4 Dead Ducks
This is my dream last night; I dreamt of an unfamilar artist who called and said he will send me preserved ducks for Chayi - he told me this is the local delecacy, then Fr. my driver asked my signiture and charp to claimed the good from some office - he said the description of item is 4 ducks......... 4 dead ducks... in Fukanese or Taiwanese dilect, it means -- Bloody Death; it pronounced Shi-A. what a strange and wiered dream.
Outsiders' advise
C. and I had a long lunch; we never had enough time to share, we covered almost everything in life, some of them were so privacy and some of them were so controversial -- nothing across the line, the line between man and woman - 2 married people sharing things beyond their spouse -- we had an itimacy forum ; much closer then YPO or any association in the world; I tried not to talk too much and to listen; I managed to listen and asked ; then I observed more, to run ones own business is not like farming ; you can't seed it, plant it, wait for them to grow and worried about the nature disaster .... to run a business of your own, you must track the trend, catch the wind and ride on the best opportunity in time---- this is what she said to me; the insight she released hold my breath for a while. am I seeding my own business ? or I am in the right track to catch the wind? well, maybe Side Media is in between....
I asked her opinion about the help hand to Nylon; she shake her head and advise me, if this is not from bottom of my heart, then, don't do it, the cost is too high to afford; I asked the CTS situation, she said if I wish to run my own business and consider the time will come in short, then don't take this offer as it might not direct benefit to your business; she gave me a book " Tht story telling factor " and told me this is a great book ; and I happen to bring music sampler and the YPO introduction file to her, another fate and coincident to us. we don't have enough time to share.......
B. was sick , the kidney stone give him a slam to his face; I remember having coffee with him last week, he told me his wife is worried about his physical status and urge him to go for a physicl examination on last Sat. and he told me that he don't know why the body can take more than he expected. and now, he have to stay in the hospital.. the manager who worked so hard.
S.'s secretary inform my assistant about one speech next week, she inform me that the Chairman of Ezfly asked me to do a 30 minutes' presentation about Ezfly on behalf of him; this is abnormal, I am neither the GM of Ezfly nor the shareholder of the entity, My presence to deliver speech is so wiered. I subtley decline the invitaiton. I don't want to push myself to an uncomfortable place.
Coffee break with new onboard manager of Call Center, she was from City Group. a 10 years experience in the call center field; the conversation begin with her adapability in the new company, then I notice her stress and presure in her job; she had the problem of trying to know all the product and industry and tried to sloved all the problems remained in Call Center, I told her my experience when working in different enviroment at the new industry and inform her not to take all the historical burdon as her own burden. and do not need to solve them all at once. Showing her empathy and appreciate the situration is good enought. the 40 minutes conversation may give her a relief, well, I hope.
Today is our 17th wedding anniverslly, during the ping pong session, I send my gratitude to Tom - who is now our ping pong team member and my wedding witness ( he was my colleage classmate before ); take an early leave home , arrvied by 9:30 pm, we had a Shabu Shabu late supper together and celebrate our day to remember.
Be you service will delay, big bug and unslove problems. M.'s resign leave a bad impression to us, he is not take serious attitude toward the project he iniatived , run away without a accoutable response. I decided to withdraw my farewell dinner to him, this is not worthy.
New Partner
It's all by chant; and it's all by accidential encounter; this afternoon, I presented a revised Side Media proposal to C. the Madamn of YPO new Charpter Chairman; she agree with the 20% of share in our company and raised the capital to 5 millions NT. the Paid-in will be 1.25 millions NT.; Now, the team of investor / shareholders were in place; I will go for the financial independance journey.
I told C. the whole story of this initative and the backgroud of why founding this entity; she asked lot of questions, well, I am happy, because on last page of my plan, I draft the purposes for this company, on point 4 , I emphsis on the result and process enjoyment. C. told me she have no knowledge about my investment underlines , but trust that we will making the company a happy one; I inform my wife this outcome, she's happy with this result. we also set up a Friday breakfast for 3 of us to meet - the inaugrant shareholder of Side Media.
Appointment with J. W at his company, located in the same Park on second developing area. they occupied the entire 8th floor of building G. when J. conduct his presentation, he is so familiar with their product / strength / nitch / growing engine; a very capable person who lead the company for 5 years and turn the revenue 10th fold , from a 20 millions US company to a 200 millions US company; they position themselves a design house for networking provisition / configuration / software enbeded company; a rival to AJ's Acton but seems to follow a smarter way in developing. see him at the office is totally different from see him at the YPO events. in the office, he is a professional manager ( but a little bit tired ), aggrestively introduce all the strength of the company and a good sales so too speak.
I met L. before J.W. return, L. is an old friend of mine who is now the VP and spokes person of the company. L. was the husband of J. - who passed away 2 more years ago. the strongest woman who I ever know, suffering from cancer and passing through 4 kimotheraphy before Heaven's calling. I accompany her on her last worship ceremony and having casual lunch with L. in the park. I should make appointment with him someday.... if the reunion dosen't bring back the old memory - J.W. told me last night that L. is seeing someone now - a good sign and I believe it will be blessed by J. - who love him so much. now the responsibility of taking care of this man will hand over to another lady.
