Empathy and Collaboration: Speech at Shell 's People Development Week : Jakarta, Sept 24th 2014

As what Aldi has said, I am going to talk about Empathy: what is Empathy, how we can improve our ability to empathize and what we can do to use empathy to improve the effectiveness of collaboration.

 

What is Empathy for Me?

The word ‘empathy’ has only been part of language use for just over a century. Empathic capabilities in humans are considered to be a part of our emotional intelligence. When we empathise with another person, we are able to see things from their point of view.

 Empathy is a way to create trust between people, communicate more effectively and respond to each others’ needs better.

But there are many definitions around the world on Empathy and here are just five of them. What ‘s in it for You ? Let us take a minute to consider what it means to you.

Why is Empathy important?

You may think that it is important because it makes us understand other people better. But I think it goes deeper than that. I think that Empathy is important because by knowing other people better, we can strengthen relationships between departments , drive our performance and deliver our commitments to our customers, our shareholders and ourselves. An empathetic workforce is crucial to the sustainability of our business.

We are now going to see a video to try another way to answer that question: why is empathy important? But first .. some additional information. Is there anybody here that does not know about Auschwitz? When people ask you about Auschwitz, it is normally in the sense of the Auschwitz concentration camp. This was a network of German Nazi concentration and extermination camps operated by the Third Reich in parts of Poland annexed by Nazi Germany. So this video is the story about an Auschwitz survivor and her brother and the importance of the words we chose when we engage with our fellow human beings...

I first saw this video a week ago and I was stunned by it. It is a powerful reminder to all of us of how powerful words can impact other people but also ourselves. If you think that the words you chose can be bad if it were the last thing you might ever say, then , simply, do not say it.

 But saying it with words are just one way to exhibit our empathy. There are other ways and here are just three of them: Perspective-taking, Personal distress and empathic concern. They are all important yet they are different from one another. If you are good at understanding other people’s views, you may not always understand other people’s emotions. If you understand other people’s emotions too well, it has good and not so good aspects.

 People asked me how did I exhibit empathy and use it to drive Shell’s performance. I can only lead by example here and I would be sharing an example about Perspective- taking. LSBL story.

 By the time we reach this point I hope I have made it clear how the words we chose dictate the tone of the conversation between you and me; between you and your collagues or even in your personal life between you and your loved ones. There are many examples of a good phrase which can help you if you want to demonstrate how empathetic you are and this are a great selection.

 

So often when a customer voices a complaint, we go right into information gathering. We ask the customer for her name, date code, invoice number, date of purchase, and perhaps a half dozen other questions. The problem with this approach is it sounds like an interview or worse, an interrogation. You can drastically improve the customer experience by taking a few seconds to build rapport by simply expressing genuine empathy.

Before jumping into problem solving and before asking any questions, take a moment to acknowledge concern through genuine empathy. When you do, you’ll put the customer at ease, establish rapport and improve the perception of your personal customer experience.

 

As Teddy Roosevelt, a former US President says it: ““No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”

 

So, let us put what we learn into practice. For every quote, rank yourselves 1 to 4 on a piece of paper and add up the total score.

 

In the words of Bill Bradley, a fomer US Senator from New Jersey ... “Respect your fellow human being. Treat them fairly, disagree with them honestly. Enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one another candidly. Work together for a common goal and help one another achieve it”

That concludes my session. Thank you for listening and now I hand you over back to the organizing committee. Thank you.

 

Continous Improvement:Speech delivered at the 2013 National Retail Conference: Bali, February 6th, 2013

What is CI ? What’s in it for you

Put simply, Continous Improvement is that discipline to be always on the lookout for ways to deliver better, where you can do your work with  no waste and no incidental activities. 

A Continous Improvement is achievable and putting it right there at the center of everything that we do is something that we have to achieve in order to make our business a more successful one.

Continous Improvement to me is about an attitude shift.

It is changing our attitude towards waste, towards incidental activities.

We can run our business more successfuly without any waste and without any incidental activities.

We have that continous improvement right at the core of everything that we do.

You can also ask “What is in it for you personally ? ”

Well perhaps at the simplest level you can say that you can reduce workload, drive down costs ,  improve flexibility and speed, thus delivering growth more quickly. I think it goes deeper than that.

