Insights

You know the one. Two years ago they challenged every assumption in the room. Last quarter they started saying “okay, boss” and looking at their laptop. Their numbers are still fine, so nobody has said a word.

That silence is not peace. It is a resignation letter that has not been typed yet.

What is really going on

People do not stop speaking up because they stop caring. They stop because speaking up stopped paying off. In many Malaysian workplaces there is another layer: respect for seniority, and a strong wish not to embarrass the boss in front of others. That makes the quiet easier to hide, and much easier to miss.

Through the POPP^™ lens

In the Psychology of People and Performance, behaviour follows what people expect to happen next. If someone expects their idea to be dismissed, the safest move is to say nothing. Your team learns this from the first ten seconds of your reaction, not from the values poster on the wall. One “we tried that already” is a comment. Three is a rule.

And performance sits downstream of that rule. Problems get raised late. Ideas never leave people’s heads. Your best people quietly spend their energy on staying invisible, and then on leaving.

Meet Nurul (a composite)

Nurul is the strongest analyst in the finance team of a Kuala Lumpur bank. Her manager, Kumar, is quick and decisive. When she suggested a new reporting method, he said, “We tried that already.” A month later: “That won’t work with our systems.” Then: “Let’s stay focused.”

Each reply was reasonable. Together they taught her a lesson Kumar never intended: bring me an idea and I will explain why it fails. So she stopped bringing ideas. Six months later she accepted an offer from a competitor, and Kumar was genuinely shocked. “She never said anything was wrong.”

That was exactly the signal.

Your next three days: listen

1. Day 1. Notice your first sentence after someone shares an idea. Is it a question, or a reason it will not work? Do not fix anything yet. Just count.
2. Day 2. Take one quiet person aside, away from the group, and ask, “If it were up to you, what would you change?” Then listen for a full minute without correcting, defending or solving.
3. Day 3. In a one-to-one, ask, “What is one thing you have stopped bringing to me?” Thank them, whatever the answer, and act on one small thing within the week.

What it does for performance

Each step changes what your people expect to happen when they speak. When speaking up feels safe, problems surface earlier, ideas travel faster and your strongest people put their energy into the work. That is performance no new target can buy.

“People rarely leave the job first. They leave the conversation, and the resignation letter is only the paperwork.”

Is your team quieter than it should be?

This is the kind of conversation Suresh brings into the room, with your people and in your context, so the next idea does not stay unspoken. Suresh typically starts by talking with team members to find the gaps, strengths and personalities before any session, so what happens in the room is about your team, not a generic case study.

Your director was pleased. The saving looked great in the quarterly report. Then the supplier stopped picking up the phone.

Most people judge a negotiation by the number on the page: the price, the terms, the deadline. But many hard-won deals quietly cost more than they save. Deliveries slip, favours dry up, and the other side does exactly what the contract says and nothing more.

What is really going on

Every negotiation is really two negotiations: the deal in front of you and the next one. If you win the first in a way that damages the second, you have borrowed against your future. In Malaysian business, relationships carry real weight and face matters. Squeeze a supplier hard, especially in front of others, and they will remember it long after the contract is signed.

Through the POPP^™ lens

People do not negotiate with spreadsheets. They negotiate with pride, fear, status and the wish to feel respected. In the Psychology of People and Performance, how someone feels at the end of a conversation shapes what they are willing to give next time. A counterpart who feels squeezed protects themselves. One who feels respected looks for ways to help. That difference shows up later as reliability, flexibility and speed, which is where performance really lives.

Meet Jason (a composite)

Jason, a procurement lead at a manufacturer in Shah Alam, pushed a packaging supplier for a 12 percent price cut. He got it, and his director praised him. Three months later a customer changed an order at the last minute and Jason needed a rush batch. The supplier, who had happily rearranged schedules for him before, politely said the line was full. Jason's savings were wiped out by one lost sale. Nothing in the contract had been broken. The goodwill was simply gone.

A better ending

Now imagine Jason had asked the supplier what they needed before agreeing on the price. Perhaps a longer contract, or payment in fifteen days instead of sixty. He might have saved eight percent instead of twelve, and gained a partner who moves mountains in an emergency. The number in the quarterly report would have looked smaller. The number on the customer’s invoice, and on Jason’s stress level, would have looked much better. Good negotiators count the value that never fits in a spreadsheet cell.

