RON97 price would be the same as RON95 price soon?

The recent hike in RON95 petrol price by another 20sen to RM2.30 is of course, least welcomed by all Malaysians. This is because it will not just affect driving cost but will cause prices of other essential goods to rise as well. Anyway, with anger subsiding and Malaysians starting to adjust to higher oil price, it is interesting to take a look at the world oil price currently.

 

 

 

The chart is interesting because on 9th September 2014, RON97 price was actually reduced by 10sen to RM2.75 from the last revision in June 2014. From the chart above, Brent Crude Oil price in June 2014 is about USD107/bbl and in September 2014, it has dropped to about USD103/bbl. As such, if a drop of USD4/bbl translates to 10sen reduction in RON97 price, based on the latest Brent Crude Oil price of about USD85/bbl, the reduction of USD18/bbl would translates to 45sen reduction in RON97 price? This would mean RON97 price would be RM2.30 and would be the SAME AS RON95!!!

 

Isn't that interesting? Not sure what would happen then and how would the government justify the increase in RON95 price or are we expecting a reduction in RON95 price in line with falling international crude oil prices?

 

Disclaimer: The above computations are based on simple assumptions. Of course, the price mechanism would be more complicated as it is based on a managed float mechanism (I don't know how that works though) but the assumptions that RON97 price should drop in line with dropping international crude oil price should hold.

 

 

David & Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell

Once again, Malcolm Gladwell has written an excellent book which makes you think differently about conventional wisdom. Well, it actually should not surprises us anymore as Malcolm is after all, the guy who introduced concepts such as tipping points, 10,000 hours training, etc. In his latest book titled David & Goliath, Malcolm have elegantly shown us that what we perceived as weakness can be turned on its head and becomes an advantage just like how David with its perceived weaknesses can defeat the giant Goliath by using its advantages such as being more mobile and agile compared to the cumbersome and slow Goliath. The book is such a joy to read (as usual and what we have come to expect from Malcolm Gladwell) and it will makes you think differently about different aspects of life from money, sports, crime, etc. The book certainly makes it argument clear that sometimes too many of a good thing may be bad for us and this also applies to money and even also imprisonment of criminals. Surprising findings? Well, it would not be surprising anymore after you have read Malcolm's latest book. As such, I would recommend this book to everyone just for the sole objective that we should always be open minded to so-called foregone conclusions. For me, it is important that we approach life with an open and inquisitive mind and we will find life such a joy and full of excitement.

 

As usual, some extracts from the book which I find useful:

 

1) "Any fool can spend money. But to earn it and save it and defer gratification - then you learn to value it differently." (Such a simple and yet powerful statement. The marketing media is actually very powerful and they have successfully created the image that anyone who is careful with their money is perceived as stingy and is not desirable. Similarly, I have met a lot of women who is proud to display their "skills" in spending money and how they can differentiate different branded goods. For this I would like to add my own quote: "It is easy to find women who can spend money but it is very difficult to find a woman who is careful with your money and values it. When you find such a woman, then you have found a woman who loves you and cares about both of your future.") :p

 

2) Money makes parenting easier until a certain point - when it stops making much of a difference.

 

3) ..... we form our impressions not globally, placing ourselves in the broadest possible context, but locally - by comparing ourselves to people "in the same boat as ourselves." Our sense of how deprived we are is relative. (We always compare ourselves with people surrounding us. As such, ask yourself which one would be happier? The person who is the worst among the best or the person who is the best among the worst? Is it worth it if your child's results are average and you still force him/her to pursue tough career such as medicine where he/she will likely ends up being the worst among the best?)

 

4) "A lot of people think that going to an academically selective school is going to be good," he said. "That's just not true. The reality is that it is going to be mixed." (By the psychologist Herbert Marsh who pioneered the Big Fish - Little Pond theory).

 

5) ...... if you want to see the positive effects of elite schools on self-concept, you are measuring the wrong person. You should be measuring the parents." (Another powerful statement. Are we as parents guilty of fulfilling our own pride and ego when we make certain decisions for our children and then mask it as for their own good?)

