Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts

Broadsheet Rhetoric for a Small Country. Jan 2023

The rhetoric on the broadsheet where I live in Singapore ( which is hardly credible IMHO which is in the process of being nationalized in some shape or form) should liken to walking the tight rope in a circus and not take sides and risk getting caught in the cross hair of a proxy war (economically or militarily).

The first two PMs with their astute foreign policies (especially PM Lee Kuan Yew) and ministers have done well in the midst of Vietnam and Korean War. I cannot say the same for the current PM Lee Hsien Loong. He spent our precious diplomatic bullets by making jokes that the air and water quality in Beijing a few years back were grouse. These off the script comments didn’t go un-noticed in Beijing and perhaps the payback came in the Hong Kong custom impounding our armored vehicles enroute from Taiwan to Singapore whilst the ship took a layover in Hong Kong. That escalated quickly from ambassadorial to ministerial level. China has sent a message to Singapore that they were not amused about the joke.


Public Service Commission (PSC) should strongly consider putting more scholars in the likes of Tsinghua University and University of Peking to inject more stronger social network between the future bureaucrats of tomorrow rather than just Oxbridge and ivy leagues in USA. 

To date, I only have one friend who did post grad in Tsinghua on his family scholarship. The road ahead is foggy, and we need shrewd PM and foreign ministers. I rarely praise PAP but sidelining Tharman and George Yeo for the role was a really bad decision.

With the rhetoric between China and USA on a somewhat sour note on both military and economics, we should posture ourselves as friends to all and enemies to none.


Peter Lye aka lkypeter
lkypeter@gmail.com Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye (c) Peter Lye 2023



Projected Put Protection Cost/Day(Bubble Size)-BABA - Aug 2022

Been trying to make use of stock options to predict forward stock price besides the infamous calls/puts ratio of my own. 

So far in terms of downside risks, I have derived this graph from the Friday closing price of BABA (ADR) and their put options to protect against downside risk in the forward periods by deriving the cost of protection proxied by the call outs in terms of expiry dates, strike price ( averaged ) and the internal rate of return. For example. 

For expiry 26 Aug 2022, the averaged cost is US$86.91 and the internal rate of return is 0.3897% whereas furthest out for 21 Jun 2024, it can bottom out to US68.30 and 0.0278%.

Will these prices be reflective of the forward downside price of the stock?

 



Peter Lye aka lkypeter
lkypeter@gmail.com Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye (c) Peter Lye 2019



Singapore is not Turkey - Diversifying your Currency Risk - Aug 2018, published Apr 2020

Singapore is not Turkey is a mischievous attention grabbing title with the Turkish Lira moving everywhere with no destination in the horizon. Imprinted against little red dot Singapore lies a good measure of wisdom, foresight and measures ( yes indeed ) we can take to lessen potential future pain suffered by those with interest in Turkey or Turkish Lira.

Like many Singaporean man in the street, personal balance sheet used to be denominated ONLY in Singapore Dollar (SGD) assets and liabilities until recent past where I ventured to park some currency UNHEDGED instruments after much thought. Had a tensed social debate with a secondary school classmate on this topic at his home a few New Year Eve ago. Our spouse thought it was getting out of hand but over the years we have very much learnt to agree to disagree having worked together to produce our school magazine at 16 year old. Why is there a need to diversify my SGD exposure if the intention is to retire here as it would be a natural hedge; SGD-SGD; so goes the conventional wisdom. After USD was delinked from Gold Standard, all currency essentially became Fiat currency. Absolute measure vaporized as most currency became relative to each other. Sovereigns issuing currency controlled their supply by literally printing money. Simplistically balance between demand and supply was chief in determining its price. To inculcate budgeting, the common rhetoric that they are not printing money ought to be yes but government all over cannot escape the enticement of running fiscal deficits. The small number of countries with net positive fiscal budget in the last 11 years of economic rally is proof of this.


Inter-government agreements are hardy and essential to drive everyday economic decisions. Under pressure, it could be porcelain brittle and break. Turkey is geo-politically sandwiched between East and West and has 2/3 of its important political levers in EU being a member of both NATO ( perhaps not for long in light of her recent
purchases of Russian arms ) and EU common market. Turkish Lira (TRY) is the local currency unlike most EU countries that adopted the common EUR as their local/regional currency. Barring her differential on Iran, no credible rescue was in sight for TRY. 

