What Fifty Shades Gets Wrong About Money and Sex

The hit novel turned film suggests wealth makes men sexy to women. That's misleading.

Does money make men more attractive to women? On the surface, both popular cultureand social science research seem to say yes.

The standard social science explanation for this phenomenon gets expressed in evolutionary terms: Because impregnating as many women as possible gives a man’s genes an evolutionary advantage, men are more superficial and promiscuous. Conversely, because of the time and energy required for a single pregnancy, women are choosier and more preoccupied with finding a mate rich with resources to provide for offspring. Or, at least, that’s the theory.You can’t take a step into the academic literature without tripping over a study showing that women place higher value than men on a partner’s wealth, that women are more attracted to men with nice cars, or that womenorgasm more with rich partners.

The success of the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise certainly does little to dispel all this. The story—for those living under a rock—details the sexual awakening of a young woman seduced by a billionaire, whose physical attractiveness is matched only by his fleet of luxury cars, helicopter, penthouse apartment, and cushy CEO job running his own company. In other words, as author E.L. James has put it, Christian Grey is “every woman’s dream.”

“He’s very good looking, he’s very good at sex, he’s disgustingly rich,” she told TIME.

To be fair, it’s intuitive that a partner with means is more desirable than one without, all else being equal. A recent poll found that 78% of coupled Americans of both sexes say they’d prefer a partner who is good with money over one who’s physically attractive. And if you are a man who feels pressure to impress women with your money, or a woman who felt titillated reading about Christian Grey’s alpha status, you probably buy into the theory without even realizing it.

But as it turns out, this popular narrative about men, women, sex, and money isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

A recent study has found that the common depiction of women primarily seeking out rich and powerful men (and men seeking out young and attractive women) is fairly uncommon in practice and—crucially—doesn’t reflect the reality of successful relationships or what actually makes people happy.

The research, by University of Notre Dame sociologist Elizabeth McClintock, has found that gender differences more or less disappear when you discard self-reported attraction scores and instead examine how real couples pursue one another, date, and settle down. In reality, rich women are just as likely as rich men to use their status to snag a more-attractive mate. And across the board, relationships in which people are essentially trading status for sex tend to be uncommon and short-lived.

Instead, McClintock found that the biggest force that predicts a successful match between people is actually how well all of your qualities match up. That means, for example, that people of similar physical appeal tend to pair off, and those with comparable educations and financial means are drawn together.

What’s perhaps counterintuitive, then, is that a woman seeking a rich man is actually better off getting herself a raise than a makeover. Likewise, a man seeking an attractive lady will see higher returns investing in a gym membership than a brokerage account.

So why does the tale of the rich, experienced man seducing the pretty ingenue persist in popular imagination, not to mention the academic literature? McClintock found that many existing studies took for granted the very gender roles they were supposed to be measuring, examining only women’s attractiveness and men’s status or money, while ignoring men’s appearance and the wealth and education of women.

As Northwestern University psychologist Eli Finkel told New Yorkmagazine: “Scientists are humans, too, and we can be inadvertently blinded by beliefs about how the world works.”

Indeed, we’re all better off disposing of our blindfolds—even if they’re made of the finest satin.

Source: http://time.com

Became a millionaire at 28, but it came with a price

She helped build a tech company that was sold for $37 million... when she was only 28! But Lim Qing Ru’s newfound wealth came at a price.

On the middle finger of her left hand, Lim Qing Ru sports a ring with “April 10 2014” engraved on it.

That was the day news broke that Zopim, the tech company she joined as a co-founder in 2008, had been acquired by an American software company for a reported US$29.8 million (roughly S$37 million).

The payout was split between herself and four other co-founders, making her a multimillionaire overnight. She was then two weeks shy of her 29th birthday.

“We went from being nameless entrepreneurs to instant role models for the tech industry,” says Qing Ru, who turns 30 this April. “All of a sudden, everyone was paying attention to us.”

