Constraints of Decisions on Free Will

Active Listening Series #10

We are taught to believe that we are free to live our lives.

‘But are we free to choose what we want in our lives?’ I asked Jamie one day.

He looked at me and replied, ‘Of course! I am free to do anything.’

So, I proposed that we do an experiment to see if we are really that free.

‘Sure!’ he replied.

‘Which fruit do you like the most?’ I asked casually.

His reply was mango.

‘Let me rephrase my question again. Which is your favorite fruit - mango or grapes?’ I asked again.

‘Mango’, he answered.

‘You choose mango because……’, I paused to let Jaime finish the sentence.

He came back with, ‘I choose mango because it is delicious.'

‘I do not think you are choosing’, I replied.

Jaime looked puzzled.

Choices Are Not Decisions

‘Do you like me define for you the difference between ‘making choices’ and ‘making decisions?’’ I asked, trying to look helpful.

Jaime nodded, and I continued.

When we make a decision, we identify all the available options, we weigh them for their potential pros and cons, evaluate them for their probable implications, examine them for their likely consequences, and finally, we will pick the option that gives us the best value and comes with the least troubles.

In making a choice, we look at all the options and we pick one.

‘Let's continue with our little experiment. Mango or grapes? Choose!’ I asked Jaime again.

‘Mango!’ He replied, and I followed for the reasons of his selection, and they are nutritional values and delightful taste.

‘I am afraid that you are still making a decision and not a choice’, I concluded.

Decisions and Zero Chance Lives

Jaime looked quizzingly at me and demanded an explanation. I decided to share with him the relationship between free will and ‘zero chance’ lives.

I have shared that a decision is made after we have considered the options while choice is just about picking an option without considering.

In the space of making choices, there is no room for reasons, justifications, or becauses. So, when we pick 'Mango', there are no 'becauses' for wanting it. We just choose it, and that is it. This is the characteristic of free will.

However, when we are considering something, we become the subjects of its encumbrances, and are less likely to take chances. Towards this end, we play no games with our future, and end up leading zero chance lives.

Deeper Understanding of Free Will

'I understand you now. I choose Mango and that is it!' Jaime confidently proclaimed.

'Good! Now, try this. Grapes, choose?' I shot back immediately.

Jaime gave me an hard look, and protested, 'But grapes are not my favorite fruit! How am I going to choose?'

'Why not?' and I reminded Jaime, 'What does making choices really mean to you again?'

Jaime replied, 'It is when there are no reasons. I have chosen what I had chosen'.

'I can see that you have gotten it. Let's apply it! Grapes, choose!' I repeated.

Jaime paused for a moment and shouted, 'I got it! I got it now!' and I can see the ‘Eureka’ moment hanging on his face.

'So tell me more', I followed on the moment.

'I really have never given grapes a chance', he concluded.

I asked, 'How is this so?'

'I have never chosen grapes because of all the 'becauses', and in doing so, I have actually never given the fruit a chance', was Jaime's response.

'Not only have you not given grape a chance, what else have you not given a chance as well?' I continued to coach.

Jaime had taken another long pause and replied, 'myself', and he gave me a look, and continued, 'since I have not given grapes a chance in my life, I have no chance of finding out how enjoyable grapes could have been', he went on, 'Actually, I have not given my life a chance, and basically leading a 'zero chance' life! Gosh! This is terrible!' he concluded.

I encouraged, 'All is not lost. Now that you have become aware, what can you do about it?'

'I will give grapes a chance!' Jaime said.

'How about the other parts of your life? How would this insight change you?' I queried.

'I guess I need not have to give myself reasons for denying me from freely enjoying the world around me', he concluded.

And I nodded in totally agreement.

This article was 1st written on 19 Dec 2012.
Copyright 2012. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Empowering Nature of a Request

Active Listening Series No. 9

In the late of one September night, Aidan whatsapped me and lamented that he was feeling stressed and exhausted, and regretting  for doing his post-graduate studies as a part-time student.

'What's up?’ I typed into my iPhone.

