The Fallings

This is the last article about P.Ramlee for this year.  In this article, author will explore the challenges and the hurdles faced by P.Ramlee throughout his life until his death.  Again author will try to extract some lesson that we can learn and apply in our worklife.

Source : HistoryAsia.com

31 October 2010, 10:00 pm.  I was waiting in front of the TV to watch, History Channel Biography about P.Ramlee.  It was a long awaiting program as I meant to use the information from the documentary for my blog. It took me another week to search relevant information to support facts shown in that documentary.  It was a good documentary and I learned a lot from it.  Congratulation to Suhaimi Baba for a good compilation and research.


My review and lesson learned from this documentary will be based from the observation during the show and connect those information with the previous articles sources.


All in previous articles, I've shown with you the golden era of P.Ramlee.  Now I'll list down some of the challenges he faced until his death.  My insight from this documentary was there were two turning points in his life.  


One in 1948 where his talent was spotted and he grew to be a big name in the industry. Another was 1964, where we would see his career starts to drop drastically and (this is my personal opinion) lead to his death.


Observing the duration between 1948 and 1964, I managed to identify series of tell tale signs of his fallings below.

1. The move to Merdeka Film Production in Kuala Lumpur was based from his trust with the management of Merdeka Film Production that he will get "What he want..." if he migrate from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur.
2. While in Singapore, he worked with experience and well trained film crew and state-of-the-art equipments. Thus, that is why he manage to produce quality and award winning film during his days in Singapore.
3. Arriving to Kuala Lumpur, he had to faced in-experience crew and out-of-date film equipment.  Which, cause him some problem producing a quality film and it seems that he didn't get what been promise.  Given, an incompetent crew and inadequate equipment, the expectation given to him was so high just because he was a big name .... plus when the production was release, the blame was put on him ... (This is a very interesting case to look at .. an example of daydreaming management)
4. Series of unexpected event such as termination of contract with EMI Singapore and Shaw Brothers in 1968 and 1972 respectively.
5. Unsuccessful business venture with PERFIMA or "Malaysian Film Industries" where he and his counterpart was fired from the board even before the core business starts operating.
6. Being jeered by local fans simply because of the new trends in music industries where that where new pop culture starts gaining popularity in late 60s.
7. Lack of resource support in terms of financial from the financial institutions and governing body related to the music and film industries, simply because his popularity when down and no longer a money making machine to several organization.

It was sad to hear, for a such a legendary person, he had to end his life like that and based from the documentary, his family didn't even have any money for the funeral.

So what can we learned as a human, a member of society and member of organization?  Lets list it down here ... 

1. We will not always be at the top.  There will be a time where we may stumble into some hurdle that would lead to personal failure.  So it is wise to prepare some safety net while on top.  Such example, looking from career person perspective is to have some kind of personal investment or some kind of back-up business venture or entity. Like what Forrest Gump said "Life is like box of chocolate, you never know what you're going to get ... "
2. In business, do not trust people completely.  Do some preliminary background check first before making decision to follow or jumping to the next territory.
3. Beware of "daydreaming management".  Daydreaming management here means ... having a ambitious goal but the available resource, knowledge and effort does not support the achievable of that goal.  
4. Blend with the current trend.  Any thought process that produce something, sometimes sink over time. Place some new energy into it .. get it blend with the time. 
5. I took the quote of our great Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir ... "Step down at the time people likes you ..."  At the time we're liked, we will be asked to contribute this and that, we are popular and will be heard ... as our being getting low ... we become someone's liability ... before that happens ... move on to other territory or new way of doing things when the time comes.  Some example, if you're very good in managing computing system ... there will be a time when the method and tools that we use may get outdated overtime ... one of the example that you can do while you're at the top is by going into training new faces with your style and let the new faces evolve your style with the trend.  Or another idea is by being in a consultation domain where people will refer you as the contemporary expert and you can start talking about your thought on the new trends through speaking in a conference, book or article writing and etc.

In addition to that, what been done previous people is not something for us to use it for pointing fingers and blaming game ... it is for us to seek what are the things that we can pick and improve.  

My insight stops here .. :) see ya in next article... stay tune with Iskandarinperson blog....