Winning The War

There are moments in our life where we must realized that there more than just winning. In most cases, when we begin reflecting of our objective in whatever we do, principle and values will emerge and become your guide in the process of decision making.

This is when the saying of lose the battle , win the war comes to play. This advise was one of the reminder that i use to often received by my former mentor. Being a young man, i am pretty much competitive when it comes to wanting to win. Especially during those early days, I hate two things, to lose and to fail.

Over the years being trained by two mentors, i learn so much when it comes to strategy and positioning interest to achieve your desires. On the early days , these master strategist were relentless when it comes to wanting me to test my ideas and implementing my strategies. They wanted me to understand defeat to appreciate the process and value of success.

It was during these process that i truly understand the value of losing battles , win the war and how important reflection is in the process of understanding that is more than winning battles.

Standing for Presidency

In days to come, i am expected to stand for the presidency post for an association. Unfortunately, i will not be around as i am expected to be flying over to shanghai by on Friday. The election is on Saturday.

While there is so much to do with lobbying, getting all strategy in place and working on a winning plan, I just cant be bother this time around as there are other things that need my urgent attention , hence priority comes to play.

Will this means , it will be a guaranteed defeat? it might. Will i get disqualified for not attending the event? i might. In this moment , do i care? I do, but not a priority.

One of saddest thing i learn recently is how divided the association is as there is element of race card is played. When i decided say yes to be nominated, i devise a game plan is to eliminate this division played by race and address the issue head on by highlighting the need for a fresh executive committee that doesn't agree to how the association have become. Unfortunately , i been out of the game for a while now and my assessment on some individual was a bit off. Hence the camp that i build at last minute needed to be disband.

Knowing that time is not on my side, I quickly change the strategy as i realized the dynamic for this election is so much different when i was in the game some time back.

Reposition Interest

So, since yesterday i decided to take some time and reanalyzed the situation and ask myself what is the ultimate goal. I've concluded that the ultimate goal is that the association members need to be united and be awaken that such race mentality should be scrap.

So my focus has been talking to key influencer that is on the fence and educate them that we can do better than this. It doesn't matter who serves in the executive committee just as long as those who get voted in can reverse the current situation. This Afternoon, i received messages from the other camps that wanting me to win the hot seat but i reminded them that this is election is beyond than that.

This also means there is some wind of change, where few begin to realized that the current objective shifted from who will be on the top hot seat but more so towards the message that things need to change in regards to members mindset principles and value.

having said that, my conclusion is;

There is no use in winning battle if the outcome is animosity and disunity, There is more at stake than just winning

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Conclusion

I always believe if the objective is clear , everything will fall in place. If it doesn't , it just mean that the message has not reach in people's heart and minds. Given time, It will.

Unfortunately for me, i dont have the time for now and i cant be at two places at once to create an impact.

From here onward, i can only leave the decision for change to the members who value unity regardless of race.

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These were my last whatsapp message to them.

Dear Friends / Members

Our association today is at a crossroad.

Over the last few years. We see that the members is divided into factions.

The most saddest part is the division is created based on language on the license, literally by race.

It comes to a point there is mistrust between each other / groups.

The worst is, there are some who live off these sad mentality and champion them and fuel this division to remain in control. Creating fear among others allowing further division and mistrust to continue.

At some point, there are others who uses the association and pushes political agendas while the association is suppose to be apolitical.

On the other hand, there are few individual who wishes to create another new association. This will only split us into pieces and further degrade the potential of negotiating power when in dealing with other stakeholder. We end up busy compete with each other association than figuring way how to add value to the industry as a whole.

Having said so, not everyone is agreeable to what is happening and is sad to see that such sad race based mentality is happening in the association.

Here is where you play a role in order that our association survive and become relevant in the industry and is respected among our stakeholder.

Here is where, all of us must decide that all this need to come to an end. Where our professionalism matters first.

Here is when, we need to be united more than ever regardless of what race or language we speak.

The time has come where you need to vote for a new beginning for the association.

This election should be beyond survival of just a certain language proficiency or race, because all members matters.

It is not about position or who will be in a particular position as executive committee, because everyone who volunteered for a certain role should be professional enough to work with everyone else as a team.

it's about sending the message to all members to come together and unite, to show that we can learn to trust each other, accept each others flaws and embrace our strength, so we can again be respected and honoured as the best professionals in the country and state once again.

I wish us all best of luck.
Daniel Doughty

*Some detail information above is omitted.