Kudos to the Catalonian administration for taking the brave step to ban bull-fighting ! The ”Art’” of bull-fighting, Ernest Hemmingway notwithstanding, is cruel, demean the human spirit of fair play, futile, inane and anachronistic. The image of the heroic matador (yes, it is just an image) since he only comes in at the last moment of the bull’s life to deliver the killing blow. The bulk of the pre-killing has already been done by the bull ring clowns, the brown-white mottled cows that hustled out coward (but smart) bulls who live to fight another day, and done by the picadors to, with their lances, cut the shoulder muscles (appropriately left or right shoulder) so that the doomed bull has no choice but to charge in a straight line towards the ‘”macho” matador who does the Pasa Doble before plunging his sword into the neck of the bull, who has been spouting blood anyway, from the wounds inflicted by the picadors and novice apprentice matadors.
I attended my first and last bull-fight in 1986 in Madrid … Never never again .

I would like to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. My Christmas wish ? Will the real St Nicholas stand up . … No, not the current one in the red costume with white fur trimmings which had its origin in one of Coca Cola’s advertisement in the 1930’s, in Esquire magazine (I believe). In this age of trust and transparency, I think it only fair for our children to be told the truth. The multi-nation Large Hadron Collider in Europe is trying to find the Higgs bosons (a.k.a. God’s particles), trying to increase our understanding of what happened in the femtoseconds just after the big bang. In this context, isn’t it ironical that even Heisenburg’s uncertainty principles and quantum mechanics will not be able to explain how, at every Christmas eve, year after year, hundreds and more likely, thousands of Santas make their appearances all over the world, simultaneously ? Aren’t we implanting false memories in the minds of our young children when they are at a very impressionable age ? And here we are, as adults, deriding those who believe in UFO’s !

For Idris Jala, it is equally as daunting. The Malaysian government is made up of 26 Ministries, employing about nearly 900,000 civil servants.
Setting up KPI’s for each individual Ministry alone is commendable, but this is not enough. The Key Result Areas(KRA’s) and, more significantly, the needs of the individual Malaysian citizen, cut across the silos of various Ministries and Agencies. For the first time, perhaps, Ministers, Department Heads, officers and government employees need to understand the meaning and implications of INTER-DEPENDENCE, to be continuously aware that their performances are dependent on mutual and collaborative efforts with their colleagues beyond the comfort zones of their respective departments.

THIS PRESENT AN EXCITING CHALLENGE IN COMMUNICATIONS AND IN MANAGING INDIVIDUAL EGOS AND SELF INTEREST, GETTING PEOPLE TO CHANGE THEIR THINKING FROM “ME” TO “WE”, FROM “INSIDE-OUT” TO “OUTSIDE-IN” THINKING.

With respect to the number of human communication channels and relationships that Idris Jala has to manage and mobilise to a common target, there will be over 350 relationships just for the 26 Ministries alone. You, my esteemed readers may like to do the arithmetics for the relationships to be built and nutured among the 900,000 civil servants.

To Datuk Seri Idris Jala, Supremo Uno of our Government’s KPI’s, I would like to wish all the best and “gambatte kudasai”. Happy Merdeka to All.

The Eagle, the Wau and the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Today, the 31st of August 2009, the 52nd Anniversary our country’s Independence from the British. Two days ago, our Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak appointed Datuk Seri Idris Jala as Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and, more interestingly, appointed him to be the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Performance Management Delivery Unit. In other words, Idris Jala is now the supremo to ensure the effective implementation of the Government’s system of evaluating the key performance indicators (KPI’s) of its Ministers and heads of Agencies,in various key result areas. Idris Jala was the CEO of Malaysian Airlines(MAS), whose logo is a stylised WAU, the kite, originating from the state of Kelantan, much loved by Malaysians. Idris Jala was instrumental in turning around MAS’ nightmares from its worst loss in financial year ended Dec 31, 2005 to a record profit of RM 851(1Rm=0.28USD) million at end of 2007.

We will all be rooting for his success, as, in some way, his task is almost as daunting as sending the first man to the moon.

When Eagle landed on Tranquility Bay on 20th July, 1969, it was the culmination of; nine years in the making, “, a spaceship that had about 5,600,000 moving parts(even if all of them functioned at 99.9% reliability, we could still expect 5,600 defects), US 24 billion spent on Newtonian mechanics, slide rule mathematics, the watchfulness of 60,000 Nasa chiefs,scientists and engineers, and the labour of 400,000 men and women employed by 20,000 private contractors.”

FROM WHICH EVER WAY YOU LOOK AT IT, THE SHEER MAGNITUDE OF KPI’S THAT HAD TO BE MANAGED AND DRIVEN IS MIND-BOGGLING, DON’T YOU THINK?

