When I was Organizing

Managing organization process takes time and careful analysis. One step and you’ll go back to check the first few steps of what you have missed and plot it there.

When creating a new organization, a core group must be created whose main concern is on building structures, department policies, manpower handling, etc. We have an executive team as the highest department in the organization. They have the highest power to dictate policies and make sure information between departments flow smoothly.

When I was tasked to take over a new responsibility that has not been existing then, it was a challenging job for me. I get no reference on how to start. All I know is that I will be taking over management responsibilities of a technical team leader so he can be 100% doing programming.

Structure wise, it was not difficult for me to step in the team as I was already acquainted with them when I was still working on a different task. I had to monitor the team progress weekly, or sometimes daily if I need to. Not only the team I monitor but the overall project status, it’s feasibility of release date and make sure it is not delayed. Project includes the planning, programming, testing and migration. Organizing really took me time. And well, add to that the bigger responsibility that I was carrying.

So when I started to work on this team, I had to create the schedule of deadlines for each modules handled by specific programmers based on the release date of the whole system I got from the Executive Team. The CEO is a part of the executive team and I report directly to him for the advancement of the team I am responsible with. Secondly, I meet the team every week to check on their progress and ask for concerns that might affect the development stage and the release schedule. If there are, I coordinate with other departments (planning, systems administration, testing) that may help their concerns. It is important that the team knows whom they are reporting to and follow orders just like I am following orders from the Executive Team.

When I was again given a new responsibility to take over a team specific to testing, I was in the challenging position to take care of a new group of people. This time it was different since I have to meet different staff from different regions I have not met in person. This new responsibility is more challenging because I had to create the policies of the division, the protocols, rates, structures, and many more, like a mini-manual of the organization. Since this division already exists but no formal policies and procedures were made yet, analysis was not really deep but that I had to be careful of writing down them down based on what is current and possibly patch things that creates issues or that have been a problem in the past. Protocols for them to be able to work effectively within rules of testing. Then inform or orient the team about the policies, new or updated, so they know how it works in the division. After which, comes the implementation. The most important thing for me in organizing is for the people to accept and follow the process. Else, it will just be a plan floating with barely noticing it was there.

Transforming You in the Organization

Sometimes it makes me wonder what is easier, starting a new or changing something? But I think like for many other cases, starting a new will be easier. But would be easier to transform an existing organization into something you want it to happen? Like leading the company into a new direction, could be leaving some and changing some.

Transformation could either be difficult or easy depending on the current situation and for what purpose they are transforming. It could either transform its institution to something fit in their budget, like having crisis on financial stability, or the foreseeing of the growth of the organization.

On a negative note, there was a time when I encountered a little difficulty in the company, although the team is not directly affected, we felt that we might. There came a moment when there was crisis in the human resources, that I felt have in some way, created a silent conflict between people in the technical department from two different countries and the management was about to lose the people in one country. Later on, it did. A technical team from one region of the country slowly loses their interest in the organization and finally got dissolved later on. There came a time that I need not only get people from the locality I am a part of but in the locality that new technical group was created. It is now a division of people in two countries, apart from the fact that there are others in different regions of the country. The team not only comprised of regions from the Philippines but now also expands to other country. Although I have to admit that I am still trying to get better the policies between the scopes of both in the department. Transformation is difficult for me as I am still doing staff works or duties. But truthfully is, I have all the time to work on the transformation of the department but I always fail to do so. Maybe this part I need to work on too, the inner transformation.

When that crisis came, the management tried to save the different web applications the dissolved team handled. It was a sure difficulty for the management having to replaced the senior people with junior ones, who were then still on their learning stages. Seniors were pulled from other teams to help on juniors. Included in the dissolved team are also a number of QA’s that were slowly expressing disinterest in the organization. They were being passive and I can tell they already lose zest in their work. That is because the office was also dissolved in the region making them work in a special case in their homes online.

