How Choo Chiau Beng shaped Keppel for the future

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

How Choo shaped Keppel for the future

Outgoing CEO reflects on his five-year tenure – one of the group’s most profitable periods in its 45-year history

Lisa Lee lisalcc@sph.com.sg

MR CHOO
‘As the boss, when I see that something is not fair, I will voice it, so that people are fairly treated. So I think the key is to win the hearts and minds of the people. If you have that, then you have no problems.’ – PHOTO: ARTHUR LEE

‘As CEO of a multi-business company, one of the important skill sets you need to have is to know how to allocate capital and resources to your different businesses. So we looked at (incoming CEO) Loh Chin Hua . . .  When we wanted to start a property fund, we invited him to do it for us.’
– Choo Chiau Beng, CEO, Keppel Corp

Singapore

AS Keppel’s group CEO Choo Chiau Beng hands over the baton to a new team over the next few weeks, it will be after a fairly short five years as head honcho – during which the group has experienced one of its most profitable periods in its 45-year history. Read more of this post

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Leading by Letting Go

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

Leading by Letting Go

by Rob Markey  |   11:00 AM December 25, 2013

If you are running a large company anywhere in the world, you have almost certainly asked yourself some version of this question: “How can we get tens of thousands of employees to deliver memorable customer experiences that enhance our brand, all at a reasonable cost?” Read more of this post

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AK47 Creator Kalashnikov Should Have Made Farm Tools

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

Kalashnikov Should Have Made Farm Tools

Mikhail Kalashnikov, who died yesterday at the age of 94, once designed and built a lawnmower for his own use: Mass-produced mowers weren’t available in the Soviet Union. Oh, and he also designed the world’s most widely used assault rifle. A lot of the encomiums and obituaries on Kalashnikov have missed the ironies of a man who became a living symbol of the state and political system that ruined his family. Now, as President Vladimir Putin brings back some of the Soviet era’s distinctive features — such as state domination of the economy, censorship and the exile of dissidents — the Russian army is preparing to take on the fifth-generation Kalashnikov rifle, the AK-12. Read more of this post

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What 21 Extremely Successful People Were Doing At Age 25

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

What 21 Extremely Successful People Were Doing At Age 25

VIVIAN GIANG AND MAX NISEN DEC. 24, 2013, 8:00 AM 458,929 6

Some people know what they want to do from an early age and focus on it relentlessly.Others are driven enough to reinvent themselves, changing careers and industries, and continuously push until they find the thing that works. Billionaire Mark Cuban, for example, faced hardship when he first started, writing in “How To Win At The Sport Of Business“ that “when I got to Dallas, I was struggling — sleeping on the floor with six guys in a three-bedroom apartment.” On the other hand, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was a Xerox salesman dreaming of good coffee. As a reminder that the path to success is not always linear, we’ve highlighted what Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, and 19 other fascinating and successful people were doing at age 25. Read more of this post

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The good people in our midst; They may be flawed, but their attempts at reaching something high and noble, no matter how grand or how small, is an inspiration and a comfort

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

Updated: Wednesday December 25, 2013 MYT 7:29:32 AM

The good people in our midst

BY AZMI SHAROM

They may be flawed, but their attempts at reaching something high and noble, no matter how grand or how small, is an inspiration and a comfort.

MY Students Union building in Sheffield University was called the Nelson Mandela building. There was a photo of the man along with a small write-up on his struggle near the entrance of the union. The picture showed a heavy set person, with a tough face bordering on thuggish. Read more of this post

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What Costco can teach you about cash; Mastering the cash conversion cycle can speed your company’s growth

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

What Costco can teach you about cash

December 24, 2013: 5:00 AM ET

Mastering the cash conversion cycle can speed your company’s growth.

