First China aircraft carrier

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Aircraft carrier symbol of China's naval ambitions

By Damian Grammaticas BBC News, Dalian

It is the most visible symbol of China's rising military power. 

The giant, grey hulk of China's newest warship, 60,000 tonnes of steel, sits at a dockside in the port of Dalian, almost ready to set sail.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been reluctant to say anything about its first aircraft carrier as it has not yet entered service. But it must be the military's worst-kept secret. It is there for all to see, somewhat incongruously, right behind Dalian's Ikea superstore.

The huge carrier has been years in the making, and it is an unmistakeable sign of China's expanding military and its desire to project Chinese power further beyond its borders than ever before.

"An aircraft carrier is a symbol of the power of your navy," says General Xu Guangyu, who used to serve in the PLA's headquarters and is now retired.

"China should at least be on the same level as other permanent members of the UN Security Council who have carriers."

Gen Xu now advises China's government on its military modernisation programme. Seven nations currently operate carriers - it used to be eight, but the UK has just withdrawn its last one from service and will have to wait several years for a new one to be built.

"It's also a symbol of deterrence," adds Gen Xu, "It's like saying, 'Don't mess with me. Don't think you can bully me.' So it's normal for us to want a carrier. I actually think it's strange if China doesn't have one."

Refit

Dalian is not just a major naval base, it is a major commercial port too. Its docks curve around a huge bay. There is an oil refinery, quays for cargo, and the shipyards where giant cranes tower over the hulls of massive container vessels and tankers under construction.

"The development of our armed forces is connected with the development of our economy," says Gen Xu.

"In energy supplies and trade we now have interests that span the globe. There are vital shipping routes in Asia, the Indian Ocean, Africa, and both sides of the Pacific that we need to protect. So our military strength needs to match the range of our economic and diplomatic activity."

The carrier is a relatively old design and it was not built by China. It was constructed in the 1980s for the navy of the USSR. Named the Varyag, it was never completed. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the rusting hull of the Varyag sat in dockyards in Ukraine.

As other Soviet warships were cut up for scrap a Chinese company with links to the PLA bought the Varyag claiming it wanted to turn it into a floating casino in Macau. It took several years to finally tow it all the way round the world to China, where it was then taken to Dalian. Reports claim it will be named the Shi Lang, after the Chinese admiral who conquered Taiwan in the 17th Century.

The PLA is focusing on both the navy and the air force in its modernisation, having identified them as relatively weak. When it is launched, the carrier will mark a significant leap forward for China's navy.



Watching all this closely is the United States. For more than half a century, since the end of World War II, the US Navy has operated its carrier battle fleets unchallenged in Asia and the Pacific. The US has 11 carriers of its own.

The US and China view each other's military programmes with suspicion. Many in the PLA believe America is trying to encircle it and prevent its rise.

America says China's military developments are opaque and shrouded in secrecy, its real intentions unclear.

"For the longest time China denied that they were going to pursue an aircraft carrier navy even trying to get the world to believe that the purchase of the first aircraft carrier from Ukraine was all about creating a new casino in one of their harbours," says Rick Fisher, a senior analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, a think tank in Virginia, US.

"[It] is going to have aircraft comparable in capability to the recent fighters on American fighter decks in about two to three years time."

Shift of power Some observers believe China wants to build up to four carriers of its own.

Mr Fisher, who has spent 20 years studying China's military, says it has big ambitions.

 

The 300m (990ft) carrier, under construction in Dalian, is thought to be nearly finished

 "The aircraft carrier is part of China's fulfilment of its 2004 historic mission that the People's Liberation Army will increasingly defend the Communist Party's interests outside of China," he says. 

"By the 2020s China wants a military that will be globally deployable and will be able to challenge American interests where they need to be challenged."

Last month the visit of Chen Bingde, the Chief of the General Staff of the PLA, to the Pentagon was trumpeted as an effort to improve long-strained military relations between the US and China.

US and Chinese military bands played together as Gen Chen was hosted in America.
He tried to allay American fears by saying China would never seek to match US military power. China, he said, is way behind America.

"This visit to America, I saw America's military power, I feel stunned, not only do we have no ability to challenge America, but also the American warships and aircraft, America's strategy, it's a real deterrent for us."
China's military is generally believed to be 20 years behind America's in its development. But in its rapid expansion, China is focusing on weapons designed to blunt US military power.

The PLA has invested heavily in submarines. It is believed to be close to deploying the world's first "carrier-killer" ballistic missile, designed to sink aircraft carriers while they are manoeuvring at sea up to 1,500km (930 miles) offshore, and it is building its own stealth fighter aircraft along with advanced carrier-based aircraft built from Russian designs.

All of these can target US bases, US ships and US carriers in Asia. They will make it much more dangerous for US carrier fleets to operate close to China's coast, pushing them out further offshore.

In any future conflict they could make it much harder for the US to operate as freely as it would like. That in turn opens up more room for China to flex its own military muscles in Asia.

Having an aircraft carrier will then enable China to project power further than it has before. So looking on with concern are Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, who all have territorial disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea.

And Taiwan, Korea and Japan that look to the US for their security may start to question how much America can really protect them in future. This may, one day, undermine US security guarantees and its influence in the region.

