Seni Perang - The Art of War

" If U are ignorant of both your enemy and yourself,

then U are a fool and certain to be defeated in every battle "

" If U know yourself, but not your enemy,

for every battle won, U still suffer a loss. "

" If U know your enemy and yourself,

U will win every battle. "

Sun Tzu

The Zon Regency -Johor Bahru

Magnanimous battle ground

Strategic Plan - About Mission

The Zon Regency (Eden Garden) - Mind boggling Strategic Plan sharing session

"One should not search for an abstract meaning in life,

Everyone has his own specific vocation or MISSION in life

to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment."

Victor Frankl

"I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want. "

Muhammad Ali

Many people say their purpose in life is to be successful, be happy, or love more. These are great concepts, but they lack specificity. You cannot succed unless you have a clear definition of what it means to you. You won't be consistently happy unless you closely examine what you are doing when you are happiest, and then do more of that. You won't experience love as your life's purpose unless you understand what it means to express it through your actions, words, and deeds.

Everyone has a mission. When you discover yours, dedicate your life to it. Never deny your purpose and definition of success just because they don't match those of others. You will never feel successful unless you are doing what you feel most compelled to do.

Strategic Plan - About Vision

'Fisheye view from The Zon by the sea - Looking towards the 

proposed 'Jambatan Bengkok' - Vision not realised'

" Give us clear VISION that we may know where we stand

and what to stand for - because unless we stand for something,

we shall fall for anything."

Peter Marshall

Kita dianugerahkan keupayaan mempunyai visi. Kita melihat masa depan hanya dengan mimpi. Bagi merealisasikan visi, bagaimanapun, kita mestilah melukisnya di dalam bentuk yang hidup didalam fikiran orang lain sebagaimana juga difikiran kita. Kita mestilah dapat menyatakan visi kita itu dengan jelas dan terang. Jadikannya sesuatu yang mendebarkan hati dan bersinar didalam sanubari agar setiap daripada kita menghayati dan menjiwainya. Kalau ianya tidak mempunyai roh dan sinar harapan yang menarik minat, maka orang orang yang kita pimpin mungkin tercari cari visi lain yang yang melakaran harapan yang lebih dari apa yang ada mengenai masa depan dan kehidupan yang memberi harapan yang bermakna. 

Sharing BPM - Strategy "Quote and Riddle"

The Zone Regency - The Burning Platform

" Without a strategy the organization is like a ship

without a rudder, going around in circles"

Joel Ross and Michael Kami

Alice : Which way should I go?

Cat : That depends on where you are going.

Alice : I don't know where I'm going!

Cat : Then it doesn't matter which way you go!

Lewis Carrol 1872

Through The Looking Glass

What is strategy?

A strategy consists of the set of action and approaches that an organization employs to manage the stakeholders affairs.

Strategy is  management's "game plan" to 

• satisfy the customer
  
• Stake out a position both locally and internationally
  
• Conduct operations
  
• Complete successfully
  
• Achieve organisational objective and mandate.

"Less than 10% of strategies effectively formulated are effectively executed"

"90 % of organizations do not execute strategy successfully"

from Fortune Magazine

What is Vision ?

"Where there is no vision, the people perish."

"Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without

vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world,"

Joel Barker.

One of the greatest leadership challenges is to articulate a clear, concise vision of what you want your world to look like - and then to be able to continuosly change and update the view as situation change.

Without vision, your world will spin, but you won't make much progress. Without a willingness and ability to adapt your vision, the dreams you share will grow stale and uninspiring.

Get clear about where you are headed, but constantly adapt the picture you're painting and communicate those changes to those you lead. That will make it easier for others to follow.

Opening Strategic Plan Sharing Session - KP's burning speech

The Zon Regency Grand Ballroom - The Burning Platform

It was on the 24th March, 2008 about 8.45 pm, the welcoming speech was delivered by the honorable Dato' KP... as usual my habit has always been to write down what were delivered for my own future references, I could not get the whole bunch on every sentences he could have said but the gists and facts amongst others are listed down in the structured form as follows :

• He thanked the commitee and BPM for convening this 3rd session and welcoming the southern zone participants from Johore, Malacca, Negri Sembilan, Selangor and KL's HQ.
  