Your next three days: do

1. Day 1. Before your next negotiation, write down what the other side needs in order to walk away feeling respected. Not what they say they want. What they need.
2. Day 2. In one conversation, make a concession that costs you little but matters to them, such as a faster payment date or advance notice. Watch how the tone changes.
3. Day 3. Close a negotiation by asking, “What would make this easy for both of us to repeat?” Write down what you hear and use it next time.

What it does for performance

Negotiators who protect the relationship get better information, faster cooperation and more flexibility when things go wrong. The saving in the deal matters. The reliability of the people behind it matters more. Over time, a reputation for fair dealing becomes an asset in its own right: people bring you their best terms first.

“A deal is a moment. A relationship is the interest that keeps compounding.”

Are your negotiators winning deals and losing partners?

Suresh’s negotiation keynote, Please Have It My Way, shows teams how to get results and keep the relationship. He teaches it the way he teaches everything: practical techniques, humour and activities, so people practise negotiating instead of just hearing about it.

And nobody gave you a manual. So you did what has always worked for you: you worked harder.

Companies promote their best doers into management and then expect them to know what to do. Many respond the only way they know how: they work harder. They take the difficult tasks, check every detail and stay late. The team waits, and the new manager slowly burns out.

What is really going on

The job changed from doing the work to making the work possible. Your output is no longer what you produce. It is what your team produces. Managers who cling to the old job are not controlling on purpose. They are protecting the thing that once made them feel valued. In many Malaysian teams the boss is expected to be hands-on and to approve things first, so letting go can look like not caring. That is why it needs clear limits: what people can decide on their own, and what they bring to you.

Through the POPP^™ lens

In the Psychology of People and Performance, people perform when they know what is expected, feel trusted to deliver it, and can see why it matters. A new manager who hoards the hard work sends the opposite message: I do not trust you with this. Stress also travels. A manager who is overloaded and anxious makes the whole team more careful, slower and less willing to take ownership.

Meet Kelvin (a composite)

Kelvin was the best agent in a Cyberjaya call centre, so he was promoted to supervisor. He kept taking the most difficult calls himself “to help”, then stayed late reviewing everyone else's work. His team stopped making decisions because Kelvin would fix them anyway. Within six months two of his strongest people had left, and Kelvin was exhausted. He had not failed at effort. He had never been shown that letting go is the skill.

A better ending

Imagine Kelvin had spent his first month writing down what only he could do. He would have found two things that were truly his: coaching and handling escalations. Everything else could have been shared with clear expectations. His team would have grown in confidence, his best people would have stayed, and Kelvin would have gone home on time. The hardest calls would still have been answered, but by people who had been trusted enough to learn how. Promotion does not come with a manual for this. It comes with a weekly choice: do it yourself, or make it possible.

Your next three days: write

1. Day 1. Write down everything you did this week. Circle the tasks only you can do. The rest are candidates to hand over.
2. Day 2. Pick one task and write a single clear sentence about what a good result looks like and when you need it. Give that sentence to a team member, and then step back.
3. Day 3. Write a short note to one person naming a strength you are relying on. Send it today.

What it does for performance

Clear outcomes, real trust and recognition free the manager to think and the team to act. Work moves faster because decisions are made closer to where the work happens. It also gives you time for what only a leader can do: coaching, planning and removing obstacles.

“Your first job as a leader is to stop being the hero.”

Just promoted, or about to promote someone?

Suresh works with new and growing leaders on the step from doing the work to enabling it. His programme You Are Management Now is built for exactly this step: managers embracing the role and responsibilities of a leader.

A big customer moves its deadline forward. Senior people discuss it behind closed doors, hoping to sort out the details before anyone panics. Meanwhile the team notices the shorter meetings, the closed doors and the tired faces. By the time anyone speaks, the stress is already there, and it is far bigger than the change itself.

What is really going on

Uncertainty stresses people more than workload does. A heavy load with a clear picture is something most people can carry. A light load with no picture is something they lie awake over.

