The Letters A and U
A story about language, family and identity. Performed live at the Unravel storytelling event in Shanghai, Jun 2018.
The was easily one of the most nerve-wracking evenings of my life. But I’m glad that these stories are now preserved somewhere in the ether.
Notes and corrections:
Despite what you may think you hear, there are no rude words in this video. All the same, it’s probably not suitable for work or kids.
The first time I use the word ‘Homogeneous’, I meant to say the opposite word ‘Diverse’. Whoops.
I know, I know, Hungarians aren’t Slavs.
Kabanos is a Polish pork sausage.
#JáTaké is Czech for #MeToo.
風穴先生 (Kazaana-Sensei) actually spoke great English. I used her to represent how the students sounded.
I mistakenly inserted the caption ‘Unraveled’, but the storytelling series is actually called ‘Unravel’. See www.unravelstorytelling.com.
For the YouTube version, see here.
For the Facebook version, see here.
For the Instagram version, see here.
The Magnificent Power of “I Don’t Know”
Where Knowing Everything Means Knowing Nothing
In my early days as a consultant, it was always tempting to come up with an answer to any question a client would ask me. The classic Fake-It-‘Til-You-Make-It Strategy. Or there was the Deflection Strategy, where you can politely dodge a question with phrases such as “I’m not sure I’m the best person to answer that…” or “Here’s what I can tell you…”. I’ve seen plenty of other panicky nonsense too. The Give-An-Answer-To-An-Entirely-Different-Question Strategy works surprisingly well, especially if the client isn’t really listening properly in the first place. And then there’s the Buy-Time-With-A-Long-Winded-Answer-So-That-Everyone-Forgets-The-Original-Question Strategy. Sorry, where were we?
I am grateful to have been surrounded by mentors who demonstrated how to avoid these traps. And these days, I really enjoy saying ‘I don’t know’. When you confess to not knowing the answer to one question, it accentuates the credibility of all your other answers. So while there’s certainly a skill in being able to concoct intelligent answers to every single question, be careful not to bury your bright diamonds of knowledge under a thick layer of coal.
Maybe This Time I Should Shut Up and Listen
You’re a thoughtful, worldly, professional human being, and you have every right to express your opinion on any topic you choose. But there are times when saying “I don’t know” is a matter of deference to others who have more depth of personal knowledge or experience. There’s something powerful about admitting that you still need to learn from others on a particular topic rather than professing to know all the answers yourself.
Personally, I have loved sharing details from the fifteen years I have lived and worked in Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, and Mainland China. But when I’m asked questions such as “What do they think of this in Japan?” or “What do they do about that in China?”, I’m very wary to give an answer unless I’m sure that I can make an accurate generalisation. In this regard, saying ‘I don’t know’ can be a sign of humility, rather than a sign of ignorance. I wish that more news commentators would at least preface their opinions with similar disclaimers. Or indeed more privileged white males when asked their opinion of the #MeToo movement…
Authenticity, Vulnerability and Curiosity
In business as in personal life, we need to be our authentic selves. It’s just too tiring trying to be anyone else. So if you’re in a situation where you don’t know, admitting so can be a great way of breaking down walls and building trust. There’s a time for confidence and assertiveness, and then there’s a time for refreshing honesty.
The world is bewilderingly complex, and we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves if we can’t speak intelligently on the geopolitics of Syria, the effects of climate change, and the workings of Blockchain for a combined ten minutes. But there’s a difference between perpetual curiosity and willful ignorance. We need to be continual learners and embrace each ‘I don’t know’ not as a badge of pride, but as a prelude to discovering more.
For the LinkedIn version, see here.
For the Facebook version, see here.
Should We Stop Using the Word ‘Expat’?
I’m always wary when someone is referred to as an expat. It’s a term still commonly used by Human Resources professionals to refer to employees who have been sent on assignment overseas. But maybe it’s time to stop using this word altogether.