Without belittling our ASEAN 2 billion emergency currency swap agreement, I doubt the utility of such firstly because the amount is perhaps good against very temporal market alimonies but not sustained structural or systemic issues. Hong Kong just burned HKD $2.195 equivalent in reserves today 15th August 2018 buying their currency to support the peg. This is not her first neither will it be her last if the USD/HKD 7.8 peg were to stay. As we speak, India and Indonesia are also dealing with their own currency issues as the Turkish crisis is turning systemic and spreading to other Emerging Market currencies.


Secondly, economies are more global and connected now and local issues can turn systemic regionally or globally faster. If fires were to break out systemically across ASEAN, each man for himself would most probably rule the day. Although ASEAN members have sustained ties and common interest, the firewall separating each sovereign member might prove more polarizing.

Fiat is no Faith. Anyone who claims irrefutably to robust understanding of Forex is most probably a liar or living in their own world. Global forex is huge and complex and I doubt anyone have such mastery as he would be the richest man on earth if so. Boundless talent from economics (not exactly a science to some), mathematics, physics, biology to computer have been working on it with very limited success.  How to have faith in something with little understanding though my fellow Christians would argue otherwise. To them, faith is believing in the unseen.

Currency is essentially the cornerstone and keystone architecturally speaking of our everyday living being the starting point and without which the structure will fall. Being a necessary devil having an ostrich mentality isn't helping unless living in an Amish community is your cup of tea. Undeniably, as human progress, our ability to live in isolation decreases and with it the need for money as a medium of exchange. Some archaeologist believe that a healed femur is the green shoots for signs of a civilization and along the same lines, money might be proof of civilization reaching puberty but not her zenith. Healed femur was proposed because it might be proof of mutual care between humans. Money isn't the perfect medium of exchange; in fact it rates poorly in some quarters like equability but it is the best that we have. Even the communist saw a need for it.

Risk where more can be less. Markowitz, the father of modern portfolio theory opined and justly rewarded with a Nobel prize that that non-systemic risk in portfolio can be reduced through diversification. Recent critiques highlighted many limitations with this theory chiefly because the theory was more applicable as a reduction of standard deviation rather than risk. Others relate to short selling and questionable effectiveness for market makers as oppose to takers. The important theme being that diversification does reduce risk in general everything else being equal. 

Singapore Government Bonds are denominated in SGD and this can be a double edged sword. Post Mexican debt crisis, central banks and governments began to realize the hazards of issuing their bonds in foreign currencies but many are still cornered to do so. The market for bonds denominated in their local currency might not exists or the interest rate could be too sky rocket high to compensate investors for taking such risks. Singapore government remains a rare majority within emerging market economies that still issues bonds in their own currency. However, if you are holding on to such bonds, there is a very remote but should never be overlooked risk of the government monetizing such bonds by printing money in very desperate times.

Pragmatically, I would do better to have part of my personal balance sheet denominated in other currencies although the plan is to retire here. In the last 3 decades, even major currencies like USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, CNY have all fluctuated by more than 20% in terms of their relative value to each other. Other currencies have seen near total collapse or major devaluation especially in smaller economies and less developed countries like Mexico, Indonesia, Venezuela etc.


Although Singapore is no Turkey, it is still better to diversify your risks as no one can guarantee you that Singapore might not turn Turkey in the future figuratively speaking.


Peter Lye aka lkypeter
lkypeter@gmail.com Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye (c) Peter Lye 2019






COVID-19/EBOLA/SARS – Economics, Societal and Political Narrowness-April 2020


Amidst the lockdown or to be politically correct mobility circuit breaker due to COVID-19, I dusted something penned on Ebola and SARS in 2014. Recomposing the current COVID-19 global crisis against my old brainwave in 2014, there were striking similarities and differentials on the societal and political fronts. Seems like our
human race is more xenophobic and 
short-sighted collectively than many like to believe individually. Collectivism and individualism could be at polar opposite especially on orphaned issues.

From the comparison between Ebola and SARS, my narrative on the biggest similarities and differentials were along the lines of lack of therapeutics or vaccines, orphaned disease status of the poor and infectability in terms of R0. Ebola was clearly an orphaned disease of poor Africa. COVID-19 and SARS share most similarities excepting orphaned disease and the spiraling extensive spill-over into the economic, societal and political fronts. There has been reports of overwhelming over-arching philanthropy across economic lines from rich to poor, societal margins from capitalistic to socialistic leanings through various governmental support schemes and lastly on political and diplomatic agendas from cross country aids as well as putting aside rhetoric like the trade war between America and China. Major problems plaguing these as are their shallowness coupled with lack of depth or sincerity and lack of a trust-worthy leadership to carry these through. Philanthropy has been sparse and even for the few, they were more Hollywood than reality.

