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I am currently reading a revelation book titled "Back to Basic Management-The Lost Craft of Leadership". A book written by three authors, each of whom has had extensive experience in and with management. They bring with them the notion that people are the "X factor" in a business, not the "bottom line". Business is about people management, not just targets and projections, profit and loss. I would like to quote some excerpts of the introduction and first chapter.

(quote)
What we are concerned with is the phenomenon known as the "MBA mentality." This, in our opinion, is a wonderfully simplistic way of looking at the complexities of modern business. Planning is important; organization is important; goal-directed behavior is important; bottom-line awareness is important. But these are only the beginning, because all the numbers and rules are subject to change when you run up against the great variable-people.


Coupled with the growing dependence on"planners" rather than "doers" is the enormous change resulting from the rapid rush into computerization. Here too the emphasis has been on facts and figures which seem to represent a higher truth because they come out of a complicated and expensive electronic brain. How soon we forget the first law of computerization: Garbage in, garbage out.

Since both computers and the "MBA mentality" are largely the province of the young, they have lead to still another problem-a developing generation gap in business and industry. In times of crisis and recession, the essential weaknesses of process-oriented managers and inexperienced MBAs were illuminated. When sales declined and costs skyrocketed, profits and stock prices went down and down. It was then that the CEOs turned to their pragmatic, experienced, people-oriented managers to solve their problems. It was back-to-basics management in full flower.
(/quote)

(quote)
During the past two decades three ordinary letters have been transformed into a magical spell that, like "open sesame," can open the heaviest doors without effort. An MBA has become the key to the executive suite.

Many people assume that an MBA is a certified expert in management. Yet, even the words behind the magic letters do not imply this. Business administration sounds mundane and is a rather static concept. On the other hand, while management sounds fairly mundane, business has long regarded it as a dynamic concept. An administrator presides over a business; a manager leads it.

A principal theme of this book is that this seemingly semantic difference is of enormous significance to the future of business. We have filled the top echelons of our corporations with administrators who preside over the entities they ought to lead. By an overemphasis on process and techniques, we have lost the craft of leadership.
(/quote)

(quote)
This is not to say, of course, that the holder of an MBA cannot be a manager-leader. Theoretically, the percentage of potential manager-leaders among MBAs should be similar to the percentage among businessmen and women with an equal number of years of business experience. In reality, MBAs as a group probably produce fewer manager-leaders because they have to overcome their initial misconception that a business consists of numbers rather than people
(/quote)

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Paling cepat, lewat mampang masuk ke Rasuna Said, ambil jalur lambat, belok kiri di Jl. Mega Kuningan. Itu langsung tembus putaran Mega Kuningan, tapi jalanannya agak kecil, mesti pelan2..Putari lingkaran 1/2 putaran ke arah ITC. Lihat sebelah kiri ada Gedung Bellagio / The East (ditandai "X"). Ada tulisan "Trattoria" di sisi gedung. Gedungnya persis sebelum XL building. Kalau kelewatan, putar balik lagi di ujung jalan.

Lebih gampang tapi macet, masuk ke Rasuna Said. Masuk jalur lambat, lalu belok kiri di Prof DR Sutomo (arah ITC/semanggi). Paling enak belok di belokan yang diberi tanda panah pertama. Sebelum belokan ada kedutaan negara Timur Tengah (ada poster besar foto pemimpinnya di tembok rumahnya). Setelah belokan, lurus lalu belok kanan akan ketemu putaran Mega Kuningan.

Jalur ketiga, belok pas di depan ITC Kuningan. Lebih gampang, tapi antara belokan tadi sampai IT Kuningan, biasanya cukup padat. Setelah belok, tetap harus muterin putaran Mega Kuningan.

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In running a business or going after a project, once you know the particulars and the players and analyzed the complexity and ramifications, you should start to size up the situation. Sizing up means taking a step back and try to look at the big picture; grasping the correlations of each connections and the effects it will create.

An excellent example is the story of Raphael Tudela, a billionaire Venezuelan oil and shipping businessman that started out as a glass manufacturer. Being a petroleum engineer, however, Tudela wanted to plunge in the oil business. Tudela is a very smart executive that once he understands the facts, know what people want, he is able to give it to them.

