Corruption

Today is the 31st of August; Merdeka...
What to do on this splendid, sunny day?
Wake up late in the afternoon, do 2 weeks worth of laundry, read, smile, dream...
Back to reality-land, this week is final exam week... very exciting week *yawn*

Today is Merdeka day, which brings us to the aforementioned topic; what are the causes of corruption?

What are actually the causes of corruption? Have you ever wondered? We always blame the ones in power of committing great sin towards the public, unjust, selfish, etc.
But have we ever stopped and pondered about the very mechanism which leads to the plague? The root? The core?

Well, based on my Islamic Studies notes, the causes of corruption are blindly following human caprice in deciding between right and wrong, abusing man's position of trust, turning away from divine guidance or losing vision of being vicegerents on Earth, and moral deviation and hypocrisy.

Not to point and blame certain bodies or individuals, this is just a general observation, sort of a bird's eye view of what's going on. Besides, I'm studying for my exams here, so kill me, or give me some credit for extra effort.

To those concerned, or who think they are of concern, good luck for the 2nd Trimester Finals...;

The Road to Victory

by Luqman Rohaizat;

There is a famous quote by renowned inventor Thomas Edison saying that ‘genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration’. Judging by his words, we are able to understand his core belief that success is obtained mainly through hardship. I tend to agree with him, as I value the effort exercised to reach one’s goals and ambitions.

As a student, the vital rule of the game is to strive for success. It is clear logic that students who do not put enough effort into their studies will definitely be left behind academically. Good students do not give up easily when they are down, but instead multiply their efforts in order to reach their targets. No matter how smart you are, your hardships will decide your success.

The said rule not only applies to students, but to anybody who wants to achieve something throughout the course of their lives. You cannot just lie in bed, praying that you get what you wish for. God does not reward one who prays for the sake of praying. We must toil for what we pray for, and our success will be more meaningful if we strive for it. Victory isn’t sweet without sweat.

Only after struggling towards our dreams can we depend on luck for success. We must have utter faith that our efforts will be fruitful. As Muslims, we believe in the concept of ‘tawakkal’, in which we put our fate in God’s hands, only after we have done everything we can to achieve something. After all, the harder you work, the luckier you get.

All in all, success is impossible without effort, and we must always strive for success, but sometimes luck does play a role in determining our outcome of victory.

Generic Skills

Muhyiddin (with songkok) chatting with student
representatives from public universities at the
Putrajaya International Convention Centre in Putrajaya yesterday.

*Adapted form The Star, 07.08.2010

Generic skills important, says DPM

PUTRAJAYA: Students have to equip themselves with both professional and generic skills, said the Deputy Prime Minister.

Generic skills such as problem-solving or producing something beneficial through creativity and innovation were necessary in a country heading towards a high-income economy.

“Students should not just seek knowledge through lectures but also adopt a more creative approach to gain knowledge from various sources,” Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said in his speech before chairing a closed-door meeting of the National Students Consultative Council (NSCC).

The council comprised four representatives from 20 public universities and 13 private institutions.

Muhyiddin said the NSCC was a good platform for student leaders to express their desires to the Government, and at the same time enable the leadership to hear the view of students on important national issues.

“With this mechanism, I believe student leaders can take part constructively in the formulation of national policies,” he said.

Strings of Thought

Verily, even being able to sleep peacefully at night is a blessing from God. Be thankful for the simple things in life.

E-mail Musings

A MAN AND A BUTTERFLY

One day, a small opening appeared on a cocoon; a man sat and watched for the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then, it seems to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could not go any further. So the man decided to help the butterfly: he took a pair of scissors and opened the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily.

But it had a withered body, tiny and shriveled wings. The man continued to watch because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would open, enlarge and expand, to be able to support the butterfly's body, and become firm.

Neither happened!

In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a withered body and shriveled wings. It was never able to fly. What the man, in his kindness and goodwill did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes, struggles are exactly what we need in our life.
If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as we could have been. We would never have been able to fly.

"I asked for Strength...
And I got difficulties to make me strong."

"I asked for Wisdom...
And I got problems to solve."

"I asked for Prosperity...
And I got the brains and brawn to work."

"I asked for Courage.....
And I got obstacles to overcome."

"I asked for Love...
And I got troubled people to help."