Echoing current IMF views that a lack of post COVID-19 solution like who would own or pay for the bill of the bailouts cannot be reason enough in this hour as the impact of stasis is un-imaginable chaos that will be harder to see daylight, this line of reasoning carries the hazard where the fittest might leverage to maximize their interest instead of being applied to the needy. This is not an unreasonable worry as 2008/2009 schemes like the troubled asset relief program (TARP) in USA has mainly benefited Wall-Street who were the main culprit leaving much of main street to shoulder the burden although Wall-Street would opined that they re-paid every penny but imputing the risk adjusted interest on these re-payment makes a joke as Wall-Street are supposed to be good at pricing risk. They operate the primary risk market not only for financial risk but a broad spectrum from food to natural resource like wheat, corn to oil and metals. The best legal and law making minds must be deployed to craft caveats to guard against such through either a combination of policies and wide ranging prosecution measures embedded to make such attempts improbable. The process of law making and has mostly tipped in the favor of industries through their lobbying machinery against limited resources of the populace. In addition, history through the ages and across civilizations have taught us that legal frameworks does not ensure that justice is served in all cases as at the perimeters, the powerful do get away normally out of legal technicalities or the voiceless poor given all but cosmetic legal aid defense or not getting the necessary time of day from the public prosecutors who holds some discretionary power. Although this is not the most urgent, its importance cannot be thrown under the bus of urgency.

The current COVID-19 situation is slightly different as the source seems to be a product of mother nature although the verdict is not or will never be out on it as with the likes of SARS, better to focus on the solution for now. Unlike events like WWII, nipping the bud in terms of eradicating the primary agents like the Axis of Evil will not solve the problem. This is entertaining the wildest far fetched imagination that it might be a product of scientific laboratory malfeasance or accident unless the source possess the formulary to the anti-dote in the form of a combination of therapeutics or vaccine.

If the therapeutics and vaccine path is unlikely to yield significant results in the short run even if FDA fast track the time to bedside usage or relaxes the criteria and hasten the approval of non-approved pipelined drugs on compassionate grounds, it is good that the medical community is visiting the re-purposing of existing drugs used for HIV, Cancer, Flu and the 100 year old plasma therapy to fill in the gap. These initiative are important as COVID-19 can do a lot of damage in the minimal 12 to 18 months it takes to get a new drug in. Perhaps, targeted research should be directed in this direction in the short run as what we need is a tool that can drive in the proverbial nail and not necessary the perfect hammer.

Another big hurdle is the accuracy, speed and cost of testing for COVID-19 for more effective epidemiological and public heath measures to work. No test is perfectly accurate but the existing gold standard using certain RT-PCR process has an exceeding low level of accuracy in both type I and II errors as well as a big indefinite band in statistical speak. Head of WHO has gone on record in an earlier press briefing comparing the accuracy of HIV test against COVID-19 test with the former having a confidence level of more than 99% and he did not reveal any percentages in the case of COVID-19 but add that he is less sure. A possibility is the newness of the test and lower population size to  arrive at higher degree of confidence. Some health authorities have adopted the 2 to 3 serial consistent testing results to increase the level of confidence. Speed of the test is crucial with a fast spreading disease like COVID-19 and current RT-PCR test takes hours or days to turn around. Some of the processes in RT-PCR involves centrifugal spinning of samples and re-agents repeatedly that cannot be short cut. Cost was a hurdle in some countries as the cost of RT-PCR test can be in the hundreds (USD) and initial USA health insurance coverage presented a cost issue as some patients without requisite insurance coverage and large co-payment might not be able to afford or simply do not see money well spent for the test. This has been largely addressed in most health authorities by having the government bearing the cost of the test. On this note, it surfaces that cost of health care is no longer entirely a private and individual concern can be dependent on the least common denominator in our population and therefore perhaps another case for social medicine.

Some diseases like COVID-19 do not live in a vacuum and pull rail truck loads of collateral damage the length and speed of the Trans-Siberian Railway along with them. Although the collateral damages and its interlinkedness makes it difficult to separate between cause and effect, perhaps centrifuging the maze of collateral damage might spread them out on a spectrum for better visibility and addressable bit size.

