Simple Steps To Follow When Creating Change

Below is the simple process of steps to follow as a guideline for Managers and Leaders to use whenever you are creating or initiating change for your team.

This could be the smallest change into a big scale change. By following the script below, you’ll rally the troops to make them understand the change through the communication of the Why, How, What and When.

Script:
We will be creating change with a new initiative.
We are creating this change because of (…Why…), and this is (…How…) we’ll do it. This is (…What…) we want to accomplish, and this is (…When…) we’ll start and (…When…) we’ll expect to complete and evaluate.

May success be upon you.

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Olahraga Bola Basket Menunjang Masa Depan dan Karir Saya

Pengalaman saya di olahraga bola basket telah berkontribusi dalam karir saya saat ini.

Saat ini saya sedang membesarkan perusahaan dibidang pelatihan dalam Ed-Tech startup, ilmuGo, yang sebelumnya selama 12 tahun terakhir saya bekerja dibidang pelatihan keselamatan dan kesehatan buat industri perminyakan, dan pengalaman saya di olahraga bola basket membantu kemajuan saya berkarir dalam dunia bisnis. Yang saya katakan ‘pengalaman di basket’, saya artikan sebagai pengalaman saya berkarir di liga basket indonesia tertinggi selama 10 tahun dan tidak hanya sebatas bermain bola basket sebagai hobi.

Cerita singkat, saya mulai berkarir di liga basket Indonesia dari tahun 1998 sampai pensiun di tahun 2008 dengan penggantian nama liga basket mulai dari Kobatama, IBL, NBL dan 2017 sampai sekarang kembali menjadi IBL (Indonesian Basketball League). Saya pernah membela tim Indonesia Muda, Garuda, Kalila dan Pelita Jaya, dan di tahun 2002 dan 2007 pernah di seleksi sebagai pemain All-Star liga. Dalam pengalaman saya berkarir di liga basket Indonesia, saya mendefinisikan ”Basket Menunjang Masa Depan Saya dan Karir Saya Saat Ini” melalui Modal yang saya terima selama berkarir di dunia bola basket di Indonesia. Modal tersebut adalah modal secara finansial, modal relasi/network, modal kesehatan, modal pendidikan dan modal untuk membangun soft-skills. Modal-modal ini adalah fondasi untuk masa depan saya dan karir saya saat ini.

Penjelasannya sebagai berikut:

Modal :

– Modal secara finansial (terima gaji,uang kontrak, tunjangan lainnya) : Dari sini saya mendapatkan kesempatan dari berbagai arah untuk mengumpulkan uang untuk semua kebutuhan saya. Mulai dari gaji bulanan, sponsorship, endorsements, uang kontrak, bonus, dan tunjangan lainnya dalam bentuk kas. Jadi kalau kita sudah berkarir di basket, sudah sama seperti pekerja kantoran. Saat ini basket indonesia sudah bisa dibilang karir yang menjanjikan untuk masa depan dalam hubungan finansial.

– Modal relasi / network (bisa ketemu dan berkenalan dengan banyak orang) : Dengan kita menjadi pemain basket sebagai pilihan karir, banyak sekali kesempatan kita bertemu dengan banyak orang dalam berbagai macam bidang; mulai dari pengusaha-penghusaha besar, pejabat-peajabat negara dan key persons dalam korporat, dsb. Kita juga bisa membina networking kita untuk membangun fondasi network ke depan.

– Modal kesehatan (kesehatan menjaga badan, fisik dan membiasakan rutinitas olahraga dalam hidup kita yg singkat ini) : Dengan kita berolahraga dan berkarir di basket, kita secara otomatis akan menjaga kesehatan kita secara fisik dan akan menunjang kesehatan secara mental juga. Dari sini adalah basis untuk menjadikan kesehatan menjadi faktor penting dalam kehidupan kita ke depan.

– Modal pendidikan (pendidikan formal dan non-formal) : Selama saya bermain basket, pendidikan saya selalu ditanggung oleh tim saya. Mulai dari mendapatkan beasiswa SMA sampai gelar S2, tim saya selalu menawarkan tunjangan ini demi masa depan saya. Modal pendidikan juga bukan semua dalam bentuk sekolah tapi juga pelajaran yang kita bisa dapatkan dari pengalaman-pengalaman pelatih kita, manajer dan owner tim. Banyak sekali pelajaran yang saya dapatkan dari banyak berbincang-bincang dengan pelatih, manajer dan owner tim.

