After I scanned through the email summarising the finding of my work, I clicked “send” and texted my boss that I have gotten back to him regarding to the update of my work. “Let’s have a quick chat when you are available.”

Quick Chat With Boss

I texted my boss via whatsapp because I know for sure that he was not going to read through my email. He rather talked face to face and discuss the issue than just communicate behind the laptop.

Minutes later, he got back to me saying that we could discuss the issue at 4pm today.

Time flied and it was time to start the discussion. I walked straightly to his room and said hi to him. Even after hundreds of individual discuss with him, I still felt a bit nervous when I was in the same room with him.

Don’t get me wrong. He is a very nice and young man, who is just a few year older than me. Although he didn’t talk much, he was very good at analysing, and presenting. I guess this was because of his ibank background.

Once I sat down on the sofa, he started with a very simple question, “What is the discount?”

And then I was shocked.

Always Think like a Boss

Recently we have engaged a project with a third party, A, and received a report from them. As the report might be reviewed by other investors of our company, my boss and I have spent a lot of time making sure the report are satisfied.

However, after back and forth communication with A, my boss seemed to have doubt on that third party’s capability. As a result, when he received that report, he asked me to check if the report was good.

There were several main points of that report, one of which was a total expenses of another project. My boss thought that the total expense was too high and expected it to be as minimal as possible, and A promised to try their best.

So now you may know why I was shocked – because I didn’t check whether the expenses was reduced to an acceptable level or not?

What I did actually was to check the style of the report, the wording chosen, and the main points of the report. Why I did that? Because when I knew I need to check report, I just thought I needed to check the report. However, I should have checked the implication behind all the figures and the wordings in the report!

Just like most of the accountants only know how to do bookkeeper and look up the corresponding accounting standards, but when we ask them what they see from the financial statements, they cannot say a word on the companies’ performance!

It is because they just do their accounting work from their perspective, but they should do their work from the users perspective!

Questions always with Solutions

“Let me get back to you later on the discount.” I said so embarrassingly.

In order to safe our valuable time, I started to comment on the report, summarising all the finding and what to challenge to third party A. My boss responded to me with a very simple question right after I stopped talking.

“What is the solution?”

I was shocked again.

Yes, I know that we should always prepare solutions when we are talking to others (mostly our boss), but I thought he was going to discuss with me about the report and comment on it.

I forgot what I responded to that questions, but I was sure that was not a good response.

“I guess at this point we have very few options to choose. Maybe we should just read through the reports and all other relevant documents and sources to make sure the report has included everything we need.” My boss concluded.

Do you think he was angry with my lack of preparation? I don’t think so. I wasn’t lack of preparation though, just I might not prepare what my boss expected.

You may think that I have thought too much, but I always believe that there is a clear line between people who is working for others and boss – that the former always neglect the thought of the latter.

If we wants to be the boss of others, if we want to be entrepreneurs some days, we need to make sure we have the mindset and the thought of those bosses.

There is always a clear reason why they are bosses while we are working for others, and fortunately we can always find out the reasons and train ourselves to become one of them.

It is just whether we want to change or not?

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If you want to know more about what I have learnt from other successful people, you can click the below link. This could the one of the life-changing articles for you:

Idea 015: Change Your Mindset