Chinese Year of the Rabbit and Biomimicry

Learning Values from the Animals and Start Making Changes for a God Blessed New Year 2011

I mentioned Biomimicry in my last post, Eat, Drink & Enjoy - A Reflection on Sunday's Chinese New Year Message. It was an extreme way of looking at Biomimicry in medicines and health. It was about eating the right animal organs to supplement the corresponding human organ's function. The generally accepted meaning of Biomimicry is learning and adopting the behavior of the living things into the human world for creating innovations that brings value, and especially in the area of creating a sustainable eco-systems.

The Chinese has, a long time ago, practiced this kind of Biomimicry - learning from the animal. It was wisely and widely diffused in the Chinese culture through of use Chinese Zodiac sign. Instead of teaching the less educated to learn to read, it is much easier to use signs, of animals, to tell about the year and time. 12 Animals are used with one for each year. Starting with rat, then ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, roster, dog and pig.  ( I recently got to know that the Vietnamese uses Cat in place of Rabbit). The behavior of the animal is used to characterize the fortune for the year (part of a more complex system of 5 elements, 10 heaven trunks and 12 earth branches and others) and also about the character of the person born in the year. The strengths and weaknesses of animal is an exhortation for the people. I think it is a pretty smart. It is a low-cost yet highly effective way of teaching moral values to the mass of people. Let me add that I don't believe in Zodiac signs, neither character based on Zodiac signs, nor any form of fortune telling. This post is about Biomimicry.

Learning from Rabbits - Watchfulness, Carefulness & Agility
What can we learn from Rabbits? I think it is their watchfulness(alertness), carefulness and agility. They are always scanning the environment (blessed with long large ears, far distance eye-sight, sensitive sense of smell, day and night vision), extremely cautious (a nice way of saying they are timid) , and agile with powerful hind legs for speed. When encountering attackers, they also warn others by stamping on the ground.

There are more in the Animal Signs. They are about balanced values, see my post on Complementary Values from Chinese Zodiac Signs.

Eagle - Vision
Our Bible also uses animals to teach us about behavior. The famous one that is preached frequently is about the Eagle*1. We are to learn from the Eagle about having higher vision, soaring higher, effortless flight through the air by riding on the air currents, rejuvenation of youth by breaking their peaks and pulling out their feathers, and the training of the young by dropping them from great height and enabling them to try to fly by themselves etc.

Other AnimalsThere are other animals covered in Prov 30:25-31 [There are some differences among the translations]

1. The ants [are] a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer;
   Teaching: plans for the future. hardworkingness.
2. The conies [are but] a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks;
   Teaching: audacity in overcoming adversity.
3. The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands;
   Teaching: unity, communication, self-directed management
4. The spider/lizard taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.
   Teaching: survivability, viral diffusion, globalization.
5. A lion [which is] strongest among beasts, and turneth not away for any;
   Teaching: courage, strength, stately appearance,
6. A greyhound/strutting rooster; hunting and strength for the hound and Leadership and consistency from the rooster.
7. he-goat also;courageous executions
   (The lion, rooster, he-goat are named together with the King for their stateliness in v29 and I think that they stand for leadership)

Putting Them to Work
What can we learn from the above set of values from the animals? For the vision that you set for this coming new year, which values are most relevant to realizing the vision?

Knowing the relevant key values is just the first step. We must convert the values into policies and practices. We must refer to them when we make our decisions.

Let say we pick the Rabbit's agility, a very important value in today's rapid changing world, then we must put in place a system to scan the environment for changes in trends that are of importance to us. Furthermore, we must re-examine our ability to react to the change our situation. Are we assets light? Are our assets mobile or liquidable and be readily redeployable? Are there things in business, or emotional baggage in our private life, bad habits that tied us down and make us unresponsive?

Have a good reflection and start making changes for having a God blessed new year.

----
Note *1 We are encouraged to be like the Eagle and not the Hen. It is typical of common preachers to overstress the strength or usefulness of a particular thing. The truth is that we need to have both and the strength or weakness is dependent on the situation.

Lim Liat Copyrighted 2011

How to be A Successful CEO

How to Study the Bible
Ps 101, even though is very short with only 8 verses, contains much wisdom on how to be a good CEO that runs a great company. I will also like to take this opportunity to share about how to do Bible Study. Here are the steps:

1. Read the whole passage.
2. Analyze verse by verse
3. Break the verse down further by concepts.
4. Meditate on the meaning and implication.
   - Rephrase the concepts in as free words as possible
   - Looking at it from the dimension of space - I and others, area of influence,...
   - Looking at if from the dimension of time - the sequence....
   - Try to find the answers for Why, What, Who, When, Where & How.
5. Find the areas for applications - i.e. putting what has been learned into practice.

Recommended Software for Mind Mapping
I find it easier to do with a mind-mapping software.
You can get good free mind mapping software by following the ....

• freemind choose RC-5. This is the original. Very features rich & fast.
• freeplane a new software based on freemind. Even more feature. But in alpha-test stage. So far no problem for me.
• xmind this is a very visual and beautiful mindmapping software. Lots of map formats and formating styles to choose form (stronger than freemind & freeplane). But lack filtering, resources, etc that are available in freemind. But it is a good mind mapping software to start with. One major advantage over others is the availability of a USB drive version so that you don't have to install on your PC or Mac.

Back to the meat of of Ps 101. Here is what I have learned.

How to be a Good CEO

David was speaking as a King. In today context, it could be equivalent to the CEO or the Executive Chairman or just simply a Boss where you run a business with subordinates under you.

A good Boss starts with self. We must be of good character and has competence before we can help others. His first secret is praise God for His love and justice. This reminds us of the many verses that say the "Fear of the Lord" is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom (Prov 1:7). Two key traits of God were experienced by David, love (steadfast - not one off or ad-hoc) and justice. God's love and justice is expressed out in integrity.

A good CEO begines with knowing God's steadfast love and justice and show them out as personal integrity. Integrity is gained by first thinking about the ways of the righteous (blameless) , real meaning and motivation of the heart, and expressing them out in the way of behaviour and establishment of company values and policies and the way we treat others. David was clear of doing them within the sphere of our control. There are many areas that are beyond our control can we should be discouraged or to force others. The walk of integrity also includes putting away the evil things, perverse intention, slandering and gossiping, and arrogance of heart and look (and talk and associated behaviour such as being unteachable and despising others).

A CEO also works with people. He want to have people of good characters working for him. He employs people that are faithful and those that walk blamelessly (righteous behaviour). He constantly review his people and will not hestitate to remove people that tell lies and practice deceits.

