Gresham's law for organization

I want to write this post for a long time ago, finally, I started it tonight.

Gresham's law is named after Sir Thomas Gresham who was an English financier in Tudor times. It is commonly stated as "Bad money drives out good.", says that any circulating currency consisting of both "good" and "bad" money (both forms required to be accepted at equal value under legal tender law) quickly becomes dominated by the "bad" money. This is because people spending money will hand over the "bad" coins rather than the "good" ones, keeping the "good" ones for themselves.

The principles of Gresham's Law can sometimes be applied to different fields of study. Gresham's Law generally speaks to any circumstance in which the "true" value of something is markedly different from the value people must accept, due to factors such as lack of information or governmental decree.

The most famous instant to explain the law by the market for second hand cars, lemon automobiles (analogous to bad currency) will drive out the good cars. The problem is one of asymmetry of information. Sellers have a strong financial incentive to pass all cars off as "good" cars, especially lemons. This makes it chancy to buy a good car at a fair price, as the buyer risks overpaying for a lemon. The result is that buyers will only pay the fair price of a lemon, so at least they won't be ripped off. High quality cars tend to be pushed out of the market, because there is no good way to establish that they really are worth more. The Market for Lemons is a work that examines this problem in more detail.

I need to highlight that the critical element for Gresham's law is "asymmetry of information". Let us change the scenario to our organization, think about if the senior management team only look at the financial data and report for the operation. They do not know how the team working on the process in order to achieve the goal, but they only listen to somebody they think can be trusted. The element of "asymmetry of information" would be effective and we can find the "bad GUY drives out good!" Some bad guys from the organization did nothing for contribution but play the political game all the day. The senior management did not know who get the job done. Afterward, many people joined the bad guys team and force all the good guys out of the organization. In other words, the good guys are always not willing to work with the bad. They will quit the team by their owned willing.

In our kaizen activities, we also needed to study and avoid the same issue. As a lean leader, they are needed to join the kaizen activities to understand who is the member really gave their effort to improve the situation. They are also needed to identify who are the guys only sitting in the team but gave no idea and suggestion. The management team need to identify it perfectly and give the right award to right people, otherwise, the kaizen would be stopped by wrong motivation because of asymmetry of information. This is part of the lean culture and Gresham's law is effective here too.

Sorry! I am back.

My friends and readers, I am sorry that the article was stop issued for a month because I need sometime to think and review for my future. From now on, I will resume the aritcle writing and keep share the thinking of lean with you.

At recent moment, I am setting a workshop for lean manufacturing concept in Hong Kong. Please email me if you want more information for that wongwowai@gmail.com

Thanks your your long term supporting and kindly care.

Think out of the box

This week, stop for writing post for lean concept. We are going to look at a architectural-model. As we saw before, most of the architectural model are built on a base and you can study the outlook of the building easily. However, you can not study the internal details from the model.

There was an exhibition on view at the Guggenheim Museum, the models of Wright’s designs are attracting as much attention as the exhibition itself. Perhaps the most notable model is that of Wright’s Herbert Jacobs House #1 of 1936-37, the first of the architect’s pioneering open-plan, energy-efficient Usonian houses. This and the exhibition’s five other models were designed and made by Situ Studio.

The model were made different, and all the details of the house were hanging in the air. They are all attracting your eyeballs out of the other projects. Think out of the box, you can make everything differently and amazing. A common matter can be shined from your brain if you think it and make it different. The most important thing is you needed to know what is your customer want to know and see.

Joke of leadership

I read a funny story about the leadership, hope to share with my reader and think about what is going to tell us in this story.

There was a skipper sailing his merchantman on the sea for long distance trading. Suddenly, a corsair approached his merchantman and the pirates shouted the skipper to stop. I don't where is the location and it has not mentioned in the story. May be it was near Somali in many hundreds years before.

At that dangerous moment, the skipper asked his sailers to take a red shirt for him, he put on the red shirt and fighted with pirates bravely. Finally, the skipper led his sailers to repel the attack from pirate, saminlar story of American captain...but I don't know is that Philips wore a red shirt or not!

A moment later, the skipper sailed at the same sea area again. The pirates appeared again, this time, there were two corsairs approached and double numbers of pirates came to pillage the merchantman. The skipper did the same thing as last time, asked his sailers to take his red shirt. The skipper put on the red shirt and led to fighted with the pirate bravely. The miracle happened again, the pirates were repelled with full of anger.

One year later, the skipper sailed at the same sea area. However, the pirates were waiting there for the skipper for a long time with well preparation. This time, ten corsairs came to the merchantman and prepared for killing. The skipper asked his sailers to take something for him. It was a yellow trousers, not a red shirt! The sailers wondered that why take a yellow trousers instead of red shirt. They took the yellow trousers to the skipper and asked, "Captain...why not a red shirt this time?", the skipper said, "Red shirt was used to cover my blood, you guys can fight without fear for my wounds."

The story was end here, I believed that you knew why the skipper asked for a yellow trousers.

Let's think about it, if we are leading something, it is not good to let the team member knew you got a trouble. The trouble would come from hostility from other departments, the delay of schedule or you just complained from your boss. However, let your members know your "wounds" is totally not a good idea. The same stories are not less mentioned in Chinese history. Yes, the communication with your team is always important, but the most important of the leader is let the members to know only what they needed to know. The members are not needed the information which is affected their morale, and a good leader is needed to lead the team in avoiding the team attacked by fears. Moreover, you can not bring your fears to your team.

Think about you did good or not good when you faced the trouble!

In memory of my mother school

Taiwan National Chung Kung University. I had my wonderful time there.

