Which of your five fingers is the best?

Working in China and learning to manage a Chinese team has got to be one of the most challenging thing I have to do so far in my career.  It's challenging because in addition to the issue of lacking good talent I faced in Africa, the organization in China has grown to a size where chaos is much more difficult to get under control.  Moreover, culturally speaking, the Chinese are much more delicate and sensitive than Africans to deal with. Perhaps it's because of years of evolution, I find that the Chinese pay much more attention to the "intention" behind the words rather than taking the words literally.  The danger of this is that these "intention" is derived/speculated based on one individual's experience of another, and there is no way to validate if one's speculation is correct or not; so if one is not careful, he/she can be quickly misunderstood and a rift could be built between 2 people.  Lastly, the one child policy seem to have create a generation of young professionals that (1) believe they are the best and smartest, even though from many perspective, there are still much room for improvement, (2) doesn't take criticism very well since they've been praised by parents and grandparents growing up, and (3) has a very different work ethic, having grown up pampered by 3 sets of adults.  For the good talents, the abundance of job opportunities in China seem to perpetuate these beliefs; and for the not-so-great talents, there seem to be a way to simply refuse to accept the truth.  Case in point, more than one incident have I heard cases in China where employees refused to get fired even though they were dismissed for proper reasons and in accordance to the labor law.  People may still show up at the office to protest in silence, send threats to their supervisors, and sometimes policemen need to be involved.   Sucks being a boss in China, right!?

Although I grew up in Taiwan, from a professional stand point, I am quite blunt and direct with my opinions - in another word, very American.  What's worse is that I have a pretty high standard and require a significant amount of details to be convinced.  This, combined with the cultural reality on the ground, is a lethal combination.  Even though my comments are pointed towards the issue, part of me is pretty sure people are taking my comments quite personally.  Slowly, my days begin to be filled with passive-aggressive conflicts, alignment and realignment, yet despite of my best effort to push things through, not much progress seem to be made.

So, what to do?  How might I make the best out of a sub-optimal workforce and make them 'work'!?  How could I find better people to work with me or make them better?  A wise Taiwanese colleague responded to my challenge with an intriguing question: "which of your five fingers is the best one?"  As he expected, I couldn't answer the question.  "They are all different!" I said.  "That is the point.  Each finger has its purpose, and they cannot substitute the other.  It's the leader's job to figure out when to use the index finger, when to use the thumb, so on and so forth."  So, instead of trying to make everyone perfect, the best thing to do, might be to figure out what each person is good at, and instead of improving their weakness, utilize their strength.  For example, some people are great presenters.  Then make them present, but be sure you check what they're presenting if they are not good thinkers and can't come up with good contents.   Others are great thinkers but cannot put their thoughts down on paper, then give them tasks to think, but coach them on writing skills.  This theory makes perfect sense!  It reminds me of books like Strength Finder, which I have reference in my past for personal development, but in this case, it's also quite applicable for managing people!

In fact, as leaders, it's not possible to be good at everything either.  So we should leverage resources around us to supplement areas we're not good at.  These resources could be our subordinates, but it could also be external agencies, people from other departments...etc., smart leaders get creative about how and where they get their resources and are quite strategic about it.  Also, a good leader doesn't necessarily have all the answers, but he/she is good at mobilizing resources around him/her to maximize results.  And to gain these skills, it requires one to spend time with people, and develop broad experience and "database" of different types of people and when they work best (similar to how many large corporations utilizes Myers-Briggs).  For someone like me who are so accustomed to spending time dealing with "issues", while this is an obvious point, it requires a shift in mindset and focus that is still a work in progress.

Another interesting idea prompted by the "five finger" question is the idea of hiring a team vs. hiring the top talents into the company.  Having a hand with 5 middle finger wouldn't be very helpful even though you've got 5 of the longest fingers.  Perhaps sometimes mindfully hiring a team where each member complement each other would yield better results, especially when there is good dynamic between them.

I suppose at the end of the day, running a team is a bit like playing chess.  Each chess piece has its function, and the player must decide how to use each piece to win the game.  For the most part, a game is not won by a few super star moves, instead, a game is won through a series of moves carefully plotted by the player and executed by a "team" of chess pieces.  It seems to me that having a true understanding of the strengths and weakness of the team and figuring out a way to organize them in an effective manner is half the battle to an organization's success.

Social Enterprise... Better Home Brew or Import?

