Paul S. Cheng 1932-2015

Paul Cheng Obit

I felt compelled to write something given the swirl of emotions recently.  When a mentor passes on, how can one not?  For most the 1980's, I worked in an IBM Advanced Office Technology group in the Washington DC area.  This was an amazing growth opportunity for me in several ways.  This was a small group that basically wrote our own rules and determined to a high degree what we worked on.  The leader of this group, basically was running a startup within IBM.  The early 80's was the boom time for IBM PC and applications.  This group had produced a best of breed dictionary technology.  All the IBM platforms wanted this, but we couldn't "sell it" to them, but, they could sponsor headcount and that would be used to supply the technology.  So, we would ask for like 4 headcount, but it would only take .5 to do the work.  So, suddenly, we had this extra headcount to work on, well, stuff.  Unfortunately, when the first PC crash happened in the mid 80's, we found out those authorizations weren't worth the toner used to print them.  Funky accounting in IBM, headcount only mattered at the end of the year.  So, using these authorizations, we could push the books during the year even with our core division gave us 10 headcount and we had 20 working.  But, when the books closed, the numbers had to balance.  When the books closed, the other divisions, especially PC, refused the authorization, and basically ended up with, can you spell audit?

We were doing touch screen hardware, advanced graphics, image decoding, and of course our bread and butter, linguistics. As they grew, I was a bit of an experiment for them.  I was the only one without an advanced degree, and the only one with a lower IBM title at the time.  But, this was the arena where I did my first real professional growth.

Ironically, our management chain was the group that produced the old mainframe terminals (3270's for all those with real morbid curiosities), and since they were kind of our boss, and they could see the future with PCs, they were fighting tooth and nail to preserve their business case (and I was the one without the advanced degree?)

So, in another great pursuit, we were instructed to produce an application that would showcase our technology and exploit the features of  every terminal, scanner, printer, etc in their arsenal.  The result, we produced a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) word processor for these devices.  Never mind that we really couldn't do this explicitly, but we did a really good job and our print previews were stellar.  We also supported every font, and had image and graphics when most pc's had neither the hardware, memory, or applications support for these.

So, a small cadre of us were starting this up and then one day, this guy shows up (Paul) and after a few repeats we understood he was our new boss.  Things were never the same.  To this day I still don't know how he was found or found us, but it was to our advantage.

Paul had been around the block with IBM, and he know how to exploit (re circumvent) every IBM process known.  He fit right in, and we learned a lot about how to get things done with a minimal staff doing things this way.

Paul is the only person I ever met who said they were from Formosa (look it up).  He never really lost his accent, so it was a bit before we all really understood each other.  Took even longer for us real tech types to get the hint on how he could work the politics. But that was one of our advantages, and disadvantages.  As I said many times, the best thing about Paul is that he could go into a meeting with a bunch of execs who might not have been real happy, and they left thinking they heard exactly what they wanted to hear.  The disadvantage, Paul could go into a meeting with a bunch of execs who might not have been real happy, and they left thinking they heard exactly what they wanted to hear.

For those who have worked with me over the last 20 years, you may have wondered where all my absurd sayings came from, it all started with Paul.  His best one, which he repeated many times was on strategy.  He compared it to how a China-man (there were lots of China-men examples) eats from a rice bowl.  He doesn't have the bowl on the table, he brings the bowl up to his mouth and pushes the rice in, while all the time looking beyond the bowl to see what else in on the table.  Always look to the future, have you next move ready.

Chinese new years was always a special time. He would round up a large group and we would meet a some obscure Chinese restaurant.  He would order, and we didn't have a clue, but the staff sure did and they hopped on like he was a general in the military.  He was at the height of his game, you could see it in his face.  Those were the moments I saw where he enjoying on what he had built of his life, and that was the moment, family, friends, and success.  Not bad for a guy from Formosa.

I had to leave the DC for personal reasons in the late 80's and lost touch with Paul.  Not too long ago, thru the joy of Facebook, his wife and I became friends and started communicating again.  By this time, Paul was rather ill and as said, recently his time came.  Even thou it had been some time since we last talked, when the word of his passing came, I felt the loss inside of me, a part of me was always with what he gave me.  And as such,  I felt compelled to write something given the swirl of emotions recently.  When a mentor passes on, how can one not?

