Fine Services

In today's financial crisis, the Asian countries are using two methods to sustain themselves, one is to increase productivity and reduce the rate of firing of employees, two is to provide outstanding services which are beneficial to the customers.

 

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Offering good service is of prime importance in any industries. There are no exception in any case. Many would have thought that they could merely pass it off by doing the bare minimum, by fulfilling the objective requirements of their jobs. but, there is really a need to go the extra mile in terms of the provision of good services.

"To deal only with the superficial trivia without seeing teh deeper, more tender issues is to trample on the sacred ground of another's heart."
                                                                                                                        -Stephen R. Covey

This couldn't have been any more accurate. It captures the essence of service. Every little things you do for another are actually appreciated by him. The reason why you feel that it is nothing more than a simple gesture is because the other party is suppressing his heartfelt satisfaction and happiness.

For example, how do you feel when you discover that a flower, which you have been staring at in the lobby of the hotel for a couple of minutes, in your own room after you checked in? How does the bellboy feel when the manager offered to carry the luggage on his hands when he is struggling with them? What if you give a hand-made birthday card to your subordinates, listing all their contributions to the company and to you, on their birthday? What if you buy in supper for your employees who have to work over-time? All these little actions seem trivial and in fact unimportant, but they all have a personal touch attached. People have eyes to see and heart to feel. They will be touched one day. Also, it could easily penetrate through their emotional barrier against you.

Once you begin to push the flywheel with consistent, unconditional love & care, anyone will give in eventually. It might take longer for people who might be skeptical about your efforts. However, once they truly sense your sincerety, they will break the barrier and open up to you.

In fact, this applies to customers as well. Notice how people always go back to the hairdresser they favour regardless of the price? Part of the reason is because the hairdresser can do the hair they prefer. However, aren't there better hair dressers out there? Why don't they patronise them? In fact, hairdressers are one group of people in your life that can best relate to you. notice how they greet you whenever you enter teh salon? They always highlight issues pertaining to your interests automatically without any prompting.

One of the psychological reason is that people tend to open up and speak of their secrets and personal problems when they are "touched", literally. When the hairdresser touches your hair, you automatically feel that she seems to know you very well. You no longer fend against them. All the cynicism and skepticism are removed instantly. It is this intimate touch that tells your sensory neurons that he's safe. I can tell him things. Everyone has the propensity to let someone whom they trust touch them. If it is someone you abhor, you tend to shake his hands off your back without any hesitation.

 

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One great example of a service oriented company is none other than Caterpillar. It is well known for its commitment to the delivery of its products within 48 hours no matter where you are. If it fails, then the products will be free of charge.Caterpillar has grown to be the world's largest maker of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, and industrial gas turbines.

When inquired, most of the customers expressed that it is the service, that the deliverymen provide, that impresses them. It is the service that keeps them coming back for more. Caterpillar has always placed great emphasis on training for employees of all lelvels, especially for the deliverymen. They believe that after all the execution, the deliverymen are the ones that have the lst contact with the customers. it is truly up to them. How are they going to handle frustrated customers? What if they wanted the deliveryman to install the equipments for them? How are they going to handle the questions posed by the customers and what if they can't answer them? Which is better? Getting teh answer from the deliveryman later on or getting it from the telemarketer? Which reply will make the customer more satisfied and touched? That's the amount of effort Caterpillar put into their employees of all level. Impeccable.

Fundamentals of Stocks

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You read about it everyday on the papers, it’s flooding the pages on Finance and Business. Yes, it is none other than the term stocks. Many seems to be reading the page just to find out how share prices are progressing, but how many actually understood this simple yet enigmatic term? Many don’t, in fact, they have no idea how it works either. Today, I am going to introduce you guys to the fundamentals of stocks with some reference to www.wikipedia.org (Best Website ever).


In the investment world, a share of stock (also referred to as equity share) represents a share of ownership in a corporation (company).

-www.listphile.com

This means that if you have a stock, or you buy one, you literally own a share of the company. Let’s take reference to Berkshire Hathaway, yes the renowned company owned by Warren Buffett. The thing about Warren Buffett is that he can express his ideas clearly through words, and that is why people invest in his company, to get the annual reports he writes. In fact, he collates the annual reports from other companies, analyze it and republish it in a simple and lucid format. Different people have different needs for stocks, but most are after short-term profits I would say.

There are 3 common types of stocks, namely the common stock, preferred stock and convertible preferred stock.

To put it across in layman terms, common stocks allow you to vote during corporate decisions, as you are part of the committee.

Preferred stocks do not give you the right to vote in the company but it allows you to get your share of profits first, even before any other shareholders, this one is popular among people who invest for short returns. They are not interested in the voting rights; rather they want to be the first in time whenever money starts rolling in!