Making appointment with K. as HR suffer from his straigh yet inplite attitude yesteaday, I need to told him how I feel about it and to deliver my observastion to him for the past 2 months; I don't want to anoize anyone, but would like this conversation will bring some results; so, I think it over in how to begin with the conversation; then I decided to following 2 subjects : How can I help you? and How I want you to help ? by this cross - examination dialogue, he told me his mission in the company is for helping me and to successful launch 2 new project. then he told me his personal goal - to either obtain the chance to head one business unit or be the top management in the company; he want to double confirmed if this message ever been told by Tokyo - I put a doubt face gesture to him, and he follow my body language and paraphased that the message might be subtly filttered. well, My resposne is : at least I fully noted now; I don't want to give him too much of wild thougt and I do understand the departure of COO leave a vacancy of imagination -- who will replace ? who will take up this position? who will be the number 2 of the company? I firmly told him that for the time being, I won't consider anyone to replace this vancancy, the COO position will be freezed. and no director in our company is qualified to success him - even him, the reason ? because he is not fit in the organization yet. and I wish all the directors can be COO's and helping the company to next level. I put off the fire of desire, extinglish the desire of power and have him understand that I will lead and control the reporting line until I am comfortable of the potential succesor.
Determination is drawing a real line in your heart. again, I didn't waste any minutes in my life. I feel great.
Tomorrow is our 18the wedding anniverly - the offical date we registrated our merriage, I sent a short message to my wife and we went out for a qucik but happy late supper.
Our house is undering fixing, it's been 5 years since we move in, the water leaking problem getting serious. our interior designer asked workers to dig the wall, fixing the leak, wife is so mad about the poor quality the designer did last time, holes all over the 3 floors, make her so uncomfortable - me either.
What a Day
I stayed at the office until 9:00 pm, a very rare situation after establishing of the company 4 years ago; this not the blue Monday, but a busy and complicate Monday.
To begin with the day, I made up my mide to wipe out the gesture in my heart, after publish the blog in the morning, I knocked COO's office door and spend half a hour with him for the " Mis-understanding " or " Mis-communication " happened last Friday; he told me it took 2 days to resloved the upset; I share the same with him and advice him how I value the friendship in between and how I wish his tenure in Taiwan not only a Happy Ending but a Perfect Memory; he insisted that he can seperate personal and business issue and re-assured the friendship will not be changed; and Frankly inform me he is doing what he have to, even it will stir a few persons feeling... No matter how correct the message he delivered, but I have succefully overcome the hurdle in me. at least, I can release from this painful gesture.
Mangers' meeting in the morning, I wasn't happy about 2 issues - The inventoring result and the resource allocation planning; the company is here for 4 years, we never succefully counting our inventory correct, every inventory check will result to a write-off of assest or product. I don't know why and I am tired of all the reasons or excuses; so I told all the mangers I will be the project owner to deal with this weired situration; engineering resource allocation table is another thing -- the resouce table didn't show all the plans / project registrated in the engineering dept. it make all the division uncomfortable. it leave a blur situation of the resouce allocation efficiency and fairness. I asked they to add one more page to illustrate all the under discussion project and check how much time the company spend in discussion instead of action - for certian priority items. we need to escalate to higher management level and make decision upon. this ambiguilty stayed for 3 months already after the newly on board experiate from Tokyo.
He is the problem; HR manager - very mature and senior manager send me a note in strong and unset tone, she inform me if the person can't be adjusted to what he should do, she will resign from her post- I asked her to my office and soothe her feeling ; the turth is : her professionism have been challenge by a ousider, and this person don't really handle his own job well. the aggresivelly intrugle to other division head make him the unpopular person in the company, it will direct impact on his mission completion.
I need to talk to him today -- before any J. colleage jump into this hot water.
A meeting with A. at Sony BMG, he told me R. will step down by end of June. this is the path every professional manager must go through, include me someday some how...
THe most uncomfortable day
This is the statement sent by COO in the mail; the statement create enormouse gesture in my heart; to build strong personality dosen't equal to build a strong man; I digested what he wrote and tried to erase the impact it hit; if this is the most uncomfortable day in his tenure in Taiwan, the the past weekend is a torture to me.
I value the friendship - Yes, it's a very old fashioned way of treating morden people in nowadays; I also accepted that people have their own value to work itself; we don't need to agree upon everything in working; but how I wish the human nature won't be distorted under the differences of working behavior.
Maybe I am too naive in this diretion, and it make me hard to get over it; standing on higher ground makes you see better; observe more make you heart wild open; of cause, I understand all these therory in common. but I need to face it this morning and show him how I feel -- this is a tough situation; I left him a voice message on Sat. noon after the exercise , but there's no response by midnight last night; if this is the way he hanld business or friendship - a professional fashion. then , I have to know how to making next 2 months a happy ending for both of us; this it all I can do.
Following is what I plan to do after publishing the blog : go to his office, sit down with him and tell him how I feel these days:
1. Why should I make him so upset ? as he will leave the company soon.
2. Why I express colleages' feeling to him ? this is a direct communication and this is how we value each other - to tell the truth, nothing but the truth.
3. If he disagree with my commets. then forget it. as a friend, I value the time we spend together and cherish the contribution he made to this company.
4. any wording make him mad? if writting message can't really bridge what we tried to say, let's handle it right now.
5. I won't be here forever, neither does him. let's don't make his stay in Taiwan a miserable memory - it will be a life long regret if we don't fix it today.
6. I am fine with all his decision today and will take whatever responsibilty to me and account for the right or worng decision in the company.
7. Take a few days off and bring back the calm and easy mood to office.
I am not sure if the apporch strike, but this is the road map helping me to handle this difficulity. I don't know how he will response and I will not escape from this responsibility. this is me, Face the problem and you see it clearly; running from it, it will chase you and can only see the blur of the problem.
Determination -- Draw a real line in your heart, and make everything perfect in your life.
