Explanation
MondarPhilosophy is the company's philosophy laid out by its founder, Jaywin Chia. There are 12 quotes that we based on when we continue to build a Great Company and a Great Home for its people, the Mondarians.
- Put the right people together and great things will happen. ✔
We are living in a world of people. We are all different. We have different aspirations, abilities, characters and values. The energy and creativity level will be at their highest when the right mix of people come together to achieve great things. Having the right people to solve problems is better than having just anybody to work on a right solution.
As you may have noticed, the word people is used instead of person. In reality, no one person can achieve great things all by him/herself. As a saying goes like this:”To go fast, go by yourself. To go far, go with others.”
Talented teams are always better than talented individuals.
- There are no jobs here, only responsibilities and passion. ✔
The founder believes that everyone of us have to do something everyday. You may call it a job, a role, a deed or a business. But he calls them responsibilities and passion. Just like when we bring up our kids, that is our responsibility and not a job. To do that well, we need to have passion too. If we are passionate about helping people, passionate about what we are doing, we will get things done and done with satisfaction.
Do what we love but also love what we do. Having passion without responsibilities, we may not get the things done in the end when our passion dies off. Having responsibilities without passion is like marrying someone we have no feeling for.
The founder wants to build a culture that is filled with responsibilities and passion, and that jobs will get done and will be done well happily. Kind of in an “automatic” mode.
- Ever with the best and getting better every time. ✔
Getting better every time
There is no ending with what we do. Creativity, Innovations and Entrepreneurship are continuous processes. Whatever we do are either evolutionary or revolutionary. Once we are stationary, we will be out of the race.
The only enduring element against Time is Change. Either we change for the better or we change for the worst. We consciously choose to change for the better and stay to be relevant. However, the 2 enemies that deny us from changing for the better are Complacency and Laziness. Being complacent and being over the head after a series of successes will destroy a great company.
Simplicity derived from complexity is Simplicity. Simplicity not derived from complexity is Laziness. We can always start simple without deriving from complexity. However, that is for the start and not the end. No pain no gain. Easy way out is the Sure way out. Those who do not see far will face problem at near.
Ever with the best
We start with the best and not the best is yet to be. That is because we do not hold back our best. We only live once, or may even just do once. In any situation, we should do our best at that given time. We will not die with any regrets because we had done our best.
Furthermore, there is always room for improvement and there are always new things to discover. By doing our best all the time, we are pushing our best to a new higher level every time. To achieve a new high, we will need to continuously improve, learn and innovate. When we stop learning and quest for knowledge and facts, our value and worth stop there. Our level of judgement and understanding of the situation will drop. Always keep up with the changes to be the best.
We strive to be really good in what we do best. To be really good in what we do best, it will take time, effort, consistency and pain. There are few Best that come without failure. We value successes as much as we value failures. Mistakes and failures are not weakness. Not learning from them is. Criticism and punishment are not judgement. They are the guides to be the best.
Therefore, when we do better every time, it will be our Best of the Best.
- Trusts and Respects are earned, not given. ✔
Never take trusts and respects for granted. Once we lost them, not only we would worth much lesser, making them back the next time round will be harder. We will continue to earn those honors by doing the followings:-· Present accurate facts always
Using politics to win trust and respect will not last, but being truthful to ourselves and doing honest reflections will. Always learn and accept a better way of doing things, rather than rejecting them. Admitting mistakes or poor handling of a situation, with realisation, will be more appropriate rather than explaining and arguing over it. Whatever cleverness used to cover up the truth and facts, the truth and facts will come back to haunt our cleverness. Do not think that everyone else is stupid. They can see and remember what we did. Keep making convenient excuses to cover up our mistakes are just plain ignorant. Small things matter.
· Do what we say and say what we mean
· Do not do anything we know that will break the trusts and lose the respects
· We are responsible for what we say and do, both online and offline
· Review in an honest and fair manner always
· Indicate clearly on what we reviewed and presented if there is any form of sponsorship received
- Keep our dreams alive, for it is the greatest asset we can have. ✔
Dreamers without doers are fantasy. Doers without dreamers are empty. Dreamers with doers are reality. Without our forefather dreamers and doers, we will not have what we have today.
