Petronas's next frontier

Syria and Islam's dilemma

Syria: the foreign fighters joining the war against Bashar al-Assad http://gu.com/p/3aj49

What is solution for Palestine and Palestinians?

Making a call to expand Israeli hegemony based on logic such as this is unprincipled and immoral. The solution is to extend aid in all areas such that the Israeli occupation and colonisation is pushed back and the lesson that their bullying and power play has no place in this modern age.

Palestinians need a one-state solution | Ghada Karmi http://gu.com/p/3ahnh

Major decisions and emerging maturity, choices and risks

1. Political choices: The need to express and articulate the third way, the less paranoid and the rational, non-xenophobic way of expressing the vision for this country.At the end of the day, the largest leveraged outcome of the simplest decision is to sway the fence-sitters away from the corrupted, lousy, rotten status quo, no matter where the position of comfort the owner of the opinion is. In this case, I do need to participate, I do need to expres a position, I do need to ensure there is a sizable buy-in and engagement to the choices that I make and the convictions that I have. But the first step is to firstly have that list of convictions first. It's so much easier to be the cleaner that sweeps the mess of others, but it's more desirable to be the one that stands in front and expresses abhorrence of this practice and prevents it from happening.
2. And in that respect, how important can it be to have an opinion, arrived to thoughtfully, and expressed gently and articulately, that could sway the opinions of many. Less of the consultant-speak, more of arriving at a resolution that speaks volumes of the character and generosity of spirit.
3. And more importantly, is how could this be achieved without reflecting on the choices of asking for divine guidance and help? How would personal wisdom be enhanced that you could see past the iniquities of others, be informed of the personal agendas, and prepare and strategise accordingly such that the objectives of justice can be assured, and having the wisdom that the guidance that we seek are the right and divinely acquired despite the naysayers and grounded in the reality of the world that we live in.. ok ok.. I know this is dragging, but this is the difficult part of idealism meeting practicalities.
4. Offers and choices - and at the end of it all, we seek Allah's acceptance of our amal, niyyah and iman, and importance is not necessarily relfected in that order. Then the task of leading people, and the risks of leading them falsely can be mitigated somewhat as I have this innate fear of leading them wrongly. And in that respect, the Dark Knight Rises truly inspires the choices that we ought to make to realise the world we ought to live in, and guided by a divinely-inspired moral compass that helps our innermost innate judgment.

