Corporate Wellness:

Spiritual and Secular Principles

In Corporate Turnaround and Transformation

Table of Contents

Summary of the Process and Issues in Corporate Wellness 281

Refrences 283

Background of the Author

Dr Mike Teng is the author of a best-selling book "Corporate Turnaround: Nursing a sick company back to health", in 2002 which is also translated into the Bahasa Indonesia. In 2006, he authored another book entitled, "Corporate Wellness: 101 Principles in Turnaround and Transformation. He also published in 2007/2008 seven management books, namely entitled:  Internet Turnaround: The Use of Internet Marketing to Turnaround Companies; Training Manual: Corporate Turnaround and Transformation Methodology; Link Baiting to Improve Your Page Ranking on Search Engines and Corporate Turnaround: Global Perspective, Fundamentals of Buying and Selling of Companies, What we can Learn from the Animals on Office Politics and Turnaround Yourself.

Following from the success of the first edition, Corporate Wellness: 101 Principles in Turnaround and Transformation in 2006, Dr Teng decided to write the second edition of the book incorporating the Biblical principles and the global recessionary events in year 2008. Dr Teng was invited on the national radio several times to share the principles in year 2005.

Dr Teng is currently the Managing Director of Corporate Turnaround Centre Pte Ltd which provides corporate training and management advisory services.  He has 28 years of experience in corporate turnaround, strategic planning and operational management responsibilities in the Asia Pacific. Of these, he held Chief Executive Officer’s positions for 18 years in multi-national and publicly listed companies.

Dr Teng served as the Executive Council member for fourteen years and the last four years as the President of the Marketing Institute of Singapore (2000 – 2004), the national marketing association. Dr Teng holds a Doctor in Business Administration (DBA) from the University of South Australia, Master in Business Administration (MBA) and Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering (BEng) from the National University of Singapore. He is also a Professional Engineer (P Eng, Singapore), Chartered Engineer ( C Eng, UK) and Fellow Member of several prestigious professional institutes namely, Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM), Chartered Management Institute (FCMI), Institute of Mechanical Engineers (FIMechE), Marketing Institute of Singapore (FMIS), Institute of Electrical Engineers (FIEE) and Senior Member of Singapore Computer Society (SMSCS).

Praise for the book:

“God wants us to be successful in business and He has shown us the way through His Word. Dr Mike Teng has very cleverly shown us how.”

Boyd Au – Founder and former Executive Chairman, Enzer Corporation Ltd.

“Dr Mike Teng's 'Corporate Wellness' provides a powerful lens through which to view corporations and companies, whether large or small. He has skillfully addressed the integrated nature of life and business, in which the intellectual, financial, physical and spiritual aspects are intricately intertwined. This book will empower you to assess the health and vitality of your business, especially in these turbulent times. Definitely recommended reading for all business executives!”

Dr. Naomi Dowdy – International Speaker and Author of 'Moving On & Moving Up in the Marketplace'

“Dr. Teng's writing is dynamite! His Business Principles 101 coupled with comparable uses of the same principles in the Bible show an in-depth understanding of the needs of today's management from the small guy selling hot-dogs all the way to the CEO on Wall Street.”

Greg Eck – Specialist in Automated Natural Language Processing

“In this global financial crisis corporations are convulsing. Cancerous corruption is being uncovered. And once thriving companies are now on life support. Dr. Michael Teng's Corporate Wellness is just what the doctor ordered.

The word "corporation" is from the Latin word that means "body." So Dr. Michael's Teng's "wellness" metaphor is certainly apt. A good corporation is not a "well-oiled machine"-- a metaphor borrowed from an antiquated industrial age. Corporations are not machines, but organisms.

They used to say in the computer industry, "junk in, junk out." In other words, the problem is not with the computer, it's with the computer programmer--the human factor. Mike Teng reminds us that a corporation is healthy only to the degree that the people who operate it are healthy. Corporate Wellness reminds us that without a healthy body of living, breathing, individuals you'll never have a growing, productive and profitable corporation.”

Wayne Hilsden – Senior Pastor, King of Kings Community, Jerusalem

"A very useful book from Dr. Mike Teng that will benefit many marketers and business executives in this ever changing business environment. Timely principles that are practical and relevant in helping many companies to identify and steer of pitfalls before they occur. A compelling read."

KC Loh – President, Marketing Institute of Singapore

“God is very much interested in how we run our businesses - for profit and purpose (divine). You will find powerful principles for a corporate turnaround. Read it, engage it and be transformed.”

