I Gave Up RM200K/Month Salary | Dato' Sri Idris Jala: From Shell to Malaysia Airlines to Minister
89m 53s
The speaker, a seasoned corporate leader, recounts pivotal moments in his career, including restructuring a large company during the pandemic by implementing drastic pay cuts. He reflects on his unfulfilled ambition to become a lawyer, which remains a lingering regret. Choosing passion over financial security, he declined lucrative corporate offers to launch a startup consultancy with former government colleagues, despite having only two months of operating funds. The venture, born from a "project freedom" idea to escape bureaucratic constraints, quickly gained its first client through Harvard networking connections. This transition from executive roles to entrepreneurship involved significant personal and financial adjustments, requiring humility to learn from others and navigate family concerns about his unconventional career path. His experience underscores the value of pursuing meaningful work over traditional success metrics.
I've led large companies, including Malaysia Alliance, 20,000 employees. It was the first time in my entire corporate life where I realized I was totally helpless. Fast forward to pandemic time. There was an episode where the man do us a ring of comment. Oh yeah, yeah. We had three options. Number one, fall down the company. Second option was to close the company during the pandemic. And the third option is to restructure the company. I would go on zero pay. All my partners will have a 90% pick-up and the middle managers have 50% pick-up. The junior staff of the 10% pick-up and we will have the men power. The majority 96% voter. Dr.3, welcome to another episode here with us. Thank you. So, Dr.3, I was go straight to the question, right? You're the guy who actually is known as the turn-around man. Yeah? You have achieved a certain level of career success, corporate success. Even until today, you're still very sought-after man. Whether in training, whether in running a company. What is one of the biggest regrets you have in life? I would say it's not quite a regret, but I always wondered about it. Because I always wanted to be a lawyer. I never became a lawyer. And there was the one thing. Well, since school, right up from Form 1 to Form 3, we had a headmaster that told us every student in this school must write a small little thing on a piece of paper. You're about your ambition. And then stick it on your bed. We were in a boarding school. and he said, P-P-P-G, Pin Point Your Primary Goal. By looking at that every morning and every evening, and that was what I wanted to do. I never became a lawyer, actually. And so I kind of I wanted to do there. He said the regret. I only think it was. It's a role that I should have taken, but I didn't take it. Maybe I don't know whether it's for better or for worse. I don't know it would have been different. Right. And having said that as well, along the way in your life, you have made many decisions. And some of it include rejecting some of the most highest paying job in the scene. And can I just ask you, if you have taken some of this job, would you been actually even more financially success than you are today? I think so too. I definitely think so. I think if I took on, let's say the share job that I finished my tenure and government, I definitely would have been financially better off. But I decided not to do that simply because at the time I wanted to challenge myself to take a new curve, a new climb, a new mountain that is completely different from my experience. When I was in Vice President in London, we were operating in 100 countries from head to head, quarter-stand office. I wanted to do something completely different. Do a startup. Begin a startup, that means only about 60 staff that are working in this company. We have no clients right from beginning from the moment of even setting up the company, finding an office way we're going to be hiring new people to do it. And that's completely outside my comfort zone, really, actually, starting an entirely new adventure. I wanted the new corporate adventure that they didn't rely on a huge organization as my support. And that was, I felt passionate about wanting to do that. I went for it. And so when you were doing that at the time, I recall you told me that after the Pamanu came out from the government unit, and you're no client or nothing, and you only had about two months' money to survive, right? And so you actually told your whole team that we only have two months. If not, we're going to close these down. I'm pretty sure that it was very difficult in the beginning. There were things that you have to figure it out and so on. Have you ever actually stopped for a while and asked yourself, why on earth am I doing this? I should be sitting on a private jet right now flying all across the world and receiving a big bonus, right? Yeah. Has that ever crossed your mind? Many times. I can tell you, when I was in Pamanu, already in Gabo Manana, I took everybody to port Dixon. There was long before we were disestablished. I think six years before we became a private organization. I asked people the question, this is what I said to them. At the away day in Port Dixon. Ladies and gentlemen, there will come a time that Pamanu within the Prime Minister, the Department, will be disestablished. At the time when we disestablish, when we feel that the civil service can take over our role and we become redundant and we shouldn't be there. And I do not believe organizations in the Department like in government should continue on and on if their mission is no longer relevant to what they're trying to pursue. And so I asked them the question, can I ask you guys the question, what do you want to do after we are disestablished? There were six years ahead. The staff will remember this. They then said, well, they said, let's form a consultancy company. There was one or the most popular thing, but they call it project freedom. So I asked them, there's a guy called Christan, I remember him, said, Christ, why do you call it project freedom? And all the others like the idea. He said, oh, we work so hard in organizations, but we are striped by rules and regulations. For example, none of us have shares in a company. And we cannot-- there are so many rules on promotion. There are rules about how to reward people, given by people in the center. Can we set up a company that we design our own rules rather than rules imposed by others? And that we have enough financial freedom because we are rewarding ourselves for the results that we deliver rather than giving it to shareholders. Because we are in charge of this company. This is our company. So that was then. So I had six years to think about making that leap forward. So you see, when I eventually did it, I had a lot of time to think. At the time when the office came, I was prepared then to reject them, rather almost outright. Because I knew for six years I wanted to do that. I just waited for the right time that we went to execute it. So I remember we had altogether-- 100-- there were 110 staff consultants, both private as well as government civil servants. When we formed it, I asked for the volunteers, how many of you will resign from the current work that you do? And the government does not pay you a single cent of redundancy to come and join me and do this. 86 people did. That's how we started, actually. But you were absolutely right. We had enough money to last us for two months, maybe two and a half months. And where did we have the money for the two and a half months? It was simple. It's the time when the government was asked permission from the government, can we do an outside project that we get revenue from outside and that we pocket aside this so that it becomes our lifeline when we become private? So the Prime Minister and everybody say, yes. So we were working at the time. We had a small team that worked in Tanzania for the Tanzanian government. So we had revenue from the Tanzanian government. This is paid by a wall bank. It was the US aid, it's together with the defeat, with the British government paid us money. So that was the money that tied us cash ready for the last four, two months. And without that money, we didn't even have two months. So I told them we have enough money to run this firm for two months. And if we don't get clients in two months, we're dead. With this established firm. It was literally like that, Peter. We were totally on our limp. [LAUGHTER] And so when that happened, right? You got 86 people who followed you. And you rejected a bunch of other different offers. When did you get your first client? Was it the end of the two months or immediately? How was it like to get your first client? Because I remember at the point, when Pemando came out, there were a few things that were happening. Number one, one in DBKs, these are dead and everything. Or Pemando has proven to be a very successful unit. But there were also a lot of rumors about it. Like, how can the government allow Pemando to come out in zone, right? And so there was this reputation thing as well. And literally, there was two camps in the whole corporate world. So either we stay away from Pemando, or either we learn from Pemando. And how do you navigate that? And how long did it took for you to get your first client? It took us maybe about first two weeks. We got our first client. So it was very good that we did this. And you could call it divine intervention as well. Because I was approached by Harvard to lecture at the Harvard Ministry Real Leadership Program. So since 2014. So every year, I turn up in Boston at Harvard to lecture. And the people who attend our courses are ministers of finance around the world, ministers of public health, ministers of planning, and ministers of education. And so I was exposed to quite a number of ministers around the world. So one of them was our first client. Really, also, I client was a human. And they heard about the things that we were doing through Harvard program. And it was a fantastic opportunity to go and do this. And so before long, everything moved. It was quite an incredible thing that we're doing. But it was difficult. That said,