"Reasonably training is forging, unreasonably training is grinding." was heard in my military training period in Taiwan. For 15 years, I can not forget that and it encourages me everyday when I went to deep end. I send this to all my good friends and hope it can help them to face the different troubles.

In mechanical theory,
Forging, is meaning to use heat treatment and forging to harden the metal. It makes the iron tough and hard.
Grinding, is meaning to use mechanical machining to grind the sharp edge of the metal. It makes the iron sharp.
Only volition (tough and hard) is not enough, we need braveness (sharp)!

Right or Wrong?

On last saturday night, I brought my sons to go to convenience store (7-eleven near my home) to buy soft drink. They were very thirsty after we came back from my mother's home after dinner. This is our habit between me and my sons. During the shoping at that night, that was interesting a story there.

It was a bustup between the counterjumper and customer! For a soft drink worth HK$5.0!

The story was that, as we know, there is a soft drink machine for the customer to fill the drink by themselves. After they paid in the counter, customer got a empty paper/plastic cup and they went to the machine to fill which they wanted. There was a customer there told the counterjumper she gave her a wrong paper cup (for softdrink A). She wanted a soft drink was using the plastic cup (for softdrink B). But the counterjumper mentioned that the customer called for soft drink A but the customer clearly mentioned again she wanted a soft drink B. The customer told the counterjumper may be she heard the calling wrongly. And then the counterjumper change a plastic cup to her but during the exchange of cup, the counterjumper made emphasis the customer was ordering softdrink A repeatly. I believed that the counerjumper talked to customer at least five times for this. And then the bustup was started, and they shouted loudly and there were at least five people stood in front of the door to watch what happened inside. At the same time, I got my paper cup and filled the softdrink with my sons, and left the scene! When my family was leaving there, the bustup was not stop yet, and the customer was calling to the shop owner for complain...

I felt it was very funny! HK$5 almost made the ladies to fight there.

I have some questions to myself,

No matter the customer made mistake for calling or not, she should respect the customer. Just exchange the cup for customer and said, "that's fine, I will change it for you!". Nothing will happen and the customer will satisfy the service perfectly, actually, the shop has no any lost for the incident. Why she repectly emphasis the customer made the mistake?

For the incident, although the handling way of the counterjumper was not good enough, but is that really need to complain to the owner of the shop? May be the counterjumper would lose her job for a cup of soft drink. Can she explain to the counterjumper the she has wrong way to handle the issue? What is the right way to service the customer?

Actually, what is the right way to face a mistake we made? I don't know, but if we think we never made any mistake, it was absolutly wrong. Sometimes, the absolutly correct is incorrect , do the right thing, not do the thing right!

Memorization = 5S in your brain

Last year, I had the lesson of human resource management of MBA course. During the lecture, we had discussed some ideas for memorization, because one of my classmate was the world champion of memorization competition. We shared some info and ideas in the class, I want to share my ideas with you in post here. They might be not correlated with lean but I would like to write them in points form.

0. First of all, I am not the expert of memorization but we can have more information from Wiki link as below, Information of Memory from Wiki

1. Can people memorized everything?

I think it is possible. Physically, the memory size in our brain is infinitely. We can have a special training to strengthen memorization. Nowaday, we always equiped a PDA, even a mobile phone with additional memory. We can record everything we want to memorize by text, voice or photo. Therefore, basically, everybody can memorize anything they want, but...is that necessary to do so? Is that necessary we need to memorize the color of our dressing twenty days before? (Assumed that is not a special day we had such as the first time we were having dinner with our girl/boy friend...) Agree? Shift to next question.

2. Why we only memorize something we want?

No more talk about the handheld equipment, only focus the memory in our brain. I believed that our memorization is a selective system but we do not realize its process. We need to keep a spare space in brain for new event or thinking. If our brain is full of rubblish data (same as the rubblish email), it is a serious waste for us. In lean concept, it would be an issue of over stock / inventory, one of the 7 wastes.

First, we only need to memorize something important to us, such as our name, because we need to use that everyday. From working memory through interactive to long term memory. Second, we always can memorize the event which had deep image to ourselves. A simple question, where is the place you first time kiss your girl/boy friend? I think you can remember that in your whole life. From affective system or sensory system to long term memory. Third, we always memorized something which is not always used but need to remember, such as the birthday of your father. Actually, we only need to use that data once a year. From short term memory to long term memory.

3. Is that important of memorization?

A long time before, out of our brain, no other storage memory. All the information and knowledge only can be stored in the memory of brain. At that moment, memorization is so important. How much memory of knowledge you had, it represented how much knowledge you learned. In modern day, the above concept is meaningless, because we have too many devices having the same function of memory storage in our brain.

Now, we said, "undertstanding is more important than memorization.", why we said that? At my point of view, understanding means you have already memorized the truth. For instant, we learn driving in the thoeries of controling steering wheel and gear, it is very hard to forget after we started to drive a car. After we successfully got the driving license, that's mean we have the understanding of driving, you can not forget how to drive because you already understood how to drive. On the other hand, it is very easy to forget something if we do not understand or no way to understand. Can you remember all the numbers in yellow page? How long you can remember those number? The number on yellow page can not be used, that is meaningless for you. You have no way to understand that, and hard to remember.

4. What is factor help for memorization?

Based on the theory of "undertstanding is more important than memorization.", the most important factors improving the memorization are intellect and recombination. Intellect can make the intangible info to be a concrete image. Recombination can help you to put all the concrete image in sequence. Only one part you can remember, you can educe the whole subject.
It was a very common game shown in TV programme. We gave you some items no related such as a ball, a man, a chicken and a car, let you make a story using all the items. I would say, "A MAN played basketBALL, and then drove his CAR back to home, after playing basketball, he felt very hungry and he ate a CHICKEN in dinner by himself.". This is one kind of sample help you to memorize.