The Ickiness
My biggest complaint is the neo-colonial aspect to the word itself. It has been great to see how employees from every corner of the world have now been expatriated from their home countries. Let’s send more qualified Kenyans to Kuwait; Vietnamese to Venezuela. But to me there’s still a congenital ‘whiteness’ about the word. Why am I an expat, but a builder from Bangladesh is a migrant worker? Aren’t we both just different kinds of economic migrant?
The Detachment
Referring to an international assignee as an expat can create a barrier between themselves and the people around them. The title becomes an excuse for them to disassociate themselves with their office surroundings, and not truly engage with their host environment. It lets them group themselves with other ‘expats’, define themselves by their differentness, and engender an us-versus-them mentality. Before long, when an ‘expat’ has a bad day they might say ‘I hate this country’, rather than say… ‘I’m having a bad day’.
The Ego
The term brings with it a sense of elitism and entitlement. A company should certainly help an international assignee with their lives, be it getting through the pain of relocation, helping with schooling costs, or advising on tax issues. But referring to the assignee as an expat adds an extra layer of status, which once given can be hard to retract. The next generation of internationally-mobile employees should be taught that an assignment is just part of their job description, not a perk, nor a badge of honour.
I was inspired to write this article in part because I hear a loud drumbeat of nativism around the world, especially tied in with anti-immigration sentiments. I’m personally the son of political refugees, and have been an economic migrant in Asia for over a decade. I also believe that a migrant should do their best to assimilate into the fabric of their new society. But it never escapes my attention that we have double standards for migrants in the West versus Western migrants living in the East. To some extent, global multinationals and HR leaders can help to reconcile this double standard by limiting the use of this term.
What are your thoughts? If you agree, what terminology would you suggest we use? Do you disagree, and am I just yet another hapless victim of political correctness? Do you have any stories of ‘Expats behaving badly’? Your answers and comments gratefully received!
For the LinkedIn version, see here.
For the Facebook version, see here.
8 Tips for Solo Travelers
Maybe you’ve been sent away on a business trip without your family. Maybe you’ve dreamed about traveling solo but have been afraid to try it out. Having recently returned from a trip to the Persian Gulf, an area totally new to me, I honed in on 8 key tips for solo travelers. Please let me know what I’ve left out!
Tip 1. Do what you want. There are some destinations where you might feel pressured to ‘tick off’ a sight or an experience. “What, you went all the way to Paris and didn’t see the Mona Lisa?” Agree graciously and ignore.
Tip 2. Keep your opinions to yourself. Listen. Look. Absorb. Sometimes your opinion about a place only ‘settles’ many weeks after you’ve returned. So make a mental note of your first impressions, but don’t always trust your initial instincts.
Tip 3. Dip in and out of your comfort zone. If you hate haggling, still force yourself to the souq and try to get a good bargain on some dates. Then reward yourself by finding a Starbucks and buying your regular flat white. Go easy on yourself.
Tip 4. Don’t just watch the international news channels in your hotel room. Flick through some of the local channels. It might also help to remind you that your international colleagues have been speaking with you in a second language. Bask in some good old humility and confusion.
Tip 5. Wear layered, inconspicuous clothing. Change out of your business clothes and leave all your emerald tiaras in the hotel safe.
Tip 6. Eat. Everything.
Tip 7. Take to the city on foot. Walk down main streets. Sometimes walk down quieter parallel streets. Use common sense with safety. And look both ways when crossing streets, even if it’s supposed to be one-way.
Tip 8. Wear headphones when necessary. If you’re nervous in new environments, headphones create a personal barrier which can add an element of ‘unapproachability’ in confronting surroundings. But use this strategy sparingly, you don’t want to comes across as arrogant or hostile.
Abu Dhabi: See here for the YouTube version, and here for the Facebook version.
Bahrain: See here for the YouTube version, and here for the Facebook version.
Kuwait: See here for the YouTube version.
Qatar: See here for the YouTube version, and here for the Facebook version.
Oman, See here for the YouTube version, and here for the Facebook version.