I met quite a number of friends recently that is leaving the social enterprise space to go to business school, with the aim to go back to private sector.  This is partly because the money is better and more appropriate for where they are in life, and partly because they don't believe in social enterprise to the same degree as they did before.  I even had a long debate with my tax accountant - who used to be an environment advocate and no longer a believer - on whether working at a social enterprise is a good use of my time!

In theory, the idea of social enterprise - an organization or venture that advances its primary social or environmental mission using business approaches - make a lot of sense. In practice, I don't know many social enterprises that have successfully scale.  One could argue that it's still a relatively new concept, so would take time to mature, but part of me wonders sometimes if social enterprise is a bit like Communism, which in its root sooo contradicts basic human nature and how we behave in groups, and consequently, may never maintain its purest, idealistic form in practice.

What I'm about to say may be controversial, cynical, and perhaps even somewhat harsh, but I think it's important to be critical of ourselves in this space rather than repeating the warm & fuzzy to ourselves and each other. The social issues are difficult to solve, and the warm & fuzzy helps no one, only results do!

One question I've been fundamentally contemplating is...Is the term "social enterprise" misleading?  At the end of the day, it's a business, and any business must have a social aspect to it because (a) if it's not adding value to the society, people will not be buying it to begin with (b) if it's harming society, then there would be significant risks to manage and high associated cost (as in the case of big oil companies).  Are we REALLY that different?

One thing I observe is that in the social enterprise sector, there tend to more focus on the founder's vision relative to delivering full understanding of the problems themselves.  The founding stories are powerful and extremely effective in drawing support, monetary and others.  However, sometimes it feels as though the "issue" and "victims" behind the story appear to become more and more of a supporting role, serving to highlight the great things "we're doing to help people" rather than becoming a voice to highlight and drive awareness of the social issue.  Similar stories in variant flavors are repeated by different players, and sometimes, it feels a bit like those ads featuring starving African children, it became hard to tell who is who.

Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie warned us about the danger of a single story, and sometimes I worry if the fixation of these stories, usually coming from a single person's experience, risks creating a critical misunderstanding of the place we're trying to improve and the problem we're trying to solve, and if it risks creating an unrealistic hope of solving a systematic, complex problem by promoting the work of a single person or a single resource-poor small social enterprise, when the right thing to do is actually organizing many people of the same vision together and promote collaboration between many smart people.  Something d.light is starting to do.

Case in point, besides d.light, there are at least 30+ Lighting Africa approved medium and small sized social enterprises in the solar lantern space.  All of us have the same mission: to improve the lives of 1.3 billion people in the world still stuck with unsafe, expensive, and unhealthy kerosene lanterns.  Every few months, a new solar lantern design / company pops up.  Their pitch is almost always the same as that of those 30+ social entrepreneurs before them.  It is filled with heart-aching stories of kerosene explosion, data of sizable market opportunities, and the hope of eradicating kerosene with a simple solar device.

I often wonder, does the poor need another solar lantern? or do they just need a way to access these solar lanterns?  Are we taking the western view of consumerism and habit of mind-numbing choices, and taking it to places who has never had options?  When you have not had breakfast for awhile, it really doesn't matter if you can get your favorite brand of corn flake or preferred flavor of Cheerios, what matters is something shows up on the table and quench your hunger, right?  Same thing for lighting for the under-electrified population, there are plenty of good designs out there, the problem is not a lack of choices, the problem is people are not aware of these good options, not convinced by it, and/or could not access it.  In my personal opinion, unless we have a disruptive idea or product, putting in effort to come up with an incrementally better design does not solve the problem...on the contrary, it diverts valuable resources that could be put to use in some other way that gets the society better return.  There are too many focus on coming up with new design, and not enough emphasis on creating distribution / access to these wonderful design.  Wouldn't it be better and more cost-effective to instead of competing for resources, to funnel those money through to someone who's already successful in this space,  someone who has already figured it out, and could use more money to scale? At the end of the day, the design and business model between different solar lantern companies are not wildly different.  I can bet money that those 1.3 billion people will be happier as long as they can access one of the many solar lantern...ANY one of those lanterns (even if it's not d.light)!

