DAVID SWANN / DSWANN@STARBULLETIN.COM

Helping others grow

Apply the postive face of power
to help people you work with
reach their potential

Originally the word power," a noted Buddhist philosopher tells us in "The Book of Awakening," by Mark Nepo, "meant to be able to be. In time, it was contracted to mean to be able. We suffer the difference."

Recent and continuing political crises, as well as the misuse and abuse of corporate funds by those in positions of significant power, also serve as painful reminders of the all too many instances where the word power means to be mean.

But there is a new generation of senior corporate leaders who are embracing and acting from the positive face of power. Leaders like Tim Sanders of Yahoo who speak of "love as being the most powerful force in business." Leaders like Mark Cuban, the young Internet billionaire, whose motto with respect to the treatment of customers was "Make love, not war."

This trend, while it may seem radical to some, is actually predictable given the results of a study conducted by the highly respected Center for Creative Leadership. No. 1 on the list of the top four leadership demands in the coming decades was employee development.

Note that this is not a demand that will be delegated to the human resources department. It is a demand that will become a leader's direct responsibility, and presumably area of accountability.

In other words, the leaders of the future are going to have to learn how, as a part of their operational line responsibilities, to help others grow to become they best people they can be. Which, as you may recall, is what Sanders reminded us is tantamount to learning how to "be loving."

IF SUCH DIRECT terminology gives you chicken skin, try an analogy.

Think of the challenge as being akin to being a good farmer.

You have to till the soil. Start with a strong seedling (which you can expect your HR department to help you locate).

Keep the weeds of bureaucratic red tape from choking it to death.

Be sure to give it sunshine, water, and, if need be, even some fertilizer (by which we mean, just to be clear, periodic special projects that feed its need for booster shots).

And when it needs more room to grow than you maybe able to provide in your field, don't try to hang on just because it serves your needs. Rather, help transplant it to someone else's patch where it has the chance to grow even bigger and stronger.

And do so not because you expect a quid pro quo in return.

Why?

Because doing something out of love means you do it because it is the right thing to do. And, as many can attest, the less you expect in return for acts of love, acts of generosity -- be they professional or personal -- the more you will receive, in kind, in return.

Simply put, learn to care for and about your people like you know you would have to learn to care about and for your crops if you wanted to be a successful farmer.

Recognize and accept that learning to care for and about another person is synonymous with developing highly refined sophisticated interpersonal skills. You can't have one without the other.

Furthermore, it is the very absence of these interpersonal skills that is the No. 1 cause of what the Center For Creative Leadership identified as the key derailment factor causing high-potential leaders to falloff the fast track, fast!

So the reasons for not using your power as a leader as a means to control people and situations are clear. As are the reasons for developing your "soft skills" so you can use your power to help propel people to even greater heights of achievement.

The next time you face your senior team, or one of your colleagues, make a conscious choice about which of your two faces of power you want to put forward.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Hawaii musicians Amy Hanaialii Gilliom, left, and Willie K, right, visited China in June to perform at the Shanghai International Film Festival. They returned to China in July as part of a state-sponsored business-promotion effort. After the June visit, they met with Ted Liu, center, state director of business economic development and tourism.

Government can’t promote
China trade alone

Hawaii entrepreneurs should
know the market and ideally
have a presence there

Such global promotions, which highlight Hawaii's unique culture, make it easier for a Hawaii-based company like ours to find acceptance when dealing with government officials and businesses in China -- more specifically, in our case, in the city of Tianjin.

Building relationships between governments can go a long way toward building trust and supporting international commerce.

However, government-sponsored promotions by themselves cannot provide all of the answers to doing business in China. Governments, be they federal or state, are limited by their regulations in what they can do. For that reason, the push for Hawaii to become part of the global market in China must come from companies and individuals willing to go beyond the doors that have been opened by government.

The problem is that not all businesses are ready to succeed in China. Business in China, like everywhere, is based upon trust and human relationships. Businesses have no chance of succeeding in China if they don't know what it will take to succeed, lack a willingness to learn what it will take to succeed, or have the misguided view that anything American or from Hawaii will sell in China without effort.

SELLING A HAWAII product in China is no different from selling a product in the United States. The product must be a quality item, and it has to be marketed and a business relationship created. Most important, there must be a human presence in China to show that your company and the product will be there for the long run.

Having a presence in China is 50 percent of the game. Without a presence, it is impossible to maintain a long-term business relationship in China.

The other 50 percent is the added value that your product or service provides to the consumer.

That is the primary reason our company has opened an office in Tianjin with a resident partner. Without a real presence there, our company could not serve as a true conduit between the Tianjin business community and the Hawaii-U.S. business community.

In an effort to demonstrate our commitment in Tianjin, we even filed with the central government of China to become a registered foreign representative office. To date, as I have been informed, it is the only Hawaii foreign representative office in Tianjin.

The bottom-line is that there is a need for the business community in Hawaii to be educated about the China market. It is a huge market with scores of intangibles. There are many factors that come into play.

Among those factors, each foreign product or service must be carefully analyzed to see what kind of license will be required or whether it will fall under any government restric- tions.

You also need to determine whether there is even a need for your product or service.

Will consumers be willing to pay a higher price for said product or service, or be willing to give up their loyalty to a local brand or local service provider? Large U.S. companies have failed in China because they failed to judge correctly the loyalty of the consumer to a local brand.

Another factor is that many countries, not to mention the other 49 states have been promoting products in China for years. European companies are years ahead of the United States, and especially Hawaii, in getting their products into Chinese stores. Accordingly, Hawaii companies are competing for market share not only with the local brands but with the scores of other brands from Europe and elsewhere in the United States.

