Tis the season of Thanksgiving and I miss some of the US traditions around it. Not least of course the food – it’s one of the 4F’s in life we feed on: Faith, Family, Friends, Food.

It’s a time to reflect on the year and take stock of what’s happened and to look forward. It’s certainly been a difficult year on the professional front. But that’s tempered by the fact that I’m still gainfully employed with some good team members who are professional, work hard, and always try to deliver their best. So many are out there still struggling to find a footing and get plugged back into the workforce, whereas I’m given an excellent opportunity here in one of the world’s greatest cities and do things I like and personally grow.

I also give thanks to my team, who’s gone with me on this journey – some just a year and some 4 years. I give thanks because I ask them to saddle up and throw a yoke over me and I drag them into a Brave New World. Having said that, many have this year taken root and grown some wings are flying themselves now and we fly with them. One has moved on to being a CIO for a USD 300M company here. When we first met it was a strange situation (looking back in hindsight) – I parachute onboard to being captain of a Titanic and here was this self-professed “cockroach” who’s survived eons of changes, transformations, and idiotic managers. He’s now king cockroach and his new organization is lucky. Then there’s this MT who was a clueless as clueless comes. Given a white sheet of paper, what would you draw on it? After nearly getting himself kicked out he’s done a complete 180 degree transformation. A butterfly he is now and I learned alot of myself when faced with a white sheet of paper – there’s lots of room for improvement. Additionally, this year I found myself doing a lot to support new guys who working hard to improve – I appreciate their dedication, hard work to self-improvement. And they have, one has learned to do more for others and one just being open to new adventures absorbing as much as he can. All very good beginnings …

And then last but not least are my two seniors – can’t ask for a better group of people who keep me on the straight and narrow. One needs such strong foundational characters and act as the team’s compass. It’s not always about one person but about the many who create a successful environment for one and all. Helping us out is my dept admins and their invisible hands to guide and support me can’t be appreciated enough. While speaking of the “invisible players” that help ease the bumps along the journey, there are my life and executive coaches too: Winnie and Diana respectively.

My colleagues and peers across APAC are also one of the great joys of 2009. A whole new world opened up and there’s no going back. For certain, many more changes are in store next year and I look forward to what 2010 has awaiting.

As I wind down, I’ll be taking a break from blogging and focus on personal and family time over this holiday period. There may be a few catch up posts here and there, but thanks for reading and following my blog. I hope it’s been interesting, useful, and entertaining.

Many Thanks,

A few weeks ago I started to make some changes to my blog. I changed to the INove theme by author mg12. Not that I didn’t like the previous elegant Tarski theme by Ben Eastaugh and Chris Sternal-Johnson…but I sensed a change was needed and I also was going through a mood change myself.

Just recently I added two more RSS feeds: Mark McDonald’s Gartner Blog and ZDNet Asia Blog. This reflects my continuing journey toward the IT track away from the Program/Project Management side and also my continuing focus on Asia IT happenings.

For the latter, It’s been about 6 years or so in Asia first stop in Taipei Taiwan (lots of people get this confused with Thailand). Then recently in Hong Kong the past 16+ months here. Lots of changes personal and professional during these times. And at all times extremely thankful, because it’s been mostly been positive and growing experiences.

Overall, the Asian economies are doing relatively pretty well although not without suffering through it’s own structural changes. Companies continue to downsize tremendously – not least by the fact that the number of resumes I see are of extremely high quality and the number of recruitment firms chasing me for business – even those across borders. There are quite a lot of good human capital out there that’s “lost”. While not as bad as the US job and economy “titanicking”, it’s bad. The HR recruitment industry shakeout along with the FSI (Finance, Securities, Insurance) sectors is as ground shaking as the others.