5. Which is needed to memorize?

In simply say, happy people only remember happiness. If your brain full of mirthless stories, I don't believed that you can be a happy people. No matter what we are talking about, you only recall the joyless memory to cause a negative emotion. That's a very terrible habit, but I have some friends doing that everyday.

Therefore, I suggest you only needed to remember your knowledge, and your good time. Clear up some spare space in your mind for thinking. Wash away the unhappiness. Do some 5S job for your brain.

OK, my friend, be a happy people!!!

Albert's Gemba walk

For many years, I stayed in China for working and ignored the political news in Hong Kong. At recent moment, I left the current job and stayed Hong Kong, so I heard many news and started to care about my home town. I knew it is not good for me as a Hong Kong people, anyway, I am going to fix my mistake from now on.

Here is two video clips about Councillor Albert Chan (陳偉業) presented in legislative council, to resolve the Public Revenue Protection Order 2009, published in the Gazette as Legal Notice No. 27 of 2009 and laid on the table of the Legislative Council on 4 March 2009. In simply said, Hon Albert Chan proposed to cancel the increasing of tobacco tax. They were a excellent presentation for Albert's ideas, and he made me to think in different point of view for a matter.

My blog is always talking about the lean manufacturing concept. This time, I used the Albert's presentation to show my idea for lean as well. I am not going to agree or disagree with Albert's proposal, but it made me interesting on "vulgarity" news for the councillors. The clips were found in youtube.com and they made me understand why they did that in council. The first thing I most disappointed that the public media were all focusing on the vulgarity they said in council meeting, but why they did that? It was obviously that the media was going to mislead the story. Whatever, it is a political game and I am not going to present my point of view here.

The most interesting fact is Albert gave us many points which are based on the Hong Kong people's livelihood. He gave the analysis of the economic problem of the cigarette seller on the streets with real data supporting. I believed that Albert has visited the seller and got the real information on the street, he found that it has a deep impact of the income for the newpaper seller on the street. What is the meaning of Gemba walk? It is not only used in factory, the councillors supposed to has the gemba walk on the street to understand what is happening on there.

This is a fatal absurdity to elminate the red wine tax and double the tobacco tax. Is that the people drinking the red wine really live longer than the others? In the situation of economic down, the most important thing is to solve the problem on livelihood, it is nonsense to double the tax of tobacco and think it can solve the problem of smoking for thousands years. At recent moment, many and many problem on the medicines and its dealer, it was the problem of monitoring fron the government. A moment before, one hospital let a diver to die in front of her gate. What did the Secretary for Food and Health do? The best policy or solution never came from the nice and beautiful office, it must come from the Gemba!

I just hope the secretaries of department walk out from their office and see what is happening in Hong Kong, and learn some lean concept if possible.

Six thinking hats

In human resource management course of MBA, the professor made mention of "six thinking hat" method for using in decision making. I am so interesting for this topic so I searched the relatied info and shown roughly below,

Early in the 1980s Dr. Edward de Bono invented the Six Thinking Hats method. The method is a framework for thinking and can incorporate lateral thinking. Valuable judgmental thinking has its place in the system but is not allowed to dominate as in normal thinking. Dr. de Bono organized a network of authorized trainers to introduce the Six Thinking Hats.

The key point is that a hat is a direction to think rather than a label for thinking. The key theoretical reasons to use the Six Thinking Hats are to:

encourage Parallel Thinking

encourage full-spectrum thinking

separate ego from performance

There are six metaphorical hats and the thinker can put on or take off one of these hats to indicate the type of thinking being used. This putting on and taking off is essential. The hats must never be used to categorize individuals, even though their behavior may seem to invite this. When done in group, everybody wear the same hat at the same time.

White Hat thinking (Objective)
This covers facts, figures, information needs and gaps. "I think we need some white hat thinking at this point..." means Let's drop the arguments and proposals, and look at the data base."

Red Hat thinking (Intuition)
This covers intuition, feelings and emotions. The red hat allows the thinker to put forward an intuition without any need to justify it. "Putting on my red hat, I think this is a terrible proposal." Ususally feelings and intuition can only be introduced into a discussion if they are supported by logic. Usually the feeling is genuine but the logic is spurious.The red hat gives full permission to a thinker to put forward his or her feelings on the subject at the moment.

Black Hat thinking (Negative)
This is the hat of judgment and caution. It is a most valuable hat. It is not in any sense an inferior or negative hat. The prior or negative hat. The black hat is used to point out why a suggestion does not fit the facts, the available experience, the system in use, or the policy that is being followed. The black hat must always be logical.

Yellow Hat thinking (Positive)
This is the logical positive. Why something will work and why it will offer benefits. It can be used in looking forward to the results of some proposed action, but can also be used to find something of value in what has already happened.

Green Hat thinking (Creative)
This is the hat of creativity, alternatives, proposals, what is interesting, provocations and changes.

Blue Hat thinking (Process)
This is the overview or process control hat. It looks not at the subject itself but at the 'thinking' about the subject. "Putting on my blue hat, I feel we should do some more green hat thinking at this point." In technical terms, the blue hat is concerned with meta-cognition.