Finally, much of China operates within the unwritten rules of "guanxhi" or relationships. Guanxhi is like money in the bank. It is an intangible that can be used to create business opportunities through a network of relationships. Used properly, it can be a source of opportunities. Used carelessly, it can result in failure.

So where are these opportunities? And what is this added value that a company from Hawaii must provide?

For the true entrepreneur, China represents tremendous opportunity. No economy, even one as robust and vibrant as China, can make up 25 years of isolation in a single jump without leaving many gaps in services or products. It is these gaps in services and products that present opportunities for businesses from Hawaii.

Hawaii companies must promote the uniqueness of Hawaii and its culture. Hawaii is what makes Hawaii products and services special. Accordingly, the businesses of Hawaii, with the support of government, are the only ones that can truly create long-term international trade with China.

PC users who
skip fine print
open door to spies

A few months ago, a colleague suggested that I devote a column to spyware. I eighty-sixed it, reasoning that spyware was more of a home-user problem than a concern of businesses. At the time, I believe I was correct, but the fact is, spyware is now a problem for businesses large and small.

Most people know that spyware is not the latest martini shaker or other gadget used by James Bond. Rather, spyware is a program that gathers information about people's computing habits, without their knowledge.

Spyware was initially developed as a means to track people's Web-surfing habits and report those to the advertisers who deploy it. Sound relatively harmless? Well, it probably is, although many people consider this an invasion of privacy.

More recently, however, a newer breed of spyware is becoming more prevalent. It can actually uncover passwords, credit card numbers and just about anything someone types on their computer. Obviously, this is pretty scary. To top it off, there are a ton of side effects of spyware that seriously hamper a person's ability to do his or her job.

How does spyware get on your PC? Believe it or not, you oftentimes give your permission for it to be installed. How often do you read the fine print when you install software or "break the seal" of the envelope that the CD comes in?

Like most people, you probably don't practice this as often as you should. Instead, you simply scroll down to the "Yes I Agree" button and click it. Along with everything else you agree to (which is the topic of another column), you could also be giving permission for spyware to be installed.

This is most common with "shareware" programs that you download from the Web. Of course, it's not fair to paint all such software with the same brush, since many shareware programs are published with the greater good of society in mind.

A trailblazer behind such sneaky efforts was Kazaa. One of the most popular file-sharing programs (Paris Hilton, anyone?), Kazaa received a lot of negative publicity when it was revealed that its "terms of service" agreement gave permission for the installation of spyware. Not only that, but the spyware program that came with Kazaa was also intended to allow its distributor, Brilliant Digital Entertainment, to access people's PCs and utilize them for any number of purposes.

Kazaa is not the only product that includes spyware as part of its package. Many other shareware programs follow a similar practice. These companies have to make money somehow, right? In fact, many shareware software packages that have spyware bundled in allow you to get a nonspyware version for a nominal cost.

Well, now that have it, how do you get rid of it? Businesses prefer a centralized solution that will allow them to easily manage multiple desktops. The good news is that both Symantec and McAfee have recently incorporated anti-spyware features into their anti-virus offerings, and any responsible enterprise will have centralized, corporate versions of one of these two packages already installed. Many current users of either of these packages might be eligible for free updates that stem spyware.

The bad news is that neither of these solutions is quite ready for prime time. Symantec's AntiVirus blocks spyware from getting to your company PCs, but it doesn't wipe out the spyware that's already there. McAfee's Antispyware will detect, block and wipe out existing spyware, but it's not yet an enterprise product. It must be installed and managed on every PC. Both companies promise that new releases will resolve these shortcomings. Given their track records, I have no reason to believe otherwise.

For individual PCs, most people now know about two of the most popular free spyware removal programs, Ad-Aware (www.lavasoft.de) and Spybot Search & Destroy (safer-networking.org). Currently, neither of these freeware applications installs innocuous software onto your PC. Ad-Aware has a Standard Edition, which is for noncommercial use (meaning home users only), as well as Plus ($26.95) and Professional ($39.95) editions, for businesses. In true egalitarian spirit, Spybot's only source of revenue is voluntary donations, which can be made on their Web site.

Both applications are easy to download, install and use. Remember to update them regularly.

Finally, we talked about Mozilla's Firefox browser a few months ago (starbulletin.com/ 2004/05/23/business/bizcol.html #jump3). One of the "selling points" of Firefox is that it prevents spyware infection. In the months since we talked about it, we've found that machines that use the Firefox browser exclusively do not get infected with spyware. Even for large businesses, this is a route to be considered. Of course, you could also swap out your Windows PCs for Macs or Linux machines, but that's a rather draconian effort for anyone.

If you follow these guidelines, you will go far toward avoiding spyware. That is, until the next celebrity video comes out.

How do you know you have it? If you experience any of these symptoms, you might be infected: >> Your PC runs a lot slower than it used to. >> You can't access the Internet, but the person in the next cubicle can. >> Your Internet home page has been changed and can't be reset. >> Your anti-virus software has been disabled and can't be turned back on. >> Your Internet browser opens "by itself" to display Web site advertisements. >> New items are unexpectedly added to your Favorites or Tools menus in your browser, or your Startup folder, or your desktop. >> Every time you do a search, you wind up at the same weird Web site. >> Your Web browser suddenly closes or stops responding. >> The company firewall says your PC is trying to access the Internet with a strange program. >> For dial-up users, you might get charged for 1-900 phone calls you didn't make. A very tricky form of spyware instructs your PC to hang up your normal Internet connection and dial a 1-900 number. Now that's dirty! Keep in mind that some of these problems have plagued personal computers well before spyware was "invented." But we've been getting an unbelievable number of reports recently that were all caused by spyware.

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