Insanity rules

1. The runup to the GE13 has started and silly season is well underway. Everything is a proxy issue now, and your stand on any issue that affects you risks being seen as a stand that you take due to your political affiliation. It's absolutely crazy, and absolutely ridiculous.
2. From a personal viewpoint, any stand should be taken after some thought at least as to the background problem, acceptaiblity of boundaries, positives and negatives of the idea, implications to stakeholders, long-term consequences, alternatives. WIthout all this being done, then you really run the risk of letting your cognitive biases of the lazy System 2 to abdicate responsibility and leave the thinking to supporters of the various factions, and hence really be taken by a ride by the cybertroopers' debating factions.
3. Take issue of MAS: MAS has been well and truly messed up for a long time now. Perhaps WAU was really the final nail, but at that point in time it was seen as a necessity to save it from oblivion, or so I was told and remains a fact that needs to be validated. Assuming this is true, the real killer for MAS is then an issue of being unable to resolve its fundamental issue of getting back to business profitability. Cutting the story short rather than going through the whole cycle of marketing, cost management, operations - who's the CEO then? What was the turnaround plan? I do hate pointing at individuals, but the fact remains that you get this one single decision wrong, and you're well and truly *bleeped*.
4. Take TNB. What was the problem within TNB back in 2004? Low staff morale due to an intervening Chairman keen to move out performing leaders but unfortunately waving the wrong political flag into 'cold storage', investments in coal mines about to go awry, and collapsing under the weight of its massive debts about to mature in the short term with very little cash pile to pay off. Credit to CK for resolving the financial challenge, and a lot more should be attributed to Izzaddin, but being a monopolistic integrated utility, the expectation would be to bring it overseas. In many ways, when spin shows that CK is the superhero who saved TNB, my reality would be that he missed a trick and in many ways was someone who merely kept it ticking over, as had many other previous TNB guys had done. Take non-tech losses for instance, heck, credit to Datuk Sidek for beginning this, Datuk Engku Hashim and Datuk Aishah for supporting it, and should be given just as much credit to this.
5. Take Sime Darby. Wow, this is mind-boggling when a former CEO is charged with CBT when an investment goes south. Remind me to decline any close working relationships with ex-politicians, especially the malay kind, not to attribute any personal agenda against them, but merely to eliminate any possible recriminations.
6. Take Telekom. Spin out the profit-making wireless business and merge with regional players and you have a winner. The fixed line business is compensated with a huge government project and funding and survives the restructuring. Job done and here's your promotion. And by the way, you've also done well changing the logo.
7. in addition to the lousy fact-fitting theory kind of writing associated with blogging, such as this, we can attribute the laziness of the media who failed to highlight such stories. And also those in the know would do well to explore the best ways of sharing the information in the most equitable ways possible that does not seek sensationalism, but espouses facts and credibility, such that the truth gwts out and paints the darkest pictures of these fake writers.
8. Point is, the GLCs are tough nuts. Monopolistic positions but outdated business models. Profitable but declining yields. Malay proxy business due to government policy and therefore politically charged when dealing with employees and hence difficult to change business culture. Intervention from all over and poor governance and all-over reporting lines.
9. Breaking them up into smaller business units would be the way to go. In this way, you open up the opportunities to many more people, and believe you me, there plenty of talented malay employees to develop and compete alongside and within a more pluralistic non-racial and non-discriminatory talent development policy if this is the unspoken objective, although there is no reason why this sort of policy cannot be made explicit. At the moment, what we have as Daim's boys in the 90s have made way to a different sort of Malay cartel, and this drives the insanity at the moment when political drivel makes up economic justifications and reasonings for why so-and-so are unsuited for what.
10. The hard rule is this - grow these GLCs. Massively. And for that, let all these detractors from both sides of the fence eat humble pie.
11. Just like a certain Mr Brick in Wall needs to eat humble pie for endorsing En Salleh Budu's Feedlot strategic initiative.  http://anotherbrickinwall.blogspot.com/2011/12/another-khazanah-amokh-failure.html I guess he felt that diversification into property is a typical business strategy when you use government mandated funds. tsk tsk
12. The question is who to trust to carry it out. In the malay tradition, I dont think we should be looking for a Hang Tuah character, rather there should be an apolitical, commercial, business-savvy entity that does this work, preferably in the background. Would that stop the detractors? No. But at least there is someone looking at it from a fair and true perspective, without influenced one way or the other to setup a huge media-friendly and cash-sapping organisation.

Public policy making.. the world of Malaysian civil administration

1.       You know it’s bad when in reaction to tough economic times, government deliberates more and more of such Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia schemes, of course spending money it has out of additional debt taken on to fund budget deficits. Why this policy? Because the politics involved requires them to outdo a revitalized Opposition who is dangling more of the same – free university education for all, and if there isn’t enough unioversities we’ll build more of them. Where’s the monet coming from? Easy.. Petronas. Let’s disregard that there’s a big economic debate on the resource curse, ie countries blessed with natural resources tend to blow all the accrued benefits away until when the resource is depleted, the economy begins collapsing onto itself. By the way, just forget for the moment that Petronas’s dividends and taxes make up a huge chunk of public sector revenues anyway, and that is frittered away on misguided policies on already substantial subsidies. There’s a race to the bottom now, and frankly, neither side is of much use in this debate.