Through the POPP^™ lens

In the Psychology of People and Performance, the mind fills every gap in information with a story, and under pressure the story is usually the worst one. People start protecting themselves. They narrow their attention, stop helping each other and make small mistakes. Leaders often believe they are shielding the team. In practice, when leaders control the information, they also control how safe the team feels, and silence tells people to expect the worst.

Meet Farah (a composite)

Farah is an operations manager at a logistics company in Port Klang. When a major customer changed its shipping dates, she kept it to herself to avoid panic. Within days the team was whispering about lost contracts and retrenchment. Two manifests went out with errors, and Hafiz, her most reliable coordinator, started arriving late and quiet. Farah finally called a five-minute huddle and said it plainly: what had changed, what she knew, what she did not know yet, and when she would update them. By the next morning the whispering had stopped. The workload had not shrunk by a single container. The team simply knew where it stood, and the errors stopped.

What to say when there is no news

Leaders often stay silent because they have nothing new to report. That is when a short line matters most: “I do not have an update yet, but I will tell you at three o'clock either way.” It sounds small, but people stop expecting the worst when they know when the next word is coming. In workplaces where staff may hesitate to ask their manager for information, the leader has to offer it first. Silence is never neutral. It is read as a message, and rarely a kind one. A steady rhythm of updates, even brief ones, tells the team they are trusted with the truth.

Your next three days: do

1. Day 1. Ask yourself what your team is probably guessing about right now. Pick the one guess that worries you most.
2. Day 2. Hold a five-minute huddle with four lines: what changed, what we know, what we do not know yet, and what happens next.
3. Day 3. Ask each person, “What is the one thing you are worried about?” Answer one honestly, and set a time for your next update.

What it does for performance

Clear information takes the guessing out of the room. Rumours fade, mistakes fall and people give their attention to the work instead of to protecting themselves. A short, honest update often does more for output than a pep talk.

“People can carry a heavy load. What they cannot carry is not knowing.”

Is your team guessing about what happens next?

Suresh’s stress and resilience sessions help leaders and teams stay steady and communicate clearly when pressure rises. Stress management is one of the areas LEADS is best known for in Malaysia.

A decision is made in the meeting room and everyone agrees. Three weeks later nobody is following it. When you ask why, you hear a dozen reasons you never heard in the room. The meeting produced a yes that meant nothing.

What is really going on

Agreement in the room is not commitment. People disagree wherever it feels safe, and if the meeting is not safe, disagreement moves to the corridor, the pantry and the WhatsApp group.

Through the POPP^™ lens

In many Malaysian workplaces, people work hard to keep harmony and avoid embarrassing a senior colleague in front of others. It is a strength, but it means honest concerns go underground. In the Psychology of People and Performance, people protect relationships and face before they protect the decision. The concern does not disappear. It comes back as delay, rework and quiet non-compliance, and that is where performance leaks.

Meet Mei Ling (a composite)

Mei Ling runs a shared-services centre in Cyberjaya. She announced a new approval process, and everyone nodded. Three weeks later almost nobody used it. Over tea, a team member finally explained that the new process added a day to every customer response, but no one wanted to say so to her in front of the team. Mei Ling changed her approach. Before the next decision she asked for a one-line concern from each person in writing, then spoke to two people privately. The revised process was adopted within a week, because the people who would use it had shaped it.

Small habits that make it safe

Try passing round a sheet of paper or using a shared poll, so everyone answers at the same time and nobody is the first to disagree with the boss. Ask the most senior person to speak last, so their view does not close the conversation. Thank people for concerns they raise, especially the uncomfortable ones. Each of these habits tells the team that honest input is welcome and that raising a problem will not cost anyone face. Over time the corridor conversation moves into the room, where it can actually help the decision instead of undermining it.

Your next three days: listen

1. Day 1. After your next meeting, spend ten minutes where people talk freely, such as the pantry or the corridor. Listen without fixing or defending.
2. Day 2. Ask two people one-to-one, “What would worry you if we went ahead with this?” Let them finish before you respond.
3. Day 3. Go back to the group and say, “Here is what I heard, and here is what we will change.” Do not name anyone.

What it does for performance

When concerns surface before a decision, the decision gets better and people own it. That means less rework, faster adoption and a team that spends its energy on delivery instead of on quiet resistance.

“A silent yes is the most expensive word in business.”

Does your team say yes in the room and no afterwards?