• He stressed the importance and benefits that must be derived from the forum i.e. every participant selected and present played an important and vital role in deliberating and enhancing the living 'strategic plan' document, the document must all times be a guided reference source in order for the department to move forward in it endeavor to become a "WCO by 2010" and onwards.
• He questioned us all whether we are still relevant, making a point here that the organization had celebrated it's 75 years old anniversary in 2006 and we felt so complacent, we are proud being part of it ... but time has changed, we are in the limelight as always when comes to "flood woes", the central agencies are looking at us, everyone in the street are pointing fingers at the organization that we are in... can we deliver ? money is spent but problems still persist on end.
• About performance in expenditure; he adamantly pointed that we are ' Pandai mintak duit tetapi masaalah tidak selesai ' the annual performance has always been excellent above 95% but by looking into the overall RM9 midterm review we had spent only about 20% of the RM6.2 billion allocated. We have yet to handle the remaining 80% within the next 2.5 years from now i.e. the other second term .. can we be able to do it ?? He meant to do it strategically .. spent it with results delivered. He has seriously started a ' war gaming room' for monitoring every projects carried out... He gave all of us an ultimatum "take it or leave it"...a do or die kind of scenario !
• He then requested all of us to think in the right perspective, giving our thoughts about the matters that need be done, who else that can deliver if not us all here, meaningful strategists, we could not be doing and keeping inside the document, to look deep inside, possibly redo making it 'workable', living and relevant document.
• He further stressed on the importance of understanding of the SP at all levels of the organization in all the divisions, states and districts. This must come handy and its not meant to be shouldered by the top leadership only.. everyone at all levels no matter where he works must subscribed to it. It's the understanding of it will make matters worth deliberating, moving and leading forward with pride towards WCO.
• He mentioned the vital need of a succession plan, a well developed game plan for a well groom set of people to be leaders that are committed, able to deliver, knowledgeable, with the right attitude and values, and willing to push and work towards achieving our vision. A guessing game, a choice of leaders that come unexpectedly would not be beneficial for an organization like us now.
• He still feels that we have not proved enough on our delivery system and being leaders in our field we have got to ' Walk the talk ', leadership is an essential ingredient in the success of our SP, to be effective and credible, effective leadership and management are vital and subscribing to the rules and regulations is definitely mandatory. How well we do our role over the next two years depends on the decisions made today. Given the short span of time, it is critical that leaders and managers must act with full commitment, boldness and having sense of urgency for action.
• Many points were mentioned and noted especially about the importance of the SMART tunnel project to KL city folks that the department had contributed, the poor performance over the RM9 midterm review etc. BUT amongst all else, he had reiterated that we all are desperate now.. the WCO goal by 2010 is around the corner and to get rid from the barrier to our strategy execution and move on.

Down memory lane by the sea with management gameplan

I have not been writing for almost a week now, but in the late evening I am already jotting anything that I could remember,  just recuperating from the blues of  3 days 2 nights hectic workshop down memory lane in the Zon Regency by the sea at Stulang Laut, Johore Bahru. It's a good job to be away from office for a while, at least to revitalized my bored and mind boggling brain, at least for a change in atmosphere... But thats not a rest at all, to be away was meant to be strained again, cranky day and night from 8.30 am untill 11.00 pm bull shitting with the group mesmerizing and trying to chew the hard and dormant cake called the management gameplan or the organization's strategy... The management gameplan has been there for over 2 years already and was developed long time back since 1998... The vision has always ... To Become World class Organization by 2010... but time is almost there, less than 3 years now.. but are we ready ???  We are desperate, are we ?? but do we understand in the first place about what has been documented ??  Well...

"Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them"

Alfred North Whitehead.

As organizations become team oriented, more of peoples' time is taken up with meetings. That becomes problematic when the outcome of those gatherings is a lot of talk about vissionary objectives that are never accomplished.

There is nothing more debilitating to the energy of a group than inaction on the ideas they generate. It is a waste of time and money to bring people together to be creative, to talk about situations and ideas, and then have them leave with no action plans.