Personal comment: We are suggested to think in six sides on one matter, it is comprehensive thinking method not only included postive side and negative side. Green hat thinking recommends us to think out of the box. We can get more creative and better ideas based on the original proposal! Blue hat thinking is the evaluation of overall thinking or proposal, it aimed to a process control function. The red hat thinking shown us the side which is not covered by the physical data.

Yes! I got some ideas from the theory right now!

5E Culture

Once I heard this term, it made a deep image in my mind. 5E culture is a simply term which is easy to memorize. If we can implement the 5E culture in the company, it activates the vigor of the employee in the organization. Below, I summarized the details I got and some of my experience to list out the items which are included in 5E.

1. Ethics
The vision and mission of company must connect to social responsibility. Tax in legal way, provide job opportunity to local district, supporting in charity, are some of the social responsibility for enterprise. The company with good ethics, the morale and agressive of employee will increased. Also, she can win the respectation from the related customer and industry.

2. Environment
It is the responsibility of everyone to protect our environment. The company which has the process with producing pollution must face the duty to reduce the pollution. On other hand, the company can has cost saving when she implement the enegry saving action. Enegry reduction is also a important factor of environment protection, such as, electrical power, water usage, hot water usage, etc.

3. Exploration
In order to increase the competitive force of company, the company must encourage the new technique development to upgrade her productivity. The new technique was including different scopes, for technical manufacturing process and management methodolgy are also consider to be the item for exploration. The upgrade of technical process can directly improve the productivity from existing situation, the upgrade of management method can support the productivity indirectly, and both of them are compensating each other.

4. Excellence
The concept of excellence, is inluding the continuous improvement to push upgrade of themselves. Also, we needed to provide the good quality product to keep satisfcation of customers. On the way to excellence, we must consider to reduce the wastes continuously and use the saved resource to create more value.

5. Education
The enterprise wants the improve of technical process or management method, she need to keep improve her employee first. Education of people means to upgrade by learning, out of this, the information sharing between departments, and knowledge management are also the important factors here. Education is the nutrient of all the above items.

Observation in Wenzhou

Introduction:

Terminal is a kind of quick connection device for cable harnessing assembly. This is one of the famous industries in Wenzhou, meanwhile, the low voltage, high voltage electricty controlling device, leather product and automotive spare parts are also the famous industries in that area. Because I worked for that industry of terminal manufacturing and have some experience for that. For a long time, Wenzhou's terminal is always the strongest competitor with Guangdong's terminal manufacturer. Unfortunately, I have no chance to visit Wenzhou to have a fully assessment. Last year, I joined the audit team and went to Wenzhou for observation.

Scope:

Visited two famous terminal, housing and connector manufacturer in Wenzhou. Their sizes are very similar and they have different vision I found. I am going to use these two samples to summarize their common advantage, common disadvantage and differences.

Common advantages:

1. Good business network: the senior management of companies owned their stronge business network in both north and south part of China. The bosses of both companies were started in a salesman to build up their business, for many years experience and effort, they are not only know the business partners in whole China, also, they get so many technicial support from GuangDong and Taiwan partners.
2. Quick and wide sensation: because of their well established business network, they can recieve the news and marketing development signal faster than other district. Also, due to they have more updated news on hand by thier network, their mindset are much wider than the others. Furthermore, they are willing to learn the way of operation. This is one of the important factors of their success.
3. Good relationship and teamwork: This item is not talking about the relationship and team work within the company. Furthermore, they have much better relationship with Goveronment out of the district in Wenzhou. In simply say, the classmate of the bosses are all working in government, even to be the town mayor, offcause, they can get the benefit in local policy by this relationship. On the other hand, their family supporting is also significant.
4. Market reputation: They almost seperated the industries by different town districts. For this town, the famous product is leather product, for another town, automotive spare parts is their main product for most of her companies. During the visiting, I found so many foreign customer to visit that area to look for their supply. It is too easy to get a suitable supply when they walk around the town.
5. Resource sharing: Because of the market established successfully, the other supporting partners setup in their related area for business. For example, there are so many machining vendors for tools located in the town closed to the terminal manufacturer, offcause, they know the companies are needed tooling and machining sub-contract. Due to the case, the human resource also reinforce the industry in Wenzhou because many techinical people knew that they can get a job easily in Wenzhou.
6. Geographic location: I believed that we no need a detailly explanation. Please look at the map, Wenzhou locates in the middle between Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Ineluctable situation, disadvantages accompanies with advantages all the time. I found some potential problems for the terminal manufacturing industry in Wenzhou as below,

Common disadvantages:

1. Government policy: Due to high income of the companies in that area, the local tax rate and the land price increased accordingly. Intangibly, the local policy will block the way of the local business for further development. At this moment, some industries are started to move the main manufacturing base to Hangzhou and Suzhou.
2. Environment protection: Focus on terminal manufacturing, the plating process is a main factor of success. Due to the policy of environment protection, the plating sub-contractor as forced to consolidate into one area. The plating technique is much lower than Guangdong area, and deeply affected their quality of product (dimensional quality). For the global harness manufacturer are using the fully automatic crimping machine for process and Wenzhou's terminal can not be used in that way obviously. It makes the industry far away to deal with global customer, I am sorry that I can not see they have any solution of that.
3. Not attend to their proper works: due to the quick and updated news, good business network and huge capital we made from many years, the bosses from Wenzhou started to shift to other high return business such as land and real estate trading, even cotton trading. As we know, it is the easiler and fastest way to get fortune, offcause, it needs some lucky. They no more concentrated their core business (manufacturing business). Without attention of technical and management improvement but just step on their feet, I have no surprise that the industry in Wenzhou would be catch up by other district.
4. Fortune can not be extended to third generation: This is a Chinese maxim and always proved its accuracy by real cases. If our next generation saw us just working in speculation but earned easily and quickly, they will do the same way in their lifetime. They don't know the previous generation how to save the capital at the beginning and how they were working to build up the business. In Wenzhou right now, all the bosses are going to or went to play the land trading, what happen to their next? How many land left for them to trade at that moment? I hope they should consider my concern here!

