Jene Lim

My ex staff told me recently that my advice to get “buy-in” was really useful for her in her career, even till now. We had worked together 10+ years ago.  When there’s a proposal or changes to be made, she would circulate to the stakeholders who might have objections or concerns to get their inputs and hence, secure early buy-in first. This would allow the proposal to be approved smoothly and not be delayed or rejected at the last minute.  A few more useful tips I would add on to get Buy-in : 🤝 Provide context  🤝 Highlight the benefits of the proposal, especially any win-win-win position for customer, employee & company. 🤝 Be prepared to listen, understand, compromise and incorporate relevant feedback into the proposal. Where it’s not possible, explain why.  🤝 Repeat this process multiple times over different proposals. Once there is trust established, and that stakeholders know that you do things the proper way (which is to prepare, get feedback, compromise and get buy-in), it

“Good morning!”  “Good morning!”  “Good morning!”  “Good morning!”  “Good morning!”  This bus driver greeted everyone who boarded the bus yesterday. I greeted back as it was quite unusual and I wanted to reciprocate. Interestingly 90% of the people didn’t. Perhaps they were not used to it or they couldn’t respond fast enough as it wasn’t usual. Despite the low response rate, he didn’t stop. He continued to greet everyone who boarded. There were so many people and so many didn’t respond. But he was so persistent. I wonder what’s his motivation? Whilst this was a fleeting incident, it got me thinking that this type of grit and spirit is pretty rare. And it’s this kind of persistence we should aspire to have in our lives.  Happy Sunday everyone. Photo: By Me

Yesterday, I spoke about “sharpening the saw” as one of the 7 habits. And today, I’m glad to kickstart my journey in the inaugural SID-SCS Women in Tech Board Readiness Programme as part of my personal development and lifelong learning initiative.   I am impressed and delighted to be selected to join my other 26 esteemed women leaders on this journey and I look forward to learning from the program and from each other.  Thanks Singapore Institute of Directors and Singapore Computer Society for launching this program and congrats also to SID on its 25th anniversary today.  #sid #scs #womenintech #tech #diversity #director

One of the earliest self help books that I’ve read was 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. Till today, I still find many of the habits relevant and in fact, I find myself using some of the phrases in our day to day work as well, such as “First Things First”, ”Think Win Win”.  A recommended read for anyone who wants to be effective.  1️⃣ Be Proactive 2️⃣ Begin With the End in Mind 3️⃣ Put First Things First 4️⃣ Think Win-Win 5️⃣ Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood 6️⃣ Synergize 7️⃣ Sharpen the Saw What other books have impacted your life ? Do share. #book #effectiveness #career  #personaldevelopment #jenelim

Chanced upon this  article  from Harvard Business Review on "Why Talented People Don’t Use Their Strengths". It got me thinking again about a topic that I was pondering about a few weeks back, which is identifying my superpower. I try to not just consider my own reflection of my own strengths but also try to recall what ex bosses have shared with me before. I also re-read Juliana Chan, PhD's post about  "Five hidden superpowers we all need"  to get some inspiration.  I think I can identify with this superpower Strong work ethic and accountability  in Juliana's article which is in simple terms the ability to get stuff done even in the most difficult of times, and also this other one Passion and Purpose. I will continue to reflect and confirm.  Hope this sharing inspires you to think of your superpower too. Links to above articles. #work #worktips #career  #superpower #personaldevelopment #strengths #jenelim

Escalation at work - is it a bad word?  From what I observe, people generally do not like to escalate bad news to seniors. Perhaps they are worried that  🔫 they might be the messenger who get shot for delivering bad news 👎 they don’t want to appear incompetent 🏋️‍♀️ they are still trying their best to make it work  😨they think this might spoil relationships  However, in my early work years, I was taught to escalate matters before they get too serious. If the risks of project are highlighted earlier enough, with intervention by seniors, perhaps we could still salvage the situation. But if the escalation is too late, then all hope is gone - the bad outcomes will be inevitable.  Hence, I think the trick is to strike a balance between over-escalating (as we should try to be independent enough to solve basic challenges) but know to escalate when intervention is needed before it’s too late.  And to maintain good relationships and team dynamics, escalation should be focused on the issue /