In the workplace, I think we have a responsibility to  continue raise our game. We have to work and comply with all our rules and regulations but we also have to intervene when we see opportunities for improvement.

With Continous Improvement , if we can bring that into the way we go about our work, I think we can lead by example to all of our colleagues and make a real big difference in the performance of our team and in the way we manage the balance between work and life.

Why do we need CI ?

When I joined Shell about eighteen years ago  I was introduced to the three core values : Honesty, Integrity and Respect for Others. These values have held through all through those times and I have seen many many instances where those values have been brought and tested. We all get deeply offended when one of those core values get broken for example in the case of bribery and corruption.

That is exactly where I want to be with Continous Improvement. That is exactly the sort of attitude I want to have with Continous Improvement. That this Continous Improvement becomes a core value within our team . That we feel offended when we see waste and incidental activities within our work and we want to do something about it.

Is CI culture achievable?

My answer is simple: absolutely yes.

There are many examples across our company where we have seen CI being implemented.

For me it is about us all working together and asking the question “what are we going to do differently to make sure we lead that we embodied those values of continous improvement, that we do not accept any waste, any incidental activities”.

We need to go out there and be those leaders who will lead us forward in the path of Continous Improvement. Getting to that place is where we all want to be, where there is no waste and no incidental activities.

That is what CI is about and I am convinced we can deliver it

United we stand divided we fall

Banyak orangtua yang memberikan tanggung jawab lebih tinggi kepada anak tertua. Ini tidak berbeda dengan sistem pemerintahan monarki dimana anak lelaki pertama atau anak pertama tidak perduli jenis kelamin otomatis menjadi putra/putri mahkota. Yang salah dengan sistem seperti ini adalah bahwa anak-anak berikutnya tidak jelas peranan mereka dalam kehidupan berkeluarga. Di dalam kerajaan inggris, anak ke-2 dan seterusnya menjadi cadangan dan cenderung menghabiskan waktu dengan berfoya-foya atau tidak memiliki sifat tanggung jawab karena ia tahu bahwa beban keluarga sudah dialihkan ke sang kakak paling besar.

Kondisi ini menyebabkan ekspektasi yang sangat tinggi terhadap anak tertua yang mana jika ia tidak memiliki karakter manusia yang baik dan karakter seorang pemimpin yang kuat mungkin saja akan menyebabkan adik-adik menjadi santai, tidak punya inisiatif, ketergantungan tinggi , tidak sigap, banyak bernostalgia dan terjebak dalam inersia dalam menghadapi perubahan kehidupan keluarga yang sering terjadi sangat cepat dan membutuhkan solusi yang tepat dan tidak sama dengan penyelesaian-penyelesaian sama yang sudah dilakukan di masa lalu.



Maka dari itu maka dari sekarang, bimbinglah putra-putri kita dengan sama, jangan tidak memberikan dasar-dasar kepemimpinan kepada anak –anak yang lebih muda. Setiap putra dan putri harus dipacu supaya bisa menjadi pemimpin dalam usia sedini mungkin, diajar menjadi mandiri dalam kehidupan sekolah dan rumah. Harus ikut berorganisasi dan terjun dalam berbagai macam kegiatan. Jangan terlalu dimonitor, hal-hal terkecil pun harus ditemani atau diawasi. Berikan kepercayaan bahwa mereka pasti bisa.

Asuransi Kesehatan

Di zaman ayah saya menjadi pegawai negeri, ada lelucon lama yang berbunyi seperti ini: jika pegawai negeri itu pintar, maka dia tidak jujur; jika pegawai negeri itu tidak pintar, maka dia jujur; jika ia pintar dan jujur maka dia bukan pegawai negeri. Saya ingat beberapa tahun yang lalu ketika saya kutip pernyataan ini di Facebook seorang kawan SMA marah dan saya dianggap tidak menghormati pegawai negeri. Rupanya kawan ini adalah seorang dokter dan saya hanya bisa simpulkan bahwa ia bekerja di kementerian kesehatan.

Ayah terkenal jujur sampai-sampai ketika ia menjadi Sekretaris Menteri Pendidikan Dan Kebudayaan, ia dibela oleh alm. Prof.Dr. Fuad Hassan. Pak Fuad berkata bahwa kalau ayah saya jujur sekali sehingga sudah pasti masuk surga. Aamiin YRA.