 

6) ..... what is learned out of necessity is inevitably more powerful than the learning that comes easily. (It is important for any leaders/managers to develop a culture of curiosity within your organisation where people would look for solutions out of necessity as opposed to an organisation who expects to be spoon-fed with solutions from their leaders/managers.)

 

7) As the playwright George Bernard Shaw once put it: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." (Again, this makes you thing. Is it a bad thing if you have a team member who is "unreasonable" and who may seems difficult to manage but can deliver if given the right motivation? Well, everyone has their own skills and weaknesses. As such, as leader/manager, it is up to us to nurture the various talents and bring out the best from each individual.)

 

8) ..... learning how to deal with the possibility of failure is really good preparation for a career in the business world. (I guess this not only applies in the business world but on life too. It is important that we learn how to deal with failure.)

 

9) Courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you've been through the tough times and you discover they aren't so tough after all. (So, courage is earned through experience.)

 

10) ..... we need to remember that our definition of what is right is, as often as not, simply the way the people in positions of privilege close the door on those on the outside. (This can be seen in politics where the ruling party would term those who are challenging them as ungrateful, disloyal, etc. even though for a healthy democracy, it is important to have opposing views.)

 

11) "It has been said that most revolutions are not caused by revolutionaries in the first place, but by the stupidity and brutality of governments," Sean MacStiofain, the provisional IRA's first chief of staff, said once, looking back on those early years.

 

12) We often think of authority as a response to disobedience: a child acts up, so a teacher cracks down............... disobedience can also be a response to authority. If the teacher doesn't do her job properly, then the child will become disobedient. (This certainly got me thinking. If someone reporting to me starts to acts up, is it because of his/her inherent difficult behaviour or is it because I have not done my job as a leader properly?)

 

13) Instead of responding in a 'let me control your behaviour' way, the teacher needs to think, 'How can I do something interesting that will prevent you from misbehaving in the first place?' (Applies to any manager/leader as well. How do I do something that will prevent my staff from misbehaving in the first place?)

 

14) When people in authority want the rest of us to behave, it matters - first and foremost - how they behave. This is called the "principle of legitimacy," and legitimacy is based on three things. First of all, the people who are asked to obey authority have to feel like they have a voice - that if they speak up, they will be heard. Second, the law has to be predictable. There has to be a reasonable expectation that the rules tomorrow are going to be roughly the same as the rules today. And third, the authority has to be fair. It can't treat one group differently from another. (Important points to all leaders/managers. This principle of legitimacy also applies to how a company is run!).

 

 

 

15) And when the law is applied in the absence of legitimacy, it does not produce obedience. It produces the opposite. It leads to backlash.

 

In summary, this is an excellent book which I would recommend to everyone. The extracts from the book which I listed above is short not because there are not many useful lessons from the book but because Malcolm is such a good writer than reading his book is like reading a story book. As such, to do justice to his works, it is important to read the book itself to appreciate his arguments and reasoning.

 

Have a nice weekend!

 

Gandhi, CEO: 14 Principles to Guide & Inspire Modern Leaders

Gandhi, the name itself will invokes awe and admiration. A man known to be steadfast in his beliefs and principles and continues to inspire us that anything is possible as long as truth is on our side. The principles embodied in Gandhi's revolution are important lessons to all leaders as it is a truly sustainable path towards leadership. Before Gandhi, revolutions are commonly associated with violence, war and riots but Gandhi turned this association on its head with his concept of non-violent resistance. What I admire most is Gandhi assumed the British Lords to be ignorant rather than evil and the best way to counter ignorance is education rather than retaliation. If we believe in this in our day-to-day challenges as a manager/leader, we would certainly do better and time would be far more productive if we focus on educating our co-workers or clients rather than retaliating. This book by Alan Axelrod provides a quick reference to modern leaders on principles of management inspired by Gandhi but of course, readers are advised to form their own judgement because after all, the principles are interpreted by Alan Axelrod and not directly from Gandhi himself which is why my next target is to read Gandhi's autobiography. Nevertheless, the book is concise and easy to read and would be useful to any leaders/managers.

