What’s the first thing that comes to mind?
PROTON? Perodua? Petronas?
Many people know the big organisations Tan Sri Syed Zainal has been linked to. But how many of us really know what happened behind the scenes when he came in and led those organisations?
I’ve known Tan Sri for more than 13 years. But when I sat down and heard his rarely shared stories firsthand, I realised how much I had missed simply because I didn’t spend more time really learning from him.
Sometimes the knowledge and wisdom we’re looking for is already very close to us. But we get too busy with our own responsibilities and forget to pause, listen and learn from the people around us.
What caught my attention is that not every big decision starts in the boardroom.
Tan Sri also shared all kinds of funny and unexpected incidents, but those incidents ended up influencing some of the important decisions he made.
We laughed hearing them, but behind every story there was a learning point about people, leadership and the reality of transforming an organisation.
Big transformation doesn’t happen through strategy and a nice presentation alone. It takes courage to look at the real reality, make hard decisions, rebuild the team and move the whole organisation in a new direction.
Throughout our conversation, Datuk Jake Abdullah worked hard to capture the essence of Tan Sri’s experience, passion and leadership philosophy.
After almost 30 years working with thousands of entrepreneurs and business leaders, I still see myself as a student of leadership and transformation. There is always another perspective we need to understand and always a higher level of wisdom to learn.
Soon, Tan Sri will share more of these stories in a book that I myself can’t wait to read and dig into.
And from our conversation the other day, it looks like Datuk Jake is also taking the chance to get to know his next podcast guest more closely!
Because behind every big transformation of an organisation, there is a story worth telling and lessons that shouldn’t just disappear.
#DatukWira #Leadership #BusinessTransformation #CorporateLeadership #LifelongLearning
— Datuk Wira Dr Azizan Osman
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