Here is the mind map of Ps 101 - How to be a Good CEO

KP#29 Human Resource Development

Most manager would like to quickly blame the lack of performance on the staff. If one is familiar with the 6-M Fish bone analysis of causes, man is one only of the six elements of Man, Machine, Materials, Methods, Measurement and Management of possible causes ( 6M came from Germany and one of the M was the Environment rather than Management. Management is the external entity that is responsible for improving the system). If one is familiar with the work of Edward Deming's system of profound knowledge, then the key cause of the lack performance could be in the system or methods.

In the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree Luke 13:6-9, the tree did not produce for 3 years and the owner wanted to cut it down. The Vine dresser however pleaded for another year. But he first want to dig around to find the causes and to add fertilizer. He was practicing a good method of finding the causes first before blaming the obvious - the tree or the man.

We can learn from the method of the Vine dresser:

1. Find the Blockages - Obstacles or Diseases for lack of Performance.
2. Empowering with Fertilizer.
   For human being, may be there should be encouragement and development - e.g. sending the person for training or coaching the person.

We can find a similar verse in John 15:2. The Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament gives the verse as:

Joh 15:2 "Every branch in Me not bearing fruit, He takes it away [or, lifts it up]; and every [branch] bearing fruit, He prunes clean, so that it shall be bearing more fruit.

The word airo G142, according to Thayer's, have 3 different meanings:

1. to raise up, to lift up
2. to take upon one'self and carry what have been raise up, to bear
3. to remove, carry off.

Most Bible translation just use cut-off. I prefer the 1st one - which is lift up. For development point of view, 2nd definition of carry and bear is even better. BRUCE WILKINSON, in the "Secrets of the Vine" uses the lift-up. Please read the book for the reasons of "Lift up". Essentially, vine stuck in the ground covered with dirt do not produce fruit. They need to be lifted up to get the sun and air to produce fruit.

The principle that I want to stress here is Human Resouce Development first before blaming and firing the staff for lack of performance. Please apply the 6M method to find the cause and if it is the man, coach and develop the man first. If he still can't perform, perhaps his job should be changed for his benefits.

Give Staff one more chance with Training & Support before firing.

Next: Principle of Continuity

KP#27 Principle of Accountability

The Principle of Accountability is found in the Parable of Dragnet Mat 13:47-50 and Parable of the Sheep & Goats Mat 25:31-46. The lessons can be combined for us to come out with a good method for establishing accountability.

If one studies the companies that are rated as "The Best Companies to Work for" , you can find that those companies tend to outperform their industry counterparts. Digging deeper, you can find that the staff have much freedom to decide what to do (empowered) and they are highly motivated to do well. The secret is two fold:

1. clearly communicated mission and vision (understanding the what & why)
   and no detailed prescription for how. Staff are given the freedom to decide the how to achieve the goals.
2. a proper accountability system.

Accountability provides the learning framework for us to grow. It is important that we know how well we are doing - correcting the wrong and strengthening the right actions. Accountability provides us to remove those behaviours or people that are not working towards the achievement of shared mission and vision.

Following the system, we can achieve the ideal of 'self-management' that is productive and adaptable and agile to changing business environments.

Here are the details:

Next: Principle of Excellence - Zero Defect

KP#26 Stewardship - Optimization of One's Gifts & Resources

Most people in position, such as Chairman or CEO of corporation or Minister in Government Organization, do not realize that their position is an entrusted one. They are actually stewards to the entrusted resources and must be accountable to them. CEO is the care-taker of the investments made by the public and sharesholders. Government is entrusted by the citizens to be care-taker of their country and the associated resources. As stewards, one has the responsibility to optimize the resources entrusted.

The Jesus told of at least 3 parables and many more exhortations to encourage people to be good stewards. In the Parable of Talents Mat 25:14-30, the talents, 5,2 and 1 are distributed according to their abilities. The able has more talents and resulting in the key teaching of Mat 25:29 more will be given to those who has and those who has not will loose even what they have (my paraphrase).

In Luke 19:11-27, the Parable of Minas, the money is distributed evenly, 1 for each of 10 servants totaling 10. Everyone started with equal amount of resources. The key message is "do business until I come" in v19:13. There is a day of accountability in v15 when he returns "to know what they had gained". In the evaluation, those who have done well is a given greater responsibilities, from mina to cities! The one who did nothing lost his mina.

The principle of Stewardship means we must be accountable and we are to optimize the use of resources entrusted to us.

How can we Optimize the resources?
The key word is Faithfulness. In Luke 16:11-12, Jesus tells us the secret - starts with the little things now. Faithfullness in little will enables you to be faithfulness in the large. You will be promoted from stewards to owners.

Other principles include:
1. Less could be More: It does not depend on the resources given. Don't complain and worry about what you don't have. Work with what you have. More does not means better. In the Miracles of Feeding of thousands, the one starting with less fed more people!

2. Don't waste- Be Lean. In the feeding of multitudes, Jesus asked the disciples to collect back the remains and they filled up big baskets. They also clean up the mess at the same time!

See the mind map below for more ....

Next: Principle of Accountability

KP#25 Principle of Potential

The parable of the Mustard Seed Mat 13:31-32, a small seed growing up to a big tree, shows that :

• You cannot judge the future success by the present physical size
• Do not despise a small beginning

There are other popular descriptions for this hidden potential in a seemingly small thing:

• You can count the seeds in an apply but not the applies in a seed
• The Butterfly Effect: the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas (From Chaos Theory and sensitive dependence on initial conditions).
• the small spark that lighted the forest
• Snowballing

The Parable of the Yeast Luke 13:20-21 which Jesus used to compare with the Kingdom of God shows forth the power and the process of the working of Kingdom Economy. The little yeast is first planted into a much larger volume of flour. The yeast then ferments the flour and with time, eventually converted the whole. It shows us that believer is not to be isolated but to

1. engage the world
   
2. transform it
   
3. and expand and
   
4. fill all the earth with His Kingdom's rule.

(yeast is used in other places of the Bible to signify a bad influence as in Mat 16:11-12, Gal 5:9. People then to over utilize symbolism and generalised it. One should always look at the context first unless one cannot be clear from the context then it may be ok use the interpretation from other context. Nevertheless, the principle of small beginning is the same whether it is for good or bad).

We should encourage the good small beginning and be watchful of the small bad influence and stopping them before it becomes a big problem.

See also Luke16:10 faithful/dishonest in a very little is also faithful/dishonest in much.)

Next: Principle of Stewardship - Optimization of One's Gifts & Resources

KP#24 Going Back is A Good Option

Distractions and scope creeps are common occurences in business and project. Before long, the business or project would take on its own direction. It is time to review and return to the original mission and values may provide a way out of your troubled business or project.

The story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32 or the Ephesian church in Rev 2:1-7 serve as examples of the need to go back to the original mission and values.