So, wouldn't it make more sense to pool our resources and solve the problem together?  Except, starting a new company is sexy and can be done in an air-conditioned room.  But figuring out last mile distribution requires long term investment in remote, uncomfortable places, which is inconvenient and unrealistic once the founding team hit the age of needing to start a family.  Revealing to the world a new design is sexy and Steve Jobs-like.  But supporting something that already exist takes the lime light away (i.e. not so sexy).   We have to admit, while this is not true in all cases, there are plenty of ego involved in the world of social enterprise!

The amount of ego I observed in the sector concerns me.  Somehow, the "knight in shining armor coming to save the world" complex is feeds into this ego. Despite of shared objectives to improve lives, partnerships don't always work because of interpersonal conflicts between leaders of different companies, which begs the question if the objectives are truly about improving lives & altruistic or if the real objective is actually more personal and less externally focused?

Not only does the ego that's involved leads to behaviors that wastes resources, I think it fundamentally hinders organizations from doing their best in helping people because it obstruct one's ability to truly listen and to empathize.  The practice of "human-centered design" (HCD) is wildly popular and even a bit glorified in this space.  HCD has been championed by the Stanford Design School, IDEO, and most FMCG companies.  It emphasizes the need to immerse oneself in user's environment, and takes a very user-centric approach to design the best product from the user's point of view, rather than from the designer's point of view.  Over my 7 years of training in FMCG, I learned that a flawed consumer research design or poor execution can be misleading and dangerous.  Just because you've done consumer research, doesn't mean the conclusion is accurate!  It worries me that so many social entrepreneurs are young, hot-headed, applying HCD in a very inexperienced sort of way without realizing it, and hanging on to possibly flawed conclusions from those field studies as though their lives depend on it.  Nothing is more dangerous than knowing just a little about something and believe that one knows everything.  That's the danger of a single story Adichie talked about.  After all, how can we expect anyone who did not grow up in a mud hut and have to carry water for 3km to ever truly understand what it's like to live that life?  There's a massive difference between observing someone doing it, discussing what it's like with that person, and actually living it yourself.   And even if we live in these environment ourselves for a few months, it wouldn't be the same experience as the local because, we have an "out", we can always go back to where we came from, but they don't, they are stuck, they have no exit plan!  Empathy in its complete form is nearly impossible, but that's OK for practitioners in the space, as long as we recognize that.  Ego, however, prevents us from recognizing and admitting that.

Some successful social enterprise I have seen so far have been mostly led by local entrepreneurs: IVDP from Krishnagiri, India, Kazuri beads in Kenya, Tsu-chi in Taiwan, and I'm sure I am missing many other small, local social enterprises that have not, and will never hit the Western social impact radar.  Although they are small, they are run efficiently and financially sustainable.  I believe they have been successful because the founders grow up living with the problem they are trying to solve, and have an unparalleled commitment to the community to solve that problem, in another word, it's their community, they don't have a "Plan B" if things don't work out.  In fact, the community look up to him/her and create this sense of responsibility / accountability that a foreigner doing the same wouldn't be obliged to in the same way.  The unfortunate thing is that although these organizations' grassroots nature help them figured out the right "business design" easily, it's rare for them to scale because (1) lack of fund, and (2) lack of management skills / know-how for scaling.  They don't know how to access the million dollar grant from USAID because (a) they don't have the same access to information to find out about these funding opportunities (b) grant writing has become an industry that they cannot compete with professional grant writers (c) they are too small and possibly too "unprofessional" by western standard to be taken seriously, and (d) they don't know how to "package" their pitch to fit the western appetite and pull the right heart string that leads to money pouring from wallets.

So here's an interesting dilemma. On one hand, the "imported" social enterprises have the funds and management skills risk but suffer from the danger of ego / savior mentality and lack of ability to truly empathize & come up with the locally appropriate design. On the other hand, the "home brewed" social enterprises has the right design but almost always lack the fund and management skills to scale.

