Daily Lessons from Life 23 - 25 January 2013 - Observation In Shanghai

No blogging access while in Shanghai during the period 23-25 January 2013 while was too excited on 26 January 2013 with the Workers' Party unexpected win in Punggol East SMC By-election and overall fatigue on 27 January 2013 after fetching a long time friend to the airport near mid-night. The last 2 nights are excuses BUT I will write a catch up after this.

This trip to Shanghai was an exciting one for me as I have been given an opportunity to share my own program: The 7e Way of Leaders to a Chinese headhunting firm's leaders. Many are young and upcoming and I feel if I can get them excited about 7e Way of Leaders too, maybe they can become even more effective leaders creating a bigger good for their people besides themselves.

Met the owner, the General Manager and the HR Manager with my Chinese contact who helped promote the 7e Way of Leaders program on 23 January 2013 for dinner. A kind of sizing me up 1st meeting if you like as they had not met me before and must be a bit apprehensive on what this Singaporean instructor/facilitator is like, what exactly is The 7e Way of Leaders, how is his Mandarin proficiency, what is his delivery style, will the program really help their leaders to become even better leaders/managers, etc. Suffice to say the dinner went well and I know they are waiting for the real deal tomorrow. :-)

24 January 2013 is a 9-hour day excluding the 45 minutes lunch break as they are pressed for time and have to ask me to compact a 2-day program into one. So I did with the intention of making sure that the KEY messages are covered and with adequate hands-on practices of the use of tools and skills. I am delighted to report that the session went well and I could sense much enthusiasm and openness in the participants and the learning environment. The course evaluation questionnaire that I designed see to it that they will have to specifically mentioned learning like: did you learn anything new that you were not aware of before the program? did you get to practice what you learn in the workshop? which are the 3-5 knowledge/skills and tools you found particularly helpful and you will commit to apply back at work? who is the learning partner you have selected to commit to each other to put these learning into practice and form a new working habit ultimately? etc.

Almost 1/3 felt that the 1-Day 9-hour program is too short and they wished it was a 2-day program. This is good. With the many 'Individual Reflection Topics' at the end of each chapter, they still can come together to discuss some of these materials in-depth and decide whichever they want to internalise for themselves.

25 January 2013 flies by quickly as I have some errands to run and a plane to catch in the afternoon for Singapore. I noticed that the surrounding area where I was put up had a MASSIVE development site next to it intending to build a underground sub-way station and the more-and-more 3-in-1 complex. Many of the Chinese I mete on this trip have a chief complaint, - the sky is rarely clear and the air hardly clean! The Beijing pollution index for the last 5 days consistently exceeded unhealthy level!

Maybe the people will eventually, hopefully not too late, realise that 'living in a smog filled environment while having tons of money is not going to fun!'

The 7e Way of Leaders believes that an Effective Leader must be one who clearly know and believe that his/her primary purpose is to 'create a greater good for a larger group of people instead just for themselves'! He or she Envision, Enable, Empower, Execute, Energise and Evolve grounded in ETHICS.

I look forward to more opportunities to share this philosophy.