Karena kita harus melihat semua yang membuat kami sendiri. Anda tidak boleh melihat keadaan yang besar, di mana-mana di dalam kecil, ada semua yang mempunyai, ada semua orang yang mempunyai kecil, etc. Kita harus melihat semua yang sendiri. Kita harus mempunyai kecil, ada di tempat yang lain, semua yang terbaik dan berjumpa. Jadi, ini adalah semua yang kami mempunyai. Bukan untuk mempunyai, kita tidak mempunyai kecil dari kecil, ketika kita berjumpa, kita tidak ada. Jadi, hanya yang saya mencari kecil, selepas kita mempunyai kecil, kita bisa mempunyai kecil dengan kecil, kecil, kecil, dan itu semua yang kita mempunyai. Jadi, kita berjumpa di dalam kecil untuk mempunyai kecil dengan ini. Jadi, kita tidak mempunyai kecil yang mempunyai kecil, tidak, tidak semua. Kita tidak mempunyai kecil, kita mempunyai kecil, kita adalah penyakitkanan baru yang mempunyai kecil, yang mempunyai kecil, - Right. - Jadi, orang yang mempunyai kecil dari kecil, dan yang paling mencari, terbuka, ketika kita mempunyai kecil, correct, kecil, kecil, jadi saya mencari kecil, kita mencari kecil baru, kamu tidak perlu mempunyai kecil dari kecil, kecil untuk mencari kecil, zero, jadi mereka semua mencari kecil, tidak mencari kecil, semua orang mencari kecil untuk mempunyai kecil, dan kita berjumpa kecil, terbuka di dalam kecil, kalau kamu mempunyai kecil, kamu perlu mencari kecil, tidak mencari kecil, kita mencari kecil, saya mencari kecil, jika kamu mencari kecil, ada banyak orang yang mempunyai tentang ini, kita tidak mencari kecil dari kecil, hanya kecil, ada dua bulan yang berlaku, yang terbuka dari kecil dari kecil, - Right. - Kami mencari kecil, kita tidak mencari kecil, kecil, itu adalah apa yang kita perlu. Jadi, saya rasa saya tidak mempunyai kecil, jika kita berjumpa di dalam kecil, kita berjumpa di dalam kecil, saya boleh mencari kecil, kita berjumpa di dalam kecil, jika kita berjumpa di dalam kecil, hari ini kita sudah berjumpa di 2017, kita mencari kecil, kita sekarang, kecil, di 29 countries, di dalam kecil, kecil, di dalam kecil, saya sangat berjumpa di dalam kecil, saya rasa kita sudah berjumpa di dalam kecil, di muskore, di raja, kita berjumpa di South Africa, di dalam kecil, di New Zealand, di UK, kita ada banyak banyak kerja di dalam kecil, saya sangat berjumpa di dalam kecil, kerana kita berjumpa di dalam kecil, di dalam kecil, dan kita berjumpa di dalam kecil, sangat baik, sebenarnya. - Nah, dulu, ke kecil, ada di dalam kecil, permanda di dalam kecil, di dalam kecil, saya boleh berjumpa di dalam kecil, itu adalah yang berhenti, saya sangat berhenti, itu adalah pertama kali, di dalam kecil, kecil, kecil, kecil, saya berjumpa di dalam kecil, saya tak pernah berjumpa di situasi yang saya berjumpa di dalam kecil, saya tak pernah berjumpa di dalam kecil, saya tak pernah berjumpa di situasi, saya tak pernah berjumpa di situasi, saya tak pernah berjumpa di situasi, semua kata-kata kita yang berjumpa di situasi, atau kata-kata kita yang berjumpa di situasi, itu adalah apa yang saya berjumpa di situasi, itu adalah apa yang saya berjumpa di situasi, saya berjumpa di situasi, yang berjumpa di situasi, yang berjumpa di situasi, yang berjumpa di situasi, Wudi, Wudiang, yang berjumpa di situasi, yang berjumpa di situasi, yang berjumpa di situasi, Terus berjumpa di situasi, terus berjumpa di situasi, terus berjumpa di situasi,
We set up a company called Printhius Akhal, led by Nishan. And Nishan said, "Oh, Kanishan, why don't you buy all these gloves from. " Because we're the biggest glove, a supplier, and we sell them around. So that was what we were doing, totally pivoted into doing things. Nothing to do with consultancy. Right. Because if we just relied on consultancy, there's no way we could have survived the period, actually. But rather when you look back at it, right, it's quite interesting. Because many consultancies in the market do not have operating experience. Yeah. And one thing that made Permando very interesting is the hate himself. You have a lot of operating experience. Yeah. And I was wondering, you have a team of people who actually pivoted during the COVID time and they became people of operating experience. Yeah, absolutely. And they're kind of changes this mindset of a lot of top-corporate CEOs. Because in the corporate world, a lot of CEOs will tell me, "All these consultancies are known to talk, but really, really, as I do, sometimes they cannot do." Yeah, yeah. But so this only now gives you a new age in the market, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, at the two-h day, one is that I had lots of experience, operating experience, running companies, so on. I proven it and I could do it. And I was very confident that the tool that I used at the time would be applicable to other companies and I had proof that it could be done. The second thing was I believe other than delivery associates, which is from the UK, with the only other consulting firm that can claim that we were part of government before. But Kenji cannot say that. Yes. Kenji cannot say that. So when I go to a government and said, "We know the problem of government because we were government before." So I know exactly what the problems of implementations are. So we have the two-h that we have out there that we were doing out. And that is why I think when we go out there, we do two things. We help governments and we help corporations, businesses to turn around to improve profitability because we can talk about our experience. That's an evidence that we could do that. And so that has become very, very useful. So our storyline is that when we get down there, we know exactly what the challenges are. We hit the ground running with you. Having said that, right, with all these experience coming to today and Pirmando is actually doing quite fine right now, expanding and growing. Have you done a look back and asked yourself, "Actually, what was the financial cost in starting for Pirmando?" because I think let's be very honest here. As an entrepreneur myself, there are times to time that ask myself, "If I were to work for people today, I may actually have more money in my pocket than that." Right? So the first level of question here is, "Have you ever actually made the calculation and tell her and give a rough idea that, 'Hey, if I would have done this, I would have had this amount more.' Of course, I did the calculation. How much will that be? So I will tell you exactly what it is, but you will know by looking, you can google how much share top executives will get, they probably will have that amount. But it was a lot of money that I would have forgotten. If you look at stock options and stock award, by the way, when I left share, I lost all my share awards. I lost all my stock options." Don't mind me asking, "How much was that?" I just was quite significant as well. When they asked me to return, they said they re-insteaded all of that. And then I will continue to get more stock awards and options because they are very senior level. And I didn't take that. But my point is, when you give up all these things, you then ask the question, "What is it that you are trying to do?" And I was into this thing called corporate adventure. I really wanted to go and do this thing that I wanted to do. Remember, I told you in the early episode, "I am passionate about doing something that I want to go for. The passion must be there. I want to go and test myself out." And really, God will do this thing called a small company thing. I started. It was very uncomfortable because it's something I had not done before. And it's very humbling for you to know that if you have not done it before, you're