Investments decision

One of my Facebook friends posted a question to me on investments. He asked me, "How to gain highest return in investments?" It seems someone had approached him on a Gold investment scheme with the pretext that Gold investment is lucrative and guaranteed. Definitely, gold investment is lucrative because gold is valuable and expensive and it is guaranteed because the price of Gold is stable. Well let us look at the chart on gold price trend to see how true are these statements.

2001-2010 Gold Price trend:

The chart shows that the gold price is in an upwards trend for the past ten years. From USD250/ounce nine years ago, it has risen to around USD1,250/ounce, a 500% increase in value! So the notion is true that the price of Gold is stable, however for a long term period! If we look at short term period price trend (short term means less than twelve months, not necessarily within a full length calendar year), gold price at exit points may be lower than entry points. For example if we look at the first column on the left of the chart, the gold price was about USD280/ounce Jan 2001 but it went down to USD260/ounce a year later. So the notion that the returns on gold is guaranteed does not whole water all the time. It depends on once entry and exit from the market.

I am not an investment analyst nor I claim to be one. However my investment rules are simple:

1. invest and save in something that you know about.
2. buy at low price and sell at high price.
3. use your social and religious beliefs as a guide.

With these rules, I had on the past invested and saved in cash, unit trusts, stocks and real estates. I consider myself as a moderate investor i.e. I can only accept reasonable risk. Most of the times I'm saved, but sometimes people and circumtance deceived me. Take for an example. My first real estate purchase was a house in Bukit Sentosa. The company was impressive, the same company that developed the Pandans: Pandan Indah, Pandan Jaya. Bukit Sentosa was suppose to be the 2nd Petaling Jaya. The master plan was really stupendous: schools, a college, a small township and an industrial area. After close to 15 years, Bukit Sentosa is still a township that I know had not changed much. My rental returns is 4% but the value is half of my purchase price!

Compared to my other real estate investments which are paying off, I have an apartment with 10% rental returns and a condo unit with 11% rental returns, both real property values are appreciating, so 2 out of 3 is considered ok for a moderate investor. This brings me to the house that I'm staying in. The house was built 10 years ago with my own design. The land area is 50ft x 75ft with build up area of about 70%. I handled the construction project from its architectural design, contractor selection, construction contract, monitoring of construction progress, Interior Design and Landscaping. My overall cost was only RM70,262. I'm pleased to share my Project costing and my funding plan below.

My project was called Baiti Jannati, this was planned 2 days before my birthday in 2001.

From the above, although I have consolidated all my savings, my funding was short by RM12,ooo. My savings were not much at this point as I have already invested in the apartment while repaying the Bukit Sentosa house's lost and utilising two cars (the other one for my wife's use). However with careful payment schedule and contruction progress reporting, I was able to settled the shortfall with ease by the time the house was completed six months later. At the moment, I have not officially valued my house, however I believe it is worth RM500,000.

What is the point of this posting, one may ask? My sharing is simple. Afford what you can afford, plan and hope for the best and avoid being deceived. Use the time and avoid being hasty. A 1% doubt may save you a lot.

AFF Cup - Malaysian victory, what's next?

In my earlier posting World Cup 2010 Tuesday, 6 July 2010, I commented regarding the condition of Malaysian soccer in the world arena. The posting was made a few months after the Malaysian team won the SEA Games Gold medal and even after Malaysia won the most recent AFF Cup, my comment still stands. I mentioned in my earlier posting that to be in the running in Asia top five (to be vying for the World Cup Asian qualifiers) and in the World Cup (only top four Asian teams and the fifth team through AFC/OFC playoff will qualify), Malaysian soccer requires four elements to be successful:

1. Vision
2. Determination
3. Action
4. Fulfillment

FAM and the players need a vision for themselves. The vision for FAM can be to promote professionalism in its organization and sustain a successful national leagues and a formidable national team with layers upon layers of potential successors. The players in turn may have a vision to be top notch professional football players plying their career in Europe just like Park Ji Sung of Korea, Imamoto of Japan, Sun Jihai of China and Ali Al Habshi of Oman in the English Premier league, Mahdavikia and Karimi of Iran in the German Bundesliga and Nakamura of Japan in the Scotland League, just to name a few.

