It has been said that the only things in life which never change are death and taxes. Add one more: human’s urge to succeed!

The history of 3 Kingdoms (魏Wei, 蜀Shu, 吴Wu) is less than 100 years, during the second & third centuries AD – a speck in China’s history, but it occupies a huge spot in strategic and leadership learning, among others, thanks to the well written history book (三国志 History of the Three Kingdoms) and novel (三国演义Romance of the Three Kingdoms). You may be pleasantly surprised how relevant the 3 Kingdoms history is, when applied in today’s business environment and personal success: strategy, leadership, character, opportunistic tactics, talent management and many others.

This programme will not take a China-centric or purely history approach, and is designed with the aims to expose participants to refreshing ideas to improve self and business or organizations.

Objective

• Enhance strategic thinking for personal and organizational effectiveness
• Learn tactics and stratagem to achieve results
• Enhance skills in influencing others towards higher level of performance
• Pick up your own leadership strengths and weaknesses in enhancing performance
• Be more practical, with less reliance on dogma, towards desired outcome
• Identify characters of old in the modern world and learn from them

Outline

1. Introduction, setting the scene
    - 3 Modern Cases: the “legacy”, the “inheritance”, the “opportunistic”
    - The 3 Kingdoms: relationship with the - 3 modern cases above
    - The major characters
    - Preliminary Discussion: relating this to your organizations

2. Leadership & Strategies of the Main Characters

2.1 From Eunuch family background, to head of a kingdom: What did CaoCao (pronounced chow chow) do opportunistically?

a) Pragmatic Leadership: 5 key areas in the modern world
    - Application context: crisis or calm business environments
    - Workshop on the 5 key areas in your organizations
b) Tactical Leadership: find and keep your ACE card
    - Application context, the influencer
    - Workshop on finding the influencer as your advantage

c) Mistakes & Learning: case in modern world

2.2 Namesake legacy: How did Liu Bei (pronounced Liu Bay) attract top talents?

a) Loyalty and Righteousness: Attracting Guang Gong
    - The equivalent of Guang Gong in organizations
    - Workshop application in your organization
b) “Cluelessness” attracts
    - Who are the Zhu Ge Liang in organizations?
    - Workshop application in your organization
c) Mistakes & Learning: case in modern world


2.3 Despite the inheritance, a young Sun Quan (pronounced soon choo-un) still needed guts and decision in leading people
a) Strategic genius: Lu Su
    - Modern day decision making
    - Workshop on strategy in a high-stake environment
b) Victory from Weakness: Zhou Yu
    - Modern day Risk taking and critical thinking
    - Workshop
c) Mistakes & Learning: case in modern world

3. Tying the old world with modern world: no East or West, just One World?
    - Debate on this quote by Leo Tolstoy: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its       own way” (Switching the words “happy & unhappy” to “success & failures”, and “families” to       “organizations”)
    - Sharing HBR article: Toward a Theory of High Performance
    - Tying 3 Kingdoms with HBR?
    - Workshop discussion for organizations

4. Summary and moving forward

Who should attend

This is intended for all levels of management personnel from all departments

Methodology

The course will be delivered through a combination of Metaphoric and Learning-By-Doing approach, where the participants will be expected to go through various cases, examples, and scenarios which interact with the subject itself. Active learning activities are included to allow participants the opportunity to be fully engaged, and these may include:

• Hands-on exercises
• Group discussions & presentation
• Case studies
• Interactive storytelling / role plays / Commentary on other companies / industries
• Video/photo presentation

Andrew Cheah's Profile

Mr. Andrew Cheah has been a trainer and management consultant since 1991, specializing in the areas of Strategic Thinking, Leadership Transformation, Lean, QC Tools, VSM, Procurement & Inventory Management, negotiation, 8D Problem Solving, performance management, productivity improvement, behavioral change, and Critical & Creative Thinking. Andrew has trained clients from such diverse industries (see list below) as banking, insurance, hospitality, sales and distribution, manufacturing, food, property development, government/public services, and higher education. Being tri-lingual (English, Mandarin, and Malay Languages), and has extensive regional exposure in Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. In addition to training, Andrew has guided and provided consulting services to clients, leading to one of them winning the prestigious Malaysian National Productivity Award (1999) presented by the 2-time Malaysian Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir. The award is for productivity enhancement through many areas such as continuous improvement, cost and waste reduction.

In addition to writing articles for the premier English newspaper in Singapore (the Straits Times), Andrew has been invited to speak at events such as International Conference on Best Practices, which was graced by senior officials from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), sharing the stage with Professor Michael Gregory of the University of Cambridge, Mr Dieter Heyl (2007 Vice President of Mercedes Benz Malaysia), and Dr Marcus Chao, President of Lean China Enterprise Inc.

Andrew has an MBA degree qualification with the University of Portsmouth, UK. At the professional level, Andrew has certifications in: Blue Ocean Leadership Masterclass, Leading Dimensions Profiling (LDP), REACH Profiling, and ISO9000 assessor. His experience in international consultancy has also earned him a membership with the Association of Productivity Specialist (New York).