'I have an assignment, which I need to hand to the University this morning, and am not even midway into it, and now I have to beat the five-hour deadline. It is a struggle every night in the past week, and its effects is felt every morning at work! It is worse than a hangover!', he cried over across the screen.

'This sounds like the experience that you had when you were completing the last assignment, isn't it? How did you manage?’ I return the message.

'Yes! But this is more painful. Maybe, I should throw the towel in the ring.’ he emoticoned in tears and continued, ‘It was into the eleventh hour that I had submitted the last assignment and I had fallen sick after that.'

'This sounds bad,' I empathised and added, 'but how do you feel about the experience?'

'Disempowering! I have to forego everything! My gym sessions! My rest! I practically give up my personal life! I feel imprisoned!', he exclaimed.

'I understand how you feel,' acknowledging his trial and tribulations and added 'But I doubt you have fully exhausted your options?'

'What other options do I have but to meet the deadline?’ he shot back.

'Well, you have not made a request yet', I ventured.

'A request?’ he queried,

'Well, what could you request of the University?’ I asked.

'I could request for an extension?’ he replied.

'Yes.', I followed through.

'But.....!’ he shouted from the other side of the application.

I remained quiet, not wanting to encourage or acknowledge his feelings and emotions.

'But the University will not agree to the request! Besides, I may end up getting less marks', he justified the status-quo.

'Aren't you making a conclusion ahead of the facts?’ I pointed out where he was heading.

'I understand what you mean. I know what I am thinking of is not grounded in reality. What is real is when the Administration comes back informing me of the outcome. That's real', he added.

'Yeah. Your disempowerment is a result of not acting. You need more time but you are not asking. You feel disempowered because you are not in action!', I explained.

You see, we feel constrained much of our lives not because we are really constraint by our circumstances but because we talk ourselves into believing that our world is a constraining one, and our talk keeps us out of action.

 

In this space of inaction, we become truly disempowered. Our inaction activates no one into action and so no one comes to attend to our needs. Since we have not given anyone a chance to help us out of our situation, we also end up disenfranchising those who could act in their own ways to unconstrained us. This is the vicious cycle of disempowerment.

'So, what would you want to do now?’ I asked.

'Well, I think I should give the University a chance to help me. I will write them now and ask for an extension. Then, I am going to sleep. I really need the rest', Aidan proposed.

'Cool! Looks like you have a plan. Okay. It is getting late. I hear from you soon.', and I shut down my apps.

'Thank you.’ the apps notified back as I prepare to sleep.

This article was 1st written on 28 Nov 2012.
Copyright 2012. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Intuitive Nature of the 4th Conversation

Active Listening No. 8

So far, a total of seven articles has been written to expound the various aspects of active listening, and it is now a good time to revisit and recap the key elements that have been laid out in the series before moving into the eighth article.

In Article 1, I have presented the characteristics of the first conversation and described the fundamentals of the second.  In the formal, the conversation is one that is oratorically expressed, and parties in this engagement are capable of hearing from each other. It is as if our thoughts and ideas were placed on the center stage and available for all who were present.

Unlike the first conversation, the latter exists as a conversation where the speaker and listener is one and the same. Here, the stage is brought into his inner sanctum, and he and only he hears the on-going of this piece of dialogue. Occasionally, the stage slips out from behind the curtains, but without the context, the listeners in this external domain are totally clueless about the exact meaning of the stuffs that are accidently disclosed.

In article 2, I have used a story to explore the mechanics of the third conversation. These are conversations that had happened in the past which we are no longer able to hear now. It is as if that the beams of the stage have been completely dismantled but the binds that had held them together still exist everywhere; tugging our thoughts about and affecting our  decisions and actions into the future

Intuitive Nature of the Fourth Conversation

With these descriptions etched at the back of our mind, let's explore the central piece of this article. Unlike the previous three conversations, the fourth is totally self-directed. We do not have natural abilities to shape it nor control its flow and movement

The fourth conversation has the following characteristics:

1.  It usually appears and disappears instantly,

2.  It usually comes in short bursts,

3.  It usually becomes forgotten very quickly, and

4.  It is usually easily interrupted or disrupted by distractions.

This suggests that we are unable to call on its faculties as and when we need them. It is as if the conversation has a mind of its own and is capable of being there without our explicit request, evolving into more complete forms without our conscious input, and influencing our decisions and actions without our exact permission. It is there when it is there and not when it is not. Even with these expressions, we cannot not label the conversation as dreams since they occur when we are awake. Rather, it is our subconscious extending itself into the conscious. It is the fountain from which we draw our insights and enlightenment, and the bedrock of creativity and new knowledge. We, as individuals, communities, organisations, and societies, depend on this conversation for our very own existence.