Both FAM and the players must have the determination to fulfill all its vision. FAM needs to organize a more flamboyant domestic Premier League, M-League, Malaysia and FA Cup that will bring back the fans into the stadium, just like what it was in the 1980's. With more fans in the stadium, FAM's coffers will be filled up not only by match tickets but also by sponsors who will try to outdo each other to become the main sponsor or part of the sponsorship team. The players as well should be more determined to dish out a consistent and sustainable performance in every match that they play. With a consistent and sustainable performance, their value in the regional and global market will increase and they in turn will be able to maintain a rewarding career in soccer.

All these require action by the FAM and the players. To be fair to the fans, if all of us expect the fan to be with the team all the time, the Malaysian team needs to be consistent in their game. Winning and losing are part of the game, however the way the team perform even with a loss or a draw, fighting hard and smart will surely melt the fans' heart in favour of the team.

Look at Vietnam after they were trailing by two goals in the first leg of the AFF Semi-Final match at Bukit Jalil, the team fought hard to try to score and win the second leg at home. Their fans and supporters were behind them all the way with full confidence that the team will put their best to win the game.

Likewise Indonesia, they were trailing by three goals in the first leg of the AFF Final at Bukit Jalil. The atmosphere right after the loss was so ecstatic. The Indonesian fans used the internet by twittering massively that the Indonesian team's loss was due to the insignificant laser ray on their goalkeeper. Then the Indonesian media hyped the issue further by making it their front page news three days in a row until the second leg match. Not to be left out, even the Indonesian leaders followed suit with low rated remarks in the fanatical frenzy.

On the match day, the Gelora Bung Karno stadium was pack, the fans who were following the match via giant screens outside the stadium were almost equal in numbers to the number of spectators in the stadium and no fans from Malaysia except for the Malaysian media and VIPS could be present in the stadium.

Maradona, the Argentinian coach and a former renowned World Cup player once said during the 2010 World Cup, "Latin American soccer will never overcome the European soccer, what we can do is to develop our youngsters for them to be skilled in soccer. Let them ply their professional soccer career in European leagues where there are abundant of big monies. When the World Cup turns up, we bring them back and let them play for their country with love and pride to win the World Cup". This is a statement full of vision, determination, action and fulfillment. Achieving fulfillment requires a clear vision, strong determination and consistent action.

So the next step of fulfillment for Malaysian soccer is for some of the players to ply their trade in Europe. Playing for the Indonesian or Vietnamese clubs will not bring the desired outcome that will bring us up several notches over these countries in AFF. Look at Bambang Pamungkas, he was playing for Selangor once and he is still a player good only for this region.

To be able to outdo or even match the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Saudi and the Iranian teams, we need to send out as many MALAYSIAN players as we can. Send out Safee Sali, Norshahrul, Safiq Rahim, S Kunalan, Mahalli Jasuli, Mohd Sabree Abu, and Khairul Fahmi Che Mat to play in Europe. With more of them playing abroad, the better it will be for our soccer's future. In the void, we will have new and upcoming star players who will try to outperform those players so that they may also be able to be noticed and selected.

We need to start this now. Once we sustain this cycle then we will reach the apex of fulfillment, that will be when the World Cup is won by Malaysia (and we probably will have public holiday for a week :).

Live is a journey

Live is a journey. This is how I looked back at the time when I left my High School and move on into college, started a career and a family. Some people may have a life journey not in that particular order. Due to different personal circumstances, they may start off their journey with having a career then go to college at the same time they started having a family. However, regardless of the milestones of the life journey, life is still a journey between an origin point moving towards an end point.

In normal sense, a successful journey would require four elements. These will be

1. planning
2. provisions
3. direction
4. assessment

These four elements are required as we are provided with limited resources. Resources such as time, energy and money are limited regardless of the quantity one has.

