Recently, Kevin Smith, a well known Hollywood director, was kicked off a flight for being too fat. He was furious and started a twitter storm. His flamebuoyant communiques aroused media coverage and strong opinions everywhere. Fat people have rights too! They proclaimed. Besides, the number is on their side. The US shall have more and more fat people. Airline had better cater to their needs, lest losing their patronage.

Airline coach seats are about 18 inches wide with 32 inches “pitch” (the distance between two rows of seats). They are good for skinny and short people. (An average American woman has a hip width of 19.7 inches, and man 17.2.) Strapped in one of them is a discomfort that most people wish to get over as quickly as possible. It’s torturous if your seat-mate is nosy, noisy, smelly, messy, or, the worst, fat. Few things can bring up more terror than being squeezed against a stranger’s skin in a tight space.

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A group of Californian students are seeking reversal of proposition 209, passed in 1996 to prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity. Under this law, the UC system would consider only academic merits — GPA, SAT scores, etc. — to admit students.

In 2007, Latino, black, and Native American students comprised 45.1 percent of California’s high school graduates but those groups comprised only 16.9 percent and 19.9 percent of new freshman admits at UC Berkeley and UCLA, respectively. This is an outrage and a social explosion waiting to happen.

Prior to Prop 209, UC has the infamous affirmative action system that give each ethnic group a quota in the new admission pool. The graduation rate of those disadvantaged ethnic groups were miserable. UC system wasted precious resources, and admission slots, for those academically ill-prepared students that essentially robbed the education opportunities from those who were otherwise qualified.

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In the study of ethics, there are the concepts of just, utilitarian, fairness, and equality. It is not just to violate any individual’s rights. But utilitarian will strive for the most good for the most people, usually sacrificing the minority. Kevin Smith may have his right as a passenger, but many more passengers suffer if airlines accommodate too much for fat people, directly with discomfort or indirectly through delay, lost of available seats, or increased price from reduced capacity.

The group that sued UC called themselves “Equality by Any Means Necessary.” Equality is an economic concept of the allocation of resources. (Five dollars for you and five for me will be equal.) Fairness means all considerations be merit-based. (We each get paid by how much we contributed will be fair.) It is obvious that UC admission system has not been equal. But is it fair? To answer, ask if the admission is merit-based.

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Ethics is a complicated subject. Topics are controversial because different approaches do not arrive at the same result. We would like things to be just and good for the most, fair and equal too. Choose your stance based on an ethic yardstick, not whether you are fat or slim, Asian or Latino.

宋江原來在梁山經營個小公司,生意蒸蒸日上. 但是他覺得前途不好,於是想被併購. 汴涼的徽宗趙佶是他的理想對象. 於是三次協商,簽訂併購合同. 梁山泊的CEO,搖身成為宋朝的個中級主管.

商業併購,十之八九,被併購的主管,在兩年內離開. 文化隔閡太大,管理理念相隔太遠.

宋江原來的假想敵是徽宗. 大公司動作慢,又官僚,其實容易競爭. 他可以在大傘下,打下自己一塊江山. 被併購後,他的對象是江南方臘,另一個中小公司. 這下就難些了.

回頭看他如何在大宋中存活呢? 宋江其實沒有大公司的資歷. 那些高俅,蔡京,身居EVP,都是在大公司打滾過來的好手. 宋江以為做事好就能被賞識,其實公司內部的人事關係,比做事實力更重要. 他自己不就是靠李師師,才搞定那併購的嗎? 轉眼,他就忘了要下工夫聯絡好高俅和蔡京,只會去打仗. 一下子,梁山的大寨主頭把金交椅,變成了只知服從,不敢抗命的大宋奴才.

宋江要是自己繼續經營梁山公司,能打下足夠的市場,與宋朝分庭抗禮嗎? 其實還有另一個大公司,金朝,也在這市場競爭. 宋江如果局勢分析好了,應該知道和宋朝併購,不如在方臘,宋,金三面經營. 也許梁山能左右世局呢?

讀史,即使是小說,也真有用.

Wise people not only heed these advices, they have been practicing them for years. You read on for more. I will try to expound on office politics.

Not before pointing out an omission: failure to deliver, the top career killer. You have a job, that job has a purpose and goals. If you screw up, nothing can help you.