Bryan Tan – Founder, Life Compass Learning Technologies, Bryan Tan Ministries, Former Pastor Trinity Christian Centre, Singapore

Introduction

Medical and spiritual metaphors are used abundantly in this book as we believe that people can comprehend their financial conditions much better than corporate matters. Metaphor is a comparative figure of speech in which a term is transferred from the object it ordinarily designates to an object it may designate only by implicit comparison or analogy. It is a comparison of something familiar to something unfamiliar and used in this book to explain a common “corporate wellness” principle. It is an effective way for people to create meaning by using one element of experience to understand another. Or to use an analogy, metaphor is like a bridge, it spans the gap between what the turnaround manager wants the sick company to know and what the sick company already knows. Metaphor gives us the opportunity to stretch our imagination, create powerful insights and deepen our understanding, thereby allowing us to see and act in new ways. Such metaphors couched into principles serve to enable the executives to draw parallels to their corporate issues and facilitate their diagnosis and remedies.

There are many similarities between a company and a person. Just like a human being, a company can get ill. Many companies are falling sick due to a whole host of factors such as the economic slowdown, competition and incompetent management. Sickness is a big business but nobody wants to be the patient or remain as the patient. Corporate ill health is also a big business, as in a declining and stagnant economy like the economic conditions we are experiencing in late 2008; there are more sick companies than healthy ones. Every company and individual wants to be in the pink of health.

It is important to keep your body healthy and well. Doctors generally only treat the disease and do not treat wellness. Individuals are beginning to recognize the importance of corporate which is becoming a big business. The pharmaceutical industry understands this as the drugs consumed for surgery and treatment is only for temporary demand. Whereas, the drugs consumed for healing and wellness are for the longer term. This is why medicines such as cholesterol lowering drugs, anti-depressant drugs and health supplements are in great demand. It is small wonder that there is such enormous research material on the Internet on health matters. Hence the growing trend is for companies to target wellness as a business.

God's creation is a more perfect one than men's creation of companies. There are no such things as internal viruses in men. However, because of the fall of Adam, men fall sick through external viruses or attacks from external factors such as infectious diseases, heart diseases etc. Companies get attacked by both external and internal viruses. The internal viruses are mainly management problems and generated internally. These external viruses include competition, economic and financial turmoil, namely factors from the outside.

This is why apart from the medical metaphors that are intercalated in this book; you will also find guiding Biblical principles that supplement our understanding of the corporate turnaround principles further, this time parallel to the different scriptures and stories in the Bible. We will later find that the corporate world and the world in the time of Jesus are not all that different, though it may sound like it. It is explored in this book how we are to keep the company and its workforce in fine fettle, the Jesus way. We will get to experience the Almighty in relation to our world and how we live – expanding our horizons in view of spirituality as not something to be only kept in our homes or churches, but also in the corporate world, and basically, in our everyday lives.

The crux of this book is this: God created men and men created companies. There are spiritual laws or Biblical principles and medical principles for men to follow to attain good physical health. As we are creators of companies, the latter too have to abide by spiritual and medical laws to follow for corporate wellness. As it is written in 1 Kings 2:3, “…observe what the Lord your God requires: Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go”

Similarly, we will see an increased awareness for companies to target for corporate wellness. After many years of growth and change in the 2000’s, companies have found that the state of health has not significantly improved. Morale and loyalty of the staff have deteriorated quickly in the destabilized economic market of late 2008 and companies are becoming caught in a vicious cycle of restructuring to stay afloat. And this pressure to stay competitive is increasing with the continued downward spiral of the economy. Companies have found that it is better for them to stay well and healthy, as one does not have to get sick to get better.

There are workable preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic steps to treat sick companies, and to restore as well as maintain their well being. Similar to handling of a person’s health, a company needs to monitor the five stages to sustain long-term health and wellness, namely, prevention, early diagnosis, proper treatment, recovery or rehabilitation and strengthening or health-boosting.

The issues affecting the health of a corporate entity parallel those for a human being, they are the preliminary, hard and soft issues. Preliminary issues are those matters that have to be right in the first place. For example, one needs to plan for one’s physical and corporate health to prevent an onset of an ailment. In addition, the patient also needs to deal with the hard issues such as undergoing a surgery to remove a tumour. These hard issues are related to the “science” of the corporate wellness. There are also “soft issues” that the patient must be attuned to. These include strengthening the corporate culture also known as the immune system of the body. The soft issues are like the “art” of the corporate wellness.

Studies show that the use of metaphors help people understand and retain information as it acts as a framework to organize new information. However, the metaphor as mentioned earlier is merely a bridge to understand the concept; the sick companies have to cross that bridge.

