August, 2009

Improve your employees standards by improving you own standards

I have met many managers who demand the best out of their employees but they themselves fail to live up to those standards or be a role model. What hinders the development efforts in many organizations, especially in the developing world, is the huge gap between management and employees; management demands certain quality of work but without providing a clear guidelines or standards to employees.

In several companies where I worked or where I visited I saw almost no training giving to employees not even new employees were giving an introduction to the company’s operation.

In many countries around the world, the culture of isolation between management and the rest of the employees is still very much alive, managers mostly view themselves as superior who seldom make mistakes and have no need to improve their standards.

A successful manager must always set himself as a role model to the rest of his employees, he must lead by example, he must know that his employees will only have faith on him if they see his standards are continuously improving.

Will you accept lower pay for big job title?

Do salary and benefits have to match the job title? Will you accept lower pay for bigger job title? I know people who are taking more responsibilities at their job in hope to add to their professional credentials and create better network for better future jobs.

I personally think you must be compensated fairly for the position you were hired for, if your job title is CEO or General Manager, then you should be paid as such.

What prompted me to write this article is a trend I have been witnessing in this part of the world, Arab world and the Gulf area, where people with humble educational backgrounds are giving job titles of General Manager or Chief Engineer but their pay scale only matches that of a junior staff member.

Unfortunately, job seekers with the right educational and experience backgrounds have to compete with applicants with less than educate experience for the same job title, this bring down the quality level in the entire industry.

Don’t expect less than what you deserve, and if you don’t find someone who is willing to hire you, then go back to school or write a book instead of giving your skills for cheap.

We always have done it this way

Business survives on innovations and the willingness to try new ideas and new ways of doing things, successful managers are always working on methods to improve business processes, they look for ways to cut cost and improve quality.

In some companies managers are trapped under ceiling that says “We always have done it this way”, a management that is not willing to try new ideas because their current business process is working fine, Japanese companies relentless pursuit for innovations put it ahead of the competitions by many years, take Toyota and GM as an example, Toyota took the lead from GM as the world number one vehicle manufacturer.

It’s true that some companies used business plans that served them well for years and there is no need to change these plans, but that doesn’t not mean those plans shouldn’t be closely examined periodically to look for room for improvements.

Its sad to see, when traveling through the developing world, how people suffer to get the basic services just because no one is willing to examine the old ways of doing business and think of ways to improve old processes.

nComputing

What a great idea, although its not entirely new idea, nComputing is leading the way to introduce what was originally known as “thin client”.

If you haven’t seen nComputing products yet, please visit their website at: www.ncomputing.com

A great computing concept that will save you money, energy, space and maintenance.

Please visit the company website to fine more about this great computing concept.

World’s Silicon Valleys

What first thing comes to mind when the world Silicon Valley is mentioned, two cities, “San Jose, California and Bangalore, India”.

There are some emerging Silicon Valleys around the world that not many people are familiar with, few cities that are worth to mention:

1- Santiago, Chile
2- Sao Paulo, Brazil
3- Oulu, Finland
4- Dresden, Germany
5- Southern Hesse / Rhine-Main-Neckar, Germany

Although San Joes and Bangalore are by far the leaders of Silicon Valleys, these other cities are attracting major players in the industry.

The power of simple management

What all great CEOs have in common? Besides their clear vision on what they want to accomplish for their companies, they all have simple management style.

Simple management is the ability by managers to communicate effectively with employees using the most simple but meaningful words. Simple and effective communications that produce results requires great deal of communication skills that not many managers seem to have.

With they wide spread us of e-mails, there is an explosion on the amount of information exchanged and managers who fail to communicate clearly spend longer time writing e-mails.

When I first joined my current company, I was shocked by the amount of e-mails that were sent back and forth between the company and its’ clients, it proved one thing to me, “the message is not clear and things were not simple to understand”.