Business Venture Lessons from the Prodigal Son Parable
There are much lessons to be learned from the parable of the Prodigal Son.
The Prodigal Son know how to start a business - get capital first. Unfortunately he does not know how to run it. He committed the same error as most start-ups with lots of capital - waste them in big scale marketing events and advertising without the products being ready for the market. Nevertheless, his father teaching lead him not to steal or cheat in time of need but to earn a living working even in a lowly job. His breakthrough comes from doing a reflection, facing the reality, admitting his errors, working out the options, making the choices and once again taking the action - Go Back, even if need to be shamed. Other lessons are given in the mindmap below:



Next: Principle of Potential
 

KP#23 Create The Trends

Instead of watching and following the trends, we could innovate and set the new trends. e.g. The software Vasicac create one of the killer application for micro-computer now widely known as the spreadsheet providing successes for Lotus-123 and then the Excel. Older people will be similar with names like Multiplan, QuatroPro etc.

In the post Creative God but a Boring Church I discussed about some of the reasons of the boring church and how to be creative. Jesus had always been an innovator - breaking free from the traditions, revealing the truths, and demonstrating the power and authority. Innovation is not about breaking moral laws but more about breaking contradictions, impossibilities and removing compromises. It is about 100% win win for all. This is very unlike human practices of legalizing our sins or weaknesses. Mat 5:17 shows Christ came not to abolish the Laws (God does not contradict Himself) but to expose the lies, the sins, the weaknesses, the truths and to empower us with new nature to fulfill the laws. It is not a compromise but a break-through solution.

As we establish the new trend with our innovation. we need to provide a bridge to the new world. This bridge could involve educating the existing market, building new infrastructure, removing prejudices etc. This bridge building could be very expensive. It could be most expensive show stopper for your innovation. It caused God to incarnate and die on the Cross. If possible, your innovation should ride on existing structure and knowledge unless you have large resources. e.g. cars need better roads than the trails that horses ride on. Cell phones needs a new infrastructure. The growth rate and investment needed to make our innovation successful depends much on how we can make better use of existing knowledge and infrastructure. This explains the easy adoption of PC with word processing to replace type-writer and Spreadsheet software.

See the attached mind-map for more ....

Next: Going Back is a Good Option

KP#22 Seize the Opportunity

Seizing an opportunity has a pre-requisite practice of KP#21 Be Watchful. Once you detect and confirmed a structural change, you need to act quickly. Your ability to act quickly depends on your agility, readiness, responsiveness and risk management. Most people are not ready to act - the inertia to change is too high or there is a lack of resources (no reserves), or lack of mobile resources.

Responsiveness does not means "recklessness". One needs to have Risk Management. Risk Management is not about not taking risks but taking calculated risks and determine how much risk you can take without jeopardizing your core business success.

The details are in the mind map.


Next: Create the Trend

KP#21 Watch and Ride the Trend

It is common knowledge that change is the permanent and unavoidable thing of life. Living means growing and changing. However, coping with the changes bring stress and hardship.

The secret of successful and victorious living lies in the following 4 strategies:

1. Watch & Ride the Trend
   Being watchful of the changes, the trends, and then plan to riding on it to success.
2. Seizing the Opportunity in the Crisis.
   Very often though, the changes just happen suddenly; at least to those that have not be watching or to those with lack of knowledge. There is little to plan to cope with the changes. The ability to seize this opportunity, or more precisely, crisis, depends very much one readiness, agility, and responsiveness.
3. Innovate and Create the Trend and Following.
4. Going Back is a Good Option. When there is uncertainty and lack of directions and the present situations is not at all comfortable, going back to the original mission and calling that make the corporate successful in the 1st place could be a good option. We don't always have to do 'new' things.

We will cover the 1st strategy - watch and ride the trend.
Jesus uses the Budding Fig Tree Mat 24:32-36, the Evening Sky Mat 16:2-3 to tell us that

• changes can be predicted.
• be watchful wise and know the trend

We must be always on the watch so that we don't be fooled by our present and past success thinking that things will always stay the same. We should not be fooled by things that happen on the surface and go deeper and further. Luke 18-9-14 tells the story of Pharisee and the Republican - who is the one that is saved? self-righteousness or true repentance.

Here is the mind map ....

Next:  Seize the Opportunity

KP#20 Focus & Priority - Building Strengths more than Overcoming Weaknesses

Parables of "The Hidden Treasures" and "The Pearl of Great Price"
Everyone has limited time and limited resources. The key to effectiveness and productivity is knowing what are the important ones and then concentrating effort and time on doing them. Life is much simplified, stressed free when we identify the things of utmost of values. Jesus taught this principle of "finding the treasure and giving all to get it" in the parables of "The Hidden Treasures Mat 13:44" and "The Pearl of Great Price Mat 13:45-46". It is so important that Jesus uses two illustrations. This principle is put into practice by Paul in Php 3:8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.

1st Find the Treasure
What is the Treasure? What are things that are of importance and value? This is found in our mission statement for the corporation and in our calling for our personal life. The mission gives us the purpose and meaning of existent. We need to spend time to search for it and to craft it. It is the most important thing to do. Do it first. Find the mission.

2nd Give All to Get It
The follow on step is to spend all the effort and time to realize the found mission. To Paul, it is Jesus Christ. He spent his all to get to know Christ in an intimate way and to grow up to be like Him. All others are considered less valueable than that. Knowing our mission and meaning of life, an individual or in a corporation, enables us to work out a priority list. We should use the things of lower value to get the things of higher value.

Core & Context - Work on Building Up Strength more than Overcoming Weaknesses
This concept is well illustrated by Geoffrey Moore in his books when he speak of core and context. He suggested we should spend time in enhancing and building the core of differentiation from the markets and outsourcing our context. In the book "7 Practices of Effective Ministry", Andy Stanley et al use the Baseball game as illustration - a pitcher (his mission) is to spend effort in improving his pitching rather than spend effort in improving his batting. For me, we need to spend effort in improving our weakness to an acceptable level and spend more efforts in improving our strengths. This pre-supposes that we have found a role than utilizes our strengths.

Not all activities are of equal important. Activities that help you move in the direction of your mission and vision are needful. The others are just distortion. Find your treasure first and spend all to get it.

Next: Watch and Ride the Trend

Connecting to the Singapore's Dream

In our home group discussion on "Pre-Evangelism" (see Pre-Evangelism or Conversational Evangelism and Pre-Evangelism BT Version, a member said that present Singapore generation are not interested in spiritual matter but are more interested in career advancement and accumulating wealth.

