up the second conversation, which had gone silent, and I recognised how absurd it was. To trace the cause at source requires me to courageously accept that I will go no further if I am to stay where I was. Doing and having more, and being wiser merely sink me deep into that position. What I need is a breakthrough so that I could leave the box that enclosed me for this long.

Dumping the Past for the Future

I made a choice, on that night four years ago, to dump the boundaries from my psyche altogether and walk out of the box. This single thought set me free. This put me in a space that is cleared of my old baggage; like a clearing of some sort in a forest where the sunlight can at last reach its floor. It is as if my programming codes have been reinitialised and restarted again, and now I could begin life on a clean slate.

I love my partner.

Suddenly I saw all the things she had done for me. For my own selfish reason of living for myself I cannot see the generosity, forgiving and loving nature of my partner. I was too blinded by my own third conversation to see all these to appreciate them and love her back. I have started to do see my partner in a new light. I have seen the 'what it could be .....' in our relationship.

I told my partner about the whole thing. Of course, it was dramatic as it was done in between sobs and tears, as it was difficult to admit I was wrong about my whole life but this piece of conversation releases me from my bondage. I felt liberated; one more conversation gone.

What was the future has come to the past. The decisions of the past no longer need to influence how we live in our new future. The strangle hold of the third conversation has been broken.

These are the language of the third conversation and the way it works in our minds.

Think Outside the Box

What does it really mean? What is the 'box' mentioned in the phrase? We have included an 'outside' in the maxim, how does the inside looks like? Since we know we need to 'think' to get out, then what kind of thinking should we use to do that?

I have three instruments that help individuals like me answer these questions. They have been successfully been used in several organisations.

These tools are:

Innovation Performance Derailment ProfileTM


Do your personal transformative efforts met with much resistence? Are your efforts to create lasting change and transformation endangered by derailment? Here is a self-assessment that helps you identify your obstacles for breakthrough and determine your margin of safety.

Opportunity-Obstacle Quotient (QO2)

The Opportunity-Obstacle Quotient is a personality profile that provides answers to all the questions you may raise after knowing your derailment profile. It informs you of your way of perceiving opportunities and obstacles. It shows your level of propensity to breakthrough self-imposed limits and provides a window to look at your personal barriers in developing and growing your live. The information from the profile helps you improve the way you contribute to your own capacity and capability for fruitful outcomes.

Journey to KinderlandTM

Journey to KinderlandTM is a mechanism designed to help you deepen what you have discovered of your own personal limitations. The game creates opportunities for debriefs after the QO2 is revealed to you.

This article was 1st written in Sept 2008 and update in Feb & May 2009.

Copyright 2008 and 2009. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Zero Chance Life

Active Listening Series No. 1

In the course of my work I always will share with people about this thing called active listening and the Zero Chance Life.

A few months ago, I have a new staff joining my organisation and in the course of our ‘getting-to-know-you’ interactions I share these concepts with him.

‘Have you heard of the phrase ‘active listening’ before?’ I asked one day, during one of our interactions.

‘No’, he replied.

‘You want to venture a guess what ‘Active Listening’ may be?’ I encouraged him.

‘Could it be listening attentively? Or being present?’, was his answer as he looked at me waiting for a positive acknowledgement.

‘Hmm….. let me share with you what is not active listening so that you can appreciate what active listening really is.’ I said as I began to draw the following stick men on a piece of paper.

‘You know, when we are in a conversation, this is this piece of the conversation that you can hear and I can also hear. I call this the first conversation.’ I continued as I drew both the red and blue lines between the two stick men.

‘But, there is this other conversation that only you can hear and I cannot, and it takes place during the first conversation.’ And I finished off the diagram by inserting a bubble next to one of the stick man. ‘This is the second conversation.’ I looked at him and wait for a reaction.

I added that ‘The second conversation is a scary conversation.’

He asked ‘Why?’

