My simple answer is yes, if you start early and spend less than you earn. Way less. Put the surplus in safe investments. Manage your debt, as in don't create new ones. Plan ahead. Live modestly. Let rationale rule over emotion. Learn to seek happiness in things that don't cost money. Learn to spot situations that might ambush you into risking your reserves.
In my opinion, using one's savings to finance early retirement is more of a spiritual challenge than a financial one. I say this because like a fighter pilot, you cannot hope to survive for long periods on low 'oxygen' without having some kind of foundation. I'm referring to a mindset that believes life can be happy even if its not centered around consumption.
Messing around with mindsets is tricky business. Can you unlearn 30 years of retail therapy and adopt a set of values that puts a leash on desire? Will you be forcing yourself to go on a cheaper menu or can you willingly embrace the fact that the cheaper menu has all the nutrition you need at a much lower cost. Are you prepared for the possibility of being alienated from your friends and relatives because they don't wish to associate with your lifestyle?
Lifestyle addictions will probably be your biggest stumbling block. From schooling age, we've been conditioned to be competitive by keeping an edge over the next guy. Sometimes that means having the latest things to show. Gadgets, CDs, apparel, cars, homes, etc. Things are not much different as a grownup. I'm quite certain everybody knows they have a choice. They just don't like to deal with the consequences of exercising these choices.
This is why I maintain that cutting the umbilical cord of employment early is a spiritual challenge. If spiritualness cramps your style and there's no way you can save, there are other ways to cut out early from the rat race it but it will involve increasing your income. There are pros and cons in either choice. Which way you go may ultimately depend on your personal threshold of pain.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Millionaire employees
Many of us aspire to have freedom, especially the kind that frees us from having to wake up at 7.00am every morning to go to work. To have enough money to do that seems to be the aspiration of most people I speak to.
Would you believe it if I said that not every employee is there for the money. Although its rare, such people do exist. A millionaire employee is one who has enough withdrawable cash in the bank to last them the next two lifetimes. Those who think they are worth millions but actually have nothing in the bank don't count.
If the sorry pittance of a paycheck means little to millionaire employees, then why do they even bother you might ask?
To answer that question, one has to understand the concept of the value of work, not in how much it pays but in non-financial terms. In my own experience, the handful of millionaire employees that have worked for me came because of one thing - the search for self esteem.
A quest to earn genuine respect for one's own abilities draws many types, including millionaires. Such people tend to diffrentiate respect demanded from respect earned, the latter being far more meaningful to the ego. Some try to earn it by sailing around the world in a balloon. Some race. Some duke it out in the corporate world. Whatever they do, there seems to be a common denominator - how they feel about themselves. Self worth or self esteem if you like.
The reason I why wrote this topic is because many managers are at a loss on how to handle such employees. They hear from the grapevine that one of their subordinates is the son or daughter of a wealthy tycoon who is rich enough to buy the company. They fret about what it means when the usual methods of control by financial rewards don't work. Some may fear for their own future, imagining what money and influence can buy.
I can only speak from my own experience. Of the few millionaire subordinates that I've had during my career, except for one eccentric chap, all had been gifted and result oriented. I noted that many treated their salaries, commissions and accolades almost like scores on a card, serving to prove some kind of personal point to themselves. Maybe it gave them bragging rights when they go out to do their thing after work. Some of them seemed to view their jobs almost like a game.
In the end, I'm convinced that millionaire employees are not all that different from other employees. They all want to be people of their own making. No doubt each employee might have a certain preference of how they'd like to be appreciated but if you've been in long enough, you'll find that a sincere well-communicated pat on the back works just as well as monetary reward in a world where money is not the point.
A good manager understands this. If work is a game, then you have to be a savvy gamemaster. It may take some mental dexterity on your part to shift control from one based on simple monetary rewards to one heavily dependent on communication skills. If you are an uncommunicative manager, be prepared for the tables to turn on you. But once you come to terms with the fact that money isn't everything and you can adapt according to the situation, you'll find that millionaire employees are basically just that - employees.
