Academik

This morning started with a text message to Kiki encouraging her for
the day ahead. She replied that she was just thinking about me, and
poof, I sent her a text message. She asked for prayers as she had to
fire an employee this morning. I prayed for the wrong thing, thinking
that he was quitting, and she wanted him to stay. I didn’t feel like
that was going to happen, but I prayed anyway.

This morning started off with praise and worship, and then a diaspora
of consultants throughout Jakarta. Some of us left later than others
so we sat together and worked on our deliverables. One of the younger
consultants who works at Cnet had been asked to come speak to an
office’s employees. He’d never done anything like this so we worked
on a couple of topics and sent him on his way.

I posted the two novels below : ) and then headed out to my client
again to see if I could get a better sense of how we could improve
what seemed to be a good company that was facing giant problems. This
time around though, I had a secret weapon in the form of Errol, a
retired South African Navy consultant who leads our Indonesian office
here. We spoke first with Kiki, and then I met with Erdanto, the
crewing manager, and then finally with Mr. Sugyman. I asked Kiki
about her conversation earlier in the morning and she said that it had
gone really well, very smoothly. In Indonesia you must supply
employees with a severance package if you fire them, and you must
coordinate everything with the Ministry of Manpower (labor).
Fortunately in this case, Wintermar had followed the law really well
and the employee, who had been with the company for 5 years,
understood why he was being let go and left peacefully without
demanding severance. Even though I prayed for the wrong thing, God
was faithful in giving Kiki what she was looking for.

We discussed the issues of corruption and staffing issues again -
everyone seems to have different problems, but in the end we finally
realized one thing. The boss didn’t have enough time to do anything
but react. This gave us a great insight into how HR needed to change
the company… If HR could hire and train people that were responsible
and self-sufficient then Mr. Sugyman would have time to visit the
boats more regularly. He would have more time to spend with employees
and with his family. He would also have more time to set the
strategic vision for the company and HR could then communicate that to
employees.

It was a big breakthrough for us as we had been struggling to find a
clear purpose for HR that aligned with the needs of the company.
Tomorrow, we help Kiki and Martin realize this purpose and begin
formulating a strategy for moving forward!

Wednesday morning started with a quick mental ride, first in a car
with a discussion of the importance of alignment in our lives, and
then on a bike with wheels of character and competency. Fortunately
both rides did not require us to venture out onto the maniacal streets
of Jakarta. The second structured day is a big one, mainly because if
clients didn’t like the first day, they don’t come back. We’re 8 for
8 though this morning : )

Today was exciting because the President of Indonesia shared the hotel
with us. We kept an eye out, hoping that we could invite him to our
afternoon session, but alas he evaded us. We carried on through
Product in the morning, led by Pak Ben who started off the discussion
with Albert Guinness’ desires for beer as a substitute for Scotch and
Gin so that his countrymen would not spend so much time passed out in
the streets. We then watched a clip from the Passion of the Christ of
Jesus making a table. What do you notice about his Jesus’ work? Good
products are sturdy, of high quality, made with focus and precision,
innovative (most tables were much lower at the time), they often
create a secondary need… Pak Ben, normally quiet and very reserved,
comes alive with an audience. It was great to see him joking around
with the audience and really mastering the material.

We asked clients about miracles they wanted to see in their businesses
and already one had been fulfilled. One client knew that two
consultants were coming to visit her, but she prayed that she would
hear from one other person, just for that little extra bit of
confirmation we sometimes feel we need. She asked God for Richard,
our intercessor, to be a part of the visit, and it just so happened
that when the consultants walked through the door, Richard was with
them to pray for the business. The client was immediately overjoyed
and felt God listening. Others among the clients simply asked that
God would be with them in their business and we asked them to dream
bigger. That God would allow a discussion of faith to take place
between a husband and a wife… That a family would finally accept
their son for who he is, and not what they’ve always wanted him to
be. As God reveals himself, I’m sure their expectations will grow,
just as their faith will.

We spent the afternoon discussing presence, and the many ways that God
markets himself… His Son, His Word, miracles, the majesty of His
creation. It is moving how much he reveals to us when we just ask
Him. I had personally been struggling with the question of how to
retain employees at a business with high turnover - through prayer God
revealed that the employees did not belong to the company and thus
could not be seen as something to “keep” - with this new mindset I
realized that really all the company could do was love them and live
out a good example for them as Jesus did for the disciples. We’re
working on a strategy for the employees to be fulfilled, loved, grown
and affirmed.