"I asked for Favours...
And I got opportunities."

"I received nothing I wanted...
But I received everything I needed."

Thanks, Haikal...

Useful Insight

Father,
I have read;

http://www.setanewdirection.com/top_skills_glob.html

Top Skills required for Globalization

Responsibility for one’s career and work life is on the individual more than ever before. We are on our own today. We work for ourselves.

Effective Career Management today means

1. understanding You - especially your unique strengths / assets
2. understanding Globalization and how it affects work today

Career Development is the responsibility of the worker not the employer today. You must be in the business of investing and developing yourself. You are not your job title. In a fast changing dynamic economy, job titles are too constrictive, change and can’t adequately capture all your strengths and assets. You are your own career. These are dynamic times and you must be dynamic and keep up.

ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR TODAY

Self-Management
Perhaps the key skill or behavior essential today is the ability to personally develop and manage yourself on a continual basis.

According to the management theorist Peter Drucker, "Knowledge workers are likely to outlive their employing organization. Their average working life is likely to be fifty years. But the average life expectancy of a successful business is only thirty years." "Increasingly, therefore, knowledge workers will outlive any one employer, and will have to be prepared for more than one job. And this means most knowledge workers will have to manage themselves. They will have to place themselves where they can make the greatest contribution; they will have to learn to develop themselves. They will have to learn how and when to change what they do, how they do it, and when they do it. They will have to learn to stay young and mentally alive during a fifty-year working life."

"The key to managing oneself is to know: Who am I? What are my strengths? How do I work to achieve results? What are my values? Where do I belong? Where do I not belong?" "Knowledge workers must be autonomous..." "Knowledge is the central resource in a knowledge economy". From Management Challenges for the 21st Century and Managing Oneself (Corpedia Online Program).

Continuous and Active Learning
Learning really needs to be continuous and formal today. All the data and research insist on this. Skills are perishable. Because of this, we need to keep them fresh and in real time. You might need to get: a degree, a trade, a diploma, or a certificate, and / or attend seminars, take courses, etc. At a minimum, we all need to have a career plan.

The global economy is very much sink or swim because of this need to continually improve skills and build upon strengths. Edward Gordon in 2010 Meltdown says "You've got to keep going back to school". Deepak Lal, a development economist gets to the point "Go to school". Drucker, "an educated person [is someone]...who continues learning, especially by formal education, throughout his or her lifetime." To succeed today people need to develop ‘learning agility’ which Mike Lombardo defines as "the willingness and ability to learn new competencies in order to perform better under first-time, tough or different conditions. Learners are willing to go against the grain of what they know how to do and prefer to do. Why? To get better and to learn new skills and new ways of behaving."

Upgrading needs to continue even as we get older. Concerns about age are becoming increasingly outdated. Age is no longer the issue that it once was. In the future your career will not just end. Companies are becoming desperate for older workers. Demographic trend-watchers predict an unprecedented shortage of labor and talent over the next ten years. "Long-standing human resources practices invest heavily in youth and push out older workers. This must change — and public policy too — or companies will find themselves running off a demographic cliff as baby boomers age." The March 2004 Harvard Business Review

10 million baby boomers are now approaching the age of retirement. Kathleen is the first to start the wave. There are going to be lots of openings.

Over thirty years ago, Alvin Toffler predicted that in the future society we will all need to "learn, unlearn and relearn" on a continual basis. Today, the ability or capacity to manage change is a competitive advantage. Also, it’s not just about learning - but knowing how to apply what you’ve learned. Toffler again: “the illiterate of the future [today!] will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn.”

Reading
One study has suggested that people who cannot read at 400 words a minute in the modern world are functionally illiterate. Mind maps chart the way to business efficiency, Journal: Education + Training, 1998 Issue 4. Information comes at us faster than we can process it. Most people read at about 200 words a minute, but can be trained to read at 1,000 words a minute. So…speed-reading is another course to take! One needs to know how to gut the literature.

Information Handling and document use:

• Being able to recognize the need for a particular piece of information.
• Identifying and locating appropriate information sources.
• Knowing how to access the information.
• Being able to evaluate the quality of the information.
• Being able to organize the information.
• Being able to use the information effectively.
• Being good at following instructions.
• Using effective filing system whether it is electronic or hard copy.
• Understanding the principles of ‘Getting Things Done’ (GTD) workflow.
• Keep in mind that the above is not just about ‘googling’. Information and knowledge is to be found everywhere, mostly in people.