By Verne Harnish

FORTUNE — Every business can learn an important lesson from Costco. The fast-growing warehouse retailer did $103 billion in sales in the fiscal year ending in September, with pre-tax earnings of $3 billion. Membership fees brought in $2.3 billion — equal to about 75% of its profit. Read more of this post

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WRONG: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn from Them

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

WRONG: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn from Them Hardcover

by Richard S. Grossman  (Author)

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In recent years, the world has been rocked by major economic crises, most notably the devastating collapse of Lehman Brothers, the largest bankruptcy in American history, which triggered the breathtakingly destructive sub-prime disaster. What sparks these vast economic calamities? Why do our economic policy makers fail to protect us from such upheavals?  In Wrong, economist Richard Grossman addresses such questions, shining a light on the poor thinking behind nine of the worst economic policy mistakes of the past 200 years, missteps whose outcomes ranged from appalling to tragic. Grossman tells the story behind each misconceived economic move, explaining why the policy was adopted, how it was implemented, and its short- and long-term consequences. In each case, he shows that the main culprits were policy makers who were guided by ideology rather than economics. For instance, Wrong looks at how America’s unfounded fear of a centralized monetary authority caused them to reject two central banks, condemning the nation to wave after wave of financial panics. He describes how Britain’s blind commitment to free markets, rather than to assisting the starving in Ireland, led to one of the nineteenth century’s worst humanitarian tragedies- the Irish famine. And he shows how Britain’s reestablishment of the gold standard after World War I, fuelled largely by a desire to recapture its pre-war dominance, helped to turn what would otherwise have been a normal recession into the Great Depression. Grossman also explores the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, Japan’s lost decade of the 1990s, the American subprime crisis, and the present European sovereign debt crisis. Economic policy should be based on cold, hard economic analysis, Grossman concludes, not on an unquestioning commitment to a particular ideology. Wrong shows what happens when this sensible advice is ignored. Read more of this post

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Book Review on Wrong: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn From Them by Richard Grossman

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

Book Review: ‘Wrong,’ by Richard S. Grossman

In addition to monetary reparations, Germany after World War I was required to fork over 120,000 sheep and 10,000 goats.

ROGER LOWENSTEIN

Dec. 25, 2013 4:01 p.m. ET

Why is economic policy so often wrong? This is the question that Richard S. Grossman, an economics professor at Wesleyan University, means to get at in his beguiling study of nine economic-policy disasters. His writing is every bit as clear as his title—”Wrong: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn From Them.” Naturally, there can’t be a definitive answer to the question Mr. Grossman poses, but his thesis provides a good start: Policy goes off track when it is based on “ideology” rather than on “cold, hard, economic analysis.” Read more of this post

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Everything connects to everything: Regardless of which side of the mirror you stand, another you is facing back

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

Everything connects to everything

Regardless of which side of the mirror you stand, another you is facing back.

Dec 26,2013

*The author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.
by Nahm Yoon-ho

As the saying goes, if things go well, you deserve credit, and if things go wrong, you blame the ancestors. It describes how shallow a person can be, depending on the outcome.  Read more of this post

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Conflict Strategies for Nice People

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

Conflict Strategies for Nice People

by Liane Davey  |   12:00 PM December 25, 2013

Do you value friendly relations with your colleagues? Are you proud of being a nice person who would never pick a fight?  Unfortunately, you might be just as responsible for group dysfunction as your more combative team members. That’s because it’s a problem when you shy away from open, healthy conflict about the issues. If you think you’re “taking one for the team” by not rocking the boat, you’re deluding yourself. Read more of this post

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4 Clever Ways To Connect With Powerful People: Interview them, Write about them, Do them a favor, Make yourself interesting