There is much work to do before China's aircraft carriers become a potent force. But, sitting in the port in Dalian, the carrier is a clear sign of China's naval ambitions and the shift of power that is likely to bring.

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US dollar died, debt default is unimaginable, "playing with fire", creditors say

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The Day the Dollar Died 

UD debt default is unimaginable  By Emily Kaiser  SINGAPORE, Agencies

SINGAPORE - Allowing a brief US debt default to force government spending cuts is a "horrible idea" that could destabilize the world economy and sour already tense relations with big creditors, government officials and investors said on Wednesday.

A growing number of US Republican lawmakers think a technical debt default might be a price worth paying if it gets the White House to accept deep spending cuts. This idea, once confined to the party's fringe, is seeping into the mainstream, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

"How can the US be allowed to default?" said an official at India's central bank. "We don't think this is a possibility because this could then create huge panic globally.

Indian officials say they have little choice but to buy US Treasury debt because it is still among the world's safest and most liquid investments. It held $39.8 billion in US Treasuries as of March, according to US data.

The US Congress has balked at increasing a statutory limit on government spending as lawmakers argue over how to curb a deficit which is projected to reach $1.4 trillion this fiscal year. The US Treasury Department has said it will run out of borrowing room by August 2.

If Washington cannot make interest payments on its debt, the Obama administration has warned of "catastrophic" consequences that could push the still-fragile economy back into recession.

"It has dire implications for the economy at a time when the macro data is softening," said Ben Westmore, a commodities economist at National Australia Bank.

"It's just a horrible idea," he said.

The Republicans' theory is that bondholders would accept a brief delay in interest payments -- maybe a couple of days -- if it meant Washington finally addressed its long-term fiscal problems, putting the country in a stronger position to meet its debt obligations later on.

But interviews with government officials and investors show they consider a default such a grim -- and remote -- possibility that it was nearly impossible to imagine.

"It just wouldn't happen," said Barry Evans, who oversees $83 billion in fixed income assets at Manulife Asset Management. "They would pay their Treasury bills first instead of other bills. It's as simple as that.

As for China, Washington's largest foreign creditor with $1.14 trillion in Treasuries as of March, a default could fray political and economic ties.

Yuan Gangming, a researcher with the government think tank Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, smelled some political wrangling behind the US debt debate as the 2012 presidential election draws nearer and said Republicans "want to make things difficult for Obama.

But with time running short before Treasury exhausts its borrowing room, Yuan said default was a real risk.

"The possibility is quite high to see a default of the US debt, which would harm many countries in the world, and China in particular," he said.



China warns U.S. debt-default idea is "playing with fire"

Emily Kaiser

(Reuters) - Republican lawmakers are "playing with fire" by contemplating even a brief debt default as a means to force deeper government spending cuts, an adviser to China's central bank said on Wednesday.

The idea of a technical default -- essentially delaying interest payments for a few days -- has gained backing from a growing number of mainstream Republicans who see it as a price worth paying if it forces the White House to slash spending, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

But any form of default could destabilize the global economy and sour already tense relations with big U.S. creditors such as China, government officials and investors warn.

Li Daokui, an adviser to the People's Bank of China, said a default could undermine the U.S. dollar, and Beijing needed to dissuade Washington from pursuing this course of action.

"I think there is a risk that the U.S. debt default may happen," Li told reporters on the sidelines of a forum in Beijing. "The result will be very serious and I really hope that they would stop playing with fire."

China is the largest foreign creditor to the United States, holding more than $1 trillion in Treasury debt as of March, U.S. data shows, so its concerns carry considerable weight in Washington.

I really worry about the risks of a U.S. debt default, which I think may lead to a decline in the dollar's value," Li said.

Congress has balked at increasing a statutory limit on government spending as lawmakers argue over how to curb a deficit which is projected to reach $1.4 trillion this fiscal year. The U.S. Treasury Department has said it will run out of borrowing room by August 2.

If the United States cannot make interest payments on its debt, the Obama administration has warned of "catastrophic" consequences that could push the still-fragile economy back into recession.

It has dire implications for the economy at a time when the macro data is softening," said Ben Westmore, a commodities economist at National Australia Bank.

"It's just a horrible idea," he said.

Financial markets are following the U.S. debate but see little risk of a default.

U.S. Treasury prices were firm in Europe on Wednesday, supported by a flight to their perceived safety on the back of the Greek debt crisis and worries about a slowdown in U.S. economic growth.

Marc Ostwald, a strategist with Monument Securities in London, said markets were working on the assumption that the U.S. debt story "will go away." But nervousness would grow if a resolution was not reached in the next five to six weeks.

'WOULDN'T HAPPEN'

The Republicans' theory is that bondholders would accept a brief delay in interest payments if it meant Washington finally addressed its long-term fiscal problems, putting the country in a stronger position to meet its debt obligations later on.

But interviews with government officials and investors show they consider a default such a grim -- and remote -- possibility that it was nearly impossible to imagine.

"How can the U.S. be allowed to default?" said an official at India's central bank. "We don't think this is a possibility because this could then create huge panic globally."

Indian officials say they have little choice but to buy U.S. Treasury debt because it is still among the world's safest and most liquid investments. It held $39.8 billion in U.S. Treasuries as of March, U.S. data shows.