Suresh helps leaders and teams build the trust that makes honest conversations possible. Sessions often include personality assessment, so people learn to understand and engage their colleagues in calm times and stressful ones.

A customer asks for a refund. Sales say yes. Support say the policy does not allow it. Billing say it is pending. Each team is right by its own rules, and the customer walks away confused, frustrated and posting online.

What is really going on

Customers experience one company, not five departments. Every gap between your teams is something the customer can see.

Through the POPP^™ lens

In the Psychology of People and Performance, people focus on what they are measured on and protect their own patch. Sales chase the deal, support follow the policy and billing follow the process. None of it is careless. But without a shared picture of the customer, teams optimise for themselves and the customer pays the price. Alignment inside the company is what customers feel outside it.

Meet Ravi (a composite)

Ravi leads customer service at a broadband provider in the Klang Valley. A long-standing customer asked about a billing error and heard three different answers from three teams in one week. She cancelled and told friends why. When Ravi traced the case, no one had done anything wrong. So he began a fifteen-minute weekly huddle where sales, support and billing looked at three real customer cases together, step by step. Within a month, teams started catching contradictions before the customer did, and repeat complaints dropped.

Where the gap starts

The gap usually starts with how teams are measured. Sales are rewarded for closing, support for resolving tickets quickly, and billing for accuracy. Nobody is rewarded for the customer's whole journey, so nobody owns it. Ask each team one question: what would a customer say about the company, not about us? The answers rarely match. Another simple habit is to swap people for half a day, so a salesperson sits with billing and a support agent joins a sales call. The change in understanding is immediate, and it costs nothing but a morning. Small experiences like these build the shared picture that policies alone never create.

Write the handshake

One simple tool is an internal agreement between units, sometimes called a handshake or MoU. Each unit writes down what it needs from the others, by when, and what it will give in return. It takes an hour, not a month. Suddenly “that is not our job” becomes a conversation about expectations instead of an argument about blame. The agreement does not need to be legal or long. It only needs to be specific, and agreed by the people who will live with it.

Your next three days: write

1. Day 1. Write down one real customer case from start to finish, step by step, noting what each team told them.
2. Day 2. Write one sentence per team answering the same customer question. Put the sentences side by side and mark where they differ.
3. Day 3. Write a shared three-line answer and send it to each team for comments before you finalise it.

What it does for performance

When teams share one story of the customer, answers match, handoffs shrink and problems get solved once instead of three times. Customers stay, and staff spend less time apologising for each other. It also protects the trust that took years to earn. A customer who gets one clear, consistent answer feels looked after, and looked-after customers tend to stay, spend more and speak well of you. That kind of reputation is built in the handoffs between teams, long before anyone reaches the customer.

“Customers do not see your departments. They only see your company.”

Is your customer hearing three different companies?

Suresh helps teams line up behind one picture of the customer, and the behaviours that make it stick. With cross-functional teams he has helped units agree a simple internal handshake: a written agreement on what each side needs from the other.

Aina, 24, sends her manager a suggestion in the team chat because it feels quick and open. Encik Rahim, 52, reads it and feels bypassed. He replies, “That is not how we do it here.” Aina reads that as “your ideas do not count.” Both walk away certain that the other is being disrespectful.

Neither of them is wrong. They are just speaking different dialects of the same word.

What is really going on

For many senior colleagues, respect looks like process, patience and going through the right person. For many younger colleagues, respect looks like being heard, given reasons and treated as capable from day one. Younger people now make up most of the workforce, so this is no longer a side issue. It is the daily texture of how teams get things done.

Through the POPP^™ lens

In the Psychology of People and Performance, what people value shapes what motivates them, and what motivates them shapes how well they perform. When the two sides do not know what the other values, they read every action as a message. A shortcut looks like disrespect. Silence looks like disinterest. Small misreadings pile up until good people quietly stop trying, or leave.

Meet Aina and Encik Rahim (composites)

Rahim runs operations at a mid-sized firm in Petaling Jaya, and he has earned every bit of his experience. Aina joined the marketing team eight months ago and brings sharp ideas. After the chat message, she stopped suggesting anything. He noticed the quiet and took it as a sign that she was settling in. In truth she was looking at job listings.