Ken's Rule #2 for Controlling Health Care Costs

With many of the organizations I have volunteered with, significant focus is on  the Triple Aim regarding Health Care Reform.  These are:

1. Improve the experience
2. More cost effectiveness
3. Improve the overall population health.

This second item has been the focus of much debate over the last 6 years, and from my experience, here are my top three to address costs:

1. Personal Responsibility
2. Address last 6 months of life
3. Providers must come to term in understanding their costs.

So, lets talk about addressing the last 6 months of life.  We all are mortal, and no matter how advanced our medical knowledge is, everyone's time does come.  So, how do we address our final days?  Part of the background of this country is so much based on the personal aspect, by default we expect opt in vs opt out.  All you have to do is look at the ACA debate on how dare the government force me to have insurance, that is my choice.  Not focusing on the discussion here, but think about provide for the common good.

But, part of that debate focused on Medicare to reimburse doctors to discuss end of life options with patients.  IMHO, a great disservice was done to this country with the inflated death panel label. Reason being, since we have to opt in, the percentage of us who have medical directives and wishes, very low.  Therefore, hospitals must do everything they can to keep patients alive.  Additionally, since no plans were put in place, there is then confusion as to who has the right to make decisions for the patient who at that point, can't.

That is why this article caught my eye.  Tackling tough decisions end of life scenario  We spend way too much money in these end of life scenarios without helping to patient with quality of life and dignity.

If you have not setup your directives, hopefully after reading this article you may change your mind.

Ken

Get the best people on the bus ...

In my MBA program, the very first class was on Leadership and company greatness.  In that class, the very first textbook was Jim Collins Good to Great. ( Jim Collins Article) The concepts presented in that book were reiterated over and over again during the MBA program.  OK, got the hint, and the challenge to take it out of the classroom and into implementation.

This would not be limited to corporate, but is generic in nature and can be applied really to any organization.  The base concept:

The executives who ignited the transformation from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get the people to take it there.  No, they first first got the right people on the bus and then figured out to drive it.

I have been working with AARP Minnesota for several years as a volunteer on advocacy issues.  This was mainly driven from what I learned the hard way about our health care system over the last 9 years.  This year, the interviewed many people for an Executive Council and, I have been asked to join.

AARP Minnesota appoints executive council

When I look at the other members, this is rather humbling, and exciting.  I can't wait for us all to moving this forward.  So, by acclamation, sure looks like we got the best people on the bus !!!

Works for me ...

HBR: Meditating Helps Make Better Decisions

Well, surprise surprise surprise.  Actually not really.  One of the smartest things I did in my early college days (aside from actually making it to graduation!) was to learn how to meditate.  This has also been presented as TM (Transcendental Meditation)  I still meditate today, although never as much as I should.  I have been through a lot in my life, meditation has been one way I have managed to cope. However, this actually is rather simple, natural with no smoke and mirrors involved as this table shows.

	Physically Awake	Physically Asleep
Mentally Awake	Conscious	Meditating
Mentally Asleep	Day Dreaming	Sleeping

 

You can be physically awake or asleep.  Your mind can be either awake or asleep.  When both are awake or asleep, the result is rather obvious.  It is when they differ things get interesting.  We all have experience with daydreaming.  We know we are not physically asleep, but from a mindset standpoint, who knows where we are.  Meditation is just the converse of daydreaming, mentally awake and physically asleep.  Ever had the situation where you are trying to fall asleep and feel as though you are sinking into the mattress but your mind is very active?  You have then found the natural state of meditation. 

In this stressful lifestyle we have found ourselves in, is it asking too much to find 15-20 minutes twice a day to find a quiet comfortable spot and let a natural healing aspect take over your mind and body?  As shown by the study cited above, this will also make some good business sense.  You Type A people out there, are you listening?

For more information, see  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Relaxation_Response

No Direction Home

My apologies to Bob Dylan, but need to drive the point home.  I noticed this reporting on NPR:
 
NPR: doctors hesitate to ask heart patients about end of life plans

This flies in the face of everything I have encountered and learned over the course of personal and professional knowledge regarding Health Care Reform.  #hcr

Here is Ken's top 3 actions we need to take to get control of costs and efficiency for Health Care in the US:

1. Personal Responsibility
   Whatever happened to us as individuals that we no longer take responsibility for our actions and stand up to fix them?  I will expand on this topic in a future blog post, but here is something to think about.  We know that people who are obese over their lifetime will cost on average $13K/year more in health care costs than a non-obese person. 
   