The officials declined to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

Oman is concerned about the impact of a default on the currency reserves of the sultanate and its Gulf neighbors.

"Our economies are substantially tied up with the U.S. financial developments," said a senior central bank official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"It just wouldn't happen," said Barry Evans, who oversees $83 billion in fixed income assets at Manulife Asset Management. "They would pay their Treasury bills first instead of other bills. It's as simple as that."

Monument's Ostwald called the default scenario "frightening" and said bondholders' patience would wear thin if lawmakers persisted in pitching this strategy in the coming weeks.

"This isn't a debate, this is like a Mexican standoff and that is where the problem lies," he said.

Yuan Gangming, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank, smelled some political wrangling behind the U.S. debt debate as the 2012 presidential election draws nearer and said Republicans "want to make things difficult for Obama."

But with time running short before the U.S. Treasury exhausts its borrowing room, Yuan said default was a real risk.

"The possibility is quite high to see a default of the U.S. debt, which would harm many countries in the world, and China in particular," he said.

(Reporting by Kevin Lim and Jong Woo Cheon in Singapore, Suvashree Dey Choudhury in Mumbai, Aileen Wang and Kevin Yao in Beijing, Abhijit Neogy in Delhi, Marius Zaharia in London and Umesh Desai in Hong Kong; Editing by Dean Yates and Neil Fullick)


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U.S. Military, Businesses Seek Better Defenses on the Inside

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Credit: Technology Review
By Robert Lemos

Research projects at the Pentagon highlight the need to prevent data theft that happens within an organization's walls.

For most of the history of the Internet, companies and government agencies have split networks into two categories: internal, trusted systems and external, untrusted ones. The most common approach to security has been to erect a wall that treats data and communications as potentially dangerous if they come from outside and safe if they come from within.

Yet some of the most serious breaches, such as the massive handover of U.S. State Department cables to WikiLeaks late last year, come from corporate and government insiders. Even if they mean no harm, insiders can present security risks: several major data breaches have occurred after attackers tricked employees into downloading malicious software that took hold inside the organization's firewall.

"In the early 2000s, you would see a lot of organizations focus on outsiders exclusively," says Joji Montelibano, who leads the insider-threat technical team at the Software Engineering Institute's CERT program at Carnegie Mellon University. "With the prevalence of information technology everywhere now, the ways an insider can harm an organization have increased dramatically."



In hopes of counteracting the trend, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—the research arm of the U.S. military—has called for research that would improve the government's ability to identify threats from within. DARPA is taking a two-pronged approach: last August, an agency project named Cyber Insider Threat (CINDER) called for proposals for better systems to detect attackers who have already compromised a network. Two months later, DARPA launched Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales (ADAMS), to detect insiders just before or after they go rogue.

The proposed ADAMS technology will likely model typical user behavior and alert managers when a user is acting off-profile. Such a system, for example, could have caught Bradley Manning, the U.S. intelligence analyst who is alleged to have leaked the diplomatic cables, by warning officials that Manning had suddenly accessed thousands of cables from his computer.

"If I'm trying to get information out of my company, I'm probably going to start at the simplest level and work my way up—I would try to e-mail it to myself, I would try to post it to a website, or upload the file to a peer-to-peer network," says Daniel Guido, a consultant with iSec Partners, who frequently tests firms' security to identify potential weaknesses. "They are going to approach exfiltrating information outside the company in a very particular way, and if you think like they do, you will be much more effective" as a defender.

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Breached Companies Say They Did All They Could 

Executives for Sony and Epsilon, an e-mail marketing company, insist that they had tight security before they lost consumer data.

Making the Case for Security

Data security scholar Eugene Spafford argues that the subject needs to be taken more seriously at the highest levels of companies.

 The Costs of Bad Security

Mounting threats to the security of information are forcing companies to make more sophisticated cost-benefit analyses when they craft their security strategies.

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Signing off for the niceties of colonial masters, obedient servants, wives ...

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Image via Wikipedia

Musings By Marina Mahathir

Civil servants, when writing to others, sign off with the phrase declaring themselves as servants of the people, their real masters in theory.

THE penny dropped for me the other night. It suddenly dawned on me that the ubiquitous sign-off “Saya yang menurut perintah” on government letters was in fact a translation of that quaint colonial bit of politesse, “Your obedient servant”.

While the latter may not have been meant at all sincerely (Humphrey the smarmy Chief Secretary in Yes Prime Minister comes to mind), still I find it fascinating that while we have studiously imitated all the administrative niceties of our former colonial masters, we have managed to go our own way on this little courtesy.

You see, “Saya yang menurut perintah” literally means, “I who obey orders”. This is not quite the same as “Your obedient servant” that should be translated as “Pembantu setia anda” or perhaps, more accurately, given the way we treat our helpers these days, “Hamba abdi setia anda”.

Not only are the words lost in translation, so is the sentiment behind them.

The English version, used by civil servants when writing to others, is meant to convey that they are servants of the people.

As I said, this may not be meant sincerely at all but, as the Brits would have it, correct form is everything.
Our version however begs the question: whose orders are you obedient to? Ostensibly, these should be orders by the government of the day and by extension, the people who voted them in.

We also pay the taxes that make the salaries of civil servants possible. And at over one million of them, that’s a lot of taxes.