Although I have said that we do not have the natural ability to tap into this meta-level resource, I have not said that we cannot acquire it through practise. The fourth conversation exists, evolves and influences from within the space of the second conversation. This means, to access the fourth conversation, we need to have good command and control of this working space.

By commanding the space, we call on the second conversation whenever we need its services. By controlling the space, we keep the space quiet and give the fourth conversation the invitation it needs to consciously develop within it. Without the clutter associated with the second conversation, we become more acute in listening to the on-going of the fourth conversation and in nudging it forward without interfering with its form.

So, there are two muscles that we need to build. The first is the muscle to hold the second conversation in check so that the incoming fourth conversation is not destroyed by the second's always evaluative, judgmental and decisive properties.

The second muscle we need to acquire is the ability to nudge the conversation forward without participating in its contents. Here, we hold the space by thinking the thinking behind the fourth conversation so that it gains clarity on its own.

Here are the integrated steps for manipulating the fourth conversation in the space of the second:

• Acknowledge - Become aware of our internal conversations and acknowledge that we are not deranged when we talk to ourselves, 

• Assess - Determine if our second conversations is cluttering its space, 

• Intervene - Shout into this space to demand for its silence if it is cluttered, 

• Wait - As the second conversation begins to quiet down, wait for the fourth conversation to populate its space, Be patient if the fourth conversation is silent. Just wait and it will begin to speak. Let it speaks for a while before moving into the last step. 

• Clarify - Think about the thinking behind our fourth conversation to gain a higher level of cognitive effectiveness. Let the fourth conversation speaks its mind. 

Both of these muscles are not something that comes naturally to us and therefore we have to build them up over time through practise.

By executing these integrated steps, we give the fourth conversation a chance to come into existence, and with our presence of mind, we can effectively set the space up to capture and play with it until   something valuable comes to us.

This article was 1st written on 28 Nov 2012.
Copyright 2012. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Developmental Perspective of Innovation

Looking @ Innovation from Inside Out

We know the value innovation brings to organisations. It could provide us the access to compete in traditionally unavailable markets. It could also create blue ocean markets that earn us supernormal profits.

However, we cannot depend on a single innovation to compete in these markets. Our competitors are always attracted to these markets because of their profits and are motivated to leapfrog with innovations combined from and with more advance technologies that deliver substantial value at costs driven by greater production economies. This means that time is never be on our side regardless of the characteristics or conditions of our innovation lifecycle. Someone will take the pole position if we are to rest on the successes of our only creation. To secure our leadership position so that we continue to prosper into the future, we need a stream of innovations to compete with others that are coming into the markets.

Although the word 'innovation' has been widely used in our national discourse since 2000, this does not mean that its true meaning is fully appreciated and understood. It remains a jargon and big word even for the most educated person in our society. When asked about innovation, we typically hear people describing it as something new, unique and original. However, as architects of our organisation's growth and prosperity, we need to put on a different lens and move beyond this simplistic view of innovation in order to create the stream of innovation mentioned in the previous paragraph. We need to examine the engine that creates them.

When we strip the engine of an innovative organisation of its casings, we will typically find numerous pipelines of innovative projects in different stages of development weaved into a fabric of supportive culture (like value, beliefs and attitudes) and enabling resources (like tools, methods and processes). On this mesh of activities, opportunities are identified, explored and assessed for their potentials before they are exploited to grow the business. However, the flow inside each pipeline is not always dynamic, making the fabric creased and wrinkled. There are a number of obstacles that obstruct its flow, and the people engineering organisational level innovation needs to be informed to help reduce these effects on their efforts.