Would you believe it if I said that not every employee is there for the money. Although its rare, such people do exist. A millionaire employee is one who has enough withdrawable cash in the bank to last them the next two lifetimes. Those who think they are worth millions but actually have nothing in the bank don't count.
If the sorry pittance of a paycheck means little to millionaire employees, then why do they even bother you might ask?
To answer that question, one has to understand the concept of the value of work, not in how much it pays but in non-financial terms. In my own experience, the handful of millionaire employees that have worked for me came because of one thing - the search for self esteem.
A quest to earn genuine respect for one's own abilities draws many types, including millionaires. Such people tend to diffrentiate respect demanded from respect earned, the latter being far more meaningful to the ego. Some try to earn it by sailing around the world in a balloon. Some race. Some duke it out in the corporate world. Whatever they do, there seems to be a common denominator - how they feel about themselves. Self worth or self esteem if you like.
The reason I why wrote this topic is because many managers are at a loss on how to handle such employees. They hear from the grapevine that one of their subordinates is the son or daughter of a wealthy tycoon who is rich enough to buy the company. They fret about what it means when the usual methods of control by financial rewards don't work. Some may fear for their own future, imagining what money and influence can buy.
I can only speak from my own experience. Of the few millionaire subordinates that I've had during my career, except for one eccentric chap, all had been gifted and result oriented. I noted that many treated their salaries, commissions and accolades almost like scores on a card, serving to prove some kind of personal point to themselves. Maybe it gave them bragging rights when they go out to do their thing after work. Some of them seemed to view their jobs almost like a game.
In the end, I'm convinced that millionaire employees are not all that different from other employees. They all want to be people of their own making. No doubt each employee might have a certain preference of how they'd like to be appreciated but if you've been in long enough, you'll find that a sincere well-communicated pat on the back works just as well as monetary reward in a world where money is not the point.
A good manager understands this. If work is a game, then you have to be a savvy gamemaster. It may take some mental dexterity on your part to shift control from one based on simple monetary rewards to one heavily dependent on communication skills. If you are an uncommunicative manager, be prepared for the tables to turn on you. But once you come to terms with the fact that money isn't everything and you can adapt according to the situation, you'll find that millionaire employees are basically just that - employees.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
How far should your employers monitor your e-mail?
Throughout the world, hundreds of employees have been fired from companies for alleged misuse of e-mail. A survey in the US showed that 25% of businesses eavesdropped on employees' e-mail, computer files and Internet usage. I guess the figure can only be higher now.
I'm interested in looking at the picture from both sides. For employers especially in litigious countries, the dangers posed by unbridled employee usage of company e-mail is very real and very expensive. In the article You'd Think Bill Gates Would Learn, Bill's discussion of schemes against a corporate enemy in e-mail was apparently admitted as evidence in an antitrust testimony. In another case, when workers of a US airline were suspected of coordinating a sick-out, the home computers of more than 20 workers were seized for forensic examination in an effort to uncover incriminating email. Along with email, other private correspondence and financial records were examined.
A number of similar cautionary tales on this site describes damaging cases that range from slurs between employees to outright cheating. Malaysia and Singapore are relatively wired nations. We've undoubtedly had our share of corporate e-mail scandals despite a general absence of public data.
Although the prospect of being eavesdropped upon is unpleasant, employer monitoring of employee communications is nothing new. It started way back in the days before e-mail. Only now, key-word sniffing software makes it much easier to snoop on cached e-mails. The scenario of the system spitting out embarrassing dossiers of employee communication, while seemingly farfetched now, can happen. The technology for it has existed for some time. But systems are not known for subjective analysis and there's always the danger of harmless co-worker banter appearing incriminating on paper. So its not unjustified that employees are beginning to wonder how far should their employers go in monitoring their electronic communications.
I think it is not unreasonable for an employer to place some safeguards on company e-mail usage because the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. The Bill Gates case illustrates this clearly. It takes very little for a disgruntled employee to use e-mail to cause irreparable damage to the value and goodwill of a company that well-intentioned people had taken years to build. At the same time, totalitarian e-mail policies can also be counterproductive. It only pushes employees to use services like free webmail for daily business communication, an act that can put company secrets at risk.