2.       Let’s also view the madness of society without the arguments being clouded with dumb acronyms. Baby-dumping, violent crimes, tough love from the police on “illegal” gatherings, poor education system etc. A Tahrir-square uprising is the rage now, but what if those who leads them are deluded and unfit to lead? There isn’t anyone around to lead a multi-cultural, diverse community such as ours. With hindsight, Mahathir’s ‘enlightened autocracy’, (without its attendant excesses of course) seems to be the best path for the country. None of this liberal, happy-go-lucky stuff.

3.       Policies are relevant according to the recipients. Unfortunate then that the recipients have always been seen as separate, using the segmentation of religion and race, and therefore policies could never be applied consistently. Biggest bugbear for me is that education according to racial lines is even allowed based on an obsolete “social contract”. Someone with balls needs to bring this issue out into the open, but of course then it becomes the subject that cannot be broached without significant electoral losses. So, we then continue to muddle along, not really finding the path to breaking free.

 

[From: Flin Flan] Premier League clubs lost ?361m last year despite record ?2.3bn income

Flin Flan spotted this on the guardian.co.uk site and thought you should see it.

-------
Note from Flin Flan:

What an unsustainable business model looks like. Fenway could be on to something.
-------

To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/may/23/premier-league-losses-2010-11-profits

Premier League clubs lost ?361m last year despite record ?2.3bn income

? Only five Premier League clubs made a profit in 2010-11
? Manchester City's ?197m loss the biggest in football history

David Conn
Thursday May 24 2012
The Guardian


http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/may/23/premier-league-losses-2010-11-profits


The Premier League's 20 clubs collectively made a loss of ?361m last year, after spending all of their record ?2.3bn income. Of the clubs which were in the Premier League in 2010?11, the year of most clubs' latest published accounts, eight made a profit, of ?97.4m in total.

Of the other clubs, 11 made losses, totalling ?458m. Manchester City, in the third year since Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi's ruling family bought the club [http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/sep/23/manchester-city-takeover" title="] and began to pour in money to acquire a team capable of winning the Premier League, lost ?197m, the greatest financial loss in the history of football.

Chelsea lost the next highest amount, ?68m, bankrolled by their owner, the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who loaned ?94m to the club during 2010?11. Liverpool, documenting the first eight months of ownership by John Henry's Fenway Sports Group, lost ?49m.

Birmingham City, now in the Championship, have failed to file their accounts for 2010?11, which were statutorily due on 31 December. The club's parent company, Birmingham International Holdings, registered on the Hong Kong stock exchange, has not yet published its own accounts, and Carson Yeung, who led the takeover of the club in 2009, is awaiting trial on money-laundering charges [http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jun/29/birmingham-city-carson-yeung-police" title="], which he denies.

The clubs' combined turnover of ?2.3bn is partly the result of the first year of the Premier League's 2010?13 TV deals, in which a record ?1.5bn was earned from overseas broadcasters. The financial figures portray a league of fierce sporting competition which relentlessly forces up players' wages.

In total, ?1.5bn was spent on wages by the 20 clubs in 2010-11 (including Birmingham's ?38m wage bill in 2009?10). That accounted for 69% of the clubs' total income, slightly up from the 68% of income the clubs spent in 2009?10 on wages.

The largest profit was recorded by Newcastle United, in their first season back in the Premier League since relegation in 2009. The accounts were published before last summer's transfer business, swollen by the ?35m sale to Liverpool of the striker Andy Carroll, which netted ?33m profit. Manchester United, despite paying ?50m in interest on the debts loaded on to the club by United's owners, the Glazer family, won the championship having spent less on wages, at ?153m, than Chelsea and City, and still made a profit of ?12m.

Liverpool, by contrast, made an operating loss of ?90m. Had they not recorded a profit of ?43m for the sale of players, including ?50m from Chelsea for Fernando Torres (the money spent on buying players, such as Carroll, is accounted for more gradually), Liverpool would have stated a much greater overall loss than the ?49m final figure.