Communicating
Strong communicators are in demand in the global economy. This is true across all fields. The authoritative written voice has begun to replace the authoritative physical voice. Again, this can be seen a result of globalization where space and time recede in importance and all around the world people increasingly meet and interact beyond face to face space. The ability to communicate is increasingly important. Ambiguity is expensive. Simplify and clarify. Need to be brief, clear, jargon-free and to the point. Less is more today. Power notes, power proposals, power memos. Note: your resume and other written documents will be used as evidence of your communicating ability.

Speaking and presenting well (along with the above point)
Self-marketing – knowing yourself really well, and being focused. Your marketability is your ability to communicate your unique value or the positive results you’ll be able to deliver.

Working as part of a team; working harmoniously with others
What makes workers more valuable today is their ability to leverage "relationship capital". Diversity of opinion and belief is growing in the workplace – do you have the social capacity to negotiate the diverse values and behaviors of your colleagues?

Empathy
The human touch. Being empathetic means seeing other views, being reflexive, experiencing the lives of others. In 1958 Daniel Lerner wrote The Passing of Traditional Society. He argued that people in traditional societies are bound to the past and traditional roles. Modern people (read globalized) are habituated to a sense of change. Because of this they have what he called a ‘mobile personality’ or ‘psychic mobility’. This enlarged personal identity allow a person to live in a "vicarious universe". Today we take it for granted that empathy means to see oneself in another person’s situation – through their eyes...Are you? Need to be.

Flexibility
As more 21st century organizations specialize in core activities and outsource the rest, they have greater need for workers who can interact with other companies, their customers, and their suppliers. We will see the increase of portfolio workers with their diverse collection of abilities and know-how in their skills briefcase.

Leading others
Showing others a better way, a better future.

Helicopter ability – seeing the big picture, the global view.

Thinking Skills:

• Problem Solving
• Decision Making
• Critical Thinking
• Job Task Planning and Organization
• Significant Use of Memory
• Finding Information

Creativity and Applied Resourcefulness
It is not how many resources you have but rather your resourcefulness that makes you stand out today.

Computer Use - Technical Literacy
The Left Brain didn’t go away. Being adept at using a computer and software is a must.

Entrepreneurialism
There is a growing need to build business skills as we will be increasingly working in small team environments. The old hierarchical, command and control organization required you to be less than who you were, check your personality at the door, put a harness on and do some unskilled task(s). That no longer works. Today, every employee is a business in the new economy and having a personality matters.

I was explaining this Me Inc. concept to my son Josh’s friend Tim who was moving to Japan to teach. I said, always think "Proposals for service". He loves reading history so my hypothetical scenario was: do some research, figure out if there could be a need for some educational modules on a specific niche idea or fact from Japanese life in the 7th century. Develop some basic materials, then approach (i.e. market) various schools with a great presentation on these modules. This would create income and develop individual learning on subjects he is strong in. Creativity and resourcefulness will be rewarded. Granted, this exact example might break down with the language barrier, but you get my drift.

Developing an entrepreneurial mindset is not just for self-employment. This same proactive attitude is needed within organizations (intrapreneurialism). Always look for a better way to do your job. And again, have the confidence to tackle new material (learn, unlearn, relearn)

More Perspectives on Top Skills

The ‘Big Five’ dimensions from organizational psychologists:

• Extraversion
• Emotional stability
• Agreeableness
• Will to achieve
• Openness to experience

There is D.A.T.A. (Desires, Abilities, Temperament and Assets)

• Desire – what do I really want to do with my life? What is my irrepressible passion?
• Abilities – what do I do best; what am I really good at?
• Temperament – what are the kinds of activities and situations that energize me?
• Assets – what are my assets? What are my soft skills that make me unique as a person? Job Shift, William Bridges

There are the ‘Nine C’s’

1. Communication skills
2. Connectivity and connective skills
3. Collaborative attitude and skills
4. Convening and coordinating skills
5. Congeniality and collegiality
6. Caring for and championing clients
7. Coaching and consulting skills
8. Creativity
9. Credibility

Managing Effectively in a Networked World, Journal:Public Manager, 2007

Thank you; a very useful insight.