HOME ALONE 2

Yesterday I watched the movie above and this is what I learned from the movie:

• Dont make promises you cant keep.
• Dont under-estimate kids [or our subordinates or our children]
• Be nice to others and somebody will be nice to you.
• Your parents brothers and sisters love you no matter what ever you are.
• We cant live alone or by ourselves, we must have somebody.
• Use/share our heart [feelings] with others, if you dont, then it is like loving your shoe and afraid to wear them to avoid being spoilt. By the time you want to wear your shoe, it does not fit your foot. If you dont share your feeling with somebody, by the time you want to share, the person has no feeling towards you and he/she has already gone.

ONE MINUTE MANAGER MEETS THE MONKEY

I asked from my brother any reading materials in his car while he is out meeting somebody. He gave me the book written by Kenneth Blanchard et al. the title....ONE MINUTE MANAGER...

His issue....MONKEY [my opinion].

I enjoy reading this book because like what he has written, is a real issue all managers [or majority of managers] is facing...monkey.

But I have problem overcoming this monkey problem at my work place....there are only 2 subordinates and both of them are the biggest monkey themselves. I cant even train them. I cant ask them to do anything because nothing get done on time, or done nicely. Eventually I have to do everthing except for the typing work.

If this is my own company, both of them has already been gone long time ago. I need to earn the living and I have no choice. Come next year, Malaysia and the rest of the earth will be facing recession.

Maybe I am the monkey myself

FINAL EXAM

Students would be asking me for tips while praparing for the final exam. I only know following tips:
Students must understand what the whole subject is all about. That is why I always focus on the table of contents. From there we basically know that principle of management is all about PLOC. When we know PLOC and the sub topics of each letter, then we should be able to understand better. For adult learners, to understand is better than to memorise.

Secondly, it is difficult to create long and logical questions. So whenever you see diagrams in the text book, that would be the questions likely to come out. But make sure there are more than 3 boxes or branches in each diagram.

Third, the issue and how to solve the issue type of questions. Like what are barriers to communication and how you overcome them, resistance of change and how you overcome them, bla bla.......you can see this plenty in the text book.

GOOD LUCK to OUM students

HOW TO WRITE ASSIGNMENT [BBPP 1103] SEPT 2008

This time, students need to answer question by question.....or one by one. HOWEVER, never forget that in every question, there should be an INTRODUCTION to subject matter.

Example; what are the skills required?....INTRODUCTION according to Shahrol Aman Ahmad (et al) in BBPP1103 Management Principles, there are three skills required by all managers; technical, interpersonal and conceptual. The percentage or weightage of each skills differ in accordance to level of a manager. if he is a top management manager [GM or MD], then his focus is on the conceptual skills.

As for the manager that I interviewed, he is an Assistant Manager of a Bank Branch in Segambut. Therefore........

Once completed, you go to the next question.

Dont forget to give your conclusion. As for this assignment, the last question is in fact your conclusion.

Good luck

HOW TO DO GOOD ASSIGNMENT

Copy? Yes copy....copy smartly. Copying to me is smart learning. But if you copy without thinking then, it shows you are not careful.

In life we always copy. But if you colour your hair (copying others) so very colourful and attended a funeral with it, then you are just plain stupid. You may say nobody would do that....yes I agree. But as a tutor, I saw students copy other people assignment blindly. In a way....that is stupid...right?

I for one will copy the format, the technique of answering, in short what to do and what not to do.

If we manage to look at other people assignment, then we will have a better idea of doing a better one. If we dont attempt this, we may be blur for quite sometimes before we can start doing. It is a shortcut for the thinking process.

Well, the choice is your, Good luck.

PLOC

This abbreviation stand for PLAN, LEAD, ORGANISE and CONTROL. If you surf in internet, there are many other meaning that come with it. These are basic functions of management and/or a manager. Some writers include also, STAFFING. 

In my experience, most important aspect is plan and control.

If our plan is so good and is very clear and comprehensive (menyeluruh), then those who will execute/implement the plan will carry on smoothly. Dont forget, in the plan we should also include who is to do what. Actually this is called ORGANISE.

Next important aspect is control. Our subordinates must assume or perceive that we are controlling the whole activity. If the boss is not in control, then the whole project, plan, strategy or what ever it is will be a failure.

One of the issues raised by many writers is lack of resources, expertise, financial, logistic etc. In a real world we borrow. But in the military we used to say, beg borrow or steal [ ha ha ha]. Its true and that is what being practised by many corporate world, rich and poor.

HOWEVER, universities and colleges dont teach us this. Me as a tutor in a university, teach this to my students. Sharing is caring.

And I wish, business school also teach their students how to avoid cheating and how to identify a con man/businessmen.

TRUST

I learn this from my boss; never trust anybody even your closest friend. NOT TRUE per se, or in other words, I cant swallow the whole statement as it is. Only person whom we can trust that we ask for favor. Others....we have to pay for it! Favor in a sense of asking for information, contacts, idea and advice.