Richard Scudamore, chief executive of the league which this season celebrated 20 years since it was formed by a breakaway of the old Football League First Division clubs, has rejected introducing a break-even rule similar to "financial fair play". Such rules, designed to make clubs break even rather than rack up losses, whether bankrolled by an owner or not, have been agreed by Uefa for its competitions and, more recently, by the Football League.

In the Premier League, clubs playing in Uefa's Champions League or Europa League must comply with financial fair play over this year and next. Even the two which are lavishly backed, Chelsea and City, have stated they want to move towards breaking even.

Lower down, most clubs make losses in the effort to stay up. The Wigan Athletic owner, Dave Whelan, who wrote off ?48m in loans to the club last August, said that financial fair play "can only be a good thing ? for football in general to ensure that debt is maintained at reasonable and sustainable levels".


If you have any questions about this email, please contact the guardian.co.uk user help desk: userhelp@guardian.co.uk.


guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2012
Registered in England and Wales No. 908396
Registered office: PO Box 68164, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1P 2AP
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit guardian.co.uk - newspaper of the year

www.guardian.co.uk www.observer.co.uk www.guardiannews.com

On your mobile, visit m.guardian.co.uk or download the Guardian
iPhone app www.guardian.co.uk/iphone

To save up to 30% when you subscribe to the Guardian and the Observer
visit www.guardian.co.uk/subscriber
---------------------------------------------------------------------
This e-mail and all attachments are confidential and may also
be privileged. If you are not the named recipient, please notify
the sender and delete the e-mail and all attachments immediately.
Do not disclose the contents to another person. You may not use
the information for any purpose, or store, or copy, it in any way.

Guardian News & Media Limited is not liable for any computer
viruses or other material transmitted with or as part of this
e-mail. You should employ virus checking software.

Guardian News & Media Limited

A member of Guardian Media Group plc
Registered Office
PO Box 68164
Kings Place
90 York Way
London
N1P 2AP

Registered in England Number 908396

If you can change the world... or perhaps just one person's thinking..

1. I am confronted with the possibility of putting myself right in the middle of the crossfire - the MRT project, with a controversial contract owner as a potential employer. As always, I'd need to examine my heart and pray the istikharah - not that I have even attended the interview.
2. To do this, I need to have a sincere positioning as to this opening. What is my role, and this role must be one that I can live with. Of course, the devil uses all sorts of bogeys to prevent decisiveness and encourage uncertainties - but alhamdulillah Allah has provided aql and also to reach out to Allah for hidayah.
3. Principles are as below:
• That I benefit the most people in my position of responsibility
• That I uphold truth and justice in my dealings. While this means exercising independent thought, this also means being able to discern the different roles of the different stakeholders.
• That I have the opportunity to do good to my family and to myself.. ie leave a legacy. 
4.  Now I've got that out of the way, let's examine facts about the MRT.
• by all accounts, extremely high cost vs all others. I'm not sure if inflationary effects and base raw material effects have been included in the consideration, but surely that is a question to be asked? Are the specifications common or there are additional features in the Malaysian design that seemingly inflated the costs to most worrying levels.
• That it seems rushed. The alignment has still not been sorted out for the Jalan Sultan, TTDI and perhaps other locations. The overall MRT masterplan is still out there somewhere. Yet this unsolicited MMC-Gamuda bid has been awarded at this inflated cost.
• Speaking of costs, does the Govt know how to value projects of this size? My prior experience in PBX2 seems to indicate they have no idea and the fact that there is willingness for the public sector to fund private sector profits indicate they are ignorant of a proper funding structure for these PPP/PFI type projects.
• Auctioneering is necessary otherwise government will always be beholden. Will the private sector refuse generous terms? Are there kickbacks involved? I wouldnt want to know if there are - but these are dangerous times to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to this types of development. The Arab Spring had "sprung" up in reaction to raging impotence to a sense of injustice. RM36b - RM50b can do that. The question will be what is the funding structure? Refusal to have open tenders, or a token Swiss Challenge, is insufficient.
• But again, Government is probably a bit smarter in that there is the added layer of building a "world-class private sector objective", although in this case, privatising profits is a strange way of doing it. There should be no additional subsidies / grants to support financing given the ridiculous profit margins for this and to consider the construction as purely a private sector play. Having said that, where is the breakeven for the operators?
• And here GoM has the trumpcard of a property play for the sites. And so, there is the answer for a rather complex equation. Does this mean the numbers work out? That remains to be seen.
5. So what would my role be? Primarily to deliver value to the company, increase credibility of the engineering profession, and ensure I turn out fine insyaAllah. May Allah guide me in my affairs.

