Who Is Lassana Bathily

Lassana Bathily was an undocumented migrant from Mali until he became an unlikely hero by saving shoppers' lives during the jihadist attack on a Jewish supermarket in Paris a year ago. The 25-year-old became the one positive story to emerge from the three days of violence in January, when jihadist attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly, police and the Jewish Hyper Cacher supermarket in the east of the capital killed a total of 17 people.

Bathily, a shelf-stacker in the supermarket, helped save shoppers from gunman Amedy Coulibaly on that fateful day, January 9, 2015. The narrative of a Muslim saving Jews from a jihadist made him a positive symbol of France's diversity. But as he writes in his book "I'm Not a Hero" to be published tomorrow, heroism has been an uncomfortable mantle for Bathily.

Life & Humility

We should watch this video - an illustration of human kindness

 



Dump Strategy Adopt Agility

Mo Farah is an extraordinary athlete. During the course of his career, he has won double gold medals in the 5K and 10K races at the European Championships, the World Championships, and the Olympic Games.

When asked about his formula for success, he has a simple answer: "Training, you just have to put in the training." In reality, of course, the success of an athlete like Mo Farah is due to a wide variety of factors, including natural ability, race strategy, preparation, and execution.

Organisations, too, must balance different priorities to compete; yet they face much more uncertainty than an athlete like Mo Farah. A race is a well-defined event. The location, starting time, distance, competitors, and design of the track are all known in advance. The 'playing field' of business, however, is becoming less clear.

Unclear Playing Field
This lack of clarity is having a profound impact on the effectiveness of traditional strategies. Most strategy professors (myself included) describe strategy as a cascade of choices around where to play and how to win. Good strategy is based on using solid data and analysis to build an understanding of your current position, figure out a desired future position, and then design a plan to get from here to there. I firmly believe that this model works. Or, at least it worked.

Today, I am no longer so sure, for a very simple reason: the business world is changing so quickly that predicting what the marketplace will look like in the future is becoming increasingly difficult. How many taxi companies incorporated the rise of Uber into their strategic planning processes? And why is it taking VW so long to react to its emissions crisis? In a constantly changing world, a long-term strategy can easily become an anchor that locks a company onto a path that is no longer relevant.

The key elements for success today are not plans and aspirations, but agility and capabilities. Capabilities (or access to capabilities) are required to compete effectively in a given position, and agility is required to make shifts in that position in response to a changing environment.

Coming back to our athlete: Mo Farah succeeds not only because he is fast, but also because he adapts to the cadence of a race. He is a master of positioning, and he sets himself up for a winning finish. Sometimes he wins from the front, but more often than not, he comes from behind to take the lead in the final lap.

Farah has phenomenal capabilities but limited agility. He may be able to adapt to the changing dynamics of a race, but he would be completely lost if he had to compete in the high jump, on a bicycle, or on a tennis court. A more extreme form of agility is required by organisations as they move to the centre of the digital vortex, an environment characterised by high market turbulence and shifting industry boundaries.

Staying Qware Of Opportunities And Threats

Hyper awareness is a company's ability to detect and monitor changes in its business environment.
Organisations need to be able to see opportunities and threats as they emerge. Most companies are only hyper aware about themselves! Often, they struggle to understand the changing dynamics within their industries. Much has been written about the dangers of organisational complacency, and this begins with a lack of hyper awareness.

However, hyper awareness is only valuable if the resulting data and information is used productively. Informed decision-making is a company's ability to make the best decision possible in a given situation. To do this, data and information must be analysed, scaled, packaged, and distributed throughout the organisation. Data transparency, stable IT systems, advanced analytics, and a knowledge sharing culture play important roles in this capability.
 

Finally, informed decisions create value only to the extent that they can be implemented. Fast execution is a company's ability to carry out its plans quickly and effectively. This is where the majority of organisations struggle the most. The capability to execute quickly requires a willingness to experiment and a tolerance for failure.

The traditional role of strategy is dead, but that does not mean that planning is also obsolete. A set of rolling short-term operational plans can be even worse than locking into a long-term objective. Plans are needed, but they must be constantly assessed and adapted along with changes in the environment.

In some cases, they need to be discarded. Apple's decision to enter the payments business, GE's decision to divest GE Capital, and Tesla's movement into battery production all represent significant shifts in direction based on a keen understanding of shifting marketplaces.

In the words of Manulife Financial chief information officer Joe Cooper, "Knowledge is a 20th century differentiator." In the 21st Century, knowledge about the past is ubiquitous (Google knows it all), and the future is largely unknowable. Thus the ability to be agile - to sense, decide, and act quickly - will replace strategy as the key driver of organisational success in the future.

Beginning Of The Death Of Taxi

Thanks God - this is the begining of death for our taxi.

Despite facing a number of challenges, Uber driver partners are expected to grow in Malaysia this year. The company expects to see a total of 100,000 new drivers in 2016 – a major reason for this can be attributed to the increasingly challenging economy.

These part-time opportunities just make a lot of sense in terms of increasing incomes while serving people who need rides.

So far, there are a total of 60,000 Uber driver partners in the Klang Valley and in relation to the higher recruitment this year. There are seven million people living in the Klang Valley.

While Uber has clarified that it is not in competition with taxis, some 102 taxi drivers will be suing the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) over Uber, Grabcar and Blacklane. An ad hoc committee has been formed to sue the commission for alleged negligence in banning the three operators. The taxi drivers claim that their livelihoods had been affected due to said services.

Who Is Indira Gandhi

The civil courts abandoned its judicial role to uphold the Federal Constitution when it decided earlier this week in the case of M. Indira Gandhi that only the Shariah Court could determine if her children’s conversion to Islam had been valid. T

he decision made by the Court of Appeal on Wednesday pointed out that the Shariah Court has no jurisdiction over non-Muslims and as such, the Hindu mother would not be able to seek legal redress there.

Who Is Zunar

I’m a cartoonist in a country where cartooning can be a crime. Under my pen name, Zunar, I expose corruption and abuses of power by the Malaysian government. For instance, Prime Minister Najib Razak is currently facing questions about a $700 million “donation” made to his personal bank account. The legal assault against me is nothing new, but it marks a major escalation. The authorities have repeatedly sought to silence me. My office has been raided multiple times since 2009, and authorities have confiscated thousands of my cartoon books. In 2010, five of my books – including 1 Funny Malaysia – were banned by the home affairs minister, who declared the contents “detrimental to public order”. Later that year I was detained by police and locked up for two days after the publication of Cartoon-O-Phobia.

Who Is Tunku Azizah Maimunah Iskandariah

The Tengku Puan of Pahang, Tunku Azizah Maimunah Iskandariah (who is married to Pahang Crown Prince) has expressed sadness and disappointment over the pollution caused by bauxite mining activities in Kuantan.She urged the people to continue their fight against the activities which were detrimental to the state. The pollution issue again made the headlines recently after the waters at Sungai Balok and Batu Hitam beach, a tourist attraction, turned red, she said. Tunku Azizah added that the beach in front of her house at Balok had turned red and urged the relevant parties to put a stop to bauxite mining.