We finished the day with a discussion of giants in Indonesia and there
are some big ones… corruption, education, infrastructure, laziness,
and law enforcement to name a few. We asked the clients to think
about what their business could do to help fight these giants. What
kind of legacy would their company leave? would they leave for their
children? Would they stand up to make a difference? This was a very
moving idea for many of them, especially when thinking about their
sons and daughters.

The team quickly wrapped up and headed out to dinner at a nearby Tapas
bar. A small Spanish restaurant with Patatas, Jambon, Empanadillas,
and more we had a bite to eat and took a few photos of the interesting
club downstairs. The bathrooms had chalkboard paint so we left a few
reminders of God’s love.

As the team enters into our second unstructured day tomorrow I feel
like we’re quickly coming up to speed… with several small miracles
and acts of faith under our belt, we’re growing confident that we can
change the businesses and the people here in Indonesia to accomplish
God’s Will. We are thankful that God has already given a sense of
fulfillment in our purpose, and we continually re-surrender to His
infinite wisdom and design.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are unstructured days for us to visit with
clients, work on deliverables, and generally make sure that we’re
moving forward. This past Tuesday I went to Wintermar to meet with
Sugyman and Darmawan, the two brothers who run the company.

As you can imagine with any company, everyone has a different
perspective on what’s wrong and what needs to be fixed. For some who
hear about Rep, they may think that we’re trying to convert everyone
to Christians, and while we’d love for that to happen we’re really
more interested in making sure that Christian principles are becoming
lived out in the marketplace. The rest will fall into place once that
happens.

Concrete examples… God spoke to His people, the Israelites through
prophets in the Old Testament. In the New Testament God speaks through
His son, Jesus. He directly approaches the problems of the world by
engaging us on our level. When I met with the owner of the company he
mentioned that they were having communication and cultural issues with
the staff, and more specifically with the crew who are distributed
across Southeast Asia and living in a different environment and
culture than workers in Jakarta. I asked both brothers if they had
ever worked on any of the boats or spent much time with the crew.
They replied that they see the crew from time to time in the office,
but that they haven’t ever spent time on the boats. I immediately
began to feel like this was an important step for them to begin to
solve issues of communication and culture - they need to spend a few
days living aboard one of the boats and working with a rig so they can
better understand what their people are going through.

I’m going to continue to pray about that insight and how best to
communicate that to them. In the meantime Darmawan, Kiki, and Martin
and I went out to lunch and had three types of fish which I wish I’d
taken pictures of for you - they took the entire fish and threw it on
a grill and then split it in half and put it on a plate for us. I
also had a great sweet tea which tasted very woodsy, but good. I’m
gonna see if I can bring some back so you can try it.

We went back to the office after lunch and worked on the purpose
statement and an assessment of where they are and where they want to
be in different aspects of the business. Hong Lim, my co-consultant,
stressed the alignment of the different parts of the company. This is
something I feel we’re going to struggle with as the CEO has not
communicated a real purpose statement for the company, and as such,
we’re having trouble formulating a plan for HR that aligns.

We came back home and debriefed with the rest of the team and then
headed out for some Thai food at the mall next door with the team. I
stuck around to work on the Internet and ended up giving Julia a tour
of the mall via Skype. Picture me walking up to J. Co, a donut shop
like Krispy Kreme, with my laptop open and just holding the laptop up
so that Julia could see all the donuts while two workers behind the
counter wondered what the heck I was doing… stealing their donut
secrets!

Technology has been a bit frustrating here because we have cellular
Internet in three of our rooms, but in all but one it’s extremely slow
(it takes about 20 minutes to download email). Please pray that we
find a solution soon that works and is convenient for everyone.
Ironic that one of our clients is the 3rd largest ISP in Indonesia and
differentiates itself by quality. We are assuming God has given us
this experience so that we can better understand what Indonesians go
through and market the company accordingly.

All the best,
Andrew

The first day and there were tears all around my table. Let me tell
you the story.

We were up before dawn this morning to iron shirts, get breakfast,
prepare presentations, and get our conference room setup. Being the
very tall networker that I am, I greeted people downstairs and
directed them to our room starting at 8:15. All of the clients and
local consultants arrived by 8:45am and I went upstairs to meet my
client and co-consultant.