The Singapore's dream, is easily remembered as 5Cs. Even foreigners when describing Singaporeans, use the term too. There are various forms of 5Cs, generally, they refer to Cash, Car, Condominium, Credit-card, Country-Club. In the past, Credit-Card is not easy to get and is considered a status symbol but now it is not so. It is better to be replaced by Career. Country Club, a symbol of success, could possibly be replaced by Clubbing that the young people do. There is also a variant form of 1-2-3-4-5: 1 wife, 2 children, 3 bed-room condominium, 4 wheel-car, and 5 figure salary. Whatever the form, the pursuit can be summarized as material success and enjoyment.

There is another part of the Singaporean dream that is not always highlighted but are nevertheless real and important. That is Singaporeans are also very family centred and law abiding. The family value may be eroding at the expense of material pursuit as evidenced by the rising trend of divorces.

How can we then connect to such material and enjoyment mindset? How will they be interested in Spiritual Matter? (I'm not advocating that Spiritual Pursuit means denouncing material wealth and making poverty a virtue. I believe wealth is part of the blessings that God provides for man. I am advocating that man understands the reality of life and be connected to a very real God through Jesus Christ.)

Connections
I propose that we connect to the material pursuit by sharing the following

1. Be Really Successful - Have Higher Goals
2. Have Better Methods to Success
3. Imaging
4. Stress Reduction

Be Really Successful - Have Higher Goals
While we know from the Bible the true need of man, we can't use it to argue with pre-believers as they don't accept the Bible as relevant. We can use the widely available business and sociology references. We have the famous Maslow's hierarchy of needs that show the real needs of every man, from physiological, safety, social (relational), self-esteem and self-actualization. We need to consider what are of greater values than materials wealth and enjoyment. What are the significance and meaning of life? What are man truly worth?

Have Better Methods to Success
All of us want to be successful in the quickest and surest way. Where can we learn the secrets of success? The Bible provides the tested answers for thousands of years. The Church, whether Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox etc are establishment with life span of thousands of years. No business corporations can boast of similar life-span. The golden rule of success is wealth comes from right pursuit. Mat 6:33. Someone put it as "Economic development follows Spiritual Revival". We have seen from history on the development of Europe and US were closely tied with the reformation. We can introduce the wisdom of the Bible for business success to them. A simple way to start is to read Proverbs or follow the Business by Jesus series in the blog.

Imaging
Another way to stretch the thinking is to imaging if ....

• If you die, what do you want others to say about you? What do you want other to put on your tombstone? Is it only "19xx - 20xx". What is in the '-' of your life on earth?
• If a crisis strike, like a lost of job, disability due to accident, death of a loved one, an earth-quake like the China Sichuan, a terrorist attack like the US 9/11, what would you feel and do?

Stress Reduction
All of our stress can be traced to our belief on a Satan's Lie, known as "The Performance Trap"

• We must perform in order to have worth and value.

You must prove first before you can become. This is the Satan's temptation of Jesus that Jesus should turn the rock into bread to prove that He is the Son of God. See The Temptations of Jesus, "Be-Do-Have" of Grace Based Doctrine.

In Robert McGee's book of "In Search of Significance", he put the lie as

• Self-Esteem = Performance + Others' Opinions

Because of such a belief, we work from fear, fear of failure, shame and guilt. We either stressed out to achieve or be depressed and give-up when things don't work to expectation. We try to control and manipulate, to cover up, to put up a bold front, to hide our weaknesses, etc. We seek approvals from man instead of from God. This is an important topic that we will spend more time on in future posting.

I hope the above proposals can help us connect to the present generation and bring them towards a search of greater reality and of God.

• Pro 20:5 The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.

We need all the wisdom to connect to the real needs inside.

Appreciate your additional comments.

Bible for Business Seminar#12 Processes

About 10 of us get together for the seminar#12 on Processes and Operation Excellence.

The Aims or Strategic Themes for Processes are usually

1. Efficiency - change cost structures, digitize processes
2. Differentiation - becoming a customer centric enterprise
3. Resilience & Agility - Ensure stability and flexibility

Vision and Strategies without Processes to deliver them will remains as unfulfilled dreams. Mat 7:24-27 tells us to do it to have a strong foundation.

People who are doing Strategic Map driven Balanced Scorecard tend to be very concern about the possible effort and need to revamp processes. Processes are the how's to achieve the Strategic Objective Targets. If the present processes are able to achieve the targets, then there is no need to change the existing processes. If the existing processes are not delivering the targeted results, then resources (money and man effort) must be spent, known as Strategic Initiatives, to improve or re-design the processes.

The typical Inductive Bible Study Method of Observation, Interpretation & Application will not benefit us if we do not apply what we learned into practice. The Bible teaches us the following Operation Principles.

Operation Excellence Principles

1. Just Do it:
   
• Mat 6:34, Mark 4:26-29
  
2. Go & See:
   
• Mark 1:39
  
3. Right Usage:
   
• Mark 2:21
• Fishbone Chart (5ME/6M, 8P's, 4 S's), Root Cause Analysis.
  
4. Alignment: Align Processes to deliver the offering to the Customer Segments served.
   
5. Butterfly Effect - Attention to Details.
   
• Mark 4:30-32, Luke 16:10.
  
• The 6-Sigma Methodology: control variation, optimize, breakthrough.
• Improvement with DMAIC: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control.
• Design with DMADV - Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify.
  
6. Sharing of Best Practices
• Mark 5:19
  
• Knowledge Management
  
7. Internalize The Practices (Not for Show Only)
• Mat 6:18 Fasting
• Mat 5:4 Giving
• Mat 6:6 Praying
  
8. Working like Owners - Law of Promotion
   
• Luke 16:11
  
9. No Waste, Be Lean
• Mat 14:20
• Lean Methodology - Eliminate Waste All the Time
  
• 5 Principles - Value (no waste), Value-Stream, Flow, Pull, Perfection
• Waste are: waiting, over-production, rework, motion, processing waste, inventory, transportation and waste of Talent.
• Flow - Have the "Decision Rights" with the right "Information Flow" are more important than "Motivators" & "Organisation Structure" for successful execution.
10. Innovation
• Operation Innovation guides are
• set stretched goals - Mat 5:20
  
• look for role models in other industry
• identify and eliminate constraining assumptions - John 8:32
  
• rethink the work - purpose, environment, information needs, tools, etc. See Lean Methodology above.
11. System & People - Sabbath for the People
    
• Mark 2:27
  
• Don’t Attribute System Variation to People and wrongly punish or reward the people
• See E W Deming's Profound Knowledge, Read Beans Experiment.
  

