Leaders and Managers - The two creation

All things are created twice…

According to Stephen Covey who wrote “The seven habits of highly effective people” states the second habit – begin with the end in mind. This means that all things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation. His analogy was taking for example the construction of a home. You create it in every detail before you ever hammer the first nail into place which tries to get a very clear sense of what kind of a house you really want. This refers to planning until it reduces to blueprint. It is now the carpenter’s rule to measure, cut and put the bricks and mortar making sure that the blueprint, the first creation, is really what you want. Another analogy he pointed out is in the business. If the organization wants to be successful, it must define what they are going to accomplish. They should carefully think (first creation) through the product or services they want to provide in terms of market target, and then they should organize (second creation) all the elements like financial, research and development, operations, marketing, personnel, physical facilities and so on – to meet that objective. Most businesses failures begin in the first creation, with problems such as undercapitalization, misunderstanding of the market, or lack of a business plan.

This principle goes also with Leader (who leads) and Manager (who manages) which means that leadership is the first creation and management is the second. Management is a bottom line that focuses on “How can I best accomplish certain things?” Leadership is the top line that deals on “What are the things I want to accomplish?”

As he quoted the line from both Petter Drucker and Warren Bennis, “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things” He explained that management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success while leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall. He presented an analogy of producers cutting their way through the jungle with machetes. Managers are behind those producers and its role is to sharpen the machetes, writing policy and procedure manuals, holding muscle development programs, bringing in improved technologies and setting up working schedules and compensation programs for machete wielders. Leader’s role is simply to climb the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation and may say that it is a wrong jungle. But how do they react to the leader? Obviously, they would say that they are making progress. Often times, we intend to be very busy cutting through the undergrowth without realizing that we are in the wrong jungle.

Moreover, Covey said, “We are more in need of a vision or destination and a compass and less in need of a road map.” This is definitely true even Dora the explorer conveys it. She has her LITTLE bag that contains a map that could help her address her BIG goal to find what she really wants.

The one minute manager…

Another book I read which was referred to me by a very close friend named Melanie Faye Demeray as I borrowed her book by Stephen Covey – one I cited above. The title of the book is “The one minute manager” by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. The book tells the story of a young man who was looking for an effective manager where he wanted to work for one and become one. He had spoken with many managers: government administrators and military officers, construction superintendents and corporate executives, university presidents and shop foremen, utility supervisors and foundation directors, with managers of shop and stores, of restaurants, banks and hotels, with men and women – young and old. Some of them care about the result so they are autocrats and some of them care about people so they are democrats. The young man thought each of these managers – the “tough” autocrat and the “nice” democrat – were only partially effective. Until such time the young man encounters this one minute manager who is both an autocrat and democrat and shares his three secrets of a one minute management. These are:

1. 1. One minute goal setting is simply:

a. Agree on your goals.

b. See what good behavior looks like.

c. Write out each of your goals on a single sheet of paper using less than 250 words.

d. Read and re-read each goal, which requires only a minute or so each time you do it.

e. Take a minute every once in a while out of your day to look at your performance, and

f. See whether or not your behavior matches your goal.

2. 2. One minute praising works well when you:

a. Tell people up front that you are going to let them know how they are doing

b. Praise people immediately.

c. Tell people what they did right – be specific.

d. Tell people how good you feel about what they did right, and how it helps the organization and the other people who work there.

e. Stop for a moment of silence to let them feel how good you feel.

f. Encourage them to do more of the same.

g. Shakes hand or touch people in a way that makes it clear that you support their success in the organization.

3. 3. One minute Reprimand works well when you:

a. Tell people beforehand that you are going to let them know how they are doing and in no certain terms.

The first half of the reprimand:

b. Reprimand people immediately.

c. Tell people what they did wrong – be specific

d. Tell people how you feel about what they did wrong – and in no certain terms.

e. Stop for a few seconds of uncomfortable silence to let them feel how you feel.

The second half of the reprimand:

f. Shake hands, or touch them in way that lets them know you are honestly on their side.

g. Remind them how much you value them.

h. Reaffirm that you think well of them but not of their performance in this situation.

i. Realize that when the reprimand is over, it is really over.

The book had presented good key points to what a manager should like. As I finished reading it, I correlate to Covey’s forth habit which is “Think win/win”. One minute manager wins both result and people. It is not just advantageous to him because he is the manager but also to his fellows who are being taught to become independent – one that could solve certain problem on his own.

It’s been a good stress reliever that I read the book. I was so weary when I come to my friend’s house to get the book written by Covey. If you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend it. It was worth to read. I personally thank my friend for sharing this one.