   This is not very hard to understand.  Consider that likelihood of Diabetes, Health Disease, and increased need for hip and knee replacements.  These cost add up fast.  However, people who fall into this category do not pay more in premiums, that cost is distributed to all of us.  Therefore, all costs are driven higher unnecessarily.  So, a lot of talk these days, but we have not come to terms with the impact of this issue, why not? 
   
   Another example, we know in the state of MN, the cost the state pays dealing with smoking related illness comes to $554/year per person.  Not voter, or taxpayer, per person.  Yet, for all the progress made in this area, there was great opposition recently when the legislature wanted to raise the cigarette tax.  The reason, it would cost jobs at convenient stores and gas station?  How many jobs are being lost because living within our budgets, we can't invest appropriately in infrastructure and other items to create more jobs in the state because we give medical welfare to smokers? 
   
   Get my point?
   
2. Dealing with last 6 months of life.
   Bingo, this is why the NPR article hit home.  Unlike many other countries in the world, in the US we have to opt in to things rather than opt out.  If someone does not have a living will or other plans, then by default we go to extraordinary efforts to keep them alive.  We increase the quantity of life while throwing out the quality of life in many situations. 
   
   Remember during the ACA (ObamaCare) discussions the whole scar tactic of the government wants to kill Grandma?  Yep, keep fear alive, and by the way, we won't compensate via Medicare for Doctors to have the up front discussion for people to plan their end of life with dignity.  The costs here are staggering, for example: CNN Cutting the high cost of end of life care
   Therefore, time to us as a society to grow up and deal with death.  Hello, news flash we all are going to die, accept it and stand up how you want your final days to be.  Tubed up in a hospital, or, maybe at home with family?  If we don't opt in and put plans in place, prepare to tube up.  We can't tip toe around this anymore with the "Silver Tsunami" coming down the pike.  The important aspect here is for our politicians to step up on this topic before they just blindly go and pull back on benefits and cut these budgets.  Like many businesses out there, afraid to resolve the process issues to save money, just cut travel budgets, headcount etc.  Short term fixes because the core issue on whats wrong has not been addressed. 
   
3. Hospitals need to address their costs
   I have spent over two years working in the arena of Activity Based Costing for health care providers.  Wow, what a shock this was to me.  Go ahead and ask a hospital a simple question like, what is your cost for a CT of the abdomen?  They don't know.  They might know parts of it, but not the total cost.  Ask a car manufacturer in Detroit what was their cost for a car, you will get an answer to tenths of a cent. 
   
   Now, calm down, I'm not saying people are just a manufacturing line, but there is a corollary here.  Back to the CT, a simple workflow process would be Schedule-Checkin-Triage(maybe contrast or IV)-Scan-Interpret-Document.  It is a process ending up with a specific outcome of an interpretation of the scan.
   
   Now, for all these steps, consider the costs for labor, equipment, supplies, overhead items, the providers can't put their fingers on all of these components.  Bottom line, they don't know the actual cost.  All of that data is manged through a plethora of IT systems that don't talk to each other.  So, how do they know if they are making a profit or losing money?  That aside, the hospitals don't control reimbursement for these events, the government (Medicare) & Insurance companies do. 
   
   By the way, Medicare reimbursement will be declining at the same time patient numbers will be increasing.  Simple question, if we want to be more efficient to manage our resources better while not effecting outcome of procedures, why don't we understand this? 

Humbly submitted as food for thought ...

"This is so simple an 8th grader could figure it out. Go find me an 8th grader I can't make heads or tails out of it" Groucho Marx

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/corporate-tax-avoidance-can-the-system-be-fixed/

So, I stumbled across this article and figured, gee, this should be simple enough.  I have a lot of business experience, have a MBA,  fairly intelligent person, no problem.  For a while I understood it. But as more and more borders were crossed things became fuzzier and fuzzier.

