I typically bypass Orchard Road when I am in Singapore as I am not much of a shopping person. This is where all the major shopping malls are located in Singapore, so we needed to dedicate some time to the area.

We changed hotels so moved a whole bunch closer to the famed shopping precinct, it was a bit of a walk, so I thought no worries. How wrong I was, this was not a fun day – for the best part. She is used to big shopping malls, I know that but I thought she might like to see a place she has never been. OK, it was a warm day, but everyday is warm in Singapore.

The day before her phone pedometer recorded just short of 30,000 steps, I would have been over 30,000 steps easily. I directed her to some escalators whilst I took the stairs, I might be 56 but still love the challenge of jogging up stairs in tropical humidity. Whilst I have downloaded a pedometer to my Samsung phone, it won’t record steps unless the app is open and I did not open the app. By the end of the day, my legs were shot so when she said she wanted to take the MRT back, I was not complaining. She was tired. I have to keep moving at a brisk pace as the tendons behind my knee are damaged and get fatigued standing around or moving slowly.

Forget about a gold credit card, if platinum is too ordinary and passe then there is always the titanium credit card. I must admit, I would love a platinum Patek Philippe, A. Lange & Söhne or Rolex. But I can’t say I’m too excited by the prospect of being invited to be a titanium credit card holder. So I guess many would be happy to hold such a card as they love the exclusiveness of the product.

I started to do some research starting with the American Express platinum card and was astonished to find a $1200 AUD annual fee but this was offset by 100,000 membership points if membership is approved by a certain date a $1500 was charged to the card in the first three months. American Express was the first to offer metal credit cards, these were invitation only and offers a high level of prestige fr cardholders.

Looking to Mastercard, an annual fee of $195 is all that is needed providing a concierge service. The card itself is pretty trick too, instead of the usual plastic we are looking at a composite stainless steel/carbon fibre with Mastercard holding US patents D677,330 and 8,640,948. Westpac has a Black Mastercard offering Altitude or Qantas frequent flyer points, lifestyle and entertainment offers and two lounge vists per year for a fee of $195.

Qantas has a titanium Mastercard with a $1200 annual fee that offers 10% discount on Qantas flights booked, 1.25 points per dollar spent, 20% bonus status credits and two Qantas First Lounge invitations. ANZ has a Black Frequent Flyer card offering Qantas points for purchases, some lounge visits at selected airports, a return domestic flight with a card fee of $425.

We knew a week before, the long range forecast was in and Perth will have a hot one for Christmas day. Ok, so it is summer and it is Perth, so you would expect a summer’s day to be hot, so this is really no surprise.

Since I have been alive, I have never been involved in a rainy Christmas day, although I recall my grandmother when she was alive talking about the day it rained on Christmas. I have missed a number of Christmas days when I was working away. I have heard some people say there was some slight rain in 1991 in some parts of Perth. I was away that day so I do not recall, it was not much rain. So the forecast in the week before Christmas day would be 42°C, that is fine as we will have plenty of white wine on ice. It will be a good day, Christmas is summer, of course it is.

How good is Ahmed al-Ahmed? The whole of Australia has embraced this guy, the Syrian immigrant who saw the gunman and took action. This guy is a genuine hero here, he was shot for his efforts, the statement he made was ordinary people will stand up for what is right.

So what we know about Ahmed is he was originally from Al Nayrab in North West Syria, he packed up his family and moved to Australia in the mid 2000s before finding work. What we know about Ahmed is, he has a strong sense of duty, he is willing to take action, his father understandably hailed him as a hero and said “he saw the victims and took action.” Ahmed was in Bondi meeting friends for coffee when the attack unfolded in front of him, so he leapt into action and disarmed the gunman.

Ahmed used parked vehicles to hide behind to move closer to one of the shooters and then pounced. Ahmed grabbed the shooter, wrestled him before disarming him, he had the chance to shoot him, but he did not. I find that understandable, he wanted to stop this murderer and he did exactly that. For his efforts, he was shot in the arm where he was taken to hospital and rushed in for emergency surgery. He is also very humble, taking it all in his stride, yet he requires multiple surgeries after multiple gunshot wounds and is concerned he may lose his arm. What we saw was the worst of humans, we also saw the best of humanity.

