The King Trauma - Leadership lesson from Deep Rooted Tree

In the Drama series Deep Rooted Tree, King Sejong (Lee Do) displayed characteristics of a good, if not great leader. First and foremost, he had a vision. His vision was for a different Jeseon, at least not the way his predecessor (King Tejong) had ruled the country i.e. by concentrating all power to the King. He wanted his subjects to have the rights to be educated in contrast to the practice of the era that education is almost exclusive for Noblemen. He believe that his subjects will be empowered once they are educated (sounds familiar?) He saw the barrier to "education for all" vision was the script used i.e. Chinese characters, thousands of them to be learnt (or remember). He envisage a simple script that enable recording and transmittal of Joseon sounds so that his subjects not only could write the sounds they made but also read what they had written the way they pronounce the words. 

As any good leaders, his vision was a shared vision. In the series we could see that at least 3 scholars were very supportive of this initiative. The palace servants (at least 4 of them) were also very committed to see the success of this vision. In particular, Soo Yi  (Dham) shared the vision to the extend of risking her own life to see that the vision materialized. To see such demonstration of loyalty to a vision is to see a successful sharing of a vision. This brings us to the second leadership characteristic - Inspiring.

Like any great leaders, King Sejong's vision has became shared vision and people supporting his vision had made it their own. This was amplified by Soo Yi character. She blamed herself for the death of Ddol Bok's (Kang Chae Yoon) father. Only if she could actually read, they would had been saved from the terror they had to endure as childhood friends. She believed in what the King wanted to accomplish and that same goal had became her personal goal. We could also see in lesser extend the other characters showing similar enthusiasm for the script project. When followers made contribution because they want to and not because they had to (as displayed by these characters), King Sejong had accomplished what only great leaders could have achieved inspire others to a common vision. It is not enough to only share a vision, leaders need to ensure his followers are able to make meaningful contribution towards realizing the vision. This brings to another leadership characteristic - Empowering.

In many occasions that King Sejong had assigned "royal secret task" to his people. He gave clear direction (performance objectives, goals, target, etc) but simple instructions (almost none). He left it to his people to carry out his directions the way they know best. For instance, when he assigned Kang Chae Yoon to investigate the murder of his scholars (they were on his royal secret task) he gave his freedom to carry out his duty. When he assigned Soo Yi and palace servants the task of disseminating the script, he leave it to them to figure out the best way to achieve his clear goals/objectives. The part I liked most to demonstrate this empowerment was when he assigned Chae Yoon to protect Soo Yi and the servants. His direction was for Chae Yoon to see that Soo Yi carry out her mission successfully. How? "I believe you know best how to ensure that" he told Chae Yoon. It is easy to empower others but empowerment must comes with authority. The word "power" is the "middle name" for empowerment. However, to give power to others may not be easy; that is if you are not a leader like Lee Do. He trust his people, which is the next leadership characteristic displayed in Deep Rooted Tree.

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Lee Do (King Sejong) showed a high degree of trust, especially to his people. He valued trust more than anything else. More importantly, he trust himself! Yes, before we could trust others or demand others to trust us, we must ask this question: "Can I be trusted?".  Obviously, the King was a man of his words. He honor each and every promises he made. It was easy to see why his people are loyal to him, especially Moo Hyul and Soo Yi.  Once a leader demonstrated trust as a value, his follower will reciprocate with trust.

Last characteristic that I would like to share is principle-centred leadership (or self-less leadership). The King (and also Moo Hyul and Soo Yi) had demonstrated this characteristic. They had put the cause ahead of their personal wants and needs. It is not personal glory that a good leader seek. It is common good. A cause worth dying for....so did Moo Hyul, Soo Yi, Chae Yoon and many others who died for the common cause of ensuring the new Script introduced and promulgated. The King in many occasion, especially in debating with his oppositions, had focus on principles rather than personal agenda. Even when he lost his son, murdered by Mil boon (Hidden Root), he remain focused on his mission. Soo Yi also focused on her mission to her last breath. The same for Chae Yoon and Moo Hyul, fighting the last drop of their blood for the cause....such a selfless act when both of them requested the King to continue with the Mission, ignoring their need for medical attention.

Deep Rooted Tree OST

Linked from YOUTUBE for your listening pleasure.......

Rabbit & Tortoise - Part 4

A press conference were called. The organizer announced that this will be the final race between Mr Rabbit and Mr Tortoise. The race is dubbed the mother of all races, the race that will decide who between the two competitors will be declared the best racer. Mr Rabbit promised his supporters that he will not go into complacency. Mr Tortoise promised his supporters that he will throw in a surprise...just wait and see. He is determined to be the winner of this race. To everyone's surprise, it was decided that the race will be on the same as the previous route; yes the route that include a river crossing. Did Mr Rabbit attended Dolphin Swimming Academy to gain aquatic competence that he was so confident now to cross the river and win the race?