So exactly is office politics? It is the understanding of how things really work and what really drive people. Modern corporations, those that survived fierce competition, do not adhere to the managerial hierarchy and budgetary discretion. They function in a much more subtle and complicated way: faster in decision making, product development, and market successes. Look beyond the structure of the organization and observe how things are done: whose opinions matter, who control the critical processes, how resources are allocated.

After that, learn what motivate those key individuals. Most of the time, the motivators are not complicated and simple to observe: sense of accomplishment, sense of right or wrong, recognition, the need to control. Look at the higher part of Maslow’s pyramid, instead of focusing on job security, pay, and career ladder. There is no better way than interacting with these people in earnest. Sometime, keen observation works equally well.

Avoiding office politics could be a career killer. Misunderstanding what it is would be a career suicide.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die Chip Heath, Dan Heath ISBN-13: 9780739341353

Like many, I was lured by the get-rich dream. The recipe was simple: get a business license, find something simple to sell, write a brilliant direct marketing piece, print many thousand copies, send them to a highly productive mailing list, and wait for the bank account to balloon. The book emphasized the mechanics of every steps and tips on creating that brilliant piece. Your head was spinning with excitement. I could write a DM to sell this and that. They will find me the suppliers and rent me the mailing lists. All I have to do is be creative. I can do that!

Then I learned the costs of those mailing lists. Even if they are 6% response rate lists (as compared to the 0.5% of phonebook), my spreadsheet showed me that I would have no profit after paying off the list rentals.

So, sucker was I. Again.

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Above is an attempt to create a memorable story. Did it work?

Make it Simple, find an Unexpected angle, use Concrete examples, cite Credible sources, tap into people’s Emotion, and, always, tell a Story. SUCCES. Don’t forget that your audience do know what you knew. These are the simple technique to make your points stick. Did you remember my opening story?

Good stories mostly follow one of the 3 plots: challenge, connection, creativity. The challenge plot is the overcome of seemingly insurmountable hurdle. The connection plot links people deeply. The creativity plot is the ingenious ways to solve problems. My story was not any of them, but it could still be memorable. I was inspired to buy Robert McKee’s book Story, or maybe attending his seminar someday.

Thank you, Michelle, for suggesting the book.

Budget is tight. All hirings are frozen. Economy is bad. One of your employee is not performing. If you manage him out, you won’t get replacement. What do you do? This, of course, is a decision after you have exhausted other means to make this employee productive.

Retaining him keeps your organization full. You will not lose your charter, since someone is assigned. Your influence in the company maintains the same level, so you think, since the size of your organization stays the same. (See my “Myth on Size” post.)

You will spend disproportaional time managing this employee. He will make you look bad, since he cannot deliver the projects. He will drag down the teammates, who will either have to cover for him, or resent his not pulling his own weight.

If you manage him out, you get credits from your boss for “doing the right thing.” You get a perfect reason for not meeting some of your goals. Other employees will most likely be motivated, since now everyone hates the teammate that make them look bad. But you will have less budget and therefore less slack should something goes the wrong direction. You and your organization will be a bit more vulnerable.

When I was trying to convince a manager to do the right thing. He said, “I have a ‘no bench warmer’ policy.” I was taken aback. What a punchy way to express this. Needless to say, I did not spend much time convincing him.

Bob Sadler introduced Organizational Culture Inventory (OCI) to a group of managers at Juniper. As he explained the concept, it dawned on me. This is the EQ for a team, or a company.

There are many ways to measure a company’s IQ, or its operational effectiveness. Most typically we have financial performance numbers, usually expressed as acronyms: ROE, EPS, CCC, DSO, EBIT, etc. Then we have measurements such as employee satisfaction, customer loyalty, new product successes, talent metrics, diversification in various ways, leadership quality, etc. Executives in modern corporation are obsessed with those metrics. In fact, some argued that senior management’s main job is to select the metrics and design the corresponding rewards. The cadre of managers will automatically deliver the rest.

Except when the company tries to change — a must-do every decade or so until it dominates an industry. Even then, companies perished when resting on their laurels too long. This is when EQ, defined as the ability to change, matters more.

OCI surveys a company and measures if the company is constructive or defensive. It further measure if the company is aggressively or passively defensive. A constructive company is humanistic, affiliative, achievement-oriented, and self-actualizing. An aggressively defensive company opposes changes; is competitive internally; over uses power; and is made of perfectionists that are overly concerned with deadlines and details. A passively defensive company hides behind approval processes, sticks to conventions, creates complicated dependencies, and in general avoids changes.

