Good Manager and more: 5 things you wanna see in your boss

BEING AN ASSOCIATE is an awkward stage in your professional life; and I think you would agree with me on this. It’s like being a sophomore in college: All of a sudden you don’t receive as much attention as those excited-about-everything Freshmen anymore; at the same time you are still not “experienced” or “qualified” enough to apply to those internships/programs specifically designed for Junior and Seniors.

A couple of examples in line with this:

• In Objective Settings you are expected to use language like “take a leadership role in this project”, but you should be very cautious with language like “managing the project or the team” – Right, if you (being an Associate) are managing the team, why do they need a Director?
• The VP who used to be your supervisor now reports to the same boss as you do. But while the VP is participating in management training programs, you are left behind doing the VP’s job.
• You are responsible for the quality of the work done by your Analyst but he/she doesn’t report to you, so most of the times, he/she doesn’t give a sh** of what you say or intend to have him/her do.
• Let me STRESS that all the above don’t happen often at all in my own case, but nevertheless I guarantee you this is quite universal otherwise.

I consider myself as lucky to be on this assignment overseas.

Most Effective Tips on How to Write Follow up Emails

Dear Danye,

I really want to hear your insights on how to follow up with people I just met with such as alumni or high profile people. After the first acquaintance, I usually don’t know what to say to them through email or phone since we barely see each other. At the same time, I’m afraid that too many emails of questions or holiday wishes would annoy them. But I want to make a good impression because I may need their help at some point. Would you please elaborate how you maintain the relationship with your contacts?

Thank you – N

Another great question from Ask Danye, you guys are really awesome awesome inspirations! And I want to reassure you that the very fact you are writing this email to me means you take initiatives and that you are on the right track: yes, you do need to reach out to people BEFORE you actually need help from them. And here’s how to do it:

• Make it extremely easy for them
• Keep it very short (the 3 steps)
• Watch your tone (some do’s and don’ts)
• Write it already

Make it extremely easy for them

Senior people are busy people, so if you want them to do just about anything in the world, you need to make it super easy for them. I recently coordinated with HR, Yale Alums at my firm, and Women Initiatives for an informational/networking/recruiting event with Smart Woman Securities, a women organization from Yale. I pushed very hard for the event to happen obviously since we don’t really recruit on campus, and there’s tons of coordination work. But I got affirmative response from EVERY SINGLE person I reached out to and everyone is super excited to help me, even Harvard alums!

我羡慕那些时光流逝却未能改变他们的人

Another periodic Chinese blog of mine, in response to a movie based on my very generation, emotionally deep; excuse me if you don’t read Chinese.

“少年的我们，都是热烈而坚持的，那是一种光芒，引人入胜。我羡慕那些时光流逝却未能改变他们的人”
 
——前两天终于看了80后那部电影。不能说每个情节都感同身受，可是很多细节上了东西却仿佛无缘无故的牵扯了我多年没有调动了的敏感神经。这是一部融入了太多感情在里面的片子，让我流泪，在回忆中不知所措，然后一发不可收拾。
 

 

所以我一直很犹豫要不要写这篇文字。爬格子对我来说有时候是一个很痛苦的过程。要么就不写，如果写就需要在沉静中奔放，在压抑中爆发。我总觉得，爬格子是一项只能在深夜才能进行的活动。夜深人静，才可以看透彻自己的心境，等文字终于自然流淌，才终于得以释怀。所以我才一直觉得，写字让我痛苦，却也因此让我沉迷。
 
记得中学的时候读安妮宝贝，看新概念作文，谈论郭敬明。现在想来真的很奇怪，那些根本从来没有在我身上发生过的事情，为什么只是读过就在自己的身体和精神上刻了那么深的烙印。慢慢学会“一半明媚一半忧伤”或者什么“快乐而孤独的等待”还有“爱情仿佛在她心里开出一朵诡异的花”还有那些一切有关长发，阳光，白球鞋的东西。乐此不疲。
 
我们本来都是快乐而简单的小孩子吧。为什么后来我们的文字里有那么多忧伤？
 

On “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”, and what is wrong about it

Aside from the release of Verizon iPhone 4 and another round of big snow in New York, there is something else that has flooded the internet these days: Ms. Amy Chua’s Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior article on WSJ.

I have to say I like this article. I admire Amy’s honesty and audacity to even talk about things in such controversy that many Chinese are familiar with but may be totally unimaginable to other cultures. I am intrigued and impressed by her witty (at times funny) language and detailed examples, and I mean who would not be?! Especially when you read such a tagline – Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?

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However, as much as I have personally lived through many experiences Amy has explicitly described in her article, and as much as I can only nod through her 3 points that by large have differentiated Chinese parents from other parents, I have sadly come to an conclusion that there are at least two fundamental flaws in the very foundation of her arguments:

1)      Happiness and success do not necessarily correlate to each other, especially when you define success in such a narrow way.

2)      Ending your parenting story when your kids are 15-ish is probably quite pre-mature. What may have worked for a 7-year old does not mean it will work the same for a late teen.

Best of 2010, and Preview of 2011

I have kept blogs in a variety of places before and this is the first and only time the website sent me a stats summary with such details for the bygone year. For the constant thrive to optimize user experience and the degree of dedication, I want to first thank WordPress for offering me, and many other bloggers in this world, an intimate place to pursue our passions, to share our curiosities, and to develop a legacy. 