On further examination of the engine, we will also discover that innovations and the resources used for creating them are not the only artifacts that flow through its pathways. People and the teams they lead do as well. Innovation does not exist without the cognitive investments and entrepreneurial expenditures of

people. This suggests that to use innovation as the multiplier to win at the market place, we have to take care of the people in innovation; to pay attention to the motivations behind wanting to do good for oneself, and one's community and society.

Many have recognised the importance of diversity in teams - diverse work preferences, orientation towards problems, and workplace skills. However, such teams are challenging to create, manage and sustain because of differing cultures, conflicting values and competing interests. In the age of self-determination and self-empowerment, the onus of resolving these problematic differences cannot rest squarely on the shoulders of the leaders but on the team members as well.

The last group of artifacts that keep the traction in the pipelines is the permission, protection, support and push the management gives to teams to enable them to fight against the immunity organisations impose on the change brought on by innovations. These are resources external of the teams' sphere of control and have to be acquired. This means, to access them, the teams have to secure the stakeholders buy-in for the change.

Innovation is about doing things in ways that have never been done before, and this is problematic with stakeholders. In the absence of hindsight, they tend to be more adverse to risks and inclined to reject the change out of fear instead of putting in place resources and supporting structures to mitigate them so that change has a chance to take place. By measuring its leading indicators for success, the team, after thinking big, is enabled to start small, scale fast and impact deep to complete the conversion and implementation process of innovation. Therefore, stakeholder communication is about allying these uncertainties by focusing their rationality on its possibilities for success rather on its propensity for failure.

This article was 1st written on 16 February 2011, updated on 2 August 2011,

and subsequently published on 7 November 2011.

Copyright 2011. Anthony Mok. All rights reserved.

Fully Appreciating the True Meaning of an Innovative Team

Critical Factor of Innovative Organisations No. 10

Innovation is not a product of sterile amalgamation of ideas. Instead, it involves a number of people, who are propelled by different motivations, driving forward the belief that their solution will produce the benefits that the public wants, and they will go about amassing the resources to make it happen for all who wants to enjoy these benefits.

The birth of an innovation begins when a new opportunity calls for ideas to be connected in ways that were never been done before. The people, who had identified the opportunity and created the original idea, may continue to expand different amount of effort to prove and translate it from mere concept into real device that unorthodoxly solve problems and truly bring value to their stakeholders. Therefore, innovation is about the unique way the device creates and delivers value to those who needs it rather than the device itself that makes this happens for these stakeholders.

Metaphorically, it is as if that the innovation flows through a pipeline greased by the ideas that its sponsors have to offer. Since organisations cannot depend on a single innovation, this pipeline will consist the flows of differing threads of innovations with varying degrees of penetration championed by a multitude of different players.

The unit of innovation is the team, and to tactically manage innovation, we need to manage the people behind these innovations. More specifically, it is about managing the dynamics of a team of people, empowered by different talents and skills, who are envisioning, creating and influencing extraordinarily for its cause - bringing the innovation to market. In other words, we cannot leave the evolution of innovative teams to chance. They have to exist by design and be developed through aggressive nurturing.

So, what sort of teams should we cultivate? I called these 'Tag Teams'.

Tag teams are different from ordinary work teams in many ways. First, their members have highly diverse work preferences. Some would love to challenge existing norms by creating new ways of doing things. Others would prefer to plan and organise resources to support the task at hand. Still, a couple would really enjoy directing work and producing outcomes, while the rest would never give up the opportunity of connecting with thier counterparts to promote their ideas.

Also, collectively, members of tag teams are more likely to see beyond their difficulties and problems, and appreciate these as challenges for doing better or as opportunities to access their breakthroughs. They tend to be more resilient and hardy as they see these more as avenues for greater effectiveness and efficiency than obstacles that derail them from their main focus; that is to bring their innovation to market.

Finally, tag teams possess a set of skills that they inherent from their members. There are a total of thirteen skills, and they range from skills that keep them operationally effective and efficient, to skills that spiritually bond the teams to their cause and to their organisations, and to skills that provide greater clarity into the strategies of getting their intended outcome and strengthen the drive for their cause. They use these skills to navigate through the dynamics of working together as a collection of differentiated people. They also apply them to negotiate through the myriad of organisational red-tapes. There is nothing unique about these skills except that no one in the team monopolises any of them, which is unusually unique for tag teams. This means the skills and their competencies are widely distributed, and every member is responsible for their application and accountable for their outcomes for the overall common good of the tag team.