Ultimately, I believe an e-mail policy that balances corporate and employee interests is best, one written by mature professionals who understand the psychology of human communication and not by some IT technocrat with atrocious people skills. I notice that in Asia, whenever it comes to the control of IT based resources, many CEOs still have the tendency to push the decisions back to technical folk, many of whom have no skills to write policy.
Personally, I do believe the best defense an employee can have against the tyranny of e-mail data mining is to use e-mail sparingly. Try working "off the grid" as much as you can especially when working in sensitive areas or with sensitive people. You'll find that having a discussion on the phone or a face-to-face meeting are not only harder to record but are often less stressful and far more productive. Try not to believe the hype that e-mail makes work more efficient because too often it has proven to give the opposite effect.
This article from the Houston Business Journal should provide some food for thought on this topic.
I'm interested in looking at the picture from both sides. For employers especially in litigious countries, the dangers posed by unbridled employee usage of company e-mail is very real and very expensive. In the article You'd Think Bill Gates Would Learn, Bill's discussion of schemes against a corporate enemy in e-mail was apparently admitted as evidence in an antitrust testimony. In another case, when workers of a US airline were suspected of coordinating a sick-out, the home computers of more than 20 workers were seized for forensic examination in an effort to uncover incriminating email. Along with email, other private correspondence and financial records were examined.
A number of similar cautionary tales on this site describes damaging cases that range from slurs between employees to outright cheating. Malaysia and Singapore are relatively wired nations. We've undoubtedly had our share of corporate e-mail scandals despite a general absence of public data.
Although the prospect of being eavesdropped upon is unpleasant, employer monitoring of employee communications is nothing new. It started way back in the days before e-mail. Only now, key-word sniffing software makes it much easier to snoop on cached e-mails. The scenario of the system spitting out embarrassing dossiers of employee communication, while seemingly farfetched now, can happen. The technology for it has existed for some time. But systems are not known for subjective analysis and there's always the danger of harmless co-worker banter appearing incriminating on paper. So its not unjustified that employees are beginning to wonder how far should their employers go in monitoring their electronic communications.
I think it is not unreasonable for an employer to place some safeguards on company e-mail usage because the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. The Bill Gates case illustrates this clearly. It takes very little for a disgruntled employee to use e-mail to cause irreparable damage to the value and goodwill of a company that well-intentioned people had taken years to build. At the same time, totalitarian e-mail policies can also be counterproductive. It only pushes employees to use services like free webmail for daily business communication, an act that can put company secrets at risk.
Ultimately, I believe an e-mail policy that balances corporate and employee interests is best, one written by mature professionals who understand the psychology of human communication and not by some IT technocrat with atrocious people skills. I notice that in Asia, whenever it comes to the control of IT based resources, many CEOs still have the tendency to push the decisions back to technical folk, many of whom have no skills to write policy.
Personally, I do believe the best defense an employee can have against the tyranny of e-mail data mining is to use e-mail sparingly. Try working "off the grid" as much as you can especially when working in sensitive areas or with sensitive people. You'll find that having a discussion on the phone or a face-to-face meeting are not only harder to record but are often less stressful and far more productive. Try not to believe the hype that e-mail makes work more efficient because too often it has proven to give the opposite effect.
This article from the Houston Business Journal should provide some food for thought on this topic.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Going independent: A good way to escape people problems?
A weekend outing with some buddies got me thinking. Ron and William (not their real names) were quite amused that I had chosen to break my promise to 'do nothing' after leaving my former job. They thought I would be enjoying a complete and unbridled lepak, a Malay term for laid back and doing nothing in particular. Instead what did I do? Write a blog, and on office politics at that.
"So you want to spend your time writing about how the secretary and the finance clerk backstab one another eh?" they laughed. "Ha ha, nice try," I said. Well I don't blame them at all. When you're at the top of the hierarchy, the air thins and perceptions change. You no longer eat. You dine. You don't attend meetings. You grace them with your presence. You don't figure things out. You contemplate.