Time is limited as opportunities do not stand still and need to be grabbed on the go. It also does not help us as opportunities are also being sought by others who are also in a rush to complete their life journey. There is golden opportunity, second or third opportunity or just a normal opportunity, each brings different value to different people. The more one grabs opportunities, the higher likelihood one will attain success. Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange grabbed the opportunity to set up a whistleblower website with amusing gossips of important people freely talking their mind to other important people all over the world. This he does in the pretext of free information and has been one of the most popular world news towards the end of 2010. Though he was in jail with a rape charge, however he is currently talking to people who want to publish his story for USD1.3 million! I believe this is not the end of his venture into making money.

The other resource, energy; is also limited as it comes with one's youthfulness. High energy comes with a youthful body. This must be true otherwise you will have Wayne Rooney playing for Manchester United until he is 60 or 70. Imagine that.

In the other hand money is also limited as a lot of people would want to take it away from you either via legal or illegal means. People who would want to legally take the money away from us will be the shopkeepers at the mall, mobile phones charges, tolls at highways, the Utilities Company, etc, etc. People who would want to illegally take the money away from us will be pyramid syndicate pretending to be MLM operators, other conman, pick pockets, thieves and robbers.

Coming back to the four elements of planning, provisions, direction and assessment mentioned earlier which are important to ensure a successful life journey. Planning will consist of a target or several targets with rough or detail plan to achieve it or them. Target without plan is mere dream. However if target and plan are combined together, the likelihood of it being achieved will be higher. Planning will also include identification of external forces that may post a threat to the journey. The more proactive this identification, the better.

As in other journey, the second element; provisions; will be used to ensure that the journey is sustainable. If you are driving from KL to Penang, you will need a well maintained car, fuel, money for food lodging and shopping! A mobile phone or I Phone, I Pad or what have you is also important to be connected via facebook :). In a successful life journey, provisions will be a good education and a high drive to succeed. A good education will be the key to open a career opportunity while a high drive to succeed will be the key sustainer to climb the corporate ladder.

The third element, direction; is like a compass or road signs in a journey. To travel to Penang from KL, one will need to take the North South Highway or Federal Freeway towards the north. In life journey, direction is to generate the effort to plan for the next move in a career. If you are working and started off as an Executive, you need to direct your effort immediately for the next move to a Managerial position. Likewise if you are venturing into a small scale business, the next direction is to make yourself ready to venture into a medium scale business and then a large scale medium.

The fourth element, assessment; is like a map or navigator to gauge whether the journey is still moving towards its target or targets. This is important as a slight degree of error will take the journey off its target. In life, assessing the other three elements planning, provisions and direction will ensure that journey will end up with a success. Just like other journeys, there will be external factor that may post a threat to the journey plan, provisions and directions. For example in a career, if the coveted job is not within the particular organisation you are in, a career move will be one of the options to take. If you are in business, if a business transaction is deem to fail, it would be better to abandon it and scout for another. The requirement to make amendments to planning, provisions and direction may be minor or major. The decision is entirely yours with or without consultation with others.

Have a nice trip in your life journey :)

Rewards

It is the end of the year again where employees will undergo a performance assessment process with their line supervisor/manager. This process is to assist the employer in determining the level of Rewards to be granted in the coming year. The Rewards will normally be in the form of salary increase and bonus.

Assessment is generally done on an individual basis. It is based on fulfillment of a set of targets which were established at the beginning of the year. Performance assessment is a ritual that is quite common in a dynamic business organization either for the white or blue collar employees. The dynamism of performance assessment ensures that culture of high performance is embedded and rewards are distributed based on performance.

However rewards distribution is not a straight forward process based on an individual performance level. If ever it will be a simple process similar to the rewards of sales commission, which is transparent and numerically simple. Even though sales commission is part of rewards, however it is not applicable to non-sales employees. In distributing rewards, a business organization will normally set a budget to spend in awarding salary increase and bonus. This budget will form as a financial control to ensure rewards are spent within the affordability of the organization.