going to sit down and learn from people who have done it before. You know, I had many discussions with people who have done start-up to learn how to do it right from beginning. It's very humbling, you know. People say, "Wow, you're a big guy. You've been to large companies. How come you ask me?" But the only guys that can tell you how to do it, people have been involved in start-up. And they are not rich. They're not successful by no means. But they are the guys that will tell you exactly what to do. And that's the humbling experience, right? That's right. How was it like, right? We have heard a lot of stories where people come from big corporations. And in the past, you have led big corporations full of resources, right? Even when you book a ticket, someone books it for you, you have your PA, your secretary. Everything is done, right? And they are usually top-efficient. If you let go of someone, is HR's problem? No, your problem. You don't get a pay raise? No means not me, it's HR, right? But now suddenly you're in this situation where everything is you. You're bearing the big ground of it. If you make a decision, it's wrong. There's nothing you can fall back on and say, "This corporate direction, it is fully Idris Jalas direction." And how's that transition like on a mental wise? Like, you have six years to think through it, but getting into it, knowing it theoretically and really knowing it, right? It's entirely different. So what was some of the biggest adjustment you had to make mentally to actually set yourself in it? The most important thing you've got to do is to talk to your partner, "This gets my wife wrong." So this is what you said. You know Idris, the problem with you is this, everybody goes like this. Yours is going like that. Let's say what do you mean, going like that? You and Shell, that's your salary. You abandoned that, you then went to Malaysia Airlines, you go 19% pay cut. Then from then on, they become a minister. That's a very significant pay cut. To be clear, you can Google it, I think my salary, everything put together, including allowances of 40,000. My staff that reported to me, "The salary is higher than mine." And so that salary plus all the allowances associated with it until 40,000. But it's totally ridiculous. I mean, from the previous, it was drawing 200,000 per man to become 40,000. My wife said, "You crazy. You keep on going like this. You're going up this way and yours is going down." Now you're now going to say, "You're going to start a startup." "What is happening to you?" So this conversation is a very real conversation. And by the way, I just let you know, every step along the way, it's a time when I agreed decided to go to Malaysia Airlines. At that time, Shell offered me the job as the chairman of Shell Malaysia. It was a promotion. And I abandoned it to go and do this. So I took my wife and my two boys. We went to Gunting for a weekend. And then I asked them, "Can you now vote which one would you prefer me to do?" All of them voted for me to stay in Shell. Because it has all the trappings, better salary. Because the chip would have been the next one not in Gunting. It would have been the 5th of January or something else, right? But I still went. After I did that, I still took the decision to go and do it. Then my wife said, "Why did you bother in the first place?" I just want to know the truth of what you guys think. But I want you all to agree with me. I really want to go and do this. I want the blessing from you that I want you all to support me for what I'm deciding to do. And they're all game. The whole thing about this is the condition through. My wife saw supportive of what I was doing. You know what she said? "It risked even if you fail. It's okay. We have a family house in Barrio." I can always go to Barrio or this land there. It was a wonderful thing. She said that. Because I realized when she said that to me, I knew that I have her full support in what I was doing. This is so important. If your wife or your spouse is not with you in the direction that you're going, you're going the real trouble in what you do. Every step along the way, I never make big decisions on my own without the full clearance and support of my wife. And also my kids as well. That's the only way you can deal with sacrifice. Because it's real, huh? Yeah. I think to help the audience appreciate the gravity of the situation. And lighten us a little bit further of the emotional state, right? But if I were to put myself in that situation, at the time, you're probably in your early 30s or 40s. 40s? Yeah. 40s somewhere around that. Yeah. And you are having this career where it's high trajectory. If you leave and go into mass, which is known to be over so many years, it did not work out very well. And if you go in there and if it doesn't turn out well, you have just proven yourself as someone who is not that great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And now when you go back to Shell or anywhere else, you have less chip on your shoulder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. So the danger here that we are talking about, it's not just in the form of finance, but also in the form of pride in the form of setting an example for the children. Like you're telling yourself, you're children that I'm just not good enough as well. Yeah. You're telling your ex-girlfriend, I'm not good enough. And when you go back, it's going to be at least five to ten.
-Saya boleh ada 4 orang untuk menghentikan ini. -Tak. -Tak, kan? -Tak. Jadi, itu setiap yang kamu Were in. -Itu bukan just fine, Charles. -Itu bukan just mental. -Itu bukan, Peter. Saya boleh beritahu kamu, -saya pergi ke Gunting di kongsi yang kita boleh beritahu. Saya beritahu saya, saya beritahu by Gordon Batun. Saya beritahu di mana dia beritahu di sini, sehingga dia beritahu di luar beritahu. Jadi, saya beritahu yang itu kita boleh beritahu. Saya terlepas beritahu yang beritahu. Dan kenapa beritahu yang beritahu itu sangat penting? Apa yang saya mencari sebagai impossibilitas, bukan impossibilitas. Ada orang yang boleh beritahu, itu yang sudah beritahu. Maaf, itu beritahu. Itu beritahu. Itu beritahu. Terima kasih, terima kasih. Terima kasih. Jadi, saya tak beritahu saya, saya boleh beritahu ini. Saya beritahu ini, saya beritahu yang beritahu. Pada masa itu, kita boleh beritahu yang beritahu. Saya beritahu yang beritahu. Pada masa itu, pilihan yang lain yang dia beritahu, saya beritahu yang beritahu di Tresigoss. Dan badan yang hentikan Hm. Dan itu membantu masalah yang berjumpa Delinya membawa mési Dan itu adalah bila yang terbaik Dan itu adalah bila yang terbaik Saya kes אפisi straightforward, jadi pengkultikan kepada saya. Saya akan mulai Crazy Alliance oranges , kalau vender adalah yang bisa saya baca. Tidak orang lain tanda rashan lagi ter Walesi, mak就是 ini amol Because ita tidak membaca semua orang. idea yang ningúnkan Air Guit Viwa Nursing, gaganiables,arbang semestrian tersebut, saya hanya mencari saya akan buat pula saya. jika pula saya tidak membaca semua, itu ok. Jadi saya ingin mencari kembali ke tempatan, tanci munir, ini kena jalan kita. Saya beritahu dia, saya ada ini semasa terhadap untuk mencari. Saya beritahu dia, dia beritahu dia, "Dah, saya boleh buat ini?" "No, ini tak penting, dari 1.3 billion, beritahu kelihatan, untuk mencari 500 milion net profit, itu yang penting, bagus, saya beritahu dia." Saya beritahu dia, "Beritahu saya untuk memeriksaan, boleh saya pergi dan buat ini?" "Although ini tak penting, maksudnya, boleh kita buat ini? Tolong pergi dan buat ini, maksudnya saya beritahu tanci munir, jika kamu beritahu, itu tak penting untuk mencari. Tapi kamu tak beritahu saya, itu lebih penting untuk pergi dan buat ini, bukan? Sehingga kamu beritahu, itu tak penting, maksudnya, itu tak penting. Jadi, itu kena jalan, itu kena jalan, untuk mencari kelihatan, dari kelihatan, kamu perlu mempunyai kena jalan, dengan kena jalan, dan kelihatan, untuk mempunyai orang yang tahu, itu beritahu, beritahu, untuk mencari kelihatan, itu tak penting, kamu tak patut mempunyai kelihatan. Itu yang saya menggunakan kelihatan, jadi saya ingin mempunyai kena jalan, saya ingin mempunyai kena jalan, terbaik, dalam mencari kelihatan, ini penting untuk mencari kelihatan, itu penting. Jadi saya bawa kembali, terakhir yang kita mencari, kamu akan beritahu, -Saya beritahu kelihatan, maksudnya, -Taf, sangat beritahu. Saya ingin beritahu, itu penting, maksudnya, itu penting, maksudnya, "Ancharchy" ber with time. di k Потik. gitpen. VERY AS bodok bayaran yang bagum paramah dikuas ia яв terkasi2 ' первhof sains air ' " cirkan t faruh sostainya " kandungan ber criticizing " darung Road " darung tan " Guy datang bahagia " " consequently dan memang maaf. dia sebelum. and I like to always talk about this thing when we have a conversation about entrepreneurship and making big changes. I always talk to people about the difference, understanding the