Chanced upon this  article  from Harvard Business Review on "Why Talented People Don’t Use Their Strengths". It got me thinking again about a topic that I was pondering about a few weeks back, which is identifying my superpower. I try to not just consider my own reflection of my own strengths but also try to recall what ex bosses have shared with me before. I also re-read Juliana Chan, PhD's post about  "Five hidden superpowers we all need"  to get some inspiration.  I think I can identify with this superpower Strong work ethic and accountability  in Juliana's article which is in simple terms the ability to get stuff done even in the most difficult of times, and also this other one Passion and Purpose. I will continue to reflect and confirm.  Hope this sharing inspires you to think of your superpower too. Links to above articles. #work #worktips #career  #superpower #personaldevelopment #strengths #jenelim

I like beautiful clothes but I don’t have much time to shop and I’m concerned about the environmental impact brought about by fast fashion as well.  Hence, it’s nice to see this reminder (in a clothing store no less). To add to it, I think the most beautiful to put on is confidence and positive energy.  I think instead of buying many pieces of clothes, now I try to get less pieces but ensure that they fit very well. And if I cannot wear them anymore, I will give away on Carousell Group at $0 or recycle them at H&M  clothes recycling boxes conveniently located in their outlets.  Happy Sunday everyone!  #confidence #fashion #esg #sustainability #jenelim

3 tips to supercharge your productivity at work 🚀 ✍🏻 Write excellent minutes  Good minutes allow you and participants to know what they need to do after the meeting and who will do it. Excellent minutes capture the considerations for the final decisions taken as you may need to refer to it in time to come. Whilst it seems quite basic, but many people don’t practise that and you will find repeated meetings being held re-discussing the same things over and over again before most people will not recall what needs to be done post the call as they have multiple things to juggle on their plates and they may not have taken notes too.   📊 Present information using visual aids  If people absorb information wrongly, the misunderstanding will likely cause repeated meetings or rework.  There are 3 ways in which people absorb information.  Visual learners – absorb information by sight Auditory learners – absorb information by sound Kinaesthetic learners – absorb information by moving To maximise

Doing tax refunds in Korea is quite different as some self help is involved.  Our tour guide had kindly provided the step by step on how to claim during the machines pre departure and collect cash past the immigration, and was fairly confident that we could check in my luggage with those purchased items. But the driver for the airport transfer told me to better take those items out for checking instead.  For good measure, I tried to double check with the airport concierge to confirm. She told me I could get the boarding pass without checking in the luggage first, and go to the tax refund counter for the bag check, where there’s a bag drop too.  In the end, I did what the airport concierge suggested but actually the tour guide was right. I could have checked in directly if all the scan receipts show circles instead of crosses.  Learning : It’s good to cross check with multiple sources for an unfamiliar process, especially if facts seem conflicting. However, one should give more weight t

I brought my kid to the World Mathematics Invitational in Incheon. I was pleasantly surprised that their thinking and preparations for education on AI has already started.  In fact, the chairman mentioned that this speech was prepared using ChatGPT.  This is timely as LinkedIn today was abuzz with the recording of the world's first AI that can have long phone calls that sound very human. I think it’s important that education for the mass catches up quickly too so that we can use the time freed up to create more value.  #WMI2023 #AI #artificialintelligence

Today, I visited the Gyeongbokgung Palace and learnt about the history of the palace (it looked similar to the Chinese Forbidden City but it’s not modelled after it because Gyeongbokgung was built first).  I also learnt about why Korean language was created -  to simplify the complexities of Chinese language so the population, especially the commoners and girls, could learn more easily and be more literate.  I was also right in guessing that the layout was based on fengshui principles as it has the Bukak Mountain in the back and Han River in the front.  This reminded me again of why we travel, to broaden our horizon and to learn more about history and culture. And in doing so, hopefully it promotes more mutual understanding and tolerance. And it may come in handy during business too, as one can connect better with this mutual understanding or you will just be a more interesting person with all these fun facts.  #travel #horizon #perspectives #business #personaldevelopment  #jenelim