High performance culture dictates that business organization provides higher rewards to higher performer, this will ensure that the business organization will reap the right benefit of the scheme. The rewards will be a motivation for the higher performer to maintain their performance and for others to achieve a higher performance level to attain the higher rewards. With this cycle of performance competition, business organization will realize heightened productivity and profit year after year.

In order to reward a group of employees based on a fixed budget, a process of ranking the employee's performance will be most ideal so that appropriate group based assessment can be performed. However ranking employees is a tough process, no measurement of quantity and no transparency of quality can satiate the perception of justice and correctness. Ranking is based on perception and whether the perceiver has the right information to form a right perception will be debated until there is no end.

However, through the process of differentiating rewards based on individual performance, there will be a conflict between individual and team contribution. Unless there is a specific team rewards, rewarding entirely based on individual ranked performance will weaken the cultivation of teamwork. The business organization needs to address this conflict and devise a reward based on teamwork performance.

In any team, there will be frontline position, middle position and backline position. Due to this structure, there are plenty of pitfalls in performance rewards. Some of them are due to overemphasizing on the team score. Similar to a football/soccer team, if only the score line on the score board is given importance, there will be overwhelming chance that higher rewards will be awarded to the goal scorers. Whereas, without the middle and backline positions playing their appropriate role, the frontline position may not even able to score.

Some other pitfalls are due to popularity contest, how many knows the person being assessed. To neutralize popularity, it should be weighted in a similar fashion to the frontline, middle and backline positions as exposure will depend on the role one plays.

Some guidelines on having an acceptable performance assessment and ranking exercise are quite basic. A certain acceptable level of knowledge of the jobs and skill requirements, job challenges and job mannerism will assist in putting a right perspective for assessment. Then providing equal importance to scoreboard, score chart and unreported but overwhelming supporting roles will ensure a balance assessment and ranking.

As for me, I will leave it to Allah. Thank you.

Patience and blessings

In this world of broadband and super lightning speed of information sharing, people tend to expect that everything will be equally speedy and fast. Of course if this is possible and achievable, it will indeed be speedy and fast. However certain things are slow and times consuming that require patience and perseverance in order for it to be possible and achievable.

Most people rely more on their ability, strength and intelligence to achieve their targets. Some of them achieve their targets and some will not. What makes this difference is still a mystery to some. What I am going to share with you is based on my own experience in life.

Some nights ago I had a guest to my house. He is young with a start up family and had just changed his job. He had come to share with me his vision and targets to improve the standard of living of his family and himself. He works as a gym instructor in a reputable Health Centre with good earnings and benefits. I got to know from him that professional gym instructor requires certification from international fitness bodies through certain exams. Most of gym instructors in Malaysia lack this certification as it is not made compulsory by most Health Centre. However, with proper certification, a gym instructor may fetch higher salary at reputable Health Centre. This certification is similar to professional accounting certification that requires study fee, exam fee and membership fee.

His vision that he shared with me is to be a gym instructor having the highest professional certification from the best international professional body. With this he hopes that he will earn a lot more and will be able to better cater the needs of his family. At the same time as he plans to sit for the next highest gym instructor certification, he also plans to start up a small business with his wife who is expecting their next born. So with the higher earning and the business, the family income will be higher than what it is now. However he does not have enough funds to implement all these plans. With this limitation he plans to make a loan and had come to me for an advice.

After listening to him, I planned my conversation to include the topics of vision, targets, priorities, capability, opportunities and risk. Firstly I congratulate him for having a clear vision and good targets. I told him that these are important for everything that we intend to do either be it our work or our life. After having visions and targets, I shared with him the importance of prioritizing the targets by looking at one's capability, other option of opportunities and the risk that is involved in the targets.

Looking at his situation, I told him that he needs to think of what is coming to his and his family. Firstly, he just changed job and currently earning quite well, his wife is expecting their next born and they are trying to start a business. I asked him whether he is able to handle all these changes with ease. He seems to be confident, however he could not answer me on what will be his plan if these do not work out well as he intended.