Bible for Business Seminar#11 Customers & Blue Ocean Strategy

For the Customer Perspective in the Strategy Driven Map Balanced Scorecard, we must know the following:

1. The Offering is a multi-dimensional vector of factors like price, features, service, branding and so forth. The vector of the offering is known as a Strategy Curve in the Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) methodology.
2. Customer buying decision is both rational and emotional. The encounter brings an experience. Frequent pleasant experience causes Engagement and brings Loyalty, Customer Profitability and Lifetime value.
3. We must segment our market so that we can address the customers needs better. Segment tends to be done through demographics like sex, age, incomes, etc. A more precision and effective approach is by the 'task' or 'job' performed. e.g. washing machine for the housewives, Visical for the business manager or accountants etc.
4. The values that Customers desire have moved from Rational, Emotional into Human Values and Significance. Customers may pay more for a product that is 'sustainable' - ie. protect the environment in its manufacturing and use.
   

We discussed Blue Ocean Strategy in details and with examples like Cirque du Soleil, Southwest Airline, MacDonalds etc. The methodology includes the Strategy Canvas, The 6 pathways to identify factors, and then applying ERRC (Eliminate, Reduce, Raise, Create) to come out with your unique Strategy Curve, looking at 3 tiers of non-customers, BOI Index (Buyer Utility, Price, Cost, Adoption), The Matrix of Buyer Utility Map, Profit Model and Pricing Innovation.

We also discussed the need for Re-positioning, using Blockbuster (VRC Rental), Netflix ( Internet DVD Rental) , and Video-on-Demand and Apple iPod as an example of how the market shifted with technology changes.

Finally, we discussed Customer Relationship, see point 2 above.

About 10 people came together for the Seminar. The overall rating was 90% with Length of talk scoring 100%, followed by Subject area coverage, Tech Level, Speaker Knowledge at 94%, and lowest Time of Talk at 80%. The feedbacks were:

Like Best

• Application and example
• About the chart comparison of various circus
• Blue Ocean Strategy & Application in real life example eg Google
• Red Ocean and Blue Ocean Strategy

Others

• should use some pictures or logos to capture our vision while showing so we can enjoy the session more
• Is it possible to take this seminar as a case study - how to market to more people - through email to other churches, advertisement …

Bible for Business Seminar#10 Performance Measures

Highly recommended books are "Transforming Performance Measurement" by Dean Spitzer and the books and writings of E W Deming.

In the Strategy Map talk, we stressed much the need to define measure to enhance understanding about the objective, to help define what success looks like and then to set target. Measures direct behavior, focus attention, increase objectivity, enable accountability, bring visibility and enable prediction .... etc.

D Spitzer, in his book, pointed out 4 important aspects about measurement. The Context, Focus, Integration and Interactivity. The context of measurements is the most important but often neglected issue. The context involves not just the measures, the measurement process, but include the most important factor of all - the People. The perceived consequences and controllability of the measures determine the how people will respond to the measure - either positively or negatively.

Wrongly defined measures will create dyfunctional behavior. Typical example is measuring the number of calls handled per hour to try to increase the productivity of the Call-Center. The end result is unhappy customers with calls being diverted or abruptly ended as operators try to meet or exceed targets.

The Focus and Integration of Measures correspond to the drawing of the Strategy Map of Cause and Effect Objectives. By doing the strategy map first, we can bring out focus and integration. Interactivity of Measures refer to continued review and improvement of measures and measuring systems to increase learning.

Two Main Uses of Measures

1. System centric: As information to gain understanding of the improvement and working of system. i.e. to increase knowledge and wisdom.
   
2. People Centric: As monitoring and control with intention to rewards or punish.
   

It is strongly recommended that measures be used for usage-1 only -gaining insight to the operation of the system and looking into areas for improvement. For People-Centric usage of rewards and punishment, it is important that the measures be outcome and value based. The effects of the contribution of either the individual or team or system must be identifiable. It is very difficult in team work to identify the contribution of any particular individual. E W Deming's System of Profound Knowledge also explains why incentive for pay does not work. Incentive is an Extrinsic Motivator where as Recognition is an Intrinsic Motivator. There is the need to understand the motivators better.

In the Bible, Luk 6:37-42, we discussed judging is finding out the internal intention of the heart. In context, Jesus was not trying to tell not to judge but to judge wisely. Correct our brothers is our responsibility and we can't do that without judging. We need to be trained to be like our Teacher (v40) to judge wisely. See Judging Rightly and Judge Not yet Correcting

Target Settings
4 ways

1. According to your Vision - Goals - Where you want to be.
2. According to your Market Standing - Relative Rank or Share of Market
3. Relative to your Competitor - To beat or catch up with your target competitor.
4. Relative to your Past performance - what improvement over last year.

Deming System of Profound Knowledge

Do a google search on the above topic and you will find a lot of good information about it.
It has four main parts

1. Appreciation of System
• system exists to accomplish a purpose or aim
  
• made up of interdependent sub-systems
• whole greater than the sum of its parts
• must optimize for the whole and not of its parts
• system does not improve itself - It is manager's responsibility
2. Understanding Variation
• understanding probability
• variation is to be expected
• find out the particular outcome is due to common or special causes.
• no tempering or ranking
• understand system capability.
• See The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable and Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets and
  The Halo Effect: ... and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers
  
3. Theory of Knowledge
• Highest form is Prediction
• Learning from theory and experience
• Operational Definitions (see Measures above)
• PDSA for learning and improvement
4. Psychology
• Understand People and Behaviour and interactions
  
• Motivation - Intrinsic vs Extrinsic. Deming's Forces of Destruction.
  
• Beliefs and Assumptions

Management is about Accurate Prediction of Good Outcomes.

Management is responsible for

• improving the system; no one will
• prediction vs prescription
• application of Profound Knowledge

The Gathering & Feedback
About 12 of us gathered together for the seminar. The overall rating is 90%. The highest scores of 100% go to Knowledge of Speaker, followed by Expectation Met, Recommend to Friend, and the lowest score is Relevance to Job 78%. The feedback from the attendees are shown below:

Like Best

• Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivation
• Traditional vs Positive Measures
• Application of Profound Knowledge. Like & Agree with the idea that we are in a world of systems
• Also the fact it that with humans around, there is always psychology involved and there is variation (random outcomes)
• Lk 6:37-42 Understand what is judging

Like Least

• nil

Others

• Good session. Not too fast and not too much materials in one go.
• Good participation from audience.
• I would recommend more group discussion.
• Sometimes audience can be a little shy or slow to start asking questions.
• So may be help with some prepared questions.
• As usual, the speaker has good in-depth and practical examples.
• Because the participants are regulars and probably those who are really interested, perhaps small group setting may encourage more interactions.

Bible for Business Seminar#9 Financials

The key of any business is the Business Model - how do the business make money? Understanding Financial is the Basic of Doing Business. It tells us how well we are running the business. It shows us where the problem areas are and their importance by value.

Luk 14:28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?

1. sit down - it is going to take a lot of time and effort to do the planning
2. counting the cost - the purpose of accounting - know how to count the right thing rightly
3. complete it - for the own project or business. Need to be comprehensive and complete.