Ron had of course completely forgotten about how he was passed over for a promotion to CEO back in '99. That episode left him deeply embittered and I remember being dragged out to god knows how many late-night rant sessions with him. He ended up getting into an argument with his chairman and subsequently resigned. William is a board member of another company. He had been at loggerheads with another board member over what he thinks are suspicious contract awards. He complains about being kept out of the loop on certain things.
But these are not really office politics they say. Just unpleasantries at work, things all leaders have to deal with. Office politics are for people downstairs in admin and operations and people at their position don't go there.
Like I said before, politics is like having sex. Everybody's into it but few admit to what they do. Or they coin interesting euphemisms to make it seem thay're not doing anything un-CEOish. Because they create and control the system, industry captains like to believe they're above the mud patch. Its the typical god complex. Of course they leave out things like board appointments that are shuffled by unseen hands, manipulations in subsidiary funding and exco members getting voted out through underhanded means. Yup, that's not politics.
But William knew where I was coming from and popped an interesting question. If office politics is so unpleasant he asked, then why not just create your own organization and your own set of rules? Be king of your own hill. Have everybody kow tow to you. Problem solved?
Its nice to dream about having complete control. I always say if you ever need a role model for that, go ask your parents. Let them tell you how much much success they had in controlling you when you were growing up. See, people are people. Each are subject to their own influences, values and karma. But being the egocentric species that we are, we like to believe that these will fall in line with ours. Invariably, we often find they do not.
Are businesses any different? After all by controlling people's salaries don't you have them by the short and curly? Well money buys you their time but sometimes not much else. Anyway there's more to business than non-compliant employees. How about non-compliant shareholders, partners, directors, customers, licensing authorities, landlords, suppliers, merchant bankers, the taxman, legislation, competitors, the economy, bla bla bla... Each one is equally capable of throwing a spanner into your works, politically and otherwise. Still think you can have absolute control in your domain?
So while the thought of going indie to escape office politics appeals to the Indiana Jones in me, I beg to differ about it necessarily giving you better control over people. No doubt the issues can be managed. Companies do that every day and make millions in the process but that's not the point of this topic. The point is will running your own ship set you free of people problems? I'm saying no, it will not.
One thing is for sure though. When you're no. 1, the drop down the mountain is much further than if you were an admin assistant. I do think however, the rewards can be well worth the pain.
"So you want to spend your time writing about how the secretary and the finance clerk backstab one another eh?" they laughed. "Ha ha, nice try," I said. Well I don't blame them at all. When you're at the top of the hierarchy, the air thins and perceptions change. You no longer eat. You dine. You don't attend meetings. You grace them with your presence. You don't figure things out. You contemplate.
Ron had of course completely forgotten about how he was passed over for a promotion to CEO back in '99. That episode left him deeply embittered and I remember being dragged out to god knows how many late-night rant sessions with him. He ended up getting into an argument with his chairman and subsequently resigned. William is a board member of another company. He had been at loggerheads with another board member over what he thinks are suspicious contract awards. He complains about being kept out of the loop on certain things.
But these are not really office politics they say. Just unpleasantries at work, things all leaders have to deal with. Office politics are for people downstairs in admin and operations and people at their position don't go there.
Like I said before, politics is like having sex. Everybody's into it but few admit to what they do. Or they coin interesting euphemisms to make it seem thay're not doing anything un-CEOish. Because they create and control the system, industry captains like to believe they're above the mud patch. Its the typical god complex. Of course they leave out things like board appointments that are shuffled by unseen hands, manipulations in subsidiary funding and exco members getting voted out through underhanded means. Yup, that's not politics.
But William knew where I was coming from and popped an interesting question. If office politics is so unpleasant he asked, then why not just create your own organization and your own set of rules? Be king of your own hill. Have everybody kow tow to you. Problem solved?
Its nice to dream about having complete control. I always say if you ever need a role model for that, go ask your parents. Let them tell you how much much success they had in controlling you when you were growing up. See, people are people. Each are subject to their own influences, values and karma. But being the egocentric species that we are, we like to believe that these will fall in line with ours. Invariably, we often find they do not.
