Friday 27 September 2013

Nauseating

The latest Demi Negara piece is an absolute must read for those who wants to understand why I no longer respect the present Umno leadership and why I have been rather scathing when it comes to writing about the "classy" people surrounding our PM.

I have been unfortunate enough to have seen some of them in action, in this case the PEMANDU crowd, and I must say that I wasn't too impressed with what I saw.

If everyone in PEMANDU had been so fabulously talented, and everyone had performed commendably, why do we still need McKinsey, Boston Consulting, et al?

I also had the misfortune to have had dealings with the political types from Umno War Room HQ prior to GE13, and that wasn't too pleasant either.

How can he be so blind as to surround himself with these kinds of people when I have encountered others on the ground who are far more sincere and just as capable if not more so than these types that he depends on for advice?

For example, although I am a city girl myself, my social circle is rather limited and does not include the urban poor as mentioned by Demi Negara.  That is inexcusable, but I can only say that I will attempt to rectify that as soon as possible.

However, if that is inexcusable for me, it must be more so for people who make decisions that affect other people's livelihood and the future socio-economic opportunities for generations to come.

Maybe PM himself would have all these photo-ops with poor people, but does he really understand these people's needs?

When I was a Management Trainee with a British multinational, I had to spend at least 3 months each in Customer Services, Marketing Communications, and Product Development before I was finally placed in Management Consultancy Services as an Associate.

In Customer Services, I had to understand our customers, their different issues, how to communicate with them directly, and how to address their problems.

In Marketing Communications I had to learn all the different perspectives, master the mass communications skills and tools required to reach a large audience of diverse backgrounds, to gain acceptance of our corporate messages.

In Product Development, I had to understand not only the products that the engineers develop, but also to relate that into real applications that can address real customer issues, while others had to translate market requirements to be incorporated into product life cycle plans.

I quickly became a full-fledged consultant once I mastered the art of the con, the use of communications tools to impress the audience, and there was one occasion that a customer actually asked for me because they remembered me and was impressed by my presentation.

In short, it is all about understanding customer requirements, meeting customer expectations and manipulating marketplace/customer perception, i.e. creating a need where there is none.

Guess which one our politicians have been good at lately?

Frankly, I find them all nauseatingly fake.

16 comments:

  1. REF: "How can he be so blind as to surround himself with these kinds of people when I have encountered others on the ground who are far more sincere and just as capable if not more so than these types that he depends on for advice?"

    Faithful Malays should not forget our spiritual heritage and humanity's perennial search for true reality:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmmynR-rO4k&feature=player_detailpage

    ReplyDelete
  2. Saya pun dah meluat tengok muka Najib, hari2 dalam berita TV1 @ TV3. Tak boleh berfikir sendiri. Bangsawan jenis ini amat mudah terpengaroh oleh kaki bodek. Kaki bodek, selalunya orang yang tak tahu buat kerja, apa pun. Mereka hanya berharap pada keringat atau buah fikiran orang lain. Pasal tu banyak guna CONsultant.

    Selagi dia tak pecat semua penasihat dan PEMANDU, saya tak tahu mana nak di pangkah, PRU14 nanti. Nak harap PR, mereka lagi teruk pada BN. Harap2 calon BEBAS ramai pada PRU14.

    RD.

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  3. All that classy people that around PM had given UMNO bad name and image ,even kampong folks had smell the bad of it but Najib just couldn't care less.

    Malay folks in the kampong love for UMNO making them in delima , it's to bad that UMNO president are not being challenged .

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  4. Hi Tinsel
    you can liken DS Najib as the emperor with the new clothes. his CONsultans are those same advisers that gladly agree that the clothes are the finest; until the little boy innocently shouted " why emperor wear no clothes ?"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Anon, unfortunately, this emperor is not listening to anyone other than his advisers ...

      Delete
    2. Be pro active not whiners30 September 2013 at 17:16

      Big Cat jangan cepat mengalah. Mereka di Pemandu ni pun bukan pandai sangat. Mereka di pilih sebab ada orang yang bisik di telinga Najib.
      Anda dan kumpulan anda pun boleh buat begitu.
      Kita boleh menjerit di cyber untuk Najib memecat Cina dan India Kristian yang merosakan ekonomi Melayu di Pemandu.
      Anda boleh buat NGO berarak pergi jumpa Najib di Putrajaya.
      Kena lah aktif sikit.
      Ni nak jadi keyboard warrior je lepas tu harap Najib dengar cakap awak.
      Lawak lah.
      Kalau anda ada conviction anda perlu lakukan sendiri. Jangan harap pula Najib baca blog anda dan fikir oooh pandai nya ni big cat.. it wont happen haha..