– Modal untuk membangun soft-skills : Yang terakhir ini, saya bisa katakan adalah modal yang sangat penting untuk masa depan dan karir saya saat ini karena akan digunakan sampai kita tua. Selain dari hal-hal teknis di olahraga bola basket sebagai bagaimana menjadi pemain yang baik dalam skill bermain, kondisi fisik, dll, kita di basket secara otomatis akan membangun soft-skill dalam banyak hal-hal non-teknis yang kita ketemui dalam karir di basket. Dari pengalaman di basket banyak soft-skills saya yang dibentuk; 27 contoh sebagai berikut:

1. Bagaimana mengelola diri sendiri dan mengenali diri sendiri.
2. Sikap/Attitude terhadap professionalisme kita dalam bekerja; datang tepat waktu, keseriusan dalam latihan (bekerja).
3. Bagaimana menyikapi kritikan.
4. Bagaimana kita bersaing secara sehat di dalam tim (tempat kerja).
5. Mengatur waktu diantara latihan dan kegiatan diluar latihan.
6. Pantang menyerah; Bermental baja, Bertahan mental dalam bekerja.
7. Bagaimana mendidik diri sendiri.
8. Bergaul dalam tim / tempat kita bekerja dan diluar kegiatan tim dengan masyarakat luar.
9. Menyikapi pergaulan bebas dan dunia malam.
10. Percaya diri.
11. Mengelola keuangan.
12. Pentingnya pendidikan dan menunjang pendidikan dengan kerajinan untuk membaca buku.
13. Membaca kontrak dan pahami artinya klause-klause di dalam kontrak.
14. Merencanakan karir dan menanamkan diri untuk membiasakan diri untuk berencana.
15. Mencari peluang diluar basket / tempat kita bekerja; endorsement deals, business,dll.
16. Menghindari gossip negatif dalam tim / tempat kita bekerja.
17. Menghadapi masalah pribadi vs. Masalah kerjaan.
18. Menjaga hubungan dengan atasan (coach).
19. Bagaimana mendapatkan posisi dan trust di dalam tim / tempat kita bekerja.
20. Untuk mencari sumber dari masalah, mempertanyakan kenapa 7 kali.
21. Beriman untuk mengimbangi jiwa.
22. How to be a leader.
23. Hilangkan sikap omdo (omong doang) dan lebih action-oriented.
24. Mengambil keputusan untuk berani gagal.
25. Berani bicara kalau ada masalah; berani untuk bicara, jangan dipendam.
26. Berpatut kepada komitmen.
27. Mengutamakan kepentingan team dibandingkan kepentingan pribadi. “I play for the name in front of our jersey instead of the name in the back of our jersey”

In conclusion, semua modal yang saya terima di basket adalah modal yang sangat penting untuk menunjang masa depan dan karir saya saat ini. Semoga memberikan inspirasi bagi kaum muda yang ingin berkarir dalam olahraga bola basket nasional di Indonesia. Semoga bermanfaat.

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Manager Fundamentals

What I’ve learned throughout the years as a Manager is that there are three (3) essential things that are fundamental for your success. They are your ability; to Manage yourself, how you Manage your people, and how you Manage your work to execute for concrete results.

Number one, you must be able to learn how to “Manage Yourself” in order for you to be able to think clearly, manage your emotions, manage your energy and to understand your own ‘headspace’ capacity and its limits. This is very important as a Manager whose main tasks involve managing people to get things done. When you manage a group of people, you aren’t managing robots or managing paperwork, you are managing human beings with emotions, behaviors, thoughts, perspectives, aspirations, personal lives and life experiences. All of these attributes make up how your people work with you as their manager. You will run into stress and headaches if you aren’t able to manage yourself when things get out of control. You must be able to be self aware of your limits in emotions, headspace and energy for you to contain yourself. Your main job as a manager is to get things done through other people and when things get out of hand, you must find ways to deal with the situation without burning out. At times you will feel belittled, feel not respected, not sure of yourself, your people can hate you, talk about you behind your back, wait for your failure, the pressures of performing and you are at a boiling point when things don’t go the way you expect it to be; this is normal for a Manager to feel. You must possess the ability for you to “extinguish the fire inside of you”, and understand how to kill those flames inside to keep yourself from “blowing up”. You must control and manage your mind and control what you feed it. Finding ways to have a peaceful mind is key in managing yourself as a Manager.