The differences between that two suppliers:

1. The bigger supplier shown me that they are going to expand the company in capacity. No evidence shown me that they are going to improve her management system as well as quality system. They told me that they order a lot of production machines, but I can not find the machines has any upgrade. Turnaround to lean, I can not see any concept they knew of lean. 5S, standardization, continuous flow are totally absented there, Self-complacent!
2. The smaller supplier shown me that they understood the disadvantage of the industry, also shown me that they are finding the solution. For the common disadvantage item 2, they planned to setup the plating process internally to control the quality. It is good signal! At least they have a little bit ideas of continuous improvement. On the other hand, the management shown me the motivation of improving refer to their new plant planning. Some years later, I believed the smaller supplier will catch up the bigger one.

P.S.:

First of all, the above two post are just my personal observation and may be not showing the true at all. This is only my visiting summary for reference. Eventaully, this business trip is so valuable for me to analysis the terminal manufacturing industry and I gained much for my experience!

Crisis and opportunity

A Chinese Saying,
"Opportunity is always present in the midst of crisis. Every crisis carries two elements, danger and opportunity. No matter the difficulty of the circumstances, no matter how dangerous the situation ..... at the heart of each crisis lies a tremendous opportunity. Great Blessings lie ahead for the one who knows the secret of finding the opportunity within each crisis."

In year 2007, I started the course of MBA in Hong Kong. Because of heavy burden of assignments of the course, it is obviously that speed of issuing post slow down, in other words, less time for thinking! Today, an event, a negative comment from my colleague to my job, made me calm down, forced me to meditate my job.

14 years, came out from college, still now, I don't like my job repeatedly everyday. I can not rise my interesting to do the same job which I have done before. I want a new assignment and like the new challenge. Nobody likes challenge and crisis, but I use the new assignment and challenge to make the crisis for myself. I need crisis to push me moving on. For these year, I fully studied the Chinese saying stated at the beginning of this article. The good opportunity is always come from the most dangerous place, postion or duty...

10 years before, I was a project engineer. I was assigned to develop a new product for the factory. The product was totally not familiar for the company. At that moment, serious conflict in different process departments, unfortunately, the new product needed to be produced through all process stations. I knew the risk for following the project, I faced many and many blocks, but I have a passion to complete my job. What is the result? I became the engineering manager after the project. May be I had not enough experience to be the manager at that moment, may be I had not enough knowledge of management to be the manager, but I had enough passion and volition to promote that position. Company gave me the opportunity to try.

Another short story, 5 years before, I just changed my job to a new company. Just on board for a few days, my underlings argued seriously with the colleague in other department. They were arguing be email and copied all over the company, it caused a really bad image to other departments. It also a risk for me at that moment, I stop their arguing and one email in 30 seconds, called them to discuss the issue face by face. What is the result? My boss ascertain my ability and my underlings felt confidence for my capability.

Thess years, I joined the course of MBA. So many people asked me why I need to study the course? I never gave them a certainly answer. Actually, my underlings improved and upgraded so much and they created the threaten for me. I need some upgrade for myself to avoid the crisis. The crisis management theory for me is simple, not plan for when will it happen, the important thing is how to plan for preventing them.

For the these many years, I have long time not hearing the negative comment for my job. I was already unfamiliar for negative speaking. It is so dangerous for me, not from the comment from my colleague. Frankly speaking, I don't agree the comment for his point of view to my existing result, the result from him can not cause any danger to me. The most dangerous to me is, I almost forget the useful power to push me, the crisis!!! At recent moment, I felt I was stop in a stage and I can not break through. I need some motivator for my career. Honestly say, I am never angry with anybody who gave me the negative comment. Let say the negative comment only represent 1% of my performance, I will improve the 1% accordingly.

In recent moment, I quit my job but it is not my willing. At least, it is not in my schedule, I planned to seek a new job after Chinese new year and resign when I got a better one. The time line is not in a big gap but I was quit passively. May be it is the good time for me to think about my plan for future.

The different between American and Japanese management style

I am working for American company but I am developing lean transformation in the company. There are some different in concept of management after several months of studing and implement. Below is a summary found on internet which can well present my experiance for this topics.

力量来源
●美国：依赖制度
美国管理体系运作力量来源于严密的治理和激励制度，用制度的力量约束和激励高层管理者的行为。公司董事会、股东大会、管理层的权、责、利分明。
●日本：依赖文化
日本的管理体系运作力量来源于企业文化的凝聚力，依靠员工终身对企业效忠的日本文化传统。建立董事会、工会、主管间相互合作、磋商、和谐的管理模式。

人的地位
●美国：重视个人
美国推崇领袖或精英的个人力量。 领导力往往自上而下，企业依赖总裁的判断力、观察力和决策力，员工深受企业领袖行为的影响。企业文化的核心就是老板文化。
●日本：重视团队
日本的企业更加注重团队的力量。领导力通常是自下而上，中层领导不断地与一线工人在现场进行密切的沟通，激发他们的创新潜力，把公司文化渗透到每一个员工的心底。

使命目标
●美国：股东利益最大化
美国企业的根本目标是最大限度为股东创造价值，所以企业政策不断受到 股票市场波动的影响。
●日本：多元目标
日本企业的目标多元化，员工、顾客、市场的目标往往大于近期的股东利益。通常情况下，为了满足扩大市场额，企业宁愿短期内牺牲股东利益。