Daring to follow our dreams is just the beginning. Keeping our dreams alive is challenging. No great dreams can come through without resistance and effort. Determination, perseverance and patience are our ultimate weapon. With time, relevant skill, responsibility and the desire to succeed, everything else will follow.
Going into the unknown like dreams is always fearful. However, the way to fight our fear is to face it. Nobody is born to know everything and able to do everything. Nothing learned is worse than failure. Failure is not failure if we learn from it. Success is not success if we did not pick up ourselves from failure. By the way, some of the great inventions and discoveries are actually the product of failures, or were mistakes or were discovered from accidents.
An individual can be a dreamer and a doer at the same time. If not, then doers and dreamers should mix together. We should do something about our dreams, share our dreams and discuss about our dreams. Without dream is like life without soul. Dream is our greatest asset because it gives us hope and moves us on.
- Honesty and integrity mix well with profitable business, not greed and corruption. ✔
The founder holds honesty and integrity in high regards, in both his business and social capacity. As a user, he wants the provider or the company of the product and service he engaged to have honesty and integrity. As an employee of a company, he wants his company to have honesty and integrity. As a business partner, he wants his partners to have honesty and integrity. As a business owner, he wants his people to have honesty and integrity. As a citizen, he wants the government of his country to have honesty and integrity.
Do not expect others to have honesty and integrity if we are greedy and corrupt. In the end, there will be fewer and fewer businesses and people with honesty and integrity. Who will lose out?
If we bow down to greed and corruption, it will be very difficult for us to get up straight again. It will be used against us down the road once we are tinted.
Greed and corruptions are easy way out solutions, but it is a downward spiral. Honesty and integrity requires effort and maintenance, but it is an upward spiral. Both can make profits, but only the latter is sustainable.
In short, honesty and integrity are like appreciating assets. Greed and corruption are like depreciating assets. Which one should mix well with profitable business?
- The communities are the reason for us to be around. ✔
Every products and services are serving certain communities. Communities are formed by people with common interest, and sometimes common values. They are not restricted by locations and ethnic groups. Community has no boundary.
If there are no community to serve, and they do not want our products and services, there is no reason for us to be around. Therefore, when we create products and services, we have to look at the communities first. Serving and helping them are the main goal. We win when they win.
Driving deeper into that, we recognise that within a community, there are also different needs. We understand that we cannot please everyone at the same time with the same products and services. We also understand that we cannot please some people all the time with different variants of a product and service.
However, we do accept that we can learn a great deal from the communities. We will continue to build upon our relationship with the communities to provide the best and relevant products and services. Having said that, we will also innovate and create something that is great and relevant for the communities.
- Recognise the true means and the true ends, then everything will be obvious. ✔
In both business and life, sometimes we mixed up the means and the ends. Below are a few examples.
Example 1 Make use of technology and not being used by technology. We are frequently being inducted to make technology the end because it gives us certain level of advantage and convenience. However, technology is actually the mean. Human’s need is the end. Therefore, it should be human first, not technology first. Having said that, technology has to be improved all the time to provide better help to human.
Example 2 We go to school to learn and to prepare ourselves to think and handle problems in life and the subject matters we studied. We do not go to school just to pass examinations and get a certificate. Examinations and certificates are just the mean to measure how well we understood and not the end. If we do not recognise the true means and the true ends, we will not be able to gain true benefit from studying and going to school.
Example 3 “Truth is truth even if no one believes it. A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it.”
In 1615, when the world believed that; and the bible stated clearly that; the earth was immovable, Galileo Galilei believed that the earth is moving around the sun instead. Galileo was sentenced to formal imprisonment for the rest of his life under house arrest for defending his belief.
A few thousand years of human civilisations, we all believed that the earth was flat and immovable, which was “obvious”, but the truth, as we know now, is that the earth is round and it is rotating around the sun.
Seek the truth, go for the discovery and present the facts are the ends. Believes are just the means to discoveries and not the end. We should continue the quest for knowledge.