… First moon landing, continued (please refer to my previous posting, 45 seconds ago). This event was for me, both an epiphany and the fusion of science fiction and reality. Most of you would have remembered that Startrek debuted a year ot two before man first landed on the dusty surface our Earth’s satellite, a surface “untouched by human hands” for three and a half billion years, ever since the Big Bang. I grew up reading the Space Cadet series, swooning over Tomorrowland in Disneyland, marvelled at their movie of space travel (I still  remember their version of  our now the International Space Station - a thin giant doughnut rotating with a giant sauge as its axix/hub). I relished the opening up of my imagination by Isaac Asimov, with his I-robot series (who can forget the robot on the moon who formed his own religious cult, waiting in anticipation to convert  the next batch of astronauts cum maintenance personnel, who just happen to be Germans), and the Foundation saga; Arthur C  Clark’s  “Childhood End” really got me thinking . .. and a host of Sci Fi writers, that included Ray Bradbury, Vonnegut, Bliss et al. There were, of cause, the movies (black and white, with special effects done with props, claymation, superimposition and sound effects effected through smart mixing of sine waves), . .. yes those movies like “The Day the Earth Stood Still (no, no, nooo … not the Kneu Reeves one); “The Forbidden Planet”, Robbie the Robot was cute (and so was Terri Moore); ” Journey Beyond Planet Earth” (the benevolent Aliens were much much earlier with their elongated craniums that Dan Ackroyd’s cone heads) and not forgetting the late mornings “cheap matinees” cliff-hangers like the Adventures of Flash Gordon ! That moment when Armstrong and Aldrin stepped on the surface of the moon, it was an allahuakbar moment . .. NOW WE CAN ACTUALLY REACH THE STARS !

“Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed”; the roar of thousands of voices filled London’s Trafalgar Square. After holding our breath quite a few minutes (it seemed that way), in unison, we started breathing again ! That milisecond, I and the milling horde in Trafalgar Square, and I am sure almost the whole human the race, we , epiphanously, knew that our world, our Earth, and the way we look at it, have changed forever. Imagine the New Year’s Eve crowd multiplied a hundred times in terms of common elation, boisterousnous and sense of wonder. It was surreal and at the same time, so real ! We actually clapped together, shook hands, some kissed each other . .. The second-by-second journey was displayed on a giant screen  (projected by barco, I supposed) put up for the purpose. Later, my friends and I actually walked backed to our hostel, Malaysia Hall at Bryonston Square, with takeaway Burgers from Wimpy’s (there was no McDonald then), to continue following the exploits of Armstrong, Aldrin and the ever watchful eyes and ears of Michael Collins. Question- where were you on the night of the 20th of July 1969 ?

Hello again, often times I have been asked, “It is well and good, this balanced scorecard thing and key performance indicators (KPI’s), but do we get started ?” At the risk of stating the obvious, I always say, start at the end. What is the final Value that you are giving to your client, customer, friend, family, etc. Then work backwards; Value < Outcome< Output < Process < Input. It is amusing to hear colleagues quoting their performance measure as, say, the number of meetings that they have organised in the last 12 months. That’s not IT ! What is IT is the number of quality and actionable decisions that resulted from these meetings. These decisions have to be factored by the “cost” of these meetings. How to calculate the cost of each of these meetings? Use the formula, Cost (meet)= {(average monthly salary of each attendees/<no of working days>8hrs) x duration, in hours, of meeting} x number of people attending the meeting. The resulting may be shocking, especially if the meeting ends in an impasse or the (sic) decision to set up a sub-committee or task force to further investigage the issues. It is possible that meetings will be more cost and time efficient if they are held in rooms without chairs and airconditioning !

KPI’s or key performance indicators, are back in vogue again. Of course they are related to the bigger picture of the Balanced Score Card (BSC), ala Norton and Kaplan.

Organisations like the Multimedia Develpoment Corporation (MDC, now re-labelled as MDeC) implemented BSC in 2003 and based on the four drivers of the BSC; namely the  Client/Customer satisfaction, the Financial Performance, the development of Internal Talent/Enterprise Capital and the development of Internal Processes; found that the BSC and its related KPI’s is a useful and practical tool to evaluate the company’s performance in fulfilling its responsibility to its shareholders and stakeholders. Of course, it goes without saying, that this evaluation should be done on everyone, (pardon the pun), across the board, to include all members of the Board of Directors as well.

One may think that, in order to understand the above concepts above, understand enough so one can actually put them into practice, one has to read the works of Nortan/Kaplan and even to employ consultants, local or international.  I cannot  deny that one needs  professional help  to complement  the effort of your  own  internal  staff.

At the same time, while pondering the issues of BSC and KPI’s, I cannot help remembering the lady my wife, son and I met in the Gunung Batur rest area in Bali who explained that the ordinary Balinese live by the simple but surprisingly effective set of  principles of  Fikir, Bicara dan Laksana.

If you think about it, it is a no-brainer to appreciate that you have to have all three to be effective, either as an individual, as a member of your family or community or a a stakeholder (that includes staff of any corporation).

If you “Fikir sahaja”, you become just “syok sendiri”, living in la la land. If you ” Bicara sahaja”, you become the archetypical N.A.T.O. person, No Action, Talk Only. If you “Laksana sahaja”, then I say to you, Hello Mr Bull in the China shop!

So think (fikir), conceptualise, strategise and plan; communicate (bicara), collaborate to get buy-in and team commitment, and the go for it, implement (laksana) the plan and follow through.

The key performance indicators will be the organic and natural outcome of the Balinese personal principles of Fikir, Bicara dan Laksana !

All the best for the week-end !

Under the new leadership of YAB Datuk Seri Najib, we hope that Implementation will meet Vision. Putting in KPI’s (key performance indicators) under the framework of an effective Balance Score Card, (in which output, outcome and value creation are the real measures), it is a great step in the right direction

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