How can we bridge these gaps?  And where shall we go from here?  On one end, I believe it's important for western-based social enterprise to hire as many local staff as possible, and give them management role.  This is easier said than done due to the lack of strong talents in developing countries, but local staff is critical to bring some reality check into the organization as they will always know the end-user better.  Over time, just like companies like P&G and Unilever have integrated themselves into the fibers of the community, social enterprise ought to do the same.  They bring best practice processes, management skills, and fund from the developed world, while local talents can transform these resources into result in a locally relevant fashion, in a way that inspire true local ownership. Just because a company is operating locally doesn't mean it's part of the community.  What I observed in Kenya was mostly a foreign management team with low skill local staff who does not have any decision making power.  That does not work, even if 90% of the staff is local.  Only when local staffs get their share of voice in driving company's strategic direction, can the company be transformed from "the founder's company" to "their company".  When the company becomes one of the people, it begin to speak with the local people's voice, which is light-years better than a foreigner's "representation" or "interpretation" of their voice.  One the other end, capacity building is important for the "home brew" social enterprises.  Their insights are like valuable gems that's currently hidden from the international community. While these local organizations are difficult to find, isn't it time that donors and investors curb the obsessions for scale and for the perfect story, and give these hidden gems a bit more benefit of the doubt, take time to polish them with knowledge and skills they lack and see how they will blossom?  What Acumen is doing with the East African Fellows Program is quite nice in helping this area, it would be really interesting to see how it progresses over time and how it can impact more local entrepreneurs.

After being in the space for nearly 2 years, I've certainly become more critical of it; however, I still firmly believe in its cause and believe it can blossom with time (just like other industries) given SE is in its early stage and somewhat disorganized.  It's reassuring to see more experienced people coming into this space (as in the case with d.light), making improvements in their own way and beginning to put down more standards.  

Returning to the motherland

It's been 3 weeks since I moved to the "motherland". Until now, my exposure to China had been limited to my primary school textbook and polarizing views from media and friends.  

I'm not sure if it is because I'm coming from Africa where my standard of "comfort" has been substantially lowered, OR because I have quickly reconnected with my Chinese "root" that have been dormant in my subconscious all these years, adjusting to life in Shenzhen has been surprisingly easy.

It helps that Shenzhen is an immigrant city, the majority of the population is not "from here".  At the office, mandarin (the common language) is for the most part a second language for everyone. Consequently, my officemates speak with a variety of accents, and sometime have a difficult time understanding each other!  (which was nice because I don't feel so bad for making the super nice guy with a thick accent repeat something 3 to 5 time so I can understand him.)  On any given day, my conversations switch between Cantonese, Mandarin, and English.  In addition, pretty much from the time I landed, my focus immediately shift to developing "guan xi" (relationships), and business / interpersonal exchanges has been filled with flattery and a sort of superficial pleasantry that would have made me want to vomit had it been in a western context.  Miraculously, I have not feel a tiny bit of cognitive dissonance, even though I do worry about developing multiple personality disorder in the near future. :-p

It's an interesting experience being a foreigner without feeling truly "foreign".  Might it be in Kenya, Japan, France, or even in the US, I had been squarely pegged as an "outsider" either intrinsically (because of language barriers) or externally imposed (because I obviously look different from everyone else).  Living in China is the first time this line has been blurred.  I'm no longer sure if I'm "the foreigner trying to blend in" or "the clueless local who just moved in from the neighboring town".  Previously, my social circle mainly sits in the expat "bubble", now I feel very positively outside that bubble, and very much looking in, pondering why people would spend that kind of money living that kind of lifestyle. (I can only infer that this might have been how my middle class Kenyan friend felt sometimes when they saw the way I lived)

Despite of these unexpected feeling of familiarity, I do feel homesick. Funny enough, the "home" I miss the most is not the US or Taiwan.  The place I miss most was Kenya.  I miss my tribe of like-minded individuals doing our best to make the world a better place.  I miss the depth of conversation I frequently have with friends (local & expat) who had a global perspective and not afraid to have a debate.  I also miss the simplicity of life, the sense of community, the smile on everyone's face, and the vibrant growth energy that has not yet been overly corrupted by material wealth.

With that said, as Woody Allen exquisitely articulated in the movie Midnight in Paris, we tend to idealize the past to escape the present (especially when the present is not so pleasant)... some of us idealize a foreign place to escape our present location.  To me, living in developing countries represent both an idealized simple past (as many of these places reminded me of Taiwan when I was little) and an exotic escape.  After making a giant circle around the globe, fate finally brought me back to Asia / China, let's see if I can learn to get back to the "present" and develop a new appreciate for the motherland.

What's your sentence?

I saw a video promoting Daniel Pink's book "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" a few weeks back.  It was interesting video that poses an interesting question "What is your sentence?"

My first stab at my sentence (still work in progress): "when others give up, she kept pushing and asking questions, and as a result, left the world & everyone around her slightly better than they were yesterday"

Any suggestions on what a more appropriate sentence I should have?  and more importantly, what's YOUR sentence?