Race day: it was a sell out crowd. Spectators, supporters and pressmen lined the route. Both side of the river bank where the river crossing part of race to be held were packed as the public wants to find out how Mr Rabbit would get across, thus beating Mr Tortoise.

"BANG!!" heard at the starting line to signal both competitors to start the race. Wait!!!! What's happening??. Spectators at the grandstand could not believe what they are seeing....Mr Rabbit picked up Mr Tortoise!! They had decided to collaborate! Mr Rabbit made the dash to the river with Mr Tortoise on his back. When they arrived at the bank, Mr Tortoise went into the water and it was Mr Rabbit turn to piggy back. Mr Tortoise swam across carrying Mr Rabbit on his back. When they reached the other side, they made the switch again. Both arrived at the finishing line together. The crowd went wild...they were caught by surprise. The synergy of both competitors had given them a win-win.

Management lesson from the story:
1. Slow and steady will win you the race sometimes.
2. Fast and consistent will win you the race all the time.
3. Capitalize your strength to win the race.
4. Synergize to win the race together.

Hope you enjoyed the story. Thank you for reading. Please leave your comments below.

Rabbit & Tortoise - Part 3

So far, Mr Rabbit was beaten twice in an event that he should have won hands down. In both instances, it is due to his complacency....truly a lesson that everyone in any organisation should learn with or without experiencing it. In two of the events, the winner did soul searching and were determined to win the race....I call this behaviour as focus and execute.

Given the determination to win in both Mr Rabbit and Mr Tortoise, it is obvious by now that the loser i.e. Mr Rabbit wont give up now. Once again he went into soul searching. In some organisation this activity is called "Strategic retreat" or "away day", however way you called it, the objective is to review past performance and develop strategy to face future challenges.

Mr Rabbit thought to himself "Even if I came up with a great plan and win the next race, that Tortoise will never give up. He will come up with something to ensure a win in the following race. At this rate, I would not be doing anything else except racing with Mr Tortoise, as if I do not have any other competitors".  Hmmm isn't it true in real life situation when one is so obsessed in beating another person that a third person may come into the picture and beat both competing parties. This is called "ambush" as the two are busy trying to out-wit, out-perform, etc (trying to be on top of the other), they forget that their actions and behaviors are being watched. This in itself is an opportunity to the third party to enter the market and capture audiences that are bored with the self-centered intentions of current players. Back to the story...Mr Rabbit realised this and decided to approached Mr Tortoise with a proposition.

(Tune in next time for the concluding episode)

Rabbit & Tortoise - Part 2

In the first race, Mr Tortoise won because of Mr Rabbit's complacency. In the second race, Mr Rabbit won the way he should have won all the time...through efficiency. In the third race, Mr Rabbit was stopped on his track to achieve his usual result of winning races against Mr Tortoise. Why????

When Mr Tortoise went for soul searching he did SWOT to discover his Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat. The reason he requested change to the race route is because he wants to capitalize on his strength.  He is slow on land but in water he is faster than Mr Rabbit. So the route he had requested includes a river crossing. Mr Rabbit stopped on the banks of the river, trying to figure out how he could cross. Time passed and Mr Tortoise arrived at the scene. With a smile, he start his river crossing, leaving Mr Rabbit on the bank while he continue his race on the other side. Mr Tortoise won the race while Mr Rabbit was left to ponder on his misfortune......He should have taken the swimming lesson at Dolphin Swimming Academy.

Mr Tortoise taught us a very important lesson in Management - to win is to capitalize on our strength against our competitors. We need to play on a field that we can win or is disadvantaged to our opponents. To Mr Rabbit learned another lesson of not being complacent. While we are winning and think we could win forever, our competitors will be thinking of a way to beat us.

The story did not end here. Keep tuning in for the final race.

Rabbit & Tortoise - Part 1

I believe everyone is familiar with the Aesop fable about the rabbit who lost a race to the tortoise due to his complacency. Management lesson from the tale is that slow and steady will win you the race sometimes (catching your competitor off guard) Alternatively, the lesson could be complacency will loose you the race. However, do you know that the story did not end there? At least not for Management readers......

As it turned out, Mr Rabbit was not happy with his lost. He went for soul searching and came out of it determined to beat Mr Tortoise the way it should be. Learning from defeat well, he knew he should not be complacent this time around. For Mr Tortoise there is nothing to loose, so he accepted the rematch. From the starting line to the finishing line, Mr Rabbit lead by miles. The spectators when wild but this is the expected outcome anyway...no surprises this time. The media decided not to publish the story as main headlines, instead it goes few pages inside the sport section and just a paragraph announcing Mr Rabbit win.  Lesson: fast and steady will definitely win you the race...no doubt. 