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

4 Clever Ways To Connect With Powerful People

DORIE CLARK, BRAZEN LIFE

DEC. 25, 2013, 9:10 AM 2,904 1

Would you like to have a famous author, prominent entrepreneur, or well-heeled venture capitalist in your network? Of course. But they almost always appear out of reach. Unless your cousin went to college with Malcolm Gladwell or your dad spent his teens spinning records with Richard Branson, it may seem like there’s no way into their inner circles. Some people try anyway, sending industry leaders “cold call” emails with blithely optimistic requests: Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Could I pick your brain for an hour? Maybe we can schedule lunch? Those messages get ignored, and for good reason: they’re insulting to any successful, busy person. It’s not arrogance that prompts people to decline invitations; it’s the only way they can cope. No one has an hour, a half hour or even 10 minutes to spare on a stranger who doesn’t have the sense to lead with a value proposition. The real question is, what can you offer someone who’s better-known or more famous than you are? Here are four suggestions for how to get noticed: Read more of this post

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55 Brilliant Louis C.K. Quotes That Will Make You Laugh And Think

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

55 Brilliant Louis C.K. Quotes That Will Make You Laugh And Think

OCT. 25, 2013

By NICO LANG

Louis C.K. is often compared to Woody Allen (whose new movie he’s even starring in), but to me, C.K. is this generation’s George Carlin, a savagely funny comedian who isn’t afraid to touch on real issues. Carlin was something of a people’s philosopher, who just happened to swear a lot, and C.K. has touched on issues ranging from politics, environmentalism, consumption, race, class, education and masturbation, one of his personal favorite subjects. He’s also just about the only male comedian I know who deals with sexual assault well. Louis C.K. just gets it. Here’s 55 of his greatest quotes, presented in no particular order. Read more of this post

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Since starting her numerology business, Holistic Healing Mind, in September last year, clients have flocked to Brenda Tan mainly by word of mouth paying S$168 an hour asking for help in all aspects of their lives

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

Doing business by numbers

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SINGAPORE — Armed with pencil and paper, a calculator and a deck of cards, Ms Brenda Tan aims to deconstruct a person’s psyche to not only find out what makes him tick, but also how to make him tick faster and better.

BY FRANCIS KAN –

5 HOURS 48 MIN AGO

SINGAPORE — Armed with pencil and paper, a calculator and a deck of cards, Ms Brenda Tan aims to deconstruct a person’s psyche to not only find out what makes him tick, but also how to make him tick faster and better. Read more of this post

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Include ‘them’ in ‘our’ network of relationships

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

Include ‘them’ in ‘our’ network of relationships

Only two weeks ago, I attended a particular event as a PhD student. It was a seminar paying tribute to John Gumperz, one of the founders of modern sociolinguistics, who had passed away in March.

BY LUKE LU –

5 HOURS 43 MIN AGO

Only two weeks ago, I attended a particular event as a PhD student. It was a seminar paying tribute to John Gumperz, one of the founders of modern sociolinguistics, who had passed away in March. While there might be some truth in academics and our ivory towers, the topics discussed on this occasion were wholly relevant to Singapore society today. Read more of this post

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Vitaliy Katsenelson: My Investor Holiday Reading List

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

My Investor Holiday Reading List, Part 1

23 DEC 2013 – VITALIY KATSENELSON

The thing I love the most about investing is learning. Investing is a never-ending, open-ended, multidisciplinary learning endeavor. You can always get better. Just like a shark that has to keep moving to live (breathe), an investor has to keep learning and improving to survive. Books are one important learning tool. In this and my next two columns, I’ll share with you an abbreviated list of books that have helped me along the way and may do the same for you. Read more of this post

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12 successful entrepreneurs share their best productivity hacks

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

12 successful entrepreneurs share their best productivity hacks

Max Nisen, Business Insider | December 22, 2013 7:16 AM ET
For most entrepreneurs and small-business owners, it seems like there are never enough hours in the day. The pressure to make sure everything’s running smoothly means days go quickly and the to-do list easily gets lost amid ever-changing priorities. How can you best use your time to be most effective? We spoke to several successful entrepreneurs about the tips, tricks, and hacks that keep them productive and efficient. Here is some of their best advice.

Hello Design CEO David Lai: Set yourself up for success in the morning.