Lastly, convertible preferred stock, this is very much synonymous with preferred stocks. The difference is that you have the option to convert your preferred stocks into common stocks; the decision is entirely up to you. Let’s say midway, you decide that you are holding a large amount of shares now and that you want to participate in the voting rights in the company, you can easily change your stocks over to gain that right.
Stock Options

-softpedia

A stock option is a class of option. Specifically, a call option is the right (not obligation) to buy stock in the future at a fixed price and a put option is the right (not obligation) to sell stock in the future at a fixed price. Thus, the value of a stock option changes in reaction to the underlying stock of which, it is a derivative.

Selling of stocks to the public

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This is extremely common, known as initial public offering, IPO, which I’m sure is now familiar to you, considering the fact that this term is so prominent on the papers today. Whenever, a company needs to acquire or conduct mass purchases, they do not have sufficient funds, even after trading collaterals with companies, meaning that they used a part of their company as a guarantee to the bank to get some loans. Therefore, they try to raise money using this other means, to offer shares. At this point in time, the public will start to purchase the shares and they naturally own a part of the company, depending on the number of shares possessed.

Then you might wonder, doesn’t this mean that everyone, up to a few thousands, can actually vote in corporate decisions? The answer is a no. Corporations usually tend to issue various types of classes of shares, which in turn have different voting rights. In the case of small decisions, it is usually conducted within the company per se. Nonetheless, the public are usually entitled to vote for the selection of the Chief Executive Officer or the board of directors. Even so, effective control still lies within the hands of the majority shareholder who tends to out-vote the minor shareholders, i.e. the public.

Well, by now, I hope you have a rough idea about stocks, so from now on, when you read the papers, you can read it with a different perspective, a greater understanding of what it says. Take care!

Alarm Clocks

How does it sound to wake up to a piece of bacon right within your alarm clock? The smell of it is smoothering enough to get you out of bed at once to finish this thing up. But the trick is, after a satisfied breakfast on bed, you might just head back and laze around! That is no good!

Ever feel like killing someone in the morning for having to wake up so early in the morning? Here's your chance, grab a gun and BANG! BANG! BANG! No one dies, but your alarm clock will.

This is the traditional form of forcing other people to get up, to sit up and place your feet on the floor. It's conventional but it works, once you are up, you have the propensity to close your eyes still, but at least you're up. That's no easy task !

via -12 Unusual Alarm Clocks

Photo of the Day

Complements from photograph.nationalgeographic.com

This young European brown bear posed so cute for us. We couldn't ask for a more precious and natural expression. The taiga forest is in Finland on the Russian border and is a marvelous spot for viewing these bears.

Syngergistic Solution

To say that there is a dichotomy for compromise is simply a misnomer, because you simply cannot classify a compromise as a good compromise or a bad one, it lies on a continuum instead. There are various degrees of compromise in life, and not all are bad, neither are all of them sound. However, the best way is to enter a stage of Win/Win, a synergistic solution as proposed by Stephen R. Covey, a third alternative, the apex of a triangle, the Middle Way as stated in Buddhism.

Given the following scenario, provided by Stephen R. Covey, I am going to analyse it and present it to you guys on how I perceive the way this couple solved their problem through a synergistic solution and not a compromise.

It’s a vacation time, and a husband wants to take his family out to the lake country to enjoy camping and fishing. This is important to him; he’s been planning it all year. He’s made reservations at a cottage on a lake and arranged to rent a boat, and his sons are really excited about going.

His wife, however, wants to use the vacation time to visit her ailing mother some 250 miles away. She doesn’t have the opportunity to see her very often, and this is important to her.

Their differences could be the cause of a major negative experience.

“The plans are set. The boys are excited. We should go on the fishing trip,” he says.

“But we don’t know how much longer my mother will be around, and I want to be by her,” she replies. “This is our only opportunity to have enough time to do that.”
“All year long we’ve looked forward to this one week vacation. The boys would be miserable sitting around grandmother’s house for a week. They’d drive everybody crazy. Besides, your mother’s not that sick. And she has your sister less than a mile away to take care of her.”
“She’s my mother, too. I want to be with her.”

“You could phone her every night. And we’re planning to spend time with her at the Christmas family reunion. Remember?”

That’s not for five more months. We don’t even know if she’ll still be here by then. Besides, she needs me, and she wants me.”

“She’s being well taken care of. Besides, the boys and I need you, too.”

“My Mother is more important than fishing.”

“Your husband and sons are more important than your mother.”

As seen, they quarrel forth and back and nothing good comes out of it.