GE13 considerations: what should the outcome be?

1. A DA process would begin with identifying a decision statement and then identifying the objectives of the decision. In this case, what is the best possible GE13 outcome for Malaysia?
2. Best outcome will be where:
• the long-suffering Malaysian rakyat get their rights protected against injustice, such as what Abu Bakar had said in his ascension as the first Caliph, I have been given the authority over you, and I am not the best of you. If I do well, help me; and if I do wrong, set me right. Sincere regard for truth is loyalty and disregard for truth is treachery. The weak amongst you shall be strong with me until I have secured his rights, if God wills; and the strong amongst you shall be weak with me until I have wrested from him the rights of others, if God wills. Obey me so long as I obey God and His Messenger. But if I disobey God and His Messenger, ye owe me no obedience. Arise for your prayer, God have mercy upon you.
• the economy moving steadily in the right-direction, which we can clarify further to mean that private businesses get a chance to prosper and grow, where proactive government policies create a level playing field to promote 
• a leader for the leaderless malays, setting a malay-muslim development policy that replaces the what was then necessary but now needs tweaking NEP, one that builds upon 'let's help the helpless malays' (and look at the political support we are getting!) to one that builds on the policies espoused by Saidina Abu Bakr about egalitarianism, firstly amongst the malay community and then amongst the wider community until such time meritocracy is fully workable (notice the subtle insinuation that meritocracy brings). To that end, I fully expect the GLCs to be where they are supposed to be - an open, diverse community without the artificial barriers that has been built-in within the policies, the government ministries to be scaled down and has greater multi-ethnic representation at all levels and not so much a quota-filling exercise (not to mention less politicking please). And all this must be done while ensuring the "helpless malays" change the subsidy mentality - hence a strong mandate is required for one or the other.

Dogmatism of Islamic Finance: Middle-East standards vs Malaysian-standards

This Vellfire business is made unnecessarily complicated by lack of an initial uninformed choice. Choice was of financing from Rajhi waving the Middle-Eastern corner against Maybank Islamic waving the Malaysian standards. Below are my findings:

1. Standards
Rajhi uses BBA - ie Bank purchases car and sells to customer at upside with staggered financing payments. Pure sale-purchase agreement and opts out of the hire-purchase conditions. The SPA absorbs any of the conditions within the HP Act that does not contravene the Syariah to protect the bank.

Maybank uses the typical Malaysian standard that tacks on Syariah-compliant contracts to existing transaction.

This is where philosophies differ. Whilst Rajhi's standards are stricter and more compliant given the fundamental structure of the transaction, are we to say that the contracts entered with Malaysian islamic banks are not? If so, where? Is it in the intention of the banks as a hillah? If so, who decides on this? Is this allowed on the basis of daruriyyah, which incidentally is difficult to ascertain, just as it is difficult to ascertain hillah on the part of the bank.

