T M T

After nine years, I went back to Tsinghua campus again.
I spent the whole afternoon walking familiar roads – fortunate for me, all the old roads and old buildings are still there, even though the whole campus has had many many changes – mainly additions. Tsinghua now has become a major tourist attraction in Beijing, there’re quite a few organized tour groups just came to Beijing to visit the campus. I’ve met many people asking for directions – I suddenly felt like old and new at the same time.
That is my feeling about today’s Tsinghua – a seamless collage of old buildings and new; an intersection of old tranditions and new style; a clash and reborn of old and new value systems. Being always a testing ground for party leaderships and new thoughts, I’ve noticed subtle signs of reviving old traditions such as the Confucius sculpture transported from His birthplace by manpower, the old Tsinhua mottos on top of the post-liberation communist slogan…as a country, aren’t we all searching for new belief system from our old traditions?

Last Saturday we had a group BBQ at my house. 20+ adults and 5 kids showed up, really put my event hosting capability to test. With everyone’s help I think I did OK. The main improvement I need to make it to get more wine glasses and remember to put the wine charms on. That just showed that I’m not yet a big wine drinker yet.
For group event like that, when conducted on weekends, it is very important to open the invitation to family and significant others. It is also beneficial for team members to interact with each other’s family members. A rare occasion to get to know the other half of someone you work with everyday.

We had a great company event Thursday. During the all-hands meeting, we took a “Mission Impossible” style agent dossier approach introducing all the members on the team to the whole company. Mostly focusing on what R&D work each member has been doing, but new format and some light-hearted comments really make people lol.
Following the meeting, we played scramble golf in the nearby golf club. Four people get into each team and played a 9-hole with best team shots. This allows good player as well as golf newbies to enjoy the game more or less equally. It is a great team bonding event that had everyone very much energized.

A good leader/manager encourage debate by asking questions. But in the end, he/she needs to make a executive decision. A really good debate most time doesn’t end up with consensus since each party believes in very deeply their point of view. An executive decision is neccessary to settle the matter and let both size know the direction they need to be going.
I’ve just seen some examples of this happening in the last two days. I think we have a great leader.

If you are looking for a job or a job change, you might be thinking about interviewing with people. I’ve been on the other side for the last several years. While I’ve been mostly thinking about how to probe and assess the candidates, I’ve also noticed how some candidates are much more skillful than others in handling the interview process. Ultimately, if both sides are playing at the same level, it will be your true personality and capability that determines your job prospect. However, some tips probably won’t hurt. Here is one.

Be a good listener. That’s it.

Quite a few of candidates rehearse a speech or a few canned responses before hand. Then they just pour it out the first moment they got. They forget the most important thing in interview – listen. Listen carefully what the interviewer is trying to ask/probe. Listen for the implicit questions. Listen for clues about the job, the culture and the expectations. By listening carefully you avoid lots of awful mistakes and come across as much more sensible and mature. You will also make the interview session much more productive, which is also a good thing ultimately.

Why most people hate annual performance review? There are a lot of practical reasons: it’s not consistent, not fair, or not based on objective metrics, etc. But more importantly, it is often an agonizing process to review, analyze, and admit your weakness and limitations. Even worse, to work with your manager on an improvement plan.
This last point reflects an important pitfall today’s performance review mindset. Conventional wisdom in management expects well-rounded employees who have no weaknesses. If you do, you need to be aware of it and try to overcome it. So as employees get more seasoned, some of they learn to conseal their weaknesses better.
In recent issue of HBR, Marcus Bucingham discusses how great managers should focus on employee’s strength and individuality . It is a great article that has many implications in day-to-day management. Because I did a project several years ago on employee performance review, it first occured to me that we should restructure the performance review process to enhance people’s self-assurance rather than their self-awareness.

Now that the dot.com era has long gone, great job is no longer one where you expect the stock price hike 100x. In fact, it never has been. I often ask other people this question: if you are offered $10million in exchange for never work (even for free) again, will you take the offer?
A great job is something motivates you out of the bed everything morning, get on the road, feel a bit excited about what you’re about to do for the day.
For technologist, a great job often means something intellectually chanllenging yet at the same time allows you to have a little fun. A great job is one that you work and work on fun problems that you forget about the clock from time to time. It is definitely not one that *requires* you to work overtime.
Of course, one man’s great job could be another man’s prison. It is still about finding the right person for the job, and finding the right job for the person.

The most important thing in management is finding the right people. With the right people, everything will work out. With the wrong kind of people, no matter how hard you try, it is still going to be very difficult.
But it is not easy to find out whether someone will be a good fit or not. So we conduct interviews. Think about it as a marriage, how long do people spend together on average before they decide to get married. Then there’re still a substantial percentage of marriages fall apart, some after many years. This sounds totally hopeless.
The good news is that it is not entirely clueless. Good managers are sort of like good marriage counselors. They hone their skills in listening, probing, and obsverving. They pick up thin slices of clues that may indicate potential red-flags. They trust their “gut feelings”. It is not easy.

In the last a couple of years, the pendulum has swung completely back from the “leadership” talk to the fundamentals of “management”. In the 90s, “managers” are inferior drones to great leaders. Then there’re Enron and the internet bubble, that sure changed the perspective of management theory in some subtle ways.
Yes, great leaders still lead with great vision and pursuasion. But now people start to value great managers too. The “touchy feely” class at Stanford business school is the most popular elective class. I’m reading a really long article in recent issue of HBR: “What Great Managers Do” – talking about how to find individual strenghs and weaknesses in your group and design your strategy around those. Think about it, that is an 180 degree turn from the BHAG (Big Hairy Adacious Goals) days.