Profit is a Must and is Good

• Business need to make profits to keep going.
• Making profits is the result of the delivery of a good value to customers.
• Even for non-profit making organizations, profits tells us how efficient we are running the charitable organisation. Cost saving will result in profit.
• There is nothing bad or evil in making profit. It is what you do to make profits that decide whether it is good or evil.
• Profits is needed for investing in future, to keep the business going and growing – sowing the seeds.
• Profits are tithed to God.

We cover the essentials of 4 financial statements:

• Income Statement (Profit & Loss)
• How much did we make in a period (e.g. month, year)
• Balance Sheet
• How much we have or owe at a point in time.
• Cash Flow – Sources & Uses of Funds
• Where did our cash comes from and where did it goes
• Owner’s Equity (& Retained Earnings)
• Who owns the business & how much they own.

Optimization & Being a Good Steward

• Without financial measures, we do not know how to optimize our usage of resources. Optimization of our God given talents and resources are taught in the parables of the Good Stewards (Mat 25:14-30, Luk 19:11-27).
• If you don’t, your business will go bust.
• Mat 25:28-29 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

We also discussed how financial statements can be manipulated. It is important to make sure you know your financial well and be skeptical of other financial statements.

Economic Value Add (EVA) = Economic Profit
We present a important measure, EVA, that ties up the Profits from the P&L statement and the Working Capital of the Balance Sheet giving a better measure of true profit.

EVA = Net Operating Profit After Tax - Capital_Used x Weight_Avg_Cost_of_Capital

EVA highlights the following:

• Working Capital costs money
• Asset Light is the best policy
• Using the littlest money to make most profits
• Note: sometime right decision leads to wrong outcome
• E.g. sudden rise in the cost of raw materials, inventories may make such agile decision looks foolish – bad outcome.
• The Solution : Risk Management.
• Understanding the underlying assumptions especially the assumed trends
• Figure out how to mitigate the risks.

Cash is more Important than Profits
Profit is a delayed computed measure over a period of time. Profit does not pay your suppliers directly. You use cash (or if supplier allows, may be credit for a time, 30days, but when time is up, cash is please) to pay suppliers and employees. A company can make profits and yet still close down due to lack of cash. There is a trend towards using Free-Cash-Flow (FCF) to measure the 'health' of a company rather than profits.

• "Cash is King" or "He who has the cash has the say".
  

• Time have value.
  Watch out for the time value of money.
  A $1 now is of greater value than $1 at year end.
• Options have value.
  Keeping the decision options opened have value.
  If two plans give the same return, go for the one with greater options.
  A 3% interest rate for a 6-month and a 12-month fixed deposits are not equal in value.

What to do with the Profits?

• Firstly, we realize that "Lay up treasures in heaven, not on earth Mt 6:20". Hence, the 1st portion of the profit is for the Lord.
• Secondly, profits is put back into the business as longer term investment for the future profits. Money is needed to continue to improve and innovate the business.
  
• Lastly, take it out and distribute to the owners (shares-holders) as returns for their investment.
• If you have going for a partnership, make sure there is a clause on how the profit made is to be taken out and distributed.

Metrics for the BSC Financial Perspective

• Profits - NOPAT
• FCF Free Cash Flow
• EVA Economic Value Add, EVA Spread
• Owners Returns: TSR (3-5 years)
• EPS Earnings Per Share
• Employee Productivity
• Profit/Employee
• VA/EC ratio Value-Add/Employee-Cost
• Assets Productivity: ROI, ROCA

The Gathering & Feedback
About 12 of us gathered together for the seminar. The overall rating is 84%. The highest scores of 92% go to Knowledge of Speaker, followed by Length of Talk, Subject Area Coverage, and the lowest score is location 76%. The feedback from the attendees are shown below:

Like Best

• EVA
• Biz Value to Customer Delivered - customer pt of view.
• Value pricing
• Cost pricing is internal driven or my point of view
• Retained Earnings, Working Capital, Free Cash Flow
• Cash is King
• Explanation with real case studies; different interpretation of financial statements
• Incorporation of other theories/concepts from other fields eg Michael Porter's 5 forces, EVA.
• Although financial give a perspective of the state of the business, it is not the only measure.
• Operational measures & other measures, do play an important part in the running of the business
• EVA - It enlightens me on the cost of capital
• Learning about conflict of dept interest, loop holes in accounting system etc.
• Give me bigger picture of organizational behaviour
• Its application with real life examples

Like Least

• nil

Others

• This talk is a revelation to us - when you know the truth, the truth will set you free
• This is my 1st time so I do not have a benchmark. But I'm here to learn even though it is not very relevant to my job scope,
• Have more case studies to drive home points; preferably cases that pertain to current business and economic environment
• Spread the critical topics and allow more time for Q&A and discussion.

Bible for Business Seminar#8 Resources & Balanced Scorecards

We covered two key topics in the seminar:

• Resources
• The Balanced Scorecard

Resources
As Christians, we can draw upon the special resources provided by God. We covered Prov 3:1-14 showing God's vision for us and the strategies to realize the vision:



We covered the process of learning as given in 2 Tim 3:16-17 Judging Rightly

1. Teaching-Doctrines: learn the truth and put into practice.
2. Reproof - when practicing it, there could be an error, so point out the error.
3. Correction - point out the right way to do.
4. Training in Righteousness - build up the right quality & standards of behavior and making them into good habits

Most people need training 1st before counseling. Or put in another way, so-called counseling is actually very time consuming and effort wasting training - it is training one on one.

Strategy Map Driven Balanced Scorecards
We covered the Strategy Map as the cause-effect business model of objectives across 4 or more perspectives. Each perspective is an earlier on view. Each objective must be related, with measures defined, and target set. When actual achievement is below the target, the strategic initiative will then be undertaken to close the gap. Such a method will ensure the focus and alignment of resources and people toward achieving the corporate vision. Focus means saying NO to everything else. Alignment means unity in purpose and actions. We use a budget airline example to illustrate the drawing of the Strategy Map and the setting up of balanced scorecards.

The Unified Corporate Performance Management Framework.
The various management methodology is unified and illustrated with the strategy map below:



The Biblical Basis for BSC

• Alignment – Concentrate All Energy towards Fruit, not Leaves
• The secret to fruitfulness is not adding more. It is pruning – channel the energy from growing leaves into growing fruit.
• Every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. (John 15:2)
• Objective Driven
• “…Run in such a way that you may win. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air” (1 Cor. 9:24, 26).
• Continual
• “…Let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1).
• Focused
• “ but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:12-14)

The Gathering & Feedback
About 12 of us gathered together for the seminar. The overall rating is 90%. The highest scores of 96% go to Subject Area Coverage, Expectation Met, Knowledge of Speaker, Technical Level, and the lowest score is the length of talk 70%. I am surprised by the high score on the technical level as I was concerned whether the BSC topic is too in depth but the scoring put me at ease.