My Vow for 2018
The world this year has offered us
Two thousand and seventeen favours,
So be grateful for all the love you share
With family, friends and neighbours.
But global news has been quite dire –
A veritable scumbag fest.
It’s despots, cheats, and arms dealers
Who are feeling most hashtag-blessed.
To counter this, what can I do?
What methods can one man employ?
I’ve ended up with a single plan:
To radiate more light and joy.
And so I’ve decided to start a blog;
I offer no humble apology
For this project, unconnected with work,
That I’m calling Oscology.
I’ll share our stories of corporate life
With humorous human dimensions.
Then added to that, we’ll barter our thoughts,
And playful poetic inventions.
For now please follow me on LinkedIn,
On Facebook, and also on Instagram.
I’ve already purchased Oscology.com,
But I’ve yet to complete all the flimflam.
For the LinkedIn version, see here.
For the Facebook version, see here.
Sweat, Balance, and Momentum
I passed this man on the streets of Shanghai and was immediately inspired.
Sweat
You can be the most gifted in your field, but without Diligence you won't succeed. Don't be complacent of your superior skills: Lean into your work, and commit.
Balance
Sweat is useless without Sustainability. We all need to balance our work, leisure and family priorities to last the full course. Maximise your capabilities, but be kind to yourself and don't... overload your rickshaw.
Momentum
Sustainable effort needs to be funneled into the right Direction. We all have days where we work hard, and yet still question whether anything tangible was achieved. Have the curiosity to seek out and define your goals, and the daily persistence to achieve them.
For the LinkedIn version, see here.
For the Instagram version, see here.
A Poem for the Powerless
Hug a bigot,
Tickle a bully,
‘Cos they were never
Nurtured fully.
Kiss a hypocrite,
Cradle a moron,
Pretend they’re not people you’d
Close the door on.
Embrace a racist,
Cuddle an oaf,
If I had the chance
I’d fondle them both.
Distract those leaders
From arming their nukes,
Without our snuggles
They’ll blow us to Fuchs.
For the Facebook version, see here.
Lazy People: The Unsung Heroes of the Corporate World?
By including lazy people in a diversified decision-making team, you can arguably focus more on achievable goals with more predictable results.
Lazy people: We all know at least one of them. And we prefer to weed them out as soon as possible from the corporate environment. They stand out as low performers and make troublesome examples of themselves in the team.
But are we sometimes dismissing these people prematurely? We tend to view lazy people at one end of a spectrum, with highly productive people at the other. But what about their similarities?
Lazy people and productive people both want to get their jobs done as efficiently as possible.
For productive people, motivation lies in getting on with other things. Lazy people are motivated to get on with precisely nothing. But isn’t this a shared motivation that we should be harnessing from both angles? Especially since the motivation for lazy people to do as little as possible is arguably stronger than the motivation for productive people to do more.
The scenario I have in mind is where a decision is made by a group of engaged, productive executives, only to find that the implementation of the idea fails dismally due to lacklustre uptake or poor compliance to a process. If you have a lazy person with a seat at the decision-making table, you are much more likely to eschew idealism and avoid these unpleasant outcomes.
A lazy person will take into account the ‘lowest common denominator’ of how people actually work, rather than how we wish they’d work.
A lazy person is more likely to find time-saving loopholes, based on the simplest and most practical solutions.
A lazy person will help to set the right expectations about what percentage of any high-minded plan will be successfully completed in reality.
The Lazy Person in All of Us
Naturally, it’s dangerous to promote people with these qualities, since it sets a risky precedent for the company’s culture. And they won’t be the people who come up with many original ideas themselves. But by including the voice of a lazy person in a diversified decision-making team, you are arguably more likely to focus on the most achievable goals and get more predictable results.
Having held your attention for this long, I should admit that it’s, of course, a fallacy to think of anyone as ‘lazy’. We all exhibit the qualities of the ‘idealistic’ person in matters that make us passionate, and the ‘lazy’ person in matters that don’t.