What I learned in Africa

Today I leave Nairobi, where I have called home for the last 18 months to move to China and to continue pursuing (in a different capacity) the same mission I have bought into with d.light 18 months ago - to provide equal quality of life for people below poverty line.  I am excited for the new opportunity as it enables me to work on a more strategic level to drive the company's direction, and for the first time in my career, I not only feel passionate about what I do, I actually have a vision of where I would like to take this organization.  It's an exciting new leadership opportunity, albeit it is also very intimidating! (wish me luck)

As I reflect upon what I have learned during my stint here in Africa, 2 major themes:

(1) It's good to be results-oriented, but sometimes we need to define "result" in a way that's not so one-dimensional.
I was discussing with a good friend here on what we have accomplished in Africa.  It's funny that we both agree that it's very difficult to pin point a tangible result we've achieved in the last 18 months.  As I leave the d.light Africa office, while there is a consensus among my colleague that I've contributed a lot to the organization, I couldn't say "because I am here, I was able to drive x% growth to this business or sell x million more lanterns".  This made me feel uneasy as this kind of statement was something I frequently put on my resume back in my Corporate America days and was the way I can validate my contribution.

This really makes me re-think my definition of "result".  My business background has conditioned me to define result in the business context (i.e. profitability, top line growth, market share...etc.).  Although there is a significant focus on leadership and how one impacts employees in an organization, no one will give you a big bonus or put you on the front cover of FORTUNE magazine if you are universally loved and respected as a good leader, but was unable to deliver immediate quarterly business results & increase shareholder value.  However, in the developing markets (and particularly in the social sector), there are sooooo many factors at play that any one person really cannot ensure / control business results, especially on the timeline that I'm used to in the developed world.  My manager was telling me that a lot of the things I've put in place today probably will only come to fruition in the next 2 year or so, and I think in my past role, that is simply too slow and hence unacceptable and equivalent to "failure to deliver"!

Interestingly, I was encouraged to consider the positive change I was able to make on the people I worked with; in another word, instead of measuring my results solely using "business metrics", measure them also in "human metrics".  For example, was I able to elevate the skill level of the African staff? Did I put in place processes and routines that brought about more discipline in the way we do business?  Did I set an example on the type of work ethic people should have and inspire others to do the same?  Did I bridge the western thinking with the local mentality to enable better working relationship globally?  If I think along these metrics and consider how I was able to impact the "people" around me (in addition to the single minded "business" results), it doesn't feel like I've spun around and achieved nothing anymore.  I could honestly say that I made a tremendous impact on the people I worked with, and that will have a lasting positive impact to the business that can be observed maybe several years from now.  I think I could be OK with that (it will just be hard to put on the resume)

(2) Difficult environment brings out the best and the worst of you, but this is the best (if not only) way one can truly learn and get better.
Not surprisingly, my parents and some friends are quite relieved that I'm getting out of Africa and moving to a more "safe" environment in China.  I will not deny that living in Africa can be tough from a physical comfort stand point, but more so, it puts a lot of mental stress because nothing works here.  A lot of things may seem to have simple solutions, but navigating through the people to execute these simple solutions just seem ridiculously impossible at times.

As a result of this type of work environment and the passion & pressure to deliver, the work hours and stress level usually goes through the roof.  I have screamed and yelled at people more times than I've ever thought was acceptable  in a professional setting.  I have called people incompetent in their face and acted like a total bitch on numerous occasions   I have gone through phases where I felt naive and manipulated and want to give up.  I have faced corruptions and been proposed business deals in the grey area that really challenged my business ethics and values.   Working in Africa has brought the worst, ugliest side of me that I did not know existed.

On the other hand, Africa also brought out the best out of me and I was surprised looking back on how much I've stretched.  I discovered why I get comfortable quickly and make fast friends with locals.  I found patience and grace that I never knew was in me, and I experienced how unique & powerful my cross-cultural background and personality could be when it comes to bridging differences and moving teams forward, and will now leverage it as a strengths in everything I do moving forward.

Facing myself in my best and in my worst was probably the best thing that ever happened.  It was by no mean pleasant, but it forced me to be honest with myself, to accept what I can and cannot do, and to think hard about where I want to draw my limits as well as how I should protect myself.  Facing myself in my best and in my worst gave me confidence by turning things I "thought" I could do into things I "know" I am capable of achieving.  It is empowering and liberating!

