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The Game of the Impossible

Transforming companies, organizations, nations and individuals to achieve big, fast results

Idris Jala
,
P Gunasegaram
Buying Options
Paperback / Hardback
Amazon

This book is about how to transform a company, organization, country or individual to achieve goals thought to be impossible by innovation and deep change in the way things are done. To add to his concept and method, author Idris Jala recounts his own vast experiences in many successful transformations at Shell, a national airline, companies, organizations, departments and governments to provide solid practical support for his methodology and discussion points for real problems on the shop floor.

The focal point of this transformation is to set near impossible targets which will require a sea change in how things are done. While the major strategic targets are set by top management in consultation with others and are non-negotiable, the subgoals which feed into this are decided by those who will implement the transformation, bringing about ownership, motivation and a renewed zeal for achievement.

It’s all about what Idris calls Big Fast Results or BFR, achieving impossibly high targets by a radical upheaval in processes, procedures and actions, all of which are measurable and have definite time lines. It is devoid of jargon, readable, clear and concise enabling any interested person to understand and practice it. There is no book like it anywhere – it takes the reader through every step necessary to achieve BFR, steps which have been tested and proven in the crucible of experience.

Idris has direct experience in all that he talks about and advocates and offers many case examples to back up his book.

Published: May/2026

ISBN: 9789815351866

Length: 384 Pages

The Game of the Impossible

Transforming companies, organizations, nations and individuals to achieve big, fast results

Idris Jala
,
P Gunasegaram

This book is about how to transform a company, organization, country or individual to achieve goals thought to be impossible by innovation and deep change in the way things are done. To add to his concept and method, author Idris Jala recounts his own vast experiences in many successful transformations at Shell, a national airline, companies, organizations, departments and governments to provide solid practical support for his methodology and discussion points for real problems on the shop floor.

The focal point of this transformation is to set near impossible targets which will require a sea change in how things are done. While the major strategic targets are set by top management in consultation with others and are non-negotiable, the subgoals which feed into this are decided by those who will implement the transformation, bringing about ownership, motivation and a renewed zeal for achievement.

It’s all about what Idris calls Big Fast Results or BFR, achieving impossibly high targets by a radical upheaval in processes, procedures and actions, all of which are measurable and have definite time lines. It is devoid of jargon, readable, clear and concise enabling any interested person to understand and practice it. There is no book like it anywhere – it takes the reader through every step necessary to achieve BFR, steps which have been tested and proven in the crucible of experience.

Idris has direct experience in all that he talks about and advocates and offers many case examples to back up his book.

Buying Options
Paperback / Hardback
Amazon

Idris Jala

Idris Jala (Author)
Idris Jala is a leading authority on transformation. He served Shell for 23 years, turning around two major companies to record profits, and heading global retail and a Swat team for troubled operations, covering over 100 countries.

He took a pay cut and gave up benefits at Shell to join Malaysia Airlines as CEO in 2005 against the advice of his family. He returned the ailing national airline to record profits from record losses in just two years.

The Malaysian government appointed him minister in 2009 to spearhead the transformation of the government and the economy to take it up to new levels. He set measurable key performance indices for ministers and numerical targets for achievements, a first.

He now heads a consultancy, PEMANDU Associates, to bring his copyrighted 'Six Secrets of Transformation' and the '8-Step BFR (Big Fast Results) Methodology' to both companies and countries throughout the world.

In 2014, Bloomberg Markets ranked him amongst the top ten most influential policy makers in the world. Harvard, Princeton and the World Bank wrote case studies on his work. McKinsey and BCG interviewed him and wrote articles about his programmes and methods.

He is chairman of two public-listed companies, and pro chancellor and honorary professor at Sunway University in Malaysia. He conducts two courses a year on ministerial leadership at Harvard for top government leaders. He was a Visiting Practitioner at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government.

P Gunasegaram (Author)
Guna has been a business journalist, analyst, editor, columnist and author for over 45 years.
He first met Idris Jala after he became CEO of Malaysia’s national airline, Malaysia Airlines, in 2005, and undertook a major, successful transformation of the airline, returning it to record profits. Guna has closely followed Idris’ career path since and has been transfixed by his achievements and methods.

He is an author of three books, including the first book written on the world’s biggest kleptocracy 1MDB – a Malaysian strategic development company gone terribly wrong and corrupt - and two others on the history of Malaysia’s central bank and a biography of the first Malaysian central bank governor.

Guna tries to break down complex things into smaller bite size pieces for consumption by the general public. He spent many hours over many months talking with Idris for this book, his main brief being to make the book readable, concise, clear and interesting.

He thoroughly enjoyed helping to write this book and learned much about transformation. It is his professional opinion, as an analyst and journalist, that this book offers a great and invaluable contribution to the limited literature on true, tremendous transformation which lasts.

P Gunasegaram