Playmaker

A playmaker is as an attacking player who controls the flow of the team's offensive play, and is often involved in passing moves which lead to goals. Unlike the attacking midfielder, this role has more versatility. The playmaker reads the game and changes his role accordingly.

In today's working society, it is important to not to tie employees down to specific jobs, but to turn them to playmakers. Imagine a fast food chain with alot of kitchen staff but only a few cashiers. During a busy period, there might be a need to transfer cleaners and cashiers to be kitchen staff, to improve operational efficiency and reduce bottlenecks.

But this can happen ONLY if they are cross-trained on various roles in the first place. You can't turn a person into a cook overnight, it has to come with practise.

Its very much like farming. Different crops require different minerals for better growth. If you keep growing barley after you have harvested the previous bactch of barley, chances are that as time go by, the quality of barley will drop. So farmers alternate growing different crops on the same piece of land.

Same goes for people, their learning curve flattens the more they get used to the same role. As graduates get more demanding in job satisfaction and the need to learn, employers should keep them interested enough to reduce chance of them job-hopping. So we gotta do cross-hybridisation - send the IT guy to operations and vice versa. Make them appreciate each other's roles and when they come back to their original assigned roles.

Playmakers are generally needed for the more generic service industry, where employees should be given job rotations to make them jack-of-all-trades in various positions. The upcoming casino in Singapore should create more playmakers. The cleaner should learn how to prepare food at the canteen. And probably the poker card dealer should be taught basic technical skills on how to fix the jackpot machines.

No doubt, it might be harder for playmakers to be developed in specialised roles. We can't expect the accountant double up as the company's lawyer. But the accountant can always help in generic stuffs like event organising.

Playmakers should not just be the job of a manager. Ideally, employees should be empowered with playmaking responsibilities. The cook should decide when to mend the cashier counter, and not just when he is told to. Everyone should have their own responsibilities to their key job scope, but the team as a whole should be held accountable for everything.

Fill the organisation with playmakers, it will improve synergy among various roles, increase productivity and reduce manpower turnover rate.

A manager can only do so much.

Stope being a playa, we need playmakers.

Too young to waste, too old to do.

There are some things that I can have PLENTY of time to do when I retire, so it make sense that I spend less time on them.
(1) Chasing drama serials on TV.
(2) Surfing the Net for hours.
The list goes on and on.

So what should I be doing? Things that I have to do now before I get too old, or stranded with commitments.
(1) See the world while my legs are still willing.
(2) Learn more dancing.
(3) Finish a marathon.
(4) Start my own business.
The list goes on and on.

We only live once. Get the priorities right.

Buy low, sell high - Singapore style

These few weeks, I have been reading alot about Singapore's government-linked investment vehicle, Temasek's "infamous" long-term strategy, and how Temasek selling off its stakes in the Bank of America (BoA) deal at the "lowest possible price" will go down to be one of the biggest fund losses in Wall Street’s history.

I have attached a link with stock charts to show the buy and sell price of Temasek's BoA stake.

Under the Willow Tree

Note that this post was not meant to mock Temasek, nor Singapore. To Temasek's credits, it holds a pretty impressive returns over the past years. I was just surprised about the tactless comments they make to defend their decisions.

Make a decision and live with the consequences, but more importantly, learn your lessons. And learn better PR skills.

Is Shingo T a man or woman?

Good friend Numbernine sent me this.

Gender Analyzer.

Its a website that guess the gender of the person who writes the blog.

We guess http://shingot.blogspot.com is written by a woman (56%), however it's quite gender neutral.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Anyone knows how to hack a website? =p

Surviving in the rat's race

Isn't it amazing how a company can have so many workers during the good old days, yet shed so many workers in the current recession?

Work is supposed to be something very straightforward. It was made complicated by inefficiency. Dilbert comics often highlighted not just bosses who are not exactly too smart, giving unneccessary work, but also highlighted common sense that does not appear to be too common.

Working hard is the easy way out for most workers. Just blindly follow instructions robotically is hassle-free. Doing things the same old way is the proven method to be the submissive worker that does not give problems.

Unfortunately, being contented will more often than not, make you blend with the crowd. And when your salary (and age) doesn't justify your USP (unique selling point), you will be shivering when news of retrenchment comes in.