Economically, it would generate simultaneous demand and supply shocks resulting in massive un-employment or a newly coined temporary non-employment with wage freeze. Unemployment in USA is north of 10% within weeks of limited lock down measures. Airlines were the first industry to be impacted intensively and extensively at the speed of light. It didn’t help that Boeing, one of the two largest aircraft manufacturers globally was already reeling in a safety crisis resulting in planned shutdown of some facilities after two crashes of her new 737-MAX leaving about 100 newly built 737-MAX aircrafts sitting parked in their facilities un-deliverable as airlines refuse delivery and some even threatening to cancel orders or not exercising purchase options for pipelined orders. Problems of another nature surfaces as shortage for personal protection equipment (PPE) to both protect front line staff especially those in medical and essential services. Key amongst the shortages were for surgical masks, N95 masks, ventilators and disposable protective suits. Complicating this problem further progression or some say regression, the manufacturing process and supply chain has become longer and more complex. Most end products traverse continents with thousand of touchpoints each of which is highly specialized to be optimized. This could be one of the reasons to keep some of these manufacturing facilities and supply chains mothballed instead being liquidated to pieces with lesser hope and longer to re-assemble after the crisis. There is always room for re-organizing and re-purposing resources for shorter term needs but the choices have to be made holistically for the longer run and not solely on economic basis.

The central banks have been quick perhaps too hasty in re-acting to ensure proper functioning of the banking system and liquidity a float. Central banks have chiefly operated in the domain of interest rates, reserve ratios, government bonds and the like even during various quantitative easing undertaken previously. Even wildest dream could not envision central banks dabbling in corporate bonds even venturing onto those rated as junk by the big 3 rating agencies so long as the downgrade to junk happened after the onset of the COVID-19 crisis or can be attributed to the COVID-19 crisis. This might be done on the one market without any restrictive covenants limiting certain top executive compensation, share buy backs, dividend payments and declaration or the likes imposed on companies that took money under TARP. This can present itself as a money making trading opportunity by tail coating behind this novel and more opaque move by the central banks with little or no accountability.

As most currencies are principally issue on a fiat basis with some like HKD based on a peg to USD, a lost in trust in any major currency could fall quickly like domino into a global monetary system collapse. The result might be a return to the ancient practice of barter trade. Barter trade might not necessarily be a bad temporary solution. However, the slide into barter trade will be anything but orderly and might entail societal anarchy if not properly unwound.

Politically, the COVID-19 crisis could polarize countries further. It is a funny phenomenal that as our world become more inter-connected through technological leaps in air, sea and land transportation and tele-communication, countries are turning more xenophobic. This could further fracture crack lines already present in relationship between countries and escalating into trade wars, border disputes and perhaps limited scale local or regional conflict. Such conflicts can leveraged by super powers into a proxy war with an enlarged foot print.


Assuming that humanity crosses this sea of danger to land safely on solid ground, economic frameworks for distribution of wealth, societal norms for power allocation and political boundaries and agendas might have to take a reset. Communism might attempt to green-shoot but its track record is both too poor and tainted. Capitalism will most probably still win the day but the wide ranging GINI might not withstand the weight demanded by social justice and the clarion call for a more egalitarian society.

Finally, humility and transparency should trump over over-confident smug calls by the authorities. We might be in the early days where the known-unknown and the unknown-unknown dominates the scene. This is no time for evidence or fact based decision not that we throw caution to the wind and make decisions recklessly. It does call for novel, adoptive and practical approach in place for bureaucratic norms and precedents. For example, the not wearing masks in public is a poor judgement just because there is no proof that wearing of masks reduces spread of the disease. Why not explain that we might not have enough masks as we do not know how long the crisis might last and and need to prioritize for front line healthcare workers and are working on the supply situation actively either through local manufacturer or overseas sourcing. It was quite clear that masks were hard to come by in retails pharmacies and even at government pharmacies at times. Now that we have photos of our PM and his cabinet wearing mask during their meeting tells the obvious. The lack of public hospital beds has been a problem of many year with the long wait time between transfer from A&E to wards taking hours sometimes up to 12-20 hours is proof of that. We cannot degrade this deficit in healthcare facilities under the bus of more urgent matters any longer without paying a dear price as has been shown in various parts of the world recording needlessly higher mortality due to a lack of hospital beds and ventilators. 