Leadership is an integral component of the manager/superintendent/supervisor key competencies in any business structure. Yet I hear this overused term frequently cited, especially by those with no leadership knowledge or achievement and I ask myself, what is the answer you are actually looking for?

Mostly, they are seeking a simplistic answer as they have no clue themselves. I am a big believer in leadership. However, despite the confusion and misrepresentation, the term leadership is so overused and misconstrued as so many people subscribe to the trait theories of leadership, that is a totally outdated and disproved concept.

A requirement of leadership is to motivate team members. Ok, so how is this motivation achieved? I believe the process of team building creates a motivating factor through goal-setting and challenging team members to improve performance. The difference between a supervisor, superintendent, and manager is the size of the team they lead. Each level can provide layers of team leadership with a slightly different focus.

Firstly, the team leader has to be visible, the team members have to know who you are. This is no joke, the Executive Director I have dealt with once tried to question me on leadership, my response was “at least they know who I am!” Naturally, this did not go down well, but was the correct answer at the time.

There has to be an element of trust, they might not like you personally, but they need to know you will not screw them over. Whilst reference material tells us leaders need to be less technically oriented, I tend to disagree. Leadership is based on trust and mutual respect, if the leader does not understand the constraints the team faces, they tend to be dismissive of the issues the team faces.

Then comes goal-setting, the leader needs to set achievable goals in conjunction with team members, they need input so there is consultation and buy-in, there is no point setting goals where team members have no control. Yes, the manager needs to provide role model behaviour, in government organisations, this is typically lacking.

I am a proponent of the path-goal leadership theory, technically, this is a difficult model when used in its entirety. So, I tend to mix leadership models a bit. What I like about path-goal theory is the objective to remove obstacles for team members. This allows them to reach their potential, this motivates team members, they feel their work has purpose.

The path-goal theory is a motivational model of leadership, as I am employed in training and development, the Hersey-Blanchard situational model is a development model. This has all the aspects of matching leadership to team member development, however I disagree with the train tracks in the matrix moving through levels. Some team members just require briefing, they are competent and motivated whilst others have low motivation and low competence, they don’t always progress.

The Bondi Beach terror attack is the worst terror attack in Australia and the worst terrorist attack against Jews since the Hamas October 7 terror attacks in 2023. The problem is, we all pretty much saw the signs, the Albanese Government did nothing to prevent the antisemitism building in the community.

We saw the attacks on the synagogues, the spraypainting left on walls, the “gas the Jews” chants at the Sydney Opera House, the pro-Palestinian March across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. There were the threats and abuse of Jewish students on university campuses, graffiti attacks and protests across cities. Former Liberal Treasurer Josh Frydenburg didn’t hold back he let rip at the Albanese Government, former Prime Minister John Howard, the architect of Australia’s strong gun laws [that have since been eroded] was clear in highlighting the failures of the Albanese Government.

When Albo and Penny Wong endorsed Hamas by recognising Palestine when Hamas were still governing in Gaza, they sent a clear message to the terrorists. So when Australia was rocked by the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, how did Hamas respond? Well, Hamas portrayed this as an act of solidarity with its terrorist ideals to use as justification for the murder of Jews worldwide. Let that sink in for Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong, Hamas are celebrating this terror attack and endorse the Albanese Government policy as they straight saying they are antisematic.

I got home from a party and flicked the television on, I could not believe what I was seeing playing out. The gunmen were still shooting at people from the bridge at that point, it was awful, there was loss of life everywhere, we all knew the death count would rise. There were also about forty people wounded in the attack. This was the worst terrorist attack in Australia since Port Arthur, this is what caused the federal government to implement sweeping firearm changes and these need to be tightened again.

