Walter | Cooler Insights

How to Keep the Flame Burning

November 21, 2010 • Blog • 1 comment

Flames like this YOG one require lots of work to keep going (at Singapore Science Centre)

Perseverance and “stick-to-itiveness” are vital virtues in any personal, social or professional endeavour. Almost anybody who has accomplished anything substantial in any undertaking would share that age-old adage. Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” spelled that well with the “10,000″ hour rule. You must have also heard of how Rome wasn’t built in a day.

However, gritting your teeth and slaving to the grind isn’t the easier thing in the world. There are multiple sources of distraction, both online and offline, that may conspire to rob you of your resilience. After all, we now have multiple MMORPGs, marvellous movies, mile-long malls, and of course lots of makan places to check out.

What Do Women and Geezers Have in Common?

November 17, 2010 • Book Reviews • 1 comment

Give up? The answers, according to uber guru Tom Peters and Martha Barletta in their slim volume Trends are oodles of cash, purchasing power and huge influence.

Written in Peters’ no-holds-barred, rant-heavy and straight talking narrative, Trends provides lots of facts, figures and anecdotes to show that women and Baby Boomers are probably the two largest blindspots in the eyes of marketers everywhere. With a steely-eyed determination to tear down age-old prejudices against the “weaker sex” and “old geezers”, Peters and Barletta described how myopic views of catering largely to “White men in the 18 to 44 age group” have resulted in organisations neglecting huge markets worth “trillions of dollars”.

Outliers – The Story of Success (Book Review)

November 12, 2010 • Book Reviews • 1 comment

What is the secret to outstanding performance in any field? What makes world class musicians, athletes and scientists different from the rest of us?

In a similar vein to earlier titles like The Tipping Point and Blink, acclaimed nonfiction writer Malcolm Gladwell spins a fascinating tale on what made people remarkable in Outliers – The Story of Success.

5 Success Lessons from an Alien Species – The Javan Myna

November 7, 2010 • Business and Management • disabled comments

Singapore’s Most Common Bird – the Javan Mynah (photo by Ong Xin Rui from the Birds of NUS)

That bird above, the Javan Myna (Acridotheres javanicus), is the most common bird species in Singapore. You can see its black feathered wings with dashes of white fluttering everywhere around our island.

The Javan Myna has an amazingly liquid voice that allows it to imitate a range of calls into its repertoire, emanating through its characteristically yellow beak. It nests practically everywhere – on buildings, on trees, in padi fields, in drains, in roofs – and is abundantly successful in almost every habitat.

Head or Heart? Dilemmas in Management

November 5, 2010 • Blog • disabled comments

Source

One of the most difficult and perplexing challenge facing leaders and managers today is the trade-off between using one’s head and one’s heart. Should decisions be made purely on a bottom-line basis, or should they be done in the interests of all stakeholders?

As you would have guessed, there are no easy solutions to this, considering the dynamics of the modern organisation and its multiple demands.

From Concern to Influence – Stephen Covey 101

November 2, 2010 • Business and Management • 1 comment

7 Habits of Highly Effective People for Ah Bengs (Courtesy of Wayangtimes.com)

One of the oldest lessons from the incomparable 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey is to be proactive.

Now what does being proactive mean?

Service Failure at a Supermarket

October 31, 2010 • Blog • 2 comments

Supermarket shelves should always be full stocked (source)

While grocery shopping recently, my wife Tina experienced an inexplicable service failures at one of the largest supermarket chains in Singapore.

The story went like this.

Divergent and Creative Thinking

October 28, 2010 • Blog • disabled comments

There are two modes of cognitive reasoning that are universally defined: convergent and divergent thinking.

Convergent thinking is the one that is more frequently employed at work, in schools, and often at home. It is a form of thinking employing deductive reasoning, which looks at bringing together information that is focussed on solving a problem. Often, convergent thinking is useful for situations where a single correct solution exists. Such modes of thinking are commonly employed in scientific, engineering, financial and other analytical fields (like much of Police work).

Source

Author: coolerinsights