Journalists spun a blithe tale about how a group of scrappy entrepreneurs finally made good after years of surviving on meagre salaries: They created a winning product – a chat widget that allows business owners to send instant messages to customers and provide real-time customer service – after which the company was wooed by US-based customer support firm Zendesk. The co-founders then signed an acquisition deal that gave each of them multimillion-dollar payouts. It was the perfect rags-to-riches tale. Or so it seemed.

Like giving up a child
The truth was, it wasn’t quite the happily-ever-after that most people imagined it to be.

“[The acquisition] wasn’t an easy decision,” admits Qing Ru. “I spent seven years building the company with my blood, sweat and tears. Then, I had to let it go.” After signing the agreement, she sobbed uncontrollably. Till this day, she hasn’t spent a cent of her millions – she can’t bear to. All of it is sitting in a bank.

If going into a business is like getting married (“you stick with your partners through thick and thin”), then building a company is like giving birth to a child, she explains. “It’s heartbreaking to give up your baby.”

Even after the deal was closed, there were nail-biting moments. At the time of acquisition, Zendesk was a relatively young company and had not yet launched its initial public offering (IPO) – its IPO was launched only in May, the month following the acquisition. A portion of Qing Ru’s payout was in the form of Zendesk shares, which could very well have ended up worthless if the IPO had failed. “If things had turned out badly, I would never have forgiven myself,” says Qing Ru. “I would have signed away my baby for nothing.”

Fortunately, things went well. Zendesk shares started trading at $11.40 apiece – above the company’s off ering price of $9 – and their value doubled to around $23 apiece in December. Every day, she thanks her lucky stars that her instincts turned out right.

How it started
Money was never Qing Ru’s motivation in life. Her supervisor father and housewife mother were frugal folk who often took her to playgrounds as a child as they didn’t want to splurge on toys. She says cheekily: “I became quite a bully. If I saw a boy on my favourite toy car at the playground, I’d tell him to get off! When you have to share, you learn to fight for what you want.”

She majored in philosophy at the National University of Singapore. While there, she was disappointed to learn that most of her seniors had ended up as public servants. Being a bureaucrat and following procedures wasn’t her idea of an exciting career.

After poking around, she stumbled upon the university’s underground start-up scene: Student entrepreneurs were working in converted bungalowoffi ces on the fringes of the campus. Engineers, programmers and designers ate, slept and worked side by side in these spaces, feverishly talking about their passion projects. “Just being in the same room as them, and soaking up their energy, excited me,” she says. “They were a very different breed.”

Through these circles, Qing Ru met Royston Tay, Wu Wenxiang, Kwok Yang Bin and Julian Low. The four friends had just started a new tech company: Zopim.

She and the boys were all straight talkers and shared the same sense of fun. When the guys travelled to Silicon Valley to pitch their company to investors, they asked Qing Ru to represent them in a Singapore start-up competition. Soon after, they invited her to join Zopim as a co-founder.

Surviving on $500 salaries
Most entrepreneurs have the same woe: slogging for hours on pitiful pay, fuelled only by passion and coffee refills.

But Qing Ru is reluctant to dwell on those details. “If we had focused only on the sacrifices, we never would have accomplished anything,” she says. “Was it really important to have a big pay cheque? You don’t need a lot to survive. Was it really important to work only eight hours a day? But we enjoyed our work! These ‘sacrifices’ were conscious choices we made.”

They weren’t easy choices though. In her first year of work, Qing Ru and her co-founders paid themselves just $500 a month. After that, they went without salaries for half a year.

She recalls having food poisoning and not being able to afford the $15 doctor’s consultation fee. “I went home, cried and slept it off ,” she says baldly.

Stress and long working hours turned her skin sallow. She talks self-deprecatingly about how she stopped bothering with makeup and haircuts, and wore cheap, baggy pants (“the sort from the pasar malam!”) to work as she had no money to shop.