But we all know that obeying their real masters, that is, us, is not really our civil service’s calling. So whose orders are they obeying?

It’s a valid question when you see so many cases where the people’s concerns seem to be dismissed in favour of, well, who knows?

For example, why are the residents of Gebeng’s worries about the Lynas rare earth plant hardly entertained? How is it, when we are supposed to become ever more developed, we are expected to hold ourselves to lower safety standards than Austra­lians?

When civil servants make life difficult for the people, what is that obedience for?

I read a sad story about someone who, finally, after years of trying, gave up staying in this country, where he was born and bred, because the family could not get their utilities fixed.



It might seem small but these are public amenities our taxes pay for, and we should not have to beg for them to be fixed. Why don’t we simply call ourselves a Third World country so that our expectations are not too high?

The other day I met someone who was so tired of trying to jump through the bureaucratic hoops trying to get his proposal approved that he went overseas to try and sell it. And did so with far less aggravation.

I can’t say whether his project has any merit, but I can understand his agitation at not being able to discuss facts and figures, merits and demerits without being passed from one clueless person to another.

So perhaps our bureaucracy ought to have a far more honest sign-off from now on. How about “Saya yang akan melambatkan (I who will slow things down)”?

Talking about obedience, every paper’s been abuzz about this obedient wives’ club this week. Talk about anachronistic; nobody has pushed this type of archaic concept since at least the 50s.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry to read of women degrading themselves like this, blaming everything on their own sex’s supposed inability to keep their men.

Life’s miseries are attributed to women smelling less than fragrant! Wow, who would have thought of that!

Not long ago, a male politician said the best Muslim wife is the one who would drop everything, undoubtedly even feeding the baby, every time hubby wants some nooky. He should be the patron saint of the OWC (Obedient Wives Club) .

It does strike me as interesting that the guys who like to say these things are rarely the sort women would generally drop everything for. Do you think George Clooney ever has to even think about this?

I actually propose another club we women should join. It’s the Good Husband and Father Fan Club. Like any fan club, members will extol the virtues of the good husbands and fathers they know.

Hubbies who help at home and who do homework with their kids, for example, would qualify. If they are clean and smell nice, they would get lots of bonus points.

Each month there could be a Hubby and Father of the Month, and they would all compete for Hubby and Father of the Year.

And yes, their prowess in bed would also be a consideration.

Ghostbuster can’t heal busted hearts

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By WINNIE YEOH winnie@thestar.com.my

GEORGE TOWN: Ong Q Leng might be an accomplished spiritual healer and ghostbuster but some people seek her help even to solve problems brought unto themselves, especially marital problems. But Master Ong, as she is better known, says these are problems she cannot solve.

“Marital problems require the individuals involved to find a solution. Some women told me their husbands used to love them a lot but later had mistresses.

“I told them they needed marriage counsellors. There are no spirits involved,” she said.
 

Fighting the fires: Ong showing a sign which she used to chase away the djinns from Zainab’s house in Kelantan.

Ong, 34, offers services of healing, spiritual cleansing, feng shui tips and general consultation to her clients.

As a little girl, Ong used to be scared out of her wits by ghosts that delighted in disturbing her, knowing that she could see them clearly through what is believed to be her “third eye”.

Her fright even caused her to stutter and by the time she was 11, she was so fed up of being frightened that she started “scolding the spirits and threatening them not to bother her”.

In June 2007, while she was working as a sundry goods sales representative, she knew through her sixth sense that she was destined to help people.

She then healed her 84-year-old grandfather, who was suffering from testicular cancer, and went on to help more people and her enthusiasm grew along with her success.



The most recent case was when she helped 73-year-old Zainab Sulaiman from Kelantan to chase away the evil djinns that caused hundreds of small fires at the latter's house.

Zainab made a trip to Penang on Sunday to express her gratitude to Ong.

The widow, who lives in a wooden house in Kampung Penambang Bunga Emas near Kota Baru with her daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, had been plagued with mysterious fires which destroyed over 250 articles of clothing, mats, curtains, mattresses and many other things.

At least five paranormal experts had attempted to exorcise Zainab's house since late last year till January a bomoh, a Thai medium, an American couple who practise exorcism, a group of Muslim ghostbusters, and Ong.

Ong added that some parents also sought her help with their children's studies. She said she could help by changing their names as that would bring improvement in some cases.

“A person's name is very important and it can affect one's whole life. In everyone's life, God decides 50% of our fate when we are born while the rest depends on our choice.”

Because of her young age, Ong said she was often “challenged” by other masters on her skills.
“I have received calls and visits by people pretending to be sick but I know their intention. We should be helping the needy instead.”

Entrepreneurs Need to Learn to Be Good at Sales

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Martin Zwilling Startup Professional's Musings

A good entrepreneur is not necessarily born a good salesman. In fact, they are often the opposite, more focused on building things rather than selling them. Yet, in today’s world of information overload, marketing and selling skills are critical to the success of every startup.

The alternative “If we build it, they will come” approach has long been relegated to the field of dreams, after Kevin Costner’s movie by the same name. In my own effort to keep up with the times, I just finished a new book by Julie Steelman, “The Effortless Yes: Demystifying the Selling Process.” Julie is known as the entrepreneur’s selling mentor, for both men and women.