Just like in football teams, tag teams are constraint by their own temperament arising from the interplay of these diverse preferences, orientations, and competencies. Organisational leaders, like coaches, need to understand the working of these elements at their component level as well to appreciate their interactions when they come together to truly know the means of creating, developing and harnessing tag teams for innovation.

Here are the other critical success 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 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

This article was 1st written on 1 Feb 2011.

Copyright 2011. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

We are Our Strong Suits

Active Listening No. 7

We all wear a suit over us. This is how people sees and knows us as individuals. With more interactions with others, the early stages of our suits are further refined and customised to make them more fitting and wearable, and they project, internally and externally, who we are for the rest of our lives.

We do not really know when the suit is first created, but we know how we create and keep it in existence, always influencing the perception of others about us. Success is the creator of strong suits. When the suits we wear bring about excitement in others about us and joy in us, they are said to be good suits. With further such meaning making reinforcements, the design becomes great and it stays on us for the rest of our lives.

This is all good and fine until it is a struggle to stay in the suit. Many of us do not know that the suit has become so tight that it is suffocating us. Some knows that it is killing them but it has become so strong that they can no longer take it off. Others choose not to go without it because they are proud about being unique individuals and having it on helps others to single them out from the crowd easily. In this terminal stage, our suit dictates our ways and we become its slaves.

In choosing and perfecting the suit, and wearing only this one, we ignore all other possible suits that could bring other possibilities into our lives. So fixed we are by the suit that we wear, we have no room for fresh ideas. The strong suit becomes exclusive, and it is restricting all of our potentials and limiting what we could possibly do in our lives.

This article was 1st written on 29 Oct 2010.
Copyright 2010. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Coaching 4 Innovation Performance Programme

These are the highlights in this 2-day programme:


Coaching for Innovation Performance

Organisations may use a number of interventions to improve the performance of individuals. These may include teaching, training, facilitation, mentoring, and counselling. Coaching is one of such interventions but its principles, approaches and techniques are distinctively more self-directed. People are meaning making machines and tend to be derailed in their performance, In this module, participants will uncover the key elements of coaching to differentiate it from the more traditional forms of performance interventions. The importance of coaching for innovation is also shared here.


Neurology of Coaching for Innovation Performance

The principles, approaches and techniques of coaching for innovation performance are built around the workings of the brain; how it is attracted to ideas and how it creates insights and learning. In this module, participants learn how the brain makes sense of its surrounding and uses these inputs for insight and knowledge creation. Participants will also learn about the drivers (‘SCARF’ Model) behind this creation process.

Coaching for Innovation Performance Principles

There are 6 key principles in coaching for innovation performance. These principles guide the innovation coach towards creating a self-directed awareness and power for action into one’s own innovation performance. In this segment of the programme, participants will learn about these 6 principles. A series of exercises and activities will be introduced to help the participants gain a greater competency over these principles.

Language of Coaching for Innovation Performance

Like any other interventions used for improving innovation performance, coaching comes with its own unique of lingo and jargons. In this module, participants will learn the art of making coaching self-directed and empowering. They will learn about the levels (‘Choosing Your Focus’ Model) of the coaching conversation, language of coaching, and the importance of clarity of distance, listening for potential and speaking with intent.


Processes of Coaching for Innovation Performance

Coaching is a structured process and this process provides the coach the framework to guide his innovators and innovation teams from awareness to reflection and from this to insights and actions (‘Four Faces of Insight’ Model). In this final segment of the programme, participants will learn three simple processes that help their coachee or coaching teams mine for their goals and actions, generate dialogues for insights and learning, and create conversations for innovative breakthroughs.