We have a good time sharing after the talk. We spoke about 2 main aspect of Corporate Performance - The Method, such as BSC and The People. Highly passionate and motivated staff needs to know the method to channel their efforts to achieve excellence. Just having passion without the right methods will result in fighting, activities without positive outcomes. Methods alone without passion will result in the achievement of minimum standards. Some other points are reflected in the feedback report below:

Like Best

1. Strategy Map & Scorecards
2. BSC
3. Prov 3:1-4 Teachings - completeness + God vision + Strategies for us
4. Less is more - 2 miracles in the Bible - Putting our faith in God + obey
5. We are no greater than our belief.
6. Scorecard
7. Introduction of the strategy map & balanced scorecard. Learned new things. It gives a guideline to running an organization, yet not confusing between the overall picture & profitability

Like Least

1. The ending seems a bit hasty, probably due to the shortage of time.

Others

1. Please give us the example of BSC
2. Maybe can change the seminar title to Bible for Success so that more people can attend and benefit

Bible for Business Seminar#7 Designing Strategies

Some who attended the seminars previously felt that as employee, the talks on mission, vision, values and strategies seem not too relevant to work. As employee, we need to understand how our work contributes to our company's mission and visions. I wish to encourage that all to think like your bosses or owners so that one day you will be one. The values covered the previous and this talk tell us the how to behave so that we will be promoted and be successful in life.

We covered the 2nd point of "Appreciation Situations" that not completed due to lack of time. That is to understand the trend and be ready all the time and at any time. We covered Porter's Five Competitive Forces that determines the profitability of a business in the medium & long run.

With the materials given in BJ#6 Strategies the following additional points were added:

1. The Beatitudes of Mat 5 could be seen as the "Commandments" of NT. These are positive commands - be meek, seek righteousness, be merciful, be pure, be peace-makers etc. This list is comparable to James 3:17. We should and are able to do all these because we are rebirthed as children of God with Jesus in us. We gave the business viewpoints of those virtues.
2. Branding & Communications - we should have strategies to create our brand, deliver to expectation and to communicate. We are light for the world to see that bring glory to God. We cited Mat 6:1-4 charity giving, 6:17-19 fasting not as exaltation not to tell but exaltation not to be hypocrites. We are not to give to charity to gain glory or to fast to show our piety. Branding is both - telling and fulfilling the expectation. Branding is a promise. Branding should have consistency of experience, look-and-feel, quality, differentiation and repeated exposure. All strategies, while described in details, should have a tagline for ease of communication and memory. e.g. Customer Intimacy, or High Touch Experience, Operational Excellence etc.
3. Cutting costs uniformly, cutting marketing, training etc are short-term methods with harms on the future. The better method is to cut wisely. Cut the dead weights either in offerings or customers. Be innovative to do more with less. Build employees enthusiam. Outsourcing wisely.
   
4. In the Globalization Strategy of the Church, we stressed how God used Saul to get the church to move out of Jerusalem. We sometimes need to have or to create crisis to move us out of our comfort zone to move into higher plane. God used Paul to address a wider market segment - from the Jews to the Gentiles and setting up an HQ in Antioch to address to expanded market.
5. The Strategies Check List is summarized as:
   
1. Support the Values of Corporations
2. Pursue Differentiation & Excellent / Perfection
3. Building Relationships – Customers, Staff, Suppliers
4. Branding (Authentic Experience) & Communications
5. Be Lean – Cut Losses, Remove Dead weights.
6. Take Positive Initiatives
   
7. Work with Your Competitors Wisely
8. Do the Talk
   
9. Internalized by Staff

About 8 of us gathered together for the seminar. We have a good time of sharing after the talk. Some are reflected in the feedback report below:

The overall score is 84% with the highest score to Speaker Knowledge, Subject Area Coverage, and the lower scores to length of talk 74% and time of talk 66%.

Like Best

1. Cut loss & stop bleeding, prune the tree so that it bear more fruit
2. Toyota sharing their technology and expertise with competitor & supplier
3. Cut loses & Stop Bleedings It is very practical.
4. Pt 6 take positive initiatives - nuggets of biblical truths which can apply even for personal working life.
5. Also more examples given this time to explain & expand the various points

Like Least

1. Ending seems a bit hasty, probably due to the shortage of time.

Others

1. Give assignments for completion
2. It will be good to slow down and not to cover too much information in such a short time

Bible for Business Seminar#6 Appreciation of Situations

About 15 people gathered together for the Seminar#6 on Appreciation of Situations. We have a quick review of Vision and Values. We quoted

• "A life that has no order and discipline is a life that focuses on survival, not vision."
  from Jeff Calloway's new book , "VisionalLife".
  

Using examples of J&J Tylenol and Perrier incidences, we stressed the importance of values in action - Choosing Life over Profit or Integrity over Profit.

Besides covering the content of Appreciation of Situations, the following additional points were added:

• Luke 14:28 - We must make sure we have enough cash to cover the cash-outflow in the initial stages of the new business until the business can be self-sustaining in cash. Many businesses fail prematurely due to lack of cash (funding). Conserving cash is a key principle in running new business.
• Luke 14:31- tells us to consider whether we can overcome the competitors in the market we are entering.
• On SWOT analysis,
  
  • We stressed on capturing the keys 2-3 factors and not too many.
    
  • Strengths and Weaknesses are to be viewed from the external Market Opportunities and Threats.
    
  • We advocate the "Strengths Based" approach and challenge ourselves to see how we could convert Threats to Opportunities. By re-phrasing problem, like high-turnover rates, into a positive one, like "making the company attractive to attract new and retain old", put our mindset into positive mood to work out the many possibilities.
  • We can use our strengths to overcome weaknesses. We cited examples of learning. Each of us learn differently, typical school-teaching method is Left-Brain based and so Right-Brain people has difficulty. If we change the teaching to suit the learning methods, reading to watching tv, to motion and exercises, etc according to the student learning profile, all can do well.
    
  • Another easy way to overcome our weakness is to outsource it to others with the needed strengths.
    
  • On the eternal O&T, we are to look at the macro-economic factors P.E.S.T (Political, Economic, Social, Technology), Environmental & Legal/Regulations. On the micro-level, we look at our firm, competitors, market, customers, suppliers.
  • As a reminder, SWOT should leads to a plan of actions, also called strategies, to use our strengths to exploit the opportunities and minimizing the risks of threats. Also a challenge to convert the threats to opportunities - applying the Invert Operator of BVITS.
    