While I'm no adrenaline junkie when it comes to lifestyle and hobbies, I could see how one can get addicted doing things that pushes oneself to the limit.  In a way, what I am doing in a professional setting is not fundamentally different from adrenaline junkies.  It's really less about "stretching" one's ability but more about self-discovery and understand who we are as an individual.  There is no book or lecture that we could take to uncover the hidden parts about ourselves, human beings are complicated.  Just like alchemists put metals through fire to get it to its purest form, I think sometimes we are all on a mission (conscious or subconscious) to define who we are in our purest form, and the only way to do that is by putting ourselves through the fire of life and difficult situations, may it be a physical challenge (like that dude who free fall from space) or intellectual challenge (like scientists seeking the cure of cancer) or mental challenge (like many of my friends who are working to make the world a better place AND those who are courageous enough to become parents).  

Kwaheri, Africa! See you next time!

As I get ready to move for my new role in China, I can't help but have mixed feelings about my imminent departure from Africa.  My life in Africa has been filled with a colorful collection of maddening frustration, wild amusement, life-changing personal (& professional) lessons, and endearing friendships.  This has been one of the most memorable and worthwhile thing I've done in my life so far...a big THANK YOU, to everyone here (friends, chance encounters, strangers on the street), for making the last 18 months so memorable and meaningful!

There are many things I will miss, but other things I'm eager to do without:

I will miss the most random conversations / encountering I have while working / traveling that can be both hilarious and frustrating at the same time (but certainly make good stories)
I will not miss having to follow up on people 100 times to remind them to do their job and frequently yell at people from the top of my lung in order to get something simple done (that's someone else's daily job / profession)

I will miss getting uttermost attention (not to be confused with great service) at even very cheap hotels and restaurants, being called "Ms. Arlin", and feeling very respected (this is more so the case in Nigeria)
I will not miss feeling like not being able to fit in, that people will always look at you as though you're a upper class citizen, and giving you differential treatment or do not voice their opinion because they are afraid of making a mistake in front of you

I will miss the smell of sun on my clean laundry
I will not miss doing laundry by hand, especially after a very muddy hike over the beautiful, iron-rich African soil

I will miss the sandwich lady who visits my office every day, bringing delicious samosa and swahili dishes for 200 ksh...
I will not miss pizza Friday at the office, where our office manager forces us this horrible diet every Friday, missing the point that its main purpose is to get everyone together on a casual note rather than eat pizza, despite of the name "pizza Friday"  (it's better because it's free, but still...)


I will miss my undeserved celebrity status (for being foreign and thus "special")
I will not miss getting marriage proposals from random nameless guys wherever I go ...no, I don't roll that way!


I will miss the beautiful Nairobian weather year round at 28C
I will not miss the horde of big fat termites when it rains that have their way of invading your house despite of all the locked doors and windows

I will miss the big smile all Kenyans carry on their face and the endless good jokes from fun-loving Nigerians
I will not miss the hopelessly corrupt policemen who make your life miserable just to make 400ksh

I will miss being so close to raw, untouched nature & walking safaris where the animals look at you, recognize you exist, but do not run away...makes it feel truly like you're living and sharing this world together
I will not miss tourists on safaris with their giant cameras and showering $1 bills / pens to local children (creating a horrible culture/expectations)

I will miss having the routine of a fixed (taxi) driver, someone I can chat with, and learn more about culture and just life in general
I will not miss having to take a taxi everywhere and can never just go outside impromptu

I will miss River Cafe and Honey Beauty in Gigiri, where it's the perfect santuary for good food, followed by out of this world massage pampering
I will not miss seeing the ridiculous wealth among the diplomatic / international aid circle and feeling like I'm part of some sort of neo-colonial era

I will miss enjoying beautiful (and super affordable @ $1-2) flowers whenever I want a bouquet to freshen up my flat
I will not miss the never ending awkward moments when the street hawker persistently try to get my guy friends to buy me flowers

Lastly...
I will miss the amazing friendships I've developed and being part of a league of extraordinary folks trying to make a difference in the world!

This is not the end, I shall be back!

Inspiring Leaders: IVDP's Kulandei Francis

In my recent work trip to Tamil Urdu in Southern India, I had the good fortune of meeting Mr. Kulandei Francis, the founder of Integrated Village Development Project (IVDP) in Krishnagiri district.  It's not very often that one gets to meet inspirational leaders who are truly making a difference in their community, and I felt very lucky to have a chance to be in Mr. Francis' presence.

