Visionary and Manager

In my first job in the tuition industry, I was the center manager for a small center. The business was making money, mainly because they had a few talented teachers and sales persons. However, the day-to-day operations were in a mess.

MY BOSS

One of my bosses was a visionary type, who loved talking about lofty ideas about education. He was also one of the talented teachers of the center, but he seemed to love spending time networking with his rich and powerful friends, rather than spending time in the classroom.

Most of the operations were dependent on the moment-to-moment decisions of the bosses. Most of the tracking and recording were done on a few hardcover jotter books. Even though it worked, it was archaic and not scalable.

SETTING UP SYSTEMS

Being an Engineer by training and a systematic person by nature, I wanted to set up systems for everything. And set up I did. In my one and a half year stint there, I revamped the curriculum for secondary subjects, set up a roster system and attendance systems on Google sheets, and set up the marketing system. I wanted to make everything run smoothly and predictably.

In those days, I mostly saw an endless list of problems to be solved. I felt useful and satisfied when I was working on something that kept the teachers, students and parents happy. I felt that I was becoming indispensable to the company.

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THE TENSION

When my bosses wanted to expand to a new location, I was hesitant; I could imagine a hundred things we did not have and we needed to prepare before we could expand. One of my bosses, the networking guy, quickly became impatient with me, maybe he felt that I was always showing him challenges and obstacles about expansion. Soon he only discussed his plans with others.

Whenever that boss brought in new, promising investors, or embarked on new ideas, I would quietly sighed. To me, the urgent thing to do was to channel all effort to fix the existing operational problems, like hiring more teachers, managing schedule conflicts, tightening internal quality control, etc.

I wished that my boss could spend more time teaching, or training tutors, instead of having networking luncheons with potential investors and other influential people to talk about lofty ideals of education. I felt like I was the only one doing real work in the business.

THE DEPARTURE

Eventually I left the center and started out on my own. In the beginning years, I struggled with my self-identity. Who was I, other than a good teacher? How was I different from other tutors and centers? Why should parents choose me over others? What were my longer term plans other than teaching batch after batch of students?

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Gradually, I realized that I did not have a vision in my business. I may be a good teacher, or even a good manager, but I was not a visionary.

THE NEED FOR A VISION

What was the problem with not having a vision for my business?

Without vision, every day, month, year was a blur. Before I knew it, the year had passed.

Without vision, it was easy to get discouraged by things that happened to me: student problem, parent problem, financial problem, enrolment problem, rent problem, family problem, and the list goes on. The temptation to quit and work for someone else was sometimes overwhelming.

When I could see a bigger picture of where I was heading, it was as if I could take off from the ground and start to fly. Day-to-day problems became smaller and more bearable, like how everything became like little toys when we see things from greater heights.

Without vision, it was almost impossible to attract a good team. Sure, people would still respond to teaching vacancies and good rates, but that was all. There was nothing else to inspire them to join the team and to bind them to the team. Providing meaningful leadership was impossible without a vision.

Without vision, I was like a stationary bike. I would pedal hard and work up a lot of sweat, but I would go nowhere.

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BECOMING MORE VISIONARY

The longer I was in business, the more I appreciated the importance of having a vision. I started to understand the mentality of my networker boss, whom I detested so much.

The good news is, I discovered that to be visionary was a skill that I could acquire. I did a few things consistently to help me hone my visionary skills.

1) Read widely: I learnt a lot from books like “Teach Like your Hair’s On Fire”, “One World SchoolHouse”, “Teach For America”, “How Children Fail”, “The Montessori Way”, “Work Hard, Be Nice”, “The Elements”, “Start With Why”, “Zero To One”, “The Art of the Start”, “Delivering Happiness”, “未来已来“，and many more. They showed me the vision of many highly intelligent and inspired people.

2) Network widely: Joining professional organizations like BNI helped. I got to know industry leaders and veterans, and learn from them about how they see things. Most of the time, these leaders and veterans had something beyond revenue that they wanted to achieve, something that meant the world to them. These things drove them, and set them apart from their competitors.

3) Look for problems: When I met students, parents, fellow tutors, I learnt to listen to the problems they encountered. I learnt to ask questions. I learnt to be interested. Through that, I discovered many problematic areas in our education system that were waiting to be solved. These problems became the building blocks of my visions .

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4) Ask “Why not”: I used to be afraid of appearing ignorant if I asked, “Why can’t this be done?” or “Why not do this instead?”. Sometimes, when I felt courageous enough, I would ask these questions anyway. To my surprise, more often than not, nobody had a good answer. Sometimes, people looked at me and said, “You’re right, why isn’t anyone doing that?” When I encountered these moments, I knew I had found a potential area to think deeper and further.

5) Dream: I found that being busy busy busy like a bee – which gave me so much pleasure and satisfaction when I was a manager – was detrimental to being visionary. If I wanted to develop a vision, I needed time to dream. Not the kind of dream when I slept, but the kind of dream of a better way to do things, a better future. The kind of dream that would bring a smile to my lips, tears to my eyes and kept me going when times were tough.

6) Be mentored: I was very fortunate to have a good friend who saw potential in me and took upon himself to mentor me. He met me once a week at nice places like the Botanical Gardens, and asked me great questions which got me thinking about possibilities, instead of problems. My good friend had since passed away, but I always remember this wonderful gift he gave me.

THE OUTCOME

Developing the visionary skills in me had shown some promise. I became more creative on a larger scale, and I was able to rally good people together to serve a bigger cause.

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The more I practice being visionary, the more I see visions of what can be better when I look around me. Visions come to me more readily.

Every once a while, I still get clouded in my mind and lose focus of my visions. When that happens, I know that I need to rest, reflect, dream, and reconnect to my vision.

LOOKING BACK

I did not speak to my networker boss after I left, but my perception of what he did has evolved. I can now see the importance of what he did with all his networking and lofty talks. He was being a visionary when I was playing the role of a manager.

Our roles were different, but equally important for the flourishing of the business. Without his vision, I probably would not join him in the first place. Without solid day-to-day operations, the business would remain disorganized.

Perhaps, as younger men, we did not appreciate each other’s contribution enough. I only saw how little my visionary boss contributed to managing the place. My boss probably saw how uninspiring I was, when all I wanted to talk about was how to improve the daily operations.

I’m thankful for this experience. Now I can make my peace, and appreciate the work of both visionaries and managers.