I then related this situation to how he would act as a gym instructor in coaching a new comer to the gym. He would first coach the new comer how to make stretches, warm up and start with the easy routine. After the new comer is able to handle these, only then he will teach the much more strenuous exercise until the new comer is able to handle all of the gym apparatus with ease. By then, the new comer will become a regular and would probably handle his or her routine by him or herself and will seek guidance from him once in a while.

I then concluded that in life it is more or less the same situation. We need to take some slow and some fast steps. As long as we have a clear vision and good targets, we will have to prioritise our tasks as we are provided with limited resources in term of time, fund, strength and ability. We will also need to find other opportunities as an alternative plan if the initial plans did not work out well. Last but not least, we will need to be aware of the risk involved in planning and implementing the plan so that we may avoid pitfalls and overcome barriers.

With a parting statement, I said, however all these will also require patience and blessings from Allah the Almighty. The blessings determined how contented and grateful one is with his or her achievement that Allah is pleased with his or her effort.

n.b: Allah in this context is the God of All in the Universe

July 24: An exciting reunion after three decades of Setapak High School Form Fivers 1981

I was one of 22 former Form Five Setapak High School students (1981) who gathered at Bangi Kopitiam, Wangsa Maju for a reunion after 30 years . The first to come and sat at the table was Martin Paul who looks young as ever. I then came second as the main coordinator of the reunion and saw Martin whom I have met once or twice prior to this. The numbers then became nine (Martin, Ganesan, Ahsan, Ruzaini, Annuar, Zafarul, Tarmizi, Felix and I) by about 9 pm and mostly made up of those who had confirmed their attendance via facebook. By this time we got to know that Zaid, Ruze, Gan Kim Beng, Tan Kim Ping and other who had been invited via facebook event will not be attending.

After a few more minutes, some of us started to ask impatiently "where are the others?", as the agreed time to start was at 8.30 pm, more than 30 minutes had passed. To reassure each other, everyone started to confess that they had done their part of inviting i.e. Zafarul said he had invited Azim and Megat, but two others Cikgu Jagdev and Kamalanathan might not come. Ganesan said he had invited Martin. The confession continued until everyone was placing their patience back in place.

The patience bore fruit as Azim and Megat showed up, then one by one surprises upon surprises as the attendance started to grow bigger and bigger. Hamid, Zainal, Ghulam and Man were the best surprises that night. Their names had not been mentioned, but somehow Azim were the connectors between the event and them

The event was a success and the attendees had a lot of fun and excitement. These are the comments from some of them:

I spoke to Mazlan who could not turned up, he promised to make it when we have it again next time. Eventually 22 people turned up, Yana being the last to show up while the rest waited patiently for him, except for Azim who had to go as the wife had called for him. In the meantime, we shared our memories and talked fondly of High School, other friends who were not present, teachers, incidences at the canteen (Azim with his "sudu"), Len Seng Bas Sekolah, Bas Semata, SJI and High School fighting and many other sweet, happy, fond memories.

Most of us are married with children, except for Oing (Kamarulzaman) who is now an actor in a local drama "Laila Asyikin", Tuesday to Thursday at 10.30 pm. Frankly speaking he was not an actor material, a few more centimeters (probably ten) of his height would be better. But he has a nice smile and can act as either a father, grandfather or uncle. In the drama, he acts as a shareholder. Another celebrity among our batch is the famous sportscaster, Shaukei Kahar who could not attend as he has a sportscasting assignment the same night.

We took a lot of photographs, especially Aziz with his band of handsome sons who sat at another table not far from us. At the end of the session, Zafarul and I paid for the drinks and foods, actually not much just a mere RM177, however what I was impressed with the rest of the guys were their willingness to put in their money and eventually we collected RM405. As the coordinator of the reunion, I then proposed that whatever has been paid by Zafarul and I will remain and the money collected that night will be brought forward to our next gathering.