The ‘Five-Stage’ Corporate Wellness Process

Prevention (Isaiah 8:11 - “The Lord spoke to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people.”)

As the adage goes: Prevention is better than cure. In medical practice, prevention of the disease before its onset is better than giving medication when it is already malignant or full-blown. Getting it right early is much better than subsequent expensive treatments. Furthermore, when you lose your health, the road to recovery gets longer and rougher.

Seeing how Samaria disobeyed God, he warned Isaiah to not be like them. “The Lord spoke to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people.” God prevented Isaiah from ever falling on the same trap as the Samarians. Because Isaiah heeded God’s warning and obeyed him, he prevented for himself the wrath of the Lord coming on him and saved his life all together.

Prevention is the name of the game for individuals and companies.

Just like people, most companies get into trouble simply through sheer neglect. Neglect has become the way of some businesses within the latter 2000’s, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, companies which would have benefited greatly from preventive medicine earlier in the game to avoid their later downfalls. Through the lack of monitoring, the accumulation of toxins or disease causing pathogens are allowed to perpetuate into a full manifestation of the ailment before any action is taken to contain it. At the outset, a company should adopt prudent practices to prevent the onset of corporate ills or financial problems. The preliminary issue such as prevention requires the direction to be clear as well as good planning. Next, the hard issues need to be implemented which include diligent financial and other controls. Also, soft issues such as taking good care of your people and the wise management of the talent pool are also crucial.

Diagnosis (Exodus 5-12 – “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord.”)

Diagnosis is the identification of the disease based on its symptoms. However, the symptoms can sometimes mask the real disease. Also, many diseases share similar symptoms. Thus further probing is required in order to ensure that the disease is not misdiagnosed.

When Jesus instructed Moses to go to Egypt to free Israel, Pharaoh refused. So God sent out ten plagues one by one to Egypt, telling him to let the Israelites go. However, Pharaoh didn’t see these as symptoms to a much bigger “disease” that God was prepared to send out. Because he wasn’t able to “treat the symptoms,” this resulted in the loss and destruction of his country. “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord.”

Just as a sick person may manifest early symptoms of the ailment, such as cough, running nose, fever and body aches, likewise, there are usually ample warning signs for a company. High staff attrition rate and the loss of brand equity are perhaps some of the symptoms that all is not well with the company. However, they are merely the symptoms rather than the real disease or root cause. Treating the symptoms is tantamount to upgrading a cancer-stricken patient to another ward in the hospital, the condition of the patient does not improve. Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice, and likewise, implementing a corporate restructuring without knowing the root cause of the problems can be disastrous.

The key is early diagnosis as it increases the chances of curing most diseases. Therefore, a company should put in place a detection system to facilitate this early diagnosis. How does a company get out of trouble? A good way is to diagnose how it gets into trouble in the first place.

Diagnosis starts with acknowledgement of the problem, good detection system and identifying the root causes from the symptoms. Then one needs a comprehensive diagnosis of the “hard issues” such as its pricing, process and communication. The company also needs to review the “soft issues” such as communication and leadership functions which may have got the company into trouble.

Treatment (Mark 5:21-34 – “Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.”)

There are panaceas that can turn a critically ill organization into a healthy one; however, proper treatment is necessary as the remedies may be worse than the disease. For instance, some cancer patients are killed by the chemotherapy rather than the disease itself.

In the Bible, there are many instances where Jesus was the proper and only treatment. Sick people who have sought medical help just made their conditions worse. Once there was a sick woman who had been suffering from her illness for twelve years. Though she sought doctors to heal her, her condition just keeps getting worse. However, when she saw Jesus and grabbed his cloak from behind, she immediately got healed. This sick woman needed grave medication, and Jesus was the only one who helped her. A sick company must find the perfect treatment for themselves as well.

As they say, a stitch in time saves nine. Usually an ailing company needs critical attention probably in the form of ‘surgery’ with the primary focus of restructuring the organization and improving its cash flow. Most troubled companies need to engage outside help encouraging change and drastic action to steer them out of the woods. Efforts are also needed to restore the company’s bottom line and profits.

Treatment starts with the execution in appointing the appropriate corporate doctor or turnaround manager or a team. Next, the distressed company needs to focus and understand some of the techniques to remedy its ailment. Hard issues take precedence during this stage with restructuring, right sizing and cost cutting. In some cases, the rescue endeavour may come in too late; however, if this is the case, then an exit strategy may be necessary. After dealing with the hard issues, the company needs to deal with the soft issues of dysfunctional personnel and bureaucracy.

Recovery (Job 33:28, Joshua 1:8, James 2:24, Exodus 9:16 – “He redeemed my soul from going down to the pit, and I will live to enjoy the light.”)