This article was written by Anthony Mok on 14 Oct 2010.
Copyright 2010. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Focus on the True Purpose of Celebrating Success and Contribution

Critical Factor of Innovative Organisations No. 9

To see an idea transforms into an innovation, the innovator has to embark on a long and difficult personal journey. The trip will take him to many sceptics and naysayers who wish that he fails. It is also physically and psychologically demanding as he has to put in long hours and make sacrifices to brave the numerous risks and setbacks along the way, which at times causes him to wonder if it is all worth it.

Innovation is never an easy endeavour.

Organisations cannot ignore the ‘hardships’ of these innovators. The management needs to express its gratitude by appreciating them for passionately taking up this role of moving their organisations forward. Without the recognition, the efforts and contributions made by these individuals in their journey of innovation is a meaningless and unmemorable experience.

However, the celebration of an individual’s contribution to and success in innovation has often been ruined by formalities.

We tend to be stuck with the notion of limitations and fairness. Constrained by what is available for distribution in recognising efforts, we have forgotten about the true purpose of why it is there in the first place.

In the name of fairness, we have transformed innovation into a transaction. We have created hierarchies of rewards and imposed systems for fair dispensation of recognition and rewards. In the world of ‘what gets measured gets done’, people are compelled to do silly things to win prizes rather than looking passionately at implementing and delivering the value of the innovation itself. In doing the wrong things, we cultivated the best window dressers rather than recognising and rewarding innovators who have contributed and are successful in moving the organisation forward.

Innovative organisations recognise this flaw and aggressively position innovation as a relational enterprise.

In addition, celebrating an individual’s contribution in innovation cannot be mixed up with conducting a public relations or corporate communication event to signal and gesture a positional intent to the marketplace.

This is what I mean:

Inauthentic Recognition

Showcasing the innovations of the organisation, with the intent of signalling and gesturing a particular competitive position in the marketplace.

Here, the innovation is in the foreground and the innovator is in the background.

The objective is to make your competitors aware of the competitive gains you have made in the marketplace because of the innovations.

Authentic Recognition

Appreciating and celebrating the individual’s contribution and success that has moved the organisation forward.

Here, the innovator is in the foreground and the innovation is at the background.

The objective is to make one feels that he has contributed to the success of the organisation because of his efforts applied to the innovation.

We cannot mix these objectives in the name of cost efficiency, and send the wrong messages to the innovators.

Innovative organisations know that innovators are intelligent enough to detect the authenticity of their management when it is putting innovation ahead of the innovators in these celebrations. These managements know that innovators will stop contributing to the success of the organisation when the innovators know they are being made used of.

Here are the other critical success 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 7. Human Resource Investment Is Not About Spending But Creating Opportunities for Learning

• No 8. Stun-gunning Your Organisation into Inventiveness

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

This article was 1st written on 14 Aug 2010.
Copyright 2010. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Realities of Cause and Effect

Active Listening Series No. 6

In the Collins English Dictionary, ‘cause’ is defined as ‘something that produces a particular effect’ and ‘effect’ is described as ‘a change or a state of affairs caused by something or someone’. These definitions are interesting because the meaning of each word is found in the description of the other. This shows how tightly intertwined ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ is. They are like the front and the back of the same piece of block.

All effects and their resultant impact begin from a cause. In this sequence of events, the ‘cause creates an effect, which becomes the cause that generates its subsequent effects’. We can see this movement because we can see the back of one block and the front of the adjacent block.

However, with time and space, the line that separates cause and effect blurs, and they become embodied as a single entity. So, the sequence described in the last paragraph is no longer true. Now, it becomes the ‘cause leading to another cause, which creates even more causes’. It is as if we have become myopic and can see only the fronts of all adjacent blocks. Their backs are hidden from us. There are no more effects in this cycle.

Why is this so?

You see, in life, we do not see things as clearly as ‘causes’ and ‘effects’. Instead, we tend to see them as ‘becauses’ and ‘impacts’. We tend to do ‘becauses’ more than doing ‘effects’. The formal is other-focussed and requires less of our energies. In the world of ‘becauses’, we create justifications to explain away our current situations and find scapegoats to blame for our conditions without having to physically change anything.

Things become singular in the path of least resistance. We have no sense of the cost of the effect on us when it is invisible. So, we cannot calculate the payoff for getting out of it. Over time, this pattern becomes fully entrenched in our lives and we lose our abilities to take responsibility of ourselves.