“I would think, ‘How can I care about clothes when I have sh*t to do!?’” she says with a laugh. Even her boyfriend started hinting about her sloppy dressing. “He met sharply dressed women in his investment banking job... and then he’d meet me,” she deadpans.

The two broke up several times, partly due to the strain of their jobs, but they always got back together; they’re still dating now. “Being apart made me appreciate him more,” she reflects. “He saw me through my struggles and we survived so many problems together. That’s more important than finding some fantasy guy with a checklist of impeccable qualities.”

A tough fighter
One of Qing Ru’s most enduring memories of Zopim is that of the founders’ twice-yearly performancereview sessions. Th e five of them would coop themselves up in a room for 14 hours without breaks and give one another feedback – and they didn’t mince their words.

“If something had been handled badly, we would say ‘that sucked’ or ‘that project was f*cked up’,” she says. “I was in charge of marketing and my co-founders once said to my face that none of my work mattered if I couldn’t deliver a viral campaign.”

Such sessions were part of the company’s culture of absolute honesty. “When your team sets high standards for you, it means they trust you to deliver,” she says, adding that her colleagues’ candidness was vital in pushing her to improve. She adds with a grin: “It helps that I’m very thick-skinned.”

Where to go from here?
Today, Qing Ru is the director of customer advocacy at Zendesk. While she’s happy in her role, one senses a certain restlessness when talking to her.

Now that Zopim is a success, she dreams of creating another start-up one day. “Starting a business is not about making money – I mean, how much do you need to survive?” she says. “It’s about the legacy you want to leave behind... the impact you want to have on the world.” -- HW

Source: http://www.herworldplus.com/

This chart shows the performance of the most successful company in the world

Take a look at this chart. It shows the performance of the most successful company in the world.

S&P Capital IQ

One dollar invested in this company in 1968 was worth $6,638 yesterday (including dividends). That's an annual return of 20.6% per year for nearly half a century. No other company comes close to matching its long-term results, according to Wharton professor Jeremy Siegel. 

The same dollar invested in the S&P 500 over the same period would be worth $87, or 98% less.

What company is this?

Let's think it through.

It had to have been revolutionary. It had to have been innovative. It must be in an industry that changed the world — probably the biggest trend of the 20th century. It must have done something no other company could do.

Computers? Satellites? Biotech?

Nope. It's Altria, the cigarette company.  

Credit Suisse published a report this week on the performance of every major American industry from 1900 to 2010.

One dollar in the average American industry was worth $38,255 by 2010. That's an annual return of about 10% per year. Some did far better: $1 invested in food companies was worth about $700,000 by 2010. Chemical and electrical equipment companies returned about the same.

Then there's tobacco, which was in a league of its own.

One dollar invested in tobacco stocks in 1900 was worth $6.3 million by 2010. That's 165 times greater than the average industry.

During a century of innovation, progress, excitement, and scientific advancement, no industry did better than cigarettes.

Most people would look at these numbers and say, "Well, sure. That's what happens when you sell an addictive product."

But what's extraordinary about this story is that the cigarette industry has been in decline for decades.

Cigarettes are, of course, addictive. But smoking rates have been falling for half a century. Half the percentage of U.S. adults smoke today than did in the 1950s.

And even though there's been population growth during that period, it hasn't been enough to offsets the decline in smoking rates. Total U.S. cigarette consumption peaked in 1981 at 640 billion cigarettes. By 2007 that dropped 44%, to 360 billion:

The Motley Fool

By unit sales, tobacco is one of the least successful Americans industries of the last 30 years. Add to it that tobacco advertising has been largely banned for more than a decade, and legal settlements have cost the industry billions. It's amazing tobacco has been able to produce any returns, let alone the highest in American history.

Part of tobacco stocks' rise is thanks to foreign operations, in countries where smoking is more common and hasn't declined as much as the U.S. But there's more going on here. Altria spun off its international division, Philip Morris International, in 2008. Altria stock is up 289% since then, versus 79% for the S&P 500.