Mr. Francis is the 2012 winner of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, and has an amazing life story.  He was the only child in his poor family to have an university degree, and started out as a pastor.  After preaching Christianity for awhile, he decided that preaching is not enough...he wanted to do more!  He eloquently said, "helping hands are holier than praying lips", pulled up his sleeves, and in 1979 started IVDP, a network of self-help women group.  He painstakingly educated the community about issues that will help the community and made available products that will improve their lives (i.e. sanitary napkins, d.light solar lanterns, water purifier...etc.)  Just imagine how a man can start discussing the topic of menstrual cycle and use of sanitary napkins in a community where the topic is taboo and women don't even wear underwear!  THAT is an extreme behavior change and a marketer's ultimate challenge!

His organization is now entirely self-sustaining, and he re-invest any profit back to the community. All the women in his community now uses sanitary napkin, and he has boldly proclaimed that he wants to eradicate kerosene in his district; in fact, he's already 1/3 way there!!!  It's truly amazing what 1 individual, with determination and strategic approach, can achieve.  In the international development space, "scale" is the talk of the town; however, have we underestimated the power of   changes drip by drip, which ultimately change the world?

Can One "Live" on Charisma?

Working with d.light has given me a chance to take a peek through the keyhole into the start up world.  It's a fascinating space with quite a lot of interesting characters!  What really intrigued me though, is this idea of "serial entrepreneurs".  There are so many of them!!  Certainly quite a number of them have accomplished a lot, but I've also observed a large amount who live quite well with investor money and jump from one project to another without really achieving anything substantial.  Their supposed past "success" are often indicated by the size (revenue) of their business, but the thing is, you can have a decent size business while still making a loss (for the investor) or the revenue could be unsustainable, which, in all my past education / training, wouldn't put a business like that in the "success" category.

What is so intriguing to me is that "jumping from job to job" typically is frown upon in the corporate world because it means you are not good at any of the job or has itchy feet (i.e. unreliable)...however, being a serial entrepreneur and "jumping from venture to venture" seems to be something embraced in the start up circle.  If you jump from one job to another int he corporate world, you possibly will get stuck at a level eventually and couldn't move on.  But if you jump from one failed venture to another as an entrepreneur, you're tagged as experienced and get speaking engagements.  Such a drastic contract on how the same behavior is received in 2 different world!

One thing I did notice about serial entrepreneurs is their charisma.  They are usually extremely articulate and powerful public speakers who exude passion and confidence.  They can make a vegetarian believe that going to Fogo de Chao might be a good choice for lunch spot and give Chinese parent hope that their straight C daughter has a chance to become a doctor!

I recall from years back hearing some friends in the investor circle and organizations like Ashoka say that they place strong emphasis on the founders & a bit of a gut sometimes when they choose whom they'll invest in (especially for early stage ventures).  While there is undeniably a correlation between strong leadership and business success, I wonder if there is a risk to potentially put too much emphasis on the founders and let one's "gut" be led astray by a nice pitch?  I mean, I wonder how many investors have mistaken charisma for leadership and end up the unexpected sponsor of someone's hobby / business education for 5 year without getting any returns?  I'd be really curious to get the thoughts of those who are in this space either as an entrepreneur or an investor!! (after all, I've only seen about 1% of this world and it can hardly be representative of what's REALLY going on!)

Either way, developing good charisma seems to be a good investment of time for anyone, serial entrepreneur or not.  Here's some tips on the rules of charisma from the book ‘The Charisma Myth’:
• Be present. Give people your full attention. If your mind wanders, refocus by concentrating on physical sensations, like your breathing.
• Exude power and warmth. Adopt a powerful posture (wide stance, straight back, broad shoulders) and cultivate warmth by focusing on three things you like about the other person.
• Accept introversion. If you’re naturally shy, “warm up” before important interactions – visualise moments when you felt confident, or listen to mood-boosting music.
• Be vulnerable. There’s a fine line between charismatic and intimidating. Encourage a human connection with someone by revealing a weakness or sharing an embarrassing secret.
• It’s all in the voice. Create an air of confidence by speaking in a measured tempo and lowering your intonation at the end of sentences. Increasing the warmth in your voice is even easier: just smile.