 

 

Excerpts from the book summarised below (Words in blue are mine):

 

1. Never compromise on your no-compromise zone, but never confuse a refusal to compromise with a refusal to communicate.

 

2. You want to be neither an unthinking autocrat nor an unthinking democrat. You don't want to lead in the blind conviction that you and only you are right, but neither do you want to lead by following the majority. (It is not easy to be a good and inspiring leader. For me, the middle path is the best way as demonstrated by the statement above. There are times when you need to be an autocrat and there are times you need to be a democrat.)

 

3. If you mean to make a difference in the world or in your company, you cannot wait for others to begin the change, and you cannot wait even for your own changes to become widespread, let alone universal. Begin the project, no matter how ambitious, with yourself. Begin now. (Just do it!)

 

4. Do not hesitate to set perfection as the goal of your organisation, but, in so doing, you must also recognize that only imperfection will move you and your enterprise toward that goal. For this reason, never criticize imperfection. Nurture it. Exploit it. Manage it. It is the fuel that drives every worthwhile endeavor.

 

5. It is never a good leadership strategy to ignore potential problems, to fail to evaluate risks, to willfully refuse to anticipate pitfalls, or to turn your back on contigency planning. However, it is an invariably fatal strategy to allow the anticipation of trouble to paralyze you or your enterprise.

 

6. The best attitude is to embark with the expectation of success, not failure. (Plan for the worse, hope for the best!)

 

7. A complex business enterprise cannot be run on forced obedience. Voluntary cooperation - self-direction toward common goals - is required, and it is the task of CEOs and managers to secure it day by day. (Important question to ask ourself is does your employees believe in what they are doing? Do they feel they belong to the organisation and will do their best to uphold the company's good reputation? I have seen this in some companies and that would be the task of any CEOs or managers that ultimately, their employees are proud of what they are doing and also the company)

 

8. An organization built on coercion is designed to collapse.

 

9. Businesses do no business with other businesses; people do business with people. Treat everyone with respect, render everyone fair value for value received, and those people will return to you time and again.

 

10. An effective manager ensures that each worker understands not just the assigned task, but what that task contributes to the greater "commonwealth" - i.e. the company.

 

11. The best-run companies are characterized by individual pride and satisfaction in doing excellent work toward common goals that pervade the entire organization.

 

12. Whatever else Gandhi's campaign to abandon caste was, it was a call for each person to strive to earn a worthwhile identity through hard work, noble service, and necessary sacrifice. These constitute virtue, and virtue, in turn, constitutes moral identity. This lesson applies in any field of endeavor.

 

13. The will of the majority, he held, must not cancel the vote of the minority; however, where "there is no principle involved and there is a programme to be carried out, the minority has got to follow the majority. But where there is a principle involved, the dissent stands, and it is bound to express itself in practice when the occasion arises."

 

14. In any collaborative endeavor, if everyone is thinking alike, no one is really thinking. (Dissenting views are not evil and rejected outright. What is important is how we manage it)

 

15. The CEO cannot afford to neglect the human capital of the enterprise. Whether you make shoes or sell stocks, every business is first and foremost a people business.

 

16. The ideal toward which any CEO should lead his company is a productive, profitable existence without him and, indeed, without any central authority.

 

17. A CEO's effectiveness can be measured by the degree to which she renders her presence optional to the organization. The best leaders lead to become unnecessary. (Not easy to emulate in real life situation. It requires the person to have strong confidence in his own abilities so that he is confident enough to make himself unnecessary)

 



18. Accept the past as a teacher, but remember that the measure of a successful teacher is the number of students who rise above his example, and the very greatest teachers are those who produce students much greater than themselves.

 

19. "A foolish consistency," Emerson (Ralph Waldo Emerson) wrote, "is the hobgoblin of little minds." Emerson did not scorn consistency, but only foolish consistency - consistency for the consistency's sake, that serves no rational and valuable purpose.

 

20. The great leadership issue, therefore, is one of navigation: the creation of purposeful, productive movement within an environment of movement.

 

21. An organization should be more than the sum of its people, just as a viable government must be more than the sum of its leaders.

 

22. "History shows that all reforms have begun with one person."

 

23. A leader earns his stripes every day.

 

24. Gandhi taught that leadership is not a title or an official position, but rather a way of life, and life is lived when you are in company as well as when you are in solitude.

