This is a blog response to: Where have all the good people gone?
It doesn’t matter what your background is. In fact someone from a different background can bring new ideas or new ways of doing things that can often work out very well. I’ve seen successful engineers in marketing, accountants in HR, lawyers in publishing.
Look at Jeff Bezos who was a banker turned bookstore technopreneur. Closer to home, Tony Fernandes was a bean counter who went into music and then started an airline. Moral of the story, your foundation should be in finance. No I’m kidding. I believe success lies in their ability to see opportunities and have the balls to get out and do it. But don’t get ballsy unless you’re hired for a top job with “Chief” as a prefix. Ballsy junior execs are almost always shown the door. Exceeding expectations don’t work for you when you’re working for someone in your first job after college. That is why Bill Gates took his balls elsewhere and started Microsoft. He would have been sacked at Commodore for sure.
If you don’t have balls, never mind. As long as you’re related (by birth or marriage) to someone with balls or has a lot of money. You know, you’re lucky you’re in Malaysia. Here it’s often who you know, not what you know – if you want things to move fast. But to stay ahead, you will need to know your stuff or have the money to hire people who know their stuff (make sure they don’t have balls so you don’t have to worry about getting stabbed in the back).
OK, Shazali isn’t really an entrepreneur he’s a corporate general. Does the above apply? Hell yeah. Even though he didn’t startup Celcom with this own money, his job is still very challenging, he has to take Celcom forward – which is like steering QE2. You make one mistake, you can take forever and a day to make a u-turn. If there’s an iceberg straight ahead, all the very best to you. So it takes a lot of balls to tell everyone where the boat should be heading.
Change seems to be the buzzword this year. The magic ingredient for progress. I strongly believe the telco industry has to change the way they operate, how they serve their customers and who they hire for the job. If the industry hasn’t made progress or innovated in awhile, does it make sense to continue poaching from within? To me, what’s coming out has been pretty “sei pan”. Time for a change. While we’re at it, time for 4 day work weeks and more transparency in the workplace also. ©