Peter Lye aka lkypeter
lkypeter@gmail.com Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye (c) Peter Lye 2019




Why SMB Need Key Man Insurance

20 July 2016© Peter Lye

After 3 decades, Key Man Insurance is still too 747 heavy for lift off in  big way.

It might be a sterling example of lost in translation. Though the label is semantically correct, the impression created seems to suggest some grandiose plan not meant for commoner.

This is far from reality as it was created mainly with the smaller business in mind instead MNCs and larger corporates.


Insurance is intangible in itself. Compound this complexity that Key Man Insurance hardly exists as ready to sell product but as a wrapper for a bespoke basket of insurance products, it is easy to understand why only the brave will attempt to venture.

Unlike liability class of insurance which provides a like for like recourse like repair, replacement or hold legally harmless, Key Man Insurance normally provides a pre-agreed compensation in cash. Some quarters voice that this money does not buy everything necessary to recompensate a key man insurance, it sure can buy many things.

Key Man are essentially owners, business partners or employees for which their continued ability to contribute to the business if curtailed by illness, accidents or death can result in major business impact. The value contribution can be special skills, relationships with customers or source of finance.

The risk coverage can range from basic death due to accident only, to term for death due to whatever cause or even critical illness. Critical illness can affect work ability and this is an important consideration though it is relatively more costly risk to cover. Many have asked about risk of jumping ship to competitor or leaving for whatever reason and the answer is normally no as there is a certain level of control over the outcome rather than a random event. This infringes one of the basic principle of insurance that the outcome is not controllable or largely not controllable.

Table:Key Man Issue Impact on SMB vs MNCs

SMB
MNCs or Large Corporate
Funding
Owner.
Bank Facilities (OD/Trade) with Personal Guarantees by shareholders.
Corporate Capital Market.
Bank Facilities with Corporate Guarantees.
Skills Duplication
Rarely or limited
Widespread
Process Documentation
Limited even for those with ISO 900X
Robust
Economy of Scale
Limited
Larger
Ownership/Management
More Integrated
Segregated
Too Big to Fail
None
In Some Case
Quick Access to Sudden Cash / Resource
Limited
Extensive in Most Case Especially in MNCs.

It is clearly evident from the table above why SMB should be looking at Key Man Insurance rather than MNCs as they have sufficient buffer in most case.

Key Man Insurance Cash Pay-out is normally arranged in one of the following fashions when an insured event which is normally a Key Man like issue arises. 

Firstly, for business that are funded by owner and Bank Facilities with Personal Guarantors, the Pay-out is useful in case the of loans or trade facilities by banks. A wise sage once opined that wise Bankers only try to loan you money when you least need it.

In the case of a sudden skill shortfall due to key person meeting the insured event, the cash pay-out is useful to secure additional resource to re-compensate part of the resource or to keep the business a float due to sudden drop in business.

As ownership and management is more often than not integrated in SMB, a buy-out agreement using the insurance cash pay-out as a base load can ensure a more congenial management of the company without the sudden intrusion of a new management member to replace the key man. This can be structured along the lines of a Texas Shoot Out Clause to ensure fairer value of transaction for both buyer and seller.

Most SMB owners have poured in blood and sweat to take their business to where it is and it would be a waste to see it die with them. In addition, it is also part of being a responsible to your business partners and employees.

Imagine chef/owner Peter of your favourite neighbourhood burger diner paralysed by a sudden stroke and passed away. What will happen to his business, partners, employees and most of all his family members. Little imagination is needed to picture the catastrophe.

The special marinate that makes the burger unique was formulated by Peter and though many staff and partners have seen it done daily, the exact recipe was never documented. Customers started to complain that the burger tasted different.

The business started by Peter as a small street corner food cart many years ago. When it tasted success, Peter roped in 2 additional business partners who were in the restaurant business to provide restaurant expertise to expand it into a full service diner. The additional capital needed to acquire shop space, kitchen and dining area were provided by the 2 new partners and bank over draft and trade facilities secured by joint personal guarantee by Peter and his partners.

The Bank not only stop all credit facilities but recalled all loans. The business almost grind to a halt as most working capital is via Bank facilities. Bankers are logical business that take such actions because firstly, they now have 2 instead of 3 personal guarantors. Secondly, business risk has also increased with poorer business outlook.

The final straw came when the Bank lodged a charge on Peter’s estate on account of the personal guarantee locking all the emergency funds the immediate family needs.