组织分工
●美国：高度专业化
美国的企业专业化趋势更强，内部分工细腻。员工通过提高自己的专业化水平来获得职业上的进取和组织上的优化。
●日本：高度综合化
日本的企业分工相当粗犷，强调员工的长期就业心态。企业往往为员工提供持续的综合培训，内部职务轮换流动，以应付市场出现的突然情况。

绩效考核
●美国：短期目标
美国企业采用目标管理，严格执行短期的绩效评估，在季度、年终奖评过程中实行物质刺激、惩罚鼓励、多劳多得、优胜劣汰。
●日本：长期发展
日本企业重视挖掘员工在企业中的潜力。企业的短期绩效通常放在员工长期发展之后，并不拿员工的短期表现作为惟一的评判和奖惩的标准.

What is the Chinese management style???

Management and Leadership

Hersey, P. and Blanchard stated that, "Leadership occurs any time one attempts to influence the behavior of an individual or group, regardless of the reason. . . . Management is a kind of leadership in which the achievement of organizational goals is paramount." It is obvious that management and leadership are not the synonymous.

A clear distinction between management and leadership may nevertheless prove useful. This would allow for a reciprocal relationship between leadership and management, implying that an effective manager should possess leadership skills, and an effective leader should demonstrate management skills. One clear distinction could provide the following definition:

· Management involves power by position.
· Leadership involves power by influence.

Warren Bennis drew twelve distinction between two groups as below,

· Managers administer, leaders innovate
· Managers ask how and when, leaders ask what and why
· Managers focus on systems, leaders focus on people
· Managers do things right, leaders do the right things
· Managers maintain, leaders develop
· Managers rely on control, leaders inspire trust
· Managers have a short-term perspective, leaders have a longer-term perspective
· Managers accept the status-quo, leaders challenge the status-quo
· Managers have an eye on the bottom line, leaders have an eye on the horizon
· Managers imitate, leaders originate
· Managers emulate the classic good soldier, leaders are their own person
· Managers copy, leaders show originality

Share this with my friends and hope we can have a deep consideration how we can do better!

Rashomon - 罗生门

“罗生门”，一个读出来很好听的词汇。羅生門，这三个繁体字的组合同样也很漂亮。可是偶至今没弄懂这三个字到底是什么意思。但这并不防碍人们熟悉它。至于将这个词汇普及的功劳，应归于大师黑泽明。

罗生门是大师一部作品的名称。在这部作品中，罗生门是一个标志性的建筑物。一切的故事都是从这里开始的。下面就准备正式说说这部片子。如果您看明白了这部片子，希望我说的您能有同感；如果您没看明白这部片子，希望下面的可以为您答疑解惑；如果您根本就没有看过这部片子，我可以负责任的告诉您，这部片子很好看。

全片的主要人物有六人，而演员只用了九个（包括结尾处出现的婴儿）。这六个人交错出现在三个不同的时空，将他们串联在一起的是一位樵夫。在滂沱的大雨中（在看过的几部片子中，都有大师对雨的巧妙运用。《七武士》中在雨中那最后的一场恶战成了后世争相模仿的对象。而本片中的大雨是分隔现实与回忆这两个时空的道具。），破败的罗生门下，借由一位来避雨的樵夫（不是上面提到的那个樵夫，此人在后面将用樵夫Ⅱ来表示）的耳朵我们听到了过程不尽相同，但起因与结果却是一致的四个事件（我们也可以说这是一个事件的四个版本）……。

樵夫、多襄丸、妇人和借巫女还魂的武士分别是这个事件四个版本的叙述者，而他们四人也是在这事件中共存的人物。没看过这部片子的同学，听到这里已经有些糊涂了吧？为了照顾大多数现在这里简单介绍一下事件的起因与结果：多襄丸是个享誉京城的大盗，因见到武士貌美的妻子而起了歹念，设计把武士骗到林中将其捆缚。又把他的妻子带到林中，在她丈夫的面前对其施暴。这是起因。结果是三天后樵夫发现了武士的尸体，而他的妻子出了家，报官后又刚好捉到了在逃的多襄丸。现在明白一些了吧？OK！我们来比较一下四个版本的区别。
第一个版本是多襄丸叙述的，在他的版本里自己是杀人凶手。但更重要的是在这个版本我们看到的是一个敢做敢当的武士（他自己），与另一位武士（他对这位能与他过招的武士也颇为赞赏）堂堂正正的较量。在这里的妇人被描述成一个失身前还是个烈妇，而在失身后却怂恿自己去杀害其丈夫的龌龊的人。

第二个版本是武士的妻子叙述的，在她的版本里自己才是杀人凶手。更重要的是在这里她却变成了一个贞节烈妇。而多襄丸只是发泄完欲望，掉头就跑的禽兽。她的丈夫也是如此轻蔑的鄙视她。正是由于受不了他那种眼神，妇人才准备杀死他，然后再自杀，但自己却是求死不得。俨然是一个背负着痛苦命运的生者。

第三个版本是借身还魂的武士叙述的，在他的版本里自己才是杀人凶手（按理说死鬼是没必要说瞎话的吧！）。更重要的是他不仅激烈的控诉了妻子的不忠，还使自己摇身一变成为一个傲然立于天地间的武士。他原谅了多襄丸的罪行，而且不惜用结束自己生命的方式来替妻子赎罪。

