Jason Wong, HKG, YVR, HNL

Money & Power, which matters the most?

If you asked for divine reading and the outcome is less favorable, should you challenge it and go against its foretell fortune? In movie, we always see brave characters, brace themselves and create a new result with their own bare hands. In real life, is it possible if a person’s destiny is appointed right in the beginning? I sometimes find, having a plan is good and important, yet, whether a project carries out successfully, luck plays a huge part. You can take care 99% of issues with all calculated risk, yet, 1% of bad luck can turn the table up-side down. A person’s destiny can play a sick prank on the owner - but we should never give up, look at the bright side and flaw it and finish everything. In Sex and the City’s “Real Me” epsiode, I was completely drawn by the plot - many times, we thought we were perfect but a fall on the path could trickle down many questions but I like how Carrie finished the walk - regardless it’s less than perfect.

“Word of Honor”, how much does it sell for? Apparently, not much. In work/life, there were a series of back-stabbing, betrayal incidents that have shaken my core and these incidents help me to realize, colleagues and friends can become your worst headache and nightmares. For those people who choose friendship over family, they should re-consider their decision carefully. You can lose a friend or co-worker and find a replacement but family - only one and only one - is irreplaceable.

Reading Zappo’s story about corporate culture, one thing that I want to borrow and re-post here and I think it’s very right, “One our values is to be humble, and that is the one that trips us up most during the hiring process. There are a lot of smart people out there that are also egotistical and for us it is not a question, we just won’t hire them,” says Tony Hsieh, CEO. This simple sentence really summarizes the essence of running a profitable business which roots from one’s distinct corporate culture. We have seen many books, seminars where experts preach people how to become a better CEO, etc. what these books fail to capture is - you need to get the right people to align their vision with the CEO’s. Not the other way around as the Founder/CEO is the ultimate boss, employees should adapt and work with him/her to achieve next milestone. In last 2 decades, labor force is more ego-centric, one’s need is greater than the company’s goal - which drives many companies out of business due to irresponsible staff’s mishandling of business. Reading an intelligent statement like this, really inspires me a lot and truly a clean breath of frest air seems to glide past my forehead with a hint of mint.

Burning Bridges

How many times have you encountered someone in the workplace where s/he made a big scene for his/her finale moment?  Nowadays, we have so many social media sites which focus on in-person-generated web contents to feed other curious individuals from the other side of the Earth.  You may find out, a few weeks later, this individual blogged about his/her frustration or anger about the former employer as a way to “pay-back”.  Throughout my HR career and my tight-knitted HR circle, almost unanimously agree with all HR managers - burning bridges and bad-mouthed former employer are two BIG NO-NOs.  The logic here is simple, if s/he can do that to the former employer, s/he can do the same to the future employer as well.  It would be silly even to think, the potential interviewer will hire an individual with such ”stunning” record.  If you know a person’s integrity is gone, what’s left behind?  Of course, nothing is worst than individual who is a two-face person where betrayal is his/her middle name.  I always believe in Karma, whatever these individuals have done to inflict damagse on others, they will eat their consequence sooner-than-they-thought.  Especially, we are living in a small world with nano-second telecommunication technology with us - be wise to exit with grace and elegance.

Mad Money

A few days ago, I overheard a conversation from a group of late-20-something guys talking loudly about career in a tiny coffee shop.  One of them has already got a Manager title in a retail chain business, yet, this person still complained about he could not make money fast enough to retire before 35 and he did not think the owner of the store understood ”business” - therefore, he quit his job and decided to make it “big” on his own.  When I drove back home, I was thinking - how many day-dreamers were out there risking their career to pursue something which was so intangible.  Being rich is not an easy thing.  In the old days, if you worked hard (3 or 4 jobs in a day and slept only 4 hours per day), you probably could become an entrepreneur by saving a decade of wages.  Nowadays, giant corporations are out there to squeeze out mom-and-pop stores (or they buy out competitors).  That’s free economy - I won’t blame the corporations for doing that and I don’t find them evil either - it’s just part of the business logic to survive in the current.  Now going back to that manager’s story, unless, you are an inventor or possess extraordinary people network (Facebook doesn’t count) - you may have a chance to make it big.  When I read many successful business people, they all have this powerful asset (network) that push them up and above the horizon.  Being naive in the early 20 is okay, but when you are late 20, you better figure out what you do best and stick with it.  Furthermore, be your boss, is not as glamorous as it sounds - you have to take care everything from customer interfacing to back-end inventory order.  One should never mix-up dream and reality - you can talk the talk in dream-sequence but you must walk the walk in reality.

Whenever you hear a story from someone, how many times, you will go all the way out to seek the other side of story?  Being judgemental and ignorant are two flaws of human nature - we make decision based on feeling rather than truth+facts.  90% of the people will draw conclusion based on personal encounter and make statement based on non-validated claims.  10% of the people will ask the right questions and probe for contradictory statements.  In HR arena, you always deal with he-said, she-said situation; what one needs to do is to gather all facts and eliminate subjective feeling out of the equation - if one follows this step, the chance of drawing the wrong conclusion would be slim.

Counting yesterday till today, 31 resumes are at my door.  I don’t pay much attention to tabloid media, but a job applicant cover letter does tell more stories than anything.  This year, I have received more insightful cover letter.  Applicants spent more time to describe their character, personal side.  Believe it or not, it was like reading someone’s personal profile/diary than someone’s cover letter.  Throughout my HR career, I have never seen anything like this.  I usually encountered unprofessional, ill-prepared resume+cover letter package or cookie-cutter type of introduction.  On resume+New Year Day, I drove to Hawaii Kai and had lunch at Panda Express.  The business was slow given it was holiday and a staff there was chatting with me and through her, I learned the stories about different relatives of hers are still out of work.  Some have college degrees and some have 10+ years working experience and they are still out of work for more than 18 months now.  Yesterday like the usual me, I had lunch at McDonald’s.  A lady (40ish or so) sat next to my table who was talking to her mom about she was going to the church later.  She also told her mom everything was fine about the morning job interview by saying how much the potential employer liked her credentials and experience.  When she hung up the phone and left the table, I saw couple pages of newspaper  left behind with circled recruitment ads plus notes .  Invisible SOS messages are written everywhere.  Are the recession and depression really well over?  In bail-out sectors, yes but no for the rest.

Due to some tedious and repetitive work routine, I am massaging my brain to build a relational database to increase my productivity in my department. Tables, queries, forms, etc. all brought back my ’sweet’ memory of design/implement a database back in university time. I actually enjoy doing database design more than language programming. I remember, how cool to work with record and create a query that beat the in-class challenge. Now the sweet old memory is back and I am sitting here and databasing.

Unbelievable! Today is my B-Day and I have received many people’s warm greetings over last 2 hours. I met a lady from my building and she asked me, did I come up a New Year Resolution? As a matter of fact, I always do. This year, I have couple big projects planning out in my grid and my teams will be working on them in Q2 and push to the market in Q3 + Q4. Let’s see what may happen by the year end.