Part of it is the ability to raise prices. Tobacco product inflation has increased almost five times faster than overall inflation since 1950. But that, too, doesn't explain everything.

A lot of the price increases have been to offset rising tobacco taxes, which in some states make up more than one-third the sales price. (Altria pays far more in excise taxes than it earns in profits.) 

There is something about tobacco that leads to extraordinary returns despite a subpar business.

What is it?

It comes down to two factors, both of which are paradoxical and relevant to all investors in all industries.

1. Fear, disgust, hatred, and outrage toward a business is good for shareholders. 

A lot of investors (understandably) want nothing to do with tobacco companies. Some pension funds are barred from owning them. And then there's the constant threat of litigation, which has hung over the industry for decades.It adds up to millions of otherwise enterprising investors who won't touch tobacco stocks.

Low investor demand keeps tobacco-stock valuations low. Low valuations lead to high dividend yields. And high dividend yields, compounded over decades, add up to massive returns.

The more hated an investment is, the higher future returns are likely to be. The same is true vice versa. This is one of the most difficult investing concepts to come to terms with, but probably the most powerful.

2. Tobacco companies barely innovate. That keeps them sustainable. 

Innovation is exciting because it promises something new. New products. New markets. A new future.

But it's expensive. And even if you're great at it — like Apple is — you'll probably stumble one day.

The products Apple made just five years ago are utterly irrelevant today. The company has to reinvest itself every few years, continuously coming up with breakthrough products that blow us away. What are the odds it'll keep innovating consistently at the rate it has for another 20, 30, 50 years?

Pretty low, I'd say. Even the best players strike out from time to time, and ruthlessly competitive markets show them no mercy. It's rare that a leader sticks around for more than a decade in industries that undergo constant change.

Companies that make the same product today they did 50 years ago are different. They don't innovate, but they don't have to. It's a boring business, but it can be beautiful for shareholders because it keeps the companies chugging along for decades, if not centuries.

The ridiculously large gains from compound interest occur at long holding periods. They key to building wealthy isn't necessarily high returns, but mediocre returns sustained for the longest period of time.

You typically find that in boring companies that don't innovate, and sell the same products today that they did 50 years ago, and will likely be selling 50 years from now. Food, soap, toothpaste and, yes, cigarettes are good examples.

Source: http://www.fool.com/

6 Things Warren Buffett Says You Should Do With Your Money In 2015

Warren Buffett is such an investing powerhouse, it’s hard to list his credentials without making him sound like Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man in the World:

• He made his first stock purchase when he was 11 and 99 percent of his $63 billion fortune after his 50th birthday.
• He was the lone insurance policy for Pepsi’s Billion Dollar Sweepstakes.
• People stand in line to get a photo with his wallet.

The Oracle of Omaha is one of the most influential businessmen in the world — and, arguably, the most frugal, a billionaire that once complained “most toys are just a pain in the neck.”

As often as he’s on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” talking about holding company Berkshire Hathaway’s per-share book value, he’s urging students to stay out of credit card debt and increase their savings.

With the year winding down, we combed through all the advice Buffett has given us in 2014, from the sublime (“Price is what you pay, value is what you get”) to the ridiculous (“A bull market is like sex. It feels best just before it ends”).

The net result? Six things you should be doing with your money in 2015, from the master’s mouth.

Warren Buffett’s Best Advice for 2015

1. Put Your Estate in Index Funds

In his 2014 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Buffett revealed his estate plan, reminding readers to keep their investments safe, low-cost and long-term.

Turns out, he’s planning on leaving all of the cash for his wife in a product that’s as old, stodgy and lucrative as himself.

“My advice to the trustee could not be more simple: Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest Vanguard’s.) I believe the trust’s long-term results from this policy will be superior to those attained by most investors — whether pension funds, institutions or individuals — who employ high-fee managers.”

