Multiple Streams of Water
In the book
The Parable of the Pipeline, the author Burke Hedges talks about the importance of creating an alternate path of income that is independent of one's primary source of income. In other words, instead of putting all the eggs into one basket (namely your job), it will be better to diversify the income dependence on one job income and to create multiple income paths that can one can have full control of.
ExampleFor example, besides John's primary job as a lectuerer, John washes cars at the local carpark and earns additional alternate income. While the control of workload, demands, and security of his role as a lectuerer at the lcoal university is not within his reach and is dependant on multiple factors of the economy, this second pipeline of income is totally controllable by him. The earnings brought in by John is proportional to the total number of hours or effort that John invest in this car washing service. If John puts in enought effort for a period of time, he may be able to set aside enough funds to employ helpers and start his own mini car washing service at the local carpark and eventually expanding to the other neighbouring carparks. This can happen simultaneously as his primary, world given, assigned and recognised role as a lectuerer at the local university.
Why is it so Important for us? : New economy shift in FocusIt is predicted that the job market in the upcoming years in Singapore will be shifty, with temporary jobs offer and the whole model will gradually moved towards a transactional (offered skills vs demand) work style. Hence, no doubt the availability of jobs in the market might be plentiful, which is determined by the performance of the local economy, the job nature might be adopting a more temporal format.
In other words, there should be lesser and lesser jobs locally that offers long term job security. The amount of job opportunites present on the market has no relation to the job securty offered by jobs.
Therefore, it is very difficult to build a career with an organisation, but it is possible to build a career on a skill set, or around an area of job excellence.
Reaction to Shift : Adjustment to Action Plan and Resources divergingBecause of this fundamental shift in job nature, people with skills and knowledge of the new economy should not waste the days of their youth but to embark on their own pipeline which may follow the steps :
- identify their focus area where they can excel and move forward with ease and comfort,
- start building on their pipeline upon definition (which might entail to starting a few pipeline at a time, and sieving out unsuitable ones),
- established it sometime along the line, nurturing and coaching it from a crawl to a walk.
- bring it as a service to the working region (eg. if people centric, then their okios, if spatial definition, then geograpical region or industry areas)
before they grow old and starts to lose their earning capability in the eventual harsh winter.
Fort Mentality - System of Systems
In those olden days, forts were built with tunnels and deep vaults that offers much protection and confort from the numerous cataput missiles and arrows, hurled and shot at the defenders, in great concentration that one will think the weather had turned suddenly bad and had started to rain.
Such forts, offer fantastic protection, while at the same time offers little ability or capability to the defenders in situational awareness.
Below shows a picture of a typical fort.
Noticed that the fort had certain characteristics.
1) Bunker mentality : Limited observation posts Forts normally have little windows or any other openings for the sake of maximising wall protection surface. Providing protection to its inhabitants is the main objective for a fort. But unfortunately, it is also the greatest liability to its inhabitants. A walled structure prevents the inhabitants hiding in the fort from having a view of the world outside of the fort, thus not able to dicipher or predict the outcome of the battles, and what they will be facing when they come into contact with the enemy forces.
Viewing the fort as an entity on the whole, this greatly cuts down on the productivity and limits the capability of the inhabitants in the fort. Only the limited few will have the opportunity to be selected to serve in the observation role, with the rest hunkering down in the bunkers deep within the fort.
Most of the soldiers and inhabitants having the talent for scouting and reporting, will not have the opportunity to contribute their services for the benefit of the fort. An organisation with this setup tends to limit creativity and is not an enabler for its member to contribute ideas and feedback for the betterment of the organisation. Even if the scouts and observers are specially choosen for the job, the elites of elites, and are highly dependent, still the incoming information flow are proned to be reduced to a traffic jam when any of the limited elities are cut down or the limited observation posts destroyed by enemy fire.
Fighting such an organisation, a well trained enemy force will not have to go through much effort to blind the organisation, or to deceive its decision making process.
