You are a Contributor Indeed!!!

We will meet all kind of people in our path of life. These people that we meet could be for a short while or even till the end of our own time. With the current ICT, it makes us meet even more people and also get to see the way people live even without meeting them face to face. The big question is, why do we have to meet this people? Why do they even appear in our life time?

Well, the answer to such questions above may come from the reason of our own existence in the particular period of time. This goes directly to our responsibilities that we carry, right from the womb to tomb. One has to realize that when his or her existence begins, he or she starts connecting to the relevant people that he or she may have an impact on. At this point it will be wrong to assume that only our parents are affected. This is because it’s going to be something beyond that; it’s a multi dimensional effect. We will touch lot of people even from the womb, life will change for many. It could even be for the chosen doctor who is responsible to monitor the progress of the foetus, family members, relatives and so on. This clearly shows that an individual’s contribution to this world begins even at that point.

Everyone is here for a reason, whether short or long, we are here to contribute in this world in one way or another. Many events may occur, some planned and others unplanned. This again depends on the individual’s perspective. No one should be seen lesser than the other. Everyone will contribute in different ways, for us to learn from various mistakes that others did, doing or even going to do.

Sometimes we even question, why should all this happen to us? The reason is because we are contributing to a multidimensional effect which gives some level of impact to many others who live within this time period. That is why we should have a holistic view of a problem, for instance today, we are able to see a particular event live on TV whether it’s something planned like the Summer Olympics or an unexpected event such the collapse of the twin towers in New York during the terrorist attack. The events will some how touch an individual who was there at the location or even those who were just an observer far away. What did we learn from it? Unlike those days when we had limited technology, we learned from a very small surrounding but today we are able to understand mistakes and success without boundaries.

With that in mind, we should stop looking at a matter in an isolated manner, because in isolation we may get the output but we may never attain the desired outcomes. Even to start with in a macro point we should see how an issue effect people from the social, economic and environmental contexts. At micro level, we can break those components into relevant attributes that influences an individual. These attributes can be unique to an individual or a group (depending on the classification) of them. A set of these attributes is what should be under sustainable controlled condition.

A child could be born and die the next minute, accidents happens and one ends up in the hospital, crime, genocide, war and many other events, good or bad, all leads to towards contribution to mankind. No one in a right mind would want to face an ugly event but it will continue to be this way in order for us to learn and strive to create a better world. As we are here today, through many unwanted events of the past and will certainly move forward leaving behind unwanted events that is happening today. So, those who are chosen to contribute at this point in time will continue their responsibilities for the future. However, inability to understand individual or groups’ contribution from various aspects of life will be major flaw in our step forward.

At this point, it should be clear that every single individual who comes into this world will be a contributor to the set of knowledge that will bring mankind to the next level. The inability to capture this will certainly create a path way to extinction. What we have today to ease our problems were from what we didn’t have then. In the same manner we should look into the future with holistic view by understanding the dynamism of attributes that affects the Quality of Life from various perspectives as discussed above.

“Chain of events leads to contributions and linked contributions leads to new events”

The Missing Link to “People First, Performance Now”

In this modern world it’s an undeniable fact that we are exposed to all kind of information. Which of these information be useful us? It would depend on our own interest, our background, our nature of job, our lifestyle and so on. Of course the mode of getting it also depends on where are we in the society. The ones who are still IT illiterate would find this information in the main stream media such as paper, TV, radio and so on. Again this does not deter them from gaining the relevant information through people within their circle who may be exposed to level of IT needed to gather such information.

Sometimes too much of irrelevant information could also lead us to making the wrong decisions. That is why, it is rather important to identify all the relevant information required in a particular situation. For instance how much the fishermen must know before they leave the shores to do their job, how to obtain it, how fast should it reach them, who is responsible in disseminating all this, what are the recent events that should be shared and many more. However, there should be a limit to all these information as too much may not help. It’s all about the right information for the right person, at the right place, at the right time, the right amount and also using the right mode. Failing which it may lead us to disaster or repeated unwanted events.

Anything can be seen as important information depending on what issue is it all about. Useful information to one person may not be important to others, so understanding of this variation is also very vital. If we don’t have the right measures to a situation, we may never know whether the variations are under control. Dynamism of this relevant information is what we will use as the feed to create dynamic systems which in return leads to a sustainable controlled condition. Having all this information but dealing with it in isolation will also lead us no where.