Once a company has completed its surgical care and come out of the ‘intensive care’ stage, it is of paramount importance that it can continue to nurse itself to health. The pace of recovery and rehabilitation can vary from patients to patients, even though they maybe afflicted by the same disease. Certainly the solution for saving AIG will not be the same as the one necessary to save Morgan-Stanley. Maintaining flexibility regarding recovery may be the difference between a successful recovery and a continued downward-slide, especially in the current economically distressed environment of the late 2000’s.

Similar to the recovery after a surgery, a physiotherapist will start you on an exercise and rehabilitation regime such as assisting you to walk with crutches. As you recuperate in the hospital, the physiotherapist and occupational therapist will re-teach you the ways to walk, eat, bathe, sit and dress. They will also advise on your diet and exercise programmes when you are discharged from hospital.

Likewise, when we are recovered by Jesus Christ, redeemed from death and suffering, we can’t take the back seat and just start living how we used to live. We need to have an exercise programme as well, to keep our health in tip-top shape. Our training programme from God requires one, reading up on his word, that we may know how to live. “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” Secondly, we need to back up our faith in him by doing what pleases him. “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.” Third, we must proclaim the Good News for our salvation. “But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”

A company during this stage of the cycle needs to give itself time for healing and recovery. Then it needs to review and reflect on some of the hard issues relating to sales and marketing, customers and market positioning. Oftentimes, these basic issues are taken for granted and can get the company into trouble even after drastic surgical issues have solved the more immediate needs. The recovery period is a good time for the company to recharge and reenergize itself through re-visiting its ethical values, inspirational and renewal process.

Strengthening (Isaiah 41:10 – “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”)

After full recovery, the battle to stay in good health is not over yet. The company needs to continue to strengthen and have foresight to transform and innovate. It must also continue to build up its cash reserves.

Likewise, even after the recovery stages with Jesus, we still need him to strengthen us, to make sure that we don’t go astray. Just like the disciples underwent strengthening throughout their journey, so must we. We need to learn to trust him in our journey of faith; to continually be transformed to the person he wants us to become. We can be sure that God will be willing to help us stay on track, as long as we trust him to do so. “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Some doctors believe that the immune system can defend the body against cancer and germs. The immunity is the defence system to combat diseases. During this phase, the strengthening of the immune system is the key to boosting health.

The immune system for the company is the corporate culture. A dysfunctional corporate culture is one which is arrogant and full of ego. A company needs to strengthen its immune system through healthy mindsets and vision. In medical science of psychosomatic, it is believed that the mental health can affect the physical health; similarly the mindset of the company can hurt the financial health. Oftentimes, in a sick company, the enemy is within.

An organization that has regained corporate wellness needs to implement a sustained programme to remain in the pink of health. The company needs to strengthen its heart through exercising, good diet and vitamin supplements. As these are long -term measures, their benefits are normally not visible immediately.

Stage 1: Prevention

Direction

Principle No. 1

Vision, feedback and action – three meals a day keeps the corporate doctor away (James 2:14-25 – “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”)

Someone said that feedback is the breakfast of a champion. However, in today’s turbulent marketplace, surviving on breakfast alone is insufficient. You need three meals a day to keep the doctor away.

In the corporate dietary system, you need vision for breakfast, feedback for lunch and action for dinner. Vision is a clear and precise mental portrait of a preferred future. Feedback is the return of a portion of the output to the input. Action is to the take a decision and execute. Vision and feedback without action is dreaming. Action without vision and feedback is wasting time. But vision, feedback and action – feeding on the three meals a day will serve to keep the corporate doctor away.

However, you must ensure that all three meals are based on a regimen of information. Information is the building-block of solid vision, quality feedback and decisive action. Some people believe that information is power. However, information without action is useless. It is similar to the treatment of a sick patient. The doctor can have all the right information on how to cure the patient. However, if he does not take the appropriate and apply timely treatment to treat the patient, the outcome for the patient remains unchanged. But action must be complemented with the correct information as well as taking the action which the patient desires. Acting on the wrong information may kill the patient as the remedies may be worse than the disease. This is why all three – vision, feedback and action – are necessary. They are the meals required to provide the required daily nourishments to the company. It is the harnessing and application of the correct information that unleashes power.

Even Jesus believes that vision and feedback, or faith, in his terms, is useless without action, or deeds. We can find in the book of James how it was strongly emphasized that faith without deeds is considered dead. Chapter 2 verse 20 reads “You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?,” thereby giving us an example, rather a proof of this in the likes of Abraham and how his faith in God worked perfectly with his actions when he offered his only son, Isaac, to the altar. He had the vision for God’s plan for him, the information about God’s character and perfected it with his action by completely trusting God and obeying his commands.