Number two, you must be able to “Manage your people” by first understanding the characteristics of each one of them. You can do several activities that are suitable for you in order to understand who your people are. You’ll need to get to know them, from their strengths and weaknesses and to know them as an individual human being. If you have a small team, it’ll take a shorter period of time to know them on a one-on-one basis, but if you have a bigger team, you must find a way to get to know and understand all of them. Every manager has their own style of managing, but without knowing your people, you won’t be able to maximize your results of getting things done through other people. By knowing your people, you will be able to manage yourself better and utilize your people to set out the direction that you have aspired them to go to. You will need to have the ability to inspire your people to give their best efforts in achieving the needed goals. Your people need to be engaged in their work that they themselves know that they are an important factor in making things happen. You can conduct teamwork building activities to keep your people inspired and energized to keep them engaged. Also, it is a must to be on the same page with your people of what you expect of them, their ability to meet those expectations and how they are doing to meet your expectations. There are various tools and initiatives to get this going, but you and your people must be on the same page at all times to prevent miscommunication. Your team of people must understand that they have the duty to assist you as their manager to accomplish the needed goals. Your people need to be reminded of how important they are to the team, as they are not just peas in pod “doing their own thing” for the sake of work keeping themselves “busy” everyday. Your people are there to assist you to achieve concrete results in which you are responsible for as the Manager.

Number three, you must be able to “Manage your work” by your ability to execute your plans. You must jot down your plans physically on paper or on a laptop/computer for yourself and to show your people visually of your plans and direction. You can’t just “fly blindly” and expect things to happen. You’ve got to visually show your people where the direction is going and what you expect of them. You must then create a monitoring system for yourself in order for you to manage your own work and the work of your people. With this, you can create review sessions regularly with your people to keep track of the progress of goal achievement. This way you will have a daily focus to guide you and your people on the end goal.

In conclusion, remember these three essential things as a Manager:

1. You’ll need to Manage yourself, which means to manage your energy and emotions by managing your mind.

2. You’ll need to Manage your people, which means to manage your ability to know all your team members, inspire them and have them on the same page at all times to prevent miscommunication.

3. You’ll need to Manage your work, which means your ability to execute your plans through your people for concrete results.

Hope this helps.

Please share your experiences as a Manager, would love to hear it. Thank you.

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Fifty Five Quick Tips On Leading and Managing in The Workplace

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As today is the first day of 2018, I’ve written down several “Management Lessons and Quick Tips” to recap the various management situations that I’ve encountered throughout the year of 2017.

Here are 55 of them.

1. Every time a problem occurs, follow these quick three steps to lessen your headache, – (1) Discuss with your team to clearly define the problem (make sure the problem is defined correctly and agreed collectively), – (2) Understand why the problem happened and, – (3) Find more than two alternative solutions to act upon.

2. Never send a long email while you are emotional, write it down and sleep on it before sending it. It can take you 4-5 edits before you sending it. Remember it is better to discuss in person or by phone if you think the situation can get more emotional if you send that long email.

3. When giving your point of view on a certain issue, always differentiate between your point of view as a friend and your point of view as a professional. Mention it when having one-on-one conversations with your employee.

4. Always be kind to everyone, you never know what they’re going through at the moment.

5. Don’t have sympathy and empathy, but be compassionate instead to help your employees.

6. Take a risk in pressing the ‘sensitive’ buttons to employees you want to see improve. The process can be hard at first and shake things up, but the result will always be good in the long term for the employee you want to see improve.

7. Understand that part of being a leader is to make the hard decisions that no one wants to make and be accountable for.

8. Realize when being a leader, not everyone is going to like you. That’s just part of the job.

9. At times, how you say something could be more important then what you say.

10. As a leader, be present, show up when your team is in need. Sometimes just being present will make the difference.

11. Get to know all your employees, know their names and have a basic knowledge of their backgrounds.

12. Conduct one-on-one meetings with your direct reports to align what you expect of them, and to get to know them as a person.

13. It’s not always about work, having informal conversations about non-work related topics will help you have better relationships with your employees. This relationship will help when problems arise and a teamwork effort is needed to solve the problem.

14. Be blunt and direct during difficult conversations to find the root cause of the issue, then find optional solutions to work with.

15. Continuous reading helps your mind grow. Find the time to read. It’ll help you.

16. Remember that it’s never too early to start preparing your future leaders.

17. Give everyone equal opportunity to succeed.

18. Remember to have faith and pray. Serendipity does happen.

19. Learning to listen is a key management and leadership skill.

20. The best teachers/instructors for your employees are your senior staff that’s been in the company for several years. Utilize their knowledge to develop your employees and your business.