difference between naiviti versus hyperoptivism. Optimism. Which I think that as an entrepreneur or someone who wants to move the needle, you need to be optimist. You need to be very optimist. Very. But you cannot be naive. Yeah. Right? Absolutely. Well, what are the thoughts about this? The difference between being naive or being optimist? Yeah. I have a very simple way to test it. And that is this. Every single idea that you think you put up a very big target, don't go for yourself trying to look for the answers for it. Let your team figure it out. That to me is the key and we call it lab. So my job as a CEO is to set the impossible target. And what else do I do? I'll tell them, ladies and gentlemen, I don't have the answers to this. But I believe you have the answers. I'm going to ask each one of you to go into the laboratory for six weeks to find the answers. And they will tell me, boss, it cannot be done. No, no, no, no, it will be able, you will know the answers. You know why? I'm going to give you a new set of lenses to look at that problem. And what is that lens? Is this? We will segment our profit and loss statement to the lowest common denominator. And then I will ask them to find the answers on the basis of that P&L. To be clear, example, I believe with the only align in the world that have produced profit and loss statement for every single flight. It meant that in a year, we have 110,000 flights. We have 110,000 profit and loss statement. This is totally crazy. I can imagine the finance deal, they will tell you, hey, and then the beauty is that when we run labs, people look at it, they immediately know the solutions. What was the solutions? We're losing money flying to London from Heathrow, from Coalumpo. Every day, for the whole year, the same two flights was making money. Every day, the same two flights was losing money. What's the solution? They found a grid of the two that lost money. The very next day, we were profitable. The very next day, we didn't change the fare, we didn't change the number, we didn't change the uniform. Nothing else has changed. And we were losing money flying to the kangaroo roots, to idyllade, to Perth. And what was the problem? Because the schedule was done in a manner that all the flights coming out from Europe couldn't connect. The higher year, the lady was in charge of scheduling thought that the higher year came from, flights come from Middle East. So she prioritized those flights. All that lab found was, change the schedule. If you change the schedule, the flights from Europe can connect. And then the kangaroo roots, many of them, were profitable. And we were printing money flying to Taiwan, to Hong Kong and to Japan, but not enough flights. We go rid of our flights to Cairo. We go rid of our flights to Manchester, never the planes there, print money. But we would never have found the answers to all this if we did not segment them by the individual P&L. And we did exactly the same thing. When I left London, I came down to become that managing director of Shell Middle Distillets, lost money for 10 straight years. Everybody was defeated. And they told me it was this company cannot be fixed. In six months, we made a profit, 10 million. The second year, we made 296 million net profit. The third year, we made 520 million net profit of the tax. We paid all our debts. And where do we find the answers? We had the labs. But we segmented our P&L by product. Every product had a P&L. Every customer, because we were operating on B2B, every customer that we saw our caros into, our diesel, everything, our waxes, we had profitability by a customer. Then we realized that this customer we should drop, because we're losing money serving that customer. Then we found new customers that made money. And we broke our customers into four categories. The star customers, the laggard customers, the blue mark customers, and the mature customers. And we have different solutions for every single one of them. And in six months, we turned around the company. And we made record profit every single year. You asked me the question, did I find the answers? No, because the answers didn't come from me. Who gave the answers? The team found the answers. How come the same people that were there, that made all the losses for 10 years, can find the answers, because I gave them the new set of lenses. It's called a segmented profit and loss statement. So I'm going to say something, rather,
profound here. This according to Idis Jalalah, the cure for the disease is to be found in the disease through the lens for the segmented PNL. We were doing a consulting work for a furniture company in the UK, lost money here. So we told them, how many SKUs do you have? 5,300 every SKU we produce a PNL. They were shocked to discover the one SKU item that they sell in the furniture stock. The more losses was selling dust bins because the cost of warehousing the dust bins in central London is exhibitant. They could never make money. So you should not sell dust bins because the cost is far greater than the revenue earn in doing it. So we had to get down to the level of detail. We can do this. We had another company that we were consulting with in New Zealand. It's an engineering company. We looked at what they were doing. They were not making so much money. They were doing something like three million New Zealand dollars a year, net profit. And we got them in the lab together with us. We put the segmented PNL by all the products. Every time they're going to acclion, they do all the work. They feel break out the things and they were doing engineering maintenance for the clients. They were making money from fabrication to fixing everything that they're doing. But they'll start losing money in the commissioning of the facilities for the client. So we told them, "Hey, actually you're making money all the way until the stage three, a stage four, you start losing money. Why don't you do a like going to Italian restaurant? You have a manoeu la. If you want, many want this as a price tag. Many want to this as a price tag. Many want to take this as a price tag. If you want more engineers to help you do the commissioning so that it's flawless start up, you pay more money. But they could not do that before if they didn't have the segmented PNL because they didn't know the cost. But when we broke it down to this way, it was very obvious they could turn a company that company from three million profit a year to 75 million net profit. We did a consulting work for a university in Malaysia as I've not mentioned. At that time they were doing 40 million net profit a year. After we did the segmented PNL, we ran the labs. We had a program, we have PNL for every program. So there's PNL for bachelor engineering, also business admin. There's a PNL for everything. Then we know what to do with each of them. So I think in last year that same company is not somewhere by the way, to be clear. It moved from 40 million net profit to 180 million. That's fantastic. So you could see that I returned back to you earlier question. How do I deal with the conundrum of you setting the impossible target and worrying about are you sure you can find the answers? I have no difficulty with it because I know I'm not the one who's going to find the answers. I'm just the cheerleader to encourage people to find the answers. But I'm totally convinced if they break it down by PNL at that detail level, they will find it because we're giving the newest settle lenses. I think what you say is very true. There was someone who actually once told me, in fact, my mentor is someone who actually told me that at the end of the job of the leader is to help others achieve better results. That's the reason for existence. In fact, the true face, if you look at bi-history, Henry Ford, the engine came out not because he was an engineer. He just insists that it can happen. And they just keep arguing him that it's not going to happen and they end up producing it. I think that there are many examples like that. And that comes down to the next part of this whole thing, which is the team hiring. We can only do that if we have the best team. How do you ensure that you have the best people in your team? I am very fortunate. You could call it fortunate in many sense. It was a regret for me that my first 10 years of my career actually I was in HR. You wouldn't believe that. But I was doing HR work. By accident, I only went to HR because I wanted the ticket. So I applied to get the ticket only for the interview because the interview was in my hometown. And if I were to stop me there just for a while, right? And here's where it also kind of changes my whole perspective for a couple of things. People who have achieved your level of success leading the company and so on. It is very, very, very rare to find someone from HR background. Also the time that I'm doing. They're fine. And I think you're probably the only one that