In the context of management theory, it is useful to apply the best blend of Eastern and Western practices. Developing Asia can learn much from the more established and intellectual Western managerial professionalism in the area of clear vision, proper research and feedback. The Asia financial crisis in 1997 has exposed the weakness of some mega corporation in the East. For instance a number of Chaebols in Korea, Keiretsu in Japan and SE Asian banks collapsed. They were lacking in focus, over extended and diversified. Their product lines had little connections with each other. On the other hand, the top blue chip companies in the West such as Microsoft, Coke, and IBM were mainly one-product companies with clear and focused corporate vision. During that era, companies like Apple displayed this unified vision through the underlying theme running throughout their products that is even evident today in the marketplace. But you can look to the more immediate economic downturn of 2007 and 2008 and see that vision is simply not enough. Certainly Microsoft had a great vision for the launch of Vista, but in the months since its release in the United States, many companies have begun pursuing share-ware and pushing Microsoft out. Vision alone is not enough.

It is the combination of all three elements that will lead to a successful company. Just having vision and feedback will not win the day. For example, in the early 1990s, IBM almost went under. IBM then had good vision and feedback. Many major companies were using IBM systems and certainly gave feedback to IBM regarding its products and services. The problem was that such reports and feedback processes stopped short at IBM’s head offices. Decisions were not taken to correct the situation on a timely basis. In the 2008, this inability to act also affected the major US automotive manufacturers General Motors, Ford and Chrysler resulting in the Japanese being able to penetrate the market and whittle away their market shares for years. And the new economic downturn across the world market is partially due to the increase in oil prices in the past year. If the Big Three had enacted their vision based on the feedback of their consumers for alternative fuelled automobiles over the summer, Asian influence in the American auto market would have diminished greatly. As it is, Asian auto makers have a fantastic opportunity to grow in the American market and virtually destroy the failing US manufacturers. And because Japanese manufacturers have been building more economical cars for longer, it is no wonder that the American government is contemplating a bail-out of their automakers.

The West can learn from Asia’s entrepreneurs’ acumen and instincts to quickly act on the information available. The Japanese have taught the West about quick implementation of quality systems and products and concepts like Just-in-Time which is only just now reaching deeper into the US to penetrate markets in the south and Central American regions. Now the Chinese and the Indians are winning the fight against the Japanese corporations in the areas of low cost and good quality products and services.

Therefore, to compete effectively in today’s global marketplace, it is vital to integrate the vision and feedback management system of the West with the entrepreneurial and intuitive action of the East.

Principle No. 2

When you drive an ambulance, be sure you know where you are going (Romans 8:28 – “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”)

If you do not know where you are going, all the strategic planning and goal setting will be futile. You will be barking up the wrong tree. One of the important things in the world is not so much where we stand, but in which direction we are going. Knowing the direction and purpose provides a motivation as well as a catalyst for decision-making and execution. In the current economically distressed period we are entering in late 2008, a direction and purpose will be critical for companies seeking to succeed in spite of the economic difficulties. Without clear direction, no motivation will exist for not only the company, but its investors and boards – and certainly no clear decision-making will be possible as funds will be less and less available as we progress through this recession. Conventional wisdom says: “If you have wealth, you have everything.” However, there are still many very wealthy people who commit suicide because they lost purpose for living. Rather the wisdom should be: “If you have purpose, you have everything.”

Rick Warren wrote the book, “The purpose-Driven Church” in 1995 in the field of the church. Warren in 1980 launched Saddleback Church in Orange County, Cali from scratch. It quickly became one of the fastest growing churches in US bringing an average of 15,000 worshippers. The success of Saddleback can be compared with Dell, Google or Starbucks.

“The Purpose – Driven Church” sold more than 1 million copies. Its sequel, “The Purpose-Driven Life” sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. Warren’s success notwithstanding his religious beliefs stems from his uncanny discernment of a burning consumer need out there. Without purpose, people will perish.

To Warren, purpose defines not only what business you should engage in but also what you should not. Therefore, the secret to effectiveness is to know what really counts and then to act on this. Nothing else should override or take precedence over the purpose of your business. Plans, programmes and personalities of the founders do not last, only purpose lasts. Purpose can bring healing to your business too. A rediscovery of your purpose and destiny can spark off a miraculous revival of a discouraged church and a troubled organisation.