If the same were to happen to a branch manager of MacDonald, business would continue almost normally save for a minor discontinuity during the initial period it takes to transfer and localise another branch manager. Bankers, suppliers and customers would hardly blink about it.

This is why Key Man Insurance is for SMB.





Peter Lye aka lkypeter
lkypeter@gmail.com Safe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye (c) Peter Lye 2014

Coaching in Asia- Mind over Matter on Stigma


What is coaching? Eminent coach Jeffrey T Sooey; President of JTS has categorically stated being a coach is NOT equivalent to being a consultant, guru, expert, psychologist or friend. This is important as coaching has been closely associated rightly or wrongly with psychotherapy, psychiatry or sanity.
This is important in Asia because in general, psychology, psychiatrist and sanity are viewed narrowly in a binary manner or either sane or insane instead of a continuum. To combat this, Institute of Mental Health in Singapore started an Early Psychosis Intervention Programme to overcome the stigma and get patients to seek help earlier for better outcomes. In the same vein, one should also seek coaching earlier as you never know how it can help unlock the potential in you.
In a nutshell, coaching is supportive in nature involving training, teaching and development to reach professional or personal goals. It is more developmental rather than therapeutic as described above.

The Chinese Experience
(c)Peking University

We shall examine how coaching was already in existence in ancient time by examining the famous “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” written by Liu GuanZhong around 14 century as a non-fiction. It was set against the backdrop around the end of Han Dynasty and start of Sui Dynasty. Between these two dynasties, China went through a period of disunity and the Three Kingdoms was a part of this chaotic era. Though it was written as a novel, it had a strong dose of historical fact embedded to qualify as one of the great four great writings of Chinese literature therefore reflective of the culture of that era. The significant characters of interest are advisors Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi together with their masters Liu Bei and Cao Cao respectively.
The plot is thick, complex and long but the important plots here were the four main castes. The two leaders by way of benevolent Liu Bei and villain Cao Cao and their advisers Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi. In today’s context we could equate both Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi as having played the role of coach to their leaders. It was very evident that the advisers were not part of the line of authority and served in staff role giving them a more objective perspective. In coaching lingua franca, we would put them as not belonging to the system. Their primary role was to ensure the success of their masters and they were trusted and highly regarded by their masters. They do not hold direct executive power in most instances save for short period of time when the situation was dire. This distinction is important as coaches that cross this line to be part of the system normally do so with non-optimal outcomes if not managed carefully.
“The Art of War” widely attributed to Sun Tzu is another prime example. Although the authorship is still highly debated amongst scholars in light of new archaeological findings. This discourse is not important to us as there is common agreement that it existed way before the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”. This book has reached renowned status globally and has been translated into many languages and adopted by many modern management schools and practitioners. Sun Tzu was a military advisor and/or general to King Hule of Wu State and highly regarded as an advisor to the King. It is interesting that the legacy he left behind in this book has served as a virtual coach to the many readers of his book who internalized the dictum appropriately. In the contentious chapter 11 of his book, he states the leader must be "serene and inscrutable" and capable of comprehending "unfathomable plans" which was against many modern thinking that the leader must stay in touch with ground zero. This truism was most probably why a leader needs a coach. A coach can apply frameworks more independently being NOT a part of the system and therefore able to help the leader see the forest from the trees better as both aspects are equally important.

Modern US Government

In modern government like USA, the President is surrounded by many advisors specializing in different areas like homeland, security, economics etc, as well as secretaries. A key differentiator between these advisors and the secretaries surrounding him lies in the fact that the advisors are non-executive in nature whereas those of the secretaries are executive in nature either directly or by fiat. By doing so, these advisors are also playing the role of a coach being detached from the system itself and having less issues when it comes to conflict of interests.
The “realization of what you are lacking is the beginning of knowledge” and coaching might bridge that all important divide standing between you and your goals in both the corporate and/or personal arenas. So what is stopping you from calling a coach and examine what a difference coaching can make to you and your key men and make a difference in your organization.
Peter Lye aka lkypeter
lkypeter@gmail.comSafe Harbor. Please note that information contained in these pages are of a personal nature and does not necessarily reflect that of any companies, organizations or individuals. In addition, some of these opinions are of a forward looking nature. Lastly the facts and opinions contained in these pages might not have been verified for correctness, so please use with caution. Happy Reading. Peter Lye
(c) Peter Lye 2014