      Kena pergi jumpa sendiri. Buat NGO atau pressure group. Vincent Tan pergi lagi rumah Presiden UMNO, Syed Mokhtar tiap-tiap minggu jumpa Presiden UMNO mengendeng projek. So apa lagi tunggu?

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  5. I sit down listening to so call foreign consultant helping the PEMANDU ( ketagih candu) to construct a dynamic model for the Malaysian. Economy.The whole session run for almost a day and half. Than come PEMANDU young staff " chaperoning" the foreign consultant here and there and not knowing what is going on in the presentation. I often wonder how much money does this foreign consultant received after the kind of work they are doing. On top of everything they are being " fed" with what ever data they wish to have. For that kind of job, any local academician can do it and even better. It take million to train our own PhD and I am one of them and yet your own government never give any recognition even though your papers are published in journal and cited by others. It is the special privileged given to foreign consultant that make local academician like me continue to write in journal rather that drafting policy papers for the Goverment. It is not right to say local academician are not up to the mark- some of us published in top notch journal as we are treated with respect within that circle- no regret.

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  6. Replies
    1. It's a Malaysian Dilemma. Not all nons voted for PR okay; some of us do support BN. But now reading the pro-BN bloggers like OSTB etc, it makes me just sick with what's going on. I wish Tun M was back in the driver's seat.

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  7. I still remember the days when Tun M was vilified and called all kinds of names and now some of us miss him. It's true what they say, we don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. My admiration for Tun's vision has never wavered...then....and now :)

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  8. Quite happy with Pemandu's performance to date. Imagine if they actually impressed - that would have been too scary a thought to consider.

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    Replies
    1. Pary tell what exactly has Pemandu achieved other than execute million dollar roadshows, if you are privy to the info? Even their KPI statistics don't match the ground level realities - particularly crime.

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  9. Belittling Pemandu is no excuse. Pemandu has given the meaning of the economic blue print by opening up the paths for sustainable economic growth and the adaptability of human resources. Additional assistance from McKinsey, Boston Consulting would consider complementary to the plan.

    They are consultants and their services rendered are payable. Ini bukan service air liur Beb! Never mind they are Malay, Chinese, Indian or what creeds they belong. What matters are their brainy contribution to the economic growth and well being of Malaysian. Kalau Lu pandai Lu buat lah!! 

    In one aspect, what is important, we want this plan to work promptly  for our own economic progress. By everyone concern is to make sure it is implemented with total cooperation from the public and private sectors. Here is our skeptical and suspicious minds come to play in prejudging syndrome. Betul ke mereka ni? with thoughts in 'the problem of knowing things' is a nauseous display of innocence.

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    Replies
    1. Again, let me repeat. Pray tell, what has Pemandu achieved for us, exactly?

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    2. Anon 1 October 2013 17:14,

      Please translate "Pemandu has given the meaning of the economic blue print by opening up the paths for sustainable economic growth and the adaptability of human resources" in layman terms, or at least in the English language that the majority of us simple folks normally use.

      I am certainly impressed that the likes of McKinsey and Boston Consulting are simply assisting the brainy Pemandu crowd, who are the real brains behind everything,responsible for blueprint development, programme construction and planning, implementation plans, quality plans, risk management plans, etc., the whole works.

      While you are at it, please define what exactly are their brainy contribution? Not everyone understands consultant talk. In simple quantifiable data too, please, so that we can be properly awed with their braininess. I am certainly interested to know how Pemandu's brainy contribution have been pivotal to economic growth and well-being.

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    3. Tinsel, Anon 17:14's comment is actually a spot-on demonstration of what Pemandu has achieved for us:

      stringing together grandiose statements that mean nothing in the end and are not so much incomprehensible as they are unintelligible, all the while thinking it makes what they are saying seem profound.

      Honestly, I can't make neither heads nor tails of whatever the fuck the fella/sheila is saying. And I thought the Red Bean inggrish was bad.

      Delete