Efficiency is the key to success......is it the only key?  Well, not quite. Remember this is a Management Lesson. Do you think a person like Mr Tortoise could stand being the loser all the time? Yes, he won once and it feels good. He wished he could win again and bask in glory. This time around it was Mr Tortoise that went for soul searching with the vision of winning. With the mission to beat Mr Rabbit, he came out with a winning strategy and prepared for the challenge. Mr Rabbit, accepted the  challenge. On the race day, Mr Tortoise made a request to the organizer to change the race route. No objection from Mr Rabbit thinking that as long as he remember lessons from the previous two races, he will surely win this race as he should in any race with Mr Tortoise. The new route was announced.....spectators and fans alike lined the route. Both competitors get set, ready, GO! As expected, Mr Rabbit left Mr Tortoise eating his dust. Half way through the race, Mr Rabbit stopped but why?

(Tune in later to find out........)

PESUMAS 1Malaysia Orphan Charity Program

I conducted a motivation session for participants of the inaugural charity program organised by PESUMAS at Dolphin Swimming Academy. The 2 day 1 night program is aimed at providing opportunity to the underprivileged children to acquire aquatic competence. This first program is supported by Dolphin Swimming Academy and Pro Mind Resources. We welcome any individuals or organisations that would like to sponsor future programs. Your donations will go into paying for the children transportation, accommodation and meals. The Aquatic Competence module provided by Dolphin Swimming Academy and Motivation module provided by Pro Mind Resources are our contribution to society. Visit Pesumas at blogspot for details of the program. Please contact Pro Mind Resources or Dolphin Swimming Academy to find out more on how you could contribute to this charitable cause. Here's some photos of the motivation session. More photos of the program will be uploaded at Pesumas blog or facebook.

Self introduction

Paper planes to demonstrate a point

Self introduction

You have full control

Participants are mixed age

Very attentive

I talked about "Kecemerlangan Diri"

I was helped by my son - Zainuddin

I pray for the children to be successful

Enjoyed the session.

Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin Soal Jawab TV3

Seek first to understand, then to be understood. The Minister explains why PPSMI is repealed.

Deep Rooted Tree (Tree with deep root) - Lesson learned

What it is??  It's the tittle of a Korean Drama I'm currently watching on Dramacrazy.net. The first thing that interest me is it's historical value - a story about King Sejong (Lee Do), the king of Joseon who revolutionised writing for Korean - he introduce the Korean script that is simple and easy to be learnt. His purpose was to ensure that all his subjects could read and write. It happened that before this new script, Joseon was using the Mandarin script which had thousands of characters to remember. The new script introduced 28 alphabets that could be used to write/read any sound produced in Joseon (painstakingly, the king and his loyal men catalogue all the sounds that people of Joseon made to pronounce possibly all the nouns, verbs, etc)  Challenging you say? Throw into the plot a group of dissatisfied noblemen and an underground group called "hidden root" or the "Mil-bon" who wanted to dethrone the King. Thus, the development works for the new script had to be done in secrecy. Added to the plot another character who had lived with one purpose - Kill the King to revenge for the death of his father.  A lot of twists and turns, things are not as it seems and prejudgement will only frustrate you as the truth being revealed. Before I reveal the whole story and robbed you of the suspense and enjoyment to watch the series (Watched all 24 episode on Dramacrazy.net) let me stop here and focus on the learning. Yes, you could learn one or two lessons from this addictive series....... Comeback to this page later as I will share some of the lessons I learnt from the series.

Lesson 1: Literacy must be made simple to ensure education for all
The king knew that education is the key to the kingdom's prosperity. Lee Do was a learned person himself. His father laughed at his idea of establishing the research institute saying that he must be out of his mind thinking that he could rule the kingdom with words. As the story unfold, he did rule his kingdom successfully via education. He knew literacy is the key to provide access to knowledge, hence the need to develop a simple script to enable his subjects to understand (He discovered that they were illiterate. Then he discovered the reason was the script they used then was complex - thousands of characters to learn and remember). This confirmed my notion that to facilitate teaching and learning knowledge, we need to use language that both teacher and student understand. Thus, mastery of language is important BUT how to ensure students could master the language. It must be captured in simple scripts...in the case of Joseon, the scripts developed by Lee Do and his "accomplice" can be used to represent any sound made in Joseon. Imagine how simple it is if we could spell the way we pronounce and then reproduce the pronunciation by reading.  I guess that's why Americans decided to spell Color instead of Colour (silent U) or Center instead of Centre (how to pronounce TRE?...sound like "tree" and it will be "Sen..tree" instead of "Sen..ter"). Morale of the story... learn to read and write before you learn anything else.