I would suggest that the daruriyyah is in the form of having a stronger Islamic bank presence against the conventional bank presence, and to argue one is better than the other is futile and only encourages meaningless cannibalisation of the same niche customer market. In this situation, the preference is with the Middle East standards only if other criteria are evenly matched. To use an inappropriate word in this case, I would suggest that the customer is agnostic in terms of standards as long as there is Syariah compliant acknowledgment by an established and reputable Islamic finance regulator.

2. Customer orientation and protection
The BBA allows banks to set a security deposit if required. I'm not sure of the equivalent in the AITAB but I dont recall of any such conditions. The other departure will be the purchase price with the dealer, where the Bank will pay full amount regardless of booking fee, in which case customer will have to bear ther burden of recovering the booking fee from the dealer later. To note that even in the BBA, a JPJ K3 form allowing repossession is similarly required.

These departures need to be communicated to the customer as well as the dealer upfront, as in this case, I'd need to bear the risk of non-retrieval of the booking fee, especially so when there are certain conditions that I have agreed with Jack how the final product will look like, ie pro-bono accessories of LCD, colour change, and what have yous have been agreed beforehand.

At the same time the rates are 2.48% pa, much higher than what I had asked for at 2.45%. And without ascertaining with me, the loan tenure was set at 9 years when I was actually considering 6 years. Maybank didnt flinch when I asked 2.40% and eventually agreed on 2.42%.


3. Services
This is the weakest area of the lot. After 2 weeks of haggling, I've yet to cross the finish line. With clearer expectations, I would be able to understand these changes but perhaps not at this stage. With 4 people running around and motivation flagging when Saudi dignitaries are expected to visit and all, I need to pull the trigger.

My promise though was this - I'll be back to consider them when the time comes later.

Wisdom-oriented direction

1.       I’d like to achieve wisdom. The kind where I can read what this mat Salleh write, and I don’t go into automatic naivete mode thinking how great their research has been, but that it is merely a teaser to their greatest strength, which is to market and influence others to believe in their superiority. The internet does not help to overcome this inferiority complex.

2.       So what should happen is that the automatic reflex is to chunk up the information up to understanding people’s motivations, which are by and large driven by materialistic and capitalistic tendencies.

3.       Big question is, am I already afflicted? Take today’s call from a potential DF buyer. It was quite clear that I wanted the deal to be purely on price, but did I need to be unnecessarily harsh? Even with the agent? Where is my akhlak? It is in moments like this that I despair of what I have become after almost four years here. Nevertheless this is what I need to overcome. Ensure the automatic response is the ones not meant to impress the capitalists, but one where I can use the brief transactional exchange to further the image of Islam, to please Allah.

4.       It then becomes quite clear that I’d need to fill up my spiritual self with love of the Word of Allah, as that IS wisdom. How far apart have I gone? I need to come back. As it is, this already a poor influence on others in my family.

5.       Then it comes back to this Decision. The risks. The potential opportunities. All driven with sustaining the current lifestyle – but the real non-variable should be that family development will go by the rails / guidance that has been shown in light of this Wisdom. Hubbud-dunya wakara hiyatul mawut. Again, such a sensitive decision and how I need to deal with this with akhlak.

6.       Then the question is how do I deal with the naysayers, even those close to me? Challenge is to derisk all possible initiatives carefully, and to take care that it’s not about not taking risks, but to take carefully evaluated risks.

7.       But the other point is on courage and determination. And this comes from my relationship with Allah. The tawakkal part. While at the same time ensuring that I commit fully to the project. There is no shortcut. There is no exit. And realizing that the relationship with Allah is not because I have something that I want or need, but it is because He is the Almighty  Creator that I bow down to.

8.       And then again realizing how far away I’ve dropped off to. And how far is the distance that I need to close, but only then comforted by the fact that if I walk towards Allah, Allah will run towards me. I have had my share of the darkness. This is but one of those episodes. Do I then throw my hands up in the air or do I try to find a light?