The renunion adjourned at about 12 pm, as all of the patron of the Kopitiam had left, the staff had already cleared our table, the Kopitiam chefs and cooks had their parting meals, the lights were switched off and the shutter was about to be pulled down. Most of us left except for some who continued and extended the reunion at the new NZ Curry House just a walking distance from where we were before.

I'm excited for July 24

Yes I'm excited. I have already gathered in my pool of fb friends 10 of my ex-schoolmates who were from the same batch. We are planning for a simple reunion next Saturday and some are coming from outstation to attend. Those who are not connected via fb will be invited via sms. Thanks to our communication technology.

At the same time I'm planning for my reunion, my wife is also attending her college reunion at the end of the month. She had already attended her secondary school class reunion a couple of months ago. According to her, her batch is now planning to have a secondary school year reunion. Definitely she is much more advanced than me.

What makes me excited is some of us had not met each other for over thirty years… wow I need to say it again 30 YEARS!!!! Just imagine 30 years of progress, of development and of growth probably would bring people to new heights and levels.

The last time we had a reunion was in 2006, it was more like an impromptu reunion after celebrating our High School Silver Jubilee. Then, most of whom who attended it were not from my class, now hopefully there will be a lot more coming from my class. This also makes me more excited.

Reunion such as this provides an opportunity for everyone to reconnect and probably create new professional and business networks. In this era of stiff competition and acute circle of influence, networks may be able to smoothen a professional endeavour or a business venture. The reconnection and network may even be beneficial to the school which had provided us education and guidance more than 30 years ago. This is something worth pondering.

So to all High School 1981 Form Fivers, hope to see you, especially those from my class. Click here for more details http://www.facebook.com/hjmalek?v=app_2344061033#!/event.php?eid=141770409167695&index=1.

World Cup 2010

World Cup 2010 has been so devastating. Spain, Holland and Germany persevered and are in the Semi-Final while Argentina and Brazil were defeated when the odds were stacked for either one of them to be the first World Cup champion hosted in Africa. Italy was the surprise early exit, while France and England were expected not to progress and had rightly showed their true form when they exactly did that. South Korea and Japan revived their reputation as the power house of Asia when both qualified into the Second Round. However, the referee miscalled of England second goal against Germany and deliberate handball by Suarez of Uruguay's against Ghana were two of the most horrible things that could have happened during this most prestigious event. Definitely this World Cup is full of colour.

I grew up loving soccer with passion. I played soccer socially (not competitively he he) until I was form three. I love the game and it helped me socialise with the boys at school and in my neighbourhood. I played soccer before school, during Physical Education classes, after school, at home on Saturdays and Sundays. We played on the school field, in a rubber plantation near my house (sometimes dribbling the ball in between rubber trees he he) and on dirt roads in front of the housing estate.

Malaysia was one of the soccer power house of Asia in the 70's and 80's. I could still remember in the 70's, Malaysia soccer team qualified for the Munich Olympic 1972 and won third place in the Asia Games 1974. Then in 1980, Malaysia qualified to the Moscow Olympic. I witnessed them all with my own eyes via black and white live telecast. South Korea, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia were then equal to Malaysia in form and power. We used to beat them all.

In mid 1970's, I will make an effort to watch as many of soccer matches at Merdeka Stadium either during the Malaysia Cup, Burnley (Razak under 17) Cup and Merdeka Cup. I will be accompanied by my elder brothers, both of whom had passed away (may Allah bless their soul). They were footballers when they were at school as well. This continued until mid 1990's when Malaysian soccer started to decline due to a massive corruption scandal. Since then I had not stepped into the soccer stadium ever.

So where is Malaysia now? Though we won the SEA Games gold medal recently, we are still nowhere near South Korea and Japan. Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and Myanmar can still beat us anytime. On certain days we can even draw with Laos or Cambodia, and other days may even loss to them.

So what happened? It is about vision, determination, action and fulfillment.