2. Stay Away From Bitcoin

Given Buffett’s almost wholesale aversion to tech, this one isn’t a surprise; the Oracle refuses to invest in what he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t know the technology sector, IBM notwithstanding.

But Buffett’s problem with Bitcoin isn’t that it’s a tech investment — it’s that it’s not any kind of investment at all, because it doesn’t have value, as he explained in a March interview with CNBC.

“Stay away from it. It’s a mirage, basically. … It’s a method of transmitting money. It’s a very effective way of transmitting money and you can do it anonymously and all that. A check is a way of transmitting money, too. Are checks worth a whole lot of money just because they can transmit money? Are money orders? You can transmit money by money orders. People do it. I hope Bitcoin becomes a better way of doing it, but you can replicate it a bunch of different ways and it will be. The idea that it has some huge intrinsic value is just a joke in my view.”

3. Learn How to Read Financial Statements

Buffett gave this advice to Tre Grinner, a 17-year-old with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma who recently secured a Goldman Sachs internship with the help of the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

Buffett surprised the intern with a call while he was being interviewed by CNBC in August, offering him this advice:

“Take all the accounting courses that you can find. Accounting is the language of business. … It’ll make it so much easier for years and years to come for reading financial statements, to get comfortable with it, because it is a language all of its own. Getting comfortable in a foreign language takes a little experience, a little study early on, but it pays off big later on.”

4. Focus on Saving, Not Getting Rich Quick

Ironically, Buffett dropped this tip when promoting his basically unwinnable billion dollar bracket challenge on the Dan Patrick Show.

The sweepstakes, backed by Buffett and Quicken Loans, would award $1 billion to anyone who devised a perfect NCAA March Madness bracket. (The odds of winning were about 1 in 9.2 quintillion — you were 53 billion times more likely to win the Powerball.) Still, the Oracle’s advice was solid:

“Well, I think the biggest mistake is not learning the habits of saving properly early. Because saving is a habit. And then, trying to get rich quick. It’s pretty easy to get well-to-do slowly. But it’s not easy to get rich quick.”

5. When Stock Prices Drop, Buy — Don’t Sell

It was a volatile year for the market and Buffett’s wealth; the investor lost about $2 billion in the course of several days in October when Coke and IBM took a hit after their quarterly earnings reports. Buffett kept calm, though, giving several interviews in which he explained why he was a fan of bear markets.

Granted, when you’ve got $63 billion to your name, this kind of a hit is lunch money. But, as the Oracle explained to CNBC, investors with itchy trigger fingers rarely succeed.

“I like buying it as it goes down, and the more it goes down, the more I like to buy. … If you told me that the market was going to go down 500 points next week, I would have bought those same businesses and stocks yesterday. I don’t know how to tell what the market’s going to do. I do know how to pick out reasonable businesses to own over a long period of time.”

6. Stop Pretending to Be an Expert

“If you don’t invest in things you know, you’re just gambling,” Buffett told CNBC earlier this year. It’s advice he’s rarely strayed from, and the reason why tech, gold and airlines will never get his money (or, in the case of airlines, get his money again). As he wrote in his 2014 shareholders letter:

“You don’t need to be an expert in order to achieve satisfactory investment returns. But if you aren’t, you must recognize your limitations and follow a course certain to work reasonably well. Keep things simple and don’t swing for the fences. When promised quick profits, respond with a quick ‘no.'

