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WAYS OF LIVING WELL AS A MANAGER
APRIL 11, 1999 -
THE STAR
LIFE is not always the way it is supposed to be. It is the way
it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.
There was a time when human life ended when we reached the 30s
Alexander the Great, Jesus, Shih Huang Ti and crossing 40 was
considered old. But the aging script is being rewritten as
life expectancy rises. It is now in excess of 70 years.
In time to come, with medical advances, man can expect to live
beyond 90 to 100 years.
Even more phenomenal is the fluidity of age. We are no longer
separated by age into students, workers and retirees as we can
now run a marathon or even go into space from 17 to 70, earn
and learn from 18 to 80, and marry from 19 to 90.
As we age we mellow, become more introspective and gain
complexity, depth and wisdom. And when these are combined with
a record of personal achievements community and social
contributions, and a sense of having made a difference in the
lives of others we become also happy that our lives have
significance.
Human happiness, community Well being and national prosperity
lie in choosing to live well.
Mid career managers in Asia have, unfortunately, been in too
much of a rush to succeed. Their measure of success is
material gains. We know of the status symbols of the 5C's of
Singapore cash, credit card, car, condo and club membership.
In varying degrees, the same applies to managers throughout
Asia. It is only when they chronologically move into their
third and fourth seasons that it dawns on them that they have
been pursuing success without sufficient thought for
happiness.
Whereas success is more measurable by external yardsticks,
happiness is more elusive as it measures inner well being.
There are, indeed, many successful managers, but it may be
quit difficult to identify managers who are both successful
and happy.
It has been said that human wisdom can only be obtained
through experience, that we have little choice but to go
through a process of maturation to finally gain the insight.
This is as parochial a thinking as classifying young people as
economically active and old people as dependents.
Wisdom is not necessarily a function of age if we take steps
to learn from the wisdom of the ages, to learn from others, to
reflect on our experience and to change our lives.
Living well is a function of how we conduct ourselves in life.
A measurement of living well can be adapted from my principle
of the three Qs IQ, EQ and SQ.
We all know about IQ and we do need intelligence to progress,
particularly in science and technology in the drive towards
modernization.
But for all the greatness of modernization, the real danger is
the creation of silos of specialization. The downside of
progress through micro specialization is rapid obsolescence
with great difficulty to move across silos with all its
restrictions and professional firewalls.
Unlike other professions, management draws on other
disciplines. You may start off with a discipline like
accounting or engineering, but will begin to draw from the
contributions of economics, psychology, sociology and
technology as you become more of a generalist in your progress
towards general management.
General management is the platform for bridging the silo
specialists of manufacturing, finance, marketing and human
resource. To accomplish this, much more than IQ is needed. We
not only need to use all our brains but borrow from others all
the brains we can muster.
What will be needed is EQ or emotional intelligence, to relate
to others in the organization and in society, and to be
comfortable with relationships the stuff of networking, of
personal discipline and team building.
Another distinction between management and the other
professions is that as managers move up the corporate ladder,
they inherit more power over other resources financial and
human.
On the other hand, a general medical practitioner becomes a
specialist and his resource is his specialist skill.
A manager's power, therefore, lies is his command over
financial and human resources which should be used to achieve
corporate objectives. This managerial power can be abused as
managerial discretion can serve personal rather than corporate
interests.
We, therefore, need SQ, or spiritual intelligence, if we are
to remain as professionals and not become mercenaries. We need
to be true to ourselves to live by a code of conduct, to
behave properly, to do the right thing and to stand for
something.
If we do not stand for something, we will fall for anything.
The current crisis of the International Olympic Committee can
be traced to a lack of SQ in some of the committee members.
Likewise, part of the cause of the on going Asian economic
crisis has to do with greed, lack of transparency, corruption
and the erosion of fundamental human values.
Living well is to live smart. Our common resource is time.
Using our time productively to produce value for ourselves and
for others, taking time to enjoy the wonders that surround us
and making time for our family, friends and the less
privileged these are the ways to living well for the manager.
As we prolong life, what should concern managers is not
absolute time but the quality of life. This article is an
excerpt from a speech by Dr Tarcisius Chin, CEO of MIM,
delivered in Melbourne to MBA students of RMIT University on
Jan 5.
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