“How you begin the day is really important,” says Lai, who is also a founder of the award-winning creative agency based in Culver City, California. “I try to get up early, which is hard for me, as I’m not really a morning person. The first thing I’ll do is go for a bike ride, and that really helps me clear my head, relieve some stress, and think about challenges I’m currently facing. It’s important to start each day fresh and energized with the right frame of mind if you’re going to be productive.” Read more of this post

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Laksania’s uphill struggle against rising costs; Founder Sim Sin Sin has poured her life savings into Laksania. Now she fears that her staff – 60 per cent of whom have mental or physical disabilities – may soon be out of work. In March, she sold her family’s landed property in Upper Thomson to keep the ailing business afloat, bringing the amount that has gone into keeping Laksania alive to over $2 million.

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

Laksania’s uphill struggle against rising costs

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Madam Sim (left) and Ms Tay at the Bugis+ outlet of Laksania. They have offered Groupon promotions this month.

Wednesday, Dec 25, 2013

Nur Asyiqin Mohamad Salleh

The Straits Times

One of Singapore’s first food and beverage social enterprises may have to shut its kitchens for good after facing a host of financial troubles recently. Founder Sim Sin Sin has poured her life savings into Laksania. Now she fears that her staff – 60 per cent of whom have mental or physical disabilities – may soon be out of work. In March, she sold her family’s landed property in Upper Thomson to keep the ailing business afloat, bringing the amount that has gone into keeping Laksania alive to over $2 million. The 52-year-old now lives in a rented house with her family. Madam Sim also stepped down as chief executive officer of cafe chain Secret Recipe earlier this year to focus on her social enterprise. Read more of this post

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The Emotional Power of Verbs: Form your characters in terms of actions that will reveal their interior lives

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

DECEMBER 23, 2013, 9:00 PM

The Emotional Power of Verbs

By KAREN E. BENDER

The characters in my students’ stories were not quite jumping off the page. The characters were clear and beautifully described, but sometimes I felt a bit impatient reading them. The problem was not with the descriptions — my students skillfully created characters with nouns and adjectives,  constructing the characters and their world so that I knew them. The issue was that everything seemed to be still and perfect as a photograph. Read more of this post

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The Ideas that Shaped Management in 2013

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

The Ideas that Shaped Management in 2013

by Katherine Bell  |   12:15 PM December 24, 2013

It’s always tempting at this time of year to try to make a definitive list of the best ideas from the past 12 months. But then we end up debating what counts as best — important? useful? original? all three? — and compiling extremely long lists, struggling to shorten them, and over-thinking it all, when the point really is just to gather some really good reading for you for any free time you happen to find over the holiday. So this year, instead, we thought about the pieces that most surprised us or provoked us to think differently about an intractable problem or perennial question in management, we reviewed the whole year of data to remind ourselves what our readers found most compelling, and we looked for patterns in the subjects our authors raised most frequently and independently of our editorial urging.  The result, I think, is a set of ideas that together are important, useful, and original, and that feel like quite an accurate account of the management concerns many of us shared in 2013. Here’s the list.  See what you think: Read more of this post

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In No One We Trust: Inequality is eroding our faith in institutions and our way of life

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

DECEMBER 21, 2013, 2:39 PM

In No One We Trust

By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ

In America today, we are sometimes made to feel that it is naïve to be preoccupied with trust. Our songs advise against it, our TV shows tell stories showing its futility, and incessant reports of financial scandal remind us we’d be fools to give it to our bankers. That last point may be true, but that doesn’t mean we should stop striving for a bit more trust in our society and our economy. Trust is what makes contracts, plans and everyday transactions possible; it facilitates the democratic process, from voting to law creation, and is necessary for social stability. It is essential for our lives. It is trust, more than money, that makes the world go round. Read more of this post

