February, 2008

Fire the politician from your team

Throughout my career, which started from my university campus, I had to deal with office politics. As new and young employee, I had no way of escaping office politics and office gossips. As a young employee, I always kept to myself and my work; I have never really paid attention to office politics. Working while studying at a large and reputable university, I always thought we will be taught valuable work ethics that will guide us as after we graduate and get the real job.

My first encounter with office politics was at my university job, I ended up losing my job because one of the full time workers thought I would outsmart her and since she was an old timer there, she talked the department manager into let ting me go.

One management tip that I have learned in dealing with office politics is: don’t let office politics make you lose your brightest and greatest employees. You must spot the trend of office politics at your firm and stop at as soon as you see it. Great projects failed to see the lights because of office politics.
This is small, but powerful advice, fire the politician from your team…..Thanks

Decisions making process…is it facts or intuitions? Part 2

An example where decision making process should have been based on facts and lessons from history is the current conflict in Iraq. From what we know today, it is obvious that the decision to go to war was not based on facts and history lessons learned from that region of the world, the decision was based mostly in intuitions and hopes that everything will just work out fine.
I think it’s not practical to develop a single decision making methodology, because people will always use their intuitions, believes and the sense of adventure to make decision. They will not follow a single pattern to reach the best decision.

Even if we developed the best decision making methodology and everyone in the management team adapted that approach, what assurance we got that the decision we made based on our decision making methodology is actually is the best decision. When we invest in the stock market, we tend to get our investment advices from the best stock traders around but then why people lose billion of dollars when stock market crashes.

I am not suggesting that we don’t develop a decision making process, good life needs good planning which is based on good decisions, but what I am trying to conclude is that: decision will be made using many factors and people will see the outcomes of their decisions, either good outcome or otherwise, but the results of the outcome doesn’t always mean that we got full control of the factors that led to the outcome, there are many other factors that we can not include in our decision making process, because in many instances we are not even aware of the presence of these factors. Just like the example of the stock market crash, who would have thought the market will crash, that factor was not taking into considerations when an investor deiced to invest in the stock market, because no one ever thought that factor ever existed.

Decisions making process…is it facts or intuitions? Part 1

Decisions ..Decisions..Decisions..What is the right methodology to make a good decision?
When a manager doesn’t make a good decision, he may be blamed that he didn’t get all the facts before he took that decision; but does having all the facts at hand leads to a good decision making? We also hear the phrase “I just had a good feeling about this”, or “I just had a bad feeling about that.” Managers do make their decisions based on guts feeling.
As a manager in charge of decisions making, how do I make my decisions? Do I use facts alone? Do I mix my feelings with that? Do I wait for a good sign before I make my decision? Do I wait for a happy day?

There are three schools of thoughts when it comes to decisions making:
1-Don’t look back just think about the future; basically make your decisions as you go.
2-Don’t look back, but make sure you make what happened in the past a guide to your future decision making process.
3-Look what happened in the past; learn from history, “never again”, this school of thoughts depends heavily on what happened in the past to make any future decisions.

Which three schools of thoughts have the most credible decision making process? Which decision making process is the most successful at arriving at the right decisions? Each of the three above has their won success stories to tell.

You may hear many managers claim that their decision are based only on facts in front of them, but I don’t find that to be entirely true, there are always emotions, intuitions, believes, characters..etc, that are involved in the decision making.

If you read the history of the great pioneers, we find one thing common in their decision making process “they didn’t have a past experience or much information at hand to use as a guide to their new endeavors”; they had to make their decisions as they moved along. As they paved their path to the new frontiers, they wrote their own history. One great example of this decision making process is the space exploration program…

To be continued…

What is happening to the quality of customer service?

Why the quality of customer service is in decline? Why the customer service staff is not knowledgeable? Why when you send an e-mail inquiry, all you get back is a reference to a website where you have to dig for information? Why customer service is not personal anymore?

I have been traveling for the last seven months and throughout my traveling I had to deal with customer service staff in various organizations. My overall impression was: companies are putting speed before quality; they care about quantity more than they care about quality.