I know. Aside from Jack Welch, who I want to talk a lot about it. You're probably the only one that I know who I chicken from HR background. So I really believe in harnessing the talent of the people. But it begins with you hiring the right people to begin with. But even so, Peter, every job that I went to, I turn up as a single person in that company like Shell MDS, I was the only person from an outsider. I turned up into that company. I didn't hire any more new people. We had to figure out how to use the existing people to turn it around. I was the only non-existent person. I didn't even have an assistant at that time. When I went to Malaysia, I learned about one assistant. His name is John Toe. Everybody else is the same people that were there for amtiniers. So we created a new P&L segmented P&L and ran the labs, the same people. So that's one. The only time, Peter, that I had the opportunity to create a dream team when I was in Pamandu. Because we set up Pamandu from ground zero. There was no such department and there was no such people. I said, this is wonderful. That I can hire people that I can put there. This is, it was just a great opportunity. And because I work in HR, I kind of knew what I was looking for. And in Shell, we used to call it, hey, H-A-I-R. Look for people that have the ability to see the overview like a helicopter can rise up. And the helicopter can come down and look at details. So people who have the ability to take the overview and take the detail at the same time. There are many people who can look at detail, cannot see overview, cannot see big picture. There are a lot of people who can see big picture, cannot go into detail. So that's a very important helicopter quality. The second quality is analysis. The ability to break down complex problems into the minute parts and then find solutions to it because they can break it down and identify the root causes, the problem statement. The I is the ability to imagine solution. So if you cannot imagine, that means you cannot be creative. So the sense of imagination is so important. People are prepared to look outside the box for solution. But if people are stuck, we're just trying to do that all the time without the last bit called reality. Sense of reality. People are high up in the clouds, really thinking about very novel ideas, but are totally unrelated to realities. You don't want to stop people. So when I look at people, I look at those people with those characteristics. Whether there's engineer, whether there's lawyer, but you look at those four things. In chances are you wouldn't get it wrong. You will find the right people if you stick looking for them based on those four attributes. And that's how I've been consistently looking at people in my organization. So even when people leave, we get higher people into it, we're looking for those kinds of threats. Can you give me some quick tips? If someone look at hiring people, let's say in the startup and so on, because we do not have a complete full suite of tools like my shell has developed. How do you quickly, over to interview, can qualify a person and say, "Hey, this guy got the right hair." My case is very simple. Never rely on just interview, because you cannot find a sense of man or a hair. You must create a case study. The only way you can know whether they have the hair quality is to give them a case study, must really write a case study. And that case study will be, there's no way you give that, you give the applicants one hour to read a case study. You know for sure deliberately, there's no way that the person can read all of the material in one hour. This is when you are assessing whether the guy's got helicopter quality. He knows what is important fact, what is noise, because there's no way that the person can finish reading the case. It's deliberate. So you see that person, and then the questions you ask them, after they finish the case studies, you ask them to write their proposal. There are some calculations there as well. What are the calculations? Produce a slide deck. You're given one hour to do the calculations and to produce a slide deck and present it. Immediately you know people are bullshitting from the guys who know their stuff. They're people are very good in interviews, but if you know they cannot analyze you know for sure already. The guy cannot see it or review cannot see the details. So your questions is about the case study. You ask questions that or review questions. You ask detailed questions. You ask analytical questions. You ask for creative questions. You ask for questions of reality.
berhenti ke dalam kes, itu jika kamu mempunyai orang lain, kamu tahu yang bagus dan tidak bagus. Orangkong kamu masih perlu lakukan interview. Dan normalmente, dengan interviewer, orang yang menerima, saya tak pernah mempunyai untuk referensi. Kenapa? Karena referensi saya selalu berguna. Saya tak perlu melakukan itu. The only thing I want to ask if I can get it from the previous employer is that if you come and work for me and you want to apply, I will try and ask the employer, "What do you want?" "You're annual merit in krimen." "Did you belong to the 5% per year, top 5% or did you belong to the bottom 70%, if you consistently in the 5%, I know you're an achiever." That is the best information you can get about. But if you read all the testimonials, they're all glowing and positive. But if you ask the question, what is the merit in krimen for that person every single year? And that's the truth. You should get that if you can get them, the HR person, that's the most important information you get about the achievement motivation of the person. And the other things, look at their grades. Not only the grades, look at the kind of things they're doing in Hobish in school. If the guy is a perfect in school, you know it's got some leadership. And if the guy is a captain of a football team, you know they have leadership to look at their interests as well. Those are the things you do. Those are the three things that I do. I ask for merit in krimen and promotional rates that the person have had in the company previously. And look at their assessment at the same time then you look at the Hobish, the achievement in grades in school. You won't go too far wrong. Yeah, there was someone who actually taught me this thing about asking about reference, right? He will always ask this question back, which is, if this person is applying a job back at you, these are the results. Would you get? Would you take him back? And pay this amount. And I noticed that that is actually very good. Probably the biggest health test sign. And sometimes I do notice that people say, nope, I don't think that's good. But again, he's just one third of all the information. And hair does give this great idea about whether this person has a capacity or capability to rise up the rank, right? Because the person doesn't have hair. The person likely may not have a very good potential to achieve any form of a high leadership position. Yeah. Now, talking about that, when we talk about money, right? Leading a company, money, calling, and so on, which we actually talk about it in the previous podcasts that we did. You say that no one should be working for a company that they're not passionate about. And here's where things get a little bit tricky today, right? There was a point of time where a lot of people could talk about you should only be doing what you're passionate about. And but the truth is that you can only get passionate in one thing if you spend time on it. Yeah, cool. And you become good at it, then it turns into passion. I think to a certain extent, you did refer that you always wanted to be a lawyer. And that started with this. You said that what would life be if I became a lawyer? But as far as we are concerned, you have dedicated your whole life to go through a whole corporate challenge, your whole corporate journey to challenge yourselves to see what you can build. And that clearly lies where your passion is. So how does someone discover their calling or their passion? Yeah. In truth, I didn't know I had a passion for doing that. It came almost by accident. You call it divine intervention. So I believe I always pray to God. My prayer is always, please open doors and close doors. Sometimes you don't know what you really want. See, as God opened doors, the God, you believe that God wants you to go through, it's good for you. And close the doors, it's not good for you. And without any clear clarity on what is it, you want? I think you have many dreams. But sometimes the dreams don't come the way they do. And so I discovered it along the way. I would did this job. I was working in HR in Miri, then the big boss, the chairman of Shell Malaysia. He said, it is I want you to leave HR and join the team for the re-engineering of Shell Malaysia. Wow. I had no idea I was going to go out and do something totally different. I jumped