When a CEO or a manager is able to explain company’s goals in few effective words, it demonstrate his deep understating of the subject, great words of wisdom are composed of few “words”, but they guide us in times of need.

In the early years, Microsoft management goal and message were real simple “to put a PC on every desk”, Google’s search engine page only consists of few words, and the idea is clear “to help you search the internet”.

Simple management usually holds behind it greats ideas.

How to deal with an angry boss

With all the labor laws that were put in place in many countries to protect workers we still see bosses and managers who abuse workers or even threaten them. A work contract is a contract between two people or between an entity and a worker which basically states the terms and conditions of the contract, no where in any work contract that I have read so far says that the boss or manager can abuse his employees.

So how do you stop an angry boss or manager from abusing you?

First, you must know that in almost any country in the world there are laws to protect workers right, read this law and become familiar with them.

Second, inform your boss or manager (politely but firmly) that you don’t appreciate his anger and abuse and will not tolerate it, have it in writing.

Third, if the treatment continues, call the Dept of labor and ask how to file a complaint against your company.

Forth, stay calm and keep full confidence in yourself

Fifth, know that there is always another opportunity around the corner, if you lose one job, the next will be waiting.

Eliminate stress on your business cycle

Business cycle consists of many elements such as (workers, equipments, business processes, management, and laws), all these and other components must work together to complete a business cycle.

A stress on the business cycle happens when one or more of the elements are not functioning efficiently. Faulty equipment such as slow computer systems may put a stress on the business cycle, a poorly trained employee may put a stress on the business cycle, outdated laws could put a stress on the business cycle, etc.

Finding and eliminating stress factors can greatly improve business cycle and make it more efficient.

Some areas to consider:

• Ongoing training of employees
• Ongoing maintenance and upgrade of equipment
• Ongoing review of business process to find room for improvements
• Work with the government and industry leaders to eliminate laws that stress the system

Management must continually review business cycle and look for stress elements that create stress on the cycle and work rigorously to eliminate these elements.

Management must be based on facts and not on Public sentiments

Public opinions play important role in shaping corporate policies in many organizations, more than facts and statistics. This doesn’t only apply to organizations but also to governments.

Some areas where decisions, mostly, are based on sentiments rather than facts:

Foreigners taking jobs from locals: ongoing debate I have experienced in many countries where public sentiments about foreign labor drive corporate and government decisions making process about hiring foreign labor.

Terrorism: the constant fear environment that has been created on the last few years and how many government passed laws based on perceived terrorism rather than actual terrorism.

Public profiling: some people are subjected to more search, at airports, than other based on their names or origins.

Racism: the notion that some races are smarter than others or certain group of people can work better than other group.

Gender equality: certain jobs are seen to be better performed by men than women.

Every public sentiment mentioned above is based on perception rather than reality, a successful company or even a successful government must base decision on facts rather than sentiments.

Online Privacy and MSN live Messenger

Each time we sign up for online services (e-mails, online messaging, social networks, etc) we are required to click on “agree” button to accept the terms and conditions of the service which part of it is about online privacy.

How many of us ever read these statements, I don’t think I ever read them even once. But do online service providers really protect our privacy online? What promoted me to write this article is a recent incident I had with Microsoft online messenger; I have been using this service for years to communicate with relatives and friends.

On their last update to the service to “live messenger” they have added many new features and tons of information about you that could be shared and seen by others, not only that, anyone who could see your profile online can invite you to join their network and I found myself added to the network of some “party girl who is looking for fun online” and each time I chat with a friend or relative, they can see that girl on my network under a message that displays on their messenger window.

Now, for the unsuspected users, if your profile is set to public view in live messenger, the whole world can see some of your online activities and even to see who is in your live messenger contact list, I found that very disturbing and a total privacy invasion.

There are many options under live messenger where you can chose who to share your online activities with, but for many users, there are not even aware where to go to find these options, they are not even aware that some or most of their information that they used to setup live messenger is already public on the web.