Ketika ayah pensiun tahun 2000, kami punya satu rumah (eks rumah dinas yang dibeli setelah tinggal selama kurang lebih dua puluh tahun), satu mobil Toyota Kijang tahun 1990 (tahun ini saya jual untuk memperkuat cashflow), dan tiga bidang tanah. Saya bandingkan dengan anak buah beliau dan saya semakin yakin bahwa ayah adalah orang jujur.

Satu hal yang saya sesalkan- dan ini mulai berbagi pengalaman- adalah bahwa investasi ni tidak dikelola. Misalnya tidak dilakukan pembatasan terhadap bidang tanah sehingga saat ini tidak banyak yang tahu tentang kondisi terakhir tanah tersebut.

Tidak mengherankan bahwa pensiun pegawai negeri (bahkan untuk pensiunan pegawai negeri golongan tertinggi seperti ayah saya) sudah tidak bisa diandalkan lagi untuk memenuhi kebutuhan sehari-hari.

Ketergantungan ini semakin tinggi jika layanan Askes karena satu dan lain hal dianggap tidak cocok. Ini mungkin tergantung kepada setiap individu jadi bukan maksud tulisan ini untuk menjelek-jelekan layanan Askes.

Sebagai saran, maka dimasa kita muda dan masih produktif, kita harus beli asuransi kesehatan bahkan jika perusahaan atau organisasi tempat kita bekerja menanggung full 100% segala biaya pengobatan. Jangan hanya berhenti untuk beli asuransi untuk diri sendiri tetapi juga untuk suami/istri dan anak-anak. Jika masih dimungkinkan, beli asuransi kesehatan untuk orangtua kita dan jangan terlalu tua usia mereka karena premi yang harus dibayar menjadi sangat mahal.

Parkinson's Disease: The Onset

Antara ayah dan ibu saya terbentang perbedaan usia sebesar sepuluh tahun. Ayah saya lahir tahun 1935 sementara Ibu lahir persis pada bulan yang sama dengan kemerdekaan Indonesia di tahun 1945. Saya ingat pernah beberapa kali saya terpikir bahwa ayah akan di’asuh’ oleh Ibu karena Ibu lebih muda dibanding ayah.


Ayah dan Ibu setahu saya tidak punya penyakit serius sebelum mereka berusia 70 dan 60 tahun. Di keluarga kami (tidak besar karena kedua orangtua saya adalah anak tunggal) juga seingat saya tidak ada oom /tante atau sepupu yang memiliki penyakit serius.

Sekitar tahun 2006-2007, Ibu mulai sering jatuh dan mulai sukar untuk jalan. Karena keadaan beliau semakin serius, saya bawa beliau ke seorang dokter penyakit syaraf di Jakarta dimana beliau didiagnosa dengan penyakit Parkinson. Untuk lebih meyakinkan kedua orangtua, saya bawa beliau ke Singapura dimana setelah appointment dengan seorang dokter di sebuah rumah sakit di negeri itu, kami diberikan analisa yang sama yaitu penyakit Parkinson’s.

Biaya pengobatan setiap bulan lebih dari satu juta rupiah. Seiring dengan perkembangan penyakit Parkinson’s yang makin melemahkan Ibu, muncul biaya-biaya obat lain yang berhubungan dengan kulit yang melepuh. Selain itu tubuh beliau semakin rapuh karena kondisi yang banyak di tempat tidur saja dimana postur tubuh membuat banyak cairan yang terperangkap di dalam paru-paru. Hampir setiap tahun beliau dirawat di rumah sakit selama antara satu hingga dua minggu.

Ayah adalah pensiunan pegawai negeri jadi sebenarnya berhak mendapat pelayanan ASKES. Sayangnya ayah dan ibu kurang punya kesabaran untuk mengunjungi rumah sakit pemerintah. Selama ini saya bawa beliau beliau ke rumah sakit swasta dan alhamdulillaah masih mampu untuk berbakti kepada beliau.

