Wilson Ng started helping the family business since 9 years old. Since then, he had dreamt to be a successful entrepreneur, one who starts great businesses  ( he has started 7) from scratch with insight, guts and initiative. He keeps his focus on growing the business by creating value-- not on politics, or wasteful distractions. He brings the same focus to community service, teaching, life and family.

This is the main page which contains all postings. The reader can also choose a category: techdrivenlife, on life, on businessquotes, jokes, tidbits & reading reviews.  A new category, EntrepreViews, talks on entrepreneurship and also answer reader's queries.

 

  Sunday, May 01, 2005


Promoting the Best Doers to Become Managers  ( on business)

One of the dilemmas in management is the tendency to promote our best producers to managers.  The best programmers become the development head,  and the best sales people invariably gets to become sales manager, etc.

There are pitfalls in it since the skills and focus needed are not the same.  Here is a great post by Michael Jones entitled Producers vs. Managers.  He follows it up with another post that selfless management is the key to solve that.

 

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How to Impress People   ( on life)

It was Feb 2005 and it was the finals for the selection of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.  There were 17 of us finalists.

The organizers decided to give us 2 hour slots. Mine was going to be 10 to 12 noon.  I was to go to the studio to get some pictorials,  do some videos for promotion, as well as do interviews. 

I could not imagine the painstaking effort of over 20 people in the studio to prepare and work to get a good 2 minute video.  But happily it went well.

After the shot, it was nearing 12, and the studio had prepared lunch -- for myself, the organizers, and also the film crew.  It was customary for them to have lunch together with the candidates, and the lunch was also prepared just in case the shot might dragged to the afternoon.

The director asked me politely whether I would like to invite my driver in so that we could all have lunch together.  I sheepishly replied that since I was out of town, I had come in a cab.  Oh, he said somewhat not knowing what to say.  After lunch, they politely offered me a chauffeur and a car to drive me back to the hotel.  At length, I found out that I was the only candidate who had come in a cab -- the other candidates had come in chauffered driven cars.

I was a little bit embarassed, and swore that next time, I would do a harder job on impressing people.  Happily, I did win in one of the categories, and don't know whether that little car incident impressed them in the right or wrong way.

To impress or not to impress...  For years now, my family has been egging me to get a new car -- I currently drive a Honda Accord that is over 8 years old.  It is still a good and comfy car, but they keep telling me that there are business customers that I need to impress...

But there was an incident a few weeks ago that made me convinced that driving an old car can bring better peace of mind.  I was slowing the car when suddenly I got bumped at the back.  I stopped, and noted that a taxi had rammed me slightly and had dented my fender.  I raised my head, and saw that it was driven by somebody who was nearing 65, and obviously scared.

In our place, most taxis are not covered properly by insurance, and thus, in many collision cases, it sometimes became the liability of the driver who was at fault.  He was obviously at fault, and I could see the twitch in his face thinking where he was going to get the money to pay me.

I surveyed the damage, and in that instant, I said to myself -- hey, my car can take this, and I can take this.... so I told the driver it was OK.  No need to pay or to worry.  You could imagine the relief in his face, and that picture is still clear on my mind today.

I feel good the whole day, that I was able to be generous.  And I said to myself, I would have agonized long and hard if it was a new car.  So who do you want to impress, and how do you impress them?   I can say that It felt good to impress people whom you were not expecting favors or returns.

And maybe the best way to impress people is when they know you were not consciously trying to.

I can remember stories of Microsoft's  Bill Gates who long after he became a billionaire still took economy, Walmart's Sam Walton who drove a pickup when he could afford better, or stories of Bill Clinton who sported a digital TMX watch worth less than a hundred dollars.  Would people have been more impressed if he had worn a 50 thousand dollar watch?

 

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