Education & Skills Development
Posts about Education & Skills Development
The "Yuan Shu Paradox": Why You Can't Hire Your Way Out of Incompetence
TL;DR: History mocks the warlord Yuan Shu for failing, but his failure was inevitable. An incompetent leader cannot hire a genius strategist because they lack the cognitive framework to distinguis...
The Job Hong Kong Parents Hate Most is the One They Need the Most
TL;DR: A friend asked me for a job for his son but added, "Anything but sales." He wants his son to learn about "M&A and IPOs" to prepare for entrepreneurship. The irony? **M&A and IPOs are just h...
The "Broken" System is a Feature, Not a Bug: What 13th Century Mongols Teach Us About Enterprise Architecture
TL;DR: We often look at organizational structures, legacy code, or even geopolitical borders and ask, "Who designed this mess? It makes no sense." Why is the Cantonese region split into two provin...
The "Sanae Effect": Why Charisma is the Only Fuel That Can Move a Stagnant System
TL;DR: Japan’s new Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, has unintentionally launched a streetwear phenomenon. From ¥300,000 caps to sold-out ballpoint pens, the "Sana-katsu" (Sanae Lifestyle) trend...
The Founder's Paradox: Why the Perfect System Begins with a Leader Who Refuses to Rule
TL;DR: History is littered with revolutionaries who became the very tyrants they fought against. From Cromwell to Napoleon to Castro, the pattern is almost algorithmic: seize power, hold power, di...
Debugging Demographics: The "Rate vs. Number" Glitch That Investors Miss
At Mercury, we often talk about how "Our legacy was built in stone, but our future will be built in code". Usually, I’m referring to banking and digital transformation. But today, I want to apply that...
The Beautiful Cage: A CEO's Guide to Escaping the "Rented Land" Trap
TL;DR: A 50k-follower brand just "died" in 48 hours. Why? The founder mistook Rented Land (social media) for an Owned Asset (an email list). This is the critical, strategic failure of mode...
The Strategist's Blind Spot: Why Hard Work Isn't Enough to Win
TL;DR: In business, as in warfare, success requires more than just tactical excellence. Many hardworking leaders and teams fail because they are trapped in a single, predictable competitive script...
The MVP Delusion: Why Your Minimum Viable Product is a Blueprint for Failure
TL;DR: The common understanding of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is one of the most dangerous and costly misconceptions in the startup world. Most founders treat the MVP as the smallest version...
The Strategist's Blind Spot: A CEO's Guide to the Two Types of Hard Work
TL;DR: Many intelligent, hardworking teams fail because they are trapped by a critical blind spot: they don't know what they don't know. They mistake tactical execution for strategic progress. Thi...
The Leader's Signal-to-Noise Ratio: My Guide to Filtering Input and Driving Real Innovation
TL;DR: In an age of information overload, a leader's most critical and underdeveloped skill is the ability to manage their "signal-to-noise ratio." The temptation to please everyone and find a con...
The Last Great Talent: Lesson in Radical Adaptability from the Life of Chua Lam
TL;DR: The common perception of the late Chua Lam as a lucky, hedonistic playboy fundamentally misses the point of his sixty-year career. A deeper analysis reveals that his enduring success across...