The strong personality
A strong personality doesn't build a strong man; yestdary, after the coffee with J. I send a mail to COO and advise him the feeling and voices from the new dept. maybe I tried to hard to let him feel all the result today and all we see now were part of our decisions, so, we can't escape from the responsibility... am I too strong in expressing this feeling ? or if I using the wrong wording? or if I too much support the division? the response from him is so negtive; his return email twice demostrate a strong rage and the " umcomfortable " ambience floating all over the letter; he even stated that yesterday was " The most uncomfortable day " in the 4 years of working -- I know it means the relationship with me.
I am not feeling comfortable also; but I should come up with a hight position to deal with this situation; no because he will leave soon, but because I don't want to leave him a bad impression about the company; not necessary me........... When you feel uncomfortable about someone or something, most of the time, they feels the same too.
This is a critical, very critical moment; let me think how to end it.
Nylon memorial house
With A.J.'s support; Nylon foundation is undergoing a value transfer project; a herriage of passing the young spirit to generation next; a generation now the elder identified as dysfunctional and without goal in life; if not for AJ; I might never visit this house of memory or a house of castraphe; Provoke Taiwan Indepence 20 years ago and burned himself to death 16 years ago; this is Nylon - young and passinate mayters in the histroy of Taiwan Independence... when reading the introduction by now, you may put me in the Green party and have the second thoughts that I am in fond of Nylon's behavior; to be frank with you; I never recongized that committe suicide is a great way to promote one's ideology, I do agree the impact is huge and the influence is there; the momorial house is where Nylon burn himself, Ken, the person who taking after this foundation show me around, I am astonished to see the never been recovered room where Nylon lies. the dark room, ashes and broken / smoken wall; the foundation keep it the same way in order to make all the visitors embrance the fleshing history.
Now the Green wins. they are the ruling party now; but the way to Independence still way to go; 16 years ago, the widow Mrs. Yeah who took over husband's mission and putting herself to the political / social movement and become a professional politician so too speak; she was Minister of Communication and Transportation; Deputy Prime Ministor and Chief of Hakka Commissionary; but today, in front of us, she cried, cried so hard, this is the place she lost her love and she's so afraid to bring back this memory; she told us, there only daughter stand beside her father on the day of sacrification; the trauma is there, but her daugher grow up already, the memory can't get rid of, she is so afraid to lose her daughter, so , she cried, cried so hard;
AJ want to reach his hand to this dream, helping the Nylon fundation passing the light and to education the young Taiwanese, life must have goal, life must be meaningful; AJ sight to everyone and said, he don't really know what's the meaning of life ? I followed with the answer: This is the main reason why we spending our entire life serching; serching for the meaning of life, value of life until the end of our human life.
2 meeting with my own business - Lu is loose, I can tell she's not well prepared, simply because of the deadline of meeting me, she have to come up with a proposal or something to talk, it's rough and it's not a plan yet; J. is different type, he is energetic and with strong ambitious to conquer the world -- with the music and talent; our conversation interuppted by the ring of my wife -- Sound had a problem, this is the first time school -- the Forest School asked parent to take him home for a day - The most serious panalty in school. because his behavior, the retaliation and rage and can't control of himself....
I have to cancel all my meeting and appointment after and rush back home, accompany her to the school; when seeing Sound, his mother cried, cried so hard, she hurt so much.....
If Sound can't be accepted by institution like Forest School, then I don't know where in the world he can be? Really...........
Singing a song in your heart everyday
I spend decent time to go over the gesture inside my heart with my wife last night; the delimun stays for a while; it was cause when sitting at my car on my way back home last night. it was like 10:00 pm, I just done my Wedsneday ping pong exercise, but don't know why the echo of J. uncomfortable feeling hit me , it hit me hard, I took his position, think at his shoes and response the way he does. to be honest, I am shrinking to his mind and lower my view when taking this apporoach. there are too many why and I don't have an answer; the interactive with my wife works out. she pull me out of the trap and advise me not to lower my postion and create the internal competiton among directors. I should not stand in the war of talents. especially when I am still running this bridgage; she warned not not to trap in the power game. fear about someone's stealing my power and put me in a dangerous position; she said, the more aggresive I show to people that I want to hold the line; the clear my people see me in a unsteady situation; Calm down. steady and act as normal as possible and be the executive of the company - I am and I should perform exactly what it should be. then we follow the conversation of deploying my own business. haste makes waste; she feels that I always take the physical appearance issue as the excute tried to escape the entreprenureship or didn't had the courage to go my own; I had to explain to her the cost and risk involved and told her , not physically appear in the foreign country, you will never get the job done and the investment will be out of control, how can we afford to dispose what we have ? in fact, we don't " Have "... she don't really understand as she never worked in corporation before and she don't understand how a multinational company like us consume my time and energy... However, as the determination defined. I will do everything perfect from the time I made up my mind and I believe I can do it.