The key is to refocus our attention to the back of each block and avoid agreeing with our becauses. Only then do we have access to everything that we have already had to create our breakthroughs.

This article was 1st written on 27 Jul 2010.
Copyright 2010. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Stun-gunning Your Organisation into Inventiveness

Critical Factor of Innovative Organisations No. 8

History has revealed many stories about organisations moving into long periods of stagnation and inertia after enjoying years of growth and prosperity. Many organisational scientists have attributed this condition to the organisations’ failure to innovate, adapt and transform to match the evolutionary and disruptive changes in the environment, markets and stakeholders’ expectations.

Organisations which have found a way to keeping their workforce stun-gunned against complacency are able to insure themselves against this malaise.

Humans always want to avoid conditions of atrophy by staying within or reaching for homeostasis environments. In a world full of uncertainties, the unknowns bring about great discomforts. These cause the person to tense up, which is negative and exhausting. He wants to reduce or remove this tension because he recognises that an environment in homeostasis brings about satisfaction and happiness. This motivates him to recognise that new solutions have to be found, and the old ways, which no longer work, have to be replaced.

However, not all stun-guns produce the intended effects. Some are not blunt enough to push the organisation out of its fixed ways. Others are too blunt that the over-stunned organisation implodes onto itself. Innovative organisations differentiate
themselves from the ordinary ones by being able to find the right mix of stun-guns that help grow the organisation continuously.

Innovative organisations fully understand this human phenomenon and use a number of unique stun-guns - policies, methods, processes, and systems, to keep their workforce in a challenging but supportive atrophied state so that these generate the needed forces and energies to keep their organisations innovative, adaptable and renewing.

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

• 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 7 July 2010.
Copyright 2010. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Keeping Your Promise and Honoring Your Words

Active Listening Series No. 5

Many of us cannot clearly distinguish the difference between keeping our promises and honouring our words, and this handicap has unnecessarily punished us for a very long time.

Let me share with you a story to expand on this idea.

Thomas is a loving husband and caring father who recently lost his wife to cancer. He has made a commitment to Wendy that he will be both the father and mother to two of their teenage daughters. The family is not well-to-do, and the illness has set them back by tens of thousand of dollars. Thomas is struggling to keep things going with the meager wage he receives each week but he is too proud to ask for help.

I had not met Thomas since we have completed full-time National Service. It is by a chanced meeting along Orchard Road during Christmas Day that we begin to meet regularly for tea.

‘Happy Chinese New Year!’ an exhausted looking Thomas called out to me when we met at The Central, the shopping centre, recently.

‘Same to you!’ I replied and follow with, ‘How have you been?’

After we had ordered our meals and beverages, he continued, ‘I am tired.’

‘I can see. Tell me more,’ I encouraged.

‘I have been avoiding Jenny, my younger daughter,’ was his short answer.

As we began having our meals and sipping tea, I had learnt that Thomas was feeling very guilty for not bringing Jenny, who had done well in her P.S.L.E examinations, to Malacca.

‘You know, I really want to reward her with this trip but if we go, I have to bring the elder daughter as well. I just cannot afford it. Each day, I can see so much of anger in her eyes. I am so guilty that I left for work early and return home late to avoid seeing her. I am a failure. I am a bad father,’ he finished off.

I can feel Thomas’ sorrow and pain, and begin to share with him the difference between keeping a promise and honouring our words.

‘Isn’t they the same?’ Thomas asked after hearing the two phrases.

‘No, and this is the source of your current sorry and pain,’ and I distinguished their differences.

A promise is a declaration that something will or will not be done. Sometimes, we do fail to deliver the promise. However, we need not have to punish ourselves because of this with guilt and stay away from the people we had make the promise to.

‘But she is my daughter. How could I feel less guilty?’ Thomas asked.