Example 4 Most tech startups are heading for the money and funding. Whether they were at the early stage, growing stage or mature stage. However, money is just the mean and not the end. It is not true that “oh, if we had the money, we will be able to make it.” Money will help the startup in a certain way, but it does not guarantee success. Money is only the means, success is the end. Most tech entrepreneurs were thinking of making money quickly and win big with just one idea. The real truth is not. Recognise that and everything else will be obvious.
Example 5 Who we are is what we say, what we do and what we think. We are Not what we owned, what we put on and what is our social status. Certainly not how much money we make. This is because what we say, do and think are truly us. That is the end. The rest are merely the means to the end.
- Sustainable freedom is about responsibility, independence and interdependence. ✔
Let us face it, Freedom comes with responsibility. Freedom without responsibility is only temporary freedom because we will be held responsible for our actions.
If we are not independent, we do not have true freedom because we are dependent on others to do things for us. We cannot do as and when we like it.
Being exclusively independent and doing everything ourselves will take up all of our precious time and limit some of our freedom. Interdependent is the way to go. We help each other up and play some of the role. Without first being independent, we cannot achieve interdependency.
Most of us are forced to having “no choice” in life. In another word, we are controlled by someone or somebody, or by something. The founder completely quit smoking after being a heavy smoker for 15 years because he realised that he was controlled by the cigarettes that not only harm himself but also harm people around him; people he knows or just stranger nearby.
Therefore, sustainable freedom is about responsibility, independence and interdependence.
- Future generation is the responsibility of current generation. ✔
What we have now, or suffered from, are passed down from the previous and prior generations.
For a company to pass on from generation to generation to carry out the mission of the company to a greater height, the current generation has the responsibility for the future generation.
Likewise, for the work, products and services to have continuity, the work we have done and the products and services we have created today will be taken over by the future generation or by someone taking over the work. The time and effort to repair a poor workmanship is to deprive the time and effort to work on the real problems.
Therefore, able to pass on well is as important as to have a well done work to pass on.
For the social version of “Future generation is the responsibility of current generation” from the founder, click here.
- Company Politics is not cool. ✔
There are two (2) things that we are disgusted with. They are office politics and gossips.
Can Mondarians complain? Yes. Give honest comments? Yes. Give radical suggestions? Yes. Criticize the company? Yes. Play company politics and talk gossips? No, No and No.
Leave politics to the politicians. As a company, our focus is to provide the best and relevant products and services for our users as a team. At the same time, providing the best environment for Mondarians to achieve that. The time, energy and intelligent that can be used for office politics and gossiping should be used for product innovations and to make things better for our users and for the company. Every Mondarians should outright condemn company politics and gossips at all time.
When we are true to ourselves and be focus on what we can do best to improve ourselves and to help others, we just do not have the time and energy to play office politics and do gossiping.
- Do not need religion to have high moral and ethics. ✔
First thing first, this is not about religion. It is about independent thinking and creative thinking. It is about the ability to judge for ourselves only after seeing both sides. Two wrongs do not make one right.
We respect individual's decision in choosing their preferred religion. All good religions should be teaching us to be a good human being and not just to make us feel good and to prey on our fear.
There is no conflict for having different religions. Conflict arises only when one religion tries to impose their religion onto someone else’s. Not just religion, conflict also arises when someone try to impose their way of doing things on someone else without any true reasons.
There are evil people and evil things around us that are sometimes obvious and sometimes in disguise. There are good people and good things that will later turn evil. In short, we should be able to guide our own moral and ethics, regardless of having a religion or not. That is the whole point about this quote.
Moral and ethics are important characteristic when it comes to being part of the community, both as an individual and as a company. That is why there is one quote specially for that. Without moral and ethics, we are hardly differentiated from other animals.
We are our best guidance when it comes to moral and ethics. In search of knowledge and keep improving ourselves in term of personal development. Everyone of us make mistakes. The real mistake is when we do not realise we made a mistake, and we are not able to learn from our mistakes. There is no perfection on earth, but it is just fun and satisfying working towards it. That is some self respect that we all can have for ourselves.