I can understand this much, lots of US Corporate money is not being invested here.  From this article, it appears there is a lot of money that needs to be repatriated, which can only be a good thing.  The other item I understand is the tax rate.  I have heard so many times about the US having the highest business tax rate.  That is not good.  I also hear that few if any corporations pay that rate because of the loopholes and things such as outlined in this article.

From my research and statements by some of my MBA professors, Hong Kong is simple.  19% tax on profits, no games.  Gee, maybe even an 8th grader could figure that one out.

Therefore, here is another item for our do nothing overpaid congress, most of you act like you are in 8th grade, so why not make it simple enough for all of you to understand.  If you can get it, I'm sure the rest of use will do just fine ...

Not A Positive Trend

From the Harvard Business Review:

December 26, 2013

Students Get Lower Grades in Online Courses

Although students who take online courses in community colleges tend to be better prepared and more motivated than their classmates, a study by Di Xu and Shanna Smith Jaggars of Columbia University shows that the online format has a significant negative impact on students’ persistence in sticking with courses and on their course grades. For the typical student, taking a course online rather than in person would decrease his or her likelihood of course persistence by 7 percentage points, and if the student continued to the end of the course, would lower his or her final grade by more than 0.3 points on a 4-point scale. Before expanding online courses, colleges need to improve students’ time-management and independent-learning skills, the researchers say.

SOURCE: The impact of online learning on students’ course outcomes: Evidence from a large community and technical college system

Personally I have never been a fan of online or even remote classrooms.  I first encountered this concept back in the early 80's taking some Master level Computer Science classes thru the U of Minn remote hooked that IBM supplied.  That never really worked for me.

Blogging and online forums do have their place, obviously ☺.  However, when I went for my MBA a few years ago, to me there was no compromising on having classroom instruction.  The level of discussion in a classroom cannot compare at all to that which occurs in an online discussion.  I also have made friends and professional contacts that would be much harder to accomplish online.

Of course, with this study good to see that I also achieved much more than online as well ...

Another Lesson From Katrina

http://www.cio.com/article/729184/NBA_Team_Rebounds_From_IT_Disaster

I was looking thru the monthly CIO magazine and who couldn't resist reading about an NBA team rebounding?  Minimal humor aside, it was good to see the aspect of DR branching out beyond what we generally consider mission critical businesses.

What was enlightening here, was that Tod Caflisch the VP of IT brought things he learned from Katrina to this new job.  The Hornets implemented a great DR plan, but the kicker was that the emergency generator runs on an alternative fuel.  Why?  During the aftermath of Katrina the emergency agencies had dibs on all the diesel fuel.  So, even those with high end DR plans ran out of juice because they could not get their hands on the diesel to keep their generators running.

So, all of you out there in areas that can have wide spread natural impacts, pay attention !!!  More lessons learned ...

Scary, very scary ...

Was Marx Right?

OK, don't shoot the messenger here.  Joe McCarthy can rest well in his grave, and that too is a good thing.  I do believe in the free market, but I also believe something is out of synch right now that isn't being addressed.   I have been going back to this post since it first came out in November.  At first I sort of laughed it off, but this morning, with the Political circus revving up, it just sort of hit me differently.  The point about WalMart and McD's being the top two employers and in a land of plenty so much not happening and a lot of people are making a lot of money. 

I try to keep my comments on this blog more business than political but I find this discussion very grey.  I have a lot of business experience, I have an MBA and a PMP certification.  I read a lot of Porter during my MBA and the Shared Value comment keeps coming back to haunt me.  That is what we don''t have and we really need to find. 

But, decide for yourself.  There are plenty of comments on this article as you can see.  And I wouldn't consider the Harvard Business Review some pinky radical left week type of publication.  Some of you might, so here here for freedom.

However, the more I read, the scarier it all became ...

2+2=5

Economics can mimic nature in many ways.  Just like when a storm comes thru.  Bad thunderstorms can knock down trees and power.  Increasing strength in storms can have bigger impacts, look at what is happening in the northeast over a week after that snowstorm.  Earthquakes can leverage more intense havoc that takes longer to recover from.  Recent examples here are Haiti and the tsunami's from the Japanese earthquake.

