Policy Now
I think all organization should have a policy of team work / collaboration. As we have discussed previously, organizations are made of people. Only thru working together can an organization be in a competitive role and survive the market. I like working in teams and collaborating with member to achieve the end goal. A team’s success is the department/organization’s success. And if an organization is successful, they are the leader in their industry and market.
We cannot get the team we always want, but we must strive to work with the team we got. There is always someone, lazy, not team player or just don’t like anyone – but this is where good leaders come in play. They can get everyone involved and assign project tasks in a way that get all excited – even the I-don’t-like-teams people.
My company is one of the leading advocates of team collaboration. Recently, we had to migrate gigabits of data (including application testing, new hardware and new processes for access, etc) from Phoenix office servers to the newly built center in Hartford, Connecticut. This is not an easy task. Our department was responsible for our application and we worked with the project management team to coordinate the testing and verification of the application on the new platform. The date and time and who should be testing had to be finalized before the migration. We had weekly meeting with many other departments. Each department has their own share of responsibilities of testing and verification, but all had to coordinate their tasks and activities to ensure proper migration with no issues. Of course I have not ran into an project that had ‘no issues’, but given the size and the number of people involved, the process went fairly smooth.
If a department is made of people and an organization is made up of departments – a project is successful only if the teams within each department are cohesive and collaborating within. No one department or person can claim to know nor can work to get project task done – without teamwork. The success of any company relies on the good work of people who make it.
Leaders
There are so many leaders. They come and go from our lives. We stay connected to one or two. Amongst all the leaders, there is always one Great leader. Such was Dr. Celoza, my World Religion class professor. A month passed from school when I found out that he was involved in a Model UN program. As a matter of fact he ran the program. At this time I only had turned in some homework and participated in the class, but that was my end of knowing Dr. When I enquired about the program, it sparked my interest and eventually joined the program. Every day he would bring material to the class and discuss and somehow every semester he is able to motivate 5-10 individuals. He motivates them to learn, to think, to join and cooperate together. We learned to give speeches and work together with other students from across the States and resolve issues that impact millions. He has inspired us all. I think his leadership to motivate and coach each student is impeccable. We all have greatest respect for him. He is still leading his students to success and to be part of something. No one can solve issues by themselves. It is only thru compromise and discussion can we all work to tackle issues. He teaches value.
Perhaps there aren’t any bad leaders. They are just managers and not leaders. When they are put in a management position, they try to assume leadership, but they are not equipped to lead properly. I had a direct manager that was not necessarily needed in that position. He was micro managing. He always wanted to know every details of a project. Weekly reports. Daily updates. He didn’t want just one report. He wanted 3-4 reports – they essentially represented the same data, but never the less he demanded. It wasn’t just one person. He was put in charge of 5 people – within two months 3 had quit. I think with leadership training – he may have become a good leader. Lead his subordinates instead micro managing them. He certainly could work with us and collaborate on all project. We already had the team. We worked together well. We all cooperated and divided the tasks to proper person with the right skills. But he would designate the project to each of us without knowing our skills. I can see now how bad a leader he was.
Motivation – what is yours?
When it comes to work, there are many factors that motivate me.
The Organization
People I work with
Pay
I like to work for an organization that values its employees. I worked for a company while back and now that I think about it, the employees were the last agenda item on the list. I was a financial analyst crunching/tallying daily total. They were all about pushing the employees to make the sale. Although I must admit it was a telemarketing agency, but nevertheless, a company. The sales force/employees were constantly under pressure to make the sale and never be off the phone for a minute. The computer timed them with green, yellow and red colors popping when they passed certain time. I was there for couple of months and one day my supervisor called and said the company went bankrupt and will no longer exist. When I went there, everything was gone – an empty floor with wires hanging – like that movie “The Game” when Michael Douglas brings the police to a supposedly company he saw. I knew the numbers so they were doing well on daily bases. I am not sure to this day what happened, but I assume they were selling BS and someone noticed.
I like to work with people I like and get along well. I do not think I can work for an organization where I cannot fit in the culture or get along with other employees. It is true that this can be faked and I can certainly ‘wig it’. In the short run, I will not have any motivation to be there and in the long run I think it will get to me and lead me to leave regardless. So why not save myself the BS and look for ‘better opportunities’.
There is no doubt that pay plays a big part in motivation. I have not met a single person who would say otherwise. Like the companies, it is all about the bottom line – keeping food and roof over my head with a bit of extra to go around. Yearly merit raises are the most common way of showing appreciation to employees. Everyone expects to get a raise. Take my last job for example. They had set a 5% max raise company wide. When time came to announce the raises for our department – we got 1.5 percent raise each. Despite our department outstanding performance based on revenue and achievements, we still got shorthanded. At that time I didn’t ask or protested the low percentage raise. Later on, I found out two things about it. One, our department’s revenue had been shared with another departments to offset their loss. And second our Phoenix office had NO decision making powers when it came to Money. They had no choice but to go with the ‘Decision’ from Chicago office.