Warren also draws on the medical analogy. His fundamental advice is not to try to grow your business but to strive to make it healthy. When it is healthy, it will naturally grow. Furthermore, challenging people to a serious commitment to a purpose actually draws people to your cause rather than repels them. If you can succeed in obtaining greater commitment, you can be assured of generating greater response.

We see the great importance of purpose in the Bible – we always hear that God has a purpose for us. In the book of Romans, Paul writes “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” But what is God’s purpose for us anyway? Ultimately, this can be answered in one verse, which we can find as early as in the book of Exodus in the Old Testament; that God may show us His power and that His name may be proclaimed all over the earth – repeated and further emphasized in the book of Romans in the New Testament.

Probably the most important factor that makes leaders successful is their clear purpose or vision of what they want to do and where they want to go. Vision is important as it provides a blueprint of what you have conceived as a viable business plan. It is also a road map for the future, generates excitement, creates order out of chaos and offers criteria for success. But vision is worthless if it is not shared by all the members of an organisation. Branson, Chairman of Virgin, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Barnevik, former CEO of ABB Brown Boveri and David Simon, former CEO of British Petroleum all have something of the showman in them. Branson’s style is almost exhibitionist, Bill Gates style is casual and “geeky", Barnevik’s style is a sophisticated mix of rational and humanistic and Simon’s style is low key and friendly. Steve Jobs of Apple and Larry Page, the founding CEO of Google are two which both have an inspirational kind of leading style. Although these leaders differ in style, all of them have kept their vision simple. They exude passion, enthusiasm and self-confidence when sharing about what they hope to accomplish, where they want to go and all these render their visions contagious.

Sir John Egan, the Chairman of Inchcape plc and Confederation of British Industry also emphasized the importance of direction. He reminded managers that strategic planning needed to go beyond just worrying about how to achieve business goals and maintain profitability. He says: “If we are going to have a sustainable future, we have got to come to grips with where we are going. We will have to create a future where the growth that is necessary to create wealth is not endangering the planet, and governments will expect organizations and companies to do this.”

A research study from PA Consulting showed only a startling 17 % of companies understand who are their most valuable customers and a mere 13 % know what are their most valuable products. Discovering the most valuable customers and products is just the starting point to a more effective purpose. In tough markets, the paramount purpose should be on the products’ economic value. Furthermore, your staff also needs to know the products or services backing them.

As the old saying goes: “If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there.” But when you are driving an ambulance to pick up the sick or injured person, if you lost your way or take too long to get to the destination, it may cost the life of the person.

Planning

Principle No. 3

Companies without strategies are heading for tragedies (Genesis 11:6, Proverbs 21:5 – “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.”)

Many businesses are still focusing on yesterday’s problems at the expense of forgoing future opportunities. The best chess players always have a strategy in place. But in businesses future planning seems to play second fiddle to analyzing of past performance. Architects would not build a house without the architectural plans because selecting the wrong layout or laying the wrong foundation or using the wrong building materials could result in disaster. The house can collapse on you after you move in. A strategic plan is the architectural blueprint for your business.

Executives always have the excuse for not doing strategic planning. They reckon that things are changing so rapidly. It does not make sense to do ten or even five year planning as events will change and it is not possible to pre-empt changes any more. It is true that nowadays environmental changes are very rapid and that makes long-term planning even more difficult. Non-strategic planning companies give the excuse that planning results in paralysis through too much analysis. It is also true that some companies cover their backs with expensive market research and spreadsheet analyses.

However, one should not throw out the baby with the bath water. As a matter of fact, it is even more critical to have strategic planning during turbulent and rapidly changing environment. With the recent downward trend in the world economy of the late 2000’s, strategic planning will become a necessity for many firms simply to stay alive. In this type of economically distressed environment, without strategic plans, many companies will see their impending doom too late to save themselves. It is like the Titanic, which had the most modern technology in her time but did not plan for eventuality and disaster when it hit the iceberg.

People in the Bible loved to plan, although if these plans were selfish and destructive, their plans were destroyed by God, albeit usually with the goal of betterment of his people. We see a lot of instances in the Bible where God frustrates the plans of the people. However, this doesn’t mean that God doesn’t like it when we plan, he would just guide us to plan well.

God wants us to plan ahead and build solid plans. He knows very well the power of planning. In Genesis 11:6, when the people came together to build the Tower of Babel, the Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them,” which gave Him the need to go down and confuse their language that they may not understand each other, because God knows that the people can succeed with this.

Nonetheless, it is always wise to plan ahead. Proverbs 21:5 tells us that “the plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.” Now, if that principle was true then, imagine how much more this makes sense now.