 

25. To avoid escalation and bring about amelioration, begin by making an effort to understand the motives behind the behavior you wish to change.

 

26. The most successful generals are those who never allow the enemy to select the battlefield. To do so yields a significant advantage, often both strategically and tactically. Similarly, the most successful CEOs never allow their company to be forced to compete on someone else's terms. The surest way to win is to play to your strengths. The surest way to lose is to play to the strengths of your competition.

 

27. ..... the effective CEO devises means of persuasion that demonstrate a benefit to all, including all those who take different sides in a dispute.

 

28. Winning is not about the gratification of the ego - "bragging rights" - but about doing the best you can for your organization. (Actually, it is not about winning. It should be about doing what is best for the organization)

 

29. Restraint is the surest mark of true leadership power. Compliance won is always more effective  - and far easier to sustain - than compliance coerced.

 

30. Provided that you dream ambitiously enough, the approach - not the attainment - defines success.

 

31. Leadership requires the exercise of judgment. To surrender judgment to principle, policy, or ideology is to surrender leadership itself.

 

32. Serve people, not ideas. This is the one item of ideology that is of unfailing value to all, at all times.

 

33. If your destination is a mile away, you would be foolish to refuse to take the first step just because that single step did not span the entire mile. (To take small steps is very important in any endeavour even if that step may not be in the right direction. With wrong steps, at least you found out the right direction and starts walking towards your goal)

 

34. Blame achieves nothing; whereas taking responsibility lets you take command by identifying those aspects of a transaction, a project, or a problem that are under your control or on which you can act. Assigning blame is almost always valueless, whereas taking responsibility offers great value insofar as it empowers you to act productively.

 

35. Make it your business to identify discontent among all your customers, external and internal, and among your potential customers - the segment of the market you have yet to penetrate. Having found it, explore it, embrace it, and work with it. Let discontent drive the innovation of your enterprise.

 

36. Never let yourself be boxed in or your subject limited by a question posed to you. Don't evade the question or withhold an answer. Instead, remake, rework, and redefine the question so that you can give the fullest, most useful, and most accurate answer possible - an answer that delivers the greatest value to the questioner, to you, and to your enterprise.

 

37. Battles must be chosen with the same care as that devoted to choosing anything costly. Squandering your treasure and your time on a cheap battle is no way to lead your enterprise to prosperity or to assert yourself as an effective CEO. Before you embark on a dispute, consider that, win or lose, you will incur costs.

 

38. A creative, productive enterprise requires individually creative, productive people who routinely contribute their individuality to achieve common goals, yet do not yield their individual responsibility. The only viable leadership path for such an organization is that of noncoercive example.

 

39. The CEO who merely bemoans the existence of competitors in a crowded market deserves the failure to which he dooms his enterprise. An effective business leader, on the other hand, is always thankful for competitors because their existence makes his enterprise competitive.

 

40. One of Gandhi's favorite American writers, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote that "nothing great is ever accomplished without enthusiasm." (I am a great believer in this. If you hate your job, it is time to look for a new job)

 

41. A corollary to the smell test is the following rule of thumb: If a proposed course of action requires elaborate rationalization, there is probably something wrong with it. Ethical and ethically profitable ideas are generally capable of the most elegantly simple presentation, whereas ethically dubious ideas usually call for long-winded exercises in tortured logic. (Good to remember this to detect dubious schemes)

 

42. The ideal motivational talk marries head to heart, and the best way to do this is to present ideas, objectives, and goals that, in themselves, join together intellect and emotion. A genuinely inspiring program embodies inherently inspiring values and, therefore, readily lends itself to a motivational presentation that is both intellectually cogent and emotionally compelling.

 

43. Gandhi's great innovation in conducting revolutionary change was to regard the powers that be, in so far as they do wrong, to be suffering from ignorance, not evil intentions. The appropriate response to ignorance is education, not retaliation.

 

In summary, Gandhi has shown us a sustainable approach to leadership and it has withstood the acid test of time. Unlike modern approach which focuses on short-term rewards which is often accompanied with catastrophic failure in the long-term (e.g. financial crisis of 2008), the guiding principle of leadership should always be to serve society with honesty and sincerity. This would never go wrong.