I can say that after that crisis we had, I think people are more open to transformation. But the feeling I had was that, is it just because they are afraid that they will lose their job if they go against the new management’s policies? Or are they just being passive-aggressive employees? I actually don’t know because truthfully, I am being cooperative with the management changes for the improvement of the company because of two reasons. First, I wanted to be involved. Secondly, I am a little concern I might not hold my position or I may lose my job if I go against the will.

I once heard someone in the past who shared about transformation in the organization he was working. He was a part of the management team and said that transforming an organization is actually an internal transformation. The transformation depends on the willingness of the people to accept the new goals and objectives of the company they are working. And this applies to me. I need to accept change but at the same time make sure that I am making a good move for my team.

Edge Over the Others

I have not witnessed the growth of the organization and the stories it went through. But the length it stayed in the business I know for sure it had undergone waves and calmness.

For more than 20 years, the company had survived the trials and celebrated triumphs. Of what I knew, it had a different name in the past. It could have been that the company failed in some ways, be it the competition in the market or internal sustainability in the financial crisis and human resources. True, competing in the U.S market is a great challenge.

But what makes a company survive for long? Is it profitability? I thought so, until I heard about core competencies during the report. I said, yes that was logical. The company may be gaining a lot in years but this doesn’t mean that it will survive for long for as long as there is competition, management should not just wait and receive, but to constantly strive for survival.
“Uhmm, what are the core competencies I think we have in the company?”, I asked. I do not know if these should be formally written for the employees to know what they are working for but I think it should. Well anyway, we had not defined this in the company. But I know that we are striving to have these.

First and foremost, a company in business should have strong knowledge and specialization of the business it is offering. Who would want to go into business, invests money, and doesn’t even know how to work on it? It is always basic and general to open a business that is of interest to you, fits your budget, and sure hit in the market. If you are the owner, and you have no skills on the business but you know someone with the great skills that you trusted and you know well the market, this is possible.
The owner of the company is not an IT professional but has been in a network of educators. He saw the need and created the business. He knows the market very well and hired skilled people to work for him. I know that it was tough to start the business and I am pretty sure that the owner has encountered different trials, ups and downs. But these difficulties, as we all know, are just helping tools to make better or fix the business.

The company went through creating web applications but gradually, found the product that had lifted the company, a suite of web applications used by the academe. Clients have more options which product can fit their needs and they can use from the suite the company offers. Or better yet, they can have the whole suite and other 3rd party integrations. Knowing this is the right product, the company hired more people to create and maintain it. This is one of the core competencies that I think we have.
Another core that I think made us on the edge is the great customer service we have. I always hear from our clients that we have the best service over their old system vendors. Clients are given utmost care, attention and accommodation. Support people are pushy on clients’ issues and concerns that are submitted to the technical team for fixing and testing. Sometimes we are overwhelmed with reports from them but we try to always give them the fastest response and service. This is a standard operational procedure in every company I believe and we always make sure to live to this.

It is advisable that in each unit of the company there are core competencies and work together with the company’s core. Right now, we don’t have any in our own department but I will try to create one to bring one goal and good coordination with the team.

Competition in the Market, how to keep up?

Staying up in the competition is tough especially when the market demand is high and the number of competitors is also high. Do we have a chance to compete? This may be one question when cowardice sets in. But in business, there is no such word as cowardice. Once you entered the business, you know that one half of your investment is at stake. Business is always paired with risk.

So what happens when you go into business? You should be armed of the necessary information of the market you are in. And I always believe in the advantage side of the trainings and education of management for it is here that you get more theories that will help you on applying strategically all of the lessons and techniques.

And since I have not been able to educate myself with more of the management stuffs and learning, it was not familiar to me the Porter’s Five Forces until being discussed in the group. It was an interesting topic I say, as it discusses the survival techniques in the business. Did our company able to apply these in reality? Uhmmm let us check and evaluate.