Learning would have been fun if only I am not absent

Let us have a rewind…

It was first Saturday of December and first day of class of my course IT Seminar and Organization Analysis under Randy S. Gamboa (a.k.a. RSG) as he returned from his seminar in Japan. I wake up early 4 am in the morning since my class will start at 8 am – a three hours travel allotment including a one hour self-preparation, because I startled to know that maybe he will implement his one of his classroom rules that if ever you will be late in class, you will treat the whole class for a breakfast. This is the fear that motivates me as well as my undergraduate classmates before to come early because we are not that rich to treat forty individuals (if I am not mistaken that we are forty in a class) fill their stomach, if you are the only absent or late. So I ate my breakfast, took a bath, prepared myself until ready to head Tagum by means of jeep and then Davao by means of bus. This is where the tell-all begins.

As I stand along the highway waiting for a jeep, I am so anxious while watching my wrist watch. It’s been an hour that no jeep passes on that way. I said to myself, “Why I am tease this way? Gosh, I will be late if another hour will pass and still no jeep.”. Few minutes later, a passenger jeep passes by. As I ride on, I have this complaint in my mind, “Why is this too slow? It’s like a funeral march. Tsuh!”. As we reach the municipality of Asuncion, the speed has suddenly change and said to myself, “Wooh! Thank God!”. It took me ninety minutes to travel Kapalong to Tagum. Then I headed to bus station then took a ride. As we approach in Bunawan, there is a bridge that is under construction so it caused heavy vehicle congestion since it has only one lane considering vehicles coming in and going out Davao City. We’re stranded and another thirty minutes was consumed and another forty-five minutes as we drove until Buhangin. It was passed 9am when I waited for about thirty minutes for a jeep to come along, traveled forty-five minutes as I reached Bankerohan and walked for about fifteen minutes. “What a heart-pounding travel”, I said to myself as I reached the classroom door while RSG were busy discussing the topic and it was passed 11 am already. After all the hardships I have experienced in my journey going to school and turned me late, it made me think and decided not to enter the room.

Since I was not around during discussion, I ended up looking and downloading presentation slides of the topic for me to know the content.

Straight to topic matter…

The questions that stunned me as I start reading the presentation slides are, “What is Strategic Planning?” and “Why do Strategic Planning?”. Those questions triggered me into deep thinking as my memory educes the event from the past that caused a big trouble in the company where I worked. I remembered that it was started also with this so called “Strategic Planning” and wondered if it was really a strategic plan because it ended to a hurtful parting of colleagues. But before I let my tongue slip to some kind of confidentiality, I continue reading the slides for me to gauge the said topic.

It is certainly important that strategic planning must be considered to apply on every organization. As it says, “Fail to plan, means plan to fail”. By the way, “What is a plan?”, I knew that this was being thrown to the class. According to Encarta v2009, it is synonymous to proposal, design, disposition, scheme and idea to work out, develop and formulate for the betterment of an organization. Yes, it is deemed to fail if we fail to plan, because without proper planning the organization will be out of its track.

Addressing critical performance issue, creating right balance between what the organizations is capable of doing versus what the organization would like to do, and covering sufficient time period to close the performance gap are the bases of a good strategic plan. Merely addressing, creating and covering without taking it into actions will surely planned to fail.

Strategic Planning has this ABCDE model. ‘A’ stands for assessment, ‘B’ for baseline, ‘C’ for components, ‘D’ for down to specifics and ‘E’ for evaluate. Assessment has two kinds; (1) Internal Assessment deals with strengths and weaknesses of organizational assets, resources, people culture, systems, partnerships, and suppliers (2) External Assessment deals with opportunities and threats of marketplace, competitors, social trends, technology, regularity environment and economic cycles. Baseline refers to; (1) Operating Environment (2) Business Relationships (3) Key Performance Categories. Components are represented in pyramid in which mission is on the top addressing why the organization exists and Target is on the bottom addressing the desired level of performance and timelines. Down to specific means that from conceptualization to taking into action. It identifies the specific steps that will be taken to achieve the initiatives and strategic objectives. Evaluate is a continuous examining feedback, and management performance on how well the organization is doing.

Those were the points that I have learned after reading the presentation slides. Upon reflecting, the event from the past turned to failure because it fails to apply ABCDE model which is the key basics to be on track of the progress. Also, persons who are in higher position are not committed anymore to pursue what had we planned. Moreover, skipping one of the model basics will lead to organization’s breakdown.