If we are to achieve the noble thoughts of “People First and Performance Now”, we should be considering what is actually needed by the people and what are we to measure now that will show us the right output and also the desired outcome much later (where the establishment of Key Result Areas (KRAs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) come into play, within sustainable controlled condition). The main problem here is the inability to see things as a holistic system. When this prevails, we will view matters in isolation, thus a lot of interrelated data to go missing. This missing link may be the key to may answers that go unanswered even after an investigation or corrective action. Due to the fact that different agencies are responsible in handling different matters at the same time, which is further contributed by the bureaucratic nature of the systems implemented, this also leads us to many dead ends. While we may think that it is necessary for control of processes within a system, yet many unwarranted variations could not be explained and of course not forgetting the grey area surrounding the level or types of jurisdiction that the matter is bound by.

One case that can be seen as an example in this kind of matters is when we read about the statistics provided by the traffic police regarding the road accidents that happened. Since they are one of the first to the scene of an accident, numerous identified information is gathered for their reporting needs. After that, another set of data is gathered at another area which is of course the hospital, where it could from the bodies received or injured people at the Accident and Emergency (A&E) of a hospital. This report would give us information on the type of injuries and also what caused the death. These two parts of the information just sits there, isolated from the manufacturer of the vehicles that were involved in the accident.

“In 1927, when Volvo founders Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson drew plans for their first motorcar, they believed that good design must include the utmost consideration for safety. Their commitment to safety has endured, and has been embraced and expanded today in Gothenburg, Sweden, headquarters of Volvo Cars. Through the years, Volvo has designed safety features based on extensive research of real-world accidents.

In 1970, we formed the Volvo Accident Investigation Team to study accidents involving Volvos. Since then the team has researched more than 20,000 individual accidents, resulting in significant improvements in automobile safety design, many of which have since been adopted by other carmakers. We are proud of this tradition, and hope that our innovations continue to inspire higher standards of safety throughout the automobile industry (www.volvocanada.com., 2009).”

Many similar issues like above is still out there, as long the interrelated agencies don’t come together and perform whatever that they have to in isolation, thus people may never see any desired results within the stipulated timeframe.

“However, its (KRAs and KPIs) success will also depend on the strength of the administration-public service relationship and I cannot emphasize enough how important this partnership is in determining the success of government policies and programmes,” (Najib Tun Razak, The Prime Minister of Malaysia, 6th July, 2009, Prime Minister’s Department monthly gathering )

“Output now, Outcome later mindset will be the main obstacle to People First, Performance now”

Quality Childcare with Sustainable Controlled Condition: Future of the Nation in our hands Today

“…my earnest and sincere hope that all of us to work together for the future generation regardless of whom or where we are. Our primary concern is for each and every child to have a better future, a better quality of life and to be strong and healthy citizens of a robust, productive, caring and united nation. Ultimately the objective is to safeguard these precious assets of the nation, so that when they are fully developed as a competent human capital, not only will they benefit individually, but the nation as a whole will reap the rewards.” (YABHG. DATIN PADUKA SERI ROSMAH MANSOR WIFE OF THE PRIME MINISTER OF MALAYSIA ON “CHILDREN AS A NATIONAL ASSET”: 10^th May 2009)

Childcare is certainly an important part of today’s life because more and more parents obviously need the external help in bringing up a child while adhering to the current needs of the society. However, while childcare providers are exposed to standard methodologies in developing and extending these services as business ventures, the conventional baby sitting mindset still do exist; total mental and physical development of a child is not seen. Since, we are dealing with people from different background, ethnicity, geographical location and culture, the variation here should be clearly understood by the policy makers as well as the executing team. Again, the concept of variation and Sustainable Controlled Condition should be blended into the system that drives these objectives and the noble intentions forward, so that the outcome of a holistic childcare processes (validated) can be realized.

Numerous childcare related programs are being implemented throughout the year by various government and non-government agencies or even the private sectors as their CSR function, however many of the programs ends with an output. Yes, programs have been executed, budgets completed, so many participated and that’s about it. When we go down to the ground to see the impact of such programs we certainly see the certificates the participants got, but nothing much on the implementation of what had been learned – leave alone the basics. While there are participants who have diligently followed what was taught, poor participation of the parents often enslaves them into the old ways of doing things. This clearly shows that in handling of many issues, we tend to deal with them in isolation without considering the other actors; the interested parties. We also need to realize that when such programs rolled out to groups of housewives or single mothers (predominantly of whom, in this context, are of poor or low income families with low education or without any formal education, dealing with some what educated parents may be an uphill task). Talking about holistic approach to proper childcare, not all the parents are aware of what is it all about. Tendency of parents picking up wrong information here and there makes the matter even worse. Remember, if a content of a procedure is understood wrongly, people will do all the wrong things very correctly. A structured flow of the right methods and mechanisms to would-be-parents and other caregivers must be made in order to have control of these issues.