First stop is the bargaining power of buyers. They said that the buyer has more power than the company if the company is new, has greater number of competitors for the same products or services, and the high significance of the clients to them. Having been in the business for more than twenty years and has a number of existing clients, I say that the company has power over the new clients. Offering them our products and services may not let them bargain over us. Although I can sense that the more significant our existing clients are, they can have the power to bargain. Significant clients, for we know are those that give us higher profits and so we don’t want to lose them. And yes, sometimes when our systems suddenly don’t work as they were supposed to be and that they get disappointed or frustrated over us, the sales and support team will bargain over them.

Second stop is the threat of new entrants. This is an exciting part of the threat, I guess. Putting ourselves as clients, this is an advantage to us. We get to receive freebies, lower rates, new services or products offered, and many more from a new business sprout against the existing ones. This is because the new entrants will always want to get the attention of their target audience and may steal the customers of their competitors. Switching this back as an organization, how should we able to counteract this competition? I have been in a project for an integration with a 3rd party software vendor and I heard that they were creating a program just like ours. This is a big company too we are integrating but once they launch the software like we have, we may lose a bunch of clients. So in this case, our company created a system similar to theirs to counteract their plan.

Third stop is the power of suppliers. In this case I don’t know what suppliers do we have. For office equipments and any others, I think the company has no suppliers to choose from since we are small in different geographic locations. But I guess on buying domain and servers, the company has greater selection of suppliers that can cater huge number of requests.
Fourth is the threat to substitute products or services. I know we have a lot of competitors offering the same products and there might be others out there too with lesser features at a lower cost. This is a threat for us if our clients are not using the full features of the system. They can actually move to other vendors with just the functions they have at a reasonable price. But for those clients that have fully used the features, especially purchased the suite, I think we still have edge on this.

Lastly is the rivalry amongst existing firms. This may be the most difficult threat that should be handled and planned well. Competitors are always on the lookout to steal clients. And so, other than increasing the kind of customer services we are offering, we participate in fairs to advertise products. Right now, I heard that the company is offering one product (system) for free if they purchase one big product we have.

Motivating Employees

When I was on my entry-level job, I was contented with what I had then. Maybe this is a normal course for a fresh graduate when the only short-term goal is to land for a job no matter what. I had no rants or whatsoever then. A couple of years went by and I get to be more concerned of what I am being paid over what I have done for the company. Co-workers expressing more dismay of the company somehow influenced me. I once asked, why is this company not mindful of their workers? Didn’t the management know that if not for the effort of everyone, the company won’t succeed? I told myself that the management should know how to handle their employees to make them work harder and do their responsibilities better.

An opportunity knocked and I had to step on a different responsibility on a new company. Like any other starting employees, I had to work hard and earn for recognition. I was under supervision and monitored always. I was transferred to different teams until I had the responsibility to managing people. Now it was my time to be in the shoes of and be a part of the management team.

I didn’t realize that managing people is not an easy task. You have to make sure that you maintain good rapport with your people without sacrificing your responsibility of supervising their tasks, progress and accomplishments. Playing between being strict and lenient is a challenge on my part. Different personality I will witness and handle in the team, and I need to balance them to make it harmonious. And I think I will find it hard to handle conflicts with those that are really good in their responsibilities, fear that I may lose them in the team.

All these hesitations and concerns fall back again to the question of how to motivate employees. I have been there on my first years of working. Which reminds me now the reasons why I moved out to search for something better.

Promotion. The very first reason is promotion. It is very hard to get a promotion on a rank or was there really any position you would want to apply for promotion? I meant no offense for people who are contented with what they have until the end but it is challenging to work for something new and get reward for what you have accomplished more than what was expected of you. Isn’t this always the case?

Authority over work. Again, I meant no dismay to people who just wanted to take and take and take tasks and follow instructions how they do it. But for me, I am motivated if I am empowered. Being able to work on your own and be responsible over it is fulfilling. A supervisor may annoy me if I am always monitored daily, well of course if I am still a trainee this should be.

Trainings/Seminars. This is still a part of empowering an employee but still is a part of motivating. These I do not get from any of the companies I have been but I wanted to get some of these. It does not only adds new information and skills but also boosts an employees confidence over work, thus, making him more productive and efficient.