So the next time you’re deciding on issues of this nature, it’s useful to look around at your team, and work out which person could play the part of the ‘lazy person’. And if you can’t work out which one to choose… then it’s probably you.
For the Facebook version, see here.
For the Boss Magazine version, see here.
A Tribute to a Remarkable Lady
Katařina Fuchsová, or Katharina Fuchs, you were known by many names - Katja, Katka, Kačka, Kathy - but to me you were Babička. You were born Katharina Neumann to Bohemian parents in Vienna, Austria on 16 May 1921. You were a speaker of Czech, German, English and French, with some Russian and Spanish thrown in; you were a survivor of Terezín, Auschwitz and Mauthausen; a wife, mother, babička and prababička; a choir singer, a beer drinker and a potato boiler. You are no longer with us, but your spirit will abide.
You sometimes would just sit there at the end of the table, listening to your sons and their families talking and laughing. But there you are in every photo at every birthday, every graduation, every family gathering representing every bookmark of our lives. We know we owe these lives to your strength, your stealth, your will, and your sheer luck.
Luck that you married Honza Fuchs, who became a member of the Aufbaukommando at the Terezín concentration camp in 1941, a role that allowed him to slip extra potatoes into holes in the lining of his jacket that you sewed for him. Luck that until the end of 1944 you were spared transport after transport to the death camps, which took almost every other member of your extended family. Luck that when you were finally sent to Auschwitz, Mengele selected you to work in a munitions factory to assemble V1 rockets rather than send you straight to the furnaces. And luck stacked upon luck to later be reunited with Honza in Prague after you had been liberated from Mauthausen and he had escaped a death march by jumping into a haystack.
But you knew that life was not just good luck and bad luck. You knew to make the most of the hand you were dealt. Leave no crumb uneaten. Leave no letter unwritten. No favour or kindness unthanked. You treasured your family as the precious gifts that they were. You were never late to meet us. In fact sometimes you arrived four hours early. Sometimes you made a dry-run the day before, and still arrived four hours early on the day.
With a life thrust into turmoil from a young age, you also learnt to take comfort in routine, predictability and traditions. I saw you twice weekly as a teenager, as regular as clockwork. And I knew on those evenings to expect the call at 6pm to come down for a meal of vepřo knedlo zelo. Or řísky. Sometimes palačinky as a treat. You weren't much of a cook - we all knew it, and so did you - but no-one cared. In my early twenties I moved into my own flat, and still you came every Tuesday to cook and eat together. Sometimes we talked about your life, the early days in Vienna, your subsequent post-war existence in Prague, or your later life as a refugee in England after you and the family fled the 1968 Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.
But mostly we avoided delving into the past, and stuck to conversations about our day-to-day routines. For you it was the latest tidbit that you'd learnt from your U3A university courses. Or gossip about colourful characters such as Gertie Balok, Frau Doktor Inge Müller and all the other Babičky in your circle. Or your swimming timetable at Copthall, and how it would fit with your plans to buy some kabanos at the Polish butcher in Chalk Farm. With Babička, no detail was too mundane.
And at the end of each weekly meeting, no matter how outrageous the British weather, you always caught the bus back to Hendon, irrespective of how much I insisted on driving you home. It also reminds me of that time when London came to a standstill in the snow. I was going to tell you the epic story of how I'd spent two hours walking home from work, until you said that you stayed up in a café all night and caught the first bus home in the morning. To have known Babička is to have known legendary patience. And stubbornness.
In later years I moved to Asia, and our meetings became less frequent. But you still sent your letters, typewritten on that old computer and printed on paper from a dot matrix printer with holes on either side. And we still spoke on the phone, sometimes at very unusual times because you always confused the timezones. I still came back to see you as often as I could. You still made bábovka and buchty. Oplatkový dort for birthdays, and vanilkové rohlíčky at Christmas time.
You were proud of me. You were frustrated by me. You called me 'můj zlatý' in your letters; you called me 'provocateur' when I was cheeky. You loved me, you loved all of us.
We will miss you.
For the Facebook version, see here.