Source: http://www.gobankingrates.com

Malaysia Stock Picks 2015 by Maybank

Maybank Research Top Buys for 2015

Stock Name	Ref Date	Ref Price	Price Diff	Last	Range	Open	Change	Volume
TENAGA	31/12/2014	13.78	+0.02	13.80	13.70 - 13.82	13.70	0.00	5,198,400
AXIATA	31/12/2014	7.00	+0.02	7.02	6.97 - 7.04	7.04	-0.03	4,561,500
SIME	31/12/2014	9.40	-0.33	9.07	9.03 - 9.19	9.19	-0.12	2,085,400
GENM	31/12/2014	4.02	+0.03	4.05	4.02 - 4.07	4.07	-0.02	1,130,400
GAMUDA	31/12/2014	5.02	-0.01	5.01	4.99 - 5.02	5.00	0.00	561,500
WPRTS	31/12/2014	3.28	+0.22	3.50	3.31 - 3.52	3.31	+0.14	1,416,800
SPSETIA	31/12/2014	3.35	-0.07	3.28	3.28 - 3.30	3.28	-0.02	1,024,700
AFG	31/12/2014	4.80	-0.07	4.73	4.70 - 4.73	4.71	+0.03	614,800
HARTA	31/12/2014	7.00	0.00	7.00	6.99 - 7.01	7.00	-0.03	589,200

Source: i3investor.com

Lessons from Corporate Malaysia in 2014

Mercedes Benz Malaysia Sdn Bhd president and chief executive officer Roland Folger.

THE year 2014 had been a tough one for many of us.

As I have done in previous years, I penned down my lessons learnt from various corporate organisations in Malaysia. Surprisingly, as I looked back at my Evernote digital note-pad, I realised there were tons of lessons learnt from different Malaysian companies. These below made my Top 10 list:

1. ECM Libra – Grow or decay

In November, Datuk Seri Kalimullah Hassan invited me to a talk ECM Libra hosted featuring Dr Jack Ende from Penn Medical. Ende began his speech by comparing people to wine – both age. The only difference is that wine gets better with age, while we decay. There is a saying that goes “in life, you either grow or decay. If you are not growing, you are in decay.”

Ende explained that most of us reach our physical peak by age 30 while our intellectual peak is in our 40s. After which we start to decay. As I was speaking to a number of corporate leaders during the dinner, we agreed the same principle applies in business. When you are not growing, you are in decay. And at some point in time, decay rears itself externally. Great leaders drive growth. When things are in status quo or stagnant, great leaders push their organisations towards a growth path. Otherwise, decay is a guaranteed consequence.

Lesson for 2015: Are you growing or decaying? Make 2015 your year for growth. Make growth intentional instead of waiting for it to happen. Remember, when you are not growing you are decaying.

2. Johor Port – Speed is overrated

During a leadership programme at Johor Port Bhd last year, a participant raised a question on speed. We had a lively discussion on the importance and downside of speed in a business. Then a wise participant brought up this point – “What is the use of speeding in the wrong direction? You may actually end up worse off than the person who is focused on the right direction yet makes slower, steady progress.”

I could not agree more. Speed is critical in this day and age. Yet, we should only speed once we are clear where we want to go and how we want to go there. Once that is clear, speed is useful. If not, speeding all the time may well be a waste of time.

Lesson for 2015: Speed only when you are clear where you are going. If not, slow down and figure out your bearings.

3. Suria Group (Sabah) – Leadership is moulded through fire

Last year I had the pleasure of meeting Datuk Dr Fowzi Razi, group managing director of Suria Group and having some amazing conversations with him. Fowzi is very clear in his mind that leadership is a process of being moulded through fire.

As we spoke about leadership experiences, we agreed that times of crisis, adversity, change, and great difficulty bring out the best in our leadership. These difficult times mould our leadership perspectives and define our leadership point of view. In fact, we don’t generally grow as leaders when we are maintaining the status quo or in our comfort zone.

Situations that challenge us bring out our best. Leadership is fully internalised when we face adversity, uncertainty, suffering, disruption, alterations and other significant challenges. Leadership and pain are synonymous. So, in light of this, if we truly seek to be great leaders, we need to go through significant pain and challenges.

Lesson for 2015: Are we up for the pains of leadership in 2015? See adversity and crisis through the lenses of opportunity. You will be surprised what you start seeing

4. RHB Bank – Sweat the small stuff

The past few years has seen lots of changes at RHB. Yet, recently, at the MIHRM Malaysia HR Awards 2014, RHB bagged the Grand Award. I had the privilege to hear RHB’s Azaharin Abdul Latiff share the RHB story and one lesson I learnt from RHB is that they “sweat the small stuff”.

