5 seconds claim to fame....

Just to prove that anyone can get their picture in the newspapers. ....

Strategic Management from an Islamic Perspective: Key Concepts

The key to success: Providing customers with products and services they want and that they can afford Plan: Continuing the current business model by extending it in the future Strategy: Creating a new business model in the future Strategic conversations: Discussion between leaders and followers about the future of the organization Strategic flexibility: An organization has more strategic choices when it has more efficient business processes than its competitors. The biggest mistake: Thinking that strategy is about "beating" your competitors - it is not. It is always about satisfying your customers. You can beat your competitors and still disappoint your customers. The second biggest mistake: Think that profits is the only measure of success of a strategy. A simple way to increase profitability is to increase risk. A better measure of success is profits divided by the amount of risk that the organization takes. Good organizations must develop a culture of risk management. Every organization must do two things at the same time. It must operate as it is currently and think about how it will be different in the future. The essence of strategy is engaging key leaders and subordinates in strategic conversations. A key goal has to be that the organization is more efficient than others so that it develops strategic flexibility. In my experience, people get so excited about the tactics of strategy ("lets beat our competitors")that they forget that the purpose of strategy is to provide customers with products and services that they want at a price they can afford.

Challenging Mental Models Using Ted Talks

Keeping yourself up to date is very difficult because most news portal focus on events rather than trends. Once you observe trends, the true picture emerges. This true picture is necessary to challenge mental models (yes, this is written for my MGT6610) students. A great source of information are Ted Talks. These are updated daily and they are often very good and challenge conventional wisdom. Here is a talk that challenges the pre-conceived ideas between the West and Third World countries.....Enjoy :)

Four teams

Mom Mgt6610

Week 3 system.....

Pictures from the productive teens for schools project

Intrinsic Motivation

I would like all my students to understand the difference between intrinsic motivation (you do things because you have to) and extrinsic motivation (you do things because other people are putting pressure on you). To achieve your full potential, intrinsic motivation is the only way. Enjoy !

ELEVATOR EXPERIMENT

Using Project Based Learning To Develop Softskills

Since early February 2014, my students have been working with students at SMK Hillcrest and SMK Sri Gombak. Having read the literature since 2010, I have an idea of the theory behind happiness. With IIUM students, I can get them to listen to Islamic talks once a week and they - as an indirect consequence - become happier in 75% of the cases. But how to apply this in secondary schools? My conclusion is that Project-Based Learning (PBL) can help. Many kids at secondary school have a choice: To have an easy life or to have a good life. Happiness requires some sort of planning and this is what most kids at secondary school lack. PBL - in our case, getting secondary school kids to make videos - forces them to consider alternative life options. It helps them to think about the difference between having an easy life and a good life. Sounds simple right? Believe me, it is a lot of work and I have to thank my facilitators for doing most of it.

Productive Teens Project launched in two schools

Since 2010, I have - alhamdulillah - quite a clear idea of happiness from an Islamic perspective. Helping my students become happier is quite easy. Their lack of happiness is rooted in a lack of understanding of Islam. By asking them to listen to Islamic talks every week, I am "forcing" my students to improve their knowledge - and this helps them to develop a more optimistic and happier outlook on life. As an incentive, I dangle very good coursework marks to push them forward. The trick is whether I can use a similar (but different) approach with school kids who I cannot reward by giving them coursework marks. One idea is to get teenagers to make videos about other successful teenagers. I launched this project today with two schools in Gombak. Hopefully, through a process of vicarious learning, they will find that their life (and level of happiness) improves.

A Very Cool Video - tafsir of surah al kahf but in a cool way

Beautiful Sinners

MGT2010: Watch This Video for Motivation

MGT2010 - Class on Wednesday 6th November will be postponed

Dear MGT2010 students. Due to a meeting that I cannot escape from, I have to postpone our class on Wednesday 6th November. Please spread the word.

Introduction to Leadership in a Complex World

This activity was conducted with final year students at IIUM Gombak campus on 24th October 2013. The purpose of the workshop was to get students to experience a chaotic system (in this case, a supply chain). There were three kinds of systems: one week delay, two weeks delay and three weeks delay.

Thinking globally

Mid Term for MGT2010: Monday 28 October 2013

Dear all : spread the word. Mid Term for MGT2010: Monday 28 October 2013

Feedback to my MGT2010 and MGT6600 students

Every week, you should learn something new that is not related to the content of the course but related to the process of planning and executing a project. Every week, you should ask yourself: "If I had to do this again, what would I do differently?" If you would do everything the same, you are not learning. If you would do things different but you don't write down these ideas on a separate piece of paper, you will forget them.Happy learning :)

A Good Example to Follow: Sebelah Sayap

I did some market testing yesterday. I sat with a few students and we watched several videos. They gave me their feedback on what worked, what didn't and why. The best video was Mat Luthfi's "sebelah sayap". The reason: many videos tell about how to solve a problem (i.e. somebody talking all the time). However, people prefer to watch somebody solve a problem. For example, in the video, there are scenes with no dialogue but you see Mat Lufthi emptying beer bottles in the sink and replacing it with apple juice. Clearly, Mat Lufthi is a very experiences video maker so I don't expect you guys to do what he does. However, the idea that 'showing' is better than 'telling' should influence the way you make videos this semester.

Strategic Management from an Islamic perspective

If anybody wants to buy this book at a discount, please come to my office. I have purchased 50 copies at the author's price and I am willing to re-sell them at that price. The book focuses on strategic management failure rates of 90% ++. This means that what you learn in most conventional strategic management textbooks fail 90% of the time. In particular, a reliance on riba (which is never questioned by Western authors) and many conflicts of interests lead organizational leaders to do the wrong thing. The Islamic perspective proposes a useful alternative that focuses on several things: sustainability, social justice, shariah-compliance and systems thinking. Enjoy :)