The second conversation is scary for four simple reasons. Firstly, when one is engaged in the second conversation, he has very limited resources to attend to what is going on in the first conversation. Also, the characteristics of second conversation are evaluative, selective and judgemental. It acts like a screen that sieves out things that are not in congruent with the identity of the individual. Thirdly, this is the source that drives immediate reactions, which manifest as behaviours that are observable. Because the second conversation is so silent, it is very scary. The only relief is when the conversationist unconsciously verbalises and articulates this piece of the conversation to give the other person an insight to what he is thinking. Otherwise, it is totally silent.

‘So, this is what non-active listening is. In active listening, there is no second conversation.’ I concluded.

‘Okay. I hear you. So, what has this got to do with ‘Zero Chance Life’?’ he quipped.

‘Well. Let me tell you a story so that you can understand ‘Zero Chance Life and the Law of 66.66.’ I replied.


Jaime has been working on an idea that could save his company a million dollars. All he needs is just an investment of S$5,000, and he is very confident that he can get that million for the company.

However, Jaime works in an organisation that has an owner who looks and sounds like Donald Trump. In fact people fear Mr Chin, the owner, who tends to scoff at new ideas. Those working in the company prefer to keep their relationship with him formal and distanced. If given a chance, many will leave.

After much consideration, Jaime has mastered enough of courage to take his proposal to Mr Chin. Now he is outside his door.

‘So, do you think Jaime will knock, go in and present the new idea to the owner of the company?’ I asked him after finishing the story.

‘No!’ and that was what I heard.

I shot back with a ‘why?’

And he said ‘It is so simple. He will definitely say no. I have seen people like that. Everything also cannot.’

Here, I began to share with him the ‘Law of 66.66’.

‘May I ask if this is his ‘No’ or your ‘No’?’ I threw this question at him.

‘Mine. But since he is known to turn new ideas down, there will be no difference for this one with Jaime’ he informed.

I told him ‘You mean to say that your ‘No’ is his ‘No’? This cannot be and you know it. Your ‘No’ is a bluff ‘No’. Only when Mr Chin tells Jaime that his new idea has no place in his company, that it is his ‘No’; the real ‘No’. Can you see the difference between the two ‘No’s?’

’Okay. I can see it. I have gotten tricked by my ‘No’. I have replaced this with reality’. He replied.

‘Yes. You have. And may I ask where does this piece of the conversation resides in? Is it in the first or the second conversation?’ I looked at him expectantly waiting for his reply.

He said ‘It is inside the second one. Now I can see the connection between non active listening and the bluff ‘No’. I used my second conversation to conjure up false images that replace the reality.’

‘Yes. You have. And this is the fourth and scariest part of the second conversation. We make meanings out of nothing through our second conversation and causes use to lead a ‘Zero Chance Life’.’ I added.

‘I do not understand this. Could you tell me more?’ He queried.

‘If Jaime went in and presented his new idea, what you think are his chances of getting a negative outcome?’ I continued to ask him.

‘50% chance of a ‘No’ and 50% chance of receiving a ‘Yes’.’ He said.

I added ‘If you add ‘Maybe’, there is a 33.33% chance of a ‘Yes’, 33.33% of a ‘No’, and a 33.33% chance of a ‘Maybe’.’

‘This means from a positive side, Jaime will have a 66.66 chance of getting something positive if he goes into the room and talks about his idea.’ He reached his conclusion.

‘Correct, and it is Zero Chance if he decides not to knock and go in.’ I reinforced.

‘So, by replacing reality with my own story from my second conversation, effectively nothing will happen. So this is Active Listening and the Zero Chance Life!’ I got it.’ He looked at me with a face of enlightenment. ‘But why 66.66? Shouldn’t it be 50% since ‘Maybe’ comes with a ‘Maybe-Yes’ and a ‘Maybe-No’.’

I laughed. ‘True but that is your second conversation in action again.’

'Yes! You are right!' He said and we both laughed.

This article was 1st written on 19 Jul 2008.

Copyright 2008. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.