Another matter that needs attention is also the fact that variations always exist and the challenge is on how are we handling them when they come by. What parents, caregivers, baby sitters and child related service providers should understand is that every child is an individual. While we may have undivided love towards our children, but the failure to understand the variation of their characteristics will lead us to end up with the wrong decisions in their growing (as a process).

Changing the mindset is certainly not an easy task that’s for sure. However, the thought that we have created the best system but the attitude of the person is not right, can be seen as very shallow thought indeed. This is because a system can be created overnight but making people realize that the system works for them is an uphill task all together. Let us look at the diagram below:

Based on the diagram above, we can see that while a person can be given training after training (which may increase a person’s knowledge in a particular topic), as long the as the individual experiences not a sense of change in his or her belief system on a particular matter, the person will never see the change in the attitude and subsequently the corresponding behavior. This is the reason why, we should not stop at attitude but look further into a system that instills the right belief in order to see the right behavioral outcome. Again a short term change in the attitude is also possible due to certain experience but the tendency to revert back may happen for the underlying belief element was not touched.

There’s no doubt that a child needs a wholesome parental love and care, however these important dimension may not be realized in all instances. It may be replaced by another individual under various circumstances (single parenting due to death or divorce, orphaned, childcare services and so on). So, childcare provision is a very noble intention that replaces the biological parents for a short while or a long period of time. Yes, this is when and where these individuals should play their roles well by creating a sustainable controlled condition in up bringing the child with the support of all the relevant authorities which govern the dimension of child-welfare in the country.

In Malaysia, while we are moving towards many noble intentions that would bring the people together to realize a developed nation (in all given aspects), the inability to create a sustainable controlled condition in the developmental efforts of any kind including the matter discussed may never see us with the right outcome in our short life. One way to look into this matter is to create systems that work for us, which instills the belief in people that we at par with other developed nations. A lot of positive things are happening out there, but perhaps we are still taking a very slow step forward, especially in the context of childcare. This includes the law related to child custody for instance. There have been numerous cases where child custody is given to the wrong side (mother or father) and without any monitoring. Such ignorance on the matter and slow movement to the amendments of the relevant law has even ended in many tragic outcomes, such as child being neglected, molested, raped or even killed. Another usual scenario is also a very short term outcry while the matter is still highlighted in the media and then all fizzles out. So, the change should be to move from an output based mindset, which may give us the short term thrills but to more realistic outcome based thinking.

We can always paint beautiful pictures about whatever that we are advocating through various mechanisms including short term benefits with monetary gains but in order to realize the actual outcome, we should make sure that the people involved have the right beliefs at all times. These beliefs should be further strengthened with the right experience with the dynamism of the various interrelated systems that were or currently being created.

“The Key to survival in this very fast changing world, is by understanding the holistic Dynamism of Quality in all aspects that touches our life, failing which leading us directly to extinction”

Sustainable Controlled Condition: With Outcome in Mind

The topic of variation will certainly be discussed in any statistics or research related subjects, however the understanding of this very important topic is still very vague in many areas. A lot of approaches, methods, techniques, experiments, measurements and so on go wrong, merely because of poor understanding in the concept of variation. The biggest challenge that we have in our life on a day to day basis is addressing variation in whatever form that it appears. Again the ability to identify, measure, control, reduce or eliminate such variations is known as Statistical Thinking.

From the time we wake up till we go to bed again, our day will be filled all kind of variations, well at this point it would be up to us to measure what we want as long it’s relevant to the issue at hand. One example that would give us an idea on this would the way we plan our departure to work from home. Of course the first thing is that we must understand the type of variations exist on the road in all seven days of the week, this would give us idea on when to move out of the house, which route take or avoid and so on. What are we trying to do here? Yes, we are trying to create a controlled condition so that our objectives or intention can be achieved.

Talking about controlled condition, one should realize to create a good output or best outcomes in whatever that we do, we should look into a sustainable controlled condition, where all variations are under control, reduced or eliminated. Again when we say sustainable, it should be realized that we can only create sustainability when we totally understand the dynamism of the system within. This is because Quality is dynamic phenomena. If we fail to understand these matters whatever that we strive to do would fail easily and repeated failures happen as well.

Let’s also talk about, a recent event that shocked the nation (Malaysia), where 3 young girls died after falling into the river when the bridge they were crossing gave way. Well, one thing for sure various parties will step in, to find out what happened and of course we will get to the bottom of the matter. Again, what allowed this failure event in the first place? Yes, variation was not understood by the builder (which certainly includes all the relevant parties involved), the building processes before, during and after was certainly not in a controlled condition. The outcome, death of three primary school girls who would have been here if not for the sub-standard bridge. That is the highest price we can pay when we ignore Quality. At this point we also hope that all other bridges being build and all the existing bridges will be kept under sustainable controlled condition, learning from this mistake that happened. Prevention in a pro-active manner will always take us further in many ways.