A person my think; because of the rapid spread of technology and the ease of spreading knowledge, companies would spend more time in educating their customer service staff, but it seems like most companies are caught in a fierce competition that they are focusing more about quantity than quality.
This trend of focusing on quantity more than quality is not something new, at least not for me. Around 1996, I was working as customer service representative for one of the biggest computer manufacturer in the US. Working there, I was openly told to take more calls than to solve customer issues. In our training, we were trained on how to get the customer of the phone regardless if we solved his/her issue or not, as long as the customer was satisfied and was giving the impression that the issue was resolved. Needless to say this policy didn’t work for long and the company ended up closing the call center after so many complaints from the customers. That was not the only job where I had this experience and the results were always the same: giving the customer the impression that he/she is getting a good service while not actually helping them will always come back to hunt you.

Barack Obama as project manager

If you have an opening for project manager or development manager who would you hire, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or John McCain? The three are now competing for one big opening, the president of the United States.
If you were to choose between the three based on, character, experience, leadership style, education, futuristic outlook and the ability to communicate, who would you hire?

Every one in America is talking about the need for a change; who is among the three candidates is ready for a change, which, among the three, actually has the personality and character to call for a real change? Who among the three is from the old guards and who is a fresh blood?

When we pick our candidate, we must keep our political affiliations, our religious believes and our personal biases aside, we must choose based on qualifications and the ability to perform.

Every nation and every society have its share of biases and discrimination based on race and religion, but the great thing about America is that these two factors are kept in check; it believed that Abraham Lincoln would hire his fierce political opponents if he would find him qualified for the job.

I am not a political writer, nor am a political analyst; I am looking at the three candidates from the point view of quality management. At the end we look for our elected officials to improve our lives and give us the best service.
We can go into great length to discuss the three candidates qualifications to be great managers (this could be a good subject for another article), but so far I tend to incline towards Barack Obama. The man is young with no so much political overhead that will hunt his presidency. In his speeches he uses the time to talk about change, which what America really needs, he doesn’t waste time attacking his opponents. He is talking to everyone in America, including the young Americans, which are the future of the country. As a hiring manager in a company looking for a new direction, you don’t need a manager with old tactics, you don’t need a manager who spends his time talking about the shortcoming of his peers and you need a manager who is able to communicate to everybody in the company.

Facilitators, Mediators and Arbitrators

Dispute resolution is a common practice in today’s business world. There could be several professionals involved in the process of a dispute resolution. What are the differences and the similarities between a facilitator, a mediator and an arbitrator?

According to msn Encarta online dictionary:

A facilitator is: somebody who enables a process to happen, especially somebody who encourages people to find their own solutions to problems or tasks.

A mediator: somebody who works with both sides in a dispute in an attempt to help them to reach an agreement.

Arbitrator: somebody designated to hear both sides of a dispute and make a judgment.

The above definitions are general and when it used in a business setting they have more specific meaning as each have very specific role in the dispute resolution process.
Please read the article about this interesting subject at the Six Sigma website at: http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c080218a.asp

Passive management

Do managers always have to make decisions? Do they always have to interfere? What can you do in the time of a crisis when no solution seems to be feasible?
Passive management is knowing when not to interfere and let the events unfold itself. Managers will face situations on their jobs where there seem to be no feasible solution to a problem at hand. Successful managers know when to do the right thing at the right time; sometimes the right thing to do is not to do anything.

We sometimes take decisions out of fear or anxiety only to find out later that those decisions were more emotional than logical. On my first real job after college I had a manager who would make a decision on almost every situation, most of his decisions were based on trying to advance himself in the corporation, there were times where he should have kept silent or should have made the least interference. He thought by making himself visible and having a say in every situation will attract the attention of the upper management to him. Unfortunately for this manager the project he was managing failed miserably and he ended up losing his job; he made decisions at times where he should have waited or kept silent.

Another example with another job I had; I was in charge of negotiating a partnership agreement with an international client, I was giving the assignment because of my ability to speak the language of the client plus my managerial skills. Another manager on the firm got interested in my project and wanted to be a part of the project team, I have told this manager indirectly about my intentions to bring him onboard. He was not able to keep silent and play a passive role till we get a firm control of the partnership and than he could join; he started to interfere with our negotiations with the foreign partner through the upper management. The interference of this manager in the process led to a big confusion and the foreign partner eventually lost interest in the partnership.