into the team. And I was in the team of people. They were five of us chosen by the chairman of Shell Malaysia to work in the core team at the time. And I was relatively young man. That was my first foray outside. Right at the top, reporting to the chairman of Shell Malaysia to do this huge business re-engineering was the term used for Shell Malaysia at that time in the 90s. It opened my eyes to what is possible, what can be done. At the finish doing that, I then said, wow. I want to do something very different. And I kind of think that why don't I now leave this to retail sales to look after Petrol Station. So I told them I wanted to go and do it. People thought I was crazy. You know what are you trying to do here? I went to go and do that from here. I went to retail sales. I was in charge of that. My first job here was to look after all the petrol station in Central Region. That means Kling Valley, including Malekah and Sermon. And that I did for one and a half years. I must have done relatively good job. They promoted me to make up the National Sales Manager. So I became National Sales Manager to hold the Malaysia for the sales side of it. It was a wonderful thing because I suddenly realized that I could do this. I could do this. And I felt that I was really good at doing this. And then there was a time they said, oh, we want you to go back to HR, a big job in London. Big promotion in London because you have experience in the line. They said, you want to promote you, become an expatriate in London. I turned it down. I don't do that. I really like what I'm doing here. I'm going to do this. And so they gave me three options. Go to become the managing director of Shell in Peru. And go and do a job in Nigeria. And go and do a job in Shell in Sri Lanka. And so my wife said, if you go to Nigeria, you go alone. But I said no to Peru because if I go to Peru, I have to learn Spanish. And I felt that they told me you could do it, but you have to learn Spanish. I didn't think that I could become a managing director for a company when I struggled with the language. So I turned it down. The only left option was Sri Lanka. So we went out to Sri Lanka. And I was the managing director. I was 41 years old when I was doing the first time I was a managing director at the 41. It was my baptism of fire. And I realized that everything that was possibly wrong was wrong in that company. And it was a government company for 22 years and lost money for 22 years. Shared and bought it and lost money for another five years. I turned up the company and lost money for 27 years. And I turned up the, I mean, you could say anything that was wrong was wrong in that company. First of all, the price was set by the government for our selling LPG. It was lower than product costs. We import the LPG. We really lost money at the port of Colombo. What business is this? So heaven even taken the thing through our Bowser through the filling plant. We haven't put money into it. We haven't marketed and sell it. So the more we sold, the more we lost. So of course, you cannot make money. So I just knew at that time, I mean, that bombs planted it. I would they poor, they took my transport manager hostage. We have strikes almost every month. It was very, very difficult. It was the most difficult job that my wife had had panic attack almost for a whole year. And so it was very difficult. That was when I went into the job. And then I realized that we turn around the company. I will not go into too much detail. But we turn around. We made record profits. It was the time I really realized every step along the way. I was went through a period where I was. I was just vortexed into this thing called turn around. After that, I got a call from London. They said, you're very good at doing this. We wanted to leave Sri Lanka. You become the vice president for business development consultancy. We have a unit that is the McKinsey equivalent in house consultancy for shell downstream. All of shell downstream, based in London. I was the first agent to do the job. Most of those guys, many of the guys were older than me. And I turned up to become the boss. And we were the SWAT team to go and do it. And so again, it's a global scale. I started in reengineering. Then I went to Sri Lanka. Then I went to the job in shell. Also doing it, but many, many countries. It was at the time that I had lots of time to reflect Peter. I knew what work in one country, what work in another country. And there was a pattern. And there was a pattern to what work and what don't work. And how I came up with my own proprietary tool called transformational leadership on six secrets. I copyrighted it because it's not shell. It's mine. And I also had the big, the eight step, big fast results. I copyrighted it because of my own experience and what I observed. They watched it observe in companies in the hundred operating countries that we were having. There was a pattern that observed. Very similar pattern. That's how I came up with my own proprietary tool called the big fast result methodology in the six secrets. And that became the useful tool for us to say.
I won't consult and see. If you ask me today, it is in the year 1998, was I, did I have the foresight to become who I am today, in turn around, did I have a plan? No. I was drifting if you could call it the spiritual calling, the divine intervention, put the pathways for me to go down the path. It's called little to do with me actually. Yeah. So that's how it went. The only thing I knew then was in whatever job I was there, I just wanted to put the best version of myself in it. That was all there was to it. So I came to a conclusion that it's almost a waste of time to ask yourself what is my passion, what is my calling and so on. In fact, I think the best way to actually discover it is just to go along with the flow and do your best at every turn. Right. Now there is the other part of it that also should remain is to remain like a child, to be that fearless child who would just say, I just want to explore stuff. And I'm not afraid of failing, I just want to explore. And recently I went camping and I was just having a reflection. I went to Kuala Kupubaru. I had some reflection and I talked about it a few of us, 30 or 40 oh man, all of our own business and so on. We jump into a river play, take the tube, you know, I will wipe away from our wife and kids. And we're just playing my voice. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I just thought to myself that I think one of the biggest or the most important thing in life is to remain that rebelliousness and that childlike thing within us, right. To just keep exploring and not being afraid. Yeah. Now having said that is also part of it is being responsible as well because to a certain extent, I would argue that you shouldn't be doing that unless you can even put food on the table. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. Like what you say, there was that safety net that we stay at a house in Barrio. And that's the baseline, right. A house in Barrio, which means kind of for the living KEL, move back. Right. So I think when you do both of that, to have that adventurous spirit within us and say that I don't mind stepping into an unknown and even if I risk failure. And number two is just to show up and do your best at every single one of it. When do you think you like it or not? And eventually you just discover what you're good at. And that eventually becomes that passion of yours and that signature of yours and what you're known at. And that becomes a fulfilling life. Because if I were to think about it, I'll just look at your life. Probably if I were to put myself in your position, which I love to do that by putting myself in other people's position, you may wonder if you should have been a lawyer. But if I were to ask you to give up this and to be a lawyer, would you have choose to be a lawyer then? Definitely yes. At that point. But today, when you look back, no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't trade it now. Yeah. I know it would have been different. I wouldn't need, I wouldn't need for certain whether it's better or worse. It certainly would have been different. But I walked down this path. I'm quite happy with where I went mentally. So I said, okay, like let's not do it there. There was a time I was tempted to go and do it. It's a time when I was in Holland. And remember I was in Holland. And I really didn't like for a while. And my supervisor then and we didn't click. And so I started looking at the possibility of doing distance learning and do law and distance learning. Then I said, if I did this, it's just going to divert my attention from the work. And if I divert my attention from the work, I will get even worse in my relationship with my boss. So that's cop out. So I better stick down there, stick to the knitting and do the best I can in the job rather than leave. And