第四个版本是樵夫叙述的，在他的版本里多襄丸才是杀人凶手。原来他（樵夫）不是第一个发现尸体的人，而是一直在案发现场。在他的叙述中以上三个人的形象被彻底的颠覆。多襄丸并不像他说的那样只看重武士的大义，他曾恳求妇人跟他走，并许诺给她后半生的幸福。妇人也并没有因为失身就要死要活的，而是希望两个人决斗，自己好选择强者。那位武士也不是自己形容的那样伟岸，为了保全自己的性命甚至愿意将妻子拱手相让。

没想到这才是事情的真相。但这是真相么？应该是吧。因为樵夫整起事件并没有牵扯到樵夫的利益，所以他没有必要撒谎。但是有一个细节被樵夫Ⅱ发现了。在前三个版本中都有一把短刀（在有的版本中它甚至是杀人凶器），但是樵夫对此却只字未提。樵夫Ⅱ一语道破天机，正是他（樵夫）将那把价值不菲的短刀拿走了，这也可以解释当天他为什么没有报案。大师的用意终于浮出水面了。原来我们看到的只是为了达到私人利益，有选择的，片面的真相。但至此真相如何还重要么？为什么三个人都承认自己是凶手了，却还要撒谎？难道还有比这个更难让他们面对的么？

再来看看另外的三个人物：樵夫是一个游弋在善恶边缘的人；而樵夫Ⅱ则是被现实的生活打磨成一个玩世不恭、冷酷无情的真小人；行脚僧人是一位冷眼看客，像神一样怀着悲世悯人的心观察着这一切。好在大师给了我们一个光明的结尾，滂沱的大雨终于制住，看着樵夫抱着婴儿远去的身影，行脚僧人（神）露出了微笑。

人生会给你安排各种机遇，但请不要忘记，选择权永远掌握在你自己的手里！


Comment from TW:

I downloaded and watch the movie during I was visiting QD on business purpose. The mission of the trip was troublesome. Now, I reviewed this post again and it is also trouble in HZ plant. I found that there were very siminlar to the story liked .

In the movie of , we have no way to know who killed the knight finally. When people falled into trouble, the frightfulness of human beings, such as selfishness and falseness, was going to protect their benefit and reputation. Your friend would change to your enemy in no time. Your enemy would become your friend in no time as well. They are all lost in the situation.

As the comment of the moive above, the choice is always in your hands, why we do not solve the problem by facing problem? Why we lie everybody, even ourselves to protect themselves?

This is a excellent movie which was made in 1950, half century before!!! Everytime I watch the movie, I got some new foundings. It is a great movie!

By the way, I lost a good friend and partner. I learned so much from him, my mind set, management thinking, ... were improved. We fixed so many problems and we faced so many problem together as well. No matter what was the result right now, the future is fruitful and successful.

Thank you very much, Dick Sir!

談金融海嘯後的發展

This is a article from my MBA tutor, Mr. Nagar Lai. I believed that it is valuable to share with my friends. --->

最近經濟轉差，時間多了，除了可多抽時間跟家人相聚外，更是進修的好時機，適值劍橋大學──香港大學舉辦一個為期一週的談論全球化財務課程，內容豐富，除由哈佛麻省理工(MIT)、紐約大學回來的(現為劍橋港大教授)，亦走訪城中名人，如李國寶、任志剛、王冬勝、石齊平等)，了解當前形勢。課程畢業生可加入劍橋、港大行政人員學生會網絡，更有附加價值。同學中不少是銀行家、電訊公司CEO、會計師等，水平很高。學習期間老師們談到金融海嘯的成因，為何會使美國步入衰退，而中國香港未來的影響的程況，對同學有很大的啟發，其中前海基會副秘書長，現任鳳凰衛視評論員石齊平教授談得十分精彩，鋒頭蓋過英美名牌教授。

石老師從世界大戰開始談起，世界大戰的成因，無非是效率低引致經濟差，大家爭奪資源，等起貿易障礙以保護國家資源。結果貿易不相往來，自然效率更低，矛盾到了臨界點，某些國家便去搶奪其他國家的資源，引致戰爭。

戰爭後，1946年經濟學家以茨恩思為首，為重整貿易及金融秩序，成立GATT關貿總協定、IMF國際貨幣基金組織及世界銀行。其中出現了一個貿易最大的障礙，用什麼貨幣交易？當時美國最強大，而又提出以同等值黃金為後盾(金本位)，使大家覺得用美元交易值得放心。華府亦保證不亂印美元，以免通貨膨脹。

但跟著的20多年，美國協助歐洲、日本重建，美元大流出美國本土。而美國貿易赤字日增，令華府不得不能在1971年提出取消「金本位」美元與黃金正式脫鉤。1971年各國仍然使用美元，是對美元的「信心」，由「金本位」變成「信用本位」。

由於貿易逆差擴大，現已達10兆(10萬億)，華府唯有多印鈔票及發行債券。由於各國願意買，如中國就買了1.9萬億，美國經濟仍可支持下去。而美國本來因和平自由，民主等吸引入才的思想，國際的精英都爭相落戶美國。

除錢財、人才外，美國的軍事預算便超過全世界各國的總和。這一軍事強國對希望得到的都可以用武力解決。如伊拉克、北韓，甚至石老師認為在目前美國的惡方情況下，有可能對中國挑起戰爭，一來阻止中國在本世紀挑戰美國，二來又持馬上快我失的「大哥」地位。