PTS lunch with 2 big head, Chairman updated me the situration of CTS and the stock release / transfer legistive process; they have 70% of confidence to reach the goal. but to my knowledge, the final candidate for running PTS 2- or CTS will never be decided by the PTS board alone; the political exercise must be huge and it will follow the model of Minister of Education / Prime Minister and President's power play-- who's call and who's in charge... I simply advise these smart guy... the scheduled to make my decision -- well, if everything follow their strategic plan. the earliest will be Nov. or Dec. and the latest will be next Summer. I simply leave it as an option. just an option. I am not sure if my passion to pursuit the public interest will remian strong then, or my struggle in life and work will force me to take another road.? well, you never know.
Learning to be a global leader
Visit T. with his Division Director C. at Lin Ko Chang Kang Memorial Medical Center; as Head of HR subtlly suggest me to pay a visit to him; I decided to go as soon as I can; I am not why the hospital put him at the containminate floor, so I decided ( well, again follow my wife's idea ) not to bring flower or fruit basket -- a trandition to visit patient in the hospital; instead, I issue 2000 NT as the greeting red envolope.T. losting weight significantly; but he covered his body with a blanket. his mother stay with him and she told us. T's belly blow up like a pregnet woman, the medicine prescribe by the doctor dosen't help, they only have limited information about his situration -- a tumor somewhere near the spine and only 0.5 cm to a artiral. doctors are hasitating in taking operation and worried about the potential huge blood eruption. the passive treatment make him stay for 2 weeks and according to his mother. T's pessmistic about his life; 31 years old young boy should not give up the passion for life; my encourgement should contribute some efforts -- I told T. the speech I attended last year, Henry Huang - Medical PhD. and a famous cancer treament professor; he told us the defination of " Health " doesn't mean you are well from sickness, but an attitudet about " How you handle the decease " and how you co-exist with them; pleasant and positive attitude is the best medicine in the world.
My last converstaion with him at his bed was wishing he recover soon and earn the money back to me -- a compensation to his red envelop today; he smiles; and I tell him how I wish to celebrate his 3rd anniversity at our company, that's July 15 -- he was so surprise to this, how I know the day he report to duty; I can see his eye wet and I wish he can return to celebrate with us.
I want to thanks my wife for giving me good advise before the dinner with expetraiate , I pre-empty my sterotype mentality when sitting in the car with K. as T. is working on new project, he said to us that he will be late for 30 minutes. so it leave us a good time to chat alone. K. shows his honesty to me and explained to me his Mission in Taiwan - a foreign country, and how an expatrait should perform and achieve- this mission base assignemnt is flexiable to himself / the company and inclusive of the factor of family; the decision may change from the collective factors such as enviromental / organization / mission completion / familly issues; the prerequisite statement is for building the groud before discussion the " Successor " issue to me - the ambition leak out from his mouth a few day which make me uncomfortable , and the communication between him and HR before my consent was another stone in the water; now adding up the departure of COO -- it all direct to a plan -- a plan to take over , this is why make me so uncomportable, we promote directors locally is for building a fair groud for talent to compete in health enviroment, that include expetratite. I am not in the fashion of giving anyone preveliage in this power play - performance will show who's the leader of the company next; his second point was every expetrait have a tenure -- obligation to perform in foreign country and complusory to return to their hom country; so in the sense, they are here to contribute and to learn.. it all make sense. the competiton won't be with locals. they are not rivals.
As I didn't hold any objective before the conversation, so I accept and digest his mind word by word; my response is : to find a person in mid-manager level helping engireering is fine. to set the mission base monitoring time table for his goals here is fine either; I am listing again but with a wild open heart; I don't really want to creat enemy; T. joined the dinner by 8:45 pm. that's about the time we finished everthing, he came and we order 2 more hot dishes; then the interesting converstaion encountered, I asked them to profile me as a typical Japanese, I want to know how they see me from their viewpoint. the ansewr comes : First . Suw... the nice guy I know in Tokyo, mild, no temper and no ambition; Seocnd, they point out L. our channel head - what a surprise, they both agree that L. is like Japanese - especially his thinking and responsing process is just like Japanese, and I am the type of him. this is interesting.