so that was what I did. So I never did it. I looked at the possibility, but I never did. I was nearly tempted. I think there's a good segue to to go into this part of it. When it comes to career and life, I've also came to understand this thing. Even if you think you're good at something or you like something, there's always parts of that that you don't like. Yeah, of course, of course. But I mean, you cannot find a job that have all the things. Right. Yeah. Life is not just a bit of process. It's come the good, the bad and ugly for every job for every job. Yeah. The only thing you know is that the good part of the job, you must be passionate about. Because every job has a good, the bad and ugly. But my point is this, when you look and stay in a job, look for a job where the good part of the job is where you're passionate about it. And how do you find that discipline to do your best, not just in the parts that you like. Yeah. Yeah. But in the old days, I didn't know a lot of people, but because I have long years experience, I've 42 years of a life experience, I have developed this eight step process. And if I follow the eight step, every single one of them, that for sure, for me, it shows that I'm doing my best. Let me just repeat mentioned in very briefly. In any organization, this first step is to make sure that the whole leadership team, including me in the whole management team, agree the measure of true North and the six to seven priorities. In one day, step two, having now agreed the six to seven priorities, I then assemble a team of people in a lab to find the answers for the six to seven priorities using the segmented P and L. The six weeks to find the answers step number three. When they have done it, they found the answers. We run an open day. All the guys in the lab must exhibit in a booth. Their recommendations to the entire organization. So everybody in the organization will challenge them and give them input. This is a presentation ideas whether they apply in the sky, whether they're real grounded, whether they're practical realities. That's step three. Step four is that when we write down in a document called a roadmap or the blueprint, this is the blueprint, this roadmap that all of us in the organization will abide by almost like our Bible or the Quran. Why do we publish it? Because then we become totally pregnant. Everybody in organization, when you're pregnant as a woman, the only one consequence you must deliver. So everybody in since we are already pregnant, when we move to step five, KPI targets must be given to everybody in the organization, stemming from that document in the organization. You have an alignment of the targets from the top into the individual target setting for the whole of the organization. Step six, implementation, implementation, implementation. Day in and day out, three things. Everybody whose name is written down to do it must do it relentlessly. The first day, M is monitored continuously. Every week you must have a dashboard that knows by looking at the dashboard who's done it for the week, ways and done it. For those that haven't done, you're going to S solving problem recursively. This is what earlier in the earlier episode, we referred to failure. This is where we have failures every week. We confront failures in the organization every week. Things that have not been done is therefore it's a failure on the dashboard appears red. We don't call it failure in my book. We call it problem. Problem is to be solved. Failure is an admission. When you admit a failure, people think that it is associated with the individual and they become defensive. We call it problem to be solved. The reason why we call it problem to be solved is that there's an escalation that I have described before. You cannot pinpoint at just an individual below because if they can't fix it, the problem will escalate to you at some point. Then we move to the second seven step. It's called external validation. At the end of each year, whatever results that are crude must be externally validated so that you don't paint a wrong picture at the end of each week about how good you are. You paint everything to be green when you be discovered at the end of the year. So at the end of each year, because they know that external validation, weekly people cannot cheat you because they know they'll be found out if they give you the wrong measurement. And finally, the step is envelope-presile. Enola-presile, not just for the individual, but not just for the department as well as the organization and the whole of the organization. So if you follow this step process, I'm totally convinced in my view this method, you will get the best out of yourself and the organization to achieve the game that's impossible. That's why I call this antibiotics. You must take all of it rather than cherry-pick. That's true. I think about it, I tried to apply that in my personal life as well as I thought through. The first step is really if you have a family, it's to actually discuss your wife to come out with the true love. And what are the six or seven measures that is important. Which in my case, it would have been one thing right now, we actually ran the house. We don't buy a house because one of the things that we have a priority on is the extra money that we have, we use it as a save-up so that we can take care of our kids' education because I'm already running an entrepreneurship career. There's a very high chance of failure. So these are some of the things that we set aside and say, okay, these are our priorities. Right, right, right. Then the next. saya menghentikan ke dalam perasaan di kataan. Saya rasa di kataan berjaya. Itu berjaya kerana jauh-jauh atau tidak. Yang lain di dalam kesalahan kita dapatkan kelihatan dan tidak. Sehingga itu masih berhasil lebih dari mana. Sejak tahun ini saya mintakan berhomong untuk menerima kataan saya. Itu berjaya berhomong untuk saya berhomong. Saya hanya berhomong, tapi sejak tahun ini saya mintakan berhomong. Saya akan membuatkanan saya. Saya mintakan berhomong untuk menerima kataan saya. Tapi saya ada sesuatu yang saya mintakan. Saya rasa saya sekarang, saya juga perlu mempunyai keputusan untuk berhomong. Saya juga akan mempunyai keputusan saya. Saya juga akan membuatkanan saya. Saya masih berhomong untuk menerima kataan saya. Apa yang saya cuba untuk menerima kataan saya? Saya tidak terbuka ini. Saya hanya berhomong, kalau saya berhomong, saya akan berhomong. Tapi saya juga boleh berhomong untuk menerima kataan saya. Saya hanya berhomong untuk menerima kataan saya. Saya rasa, satu perkara yang terjadi di perjalanan yang terlalu, kita beritahu perjalanan yang semua orang ada. Perjalanan, kataan saya, seperti saya, 90-30 halam, kataan saya, untuk kamu, perjalanan yang saya dahulu, dan saya berhomong, perjalanan yang terlalu, perjalanan yang semua orang ada. Dan kemudian, saya sekarang, 60-70 tahun, dan saya tidak berhomong, saya tidak berhomong, saya berhomong untuk semua orang. Saya berhomong dan menerima kataan saya. Saya tidak berhomong, saya berhomong dan menerima kataan saya. Apa yang kita boleh buat jauh untuk dua pembakaran kejadian saya? Itu ada yang terjadi dengan pembakaran kejadian saya, yang saya terlalu di dalam pertama pembakaran saya. Saya terlalu melihat perkara yang saya terlalu melihat, dan sebab kita masih ada pembakaran kejadian saya. Jadi kita sangat terlihatkan sebuah tahun untuk menghubungan jauh. Terlalu melihat perkara yang saya terlalu melihat, saya berhomong dan menerima kataan saya. Terlalu melihat perkara yang saya terlalu melihat, ada satu orang di kawal, dia berhomong dengan orang yang berhomong, saya suka menghubungan itu orang yang saya terlalu melihat. Saya berhomong untuk menerima kataan, dan kemudian mempunyai kataan yang kita berhomong. Dan itu orang yang berhomong, saya berhomong. Saya berhomong, saya tahu ijris. Jadi, saya terlalu melihat perkara yang saya terlalu melihat, yang kedai saya dan berhomong ini, ini adalah pilih penuh, dan sebab mereka berhomong untuk menerima kataan, untuk mempunyai kataan yang mereka berhomong, untuk mempunyai kataan, kataan, kataan, kataan, kataan, kataan, kataan, kataan, kataan, dan saya berhomong dengan orang yang berhomong, ini bagus, jadi saya berhomong, saya berhomong, saya berhomong, saya berhomong, saya berhomong dengan orang yang berhomong, dan dia berhomong dengan orang yang berhomong, itu pertama kali kita pergi, kita pergi ke dalam kataan yang tidak berhomong, tapi kita juga berhomong untuk bersama kataan, kita berhomong dengan orang yang berhomong, dan orang yang berhomong, dan selepas itu, mereka berhomong, kita berhomong dengan orang yang berhomong, dan sebab itu, satu tahun dari sekarang, ada 400 orang menerima kataan, tapi ini kali ini untuk mempunyai kataan, dengan berapa di mana dengan menerima kataan, dan menerima kataan, menerima kataan, dan sangat mudah, kataan, boleh kamu buat ini bersama kataan? Jadi, berhomong