Malaysia has lost its vision in becoming the top team of Asia. The vision is lost not only by the FAM, it is also lost by the players. We have not produced players who can even be selected to play in Europe 2nd or 3rd league. FAM and the players are not determined to build a soccer generation among the Malaysian youngsters. They are quite contented to organize the domestic Premier League, M-League, Malaysia and FA Cup every year. The action that they have taken to progress the game in Malaysia has been haphazard and disoriented. Within the span of thirty years, soccer has not brought us any notable glory beyond this region. There is no fulfillment felt by the people and the soccer fan, more so by the FAM and the players in the Malaysian soccer arena.

What can we learnt by all these? Achieving fulfillment requires a clear vision, strong determination and consistent action. Maradona, the Argentinian coach and a World Cup player said "Latin American soccer will never ever overcome the European soccer, what we can do is to develop our youngsters for them to be skilled in soccer. Let them ply their professional soccer career in European leagues where there are abundant of big monies. When the World Cup turns up, we bring them back and let them play for their country with love and pride". A statement full of vision, determination, action and fulfillment. So what's next Malaysia?

Maintaining a relationship that last

Some of us may have heard of the story of a man who had pulled out a thorn from a lion’s paw he accidently met in the savannah. Some years later, both of them met once again in the Roman arena of death, the man against the lion, with the pack audience expecting a bloody duel. However the duel did not happen as the lion recognized the man who had helped it before and the man was left unhurt. The story related here is one example of a relationship.

A relationship can be between human, between animals and between human and animals. Previously, blood relationship used to be a powerful relationship, however nowadays misunderstanding between brothers and kinship may even result in bad blood. Nowadays, relationship may be forged by anyone to derive beneficial returns to the participants, ideally generating mutual benefits. The benefits may even extend to other surrounding parties. Therefore a relationship can be a bond of material or emotional interdependencies.

Merriam Webster < http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/relationship> defined Relationship as follows:
1: the state of being related or interrelated
2: the relation connecting or binding participants in a relationship: as a: kinship b: a specific instance or type of kinship
3 a: a state of affairs existing between those having relations or dealings b: a romantic or passionate attachment

For the purpose of my blog post, I will be deliberating relationship based on the second definition i.e. “the relation connecting or binding participants in a relationship”. The words "connecting" or "binding" mentioned here connote a lasting time frame. A time frame can be as long as the relationship is beneficial to both parties. This may even go through period of connection, disconnection and reconnection. During the period of disconnection, memories of a good relationship certainly would strengthen the relationship upon reconnection. It is therefore quite important during the period of connection; both parties develop more binding interdependencies.

The benefits yield from a relationship may be immediate or over a period of time. Hence patience is required in ensuring a relationship that is sustainable and progressive towards the desired goal. The benefits may be in the form of material gain or emotional support. Both of these are equally important and to derive both benefits in a relationship is very much desired.

Reflecting this in a professional career, the importance of relationship cannot be overly under rated. However, relationship in a professional career should also be similarly professional in nature. It shall also be lasting through a period of connection, disconnection and reconnection. However professional relationship may tend to border along the line of hypocrisy and distrust. The most advisable reaction is to accept the relationship at that level and continue to be vigilant.

In my professional experience, I have had staff who treasure the value of relationship and I have also had staff who are otherwise. I have shared these in my previous postings as follows:

• Resignation and Attrition
• A difficult decision
• Farewell to a friend
• Thank you note from me...
• Farewell to Alex, all the best

Recently in my previous capacity as the Expatriate Transaction Services Manager, I have approved the mobilization of several of my team members out of the team to provide them progression opportunity. Out of the many, except for one, most of them had maintained a good professional working relationship until the end.

To conclude, relationship is a matter of social interdependencies reality. The synergy and dynamism in a relationship would create a symbiotic energy in enhancing key performance in an organization. One of the factors normally assessed during selection process would be the ability to work in a group which ultimately points to an ability to establish relationship. Quite evidently, relationship is very important in a professional career.