A Jewish Hanukkah celebration was the target of the Islamic extremists. I must confess I did not know a great deal about Hanukkah, so I needed to search for the history of Hanukkah, sometimes written as Chanukah. I know it is a celebration that lasts for about a week just before Christmas. It turned out to be eight days I learned, and commemorates the recovery of Jerusalem, in the second century the Seleucids ruled the holy lands and forced Greek culture and beliefs on the population. The Chanukah by the Sea festival is held at Bondi Beach to bring the festival to a wider audience with the lighting of candles. Given the recent threats against Jews in Australia, the security for the event should have been way stronger and way more prominent, now we have this disaster.

Among the dead are a ten year old girl, a holocaust survivor, a rabbi, and a whole lot more families devastated. These people have moved to Australia and expected to live a life free of terrorism and attacks. What we know is the terrorists are a father and son team, the father is not an Australian citizen, but the son was born in Australia. There are now concerns that both father and son were in the Philippines in November, so the enquiries will be ongoing there. There are signs the son had Islamic State links and was under some surveillance of ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organisation], the domestic security organisation. We will be learning more about this in the coming weeks, there were a lot of leads missed, there will be so much soul searching in Australian society and intelligence agencies. But none more than the Albanese Government and their failure to shut down the antisemitism that was allowed to grow in Australia.

I was following Insead on social media, I downloaded their app on my tablet, I really like their short knowledge series. Insead Knowledge is a decent app to follow international business perspectives allowing myself to remain current on contemporary business related issues. In a government organisation, they all think they are running a business – they aren’t. In most cases they are custodians of government funded monopolies.

This gives me the opportunity to review and analyse their short lecture series MBA business statements then relate them to my organisation. So according to Herminia, the only effective way to embed change in an organisation is to modify structures and systems. Based on my experiences, behaviours need to be changed and that is where most change management programs fail.embed desired behaviours in structures, processes and systems.

Change management is the least understood and least effective strategy at both an operational and strategic perspective. I respect Herminia’s perspective as a Professor of Organisational Behaviour, a professor at such a prestigious institute is required to keep current with industry trends. As a lecturer, I am aware they need to communicate with industry and integrate industry knowledge and skills into programs to maintain effectiveness. offer perspectives based on her experiences. Naturally I needed to do an online search of Herminia and her CV is impressive. Harvard Business School, Insead and now employed at London Business School – pretty hard core.

Herminia’s view is cultural change must be institutionalised in systems and structures, that is mostly a strategic view. That is, senior managers must instill values and behaviours in middle management that then filters down to supervisors and team leaders. Where I would differ in application, in a decentralised organisation this would occur at portfolio or work group level. I know based on my state government experience, managers [middle managers] do not manage, they could almost be made redundant and portfolios revert to an autonomous self-managed work group structure. A manager is required to sign-off on leave requirements, organise rosters and schedules as well as manage budgets. Really, the decision-making is performed by

In a government organisation we do not see leadership, nor do we expect leadership form any part of daily structures. Sure, you see some progressive managers mounting leadership motivational posters on walls. When you see the motivational posters hung on the wall, you know you will not be seeing any examples of leadership in the workplace.

So when we need to integrate behavioural change in an organisation, the leadership responsibility is accepted by the genuine leaders at portfolio level. The real role of senior managers is to maintain financial control and direct subordinates to create policy documents and procedures that the workers may, or may not follow.

Ok, so how is organisational direction changed? This generally requires highly paid consultants to come in, develop external strategies and inform senior managers who are supposed to implement the change. Instead, what about developing policies and then hand the change management over to teams and then develop a bottom-up approach instead of the standard top-down dictating approach.

I remembered the place, but forgot the name of this excellent food hall in Singapore’s Chinatown, Lau Pa Sat is a fine example of Victorian architecture, one of the oldest structures in South East Asia. A central hall connects the eight food halls serving an array of Asian food.

These are all small food vendors ranging from Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Indian and Korean styles. But if I reference Chinese food, there are a multitude of regions and styles. The place was buzzing at 2 pm, well past the lunchtime rush, it was still difficult to find a seat. There are two large fans in each hall slowly turning creating a gentle downdraft airflow to cool the halls. The central bell chimes on the hour and half hour. I enjoyed a cooling lime juice with my Katsu Don whilst she had a spicy Tom Yum.