“Knock on the Right door it’ll Open” and “Ask, you’ll be given”, well sounds like a familiar phrase right, but now which door? And What to ask? Yes , we can certainly link this matter to the issue above. If we are bringing up an issue to policy makers of the country, how do we go about? Yes, the people’s representatives meet up to discuss, give views, take opinions, gather information from various government or non government entities and the compile reports & so on. Again, in many aspects fail to understand the concept of variation and fail to create a controlled condition. When we even talk about statistics at this point, it’s always using percentages. Using percentages to highlight a matter is fine but it could also mislead the issue or even hide the variations that should be known. We must start talking about real numbers involved so that it’ll be more clear in understanding questions like how many do we need, how many to request thus knowing which door to knock on. When we don’t realize this, we will be given the wrong things at the right time or the right things at the wrong time. Another possible outcome is also that we get when we have enough and the ones who badly needs help don’t get at all. Ultimately, when we don’t realize a sustainable controlled condition, we are not far away from knocking the doors of failures.

Forgive, Forget & Move On

It’s certainly is an undeniable fact that the thought of forgiving for ones mistakes directly or indirectly would be a sensible thing to do. Yes the concept and benefits of Forgiveness have been explored in religious thoughts, social science and also medicine. Holding grudges or taking revenge may not help in the long run for which ever party for that matter and the impact can be from various aspects for sure. I bet that u have heard the phrase “Forgive, forget & move on” at least once by now. Well, I think we better take another look at this phrase; this is because a major flaw can be contributed by the word “forget”.

The problem with people is that they forget just too quickly, no matter the incident involves them directly, indirectly or not at all. When a failure event happens one should be learning on what when wrong and certainly should ensure it doesn’t repeat again. The reason for many repeated failure events in our life time is just simply because people fail to realize it’s just not about forgiving, forgetting and moving on. Every individual is here for a reason, it could be a long stay or a short one it doesn’t matter but what is their respective contribution to mankind as a whole. I have said “Making mistakes is a norm but not learning from it should never be our culture”. Again, we have also heard that it’s alright to make mistakes because we can learn from the mistake that we made, very true indeed but one should also realize that we can’t make all the mistakes ourselves. We should also be learning from other people’s mistakes as well. This brings us to the point where we are unable to link ourselves with another individual’s experience with a failure event.

So, moving on by forgetting can be consoling or helpful to those who are directly involved in a bad ordeal but I it does not mean that everyone else should forget or the most important thing learning from it in order to move on. Perhaps one must also understand that many things that happen are in a way predictable under controlled condition. The change would only be on the people, place, time and the magnitude of a particular event. If we could see ourselves and relate to those similarities and understand the potential failure events, it could contribute a lot to mankind. In fact we should also not forget that evolution makes us adapt and understand these gaps much faster than we think.

Gift of a Lifetime

What gift do you want? If this question was asked to anyone, they'll be looking up-right, up-left or maybe down thinking of what they wanted. Well there's some who would say, just give me the money I'll buy it myself...Talking about gifts let me relate it to a scenario at a birthday party recently that I participated (my niece's). She was very happy receiving all that gifts, it was her 6th birthday, well she gets it almost every year being the only child. However that not the point, the thing is when she started opening her gifts...while she enjoys removing the wrapper it whatever way possible. I can see that it is short lived. I mean when I talked to her the next day about her birthday, she wasn't talking much about the numerous gifts she got but the time she had with her cousins and friends...To me that’s the greatest Gift there is...the "Gift of Beautiful Memories". While we plan for parties or get together, yes not forgetting the gifts that part of it in this modern world, please do not forget to leave behind the "Gift of Beautiful Memories" the Joy that is kept for a life time. With these thoughts in mind, we'll be receiving gifts everyday. Quality Thinking at play!!!

Quality Thinking: Outcome Based Output

Why do we need Continuous Improvement? There is a very simple reason to it, that because Quality is a Dynamic Phenomenon. Quality Thinking must be seen in everything that anyone does. There must be clear efforts to reduce or eliminate all kinds of failure events that happen around us. We can't be wasting our limited resources by doing the wrong things right or the right things wrong. When we are able to build Quality into whatever that's being done, only then a Quality Outcome can me seen. Let me remind you that, it's rather easy to attain a desired Output but the focus should only be at that point further into creating the desired Outcome. So, what we need in people is Outcome based Output mindset at all times.