Then Rahim tried something new. He asked Aina, “What would make you feel that your ideas were welcome here?” She asked him, “Why does it matter that suggestions come through you first?” His answer was one she had never heard: he had spent years protecting the team from being blindsided by senior management. Once she understood the reason, she agreed to run ideas past him first. He agreed to reply within two days and always explain his answer. Both felt respected, for the first time in months.

Your next three days: do

1. Day 1. Ask someone from a different generation, “What does a good boss or good colleague do?” Listen without correcting.
2. Day 2. Pick one rule or habit you take for granted and explain the reason behind it to someone newer. Notice what changes when they hear the “why”.
3. Day 3. Agree one small thing to try together, such as how ideas are shared, and a date to review it.

What it does for performance

When people understand what the other side values, arguments turn into agreements. Younger staff stay longer and contribute more, and experienced staff share what they know because it is welcomed. A team that can move between both dialects is faster, calmer and harder to lose.

“Respect is universal. The way we show it changes with the decade.”

Is your team split by more than age?

Suresh’s talk on managing millennials and his leadership sessions on what motivates different generations help teams translate between them, with humour and practical tools.

Nobody in that story was lazy or incapable. Yet the person at the centre of it was making more errors, losing energy and starting to doubt themselves. In their own words, they felt a little lost.

What is really going on

When work feels hard, most of us assume we are not good enough. Often the truth is different: the role is asking us to be strongest exactly where we are naturally weakest. That takes constant conscious effort, and effort drains energy, confidence and motivation. Slowly, the job becomes “just a job”: something we have to do, not something we want to do.

Through the POPP^™ lens

In the Psychology of People and Performance, behaviour follows personality, and stress changes it. Suresh points out that the behaviours we show under extreme pressure are not our true colours. They are our colours when we are pushed to the wall. A role that demands those behaviours all day keeps people in survival mode, and nobody brings passion to work from survival mode. Performance suffers long before anyone notices.

A story from the training room

During a recent one-day Personal Mastery programme, one of the smallest groups Suresh has trained, a participant opened up. It was their first job. The work was routine, the environment very quiet, and there was almost no contact with other people. They were also struggling to meet their manager’s expectations.

This was someone with a vibrant personality who was creative, loved dealing with people and enjoyed new experiences. None of that had a place in the role. A profiling tool confirmed what they felt: their daily tasks needed them to excel at their natural weaknesses, not their strengths. They were not in their flow. If anything, it was a back-flow. Seeing it clearly gave them a better question to ask than “What is wrong with me?”

Your next three days: write

1. Day 1. Write down the tasks you did last week. Next to each, mark one word: energised, neutral or drained.
2. Day 2. Write down the three moments in the past year when you felt most in your flow. What were you doing, and who were you with?
3. Day 3. Write one small change you could ask for, such as swapping a task, joining a project or adding one conversation. Describe it by the result it would give your team, then take it to your manager.

If you lead people

Ask each person on your team which part of their week gives them energy. You cannot redesign every role, but small adjustments to who does what often unlock effort that was being spent on survival.

What it does for performance

People working in their strengths need less conscious effort, make fewer errors and bring more energy and creativity to the job. People working against their strengths burn energy just to stay average. Matching people to roles is one of the simplest talent decisions a company can make.

“If you focus on developing your weaknesses, you will only become average. If you focus on developing your strengths, you will become excellent.”

Do your people know their natural strengths?

Suresh often uses profiling tools in his programmes to help people see their strengths and how they behave under stress, so they can find their flow and flourish. Ask him to bring that to your team.

You had the next step all planned. She is your strongest performer, the one everybody asks for help, the obvious successor. Then she says, politely and clearly, that she is happy where she is.

Many leaders hear that sentence as bad news. It usually is not. It is a good moment to ask a better question.

What is really going on

Not all performers want a promotion, but all performers want to grow. Progress does not only mean moving up. It can also mean moving forward. A person may love the work they do, be very clear about the work-life balance they want at this stage of their life, and still want to keep learning and contributing. Saying no to a title is not the same as saying no to the job.

Through the POPP^™ lens

In the Psychology of People and Performance, what motivates people is personal. For one person it is status and scope. For another it is mastery, autonomy or time for the rest of their life. Push someone into a role that runs against what drives them and you can lose twice: a brilliant expert becomes an unhappy people manager, and the team loses its best technical mind while gaining a struggling boss. Performance drops in both places.

