Benjamin Franklin and a Tutorial on Business Letters

April 6, 1777

"Sir, I have just been honoured with a Letter from you, dated 26th past, in which you express your self as astonised, and appear to be angry that you have no Answer to a Letter you wrote me of the 11th of Decemeber, which you are sure was delivered to me..... Whoever writes to a Stranger should observe 3 Points;

1. That what he proposes be practicable.
2. His Propositions should be made in explicit Terms so as to be easily understood.
3. What he desires should be in itself reasonable.

Hereby he will give a favourable Impression of his Understanding, and create a further Acquaintance... Now is happen'd that you were negligent in all these Points." --- Benjamin Franklin, in a tutorial on business letters from France to a stranger who identified himself only as "Lith".

This Day in Business History

by Raymond L. Francis, pg. 246

19 August

1851 Soft drink entrepreneur Charles Elmer Hires (b. 1851) began selling a ready-to-drink beverage made from 16 different wild roots, herbs, bark and berries in bottles in 1886. He selected the name "root beer" when a friend commented that hard-drinking miners would be attracted to root beer than to herb tea.

1870 Financier, stock speculator and adviser to presidents during and after the two world wars, Bernard Mannes Baruch -- A millionaire by 30, he said in 1955 on his 85th birthday,

A man can't retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time.

1883 Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, the French fashion designer/entrepreneur/said to be Nazi spy or lover to one, who ruled over Parisian haute couture for 6 decades, said,

Innovation! One cannot be forever innovating. I want to create classics.

Highlight Issue: Why Some Companies Fail to Live to Expectations

For the past months, it is being observed that Top Management failed to deliver as promised.

Whilst it is good to note that Corporate Malaysia attempts to split the work of a Chairman/Managing Director with the day-to-day running of CEO/General Manager, a word of caution must be explicitly offered:-

Choose your people wisely.

Nowadays, Top Management being CEOs and other titulars are from younger generations which are tech savvy and enterprising. Their aggressive attitudes and egos in life are fast-paced and honorific -- which can be both pros and cons.

Pros -- equal minded business partners are willing to work with those who pursue dreams at a shorter life span. Why be profitable by the 7th year when it can be done in 3 years with good partnership?

Cons -- over-promising, #1 in suggestions and #last in carrying out actual work. Resulting: poor results.

Here, bad CEOs highlighted their lives to the public -- from one Facebook entry of a young CEO,

"Its a boring job" and the personal interests are all the political-activities such as anti-this, anti-that of non-business related affiliations.

Perhaps he wants to emulate the styles of Sam Wal-"mart"ton, Michael Dell or Tan Sri Tony Fernandez, people who live life to the fullest and interacting with the people around them. However, these people rub positive image and positive beliefs.

It is no wonder, a used to-be great company which had millions in profits ending up with millions in losses over short-term period after management restructuring.

If the CEO finds his job boring, little wonders what the staff feels about his/her job over there.

“STRATEGOS – The New Era

A General observing an on-going battle with his military advisers - Strategos

Strategy and Strategic derived from the Greek root-word, Strategos. It is a title meaning, General or Leader and are used to this day. Over the years, the words are used as reference to Office or Command of a General where all the works of leaders are made to be carried out.

So where is the General’s Office? It used to be on top of the hill overlooking at the battle formations of troops lying across the plains. There are leaders who lead from the front – Guan Yu, Alexander, Napoleon, – who used horses for height and speed advantage. Technology and rival tactics changed all that.

Natural leaders like Ulysses Grant are among the first to recognise leaders need not be in frontline to be able to see, control and plan how things to go in battles. This cut the risks of losing the person who thinks on saving lives of others. What happens if the leaders are to die first in business? Whole organisation will ultimately fail.

Being involved in strategy has been the key activity for our firm. Unfortunately some professionals misused the word strategy when they are actually in the field of planning, accounting and other major aspects of organisations. This was the problem encountered by Bower (McKinsey), Drucker (Father of Management) and Henderson (BCG) when defining their art.

2011 represents a new era where leaders of the World are to conform new sets of international rules of conformity after disastrous this few years in almost everything we did from money markets, constructions to diplomacy.

The Strategos / Leader shall lead the way.

Win-Lose Proposition in Life

From an innocent question of a manager from Fortune 100, “What is new in MIENS?” - it became a signature course at year-end 2010 with Intel, Alor Star’s Nursing College, Penang’s Nursing College having participated and a few more in the books.

MIENS has always been on research and development of solving management problems and understanding of leadership activities. So much so, our Principal – Erasmus teamed up with Dr Daisy Kee (USM) and Prof. Dr Zainal Ariffin (UNITEN) to work on a leadership book in 2009. What is new? We took off to the tangent with W-L Proposition in Life which explores the largely unwanted part of Conflict Management theory – Win-Lose or Lose-Win.

Do You Know?

After accumulating feedbacks from various excellent organisations be it Private (Pvt) and Public (Pub) sectors, these are some strong trend indicators to suggest the following:

1. 99% started out looking for the top position in career.

2. 22% (Pvt), 77% (Pub) are well-equipped with a career path plan.

3. 10% (Pvt), 44% (Pub) willing to take smaller roles.

4. 33% (Pvt), 54% (Pub) currently have other occupations such as MLM, Insurance, Tupperwares, etc.

5. 67% (Pvt), 86% (Pub) are willing to swap loyalty to the other industries when their “other occupation” turns better.

T'was a Time - Tribute to Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu

Just before his 90^th Birthday, I’d met up with Tun at the appointed time. My purpose was to write his biography.

Our 4-hour conversation was kept behind closed doors and at his request, no records were to be made.

I asked two insight questions: How was the critical thinking done that leads to the fateful decisions made after 1969? Would Penang be as dynamic as Singapore or Hong Kong?

He took time to answer one of the questions. Unfortunately like the other two would-be personal biographers before me, he had chosen not to reveal his life-story. I miss this Old Free dearly who rightly deserved to be our King’s Scholar – Erasmus Koay