I also want to take the opportunity to appreciate every one of you who has stopped by my blog over the past year. For those who have commented on my posts, cheered for me on my facebook walls, left a message to me on LinkedIn and Gtalk, followed me on Google Reader, or mentioned my blog to me face-to-face, I want to thank you for being my constant motivation and inspiration. Your encouragement means the world to me.

Started in mid-April 2010, the blog had 70 new posts and was viewed about 21,000 times over the course of 2010. Not bad for the first year I have to say. Thanks for sharing this with me.

Here are my Top Posts of the Year:

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10. This is the kind of email I WILL respond to!

This was an introduction email on career opportunity that I have been waiting for. As I know most people are still struggling on how to effectively network and communicate, I figured it was a good idea to share the email and my interpretation with you. 

Top 8 Things I learned in 2010 (Part II)

5. The easiest thing in the world is to say good things about other people.

Without even seriously meaning it. But it’s so easy, and you see the results. It doesn’t cost you anything, but it makes everybody happy. It really should be something natural to you, because everyone else is doing it too.

But you must be stupid if you don’t know WHY other people are doing it, especially if you are the “target” of the praise. Some people might seriously mean it, and I have every respect for those being honest and genuine with their compliments, but even if you are 10 times better than the compliments, why should they? Because you are a boss? You are a girlfriend? You are his date in this dance club? You are a customer browsing shoes? You are a competition?

すごいですね：Japanese Human Beat Box at Union Square!

Yay, so this is my first iphone video recording, and my first youtube upload!  This Japanese guy was simply amazing, and this was just one of his many astonishing routines. I was lucky to have witnessed this with my own eyes at Union Square and I kept saying to myself, there are so many people out there doing things so interesting and so different from what we’re doing, but most of the cases we are not even aware.

Be curious, because life is still full of surprises.

I feel you, New York

I am back to New York, finally.
I pulled myself out of the couch, and smacked myself into the bed.
It felt comfortable. It felt like home.

I probably never missed New York so badly before.
I hastened my breath to breathe in more fresh air.
I couldn’t wait to log onto facebook.
I could check wenxuecity and all the other gossips again.
I went to Chipotle three times this week.
I can use my credit card to pay my cabs now!

I’m looking at playbill for new Broadway shows again.
I’m watching Lie to Me, Gossip Girl and Big Bang Theory on PPStreem again.
I’m back on track with my daily routine (getting off from work at 11pm)
And my office phone had 16 messages for the period I was gone, and 28 missed calls.
And I have 3 client meetings, 2 final pitch calls, 2 monthly reports and an annual questionnaire this week.

And I am thrilled.

And then I realized why we complain to each other

Probably the first rule you should know before going on a blind date is: Do not complain. Even though you’re in pain, you have a lot of things going on, you just got yourself into some new trouble…do not complain. Because nobody wants to be with someone who constantly nag about their own problems and frustration which have (in most cases) absolutely nothing to do with you, and you definitely do not want to leave that impression the first time you meet someone.

 

What about close friends? I remember this line from my childhood: if you share your happiness with your friends, it doubles; if you share your sadness with your friends, it reduces half. Oh how powerful. But in real life more than often people, especially close friends, and especially girlfriends, complain to each other all the time. Is it really because “if I don’t turn to you about this I have nobody else to talk about it?”  

Maybe that’s true in some cases. But if you do that too often it may becomes a burden to your friends. Yes they care about you, but it doesn’t mean you can take advantage of their kindness or time. To think about it in this way, if you were your friends, would you be willing to listen to your own nagging for a few hours, and every other weekend? If your answer is yes, then either you are very enduring and patient, or you are narcissistic. At least I used to think so.

But during my trip to Asia a few weeks ago I realized something new about the nature of complain that I never thought about before.  I was grabbing drinks with 2 girlfriends and one of them was telling us about her charming, capable, rich boyfriend for almost the entire evening, especially about how good he is to her. I was amused actually and enjoyed very much their stories. Then toward the end of the night the other girlfriend walked me back to my hotel and said on the way:

Awesome Facts about China

Check this out…

http://awesome.good.is/features/010/010chinafaq1.html

The “Battle”: How Should China Face Western Criticism?

It is interesting to trace how Americans talked about China in the past few years. They were talking about human rights, then intellectual property rights, then environmental problems, then Tibet. And at the same time, they are amazed by what is happening in Beijing and Shanghai, and they couldn’t stop talking about those shopping malls, clubs, Sichuan food, and oriental culture. Hosting the Olympics Game and World Expo doesn’t make you the most developed country in the world, and China obviously is not there yet. But it does attract tons of eyeballs. It attracts praises as well as criticism.

Every country has its own problems and issues. Sometimes I feel one has no right to comment on other country’s problem if first of all, you actually have exactly the same problem, and second of all, you have no idea what is really going on on the other side of the world. I read “Snow“ a while back, the Nobel Prize winning book by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. I am not a big fan of the political part of the novel, but there is this one quotation that really caught my eyes: “If you write a book set in Kars and put me in it, I’d like to tell your readers not to believe anything you say about me, anything you say about any of us. No one could understand us from so far away.”

It is a brilliant quotation. And I couldn’t stop but thinking, it is very true that we can’t understand someone from so far away, but do we really understand ourselves and each other, even when we’re actually so close?