Incentive and Bonus. Productivity bonus, performance evaluation bonus and the like are definitely a motivating factor for me. Rewarding a staff in tangible things, money or trips, will make him love his work and company more. The drive to keep working is high. All because he wanted to be recognized and rewarded. The last time I had in the company we had our quarterly productivity bonus that we get every end of the year. But this was changed and so all increase will only depend on performance evaluation and promotion. I don’t mind the change but it would have been better if the company gives both bonuses. But it draws back to the financial capability of the company.

Praises. I always believe that recognizing employees gives them more morale over their work. I never fail to say “Thank you”, “Good job!”, “Perfect!”, “Keep it up!”, or any motivating statements to my team. For I know that beyond imperfections, they did their best and have worked very hard for any project. Intangible rewards are important too. It may not be as big as tangible ones but it is always best to keep the spirits of all workers up all the time.

There are still a lot of factors and ways to motivate employees but in so far I have experienced, these are the ones that let me see and think in and out of the box.

Was it Passive-Aggressive?

Passive or aggressive? Which of the two do you belong to? Let’s first define both terms so to categorize one’s personality. Passive is defined as “not reacting visibly to something that might be expected to product manifestations of an emotion or feeling”. Aggressive, on the other hand, is “characterized by or tending toward unprovoked offensives, attacks, invasions, or the like; militantly forward or menacing.

I have introduced the definition so to understand the next thing about one of the types of organization, the passive-aggressive organization. When an organization is healthy and resilient, communications and information cross in the organization smoothly where all teams work efficiently with managers and supervisors are strong at their responsibilities. Why strong? Because these managers receive good amount of incentives and rewards to act in behalf of the organization and carries out plans well in their respective areas of responsibilities. On a passive-aggressive organization, “everyone agrees, but nothing changes.” Which now belongs to a not healthy type of the organization.

Every employee would love to belong to a resilient organization where everything is “as good as it gets”. I have been to a passive-aggressive type of the organization but all along we are trying to get out of this state to make everything work well in the organization.
I believe communication is one of the significant keys to make this happen. Why? In an organization with staff over different countries, like I have, it takes good communication for everyone to coordinate and cooperate. Without such, we assume that everyone is doing their job and everything is handled properly. We have meetings, yes, but we cannot guarantee that people involved will really work for what has been tasked of them.

Just for example when we had a meeting with all leaders in technical department to plan and prepare for a possible increase in our clients. Increase is good news for the company of course because that means that our software will have more users. Increase in investment from the company too will be needed. So we foresee the possible days this surge increase will happen. We need to increase the number of our servers and add more human resources such as programmers, system administrators, testers, account managers and customer support. The discussion went well. Deadlines were set and everybody was expected of their responsibilities. I sent all information to my team leader handling a small group of the department. I entrust her the responsibility since it is her coverage and told her if she has something needed, I will help. Entrusting to her means that she will handle everything. Then days after, there came a concern from migration team that needs more fixing on the script. This is important as fixing them will lessen testing tasks and fixing bugs. Here comes the nearing deadline and I was asked of the progress from testing. Seemingly pointing the bottleneck on the part of the plan. Programming and migration teams did extra hours to beat deadline, and asked when the testing part came in and the progress. I was a bit off-guarded when told that 100+ schools, web applications, are ready for migration testing. Here, comes two loopholes on my part, first is assuming that the concern of migration team extends the deadline and second is not being able to coordinate efficiently with the team leader for the progress. Or say when having to meet the team, they will report that everything is in proper order or that no concerns are raised but in reality there were.

If there is no proper communication, we assume something is working or not working. In this case, I assumed that the deadline was extended and got relaxed with the needed resources (staff) I should have prepared. And I assumed that the team leader I entrusted the management has strongly carried out the distribution of staff and monitoring progress.

There are three points that made this part of the organization a passive-aggressive one: unclear scope of authority, misleading goals, and agreement without cooperation.

I believe that the success of the organization depends on what type of people it has. Resilient or passive-aggressive, the claim is from the behavior one acts for the organization. And in this case, I was party being a passive-aggressive employee.