Steelman does a good job of outlining the key selling steps that separate great salesmen from the rest of us. In my view, every entrepreneur has to be a great salesman to succeed (among the many other required skills), so you should take a hard look at these points:

• Dust off your moxie. Don’t hope that a miracle will happen and your products and services will sell themselves. Be passionate about what you are selling, and decide to be of service, by providing your customers with something of value in exchange for deserved payment. Set aside fear and doubt, and stand tall with your message.

• Claim your sweet spot. The sweet spot if the essence of your brand. The way to claim it is to name your expertise or specialty, describe for whom it’s meant and clearly state how it delivers on its promise (or what is called your unique payoff proposition). Make it real for you and your customers.

• Craft your irresistible pitch. An irresistible pitch is a clear and concise explanation of what you do best, benefits to your customers, an honest statement of why you do what you do, a question that pulls the listener in, and words and language that engage the hearts and mind of your ideal customer.

• Socialize your message. Generate leads using social media, but don’t rely on it alone to make sales. Use the media to initiate contact, highlight your human element, and communicate your specialty or expertise in a way that anticipates what your customers might be thinking about. Facilitate a transition to a private environment for closing a sale.

• Engage graciously. Always treat customers with respect, honesty, and warmth to make the selling process more enjoyable, fun and delightful. The goal is to deepen the relationship, and discover if their needs match your offer. Listen closely for what they are saying and expressing. Don’t forget to follow-up. Skip the cold calling – it’s just too cold.

• Discover your signature selling style. Learn to sell in a way that matches your personality and your strengths. Check the definitions in this book or other sources to see if you are the humanitarian, visionary, maverick, romantic, nurturer, mentor, or one of a dozen others. Tune your approach and you will find yourself enjoying the selling process.

• Perfect your natural ask. As you go through the sales cycle with your customer, there comes a point when it’s natural for the transaction to conclude. Asking the customer for their decision demonstrates leadership on your part, shows you have confidence in your offering, and prompts them to make a final decision. You can’t win if you don’t ask.

I’m not suggesting that a startup founder has to do all the selling, and doesn’t need to find or hire people whose focus is marketing and sales. In a startup, everyone has to sell – you can’t afford to rely on specialists for everything.

Just recognize that if you are in business for yourself, you are in the business of selling. Selling well is about creating relevancy with customers and aligning your product suite with their needs. That has to lead to a win-win close where the customer satisfies a need and you make money, or you don’t have a long-term business. Are you comfortable with your selling skills?

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Radical management: it’s happening! make more money!

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Radical Management Makes Much More Money

Steve Denning RETHINKinShar

“Radical management: it’s happening” is the headline in the editor’s letter of the management journal, Strategy & Leadership, Volume 39, Issue 3. Robert Randall offers twin messages:

“One, corporations are failing their stakeholders by wrongly favoring some more than others or by not managing discontinuity through best practices that foster continuous innovation; two, it’s time to try something else.”

He continues:

As a result of working with these authors and reading manifestos by other leading strategic management thinkers that also call for a reinvention of management, I’m confident that we are witnessing a best-practice revolution. When respected management thinkers like Michael Porter and Gary Hamel tell management to re-boot, then it’s time. It’s not as if the failings of hierarchical, shareholder-first management are a secret. So it should be no surprise that many of the principles of radical management are quietly being adopted by leading companies around the world, to a greater or lesser degree.

Management reinvention… offers company-wide rapid-business-model development as a response to market discontinuity. To compete successfully despite frequent and sudden change, firms have to foster the competencies that promote continuous innovation in both offerings and operations. In practice, managers shift their focus from producing low-cost or high-differentiation offerings to satisfying customers. They become enablers instead of controllers, coordinate their organizations through dynamic linking of teams and customers rather than command and control, make social and customer values their prime concern, and communicate so as to further stakeholder conversations. Leading advocates are Gary Hamel (“It’s time to reinvent management,” S&L V36, N2), Stephen Denning (“Masterclass: The reinvention of management,” S&L V39, N2 and “Reinventing management: the practices that enable continuous innovation,” in this issue), John Hagel in The Power of Pull, and others.

(Note: Those articles require a subscription.)

Outstanding article award

Meanwhile the Emerald Literati Awards For Excellence were officially announced last week.  My article, “Rethinking the organization“, was selected as the Outstanding Article in Strategy & Leadership for 2010. The direct link to all Outstanding and Highly Commended Papers is here.

As a special exception, my prize-winning article, Rethinking the Organization, is available free for unlimited distribution until September 1 here.


______________________


Steve Denning’s most recent book is: The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace For the 21st Century 

Surprise! Radical Management Makes Much More Money

My colleague, Dennis Rebelo, has written a generous piece about my book,  The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management (Jossey-Bass, 2010). (Jossey-Bass, 2010) while also asking: is radical management really so radical? Isn’t this really just a restatement of the humanist principles that have been formulated many times before?

The bridge between radical management and humanist values

In his blog, Dennis notes the connection between the humanistic principles taught at Saybrook University and the principles laid out in my book and has crafted “a list of some rules of thumb to offer leaders to expand on (but not replace) Steven’s interlocking principles – bridging his concepts to humanistic studies, topics and approaches.”