So, as a manager, sometimes you got to keep cool, take a step back and just watch the events unfold.

Management……..the art of doing nothing

Doing the right thing at the right time could be one of the best management skills a manger can have. But does being a manager mean you have to be doing things all the time? Does a manager have to make decisions all the time? What if there seems to be no solution to the problem at hand.

Many managers believe, that to be a successful manager, they must have a solution to each and every problem they encounter at their job, they believe they must have an answer in every situation. I have worked with a young manager who was not able to say “NO” to the company’s client, we were developing new web application and we were facing problems that were unfamiliar to our programming team and we didn’t have answer on how long would it be to fix a particular issues, the manager was not able to tell the client that we have a problem at hand and we have no clear idea how we will be able to fix it. The end results were a frustrated development team and an angry client who we eventually lost.

One of the most valuable management skills I have learned was the ability to do nothing. I have worked with many clients who I would tell “I have no answer to your question or your problem has no apparent fix”, the client may get upset at the beginning but at the end he would really appreciate the honesty and the self-confidence that I have showed.

When I was in college, my programming professor would tell us “ don’t stick your head inside a problem, it will look to you as a big Spaghetti Bowl, but take few steps back and take a look at the big picture and go from there.”
One of the most important management tips I have learned is “you don’t have to think on your feet in every situation.” In some instances you just have to be passive and do nothing and wait till the picture gets clear, a complicated problem will become more manageable over time.

Branding yourself, your company, or your country

We use branding extensively in our lives either we notice or not. We always associate an image or a feeling towards a brand, when we think of a certain brand of clothes; it gives us the feeling of comfort, elegance or quality. When we think of a certain brand of car, it gives us the feeling of speed, power, or affordability.

As a manager, have you ever though to brand yourself? There is already a brand attached to your name even if you never noticed it. What people associate with you when your name is mentioned? We all remember at some points in our careers the smart manger, the hard working manager, the helpful manager, the practical manager, the bad manager, etc.

As a manager in your company, what image do people associate with your company? The customer friendly company, the well managed company, the best to work for company, the greedy company, etc.

As a country where we live, how other people in different countries think of us when our country’s name is mentioned? The democratic country, the rich country, the best place to live country, the environmentally friendly country, the well developed country, etc..

Branding sounds like some sort of stereotyping, but that not the case. Branding is eally the image we create for ourselves, our company or our country. Corporation spends billions of dollars to associate their name with certain image, if I say Macdonald now, what would come to your mind? Macdonald is probably the world most famous brand of all times but with that we hardly turn on a TV and don’t see a commercial for Macdonald; it’s the image and the brand associated with that image the company is trying to constantly enforce in the mind of the public.

What happened to the loyalty in the work place?

What is the average time an employee spends with his/her company before moving on to another company? I don’t really have any solid figures or statistics that I can refer to, but gone are the days when an employee would spend his or her entire years of service with one company.

What really inspired me to write this article as my own personal experience with working as an independent contractor/consultant. I have been on my own for over five years now moving from contract to contract and from country to country, although this work experience gave me a great deal of freedom and flexibility, it brought with it a sense of loneliness and lack of security.

Outsourcing started many years ago, large corporations, wanting to cut costs, started to sub-contract jobs to independent consultants; I personally worked on many of these contracts. Is the fierce competition that driving many companies to constantly reorganize their work force leading to the mistrust between workers and employers? Or it’s the constant peruse for better jobs and better working and living conditions that driving workers to always look out of the windows for better opportunities?

The ease of communications, especially with the rapid spread of the internet, made it easier for people to meet and for employers and job seekers to find each other. Replacing an employee or an employer is more frequent that it used to be, I know my father only had two different employers in his entire career, but I have changed my employer more than five times before I reach the age of 35.

In these days, as managers, how can we keep our best talents from seeking new employer? How long can we manage before having to lay off workers? Can we restore the trust between workers and employers? I personally think that with today’s fierce business competitions and real savvy work force, loyalty and job security will be constantly changing; workers will be loyal to their work place till they find the next better position and employers will offer job security as long as they don’t have to cut costs.