Met an ex-colleague this week. We went out for supper… pekena a cup of teh-tarik and roti bakar at a nasi kandar restaurant. He looked tired initially, until suddenly we talked about having the right mindset at work place. Suddenly he ‘waked-up’..hehe! We ended up talking until midnight!
Well, he is actually my mentee, unofficial mentee for the past many years. He recalled I told him a tip – get the right mindset or else you will be stuck at your current job grade. I couldn’t recall the exact words, but that’s what I meant.
He was a technician back then. Someone whom I could trust to get jobs done. Not only done, but also done well, meeting the expectations. He was considered as successful employee of course, perhaps in many ways he could fly high.
But, then, he wouldn’t easily move up the rank to be an engineer. Why? It was his mindset. His mindset was the source of his problem to move up. I told him, to be an engineer or to be promoted to an engineer, he must have an engineer mindset. Yes, the right mindset. Not to say his mindset at that time was wrong, but it was good for that job. Only good for that technician job. If he sets his dream to be promoted to an engineer position, which he will get better renumeration, I told him he must have engineer mindset.
Then he must work to tune his mindset to engineer mindset frequency. Or, I love to choose the word the right wavelength… sorry folks, being a technical person!… Anyway… imagine while driving on the road, on the way back from work, you tu
ne your car radio to a channel say, Radio Malaysia Pulau Pinang…. haha.. I used to listen to this channel everymoning when riding bas kilang back in 1994, from Balik Pulau to Motorola factory in Bayan Lepas for about 6 months. Man! I tell ya… after few months, I started to enjoy it. The DJ, the songs, the callers comment… yes, the listeners, the DJ, the callers then had almost pretty much the same mindset… trust be, they still do. People of the same radio channel have pretty much the same mindset… That is why many orang muda, do not tune in to this channel, they go for Radio ERA instead.. just an example. Orang muda mindset is on different frequency… I used to listen to radio ERA, then radio … err what channel is Farah Fauzana? Alamak, lupa dah… but now change to Radio IKIM… I tune myself to the same thinking as those listening to Radio IKIM.
So, back to the technician story. I told him he must change his mindset, tune it to the same frequency as an engineer. But how? If course, there is no such thing as Radio Engineer.. or a radio channel for engineers… hehe! But, there is the frequency.. all he has to is to find that frequency or tune his channel to that frequency. The are many ways to find the frequency… attend meetings involving them, attend training that they attend, and my secret tip to him is to spend tea-time with them in the canteen. Do not hang with your technician buddies.. or else you mindset will never ever change. I told him, go sit together with the engineers, the engineering managers… my tagline is READ, LOOK, LISTEN… applies here. Be there, read their mind, look at their ‘gaya’, listen to their thought and their thought process. Feel the atmosphere! (shall I add FEEL into the my tagline? 
)… Trust me, people of different group/background thinks differently… The PhD thinks differently than me… they have been trained that way.. Not to say, the way you or I think today is not right, but to be someone different, you ought to think differently.
Likewise, when I advised new engineers at Intel. Whatever worked for them before they join the company might work for them, whatever past mindset might work for them but may not work in the new company. Same thing applies to me… hehe! Ya, I have been struggling to tune out of Intel’s frequency. So, I told them to tune their mind to the new frequency… normally, I told the new hires to sit together with experienced people at lunch or breakfast table. Some of them, I even gave a strong message…”If I see you sitting together with your new geng…. then…. hehe! no need to mention here lah….”
To those who aspire to become managers, then the same theory applies.
What to look at specially when you already tuned in or sit in front them? The huha! ya… I keep tell my guys… get he HUHA… the HUHA always change.. .you need to align to it… there were times, the top HUHA was on cost… so, you know everytime you have to present a project proposal during that HUHA you be sensitive to cost… if the HUHA was on quality… then if you propose something to improve the quality, then the management will think that you have the management mindset… hehe! the right mindset that time…
There was a time when efficiency was the HUHA… so, if you are not on the same frequency in everything you do.. I tell ya, not only you may not get the right mindset, you will also be left behind… I always say… “Apa la, musim World Cup talk about bola la… kenapa you talk about ragbi??”
BTW, my friend just now, he is now doing well as a senior engineer… a leader in his group… his words has credibility to his management… he is now telling his friend…. “guys, please.. tune your mindset to the right frequency…!” Good luck bro! Keep up your good work!
Ini ibarat macam pepatah Melayu la… “masuk kandang kambing, mengembekk… masuk kandang lembu meng.. ” jangan masuk salah kandang sudahlah… masuk kandang harimau too fast.. takut tak sempat mengucap dah kena baham….