Penghargaan TPKor kepada Asnor's

Salam tuan, 

Terima kasih di atas usaha tuan memanjangkan ilmu yang diperoleh, samada secara rasmi 

(daripada taklimat Strategic Plan dulu) atau melalui pembelajaran berterusan, kepada 

seluruh warga JPS. Saya sentiasa berdoa semua warga JPS memiliki sikap seperti tuan -- 

berkongsi ilmu, berkongsi vision dan berkongsi azam untuk melihat JPS mencapat taraf 

dunia menjelang 2010. 

Penghargaan harus diberi kepada semua PPSN dan Pengarah Bahagian (termasuk SMART, HTC 

& Pengarah Projek) dan semua warga yang terlibat dengan penggubalan SP tersebut. BPKor 

hanya memikul amanah untuk merealisasikan wawasan kita menerusi perkongsian SP ini. 

Selamat maju jaya. 

"INTEGRITI TERAS KUALITI" 

"BERKHIDMAT UNTUK NEGARA" 

Kapt. Ir. Anuar bin Yahya 

Timbalan Pengarah (Perancangan Dasar) 

Bahagian Pembangunan Korporat 

Asnor's stint with the element of WCO

Tak ramai berpeluang macam saudara Asnor dapat ke medan taklimat mengenai WCO ...World Class Organisation Syukur menyampaikan maklumat melalui email supaya dapat dikongsi bersama, cuma izinkan saya merekodkannya didalam jurnal ini untuk rujukan kami semua yang tidak berpeluang hadir dan elok menjadi panduan jua...memandangkan tempuh ke arah WCO hanya tak sampai 3 tahun lagi. Dengan maklumat ini jua bolehlah kita sama sama renungkan bahawa WCO juga menuju ke arah Q ?? Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:22:10 +0800    Subject: Elements of World Class Organisation
Tuan-tuan dan Puan-puan,  Saya cuma nak sharing my info from Penang about elements of :  "To be a  World Class Organization 2010"  What is A World Class Organization?  A world class organization can be defined as “An organization which has acquired the  position of Best of the Bests in the world in its given business and continuously  strives for beating its oven standards so as to retain that position”  This definition gives us some pointers which can be rightly called some of the  characteristics of a world class organization:  Characteristics of a world class organization  - Goal (Vision, Mission, Strategic Plan)  - Leadership  - Helping Each Other (Family Hood)  - Transparent  (   )  - Updated  - Integrated  - Staff Recognition (  )  - Persistent  - Measure  - Continuous Improvement  - Relentless Focus on Customer Satisfaction  - Best of the Bests  - Networking  - Collaboration  Strategies for Developing World Class Organizations  - Knowledgeable  - Obsession with Quality  - Developing the Most Professional Employees  - Innovation and Reinvention  - World Class Leadership  - Relax with strategy  - Achieve one of the focus areas (1 to 6) then follows by others focus area  Leadership is the ability of developing and communicating a vision to a group of people  that will make that vision true. The leader has to master five practices. The practices are:  1. Challenge the Process  2. Inspire a Shared Vision  3. Enable others to act  4. Model the Way  5. Encourage the Heart  Credibility  After twenty years of research Posner & Kouzes found that people want leaders who are  credible. If there's no credibility there's no leadership.  The authors state that credibility is the foundation of Leadership.  They also state that there are four characteristics that a leader must have to be  credible: honest, forward-looking, competent, and inspiring. They found that when  there's a high degree of credibility you can expect to see the following behavior:  a) People are proud to tell others they're part of the organization.  b) They feel a strong sense of team spirit.  c) They see their own personal values as consistent with those of the    organization.  d) Feel attached and committed to the organization.  e) Have a sense of ownership of the organization.  Summing up  To become a leader, you have to develop a vision, be able to communicate that vision,  and inspire the group you'll work with to achieve it. You must have credibility. You  have to build that credibility before you can lead. Do not compromise your honesty, be  competent in whatever you do and be aware (forward-looking). Change is everywhere,  everyday you must face it and be flexible enough to adapt yourself to lead.  Tahniah kepada Bah Korporat kerana telah melaksanakan taklimat Strategic Plan Zon Utara  di Pulau Pinang pada 24 - 26 Feb 2008.  Best Regards,  Asnor Muizan b. Ishak  Hydrology and Water Resources Division,