‘You see, we feel guilty and want to avoid the very people we have make promises to not because we have failed to deliver the promises. We do all these because we are afraid that they think that we are dishonourable, and being dishonourable means a loss of face for us, which is painful. As they are close and important to us, the solution of staying away from them only brings us sorrow and more pain,’ I continued, ‘Honouring our word is about giving a warrant and assurance that the promise will be fulfilled even when it is not delivered at this moment. We are honourable as long as we stop running away from the very people we have given our word to and acknowledge with them about the lapse. We are honourable when we stay committed and being responsible in seeing that the promise is delivered at the next available opportunity.’

‘And this is the difference between keeping a promise and honouring our word,’ I concluded.

A few months later, we were again chatting over tea and I have learnt from Thomas that his relationship with Jenny has vastly improved.

‘What have you done?’ I asked.

Thomas has told me that he had a talk with her Jenny after our conversation to explain to her his difficulties. What has came as a surprise for Thomas was he had found out that the source of her anger was not about the broken promise but because Thomas had avoiding her. More surprisingly, Jenny wanted to contribute her savings to make the trip possible for the whole family.

‘So you went to Malacca?’ I asked.

‘Yes! We did,’ he said, ‘During the Easter holidays, and it is the best holiday we ever have as a family since Wendy had left us.’

This article was 1st written on 13 May 2010.
Copyright 2010. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

Decision is a Life Without Choices

Active Listening Series No. 4

There were disappointments when I announced in December of 2006 that I would leave the Ministry at the beginning of the following year. Several of my close colleagues had sat me down trying to discourage me and a few had made attempts to find management positions elsewhere in the organisation which I could rotate to. These, I had politely turned down but I am forever indebted to them for their kindness and for standing up for me. I am glad I know such friends after many years of championing change, excellence and transformation in the organisation.

I had struggled at length with the thought of leaving the organisation and this had begun as early as 2005 after a challenging year of working with stakeholders and constituents who were only keen in preserving their personal agendas and current ways at the expense of the organisation's. I would have left then if not for the promises I had made at the start of the transformation which I want to honour. These were only largely fulfilled towards the end of 2006. However, during this period, I was never happy, that's until I understood the distinction between choice and decision.

We cannot be making choices when we are instinctively driven to look at all the options and constantly analyse them for their considerations, justifications and consequences. The option that is finally selected, whether in our opinion is the best one available or the most satisfising, is created out of strict logic and reasoning by examining the differences between costs and payoffs. As rational men, we invest in those schemes with more payoffs. This means, the option that we finally select is seemingly sound and therefore, is pre-determined and predictable.

As humans, we want to be satisfied by the knowledge that nothing is forced upon us and we have the power to choose. So, we pretend that we have exercised free will in our selection. However, the reality is that we have allowed falsehood to creep in our minds and we become happy mixing up 'making decisions' with 'making choices'. However, they are never the same.

Thing are done differently in the world of choices. We look at what the world has to offer to us and we just choose. We do not have to account for all the considerations, surface all those justifications, and worry about the consequences. We just do it. In making choice, we do not let our innate need to fulfil our expectations and those of others get in the way.

The realm of making decision is very sinister. As we look at those considerations, justifications and consequences, we are using a substantial amount of our cognitive and emotive energy measuring, assessing, evaluating, and deciding on our options, and then we expect the decision to be good and things will happen as decided. We are conditioned and motivated to expect something good coming out of these efforts. However, while the options we finally narrow down to are predictable, the outcomes are not. Things do not unfold the way we hope they should and there bound to be unexpected events leading us to disappointments, bewilderments and dejections. In these, we face unhappiness but it is never the outcomes that disappoint. Always, it is the expectations that are, and so the misalignment between real and expected outcome becomes the source of our sorrows.

In making a choice, there is no expenditure of energy. Choices are made randomly and we develop the capacity to receive what comes our way. There is no disappointment because we made no effort to calculate and to expect something. Since there are no expectations, there will be no disappointments. Without these, there is no unhappiness because everything is always within the scheme of things.

These insights into making decisions and making choices caused me to seriously rethink about how I struggle with the option of staying and the option of leaving. I finally chose and I officially tendered my resignation at the end of December 2006. I feel free and happy, and everything is always within my expectation because I have none before I left.

This article was 1st written on 5 Jan 2010.

Copyright 2010. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.