This is why I need to learn how to work and understand people from different country, different culture and backgroud; I told them on the dinner table, lauguage is not a barrier. human nature share some common attritubtion, how you show your feeling to others. they can feel. and we can feel as well.
Greeting from Yuang Chin
Her warm regards and sentimental greeting arrvied this morning. punchality by 8:00 am, like poem or wine; you can't hardly image she is suffering from cancer twice and now in the process of recovery; so , if this is the class of life, how can I complain? I shall cherish, feeling happiness and value what I had today and respect to what I see today. the tide now withdraw and I am felling much better now.Wife sleep for another 2 hours in the morning, she's exhausted for past few days, calling her at the health club, only one advise : Don't exclude someone from your heart, otherwise , You can't be fair to everyone; yes. she maybe right. I need more communication with him. no matter what hidden agenda behind.The L. rep run into me in the morning and she asked I have time with her ? with a few seconds thought, I told her to make an appointment with my assistant, the spontaneous response save my time. we met by 11:00am , my assistant scheduled 30 minutes private time for us -- she complains, As we know ( We stand for the entire company ) she is a trouble in the operation, I had bad feeling before. her shouting and yelling to managers is a never-be-forget or forgive encouter; so, I listen, you know, I listen only. no response, no comments and no suggestions; simply let her express his feeing - to be more specifice - her emotion; the session closed in 10 minutes or even less; she walked out my office with a poker face -- why co-workers under the same roof have to suffer her attitude ? just because she knows law or she represent law? My assistant smile at me when seeing her out. " Change ' is such a difficult thing and manage change is even harder.I am going to visit T. by 3 pm. hope my visit will bring him some courage.
The tide is high again
Receving the information from Tokyo that this time for sure, our Chariman of the board will step down and release his corporate relationship with us; Y. is the person who I directly report to and who offer my contract 3 times in this company; in addition to this change, comes another news that his successor is the person who running the Taiwan operation , the man conduction micro management scheme and a very troblesome person. If I have to report to him and to sustain the endless questioning, I may concider to leave this company earlier than the contractural obligation; I am not comfortable about the mail copy to the person who re-assign to our operation in April; I have a strong objection to his take over COO position because the games he play and the dis-honesty behavior which I discovered;
My wife soothe me down and advise me not to take front confrontation with this person as I am not as low as him; even I have the answers in my heart, I don't need to show to everybody in public, the only thing I should do is do more for myself from now on, as Japanese had their own agenda and they will never counted you as their brothers; A.'s departure from JP is so vivid. I am going to step on the road after him? C. called and asked about the private company. I send her a message and show my supports to her after the kick-out party, she was doing her best and I should support her anyway; the change of corporate management push me to aggrestively networking with other people, now the sense of crisis is high and I don't have time to waste.
C.T called in late afternoon asked if I am interested in handling on cable broadcasing corporation with a nimble operation of 20 people, over the phone, I tell him I am not interested , but for the reason of the industry, but not the scale of management; he feel much comfortable, wife is surprise about my instant trun down the inquriry, this is again a commitment, determination and faith in myself.
The speech in NTU this afternoon went well, preparation makes perfect, the lesson in Shanghai is so valuable, my attitude to everything - especially in public speech is in very prudent attitude. either turn down the invitation or accept it in a longer window and prepare will in advnce; to tell the whole picture of entertainment industry within 2 hours is a challenge, I managed to wake up almost all the student. Professor Chu is creative enough, she asked one team to so an introduction of me before opening my speech, 10 minutes of Me and the Topic I am going to present really interesting, it is a very refleshing experience and and good interactive session of class design. after the speech, Professor Chu walked me down the stairway and told me how impress the speech I delivered and told me on the Q and A session, I managed to fix one of a trouble student at class, by pharaphasing his question and respone with a challenge. all the student burst out laughing, I thought they were laugh at my reaction, instead, they are happy to see this boy been fixed by me - well, I don't mean to humiliate anyone, but to adopt a humon way of interpretation, but somehow the purpose served. I don't know why.
Wife worked so hard on Rice Dumping, but this time, the taste wan't so good, I eat 4 of them for dinner to show my support, this it too much time consuption, for last 3 days. worked day and night... I told her let's make it a 5 years routine, doing it every 5 years.
Wife advise me not to create emily in our company. so I will invited these J. colleage to dinner as scheduled, I should not be notice that I am not happy with anything and I should causully tream them well ...
Finish the Coco concert inquiry this afternoon, Mama called in late afternoon and leave a message, I knew she want to get the answer about venue before booking the air ticket. as the entertainment news today headliner is Coco is engaging with Bruce.. this make me feel the concert idea wasn't right, I honest told her that the venue is not available for the months of Sep. Oct. and it might be too windy or it may bump into raining season in Nov. so, we better quit the idea of doing concert this year.... when reply with the answer, they cancle the visit the Taipei on Friday, now I have more time to enjoy staying in office....