Lesson 2: Power of one - one person can change history
Passion of one person is all needed to change history. In Deep rooted tree, Lee Do was the power of one. Before that, his father had tried to centralize all power to one (himself) by eliminating all his opponents (sound familiar?). The concept or misconception about power centralization is that if you want to change things, you need all the power. On the contrary, the power of one concept is that one person could change things by focusing on his circle of influence. Lee Do knew that the Noblemen and Scholars would reject the idea of changing the way people write (Who like change anyway?). To overcome this challenge and avoid resistance at the early part of his project, Sejong decided to go undercover....start the groundwork secretly with a few trusted people. Then as a result of curiosity, two young scholars managed to "forced" the King to reveal the secret project to them. After the revelation, the two young scholars were convinced the the King is doing the right thing, thus they joined the project to help perfected the research work. At this point, you see how the power of one works. From the passion of one person, it became shared vision. Morale of the story...you want change, start with yourself.

Lesson 3: Resistance - many will stop the one from changing history
It is obvious that the King's intention was resisted by the Bureaucrats (Noblemen and Scholars). They have their own reasons for resisting, just to be fair. Once the new script is introduced, they would lost the power of knowledge. All the while, the peasants and slaves had been "cheated" just because they could not read. For the Scholars, they are just too familiar with the existing language of knowledge that introducing a new official script would mean they have to unlearn and relearn....heck, who would want to take the trouble to translate or re-script the manuscripts into the new script? You may find some parallel to the current PPSMI issue here but I do not intend to talk about it. Morale of the story, get an education as it is power. But first, you need to master the language of knowledge.

Lesson 4: Don't prejudged - things may not be as it seems
In the beginning we would have thought that Lee Do would make a good King. He seems "weak" on the outside. As the story continues, his true character emerged. He was actually strong in the inside. There's a lion-heart in him. Similarly with Ddol Bok (goes by the name Kang Chae Yoon as adult). He seemed determined to kill the King....until he learned new facts about his old flame Dam (goes by the name So Yi as adult) and his father's will (he lost it when he was a child) There's a soft-spot in his heart. Some of the Noblemen seems to be loyalist but turn out to be part of the Hidden Roots. What about Ga Ri On (the butcher)....who would have thought he is the Root. Heck I thought he was a good guy because as a youngster he seemed to be an Idealist, thus his character could have developed as a strong supporter to King Sejong's vision (I still have 6 episodes to go....may there is another twist. Who knows). Morale of the story: Don't judge a book by its cover (King Sejong). Get more facts before you judge (Ddol Bok).

Lesson 5: You are not alone
King Sejong had a vision. His vision was that one day, all his subject can read and write (literacy). The times where there were social class and literacy & education belongs to the upper class, this vision is not easily accepted by society. Lee Do seemed alone (?) Well, he started his project will his loyal palace maids and protected by his loyal warrior/bodyguard Mhul Yool. Doubt if these people helped him because they shared the same vision but they helped him anyway because they either believed in him or just plainly following orders. Relating to the power of one, with strong determination and persistence added to hard-work never give up attitude, his vision soon became shared vision.  First, with the two young scholars. Then as the story progressed, we learned that one of his palace maid admitted that she shared the same vision of having a simple script that everyone can learn to read and write. Later, Chae Yoon also supported the vision. Morale of the story: Have a dream, share it as shared vision is really dreams shared by many.

Lesson 6: Power of Shared Vision
The power of shared vision can be seen strongly when King Sejong revealed his project to the two young scholars. Once the two bought into the idea of having a simple script for Joseon, they willingly volunteer to be part of the project. Also when Chae Yoon (Ddol Bok) understand the vision, he became protector of the vision. In the two instances, the reason to buy into the idea were different. To the two young scholars, the vision appealed to their academic mind, while to Chae Yoon it appeal to his own experience....if only he could read, his father could have been saved.  Morale of the story: a vision became shared vision when it appeals to others.

Lesson 7: Love conquers all
Kang Chae Yoon was in love with Soo Yi that he is willing to to go the extra mile to live happily ever after with her. He went through lowest point of his life in the name of love. In the end, he died because of his love the love of his life.

Lesson 8 (the biggest lesson of all): Live for a purpose

King Sejong (Lee Do) had devoted his life to realize his vision of a sustainable and prosperous Joseon. Despite the resistance to his Korean Script the King pushes on determined to see the new script communicated and promulgated. He lost 3 scholars in the beginning but the event was a blessing. He became more determined. Lost of his son did not stop him. He had Soo Yi (Dham), Kang Chae Yoon, and Moo Hyul, along with other trusted group of aides - Noblemen, Scholars, Servants alike had supported his cause though for their own reasons. The saddest part of the story came in the end when his most trusted people (Soo Yi, Chae Yoon, and Moo Hyul) died in the course of helping the King live for his purpose. Their death were not in vain as they had lived a life for a purpose too.

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