I keep touch around the market to see how things are developing. Naturally the press would try to be upbeat and forward thinking but the ear to the ground is much more useful and predictive. And the news is certainly mixed. I’m starting to pick up a sense of predictive cycle and there’s some underlying dynamic forces at work which will show results in the coming 12-18 months I believe. We have China and India and everyone inbetween. The strong ones from Korea, Singapore, Japan will always be in the mix. The Europeans in Asia are probably healthier than their US counterparts (see Newsweek’s The Modest Superpower: How the financial crisis could leave Europe even stronger than America).

The key story continues to be China. It is still just growing and booming. It’s a juggernaut. Now, its impact within and without its borders is undeniable and where you sit colors your feelings about its impact. Surely the American whining of its currency manipulation policies is with merit, but by the same token, it’s a symbiotic relationship.

The 2009 year is ending soon and 2010 coming soon.

A few years ago before leaving the States for Asia, which was after the dot-bomb mushroom cloud was settling down, my good friend was repeatedly telling me that Asia was nothing like what the papers was telling me. Specifically, no matter what I was reading about the advancement of India or the so-called “Tiger economies”, the people were different and different from the ones I knew in the US. So this leads to the saying attributed to a friend of a friend was my indoctrination to the world of the Asian workplace – “I expect excuses and failures”.

And he was right, in a way you simply cannot imagine until you are here. Even now, I am still taken aback at times with the full impact of this simple truth.

This, creates major issues for me due to my personality style and my management style. One of my favorite bloggers, RandinRepose, wrote about this example (of me). He told a little story about a boss/mentor that he termed “The Leaper”. I’ve no doubt that some of my team members get this treatment unintentionally. Sometimes though, I use this style purposefully because it’s a bit like my law school socratic method (check out this great story of it in practice) – an excellent teaching methodology IMO.

But anyways, readng Rand’s illustration of his Leaper boss was like looking at myself in the mirror in ways I was uncomfortable (because I don’t like being “aggressive” in this manner) with but there I am/was – “Hello there!” Hmmm. Yup, definitely a thinking moment…because it’s a point where some action or plan is just soo needed. Hmmm.

While it makes me uncomfortable with this, I’m a bit at a loss in terms of how else to move people who are content – fat, dumb, and happy. The easy answer is to replace them, but the pool of talent is from the same pond. So, fishing will only get more of the same. Thus, it seems that the answer is to breed new species.

So how do you deliver this change? Wendy Mason’s “change management blog” has some good reads and this one – DELIVER THE CHANGE – A CHECK LIST FOR BEING A GOOD CHANGE AGENT – was pretty inspired. And the man in the mirror looks back and says, “who”?

“If it is to be, it is up to me” sums up nicely then. Quoting Ralph Stayer, CEO of Johnsonville Foods and co-author of Flight of the Buffalo which goes like this:

If it is to be, it is up to me.
If it is up to me, it shall be.

On this note, theres many fantastic bloggers and writers out there that help those practicing management and leadership day-in-day-out can be better equipped. Some of them in my blogroll and RSS Feed. Here are two I’d like to share:

and

Seems the tide is getting bigger and bigger, nearly tsunami effect, threatening to wash away so much that’s been laid down. We’ll just have to prepare, hunker down, and dig just that much deeper inside. Still, the question remains in many people’s mind, when will these changes stop? As Bob Sutton says, change will never be over, but that begs the question I think which is, “Are the changes always necessary or need to be so interminably long? You can only remodel your home so much before you figure out that it’s time to just move out completely to a new home and stop with the tinkering! Change it and change it once and let the change take hold and bedded down. If you have to change so frequently, then I would say, that you probably screwed up.

As the world turns…

The panorama’s creator, Dr. Axel Mellinger of Central Michigan University, spent 22 months and traveled over 26,000 miles to take digital photographs at dark sky locations in South Africa, Texas and Michigan. I just had to share this piece of work by him to my blog readers.

3000 panoramic images of our Milky Way - Dr. Axel Mellinger

Let us dream and dream big!

It’s autumn back Stateside and I miss it always – it’s my favorite season. Here are some nice youtube vids of Autumn back “home” and other places.