Meet Hui Min (a composite)

Hui Min is a senior engineer at a manufacturing plant in Penang. When the team lead post opened, her manager assumed she would take it. She declined. She loved the technical work, and she wanted her evenings free.

Her manager could have pushed harder. Instead he asked, “What would you like to grow into, if not this?” Together they found three things: leading a plant-wide improvement project, mentoring two junior engineers, and representing the plant at supplier audits. Hui Min got new exposure and a fresh challenge, and kept the role she loved. The manager found a different successor for the lead post, and kept his expert.

If you are the one who says no

Say what you want to grow into, not only what you do not want. “I do not want to manage people, but I would love to lead a project or mentor someone” is a far stronger message than a simple “no thank you”.

Your next three days: do

1. Day 1. Have a growth conversation with one of your experts. Ask, “What would you like more of in your work over the next year?” Listen without steering them towards a title.
2. Day 2. List ways someone can grow without moving up: a stretch project, mentoring, new exposure, a new skill, a chance to represent the team. Choose the one that fits them best.
3. Day 3. Invite them to try one of these for a month, and agree a date to review it together. Make it an experiment, not a demand.

What it does for performance

Your expert stays engaged, keeps building competence and remains adaptable. You keep the knowledge that took years to build, and you avoid creating a reluctant manager. Respecting someone’s priorities is not going soft. It is how you keep your best people contributing for longer.

“Not all performers want a promotion, but all performers want to grow.”

Not sure how to grow your experts?

This question comes up often in Suresh’s people-management programmes. He helps leaders hold the growth conversation and design roles that stretch people without forcing them up.

Envy at work rarely shouts. It shows up in small things: information that does not get shared, a sarcastic comment in a meeting, a colleague quietly left off an email. Nobody calls it envy. But the team feels it, and so does the work.

What is really going on

Suresh lists six emotions that can bring you down: anger, selfishness, pride, greed, illusion and envy. Of these, envy may be the most destructive, because it does not only make you unhappy with what you have. It can make you want to pull down someone who has what you want.

And here is the irony. While you are busy being envious of someone, they are probably busy living their life. You carry the anger, the frustration and the resentment. They do not.

Through the POPP^™ lens

In the Psychology of People and Performance, emotions drive behaviour and behaviour drives results. Attention and energy are limited. Every hour spent watching someone else’s scoreboard is an hour not spent improving your own. Envy also spreads. One person withholding help and sniping in meetings changes how everyone around them behaves, and trust drops for the whole team.

Meet Jia Wei (a composite)

Jia Wei is a sales executive at a company in Kuala Lumpur. When his colleague Farid was named top performer for the quarter and praised by the director, Jia Wei smiled and clapped. Afterwards he stopped sharing leads with Farid, made dry remarks about “lucky accounts” and spent his lunch breaks comparing figures. His own numbers slipped, and his manager noticed the change in mood before the change in results.

The turning point came when he asked himself what he actually wanted. It was not to see Farid fail. It was to be recognised for his own work. So he did something uncomfortable: he asked Farid how he prepared for client visits. He learned two habits he had never tried, and began using them. Next quarter, his own numbers climbed.

Your next three days: do

1. Day 1. Notice the moment envy shows up. Name it privately: “This is envy.” Then ask what you really want: recognition, a role, or a skill.
2. Day 2. Congratulate that colleague sincerely, and ask one question about how they did it. Listen for something you can use.
3. Day 3. Choose one habit or skill from what you learned and start building it. Put thirty minutes in your diary to practise it this week.

If you lead people

Watch for the quiet signs: information held back, snide humour, people avoiding each other. Make the criteria for success clear and fair, and celebrate wins in a way that invites others to learn from them, not to measure themselves against them.

What it does for performance

When people turn envy into fuel to learn, practise and create, their energy goes into growth instead of into the other person. Teams where people learn from one another’s wins share more, trust more and improve faster.

“Spend your energy building, not destroying.”

Is comparison quietly costing your team?

Suresh’s talks cover understanding intention and behaviour and managing personalities and emotions, so teams can turn difficult feelings into fuel for growth.