1. “Focus the organization on delighting clients” (Steve Denning) which means “become more aware of the role of a collaboration culture in supporting the mission you joined to serve fellow human beings” (Dennis Rebelo).

2. “Work in self-organizing teams” (Steve Denning) meaning “focus on natural formation versus control and command styles of the carrot and stick era of management so that you can experience joy at work” (Dennis Rebelo).

3. “Operate in client driven iterations” (Steve Denning) or “engage in a dialogue in the Bohmian-spirit to suspend judgment en route to understanding others” (Dennis Rebelo).

4. “Deliver value to clients” (Steve Denning) in other words “work with honor as you promised you would to serve” (Dennis Rebelo).

5. “Foster radical transparency” (Steve Denning) which is to say “graciously accept the sharing and critical thinking that stems from diversity” (Dennis Rebelo).

6. “Nurture continuous self-improvement” (Steve Denning) because “people are naturally inquisitive and so let the human endeavor at work encourage learning” (Dennis Rebelo).

7. “Communicate interactively” (Steve Denning) which is to say “dialogue versus monologue because no collective wisdom comes from watering down the thoughts of another human” (Dennis Rebelo).

Dennis concludes: “To be human means to accept, honor and be able to work with ease and grace despite having differences in thoughts and feelings with other people… Perhaps being human to get a human back is not a radical concept after all. Let’s not let it be.”

The article is a useful reminder that some of the roots of radical management have been around for a very long time. Indeed much of the spirit of radical management is driven by a wish to transform organizations from places where employees and customers are treated as things to places where people are treated as people. As Dennis points out, that ought not be a radical thought.

Future historians and psychologists will undoubtedly look back on the 20th Century and scratch their heads, wondering why did hundreds of million people accept to go on, day in and day out, treating other people as things and allowing themselves to be treated as things. What illness of the human spirit could have afflicted so many people to act in such a strange way?

More than just the old humanist principles

Yet this line of thinking should not delude us into thinking that radical management is really no more than the general humanistic principles that have been around for centuries. There are at least five fundamental ways in which radical management goes beyond general humanistic principles.

1. A change in the goal of the organization

Fixing the goal of the organization on delighting customers (or stakeholders) involves a lot more than “becoming more aware of the role of a collaboration culture”.

It is a fundamental change in the goal of organizations from making money for the shareholders to delighting the customers or stakeholders. It is a change in the basic geometry of organizations. Top-down becomes outside-in.

By and large, the humanist school of management from Mary Parker Follett onwards tried to work within the existing framework of shareholder capitalism, without always realizing that the goal itself would inexorably undermine humanist values. Instead of working within the goals of shareholder capitalism, radical management changes the very goal of the organization. Radical management rejects the framework of assumptions of traditional management and offers a different framework.

2. Radical management makes much more money

Happily, when the organization changes its goal to delighting the customer, it ends up making more money for the shareholders, because the organization is now in sync with today’s marketplace, where the customer is in charge. Delighting the customer is not just profitable, it is hugely profitable, as one can see from the results of Apple [APPL], Amazon [AMZN] and Salesforce.com [CRM], particularly in comparison to companies still being run in the mode of shareholder capitalism, such as GE [GE], Walmart [WMT] and Intel [INTC].

Hence radical management doesn’t have to depend on persuading business people to treat people as people just because that’s the right thing to do (which it is). Happily the economics is inexorably driving the change, whether business people want it or not. Wall Street is already putting traditional, thing-driven firms out of business at an accelerating pace, as Deloitte’s Shift Index conclusively demonstrates. In one sense, this phenomenon is a triumph of humanism. But we should not forget that there is a lot more than general humanist principles that is responsible for what is occurring.

3. Many of the practices are genuinely new

Many of the people-oriented vocabulary and practices would be unfamiliar to the humanist writers. That’s because these practices and this vocabulary are genuinely new:

• At the organizational level, the goal of the firm to delight customers is measured by the Net Promoter Score. It enables the organization to measure whether it is delighting the customer by inviting the customer to imagine a story: “Would you recommend this product or service to a colleague or friend?”
• At the level of the team, work is planned in the form of user stories—a special kind of story devised to formulate the goals of teams in terms of customer outcomes.
• The user stories that are developed are then sized and prioritized using other methodologies called “story points” and “planning poker” to measure how much work is involved in making any of the user stories “come true.” In such work places, people routinely speak of “implementing stories.”
• Value stream mapping is a tool that creates a story of the organization seen from the customer’s point of view, and helps identify any delays in delivering value to the customer. It enables the organization to manage the forgotten competitive weapon: time.
• These story-based measures enable the firm to go further and—for the first time—calculate the productivity of a firm in terms of human outcomes rather than merely the production of things.

With radical management, we are thus in a world of NPS, user stories, story points, planning poker, team velocity and value stream mapping. This vocabulary and these methodologies represent an evolution of the innocent world of general humanist values. In effect, by using these discoveries, radical management is able to transform general humanist principles into actionable business processes. The humanist principles are sound. But by themselves, they are not enough to run an organization.

4. Doing all the changes together is new

Individually none of these seven principles is new. Each principle has been implemented by some organizations for many years:

• Finding ways to measure client delight and the consequent impact on firm growth has been systematically studied by Fred Reichheld and his colleagues at the consulting firm Bain & Company for over twenty-five years.

