Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Boss Moving to China


My immediate boss is leaving for China this week. Afterwards we will be reporting to the Asia regional head though functionally we are still under my boss in China. We spoke last night before I left the office and she offered me some tips. Late last night she sent an SMS informing me of the new person she hired in Shanghai to help me on my projects. Eventually he will take over once I transfer to my new assignment. I am thinking of writing to my new bosses to follow-up on the offer now that things are moving along here to replace me. I feel embarrassed sometimes and think that I should wait. But I really need to have more visibility because it affects my kids.

When I got home last night, my wife told me that my youngest can enroll in a diploma course as he does not need to repeat his secondary year. I am glad that he can do so because it will be more motivating for him to study in a new place. I don't need to spend a lot for polytechnic nor junior college which is more expensive than this diploma course. Basically he will be entering the level 11, I think when we move over. I am reading some articles on education in Newsweek and seems that it's starting to be a big business. With globalization and the complexity of modern business, more schools are focusing on improving their curriculum. Some are focusing on multi-disciplinary work as well some subjects on culture, art and design.

I hope that I can give my kids a multi-cultural and multi-geographical educational experience. Even if the schools they enter are not the greatest, at least the experience will give them a more well-rounded education. I think I need to support for another 7 to 10 years before they graduate with a degree that they are confident in. I also tried to assess my education and experience these past years after reading all these literature on the current state of schools. Countries in the Middle East and Asia are spending a lot of money to improve their schools and all these turmoil in economics highlight the complexity and, really, inability of current managers to adapt to the new realities. Some articles are calling this debacle the first global crisis of the Internet age - in fact even caused by the Internet as it also speeds up complexity which current managers are unable to control.

I think that is the key for tomorrow. To be multi-cultural, multi-disciplined and mobile. Tomorrow's worker need to be familiar with all sorts of knowledge and skills with soft skills like communication and leadership are being highligthed. Maybe today's world and complexity push people to try to expand themselves because they seem to be inadequate in today's world. Most people pretend that they know and get into trouble. Unlike Warren Buffet who avoids investing in derivatives and credit default swaps for example, he honestly admits that he does not understand them. Others think they understand and invest but soon lose their shirts once events move faster than they can respond.

I find myself in this situation as well. Investing in things which I thought I understood but now I have a paper loss in my stock investments. But not as terrible as others maybe as Iam willing to wait for the long term until the market improves. The situation that is getting more complex is in today's environment where our outsource support team resides in Hyderabad -India and Shenzhen - China, my boss in Shanghai with users in Thailand and Shenyang - China. Add to the mix the new process where everything is logged into a system with tickets and people responding to issues electronically. So communication is now via chat, SMS and email whereas I prefer verbal discussions by phone or face to face.
I realize that I am overwhelmed and try to escape by blogging. Or at least to write down my thought so I can settle my mind into calm.

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