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May 2024
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HANG IN THERE12/26/2023 Do you ever have to call a service center for some thing that you want to address? During the holidays, I got some credit card charges that I wasn't aware of and have to call a bank call center. First they asked you to key in your bank credit card number followed by the secret PIN number. And then the wait. The line would say, "This conversation will be recorded for coaching, teaching, advising, and monitoring purposes." Then silence, and more silence. How these purposes are translated to shorter wait times, successfully addressed complaints and questions, which then lead to customer satisfaction and retention is mind-boggling. And with the advent of AI, it becomes even more cryptic as to what happens with every call and what corporate training is instituted in anticipation of the need to reform/change. Hopefully, that recoded message should not just assuage every caller that things will be better, and that reality should meet current expectations and not the other way around.
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BENEATH THE SURFACE12/11/2023 I am watching the news regularly as soon as the October 7th massacre in Israel happened. I have read and watched some very objective and critical analyses of the Israel-Hamas war and I believed that there's more to the propaganda stories in the media today. For example, alliances and allegiances shift easily. As Egypt and Jordan do not want more headaches in their territories if refugees spill easily in their borders. Majority of the Arab nations want an end to the war but they themselves wash their hands on the obligations and responsibilities such as not supporting, funding, using their bases for terrorism, to name a few. Morally apprehensible actions that violate international law should be condemned, no buts and ifs, and yet even that is not heard across the region. What we see here is a double-standard as what most learned and informed analyst would say. If Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, or Iraq were being bombed to dust, nobody gives a damn in the Arab world. But if an Arab is in conflict with the Jew, hell will come down on earth. Behind all the condemnations on Israel's military action, the Arab region and some of them, the champions of the Palestinian cause are better off without Hamas or any terror organizations that are a threat to regional peace and security. Governments do not want to be heard siding with Israel and therefore undermining the public opinion of their population. They want to keep in power as long as possible but benefit from another country's efforts to rid of their 'problems.' The extremists encamped on many sides of these issues are laughing at the world. What does this got to do with business, leadership, and life? For all the talk about a certain policy, program, or actions by management, know that it's not what is heard, it's what's seen by staff, employees, and the public. Behind the scenes, what intentions and assumptions are used to make decisions? What resources are being deployed to ensure effective implementation? Who is saying what to whom? Are communications as clear and unconvoluted as possible? Who is not keeping pace and what can you do about it? Ask yourself this question, "What is really going on here?"
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REAL ALLYSHIP11/23/2023 When you talk about allyship or being an effective ally, it really starts with understanding the contexts that surround the issues that you want to support with. There is no excuse for this and am appalled by the the hostility and unrestrained anger directed against a particular group or entity because they think they hold the moral high ground on the issue. Here are some of the things that are not allyship: 1. Taking sides and making comments without understanding and knowledge of the issues, e.g. companies doing Black hiring, promotions, or donating as part of 'looking and feeling good' without the benefit of embedding these principles as areas for action. 2. Being supportive doesn't mean taking a blind eye on excesses. If your partner or the party you're siding with has committed a grave error of judgement or seemed too morally superior and doesn't receive constructive comments from the other parties, it's better to point that out early on before the real crisis starts. 3. Don't mouth word salads that seemed to be the flavor of the month and be gone in the new few months. It becomes pathetic when you sound like a parrot talking about decolonialization, white supremacy, apartheid, and other concepts that pit people against one another as a zero-sum game. Chants like from the river to the sea is a nice slogan but totally stupid. It calls for the total annihilation of a state. Regardless of where you stand in the Israel-Palestine conflict, it's like putting coal in already burning situation. It masked the real issues at hand, and in practically, these word salads do not make sense in real-time cessation of hostilities much less the deep-seated anger, hatred, and trauma experienced by many parties. Being an ally should be informed by reason and not by zealotry based on misinformation and fake news. Check your facts and know that there is definitely a more peaceful and less confrontational method of getting into solutions. The biggest obstacle is the mindset that the world needs to change because a few people said so. Are you an ally or a complicit part of the web of agitation for the sake of stirring more conflict and paranoia? If you're not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. |