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A Wordnado of Words in 2013

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

December 21, 2013

A Wordnado of Words in 2013

By GRANT BARRETT

PRIVACY. Selfie. Geek. Science. Four dictionary publishers each selected one of those words as its word of the year for 2013. But it’s tough to catalog the preoccupations of the year in a single word. There were many flying around that seemed to capture a moment, an emotion, a thought, a new way of doing or describing things, or the larger zeitgeist. Some were new, some not so new, but they all seemed to say something about the times. Here are a few: Read more of this post

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Learn from fraudsters to avoid scams

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

Learn from fraudsters to avoid scams

Wednesday, December 25, 2013 – 11:29

The Japan News/Asia News Network

JAPAN – With losses from various forms of fraud, including remittance fraud, expected to top the previous record of ¥40 billion (S$486 million) this year, police are trying to help people learn from “the enemy” by sharing some common techniques used by con artists. The Metropolitan Police Department seized papers in late September with the instructions: “Don’t interrupt while the other person is talking! First, carefully listen to what the target says.” The papers were found in a condominium in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, suspected to be a base for a fraud group. Read more of this post

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Building a Feedback-Rich Culture

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

Building a Feedback-Rich Culture

by Ed Batista  |   10:00 AM December 24, 2013

As an executive coach and an experiential educator, I’m a passionate believer in the value of interpersonal feedback. To become more effective and fulfilled at work, people need a keen understanding of their impact on others and the extent to which they’re achieving their goals in their working relationships. Direct feedback is the most efficient way for them to gather this information and learn from it. Read more of this post

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Robert Wilson, hedge fund titan, giant of philanthropy leaps to his death after stroke

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

Hedge fund titan, giant of philanthropy leaps to his death after stroke

By Emily Smith and Dana Sauchelli

December 24, 2013 | 7:10am

Multimillionaire philanthropist Robert W. Wilson, 86, took his own life Monday by throwing himself from his luxury Upper West Side high-rise apartment, just a few months after suffering a debilitating stroke, sources said. The former Wall Street hedge fund titan — who donated hundreds of millions to charity — left a note before leaping at about 11 a.m. from the 16th floor of the famed San Remo, which overlooks Central Park West, cops said. “He was 86 and suffered a stroke a few months ago,” said Wilson’s friend, Stephen Viscusi. “He always said he didn’t want to suffer, and when the time came, he would be ready.” A Detroit native, Wilson rose from humble beginnings to becoming nearly a billionaire, after starting his firm, Wilson Associates, with just $15,000. He would eventually build a Wall Street fortune, which was estimated by Business Week in 2000 to be worth about $800 million. Read more of this post

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The advertising industry has turned its greatest asset, people, into a commodity

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

The advertising industry has turned its greatest asset, people, into a commodity

By George Parker December 24, 2013

George Parker has spent 40 years on Madison Avenue. He’s won Lions, CLIOs, EFFIES, and the David Ogilvy Award. His latest book is “Confessions of a Mad Man.”

With the final series of AMC’s Mad Men being dragged out until 2015, you have to wonder about the stamina of the principal characters. It’s not just the drinking, smoking, and sexual shenanigans they seem to engage in 24/7, but also the impossible deadlines as they strive to come up with “The Big Idea.” Advertising has never been particularly innocuous. A few years ago, a woman working at a Madison Avenue agency was cut in half when the elevator she was stepping into broke loose. There was also a creative director of a major agency who threw himself out of the window of his 14th floor hotel room after he’d been fired. Read more of this post

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Raising Children With an Attitude of Gratitude; Research Finds Real Benefits for Kids Who Say ‘Thank You’

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

Raising Children With an Attitude of Gratitude
Research Finds Real Benefits for Kids Who Say ‘Thank You’
DIANA KAPP
Dec. 23, 2013 6:40 p.m. ET

Ben Gantert, 12, center, washes dishes near his father, Kurt Gantert, left, sister Amelie Gantert, 9, near right, and mother Gabrielle Toledano in San Francisco. The family assigns each child chores and makes sure to thank whoever cooks dinner. Laura Morton for The Wall Street Journal

At the Branstens’ modern white dining table, the family holds hands for their nightly ritual.