Going to a theme park on a rainy day - quite a dampener, literally. Not all rides were open and we had to carry umbrellas all the time.  But the silver lining was that it wasn’t so crowded despite it being a Saturday. And we managed to do most of the rides that we wanted. In fact, the light drizzle made it rather cooling and much easier to conquer a theme park with many slopes as compared to doing so in hot and humid weather.  Hence, I think there’s always a silver lining somewhere, if we look hard enough. And this cognitive reframing (i.e. changing our perspectives) can help us deal with life’s disappointments and challenges.  #perspective  #reframing #positivethinking #personaldevelopment #jenelim

The much anticipated day started pretty rocky. 😴 I didn’t get any sleep on the plane (crying kid). ⏰ There’s delay in the pickup. ☔️ The weather was gloomy and expected to continue throughout the trip. 🚨Some urgent work stuff from regulator came in. But there’s always a silver lining if we look hard!  ✅ We landed safely.  ✅ We still squeezed in some fun activities.  ✅ My kid loved the rain as it’s hazy and cooling (versus hot Singapore) and it’s fun to wrestle the umbrella against the wind. ✅ I have a good and reliable tech team who’s working on the tasks right now. Thanks Eunice and Sze Seng!  TGIF everyone. #work #life #balance #mindset #personaldevelopment #jenelim

☎️ Hi, is this Jene? Me: Who are you? Where are you calling from? 🙏 Pardon me if my phone greeting is curt and cold nowadays.  80% of the calls I pick up tend to be scam calls, claiming to be from DHL, ICA or someone who claimed to be a friend and asked why I didn’t recognise their voice.  Yesterday I picked up one more who asked me to go down to a physical location to pick up something free. This sounded like those timeshare schemes which were prevailing some years ago but seemed relatively naive nowadays.    Today,  I also read this  article  on The Business Times  about how scam rates continue to increase in spite of all the education to date.  “The bait may differ – be it spoofed SMS links, QR codes, websites, calls from authorities and so on – but the pattern is the same: befuddle victims into revealing their online banking login name and password. This is why banks have such a major and critical role to play in stemming online fraud. You are not wrong if your answer is human fo

I was looking for my rain boots but instead I found a bunch of heels that I have outgrown (yes, still growing at this age as pregnancy can up your shoe size).  It would have been a lot easier to just throw them away but they were in good condition (some barely worn) so I decided to give them away on Carousell (just list at $0). It was easy to snap the photo and upload, and I found a taker in less than an hour.  As such, I encourage all to give your old stuff a new lease of life and you can use Carousell Group or Olio • Share More, Waste Less to do giveaways. And I’ve also learnt to Reduce as well, by buying less as that’s the best R to practise.  Sharing is caring, for others and for Earth.  #esg #reducewaste #reusing #secondhand #preloved

🌳SGX Group and ACRA - Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority have launched a public consultation that will advance climate reporting among Singapore companies.  💡In fact, did you know that all listed companies already needed to report their environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices from the financial year ending Dec 31, 2017 onwards?  🌳The Sustainability Reporting Advisory Committee (SRAC) has now recommended that all listed companies carry out climate reporting from FY2025. The SRAC also recommended that #climaterelated #disclosures be reported in alignment with the new standards of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).  🌳What I think is interesting is that this consultation also proposes for climate reporting by non-listed companies with annual revenue of at least S$1 billion. 🙋‍♀️Given the urgency to act for climate change now, I wonder if this should be a lower threshold as there aren’t many companies in Singapore with this high level of re

Imagine trying to buy seafood online and losing $40,000 worth of CPF savings (pension). And we thought that online scams were just limited to phishing emails and SMSes.  This one was more elaborate as it involved an omni channel approach between Facebook ads and engaging with someone on WhatsApp to and fro.  Then after victim went to bed , all his CPF was withdrawn from his bank account and thereafter transferred out.  What happened? #malware was used to compromise mobile devices, resulting in unauthorised transactions from the victims’ bank accounts even though they did not reveal their internet banking credentials, one-time passwords or Singpass credentials to anyone. In this case, CPF savings were withdrawn and credited to victims' bank accounts before being transferred out. This happened after victims responded to advertisements on social media platforms like Facebook and were instructed by scammers to download mobile apps from third-party sites or via WhatsApp, resulting in ma