Kata Pengantar

Tulisan ini diawali dengan perasaan penyesalan bahwa kehidupan orangtua kami di masa tua mereka tidak se “indah” ketika mereka sedang dalam masa produktif. Kehidupan di usia senja yang dipenuhi dengan tantangan dan permasalahan ini tidak hanya membenani orangtua kami tetapi juga menjadi pemikiran dan pekerjaan rumah dari saya dan adik-adik. Pada saat tulisan ini mulai disusun tujuh tahun sudah berlalu dimana permasalahan demi permasalahan mendera keluarga dan tidak menunjukkan tanda-tanda akan selesai. Kondisi ini tidak baik untuk keseimbangan psikis keluarga sehingga sayang jika hal ini juga dialami oleh pembaca yang belum menghadapi masalah yang sama dan mudah-mudahan tidak akan mengalami hal ini.



Melihat ke belakang, memang benar pepatah lama bahwa kesehatan adalah segalanya. Dengan harta yang menumpuk pun orang akan menderita jika penyakit sudah dialami bertahun-tahun dan tidak bisa disembuhkan. Bukan karena tidak ada usaha tetapi memang secara medis penyakit tersebut hanya bisa dihambat perkembangannya dan tidak dihentikan. Biaya pengobatan yang besar, penyakit yang menganggu kemampuan komunikasi, keterbatasan uang dan kemampuan semuanya berakibat kepada kekerabatan antar anggota keluarga yang bisa semakin renggang jika tidak dipimpin oleh seorang figur yang kuat.



Tidak ada maksud untuk memproklamirkan diri bahwa jalan keluar yang dituliskan akan dapat membawa anda sidang pembaca keluar dari masalah ini. Satu-satunya maksud adalah untuk meminimalisasikan dampak yang timbul khususnya dari segi perencanaan keuangan dan kesehatan fisik dan mental orangtua kita yang sangat kita sayangi



Terima kasih

Statement on Hari Raya 1 Syawal 1433 H

Vice-President and Mrs. Salim along with their children, Alya, Zahra and Zaky would like to wish all their families, friends and all loyal readers a Selamat Hari Raya 1433H, Mohon Maaf Lahir Dan Batin. Enjoy your holidays and safe travel ! 

Statement on the 8th birthday of M. Zaky Salim

Today we celebrate Zaky's birthday his 8th. We'd like to thank all the best wishes and acknowledge all the love and support given to him all these years. May god bless all of you for your kindness. God bless Zaky

I’m going to talk a little bit about my friend, his time in Shell.

I have a mixed feeling standing in front of you here tonight. On the one hand, I am sad to see my friend go but I am glad he has gotten a very good deal as he leaves us. When I was informed of his position , it is clear that he has treated Abu Dhabi as an extension of the SEA Cluster. An example of cooperations across clusters !

Let me say that after you leave Shell, a number of things happen to you. Trust me, I know what happened after leaving Shell. Actually, another person here also knows what happened after leaving Shell. But that’s a subject for a different dinner.
First of all, you will get less emails from me, and that the first ten emails every morning won’t be from me. It’s dissappointing, really. For me, not for you. Are you sure ?

Secondly, the requests for help from others get less as well. No more plea for help on fixing a printer, or that. Though I am not sure if you’re going to be really dissappointed with that.

Despite the emails and requests, it has not been fun all the time in Shell. You will recall that he has recently been ill, along with others . I bought all of them books to read. Two days later, he resigned. I hope the books won’t have the same impact on them.

Colleagues have a tendency to become friends. There’s an inescapable bond that binds together all who have worked in S&D Indonesia. Though we hail from different backgrounds , we are singularly unique.
His qualities will serve him well in accomplishing the goals awaiting for him in the deserts of Arabia. Of course there will be challenges there. But he knows a little thing or two about them. As a planning manager and later as a C&N team lead, he brought wisdom and determination to bear on the issues that he addressed. He is a leader who motivated other people to go beyond what they thought were their own limits to join him in accomplishing great goals.

Everytime he got knocked down, he got right back up. And therein lies the greatest lesson offered for all of us in S&D. Never give up, never give in, keep on fighting.

So , tonight we thank you for your friendship and your contributions to Shell and S&D specifically. We wish you farewell, congratulations on your next role and all the best.

Vice President Iwan Salim is looking forward to the summer

Former vice-president Iwan Salim is planning to spend the weekend searching for the right spot for the summer holidays