由於美國經濟開始陷入衰退，美國國債更無力償還。而還要發債券去要求各國買，確是無恥！但各國要維持金融運作，仍無奈地要去買，真要唱徐小鳳的名曲《無奈》。

但「無奈」中，中國、俄羅斯等已表態，不再支持美元作為單一貨幣，此舉令美國十分不利，而中國的影響力，將在這新一輪國際金融遊戲中有強大深遠的影響。

美國因印鈔票及借貸太多，引致崩潰。

而中國以及香港，面對海嘯，無非只有加大內需(因不能再靠歐美訂單)，如溫總理提出4萬億方案，發展基建、重建災區、安民生等，一來刺激經濟，二來把中國內部因財富不均而浮起的社會矛盾淡化。長遠而言，中國、香港都要從改變民主教育、法制方便發展，但短期的人民不滿情緒必需處理。

而中國將成為世界投資的新焦點，香港人亦必需預實。如雷曼迷你債券事件，特區政府及銀行家都認為最有效率的方法是馬上處理投訴。像雷曼債券的衍生工具，美國證監會都掍出來，香港證監自然也認可，連不少香港銀行職員自己亦「中招」，實無欺騙情況。立法局議員做「show」運用權力及特權法，只有對事件拖慢，令效率降低，而更甚者，香港金融中心形象受損，這真是民主的代價，而雷曼苦主，除小數(小於5%)全無投資經驗的退休人士外，其他都理應知道高回報、高風險的道理，像「陳水扁」輸打贏要，實要不得！

面對經濟不景，香港人必須學習掌握中國發展機遇。而中國公路等。而各國現在資金苦無出路，必然亦參與投資，只要資金效率良好(防止貪腐)，用外包方法如BOT(投入興建、運作及最後轉移回主權國)必會成功。

香港人必須走出去，建立國際視野，在引進資金、管理及幫中國「走出去」的使命上盡一分力，而亦更可發揮「中間人」的角色。

大家最關心的「股市何時見底」？專家們都說現在猜不準，一來年底是基金贖回潮，不少公司會倒閉，有什麼「大件事」還是未知之數。但一般認為「U」型最有可能，而「U」型底部估計為2年至3年。看來這2、3年是很好的學習、修養心性、與親人相聚的大好機，請珍惜！

Commitment

I have two incidents in sport for talking about commitment. Let see the stories below and then I want to talk about my understanding of commitment.

Year 2008, Beijing Olympics, Liu Xian is the superstar of 110-meter hurdle race with expectation from all Chinese people. Chinese racer is not easy and always to win in track and field. From the last Olympics, he became the hero in China till the end of Beijing Olympics, and he made many many Chinese people disappointed. When the days just started to prepare of 110-meter hurdle race, Liu came out and shown on the camera in first trial. After moved several steps on the track, he announced he quit for the game because of the injure. At that moment, I don't know how was the feeling of him, and I don't know did he think about the feeling of all Chinese people. I felt so disappointed for him.

That's the question of commitment! As a national racer, what is the thing more important than Olympics? At that moment, a racer represented his or her country, but not for themselve personally. Their committment was directing to their home country. No matter how hard to run, he should just try to finish the track racing. 20 seconds later, he can go back to treat his leg and he would be the hero continuously. Who said the hero must win in every battle? The result of quit in the game because his committment only made on his personal glory, may be made on the income of advertisment in future, he worry about he can not join the racing anymore if he injured become more serious.

Year 1943, in Nazi concentration camp of world war II, German soldier only gave less food for British kriegie and played soccer with them. British kriegie has no any score at all and was taunted as a pig. At this year, one British who called Baerum broke the rhythm of the game by his fast running as a steed. Only in 5 mins, British Kriegie team got score historically. All the players were encouraged and inspirited by this action and scared all the German. As the investigation from German soldier, Baerum was the best player in soccer of England, he requested all the Kriegies in the camp to keep some food for him in the morning of soccer game. His friends told him that he would be killed if he got any score in the game, but his said, "Please keep bread for me, I am going to have one score for England, I will light up the faith and hope for all of us."

Yes, Baerum is a hero in British. His committment built on the love to his country, and he used his life to give his people a hope. May be the group rised based on his glory. We can found that it is totally different of the result if we do something but the committment built in different scope. In different situation, the committment is all different too. Committment can give us power to face any problem and challenge in our career path, it is the most important factor of success.

Things to Do Before You Turn 40

Did you think about this questions before? Actually, this question can be asked like "things to do before 20, 30 or 100?" I believed a life planning is a important activity for anybody. You no need a offical planning document but you need a moment to think about it. Attached is some samples copied from website for your reference, I find some of them are so interesting.


1. don't die!
2. Write a book.
3. Learn a new language.
4. Visit a new country.
5. Pay off all your debts.
6. Sponsor a poor child.
7. Get back in shape.
8. Quit your dead-end job.
9. Stop smoking.
10. Go outside for your comfort zone.
11. Move into the house of your dreams.
12. Meet a new friend.
13. Call your father and mother.
14. Stop speeding.
15. kill your road rage.
16. Take a cruise.
17. Host a funny dinner party.
18. Setup a website or blog.
19. Live and live and live some more!
20. Live and let die.

At recent moment, I had a email from my friend Lily. From her words, I found she felt so upset for her life in lost of direction. For human being, we must have our goal for our life, without this, we will fall down somehow like a bird which was flying but it did not know where to go. Therefore, I recall my elder post in my blog and sent to her, and hope she can find out something want to do. At the same time, it was the time to review my targets as well but I found that the 3 things, which I wanted to do before 40, were just started. I am so sorry that I am already 37 right now and only 3 more years to complete them. I don't want to transfer the targets to 50 anyway.

Wow, keep working hard, Fat Man ... ... ... ... ...