The Wedding
J. is the director of his own wedding last night; wiht the theme " Love and Touch ", he and S. making their wedding an ambience of party, I think they are happy about the rusult; the detail and program were hilarious, and almost all the co-worker are coming form our company - from receptist; cashier, make-up artist; sovurnir designer and of course - the young couple themselves. during the wedding, they present a film taking from the romantic and unforgetable wedding proposal-- it was a winter night at a typhoon day, the proposal taking place at sky wheel -- a newly open landmark of Taipei located next to Marima Mall; J.'s friend -- our staff helping to raise the huge sign board - " S. will you marry me? " when they reach the highest point at the sky. the unconventional proposal get the media coverage and all the helping hands were invited to the wedding as special guests. the wedding last for 3 more hours. it's fun, it is.
Before dinner, our Forum took place at ACC. this time hosted by D. Yang. we haven't been sit still and sharing for quite a long time, the updates were exciting, we open to each other and shadring life / work / family again, to deal with mid-life crisis is on top of the agenda. A. decided to go his own way and quit the JP senior executive position. S. concider to take the same route in one year. D. became a father of twins but wish to further develop his company, Chew share his insight about the chain / franchise business development in China and his ambition to do more in China; D. T. dream of making the traditional taxitile business a branding business; A. passing through his struggle with life and business and looking forward to a brigher side of future. it seems everyone had a lot to do.... do more. I caughted for a while and tried the heaten Coke with pure lemonade -- Hay, It worked;
A. show me the poem he wrote during the udpate, I extended with a line : Drifting like a season bird; but they never get lost........ he like it; and I show my personal note to A. about the sorrow of professonal manager. we share the same.
Wife is preparing the Rice Dumping for the coming Dragon Boat Festival ( it's on Sat. ), she didn't do it for years, I don't know why she want to do it, but this should be the best rice dumping ever existing in the market -- I gurantee ... I may have it tonight.
Kick out party
As mentioned, a busy weekend this week, finish the exercise routine at TGS, I met with Henry at the famous tender pork currey house; I miss the taste for sometimes and can't help to set our lunch meeting here; 2 hours conversation covered varies of topics, from his genius insight about digital content - how to make it slim / brand new / fast and cheap to win the final battle of the network application war -- the mobile device ( mobile phone mainly ) ; he is smart and ambitious, I don't know why he will end up now with nothing left -- I mean, according to his statment, he is poor but insisit on building his empire, then we follow the flow to the T. issue, the girl I decided not to recruit from Shanghai due to not yet ready operation, this may make her frustrated, but my decision was to make it clear and don't lead to a bigger problem in the future; maybe it's expense concern, maybe it's ooperation concert, but my decision is for killing the ambiguilty in between. this decesion didn't favor with his concept, in other word, his way of handling people issue. but ... nevermind. he developed a think-it-after habit , which is apporching the ending of conversation or meeting, the money issue will bring out, I am expecting this without surprise, I support him on his last 2 China trip with my own saving, but the scale of investing his company - a Chinese Herb natotech extrate skin care product is never my area of interest; I turn down his idea and told him I am not interest and have no money to dispose now.
Follow 2 hours I work on my speech next Monday, " Practice makes Perfect " is the unbeatable golden rule, the lession in Shanghai and the returning faith on NCNU speech prove it once, I will not accept speech invitation unless I have time to prepare and I am comfortable with the subject; I adjust a few slide and fine tune the logic - by re-sequence the order of slides;
Members meeting at Regent goes smoothly, met A. there and have a brief understand of why he want to leave JP. But my observation shocked me and I write it down in my Chinese Diray, now I tried to make it an English version : 「When seeing his nervous in his face, I can reflect my worried in my heart; as I know I will walked on the same path as he is taking today」, it recalled me the other day when JC chat with me with absent mind duing the thanks you lunch, he said like this : this is the fate of working at multi-national corporation, what a sorrow and what a pain, no matter how big he was, the capacity will never satisfy the empty heart; the determination is drawing the line - hard and heavy.
Party was OK, the gurduation show is fine, A. and N. didn't involved playing their role entirely, lucky enought that the sound and charactor effect paid off. I send a message to C. and show my support. I hope she is not too concern about the result.
A. open his eye poaching the target for his future, I understand how he feel and I undestand why he is doing this hunting.... this is the faith of professional manager.