Are businesses any different? After all by controlling people's salaries don't you have them by the short and curly? Well money buys you their time but sometimes not much else. Anyway there's more to business than non-compliant employees. How about non-compliant shareholders, partners, directors, customers, licensing authorities, landlords, suppliers, merchant bankers, the taxman, legislation, competitors, the economy, bla bla bla... Each one is equally capable of throwing a spanner into your works, politically and otherwise. Still think you can have absolute control in your domain?
So while the thought of going indie to escape office politics appeals to the Indiana Jones in me, I beg to differ about it necessarily giving you better control over people. No doubt the issues can be managed. Companies do that every day and make millions in the process but that's not the point of this topic. The point is will running your own ship set you free of people problems? I'm saying no, it will not.
One thing is for sure though. When you're no. 1, the drop down the mountain is much further than if you were an admin assistant. I do think however, the rewards can be well worth the pain.
Friday, September 29, 2006
The young executive
A young executive is working late one evening. As he comes out of his office about 8 PM he sees the Big Boss standing by the shredder in the hallway, a piece of paper in his hand. "Do you know how to work this thing?" the older man asks. "My secretary's gone home and I don't know how to run it." "Yes, sir," says the young executive, who turns on the machine, takes the paper from the other man, and feeds it in. "Now," says his boss, "I just need the one copy ."
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Should you advertise your success or not?
Early to bed, early to rise. Work like hell and advertise.
-- Ted Turner
I don't think Mr. Turner was being narcissistic when he urged people to advertise their hard work. I think he was being realistic. Let me put it in perspective. To advertise is to communicate, perhaps with some higher motive. That may vary from person to person but as a former boss myself, I'll tell you why you shouldn't keep quiet about your accomplishments.
- Your boss's success depends on you. You don't want to deny him the opportunity to brag about success with his boss. In the same way you don't want to be denied of the right to brag about your child's success at school to your own parents.
- Bosses are busy people. They need to be reminded that you're actually on the ball and earning your salary. You never know when his boss might be checking up on him up on these things.
- If you have nothing worthwhile to report, then it could be said that what you're doing is not worthwhile. The latter can be detrimental to your career and keeping silent might just be the final nail in your coffin.
- All things being equal, the person at the top of your boss's mind will get the cherry on the cake - be it promotions or whatever. Top of mind is influenced by advertising which I suspect is what Turner was trying to say. The same rules apply when you choose brand X detergent over brand Y in the supermarket.
I believe so. You'll notice that in my four points, I didn't mention anything about advertising your successes to your colleagues. That's because when you do your pitch, there should only be one person in the audience - your boss. If you conduct these update sessions in private, no one can say you bragged or boasted. If your boss likes it so much he mentions it in public, that's him blowing your trumpet, not you. But the moment you go to town with your own successes, banners and all, that's when the knives come out and your detractors try to cut you down a notch or two.
I always believe reality is what we make it to be and sincerity is our best companion in that journey. If your intention is just to give your boss a personal status update, then declaring your success is nothing to be ashamed about. Bosses understand that. They do it with their bosses. But if you use it to play a game of one-upmanship with your colleagues, then you will become a political target at work. When that happens even your boss might not be able to help you.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
20 ways to say no
If you've worked in the kind of companies I have, you've probably had your share of projects thrown to you without your knowledge. If you want to tai chi away these unwelcome intrusions, here's 20 ways to say TAK NAK (no) from OnlineOrganizing.com. A short sampler:
- I am in the middle of several projects
- I am not comfortable with that
- I am not taking on any new responsibilities
- I am not the most qualified person on the job
- I do not enjoy that kind of work
- .....
See the full list here.
I don't know about you but I have a slight problem with this list. Can you imagine knocking on your boss's door to say I do not enjoy that kind of work (tip #5), I need to focus more on my personal life (tip #11) or I need to leave some free time for myself (tip #13).
However some points on the list do seem reasonable and might just be persuasive enough, if you work for a boss that listens that is.
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