Clarity of thought and disciplined execution

Questions for discussion:

1. Macro-societal trends: Malaysian society is so crass and callow, racism is rearing its ugly head by those people claiming that they are being discriminated against. Age-old issues issues left unresolved- ie chinese vernacular schools, malay asset ownership, across the board subsidies etc - primarily in the name of compromise, rather than justice and equality has given rise to new dissatisfaction levels. Society is so embroiled in classifications now, by race, by age, by gender, by sexual orientation, by religious beliefs, and within the religion itself by partisanship, by employers, by economic wealth and lack of wealth - we are being torn apart at the seams. Is unity a necessity? From a shallow viewpoint, we can get by being tolerant to all, as we have done for a good number of years before but it is clear that one tinderbox being lighted, and killings will begin. It feels like that time now. We do need to select the outcomes based on certain scenarios. Who do we trust to bring about change, healing and catharsis? A proper scenario analysis on governing parties, policies, potential changes in terms of opening up of the democratic space, empowerment of youths and ideas, and the reinforcing of an objective, rationale, merit-based culture more akin to Islamic ideals but seemingly according to some right-wing cheap politicians, a danger to Islamic proto-malay interests. Discussion should be based on where the trends are heading to, and what flexibility we must have on a personal and institutional level to do what we must do to bring betterment to society.
2. Personal finances: Alhamdulillah has been ok in the past 12-18 months. The trick is to grow this exponentially. This means change on a personal level - to have a marketing orientation, influencing and listening disposition, a calm, forbearing, patient and powerful exterior. As much as this isnt my natural instinct, there is a need to find people who can carry this outlook.

Kalau takut dipukul ombak...

1. Issue is: when does risk-taking transform into recklessness? When you fail is probably the right answer. But when do you succeed, if ever? When you don't give up when faced with failure but persist until you succeed with every ounce of determination and grit that you could possibly summon from every living pore, cell, protein, sweat, blood and tears.
2. A bit like the Texas Hold Em game too - you risk such that you'll still live to fight another day, you dont gamble unnecessarily, and when the conditions are such that you feel you have the circumstances, support and extenuating factors on your side do you raise the stakes to a tolerable and acceptable risk. And if you still fail, you have just been reckless!
3. But it's not the failing that counts, it's the getting up. So, in that sense, the mindset must be sharpened to not allow a defeatist mentality to creep in, to think of personal failures, to lack courage to move forward. The steps must be in the right direction, building pace until it moves forward towards winning, and conquering, and growing, and staying there, insyaAllah. If at first, you fail, try and try again. So the setting up of the mindset should be there first and foremost.

In search of wisdom

1. Just left a consultant-moderated session, and again feeling a mixture of rage and emptiness. Consultant mentality is about deconstructing a problem, finding a position within those elements and reconvening and packaging the findings nicely. In a policy development scheme, this is extremely dangerous as authorities can develop regulations, rules based on misconceived problem statements and observations. More often than not, the loudest voice gets the largest say. The difficulty is to develop the parameters that a consultant should work in, and there is the key to utilise consultants.
2. Equally, in search of wisdom, the "engineer" trails behind an "architect" mind-set well-educated in philosophy and humanities. The wisdom of the crowds is an oxymoronic paradox, just a get-out clause to reduce the required effort to come to a determination of a solution. Nothing beats the wisdom and the acceptance of guidance from the creator, the divine provider. The search of wisdom must begin with accepting the role of the creator in providing a "template" for existence, a roadmap for living.
3. So, where to? There is an opportunity to shape the direction of education this Sunday. Posing the right questions will be a right start?
4. In the meantime, speaking of bio-based economy, the agenda-driven stakeholders are a law unto themselves. The regulators need to be equally as vocal and to provide the guidance for the stakeholders to know that regulation should be in place, the incentives and the barriers are there. The policies should also be time-sensitive that there are avenues for review and limitations. Market forces can determine the winners in this. Regulations should be interventionist, but minimal to create the environment for the sector to grow, and the redistributive element to kick-in.