This road is paved with good intentions, literally. This made me pause and admire it for a while.  Usually such floor protection / covering is just plain and functional, even ugly at times. This is a unique take (at least the first I’ve seen) where there’s well wishes. And this is quite apt as this is in the office spaces where people work and travel in and out.  🍊 开工大吉 - best of luck when you start work  ☮️ 出入平安 - stay safe when you come and go Reflection for the day: Product differentiation is always possible, even for the most commoditised product. We can do so via features, functionality, packaging, use case or in this case, design. Do share if you have seen any other interesting floor protection covers or commoditised products which differentiated using design.  #product  #productdesign #differentiation #innovation #productdevelopment #jenelim

It’s distressing to see that suicide rates has increased in 2022, with nearly a quarter from youths 10-29 years old. There’s also increase amongst elderlies as well. As we try to understand the implications from these statistics, the news of Coco Lee’s suicide broke out yesterday as well.  My immediate reflection from this is that no one is immune from depression, not the young , the old or the rich and famous.  In our own way, I think this is perhaps what we can do  💞 Reach out and connect with those we care for or those who don’t look like they are doing well. Without speaking regularly, we may not know what demons they are facing and cannot help them. And some may have high functioning depression (i.e. they are high achievers) where it’s not obvious as well.  🧘‍♀️Be aware of our own mental state as well. Understand why we are feeling what we are feeling and know that it’s okay not to be okay.  🆘 Seek professional help. Speak to a trained mental health professional and there could

As the world is changing at an unprecedented pace now with technology, and businesses are trying to recover from the past few years of Covid19 and grow in spite of the general market uncertainty, I think these are the resolutions that we can apply to our business and to ourselves in order to thrive.  #business #work #personaldevelopment #change #jenelim

What’s your morning ritual ?  ☕️I like to start my day with a daily dose of happiness - a cup of hot Teh or hot Coffee. 📰I will scan the news and do some light reading.  📝I will plan the day ahead, including establishing the priorities for the day or for the week (if it’s a Monday). I will also try to plan in such a way that my thinking work or writing work is done in the morning when the mind is fresh and the conference calls are not back to back. Find this proactive planning more effective and liberating than simply letting inbound calls and emails dictate my day.  ⚡️This simple ritual gives me the energy and drive to conquer whatever comes during the day.  What’s yours?  #habit #ritual #effectiveness  #personaldevelopment #jenelim

I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve as the Honorary Treasurer in the Digital Trust Chapter to help drive the digital trust industry by catalysing collaboration between companies and countries, and to establish Singapore tech industry as leader in digital trust technologies.  Follow me and SGTech for latest developments and technologies on Digital Trust.  #digitaltrust #sgtech #tech #technology #business

Is curiosity a good trait to have in the workplace ? If so, why does curiosity kill the cat 🐈‍⬛ Well, curiosity is defined as “a strong desire to know or learn something” by Oxford Languages.  I think I’m one who’s pretty curious. Hence, Google and increasingly Chatgpt or Bard is my best friend in my search for answers to many mysteries in life, especially those posed by the children who are usually the most curious.  🏝️“Why is Beach Road called Beach Road - is there a beach there? Are there many coconut trees there?”  🦕“Does Singapore have dinosaurs? Why not?”  At the workplace, I find myself very curious and asking myself and my teams many questions too.  🙋‍♀️Why is this working like that right now? What could be the legacy considerations?  🙋What could be the root cause issue? How can we fix it for good?  🙋‍♂️Is there a better way of doing this now, especially given the changes in environment or modern technologies.  🙋‍♀️How can we optimise this process or product further? Wha

This is a true story which took place in a local supermarket.  A kid was touching the watermelons in the section and accidentally dropped a whole slice of watermelon onto the floor. There was an awkward silence as everyone looked at the parents to see what’s their next move. Would they put the watermelon back onto the shelf or …? After a pause, they picked up the watermelon and headed to the cashier with the kid to make payment for it.  This is a great teaching moment and role modelling opportunity for taking accountability and responsibility. Not just for that kid but for all the other parents and kids who had just witnessed the scene.  Photo credit : Me. (Not the said watermelon in the story)  #rolemodelling #integrity #responsibility #accountability #values #personaldevelopment #youthdevelopment #jenelim