2) Vunerable Chain of CommunicationThe windows are normally small in size, and situated near to the top of the fort. This is so, so as to minimise loopholes in the walls whereby arrows and flying missile projectiles can be launched at and penetrated into the fort interior. While this is ideal for protection, it allows limited number of observers, scouts, and commanders, from having a good view of the besiging enemy forces, and understanding and predicting their situations. Because of such contraints, the obervation and reporting of the situation are normally assigned to the few tower observers, whom will serve as the eyes and ears of the entire inhabitants within the fort. These limited number of observers, having the most updated view, are isolated from the rest of the troops, inhabitants and commanding authority hidden deep within the fort.
Thus, the operation and decision making committee, deep within the bunkers in the fort, might have to do with making decisions based on information passed on to them from the messengers, who in turn had to obtain the information from the group of observers on watch in the towers. In this fast pace commercial world, delayed information received, and thus leading to delayed actions and counter-actions set by the commanding authority. This will definitely be the equivalent of slow poison in the decision making organ of the organisation, as counter actions are put forth slower at every decision making turn and cycle, while the enemy is probably at the start of the second stage of execution of their decision making cycles. In such a situation, it is not difficult for the enemy to over decision the sluggish decision making cycles of the fort, and to evenutally force it into a reaction battle. This will be equivalent to a tennis player, forced by the opponent to dash to the right and then left and then right again, to intercept the ball, and thus wearing himself or herself out.
3) IsolationForts are normally situated high above the plains. On high ground, on top of a hill, or perched dangerously on a cliff. In any battle, seizing the high ground will be a key and primary objective in any warfighting commander or business planner's battle plans. Having a strategic position on a high ground with respect to the enemy will allow :
- Ease of observation of the enemy. The force size, force movement, can be seen from the high ground.
- Early warning, enemy's plan to approach the fort will be seen miles away.
- Ability to direct troops in the plains below by flashing lights, or hosting flags. A sort of primitive long range command and control of forces from the command post in the fort.
- Natural barrier. Enemy forces needs to ascend the high ground before they are able to attack the fort.
All the above points shows the advantage that a force or business possessed by encamping its command element on high ground. However, looking at these points closer, we realised that out of the 4 points suggested, the first 3 points are related to observation and situation awareness. If the fort does not have adequate observation post, or offers and facilitates opportunities for the inhabitants to levarage on the advantage that the high ground offers, then encamping on high ground will have not much purpose at all. In fact, a blinded fort or establishment will probably have its troops withdrawn deep into its underground chamber to be protected from the sieging enemy forces and this results in isolation of the fort from the rest of the world.
To fight such an enemy, the opposing force has first got to target the observation capability of the fort, whereby the destruction of such capabilities will reduce the situation awareness of the commanding authority within the fort which will in turn,
- led to a gradual cut off in the ability to command and direct the other forces operating beyond the walls of the fort,
- as well as the ability to liase and rally the civilian populance in the plains below.
Military Art : Military Force and Wars, chicken and egg
This article is the first part of a series of articles, touching on military and wars. What are they, what had they been classified as? Should they be re-classified? What are the evolutions so far?
This article serves as an introduction to later articles, and opens more questions than attempt to provide the answers.
"What is the military?" A question that most children might ask, when they first catches a glimpse of this multi-meaning, and widely used word. A group? An organisation? A collection of men and woman? A official or unofficial group? A group that wears similar uniforms so as to have a common identity?
To the man in the street, the military might imply a huge group of men and women, in an organisation that gets more and more complex with time, whose sole objective is dedicated to achieving national objectives through the use of force.
What then are terriorist groups? Are they a military force? A form of gangsters? A multi-national organisation?
Well, how about the gangsters? Are they too a military force? The modern day mafia or organised syndicate is as powerful as a small army, sometimes able to overpower the normal police units. Even in mainstream movies, the power of the modern syndicate is normally well protrayed. Armed with assault rifles and grenades, the syndicate can normally rain down a barrage of fire on the pitiful police officers, hiding behind the patrol car, calling for reinforcements.