• In the area of looking at Customers, we combine the contributions of "Strategic Insight in Three Circles" HBR Nov 2007, "Seeing What's Next" and "Blue Ocean Strategies" to classify customers into
  
  • customers that bought from us - what are our differentiating factors?
    
  • our customers who also buy from our competitors, - what can we learn? why are they better?
    
  • customer needs not fulfilled by us -why not?
  • our products&services not bought - to be take away,
    
  • overshot-customers - exposing to disruptive low-end entrants,
  • undershot-customers - opportunities for sustaining innovations,
    
• non-customers
  
  • those falling off the edges
  • those rejected us
  • those we have not address
    
• non-consuming context
  
  • barriers to consumption.e.g. mobile phone opened up opportunities that line-phone could not. e-Learning allows new overseas customers to sign-up.

We did not have the time to cover the 2nd aspect of AOS (Appreciation of Situation) which is reading the trends and getting ready and Michael Porter's 5 competitive forces that determine the profitability of firms in a market. These we will cover in the next seminar on 12 Mar 2008.

The Seminar Feedback
10 Feedback forms were received from attendance of 14. Overall score is 82% with highest score to Speaker Knowledge 92%, Subject Area Coverage 86% and lower scores to Expectation Met 76%, Relevance to Job 72%.

Like Best

• SWOT:working on strengths; converting weakness to strengths; consideration of internal and external factors d study on market share.
  
• Check multiple sources and verify claims, not be be misled
  
• Case Study, better understanding
• Overall Good
• SWOT
• Dissection of the SWOT Analysis and how to go about doing it.
• SWOT, something new to me
• Focus on Strength
• HBR-3 Circle, own, customer, competitor. This is a new angle of looking at the business. Had done SWOT before, a good refresher.
• SWOT analysis, more detailed and easy to understand compared to other lecturers in schools :)
• SWOT, because I can use it for my own business to see it in a different angle

Like Least

Others

• More practical application will be interesting and better understanding. Can touch more on area where we can apply in our daily operations, especially for employees (not business owners)
• May be can be given some exercise.
  
• Suggest to use a well-know e.g. in the mkty textbook to apply the analysis(SWOT)
• Make the seminar more interactive and participative. make this group like a case-group style. Know each other and may be one day can do business together.
• More real life examples and relates to those who do not have their own business
• Get the student to do a "SWOT" before the class & submit to the lecturer for case study. Have a website we can automatically input our "SWOT" results.

Bible for Business Seminar#5 Vision & Values

#5 Painting the Vision & Choosing the Values

I. VISION

Vision is a picture of what we want to become. Vision gives life to mission. It describe what accomplishing the mission will look like at a future point of time. Vision is the dream, a destination. Values are what you stand for and give character to your corporation. Values determine the framework and boundaries for your strategies to realizing your vision. Mission, Vision and Values are related. A person or corporate is created with a mission with character of values trying to accomplish a vision. It is what you are (mission-identity), what you will become(vision) and how(values) to do go about achieving it.

Importance of Vision

You will not be greater than what your vision is. Prov 29:18, Pro 23:7.

Keys in Defining a Vision

Have faith in God. Prayed to discover what God want you to become. Do we fall into the following errors?

• Looking at our present limitations or past failures to define your vision. If so, it would be very restrictive.
• Be satisfied with your present and do not want to change. If so, you are growing old.

Recommended book : Joel Osteen's "Becoming a Better You"

Recommended Message: AR Bernard's"Audacity"

A Good Vision Statement.

1. Use the Terms and Things of your Audience.

We cited Mt 4:19, John 4:13, John 6:35, John 3:16, 7:38, 8:32, 11:25, Mat 11:28 as examples of Jesus describing the same vision in various ways to convey it correctly to the people.

2. Must offer "Things of Values" or "Benefits" to your customers, staff, and partners and owners.

3. Vision needs to be written down and communicated often. Hab 2:2

4. Vision must covers different aspects for the corporation - customers, processes, learning & growth (staff, skill, training, culture), social & environmental perspectives.

5. Chip Heath's 6 basic traits to make a message stick are:

1. Simple
2. Unexpected: audacious,challenging,
3. Concrete: measurable and have targets. You can tell whether you reach it.
4. Credible: challenging and yet believable. If it is incredulous, it will be ridiculed.
5. Emotion: motivating, giving pride,
6. Story: a good story or a good dream.

6. Must be communicated often and shared by all.

II VALUES

Values are what you believe as most importance, what you stand for, for which you will not compromise. They provides the decision making framework when there are no clear guidelines. They determine the Corporate character that is the sum total of the individuals working in the Corporate.

Bible tells us to see Corporation as

1. Living Being (Rom 12, 1 Cor 12, Eph 4) - we are all members of the same body.
1. Differences are respected, appreciated and treasured.
2. Differences must be aligned and synchronized towards achieving the shared mission and vision.
2. Family - relationship of love, care, protection, up-bringing.

Typical Values

Commitment – Passion, Perseverance, Overcoming, Creativity.
Empathy – Understanding Others, Culturally Savvy and extending help.
Respect & Trust
Integrity – Honesty & Competence
TRIP – Trust, Risk, Innovation, Progress
Learning, Innovation, Agility
Humility
Fun & Play

We cited two books "How" by Dov Seidman, and "The Future of Management" by Gary Hamel, that show how the business world are moving towards seeking significance on top on profits and share values, and adopting Biblical Principles in their business practices. Having employees satisfaction leads to profit too. 100 Best Companies to Work for in America between 1998 and 2005 returned 14% per year, compared to 6% a year for the overall market.

Seminar Response & Feedback

Yesterday was Chinese New Year 7th day -the People's Birthday. So we see many people having dinner at the restaurants around our church and causing quite a big jam. It took me extra half hour to reach church. There were 12 people who attended the seminar. The overall satisfaction rating was 86%. The highest score go to 'Knowledge of Speaker', 'Recommend to Friend'... with lowest score to time of talk, but still at 78%.

Like Best

• The definition of vision/mission and factors to consider to derive a mission statement. The biblical references. It's a diff and unique perspective that is biblical & practical at the same time.
• About setting of our vision beyond our limits. It's really encouraging to hear that.
• Vision; It gives practical advice on how to set good vision statements. e.g characteristics of a good vision statement is very informative & helpful for those setting their vision statements
• Applications

Like Least

• Value topic. Not quite understand how to apply on my work.

Others

• more of such sessions
• overall presentation is grounded and very practical yet biblical.
• Review the Previous Seminar
• Coming to this seminar is like listening to 10 authors summarizing their books

Timing of Seminar - 2 times a month for the future.

Majority of those present supported the idea of having the seminar fortnightly instead of the present monthly.

The next seminar#6 "Appreciation of Situations" will be conducted on 27 Feb, Wed, 8pm at Church.