Are you a Leader or a Servant?

Posted on 1 April, 2011 at 11:45 PM by with Leave a Comment

Leaders don’t stay at the top. They go down with the people below and trying to bring his team up. If you are just staying at the top, arm folded and looked down at the team. You are not a good leader. Leaders should always add value to the team. You may be a good manager because you know your job well.

You are not a good leader because you cannot lead a team. So what if you can manage, your team is not following you. You can escalate the matter to the higher management. As a person, you are not able to lead the team, simple as that. Your leadership skill in business world is not the same as in military. You can’t raise your voice and the team will follow. Business world requires soft skill.

Needs to climb the mountain of obstacles together. Not alone. TEAM work is required.

TEAM – Together Everyone Achieves More

There is a project coordinator, Jenny (Not real name) was one typical example for lacking leadership. When she first came on board to the organization, there was no proper process, no procedures. She hit many walls by asking many departments how to do the job properly.

As the project management team grew, the boss would like to set up a proper Project Management Office.

Her boss would like to give her a more high profile Project Management Office duty, thus had recruited an assistant, Gina (Not real name) to help her in the normal administration work.

In a logical sense, Jenny should be passing all the knowledge to Gina, so that Jenny can focus on her high profile administrative duties. Unfortunately, the knowledge was not passed totally. It was handed over partially instead. Jenny just gave Gina high level steps, understanding and expected Gina to explore or find out how to do the work herself. This caused Gina to be very lost. When Gina approached Jenny for queries, Jenny will raise her voice and replied. Gina was hurt.

Nothing was done, but relationship soured.

This simple scenario showed that Jenny’s poor leadership skill. She had not showed her team the proper guidance to do the job. When Gina approached Jenny for assistance; that means Jenny had not passed the knowledge fully to Gina and that is why Gina is not able to proceed with the work. Jenny should pass all information, knowledge to Gina and check with her that she is informed of all things.

If Gina is not comfortable with the knowledge. She should ask. And Jenny, being the superior should be more patient to the team member and not throw temper at her team.

Lessons Learned: If you want to delegate duties to others, ensure the recipient are well-equipped with relevant tools and knowledge. Or else when the team member leaves the organization, you will have to recruit someone else and start the training all over again. The cycle will repeats. That is not fruitful and unproductive.

Articles, Leadership, Lessons Learned

Have you consider that is email the best communication tool in a Corporate environment?

Posted on 17 February, 2011 at 11:45 PM by with 2 Comments

Many arguments started from emails. There is no vocal, no facial and no visual, thus the recipient will receives different message signals.

You not pick up the phone and do a call; face-to-face meeting to resolve the problem or whatever issues that may arises. Is it because of status that a phone call cannot be made?

Many a times, people are using emails as a form of document proof to nail one’s down for commitment. With my limited knowledge, in legal, it is harder to file for a law suit if there is insufficient or proper documentation to support your argument. Thus many people will use email to transmit message.

Communication in email or texting may not be as clear as providing an example.

Sender may be able to write a very lay-man simple message. However, there are still some recipients may not be able to understand the way you want the message to be transmitted or relay. Not to mention about the language proficiency. It is good to improve or enhance the message by giving examples (pictures, previews, FAQ, anecdotes, scenarios etc). By showing a typical example will also set the ground rules that this is what the sender is expecting the recipient to react, responds.

Communication is the exchange of ideas, thoughts and feelings between two or more entities. If sender is aggressively transmitting a particular message, wonder has the sender ensure that the recipient really receives the message?

In all communications, never assume that your recipient will understand all the things that you say. 80% of message will kept in the brain after receiving it. After a few days, the message would have already reduced to less than 50% if not practiced what been received. Thus, do have a feedback from the recipient.

Firstly to check has the message been transmit to the other party. You may want to seek the recipient to explain one more time so that he understands and receives the correct message. Ask the recipient to provide a sample response or feedback.

Lessons Learned: Never think that your message is clear. How clear is your message clarity? Only recipient will knows.

Please share your comments and feedback.

Articles, Business Communication

Project Financial Closures

Posted on 24 September, 2010 at 11:45 PM by with Leave a Comment

Ensure the supplier understands what the requirement is while making outstanding payment.

I got a Philippines I.T. supplier who supplies most of the I.T. equipment for the project.
It is a huge 6 million project consists of PC machines, servers, gadgets and other IT equipment.

At the end of the project, I had seek the supplier to provide the outstanding invoice balance.
I would like to pay the ALL the pending outstanding invoices and clear all the debts.

Had made several calls, communicate through mails. Yet the supplier is not aware of the actual requirement.

So I decided to have the last approach by giving them a visit together with their management.
Communicated the requirement that I would like to make the final payment face-to-face.
After which we would not like to see any financial matter for this project.

So the supplier had shared the outstanding invoices after we left.
My project financial advisor had also stated clearly that the outstanding invoices
will be final and should not have any more finance matter after this exercise. The supplier had also agreed.

After my financial advisor made the payment, the supplier then sent out a message stating that the payment we had made was the outstanding for the last quarter.
It was not the final invoice as yet.

I had specifically informed the supplier that I would like to clear all the outstanding payment for this project.

Thus the supplier should share all those outstanding invoices that had not been made.
This should be an delighted activity for any supplier.

Yet the supplier kept making the wrong assumptions.
It is not the project does not want to clear financial matter.
It is the supplier that cannot understands and enjoys the payment activity.

Lessons Learned: Be specifically clear with the supplier on financial matters.
State clearly on the terms and conditions. If the supplier is not aware of the situations.
Give simple understood language so that the supplier understands.

If need be, seek for a translator / interpreter.

Any feedback or suggestions, please add in your comment.

Articles, Training Workshops
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