• Self-organizing teams have been the staple of new product development for several decades.

• Iterative work practices have been promoted since the 1930s by Walter Shewhart, a quality expert at Bell Labs.

• Reducing inventory and delivering value to clients each iteration lie at the heart of lean manufacturing, which was invented by Toyota some fifty years ago.

• Radical transparency has been a guiding principle of software development practices known as Scrum and Agile for several decades.

• Continuous self-improvement is a legacy from the total quality movement for more than half a century.

• Interactive communication—storytelling, questions, conversations—has a rapidly growing literature and practice in the past decade.

Individually, then, none of the seven principles is new. What is new is for organizations to break free from the interlocking assumptions of traditional management and put all the principles of radical management together as an integrated, mutually supporting whole. It’s the integrated implementation of all the pieces that gives the approach its full power. Each of the components adds an increment: when they are combined, the increment becomes exponential.

As I noted in my post yesterday, many companies have mistakenly approached radical management (and its forerunners: Scrum, Agile and Lean) as it if were just another business process to be bolted on to the existing business processes. The result is generally a failure. Radical management is a different way of thinking, speaking and acting in the workplace. It is only when firms realize this that they achieve the full benefits from implementing it.

5. An end to mere PR

Traditional managers have often professed to be devoted to delighting their customer and valuing employees as the organization’s most important asset. Yada, yada, yada. Everyone knew that the real bottom line was neither customer focus nor valuing employees: the real goal was making money for the shareholders. The other stuff was PR bullshit.

So if radical management were to be merely talking about becoming more aware of the role of a collaboration culture, there would be a serious risk that people would see it as more of the same traditional management PR bullshit. They would suspect that the real bottom line of radical management was really still what it always was: making money for shareholders. By being crystal clear that this is a shift in the real bottom line of the organization from making money for shareholders to delighting the customer, we get to the heart of the matter of what is really driving the organization. This is not just PR bullshit. This is a fundamental change in the way organizations are run. This is what makes this thinking radical.

________________________

To learn more about the principles and practices of radical management, read Steve Denning’s book: The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace For the 21st Century (Jossey-Bass, 2010).

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Obdedient Wives Club (OWC) to offer sex lessons

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Obedient Wives Club to offer sex lessons on how to pleasure husbands

 By ISABELLE LAI isabellelai@thestar.com.my

RAWANG: Sex lessons to help wives “serve their husbands better than a first-class prostitute” will be among the classes provided by the Obedient Wives Club (OWC) to help promote harmonious marriages and counter social ills.

Its vice-president Dr Rohaya Mohamad said it was time sexual prowess took a front seat in marriage, beyond that of the traditional “good mother or good cook” roles.

“A good or religious wife should also be good in bed,” she told reporters after the launch of the club's Malaysian chapter at a golf club here yesterday.

She said a husband who was kept happy in the bedroom would have no reason to stray, seek out prostitutes or indulge in other social vices.

Making its debut: Fauziah Arifin from the OWC giving a token of appreciation to Positive Image Resources Sdn Bhd executive director Datin Zainah Abdul Ghani at the launch of the club in Rawang yesterday. Looking on are Sakinah Rahmanuddin and Selayang Umno deputy chief Datuk Nasir Ibrahim.

 

“The family institution is protected and we can curb social ills like prostitution, domestic violence, human trafficking and abandoned babies,” she said, adding that she believed these problems stemmed from unfulfilled sexual needs at home.

Dr Rohaya, who previously served 15 years as a doctor in the Health Ministry, said the club would also offer counselling and lecture sessions for wives, husbands or couples.

She said the Malaysian chapter had around 800 members while its chapter in Jordan had 200, adding that another in Indonesia was set to be launched on June 19 in Jakarta.

Asked whether wives should remain obedient if their husbands still abused or cheated on them despite being “kept happy” in the bedroom, Dr Rohaya said everyone was subject to God's rule.

“God has His ways and is fair to all. A husband is also subject to God's rule, meaning he can go to hell, too. But a woman must be a good wife to the end,” she said, adding that according to Islam, women should pray, fast during Ramadan, protect their chastity and obey their husbands if they wanted to enter heaven.

Dr Rohaya said the club was undaunted by public criticism, adding that she believed this was a “successful formula” to happy marriages.

OWC and the Polygamy Club were formed by Global Ikhwan Sdn Bhd, an organisation founded by former members of the banned Al-Arqam Islamic group.

A mass wedding reception for eight couples was also held during the launch.

The brides were aged 18 to 22 while the grooms were aged 20 to 48. All are OWC members and agreed that disobedient wives were the cause of many social ills.

FB group counters ‘sexist’ wives club

PETALING JAYA: Facebook users have started a group called “We Do Not Want Sexist Nonsense From Global Ikhwan Sdn Bhd” after reading about the Obedient Wives Club (OWC) launched by the organisation.

Someone called Matthew Tard Ong wrote that he created the group as he believed both partners played a role in keeping a marriage healthy.

As of 9.30pm yesterday, 133 people had joined the group. The OWC, or Kelab Taat Suami, was launched yesterday. Its members strived to delight their husbands in almost every way.

OWC vice-president Dr Rohaya Mohamad said this included keeping husbands sexually satisfied so they would not turn to prostitutes or keep mistresses.