21. As a leader, you will always be under the microscope. Mind your actions and the words you use to your employees.

22. Don’t let negative gossip take control over lunch talks and coffee break talks.

23. Remember to always focus on positivity when dealing with people issues.

24. Give opportunities for your employees to shine at every given moment.

25. Praise your employees in public and give feedback for constructive criticism in private.

26. Understand the unwritten rules within employee social interactions. Understand the silos and work to crush it if its limiting your organization to move forward in improvement.

27. As a leader, always take the blame for failures and never take the credit for success.

28. Involve your employees when making change. You can’t succeed alone.

29. Forget what you’ve given in the past and never forget to forgive people.

30. Don’t take direct action when your employees make mistakes. Let your employees make mistakes for them to learn on their own. If they keep making the same mistake without learning from it, then take direct action.

31. Tell your employees to have a balanced-life. Remind your employees that they should have lives outside of work for them not to be burned out and bored of work.

32. Remind your employees to not only have a healthy mind, but also to exercise their body to be in shape. Being in shape and physically fit is very important for work.

33. Comprehensively learn about yourself before learning about your team and your business. Learn to be self aware and have routine self-reflection sessions for yourself. Know how to talk to yourself as an important process of becoming a better leader and manager.

34. Respect everyone. It’s that simple, but hard to execute if you focus too much on your ego.

35. You must “Learn to unlearn”, and look at things differently in how you’ve always looked at certain things. Start looking at certain things with a different perspective; press the restart button and act as a new student for you to improve.

36. Being a leader starts in the mind of the leader. Changing your mindset will change your results.

37. Proactively talk to your employees to understand whats going on. Don’t be left in the dark.

38. Have integrity and always tell the truth.

39. Don’t ever surprise your supervisors unless it is something good.

40. Coordinate with others before making a decision. Coordinate with others when rolling out something new.

41. Expand your skills by being out of your comfort zone. You don’t grow when you’re in your comfort zone.

42. When you want to learn something new, before conducting classroom training that will take time away from the office, look for online training courses (e-learning) that you can do on your time. It’s the most effective way for you to learn something new.

43. Technology will continue to improve and enhance, learn about the latest technology in how it can help your work.

44. Continuously ask questions to probe on solving issues and coming up with creative solutions.

45. Don’t act like a “know it all”, even though if you feel you do know it all. No one likes a pompous jerk that acts like he/she is better than everyone else.

46. Understand the background of all your employees. When you have the chance, ask about where they grew up and their life story. It’ll give you an understanding about who they are, and the foundation of how they look at things.

47. When dealing with angry customers who are complaining, don’t spend too long apologizing, rather address that you acknowledge the problem and directly give alternative solutions for them to choose what best fits them.

48. Empower your employees to make decisions that they can be responsible for.

49. Speak out to make a difference, be brave to be unpopular if needed.

50. Figure out work that will not make your employees bored of routine monotone tasks that they’ve been doing for years. Give your employees the opportunity to explore how they can contribute more for your organization by modifying their daily tasks to prevent boredom.

51. Make the change if it is necessary even though it is hard for the short term. It usually pays off in the long term. Be brave to fail and make that change.

52. Give confidence to your employees. No one likes to always be told what they’re bad at. Don’t be greedy to give out compliments.

53. Treat your janitor with the same respect as your President Director. This will help your reputation in the long run and change the way people look at you.

54. Your reputation is a million times more expensive than the amount of money you’ll ever have.

55. Don’t discriminate your older employees with your younger employees. Being younger doesn’t always mean faster-better. Your older employees have lots of good things to say to improve your business.

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Learning Lesson from Cinderella

When you reach a certain point in your life, you understand and believe for a fact that ‘Leaders are learners’. And in every situation you’re in, you’re always learning; That is the trait of a leader. Today, I watched the new movie Cinderella with my family and one key take-away learning was Cinderella kept saying, “Have courage and be kind”, as Cinderella’s mother told her this before she passed away in the beginning of the movie.

I completely agree with the simple saying (“Have courage and be kind”) as it will take you very far in life. I’m a witness and believer of this saying as I also value this statement. So again, have the courage to make the hard the decisions, be brave in innovating and make a difference in people’s lives. Remember to always be kind to people no matter what happens. Genuine kindness always has a positive impact towards people’s lives. You will always be remembered.

“Have courage and be kind.”

#LeaderizeYourself

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