di Manila, ada orang dari Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapura, itu yang sangat penting, dan kita berhomong dengan kita, ini adalah perkara kita tak pernah berhomong, kenapa kita sekarang bersama kataan yang berhomong dengan S.I.B. KEL, atau kita berhomong dengan S.I.B. di masyarakat, di masyarakat, di masyarakat, di masyarakat, di masyarakat, dan jadi, kita berhomong dengan S.I.B. Tapi sebelum kita membuatnya, kita membuatkan pertisiap di mana yang mereka menghomong. Jadi, terakhir, dua orang yang membuat pertisiap di S.I.B. menghomong dengan S.I.B. menghomong, menghomong, dan kita membuatkan kataan yang berhomong, ini adalah perkara yang terakhir, yang kita membuatkan kataan yang berhomong, dan jadi, kita sudah untuk ini, jadi ini adalah perkara yang sangat berlaku di dalam hidup saya. Ada sesuatu yang membuat, ada sesuatu yang membuat, ini semua, tapi apa yang saya membuat, saya membuat, kita terakhirkan, terakhirkan, apa yang kita buat, dan apa yang kita membuat, kita membuat, ada orang lain yang membuat, yang menerima, untuk membuat, mereka membuat, Alami, hidup dimulas tanpa, selama kerana menalas keimpun fel vaigas stressful quando kan saya liat kecil puis bahawa kita bagus untuk mereka pandangan. Itu adalah yang kami buat hari, sû tu dan saya Kathy Basingα. Mantap sekali ya itu sekali faire daun. Bergat pasal. Terus membantu di wilom Nyex io Mobile, dan juga an Là therapist. Saya terpatut ianya sama oken� CBH sejam saya. "Eadocannya memang wang" "Alf someday, saya melihat yang manilahfully dan berg呢," "Cinco-cian besar faut Ella selamat" "Iya sel指ap apart terkati masa untuk menj liqui yang memang mengg Тоc agak saya keadaan kalau cahaya dulu. Sekarang, saya lari makan desa sentiasi ket怎麼 lagi " Cheng posting assumedown participants resting ditan " At theاس keibatan saj Där kita berikan berguna di dalam kembali kita, di percayaan, percayaan, percayaan, percayaan, percayaan, jadi ia sangat simple idea, jadi, lagi, saya bilang, "Dependnya, ini kan melihat keadaan tersebut pada masa dan masa untuk hidup. Teruk, saya terlalu berat dengan ini, dan untuk membantu ke end- ofat, saya mencoba akan baik untuk memberi anda yang ini. Apa yang berapa anda mempunyai sukses? Dan lebih penting, berapa banyak money? Awak rasa ia akan berbicara untuk anda berikan, okay? Saya rasa ia akan berikan di sesuatu, bukan? Saya tak akan berikan berapa yang berikan, tapi di sesuatu yang berikan, di mana anda boleh berikan dengan ini, keadaan tersebut. Saya rasa ia akan berikan keadaan tersebut pada masa yang lain, keangsobon beed.? Buang penting. dansi yang dib skinsalah hal. forcing kejian lain. Jadi juga som indication saya mungkin punya kerana kaya saya ketawa. dan kami tadi syabat. Jadi kita teruk selama yang terdapat alimkan sebulan. Apabila mereka先ai untuk makan mak yg pers格aret, dalam mangkatas, tempor dan punch那個 manisos. Dan apabila mereka pihak dan sirat itu, ber.� Terus terbaik itu, perkara yang bersaaranya sed washed. Berpisannya kita tak terselah menginsulan jalan mereka. Berpisannya, apa yang anda ada, mengambil mereka. Semua yang saya ada ke arahan, ke arahan, ke arahan, dan semua ini. Ini adalah mesej, ini adalah mesej, ini adalah mesej. Semua yang menambil mereka di pejabat. Kemudian anda menambilkan ke arahan yang terdapat. adalah satu-satunya. Apa yang saya ingin memasakkan. jika anda ada masyidis ke ke arahan, tapi saya tak sangat memasak. Mereka memasakkan, satu adalah dari memasakkan. Semua yang saya ingin memasakkan, adalah hanya satu simple kaha. Tapi semua saya ingin memasakkan, tapi saya ada di Bang Glouhau. Anda memasakkan mereka. Semua yang ingin memasakkan, adalah tidak memasakkan ke arahan. Apa yang saya ingin memasakkan, anda mungkin minta, tapi saya ingin memasakkan, untuk menghantar saya semua perkara. Saya ingin tahu kenapa itu penting. Kerana sekarang anda boleh menghantar ke arahan. Semua yang anda ingin memasakkan, apa yang anda ingin ini. Tapi apa yang anda ingin memasak. Wow, ini adalah apa yang saya ingin memasakkan. Saya ingin memasakkan ke arahan. Kenapa itu penting? Semua yang ingin memasakkan. Kami ingin memasakkan ke arahan, ke arahan, ke arahan, ke arahan, ke arahan, ke arahan, lebih banyak yang anda ingin. Dan therefore, anda tidak memasakkan ke arahan. Ada banyak orang yang berlaku, orang yang ingin memasakkan, saya akan hanya memasakkan jika saya ada Bang Glouhau. Jika anda ada Bang Glouhau, anda akan ingin memasakkan sesuatu yang lain. Jadi, ini perkara yang berlaku adalah satu penting yang penting, dan saya memasakkan orang yang penting, sepatutnya, saya minta saya sangat berlaku di jika saya di kejapkannya. Selepas masa saya minta saya, saya tidak mahu memasakkan ada penting. Kenapa saya minta saya? Saya mahu memasakkan ke arahan, saya memasakkan ke arahan, jadi ia terbuka untuk saya memasakkan. Kenapa saya memasakkan masa saya? Saya memasakkan ke arahan, saya memasakkan ada penting yang penting. Kenapa saya memasakkan ada penting yang penting? Kami memasakkan ke arahan, sepatutnya, saya memasakkan ke arahan, saya memasakkan ke arahan,
bencek kem Load Chat. Saya rasa sepah tripet, kemudian itu, untuk menjadi ponyik tidak optimized. Di masa that month, buscando perdakan, saat επι carat hubungan pengemerbicara. Waktu pada masa tanpa 40 tahun, hacer video-too god it UNIe memuajar l melody ke pengemerbicara membuat busy dalam Dan kemudian, itu ter Aku Awak mengalami dia. Aku 'kan 'kan pegangan dunia, untuk pergi ke kira motivo stressed. Aku bowir tentang hal ini, aku kisuh untuk stuffed gemu-hal di located 30 mulit. Itu yang terbaik. Itu yang terbaik. Ketika kamu berkata, 'Ketika kamu berkata, 'Ketika kamu berkata, 'Ketika kamu berkata, 'Ketika kamu berkata, 'Ketika kamu berkata, [MENGENI]
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The speaker faced a critical decision during the pandemic to either let his company fail, close it, or restructure it, choosing restructuring with significant personal and managerial pay cuts.
His biggest regret is not becoming a lawyer, a childhood ambition reinforced by a school exercise to pin his goal to his bed in boarding school.
He rejected high-paying corporate roles to pursue entrepreneurial ventures, such as starting a consultancy with former government colleagues, despite financial risks and initial uncertainty.
The startup, formed with 86 volunteers, began with only two months of funding but secured its first client quickly through connections made while lecturing at Harvard.
Transitioning from leading large corporations to a startup required humility, learning from others, and personal sacrifice, including significant pay cuts and family concerns.
Summary:
The speaker, a seasoned corporate leader, recounts pivotal moments in his career, including restructuring a large company during the pandemic by implementing drastic pay cuts. He reflects on his unfulfilled ambition to become a lawyer, which remains a lingering regret. Choosing passion over financial security, he declined lucrative corporate offers to launch a startup consultancy with former government colleagues, despite having only two months of operating funds.
The venture, born from a "project freedom" idea to escape bureaucratic constraints, quickly gained its first client through Harvard networking connections. This transition from executive roles to entrepreneurship involved significant personal and financial adjustments, requiring humility to learn from others and navigate family concerns about his unconventional career path. His experience underscores the value of pursuing meaningful work over traditional success metrics.
FAQs
The company faced three stark options: letting it fall down, closing it during the pandemic, or restructuring it. They chose to restructure with significant pay cuts across all levels to preserve manpower.
He always wanted to become a lawyer but never pursued it. He views it as a role he should have taken, though he is uncertain if it would have been for better or worse.
He wanted to challenge himself with something completely different from his corporate experience, like starting a startup. He was passionate about a new corporate adventure that didn't rely on a large organization for support.
Initial funding came from revenue generated by a small team working on a project for the Tanzanian government while still in the public sector. The first client was secured within two weeks through connections made while lecturing at Harvard.
He gave up significant stock awards and options from his previous senior executive role. While he did the calculation, the exact amount is substantial, comparable to top executive compensation, but he prioritized his passion for the corporate adventure.
The transition required humility to learn from others with startup experience, as he was entering an unfamiliar area. He also had to manage family concerns about his declining income and unconventional career path.
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