An opportunity arose in the mid 1960s when an associate informed him that Argentina wanted to purchase $20million of Butane Gas. Tudela wanted to win the contract. He'll worry about how he could get the Butane later.

Here was a man with no oil experience or connection facing competition with British Petroleum and Shell Oil. After a bit of research, he found an interesting information, that Argentina had an oversupply of beef. Unrelated information to some, but very useful for Tudela. He made an offer to the Argentine government "to buy $20 million beef if they gave him the contract to provide $20 million Butane". Argentina gave him the contract solely based on this offer.

He then went to Spain where shipyards were going bankrupt with massive layoffs at the time due to lack of work. Tudela again used this information and offered the Spain government "I will build a $20 million oil supertanker at your shipyard if they bought his $20 million beef". The Spain government was ecstatic and had their ambassador inform the Argentina government to directly ship the beef to Spain.

Tudela's final stop was Philadelphia at the Sun Oil company. He came to them and said "if you charter my $20 million oil supertanker, which is currently being built in Spain, I will then buy your $20 million Butane Gas". Sun Oil agreed and Raphael Tudela was in the oil and shipping business.

This inspirational story proves that knowledge is power and those that can harness it to their advantage can go a very long way.

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Karto kesengsem berat sama Jumiyati, tetangga baru yang tinggal di rumah 3 lantai. Dan dari gayanya si Jumiyati, kayaknya dia juga suka ama Karto. Tapi sayang Jumiyati sudah punya suami.

Ketika suatu hari lakinya si Jumiyati pergi, kedua sejoli itu langsung nggak melewatkan kesempatan itu. Tapi Karto tak mau bertempur tanpa persiapan dulu.

Sebelum ke rumah Jumiyati dipanggilnya kedua sobatnya, Joko dan Bakri. Mereka disuruh mencari sarung. Nanti sewaktu Karto sedang asyik masyuk dengan Jumiyati di kamar yang terletak di lantai 3, mereka berdua harus siap-siap dengan sarung itu di bawah jendela.

Siapa tahu lakinya Jumiyati mendadak datang, Karto bisa langsung loncat lewat jendela dan mereka tampung pake sarung di bawah.

Beres, Karto langsung masuk rumah Jumiyati dan mereka naik ke kamar di lantai 3.

Eh lagi asik-asiknya bermesraan mendadak bel di pintu depan berbunyi. Jumiyati pun langsung berbenah diri secepat mungkin sementara Karto langsung loncat dari jendela.

Jumiyati turun dan membuka pintu depan. Ternyata bukan suaminya, tapi 2 orang pria yang berdiri dengan sikap canggung.

"Mpok Jumiyati ya", kata salah satu pria itu.

"Iya, ada apa nih?"

"Begini Mpok. Tolong bilangin sama bang Karto, sarungnya belum ketemu......"

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Ke Dokter Kelamin

Ada seorang pasien pria berusia sekitar 30 tahunan yang tampak gelisah mondar-mandir di depan pintu peraktek seorang dokter. Entah karena udah tidak tahan dengan sakitnya atau karena tidak sabar menunggu panggilan, akhirnya sampai juga giliran namanya dipanggil untuk diperiksa.

Dokter : "selamat malam ada yang bisa saya bantu?"
Pasien : "iya dok, begini saya ada masalah dengan anu saya. tapi janji ya dok, dokter jangan ketawa.."
Dokter : "baik... saya janji tidak akan tertawa."
Pasien : "baiklah..." (sambil pelan-pelan dia buka celananya akhirnya terpampanglah anunya)

tiba-tiba si dokter tertawa terpingkal-pingkal tidak bisa menahan tawanya melihat anu si pasien yang hanya sebesar pensil 2b.

Pasien : (cemberut) "dokterkan tadi janji tidak tertawa."
Dokter : "oh maaf.... (dengan susah payah menahan tawanya) baiklah, saya tidak akan tertawa lagi. nah sekarang apa keluhan anda?"
Pasien : "begini dok... milik saya ini sudah tiga hari ini bengkak seperti ini..."

Dokter akhirnya tak kuat menahan tawanya lagi...

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