To RHB, the little things matter. It takes much effort and dedication to ensure the small little pieces are not forgotten in the pursuit of the bigger goals. Every little person, detail and transaction matters.

This relentless focus on the little stuff enables many of the bigger pieces, including the Grand Award to fall in place. And in spite of the leadership changes, their troops continue to chug along and get small stuff done well. Sometimes, our continued focus on the “big picture” causes us to forget that achieving the big picture requires millions of small dots to be joined together and drawn.

Lesson for 2015: What are the “small” stuff at your organisation? They matter. Ensuring the little pieces are done right will result in big results. Sweat the small stuff.

5. Exact Asia – Leadership commitment counts

This year I attend the graduation ceremony of Exact Asia’s talent in its accelerator programme. As I heard the various testimonials and senior leaders share, I heard one clear message – senior leaders MUST be engaged and committed fully to any change initiative or programme for it to be successful.

Steve Jobs’ personal commitment ensured success of various initiatives at Apple. Richard Branson gets involved in all Virgin’s key initiatives from day one. When I was at GE, Jack Welch’s role-model teaching resulted in other leaders emulating him.

At Exact Asia, their leader Srinivas Sampathkumar together with Nenad Borota were personally involved in their talent programme resulting in a huge transformation across the organisation.

Without your leaders’ championing the cause, you are just wasting your time. Many leaders mouth words of change, but are never committed to the change themselves. Lip service from your leaders, when they call for behaviour change but don’t walk the talk, is a sure way to fail.

Lesson for 2015: Are you driving an initiative or a major change in your organisation? Make sure your leaders believe in the change and are committed to it first before pushing the change down.

6. Mercedes-Benz – Do it right the first time

This past year, my team and I have had the privilege of interacting with Roland S. Folger (pic), president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Malaysia. One thing that impressed me about Folger and his team at Mercedes was their deep focus on quality and execution. During one of our interactions, the phrase “do it right the first time” was mentioned.

I immediately jotted it down and pondered what it meant.

Doing it right the first time means ensuring that every possible process and transaction is accurate and done right. The key to “doing it right the first time” is having the right processes and structures in place which enable employees to have clear expectations. Every organisation that is trying to scale needs to embrace the “do it right the first time” mantra.

Doing it right the first time is a culture that seems to be lacking in businesses today. This results in huge delays, losses and quality issues including rework and recall. A number of years ago, when I was working in an aviation organisation, we had to get it right the first time. Anything less than perfection in our first time attempt could have resulted in deaths.

Imagine if you could build “doing it right the first time” into the DNA of your organisation. It could spell the end for your competitor and it could mean significant profit margins. Yet, not many of us are prepared to build our organisations in this manner.

Lesson for 2015: Does your organisation really care about its quality? If so, are you ensuring you “do it right the first time?” If not, make 2015 the year of quality for your organisation where you embed world-class processes and structure to get things done right the first time.

7. MMC Corp Bhd – Opportunities are everywhere, yet most never see them

This year I heard MMC Corp group MD Datuk Seri Che Khalib Mohamad Nor explain that leaders must always look beyond the obvious and open their eyes to unseen opportunities. He reiterated that there are opportunities everywhere but it requires a different set of eyes. Growth companies always look for opportunities and have an eye for the future.

Many organisations grow complacent when they grow big and soon their “eyes” only see today. They don’t open themselves to future possibilities and thus stagnate. Che Khalib went on to remind us that everyone falls into this trap from time to time. When we do fall into this snare, we need to relook the situation and be opportunities-focused rather than be defensive. Even in times of crisis, there are tons of opportunities.

Lesson for 2015: Have you grown complacent with “today” vision? It is time to re-examine our “eyes” and replace our “status quo” lenses with lenses of opportunities.

