Going from A to Z

During our Covid break, many people are reevaluating their careers while others are just starting out. Sales, as a career, is usually not discussed on career day in high school or college. Our first exposure to sales people is often with our parents going to make a significant investment (car, furniture, house…). Society has created a variety of stereotypes of salespeople, most notably the used car salesman. Wolf of Wall Street, Glengarry GlenRoss, and other movies have not done much to improve the image of the sales, so why should you consider a career in sales? Running a business, but without all the other work. Once you learn the process…

In the previous posts discussed the trends we were seeing from Singapore and posed a fun question about Covid.  After some comments and discussions, my opinion is that Covid is closest to Cricket.  David Annis had a great point that in cricket you can have a tie. After a Stay at Home April and now May, feels like our battle with Covid is going to be long and a challenging game to win.    Here are some updates from Asia since the last post: Hong Kong, China, South Korea and Taiwan are getting close to the New Normal.  Many people are heading back to the office (with social distancing), new…

Living in Singapore gives an American a unique vantage point of the global pandemic. We are the first to experience each new phase of the crisis. Sharing insights from observing our Asia Pacific team and living at the southernmost point in Asia!  The WHO has highlighted Singapore’s best practices and we have been living under a Code Orange (DORSCON) since February 7th. SARS taught Central and North Asia countries hard lessons. Lessons from which Singapore developed plans and executed during February and March. Think of the initial outbreak as a Wave 1, you flatten the curve, then infections and deaths rates start to fall.  Once Wave 1 is under control, the situation looks…

In December, among the normal hectic end of year, I had the privilege of hearing Michelle and Barack Obama speak thanks to #thegrowthfaculty and #sas. Sharing a few items of wisdom from each using a little role reversal.  Plus, at the bottom, How might Barack be handling #COVID19? Mr. President – Leadership applied to Family.  Barack’s upbringing gives him a great foundation of common sense. Lessons for your family: – Don’t get too high or low emotionally. We have all been in situations with a family member which become emotional. Take a breath, step away, and come back.  – Empower others and put them in situations to succeed. In the US, and globally, often we…

Being in Asia Pacific, the Coronavirus brought learning opportunities to us sooner and wanted to share my experience to help leaders around the world. Our challenge in following a traditional processes was creating too may decision check points or people voicing their perspective when it may not culturally fit the working of a country. COVID-19 is triggering continuity of business (COB) plans for organizations, but many of these plans were designed for an event occurring (i.e. a natural disaster), to assess the impact, and then put that a plan into action. COVID-19 is an emerging situation evolving at different rates across many geographies. COB plans are helpful, but decision making can be tricky.  In…