Bob said that he can pretty much predict if the change process will be successful or not by their OCI. He, over the 35-year consulting career, has collected tools for different kinds of companies.

Unlike IQ, people can change their EQ, so can a company if its employees choose to. There are books teaching people to get better at EQ. I wonder how would a company changes its OCI.

Would changing an OCI require a high OCI to begin with? Hmm…

The art of persuasion (rhetoric) has three elements: emotion (pathos), deference (ethos), and logic (logos). Imagine this attempt to persuade you to get a dog:

President Obama conducted extensive research and concluded that Portuguese Water Dog is the best choice for families of young children. When Sasha and Malia play with the puppy, no one can stop smiling.

Here we enlisted a respectful figure, presented data, and painted you a heart-warming picture. Studies showed that people are persuaded by emotions, deference, and data — all three, in that sequence. Over-using logos: data, statistics, facts, or logic, sometime to the point of ignoring the other two elements is a common mistake.

Modern knowledge workers, you engineers, designers, architects, and, yes, managers are frequently in the business of persuasion. You need to motivate your staff, make alliance with peers, and align your boss (it works both ways). Your career does not move without persuasive skill in your toolbox.

I interpreted ethos as deference, not authority. Deference comes from respect or trust. It is a powerful persuastive tool, sometime enough by itself. It, however, is completely associated with the individual and takes long time to cumulate.

It is dangerous to persuade by authority. Positional power is addictive, since it is effective, fast, and easy. But many argued it is not really persuation if commanded. Modern knolwedge workers must understand, agree, and communicate with others for the organization to succeed. Authority, best displayed but not used, usually does not work. It is also one tool easiest to lose.

Pathos need not be Hallmark-style dramas. Just stay connected to your audience. Find points that they care. Have eye contact when you deliver the message. Smile and show that you are a human being, not a voicebox that happens to be carbon-based.

This is persuation 101, the basics. Those who have finished this class may proceed to Robert Cialdini.

In the formative years of my managerial career, I ate books to facilate growth. It became a habit. Later, I would pick up books from airports or lists from New York Times or Wall Street Journal. For years, managerial books are the only non-fiction I read.

Two books, I tried to memorize them: I-Jing and SunTzu.

I-Jing, in its entirety, has less than 7,000 words. SunTzu is just a bit longer, less than 8,000 words. Both can be printed on 8 pages of letter-size, in succinct Chinese, of course. English is voluminous.

I-Jing explains life with 64 cases. When I have a moment to reflect my life, I pick a random case and frequently fell into a trance thinking the relavance to whatever happening to myself at the time.

SunTzu offers 13 strategic considerations on how to win a war, any war. To me, these two books form the foundation of life. I-Jing gives me insight on goals and SunTzu offers the strategies to obtain them. I read many on similar topics, none topped these two. Both books were written thousands years ago and are part of the Chinese heritageous wisdom. The translation works are all painful to read, and, again, so voluminous.

Thank you, Darrin, for the classically bound copy and the humourous Stanley Bing version.

The economy is bad. Your company considers a reduction-in-force (RIF). Geographically, how to do it?

Sort sale regions by anticipated rebound speed. Infra-structure and employees spin up slowly. If a company’s capacity is not ready, it will miss the rebound, a one-time chance.

Middle managers instinctively protect home-base and therefore RIF evenly, like peanut-butter. The economy, however, never recovered evenly. Peanut-buttered previously, the company is ill prepared for the faster regions and wastes capacity elsewhere. Darwinian result ensues; wrong decision leads to non-competitiveness.

If your company did it wrong, seek employment elsewhere. You will have to in several years.

别急着找工！东家把你给裁了，依法有遣散费，总有几个月的钱。先定下心，想想。谋定而后动。

想不想创业?农牧,医疗,教育.这三块大有前途.你有没有个独到的先机(每个人都有,要去想)．

不知道？没关系．够年轻的话，考虑去念个书．国外的最好，国内的也行．

还是要找活？可以。简历写的好吗？这事要花点时间，少则4小时，多则一两天。不要第一个offer就收，想好自己要做什么，老板如何，能学到什么?钱是小，前途是大。

Good luck.