I've seen some very loyal employees in an organization. These people will work and work and work and no play. Can the bosses trust them? At this time, those fraud investigators would tell us not to trust them 100%. They may be working overtime without asking for extra money [making claim], but at the same time they may be planning to make extra money from the company.

Some of the behaviours of these people are; working late most of the time without asking for pay back, seldom take annual leave or none at all, dress very casually, drive old car, never argue with anybody especially with bosess, not many friends, seldom loafing out with friends. Of course most of these people works at account dept, HR dept and logistic dept.

PLOC

plan lead organise and control. I have this experience working under a very strict person. He control me like nobody business.

I have to call him everytime I done something, found something, got something etc.

As a result, I would do the same thing to my subordinates. I call and call and call them everyday.

But I use different approach. I talk nicely.....and it works!

STUDENTS SYOK SENDIRI SYNDROME

I was fortunate to be asked to attend a workshop organised by Open University Malaysia from 9th to 11th May 2008 recently. It was where I realised that there are many dedicated tutors 'not well awarded' by OUM.

I told my SME whom the first time I met and communicate after being with OUM since 2003, that the financial and non-financial benefits given to tutors were 'unfair'. I told her that in my opinion, tutors are the real 'bread winners' of OUM but the permanent staff are the ones who enjoy most of the benefits.

Nevertheless, my group which consist of Rohana Ngah an ex-Police Officer and Lilian [the SME] was a proud group that introduced the SSS and TSS terminology to the workshop. SSS stand for Student Syok Sendiri Syndrome where they would chit chat about a topic or an issue and along the way may go off-tangent. We recommended that tutors must interfere the discussion and guide them back into the right track.

As for the Tutor Syok Sendiri Syndrome, he or she should not post so many questions and ending up not able to manage the discussion.

In this situation as mentioned by the facilitator, there are element of socialising and learning by students. Any comment?

PAPER QUALIFICATION NOT REQUIRED?

My boss told me this is so. It is proven that many tycoon in Malaysia only possessed Malaysian Certificate of Education or O Level equivalent. The difference between them and ordinary people is hard work and luck.

And it goes down the line where many successful businessmen (small and medium size business) are made up (majority of them) of mediocre. They didn't go to universities to learn doing the business. It takes guts to start up a business and more guts when hit with failure.

To ensure business are running, you must make sure those under you are closely supervised. Happy people, sad people and ordinary people are a source of problem to your business. Anytime, these people can turn against you and create havoc to your business.

Manager and leader must be sensitive to all incident. We must solve all problems big or small. Small and routine problems can accumulate to become very large problem.

SLAYING, THE BEST PROBLEM SOLVING METHOD

I told my students, the reason we are in the university is that when we read we understand. If it is written permanent marker, then we don't use it to write on the white board. If it's written somewhere to use safety belt, then we use it every time we drive and not only after we see a policeman. Why? Because we understand why.

So when we read in the news that somebody is killed, then we know there must be reasons for it to happen. We also know and fully respect all authorities that under the concept of need to know basis, they will not tell us the real reason if they perceived that if the public know about it, then subsequently it will become more complicated.

We must respect those we elected. We must respect their decision. After all, like us, they want the country to develop without a hitch.

I once told my students, many people including our politicians condemn the USA, but on the other hand we support the USA in most things they do.

My conclusion, at this level, being university graduates, when we read, we see, listen and observe, we should understand better than those who didn't go to the university.

OUM STUDENTS

I wish I can be a help to most, but I cant. I want to share my perception on part time learning. To me it is fun. If you want to look from the positive approach. I guess you have to. After all, you choose to earn paper qualification.

All if not most tutors have hands on experience in whatever subject they are teaching compare to full time tutors and lecturers. More often than not, they are the first to comment about the content of the module.

But nevertheless, you have no choice but to learn, understand and memorise the module. Why? Because these are basics which you must understand in every subject that you are being exposed to. If you think it is a waste of time, then you should tell the tutor what the university should teach you.

If you care to realise then you will understand better in every theory that they teach. You can make comparison between those theory and what really happen in your organisation.

This is the beauty here, tutors have hands-on experience and so do you. Then you should ask a lot of question in classes to clear your doubts between the real life and the theory. Full time students will not have this opportunity. They are not able to ask questions because they have not gone through the process.

PURPOSE OF PRAYER

Muslim prays 5 times a day. It is mentioned somewhere that the difference between Muslim and non-Muslim is the prayer. If I dont pray 5 times day, then I am not, in a true sense, a Muslim. This is my understanding.

But why do Muslim have to pray 5 times a day?

This morning I saw a man jogging. Then I asked my friend why in this city, I see many Chinese jogging and very few Malay and Indian jogging?

The answer is very simple [ I may be wrong ], because, people know why they have to pray 5 times a day, and/or why they have to jog. If they dont know why, then they cant do those things sincerely. And if they know, then they are just plain stupid, thick headed or they have problems with attitude.

In the practical management approach, we have to tell our subordinates why we do those things so that they know.