My client, PT Wintermar, is a shipping services and management company
whose core business is supporting offshore rigs. The company has ~500
employees of which 120 are office staff and 350 are crew for their 45
shipping vessels. I’m meeting with Pak (Mr.) Martin, the crew
Director, and Ibu (Mrs.) Meiky, the HR director for the office. Their
boss has already been through Rep’s program and has asked them to
participate since so much of what they do revolves around having the
right people (read: honest). Both of them were intrigued when the
boss gathered all the managers and directors in a meeting over
Christmas and told them that now the business belonged to God, and
that he was no longer “the boss”, God was.

Kiki and Martin are here to grapple with what that means. The first
day gives a broad overview of the 10 deliverables which we’ll provide
them at the end of the 2 weeks, beginning with an impact assessment
(looking at what they think is important in their business, and how
they’re doing), a 10-P summary of their business, and a first look at
the purpose of their business. You’ll see 10-P a lot in here, it’s a
list of the 10 different parts of their business. The founder of Rep
likes the number 10 (10 consultants, 10 days, 10 visits to a city,
etc…)

The work today was slow-going because the clients are still not quite
sure what this is all about, and how to answer many of these questions
(especially if they’re not overseeing all of the business like my
clients), and so we made good progress, but certainly didn’t finish
anything today. Early on in the day I asked both of them how long they
had been Christians and both of them gave me a somewhat puzzled look
and said since they were babies (Martin said since he was in the
womb). Little did I know what impact this question would have later
in the day.

Tan Hong Lim, my seasoned co-consultant and I took them through
everything that we could, and at one point Tan handed me a piece of
paper reminding me that while both had been Christians since they were
born, perhaps they had never actually chosen to commit their lives to
God… so we asked them. Do you believe that God loves you, and that
you’ll go to heaven when you die. Martin thought about it for a
little bit, and then responded yes. Meiky seemed a little taken aback
by the very straightforward question. She told us that she’d struggled
with the idea, and had never really committed her life to Christ. I
asked her if she would stay afterwards so we could pray with her (and
involve Errol or Rebecca, our leaders), and she agreed. God had other
plans. Tan grabbed the opportunity and said we should pray right
now. So the four of us grabbed hands and began to pray for Meiky.
She began to weep, and weep, and weep. That prayer unlocked something
in her that had been holding her back for a long time. I don’t know
what she was thinking, but I know that she was deeply affected by the
message that she was forgiven for any past wrongs and that she was
loved by God and unique in His eyes.

We prayed with her while she wept for nearly an hour. It was a great
way to start off the venture, remembering that while we’re working to
repurpose businesses, our main goal is to transform the people within
a society. Tomorrow, it’s off to work with Martin and Meiky!

PS - Janet and Alex - tonight we had Korean BBQ for dinner, nothing
like Club Riders though : )

Sunday morning I woke up and worked out and then went for my first
experience at the breakfast buffet at the hotel next door. You know
how sometimes mom made breakfast for dinner (hooray scrambled eggs and
toast mom!), well the Indonesians do the opposite - dinner for
breakfast! There was rice, fried bean curd, chicken dishes, something
with noodles, something with fried rice, green beans and ground beef
with peppers, etc. it’s all an adventure. Fortunately for the “boo-
lays” (white skins) there are also cereals, fruits, breads,
croissants, eggs, and omelettes. They even have sausage and fried
tomatoes for Scots like me (I’m traveling on my UK passport since my
very well traveled US passport expires in July). There’s also a
killer selection of juices - Guava, Kiwi, Orange, Apple, Papaya, and
my favorite Pineapple.

So on Sunday we gathered as a full group for the first time to go over
our agenda, pray for the venture and our clients, and do a little
praise and worship. Our little laptop sang its heart out and we sang
along. We gathered in the lobby at 3 and all headed to one of the
local leader’s houses, Dr. Soparno. A former client of Rep’s who has
become very involved in supporting its missions here in Indonesia, Dr.
Soparno owns many different businesses and is well respected here in
Jakarta so his involvement with Rep has added a lot of credibility to
our venture. We arrived at his beautiful house and met the local
consultants with whom we’ll be working.