Economically what we have been  trying to recover from for 4 years is in the same category as an earthquake or tsunami, it is going to take some time and things aren't going to be the same.  So, I wasn't so surprised when I came across this article in the Harvard Business Review:

The 2008 Crash Left U.S. Firms Less Competitive

The 2008 stock-market crash and subsequent recession significantly damaged U.S. companies' competitiveness, according to a team led by Gulser Meric of Rowan University that examined the financial characteristics of 334 top U.S. firms. On average, the companies' return-on-assets ratio dropped from 6.45% in 2007 to 4.17% in 2009, their total-assets-turnover ratio fell from 1.437 to 1.294, and their return-on-equity ratio dropped from 16.8% to 10.22%. All are factors in competitiveness, the authors say.

Source: The Effects of the 2008 Stock Market Crash on the Managerial Behavior, Financial Characteristics and Competitiveness of Large U.S. Corporations http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-2375364191.html

OK, so we had our knee's taken out and we need to invest to restore our competitiveness just like the Haitians and Japanese need to invest to rebuild from their natural disasters.  If we aren't doing this then how we will be able to compete effectively whenever a full recovery comes about.  But wait, if this what we should be doing, then why are corporations sitting on a ton of cash?

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/08/17/pm-companies-sit-on-huge-reserves-of-cash/

There is some investment in capital, but, one would presume this type of revamping would require additional workforce, and that is not happening either.  So, we have the proverbial 2+2=5.  We take a hit, are not as competitive, we should be investing and are not, and wonder why things don't seem right ???

Ugh, Truley You Jest, SMB's Unprepared for Disaster?

Symantec SMB DR Preparedness Report

This is most disturbing.  The world economy is in the dumps and everyone says it's the SMBs that will drive growth.  It is a well documented fact that 50% of any businesses that suffers a major data loss event go bankrupt.  Just look around right now, one doesn't have to blink an eye these days and see some kind of Nature on display going on.  The Japan earthquake, hurricane damage in the northeast with more storms on the way.  Fires in the south, we are in very active times and all the statistics say we are due for more.

Next fact, if you have anything to do with computers, have you really not heard of the Cloud?  How much easier can it be than to sign up for some cloud based backup to get your data off premise, even if you only do it on a daily basis, only a days worth of change is lost. 

The one the gets me the most, Carbonite.  Any trekkers out there remember the first season where Kirk bluffed an alien with this fictitious material?  Don't misread this as an endorsement for this product.  My comment here is that cloud backup has become so mainstream that you see TV commercials on it and it ties into one of the most successful science fiction brands out there.

Anyone listening out there or do I have to do a Vulcan mind meld for you to understand what needs to be done ???

Brains Over Brawn

I found this from the Harvard Business Review Daily Stat. Not a real leap of deductive reasoning which states on average, the higher the IQ, the more money you make. However, what I found very interesting here was the quantification of this study. If we can increase the IQ of the top 5% by 1 point, per capita GDP goes up $468. Wow, I love metrics like this. I often use the quote of you can have your own opinions but not your own facts. Just imagine what we could do if we were able to increase the IQ of our elected officials even ½ point? But that is fodder for another blog entry.

There are other statistics in this report as well. As one who firmly believes in continued education and keep pushing the mental envelope, this is great to see. I would emphasize in this stressed times, others will look to education and revitalization of the mind as way for all of us to work our way out of the economic mess we have created for ourselves. All ships rise on high tide, the more we all learn and enhance our own cognitive skills, it will raise the level of our society. In the last few years I have attained my MBA degree and PMP certification. It's never too late to start, and with tempests that we live in, you can never be too prepared.

OK, here's an update. No sooner do I post this thought, then another item came in once again from the HBR Daily Stat:

Schooling Increases Your IQ Year by Year

School not only gives students specific skills, it also increases their intelligence. One year of formal schooling between age 10 and 20 raises an individual's IQ score by 2.9 to 3.5 points, on average, say Torberg Falch of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Sofia Sandgren Massih of Uppsala University in Sweden. So 4 to 5 additional years of schooling increases IQ scores by about one standard deviation, a sizable effect, the authors say.

Source: The Effect of Education on Cognitive Ability http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1874548

This also means we have do everything we can to keep improving our education system and support our institutions of higher education. Keep this in mind when we think about paying for the past by cutting too much of the future.