Arielle, 8 years old, says she’s thankful for her late grandfather, Horace, and how funny he was. “I’m missing him,” she says. Her third-grade pal, over for dinner, chimes in, “I’m grateful for the sausages.” Leela, who works for an education nonprofit, and her attorney husband Peter, burst into smiles. The San Francisco couple couldn’t have scripted this better. Appreciation for things big and small—that’s why they do this. Read more of this post

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The Joy of Pain: Schadenfreude and the Dark Side of Human Nature

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

The Joy of Pain: Schadenfreude and the Dark Side of Human Nature [Hardcover]

Richard H. Smith (Author)

Book Description

The Joy of Pain, Schadenfreude and the Dark Side of Human Nature

Publication Date: July 31, 2013 | ISBN-10: 0199734542 | ISBN-13: 978-0199734542 | Edition: 1

Few people will easily admit to taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others. But who doesn’t enjoy it when an arrogant but untalented contestant is humiliated on American Idol, or when the embarrassing vice of a self-righteous politician is exposed, or even when an envied friend suffers a small setback? The truth is that joy in someone else’s pain-known by the German word schadenfreude–permeates our society. Read more of this post

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34-Year-Old Mindy Kaling Has A Hilarious But Totally Honest Explanation For All Her Early Success

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

34-Year-Old Mindy Kaling Has A Hilarious But Totally Honest Explanation For All Her Early Success

NICHOLAS CARLSON

DEC. 23, 2013, 4:03 PM 20,850 9

Mindy Kaling was hired as a writer on “The Office” when she was 24 years old. Nine years later, she’s now writing, producing, and starring in a sitcom on Fox, “The Mindy Project.”  She’s also written a couple books. Kaling is a very funny, very successful person at a very young age. How’d she do it? What advice could she give to aspiring filmmakers, writers, actors, and comedians who want to be like her? Back in March of this year, a USC film student asked Kaling during a panel at the 2013 PaleyFest. Kaling’s answer was classic her: hilarious, honest, and dead on. The student said: “I was wondering if you had any words of advice to [explain] how to make it, because you’re awesome.” HuluKaling answered: “Thank you. I never partied or had boyfriends.” Read more of this post

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The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy Paperback

by William J. Dobson  (Author)

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In this riveting anatomy of authoritarianism, acclaimed journalist William Dobson takes us inside the battle between dictators and those who would challenge their rule. Recent history has seen an incredible moment in the war between dictators and democracy—with waves of protests sweeping Syria and Yemen, and despots falling in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. But the Arab Spring is only the latest front in a global battle between freedom and repression, a battle that, until recently, dictators have been winning hands-down. The problem is that today’s authoritarians are not like the frozen-in-time, ready-to-crack regimes of Burma and North Korea. They are ever-morphing, technologically savvy, and internationally connected, and have replaced more brutal forms of intimidation with subtle coercion. The Dictator’s Learning Curve explains this historic moment and provides crucial insight into the fight for democracy.

Read more of this post

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Financial Scammers Increasingly Target Elderly Americans; One in Every Five Americans 65 or Older Has Been Abused Financially

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

Financial Scammers Increasingly Target Elderly Americans

One in Every Five Americans 65 or Older Has Been Abused Financially

E.S. BROWNING

Dec. 23, 2013 3:20 p.m. ET

MI-CA394_ELDERS_G_20131223152406MI-CA395_ELDERS_NS_20131223152703

Minnesota State Rep. Joe Atkins spoke at a senior-citizen community last year and asked how many had recently been targeted by scammers. “Every single hand in the room went up, 75 for 75,” Rep. Atkins says. “Every single resident had gotten that same call.” always missed call.. Four told him they had sent money and were ashamed. Read more of this post

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