A Muslim husband, who only wanted to be known by his first name Zul, said he did not agree with the message sent out by the club.

“Yes, sex is important, but you can’t say that it will help curb social ills in such a sweeping manner. “There are other factors involved,” said the 36-year-old technician.

He said men tended to stray for psychological reasons that he himself did not fully understand. Men, he said, could cheat on their wives despite having a happy marriage.

Sociologist and social activist Rohanna Ariffin suggested that OWC members read up on statistics by women’s rights groups and the police to find out the factors that caused domestic violence.

“Women shouldn’t be women’s worst enemy. Husbands have to take responsibility for their own behaviour,” said Rohanna who is also a Parti Rakyat Malaysia central committee member.

She stressed that it was wrong for women to take all the blame for men’s weaknesses.

However, Selayang Umno deputy chief Datuk Nasir Ibrahim said the club was extraordinary and unique.
He said Selayang Umno fully supported the club as most problems had their roots at home.

“There may be negative voices decrying this as male chauvinism but I don’t see it that way. If the family institution is strong with good marital relations, it can help counter social ills,” he said at the launch of the club yesterday.

‘Wives can curb social ills like prostitution by being obedient and alluring’

By ISABELLE LAI

PETALING JAYA: Wives who “obey, serve and entertain” their husbands can help reduce social ills such as prostitution and domestic abuse, according to members of The Obedient Wives Club.

The Club, to be launched Saturday by Global Ikhwan Sdn Bhd, aims to teach wives how to keep their husbands happy and contented.

Global Ikhwan, an organisation founded by former members of the banned Al-Arqam Islamic group, also launched the Ikhwan Polygamy Club two years ago.

Global Ikhwan spokesperson Siti Maznah Mohd Taufik said that many social ills were caused by disobedient wives who failed to bring joy to their husbands.

“Domestic abuse happens because wives don't obey their husband's orders. A man must be responsible for his wife's wellbeing but she must listen to her husband,” said Siti Maznah in an interview on Friday.

When asked whether it was the wife's fault for being abused, she said: “Yes, most probably because she didn't listen to her husband.”

Siti Maznah, 48, also stressed that husbands would not stray and turn to prostitutes if wives supplied them with a satisfying sex life.

She said women had the duty of making themselves attractive and dressing up beautifully at home.

“Wives should welcome them with sexy clothes and alluring smiles when in the privacy of their homes,” she said, adding that she herself did the same as everyone in the club practised what they preached.

Siti Maznah, a second wife and mother to five children, said she treated her husband's first wife like her elder sister.

“Altogether, we have 16 children in our household. My husband is a happy man, you can see it from his actions,” she said.

According to her, the Ikhwan Polygamy Club now has over 1,000 members comprising both husbands and wives. The average number of children per polygamous household ranges from four to 26.

Siti Maznah admitted that husbands were not perfect and it was natural for disagreements to occur, sometimes.

“We can have discussions and disagreements. We don't just keep quiet when we don't agree with our husbands,” she said.

However, as long as husbands did not go against Islamic law, their final word was law, she said.

Perak mufti supports Obedient Wives Club

By SYLVIA LOOI and FARIK ZOLKEPLI  newsdesk@thestar.com.my

IPOH: Perak mufti Tan Sri Harussani Zakariahas given his backing to the Obedient Wives Club, which offers “sex lessons” to help women keep their husbands.

Harussani, who recently banned the poco poco dance in Perak, said women needed to be reminded of their roles and responsibilities to their husbands.

The younger generation is too absorbed in cultures that are not their own. Wives must be very obedient to their husbands. - Tan Sri Harussani Zakaria

“The younger generation is too absorbed in cultures that are not their own. Wives must be very obedient to their husbands.

“However, in Islam, the wife can go against her husband if what he does is not according to the religion,” he said, calling for more such clubs to be set up throughout the country as a way to counter social ills.

He was responding to a statement by club vice-president Dr Rohaya Mohamad that a husband who was kept happy in the bedroom would have no reason to stray, seek out prostitutes or indulge in other social vices.

The club had also offered sex lessons to help wives “serve their husbands better than a first-class prostitute”.

However, Johor Islamic Council advisor Datuk Nooh Gadut said the use of the term “first-class prostitute” was extreme, adding that marriages in Islam should not be just for sex but for, among others, love.

The Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG), which includes the Women's Aid Organisation, Sisters in Islam and Women's Centre for Change, said the club's principles were narrow-minded, degrading, and an insult to women around the world.

JAG spokesman Maria Chin Abdullah said Malaysian women had contributed enormously to society and that the latest development was a setback in progress.

“It is degrading to ask another individual in this case, a woman to wait on another person hand and foot. Our group is fighting for gender equality but the club is looking to degrade women even more.

“To objectify women as mere sex objects to satisfy their husbands' lust is simply unacceptable. “I hope more men can speak out against the club's outrageous stand,” she told The Star yesterday.

Social activist Pang Khee Teik said women should realise that they were not only “doing it” for their husbands but for themselves as well.

“We must remember there are people with little or no sex drive. Any campaign by the club must not pressure women into feeling guilty about it,” said Pang, who is also the co-founder of annual sexuality rights festival that advocates equal sexual rights for all.