8. Paramount Corp Bhd – Always go against the grain

Datuk Teo Chiang Quan, executive deputy chairman of Paramount is a humble yet intuitive leader. He recently vacated the CEO role and I managed to catch up with him for lunch. As we spoke about different issues and challenges facing Paramount and himself, his stories reminded me of what made him a successful leader. He seemed to always go against the norm. He is very proud of Sri KDU, one of the premier international schools. When he first set it up, people questioned the huge investments it required. It was unheard off at that time. Today, there is a profusion of such schools mushrooming everywhere.

At times, Teo had to make hard decisions which were not the norm. As I heard some of his stories, it became clear in my mind that to succeed, you had to be a heretic at times and tear up the traditional script book. Jobs, Andrew Groove and Howard Schultz did it. So have most of the great Malaysian CEOs. Sometimes you just have to go against the norm and do things that other companies aren’t doing. It may be risky, but in the long run, it may just be the reason for your organisation’s long-term sustainability.

Lesson for 2015: Don’t be afraid to play the role of a heretic. Be different. Don’t be afraid to stand out of the pack. You may not please people today but in the long term, you may reap huge benefits.

9. MIDF – Execution means everything

I had the pleasure recently to sit through a business project review session that Datuk Mohd Najib Abdullah, group MD of MIDF conducted with his high potential leaders. At the review, Mohd Najib explained the importance of execution and following through. I started jotting down notes and I heard four key aspects of execution:

> Clear goals that compliment overall business strategy;

> Ownership for those goals;

> Clear measurement of progress regularly; and

> Clear accountability of progress.

Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy in their book Execution state that execution requires having a “systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it.”

I have worked in numerous organisation and the ones that have thrived are the ones with a clear sense of execution. Many young entrepreneurs feel that having a great idea and good timing is what will make their business thrive. I know personally that timing and great ideas are completely useless if you don’t know how to execute. The ability to execute is what separates the greats from people with good ideas. Everyone has ideas. It is the person that takes the idea and makes it a reality that will win.

Lesson for 2015: Are you executing the great ideas you have? Don’t regret when others execute your ideas and you then lament and claim that you had that idea first. Ideas are meaningful only if you can execute them.

10. Leaderonomics: Love your customers and don’t sell products

I usually refrain from internal lessons learnt but this lesson learnt from Ian Lee, our head of Growth and Diagnostics, was just yelling out to be shared. Lee shared that we must all learn to really love our customers.

In reality, not many people really love their customers. Most will claim to do so. In fact, during an interview, you find that most shy away from customer-fronting roles. Why is that so? Because dealing with the customer is not easy. Customer reject, negotiate, make harsh demands, expect crazy needs to be filled and are fickle. Working internally in back-end functions is easier and safer.

Yet, at Leaderonomics, there is joy in partnering with customers. Part of this joy is because customers provide ideas and insights for new products, new avenues of application of your offerings and also early warning signals on your quality and expectation fulfilment.

Another key part of loving your customers is not to sell products but to solve their problems. Providing customers with possibilities rather than products usually results in sustainable relationships and revenue.

Lesson for 2015: Customers are the lifeblood of your organisation. Everyone knows this but not many internalise this. Knowing your customer is knowing your future. And remember, don’t just sell products. Solve their problems instead.

Final thoughts

2014 was indeed a very tough year for me personally with many amazing lessons learnt. But the most important thing about lessons is to internalise them and leverage these lessons. Make 2015 a great year by learning from everyone and everything. Thank you again for partnering with me and my team at Leaderonomics in so many ways in 2014.

Roshan Thiran is CEO of Leaderonomics, a social enterprise passionate about transforming the nation through leadership development. Roshan and his team at Leaderonomics wish everyone a blessed New Year ahead. Check out Leaderonomics’ new leadership content site at www.leaderonomics.com for more great tid-bits of wisdom for 2015.