So against such syndicate, is it an options to send in more police officers? Or simply send in the troops? Is raining artillery fire on them an acceptable options?
"What are wars?" What are wars, battles, campaigns? If a large group (say 1000 gang members) of gangsters were to fight a rival group of similar size, can that be classified as wars? Or just mere gang fights?
Battles are fights between 2 opposing forces. It can be as long as a few hours or half a day, say an infantry charge through those trenches or up that hill, or as long as a few weeks or months, the naval battle of Midway, Pearl Harbour, etc.
Campaigns are a collection of battles, usually a string of battles, one happening after the other, or simulataneously. Campaigns normally takes place over a designated area, and are labelled by the area, etc, the iraqi air campaign, the Malayan campaign, etc.
Wars, of course, are the mother of all battles and campaigns. Wars can last from a few days to a few years.
"Chicken or Egg?" The question is which one comes first? Is there wars, fights, between clans and tribes, and thus comes the idea of creating military forces? Or is it the other way round?
Should the next military and force restructuring, weapon procument be determined by the types of war and battles that the nation's military force might faced or will a new way of fighting a war evolve due to a the forming of new group of military or potential opponent force, or the introduction to a new class of weapons, or proliferation of them?
Currently both cases seems to be happening concurrently...
Management by "as if"
Management by "as if", is the worse management methology every seen in the managing circle today. It is outdated, crude, and totally unusable in today's fast paced, rapid changing situation, whereby information flows not only between the subordinate and superior, but also horizontally, between peers.
What is meant by "as if" management? A manager/superior, believing in and employing this kind of management seeks to manage subordinates "as if" by default the manager is the king, the one who is always giving the orders, providing the directions, the divinely appointed leader whereby only he or she is capable enough to come up with decisions which none of the subordinates are capable of. Emperors used this, and so do most monarch of the ancient days. On the subordinates' part, no questions are needed, entertained, or encouraged. The subordinates are expected to follow the orders right down to the letter. Not questions will be entertained on the power of the superior. The very nature of the superior being in the superior position, giving orders and directions that the subordinate is to follow without questions, cannot and shall not be challenged.
On the manager's part it seeks no worries on employee motivation, no earning of respect, no rewarding on the subordinates. Welfare to the subordinate may be awarded, but such is rare, and upon bestowing such "additional acts of beyond-the-standard-operating-procedure" by the superior to the subordinates, the superior normally expects something in return from the subordinates. Example, to work even longer hours, or to make other forms of sacrifice willingly, in mind of the received "welfare".
This approarch of management normally cause resistance and a sense of negeativity among the subordinates. The superior earns no respect from them, and the system provides no security to the subordinates' perceived situations. "As if" style of management is crude and primitive, is perceived as dictatorial, with minimal effort from the manager/superior to maintain the suborinates' situation, interest, and well-being.
Organisations employing such management usually faced problems in loyalty and generate a sense of negative culture among the work-horses, or those that contribute in the frontline of the organisation's businesses. Usually the negative energy is directed towards the organisation, the superiors, the leaders beyond the superiors, etc. With sufficient negative energy within the eco-system of the managed subordinates, the organsiation might either experience a break up, due to either a mass exodus of subordinates leaving, or an uprising by the subordiantes. If managed poorly (normally this will be the case, as the people adopting "as if" management normally will have difficulties in understanding the subordinates' plight, and thus, of the real cause of the situation) the organisation might experience a serious interruption to its operation, or a total collapse.
So Many, Yet So Few
There are so many different types of management in the world. So many different models, so many different theories, and so many different results.
We see failed projects, failed policies, failed organisations, and so on and on...
This blog will focus on sharing management models, management skillsets, and management should-have(s), that either makes or breaks the outcome of the situation.