To be completely honest I had no idea what to expect of the local
consultants - old, young, experienced, heartfelt, intelligent…?
What would they be. I was overjoyed to meet them and find out that
they are all of these things. There are several younger consultants
in their late 20’s and early 30’s as well as several more seasoned
consultants in their 40’s and 50’s. All of them have so much to offer
our clients here (sometimes I wonder why we’re needed : ), and they
were overjoyed to have us there. I spoke with many of them talking
about what they do there, and what I do in the states. I now have an
appointment with Harjano, our translator, to explain how businesses
can use Facebook to build their user base : )

Several of the clients joined us for dinner as well (although we
didn’t know which clients would be ours). I didn’t get a chance to
speak with many of them, but I’m interested to see who I get paired
with because all of them seem very interesting. client run-down to
follow tomorrow

I’m hoping to put up a few pictures of the dinner and the house when I
get a chance because both were spectacular. Dr. Soparno’s wife, See
Mun, is an amazing painter and the house is filled with her work.
Tomorrow is the first day of work and I’m headed to bed early to make
sure that I’m ready. Wish me luck!

It’s funny how there are people in our lives we always miss. Even when they are with us we know eventually they’ll leave. We know there will be an end to each conversation… each meal… each phone call… each car ride…each day and each night. If you’re smart lucky, you experience each goodbye as it comes. If not, you experience them all at once, over and over again.

The word ‘goodbye’ becomes a dull ache that drools across your lips; your lungs too weak to expel enough air to punctuate the space between now and then with anything more than longing. A longing your body feels like thirst or hunger; only ever temporarily satisfied.

I watch from both sides and take note.
Image from Deviant Artist Pesare

Thursday morning I’m heading to work as usual.  I descend the bus at Stockton and Grant and proceed on my leisurely stroll to the office.  There’s a Mont Blanc store at the corner of Maiden Lane and Grant that’s been under construction and so when I see a number of construction workers outside it’s no surprise…

One of them is fumbling with a stack of blueprints and right before I get to him he emphatically spits out “Fuck!”.  He looks up at me in a Navy Blue suit and tie and says “Sorry.”  A little perplexed at his need to apologize for speaking, let alone to me, I walk past thinking nothing of it. After I pass him and I am about to turn the corner I hear, “I thought that was the mayor…”

v

Perhaps… ?

So as I am embroiled in a battle with my employer and the IRS concerning taxes (read more here) I have once again come to the conclusion that antiquated systems are keeping us from reaching our full potential. What do I mean? The tax system in the US is RIDICULOUSLY complicated - overcharging those who can’t afford accountants or don’t have the education to understand it, and rewarding those who know how to manipulate it - how does this make any sense?

This takes me back to a previous realization that outdated entrenched systems keep us from moving forward. Telcos. Copyright law. our Oil-based economy. Healthcare. Taxes. They’re all systems that were set up a long time ago and then bandaged over and over again to catch up to modern times and now there is so much money invested in them that the people who are winning from the status quo are impeding our national progress.

These exploiters are spending millions of dollars to keep their system in place instead of spending those millions on R&D and the implementation of newer technologies. Telcos pilfered billions of dollars from the US government to build a high-speed fiber optic network in the 90s - then bailed and told the government it was too expensive. Link Here

The oil companies consistently battle alternative sources of energy (while highly publicizing their piddly forays into alternative energy) and higher fuel efficiency standards (thanks for sticking up what’s in our best interest congress & is there a reason why US car manufacturers have the worst fuel economy?). The price of oil affects the price of nearly everything that we consume because transportation costs and oil are directly linked : whether it’s gasoline for your car, food from your grocery store, your purchase from Amazon.com, or a CD from Best Buy - it’s price factors in the cost of fuel for the transportation that gets it to you. With virtually everything based on this one natural resource (that according to the Department of Energy 70% of our imports come from Canada, Mexico, Suadi Arabia, Venezuela, and Nigeria in order of magnitude) why are we not putting everything we have into alternative fuel research - because the status quo is great for oil comapnies and they’d like to keep it that way.