No matter the economic stability of the market, we will always be living in difficult times today and tomorrow things may be worse. With the possible threats such as global recession, terrorist attacks, tainted milk, infectious diseases like SARS, bird flu etc, it will be naïve for any CEOs to think that they are immune or protected.

One must not be fooled into thinking that a company is successful because it has a good strategic planning system in place. Your success may be coincidentally due to a buoyant market or weak competition. Also, one must not be mistaken that the use of processes such as the annual budget is tantamount to application of strategic planning. If the data is purely internal that is sales figures and product costs, it is not strategic planning. You need to factor in the external factors such as customer data, competition, economic trends, etc.

Also, studies of successful companies such as IBM, Procter and Gamble, 3M found that new innovations and great ideas do not originate from the centralized strategic planning department at the headquarters. Most of the good ideas and innovations were generated from outside the industry or the people who regularly interact with the customers. Strategic planning must not remain in its ivory tower but should incorporate the realities of the ground. That is why feedback is so important and is a much easier way to incorporate new ideas rather than fund an expensive idea-generating team. This is the reason why Apple products are so much more user-friendly than other electronic gadgets.

The former chairman of General Electric (US), Jack Welch drew on the strategies of the Prussian general and military writer Clausewitz, Karl von (1780 – 1831). One of Clausewitz’s theories included an explanation of why a military leader could not devise a complete battle plan and then stick blindly to it: “Man could not reduce strategy to a formula. Detailed planning necessarily failed, due to the inevitable frictions encountered. Strategy was not a lengthy action plan. It was the evolution of a central idea through continually changing circumstances.”

His own strategic thinking matched that of the general. He constantly reinvented GE over the years as circumstances and the competitive environment shifted. There was an evolution to Welch’s strategic thinking and each major initiative built on the one that preceded it. He would wage one “battle” and then wait to see how the results panned out. In tracing the evolution of GE during his tenure, Welch has drawn a stair-step-like chart that depicts the stages of GE’s culture change. Work-Out laid the foundation for Best Practices, which created a platform for Process Improvement such as Six Sigma, etc.

The need for strategic planning goes much farther than just within a company. Governments too need to perform strategic planning in order to avert disaster. Without a doubt, every country which has participated in the global economy of the 21^st century will be adversely affected by the economic downturn which began in 2008. The impending recession is not going to be the garden type variety which impacts only regions and as it is going to be protracted. This downturn will affect all the major global economies – at the same time. Many countries will not be able to cope. This is because the individual national economies are very dependent on the health of the global economy and the individual markets such as financial services, international trade, tourism, and foreign investments. To mitigate the dramatic changes necessitated by the harsh economic situation ahead, national governments should take the opportunity to plan strategically. For all of these governments, the following measures should be considered when they do so:

Firstly, co-ordination should be improved between the government sector, private sector and grassroots movements. In difficult times like those ahead, all the major stakeholders must work in harmony and coordinate efforts seamlessly. Prior to implementing major cost increases, government agencies should discuss with grassroots movements and private sector bodies so as not avoid further hardships and mitigate any increase in costs for affected parties. Unrest and instability must be prevented during tough economic times as the entire society can be disrupted, as it is already occurring in some countries around the world.

Secondly, governments must consider the need to pump-up their economies by releasing more projects. However, the governments should also be cautious to ensure these projects get filtered down to the appropriate consultants and contractors to maximize the benefit for each country’s domestic market as much as possible.

Thirdly, as in the last Asian financial crisis, governments must implement fiscal stimulus and statutory charges reduction and other such measures to assist distressed companies and also households. Just as some individuals have done, some governments have saved up for a “rainy day” - and now the “rainy day” is here. Now is the time to utilize the savings to get us all through the looming hard patch ahead.

Preparation of a strategic plan may not guarantee success but failure to do so is certainly a recipe for disaster.

Principle No. 4

If you want good health, plan for it. If you want great health, plan and do a post-mortem. (Isaiah 43:18 – “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.”)

Planning tells you what is going to happen; post-mortem tells you what has happened. Both planning and post-mortem are essential management tools needed to achieve corporate objectives, as well as to prevent the recurrence of the same mistakes. Planning for change must be the ever-present concern of every executive. At the same time, if events do not happen as planned, a post mortem is to be conducted so as not to repeat the same planning errors.

General Dwight D Eisenhower’s famous quote, “Planning is nothing and planning is everything” was a response to his cynical colleagues, who believed that, because plans never survive first contact with the enemy, planning was a waste of time. In the corporate world, quite often, planning gets thrown out of the window because of mounting short-term pressures to perform and deliver the bottom line. This is likely why many American banks failed in the early days of the economic downturn of the late 2000’s. The pressure to perform and deliver in a short-term manner was leading some banks to invest heavily in high-risk loans. Other banks were focused on the long-term and had planned based on the long-term principles. Clearly we will see in the long-run who planned well and who did not.

