the statistics ...

The result of the company wide poll on the employees view of the cash incentive vs. bonus is out ... Out of a total of 1172 employees, all 1110 had agreed to a cash incentive in lieu of the monthly bonus, only 5 disagreed, 33 abstained from polling (indicating their neutrality on any company policy to be made) with the exception of 24 who were not available due to holidays, medical leave, secondment, overseas posting etc.

Learning

My wife & me had a difference in opinion today on how to teach our 9 year old maths. Being the impatient & dotting father, who wants to spent as much quality time doing fun things, I hate to see my son struggling to do his maths problem. My proposed solution was tell him the answer, explain how it gets done and being a smart kid, he will know how to do it the next time and nobody waste any time.
On the contrary, my wife feels that the only way to learn is to do it... she sits down with him, patiently guides & coaches, explaining the mathemathical concepts & theorems, leaves him to do it on his own, comes back and corrects if he makes a mistake ...and work on it problem after problem.
She believes that there is no shortcut to understanding & learning ... my son however doesn't share the same opinion ... I'm the fun dad & she's the strict mom !
I would have to admit however, that maybe she's right ... learning is tough but teaching in the true sense, whether its a child or an adult, is definitely tougher ...

I guess the same applies in engaging the leadership team members ...do I just tell them what I want done ( and get it over with without any stress ) or do we go through an adult learning process ?

TOP or BOTTOM

I sometimes get confused. Almost everyone, all the feedback and the data analysis tells me that the organization's main problem is at the TOP ... it starts with us, the leadership team. As I go around trying to fix the problem at the top, everyone now asks me why I am not addressing the problem at the BOTTOM.

So the question is ... Is the problem at the top or the bottom ?

Do we treat the disease or the symptoms ?

RIGHT or WRONG

Reflecting back, in recent meetings & discussions, it has always been about WHO is right and not about WHAT is right ? We all tend to listen to who is saying rather than what is being said.

We grew up being told that you must listen to your elders because they have wisdom and know the right things to do. Bosses are of course ALWAYS right ... ( and governments & politicians are NEVER wrong )

I guess we all have to stay focus on the facts & the rationale, rather than the rhetoric and the style ...

" Having to be right becomes a barrier to learning & understanding ...for there is no growth without changing, correcting & questioning yourself " John Naisbitt