One such compromise is that they may decide to split up.
The boys goes fishing but this way they compromised 25% of their concerns, because the boys will then sense the tension and thus it dampens their mood. As a result, they lose all enthusiasm for fishing and they might even end up feeling grumpy and frustrated.

The mother who leaves for her will compromise 25% of her concerns as well because she ignored the needs of the boys and her husband's efforts. She know deep inside her heart that her kids want her to be there with them, to join in the fun, but she just can't leave her mum alone. Deep within, she is feeling ambivalent about the whole idea.

In another scenario, the husband might give in to his wife and heads to her mother's house. However, this results in a larger extent of compromise, as much as 50% while his wife gets her way and did not compromise a single bit. But even so, he does it grudgingly, and he will try his best to fulfil the prophecy made. He will probably be griping throughout his stay at his wife's mother's house and this might irritate his wife and in turn there is even a possiblity that they might fall out.

Or, the wife gives in. Compromising by 50%, she becomes over-reactive to any changes to her mum's conditions. She's chronically paranoid and this might affect the overall fishing experience. Half the time, she's not even focussing on the conversations she's having with her husband or her kids. This might tense up the atmosphere and everyone will sink into boredom once again.

Now let's identify each of their concerns. This is just my personal interpretation, you might think otherwise.

Wife's concern: See her mother as soon as possible and 5 months later is beyond her threshold of wait, she don't really have the ample time to visit her mother other than during this vacation as she might have other commitments at home.

Husband's concerns: Going fishing, making sure that the boys enjoy themselves.

Synergistic Solution

1. Father arrange another time within the month and taking over some of the home responsiblities over the weekend.

By arranging it within the month, it eliminates his wife's urgent need to see her mother, 5 months might be too long but within a month is definitely reasonable. Furthermore, he will take over some home responsiblities to make out some time for her to go. This in turn creates a "mock short vacation" for her to get away.

2. Locate another place near wife's mother's house and fish.

They are still going to fish and this fulfil the husband's long awaited need to fish. In addition, it is still outdoor and they could even plan some last-minute recreational activities with the cousins and uncles. This will provide some unexpected surprises, filled with lots of fun, for the boys.

This is a great example of how you can work together to provide a synergistic solution. Compromise is fine once in a while. But most of the people have the propensity to compromise consistently. In the long run, it could be an avenue for complains and quarrels. For instance, your partner might bring up the past and say that she has been compromising all these while so why can't you give in for this one time? The worst case scenario is that you deny her arguement by saying that you were actually the one compromising. This is probably the time for a wake-up call, when you realise that actually all these while, the both of you have been thinking that the opposite party was actually benefitting from your compromise, but in actual fact, they weren't.

-Complements from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.

Pen down your thoughts

-via *December Sun

Pen down your thoughts. Appreciate the people around you.
Love them. Make friends, not war.
Stay Cheerful, Optimistic and Reverent.
Stick to your personal mission statement in life and you will succeed.

-via yoshiko314

Fannie Mae

-www.thedigeratilife.com

Data Consolidated from bits of information from http://www.wikipedia.org/

Well the above is a brief idea of how Fannie Mae fell back to the government's hands. But it was really a tough crisis, too tough a one for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to handle, considering that they hold more than 50% of all the mortgage in United States.

With the arrival of the subprime mortgage crisis, everyone was sinking into the stage called "negative equity". Basically, negative equity means that the worth of the property, which you used as a collateral to make a loan, has plummeted to a stage whereby it is lower than the outstanding balance on your loan.

To put it in layman terms, you used 50% of your house (the house is worth 2million dollars) as a collateral to make a mortgage loan of 1 million dollars from the bank, but six months down the road, the price of your house dropped by a total of 60%. Therefore, the net worth of your house is now only 800,000 dollars. This is in fact lower than your outstanding balance on your loan, hence, you sink into negative equity. In this case, the bank will usually initate foreclosures to ensure that they do get back some money. If recourse is stated in the agreement, then the borrower will have to pay the bank the remaining 200,000 even after selling the house, that is not even inclusive of the interest rate per se.

With the current housing crisis, a lot of people are sinking into negative equities because alot of people simply cannot afford to pay back the mortgage, therefore they are forced to sell away their houses to pay back a porton of the mortgage. This large influx of foreclosures resulted in a sudden surge in the number of houses available in the United States. As a result, by economies of scale, the prices of the houses plummet as well. This in turn makes the lender wary of the financial market too, and they respond by tightening the regulations for a loan. More often or not, the regulations are relentness in nature and people simply cannot afford to make a loan from the bank. In turn, Fannie Mae has lost a lot of businesses and also incurred alot of losses as a lot of people failed to pay back their mortgage.

The above is merely a rough idea of the situation of Fannie Mae, feel free to add more of your comments if you have anything to say.