Those who fail to plan are ultimately planning for a post-mortem. It is not that post-mortem is unimportant but companies should always plan to succeed and minimize the occasions to do post-mortem on failed projects. Planning companies outperform those non-planning ones.

Crises and the unexpected changes are no longer a rare, random or abnormal part of our lives. They are built into the very fabric of society and modern-day corporations. While not all crises can be foreseen or even prevented, all of them can be managed if we plan strategically and tactically for what is humanly possible. The impacts of the crises can be minimised if one has a thorough understanding of the basics of crisis planning and management.

Tactical is short term planning whereas strategic is considered long term. Strategic plan looks at the forces in the external environment and responses to them. Tactical planning usually covers one year and is the stepping stone of the strategic plan, which normally covers three to five years.

Having post-implementation analysis or post-mortem is also critical. Just as a post-mortem reveals the cause of death, a corporate post-mortem can be extremely revealing. You learn from your past mistakes and get all the feedback. It functions much like a resurrection experience, enabling you to have a new lease of life or second chance. In physical term it is reflection. Without this, the same mistakes may be made all over again and lessons learnt earlier will come to waste. This is why there is a saying that history repeats itself. Two world wars were fought within a short span of less than 30 years. Empires and dynasties fall and rise because of a lack of reflection and committing the very same mistakes that ushered them into power in the first place. Post-mortem job is dull and boring particularly when it is preceded by overwhelming success. But it is also from reflecting upon your successes that one can avoid the pitfalls of failures in the future.

In the Bible, we see the perfect example of someone who used his past to learn and correct his ways. Peter messed up a lot of times. Peter exhibited faith as he left the boat to join Jesus walking on the water, but found his deficiency 5 seconds later, he denied Jesus, and he talked aimlessly. However, he used all that Jesus taught him and took it to heart – he implemented not just quick fixes, but serious changes on his character and behaviour.

John Maxwell wrote a book called “Failing Forward.” In this book we can see how we can make use of our mistakes as stepping stones to get us back on the right track. This is what Peter did with his life. He got up, took Jesus’ correction and moved forward. Similarly, the book of Isaiah tells us to “forget the former things” and “not dwell on the past (43 v.18).” This works perfectly if we would only reflect on what we have done wrong and use it to not commit the same mistakes twice, even three or four times. Furthermore, this teaches us to not dwell on our sins and just mope around. This is where Maxwell’s idea of failing forward and Peter’s example comes in. We have to do something about our mistakes, and instead of falling behind because of it, we should choose to fail forward so we can get back right up.

Good managers always find out what has gone awry not so much to apportion blame, but to ensure that the same problems do not surface again. This is why some companies conduct exit interviews with departing staff to ascertain if there are more issues than meet the eye. Even chaos has its patterns. The post-mortem is the process to ascertain the patterns of things that have gone wrong so that these mistakes will not be repeated in the future. In the past, three strikes and you are out. Today, one strike and you are history. This is because today’s world is highly competitive and you may not have a second chance. Through one mistake, miscalculation or strategic error, your competitors can steal away your customers very quickly. Your margins for errors are very thin as resources are scarce. This amplifies the importance of post-mortem to minimise repeating the mistakes.

This trend is evident from what has happened to the big 3 US car-makers in 2008 in this most recent great depression. Since they hadn’t planned right for the long term, now it is essential that they do a post-mortem in order to identify their mistakes. The same could be said for the current credit crisis affecting the world in 2008-2009. This depression is a key example which, if we look back and identify the real issues, can be used to change the banking system and put in new rules and regulations and prevent the same mistakes from occurring in the future.

Principle No. 5

Clone your successes by planning your succession. (Exodus 4:1-14 – "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? .. Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.")

The downfall of many countries and political leaders are attributable to poor leadership succession. Yugoslavia plunged into civil war with the demise of President Tito in 1980. Till then, he was all-powerful and had no intention of passing control to anybody. Former President Suharto tried to perpetuate his powers too by surrounding himself with weak subordinates. This brought about his downfall and the economic disaster in Indonesia when the Asian economic crisis hit in 1997. However, the opposite occurred in Cuba with Fidel Castro’s illnesses throughout 2007 and 2008. There was no tumult or negative outcome when Fidel announced that his brother would be taking-on his role and the transition was smooth because the succession plan was executed in the open with a strong successor, thus averting potential war in that country.

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