Make yourself stand out from the crowd, in the right way. It could be a technical capability that make you indispensible (though seriously, no one is indispensible). Or if you have no core technical skills, then work on your soft skills.

Communicating, presenting, negotiating, sales, networking etc... are all soft skills that we all can work on, skills that apply to both work and life.

Create a monopoly for yourself in the company. Hold the company to emotional blackmail to your services, make your presence felt. Make them feel that without your presence, life will not go on as easy as before.

Work closely with the 3 core group of people - the bosses, the peers, and the subordinates. Mainataining a good relationship with these 3 groups of people will stand you in good stead. And it will also make you get respect and have easier days at work.

Sinisterly speaking, the workplace is a place where people make use of each other to finish their own selfish tasks. However, it does not mean that you should treat your colleagues like stepping stone. Doing that will throw your reputation down the drain, you will die hard hard and live miserably.

Be humble, be humanitarian, be cooperative, so that both of you help each other to co-exist, while working your way up the corparate ladder. Well, even if you lose your job, you don't end up with nothing. After all, a person's net worth is determined by the size of his network.

My sifu lost his job, but ended up starting his own business with the help of his ex-colleagues. And now he's managing a few companies.

Leverage on your past experience to create an impact for the company. Be hungry, be very curious, and never forget to be grateful. Be partial in your decision-making to everyone you meet. There are many ways to impress people without having to suck up, or vie for the best actor award.

Work is never hard, it is people who make things complicated.

Don't be a caged lion in a cage. Go fight for your own food. Go mark your own territory.

Pairing shoes.

I was helping out at a shoe sale in one of the bigger exhibition halls in Singapore. And the helpers were sorting shoes. Shoes are of the same model need to be sorted by (1) colour (2) size (3) left/rights, making this a 3-dimensional problem.

Sorting by colours is easy. Sorting left and right are a little tougher. And sorting by sizes is most time-consuming, given that the sizes are listed on the sole of the shoes.

Imagine the shoe have 5 colours, 5 different sizes, and left/right foots.
There are basically 5 x 5 x 2 = 50 different groups.

Intuitively, the less groups there are, the easier it is to sort the shoes. But at the same time, the grouping should not be oversimplified such that each group ends up being a "mixture" that reduces turnaround time of finding a pair of shoe for the customer.

The helpers were pairing left and right of the same color and size before they throw it into one of the big boxes for the group.

And so I had an issue - What was the point of pairing left and right, when all you do after that is throw the shoes into the box? The shoes have no shoelaces, no showbox, basically they can't be "joined" in any way.

Imagine you have 50 left shoes, and 50 right shoes, of the same size and colour, randomly scattered in a box. It does not guarantee that they will be sold as 50 pairs of shoes. You can have the most detailed plan upfront, but when it comes to picking shoes in a chaotic fair by staff, some people might just end up with 2 lefts, or 2 rights.

So whats the point of ensuring an equal number of left and right in the box if someone might still possibly screw it? So I told the helper to ignore left and right, and just sort by the colours and sizes. By reducing the groups by half, he sorted the shoes much faster.

Some problems are solved naturally and easily. You can have 55 left shoes and 45 right shoes. Well, it doesn't matter. Life has a way of sorting out matters, or shoes in this case. With careful picking during actual operations, you will be left with 10 left shoes at the end of the fair.

It doesn't pay to be too micro sometimes. One risk doing unneccassary things, wasting unneccessary time, and wasting energy on the wrong processes.

It pays not to over-plan. Problems are not solved entirely by planning, but by acting accordingly when the event happens.

So aim to go home on time, get more rest, and start thinking with your brain the next day. It will be a productive cycle.

Waking up

Hi Friends,
sorry for the lack of updates.

I had a very long dream that lasted a few weeks.
I just woke up, am still rubbing my eyes.

Now I'm back!

Coolest Auto Reply message

Remember the positive-thinking colleague who will "blame herself"?

Here's the auto-reply message that she is using.

------------

Hello-

I will be out of the office beginning XXXX and will be returning XXXX. I will have access to emails only in the evenings during this time.

For immediate assistance please contact XXXX.
For emergencies, please hang up the phone and call 911.

Thanks! See you next week!

My newfound friend, Nino has posted his 5 steps of grief syndrome in his blog. Go check it out!



A shoutout to Nino: Blog on, bro!