Healthcare! Wow what an awe-inspiring disappointment that is. While providing better care than most nationalized healthcare systems for middle and upper class patients, many of our poorer brothers and sisters are slipping through the cracks. Due to the heavily weighted system we’ve put in place for Healthcare Insurance providers, normal people get screwed with ridiculously priced services ($80 for a 10 minute consult at my family doctor). It’s known to most people that doctors make a good amount of money, especially if they have their own practice, but what you may not realize is that the doctors are paying ludicrous sums of money to insurance companies to cover them. And what are insurance companies saying, “We [their clients] are using health care services more and more. Not only is medical technology improving, but people are visiting more specialists, more often.” (Blue Cross Website) As the baby-boomer generation grows older, those costs are going to go through the roof. Add to that the problems generated by Americans lack of exercise and bad diet and it’s no wonder we’re going to the doctor so much.

What we need is a revolution. John Edwards is calling for a nationalized healthcare plan which I think is doomed to failure due to the litigiousness of our society - if they can limit tort settlements (breach of agreements entered into involuntarily; IE suing your doctor for making a mistake) to non 7 digit numbers then we might have a shot, but even then… I had a friend in the UK who had 6 months to live and was on an 8 month waiting list to have the surgery that could heal him. Talk about an ineffective system. I know there’s a better way, but too many people are happy with the status quo to make a change.

Back to my original point about taxes - think about the number of people employed as tax accountants and IRS officials - now imagine what would happen if the United States had a flat tax or a stratified flat tax on net income. poof! Hundreds of thousands of jobs would disappear. Definitely not something the IRS or H&R Block want to hear, but is it right for a country to burden its citizens with this? Why doesn’t the government make it as easy and straightforward to pay our taxes as possible - this would make it much easier for them to collect and monitor the entire process and yet I feel like we’re still in the New Deal here, making up jobs so that people have work regardless of its cost to the taxpayer. AHHHHHhhhh!!! I will be filing my 1040, 1040SE, 2106, and 1040C-EZ sometime soon, or some variation there-in.

Wherever you are, whatever you do, don’t let antiquated systems (or mindsets) stand in the way of progress.

Images above taken from following:
Zebra Field from Flickr: Liumorse
Iranian Oil Field from Flickr: The Original Mozzy
Syringe from Flickr: Wakalani
IRS Logo from Aerojockey.com

technorati tags:telcos, oil, healthcare, AntiquatedSystems, outdated, economy, US

Blogged with Flock

A colleague mentioned relationships in the US are different than in France. Apart from the myriad of obvious reasons this is true I asked him to explain. “Americans marry their best friends. Europeans marry their lovers.” I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I don’t know if I have an answer, but I’ve definitely got some ideas…

In America I was brought up to believe that men and women are essentially equal. Sure there are the general observations about women being more emotional than men, men being physically stronger than women, women having longer endurance than men, and perhaps even being able to take more pain than men (not taking into account Jack Bauer). But all of this is generally irrelevant because we don’t interact with general ideas of each other - we interact with people who come in all shapes, sizes, mentalities, abilities.

What equality really means is that every man and woman has the same possibility to become something. CEO, homemaker, entrepreneur, athlete, accountant, musician, artist. Whether they attain these positions or not is up to them. There are too many physiological differences between us to really be considered the same -I mean seriously, women have the ability to create life inside of them, birth them (squeezing a watermelon out of a hole the size of a lemon), and feed them using milk their bodies make! I have a penis. End of story.

But this idea of equality has changed our vision of gender roles and relationships… Simply by having the option to become anything we became something else. We have, in some ways, convinced ourselves that we are alike, regardless of our physical differences and our instincts. This re-interpreted vision of ourselves has had a direct impact on the way we view relationships.

The reason I bring this up is that I spoke with a woman who said she married her best friend (seemingly ideal) and eventually just got bored and they divorced after 8 years. This is something I’ve heard several times, but never really explored until now. I wonder if the ebb and flow within a natural relationship is necessary to retain interest? Perhaps somehow by marrying someone that you are so close to, sharing everything with - you actaully take away some mystery in the relationship and thus some of the interest and attraction as the years pass.

I say there are three things that must be present for a good relationship: physical attraction, mental attraction, and chemistry. People throw around that last one a lot, but I think it boils down to sexual tension and the way in which we parlay our physical attractions to each other. There should be a good amount of all three in a healthy relationship. By placing an extremely high priority on mental attraction (or how well we connect) and downplaying the physical / sexual side of the relationship, perhaps we upset the delicate balance of the relationship… I just don’t know.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this because my mind is certainly not made up.