The beauty of working in tough times

I love tough times.

That is because these are the moments when you actually spot the best teams and to some extent, the best leaders. The truth of the matter is that during the blissfully good periods, everyone (and I do mean everyone) can be made to look like a superb leader or team player. This is the same principle that states that it is far easier to look good steering a ocean liner on calm seas then it is keeping a rickety sailboat afloat in stormy seas.

And a large proportion of it boils down to team during these dark periods. Bad times filter out these superfical folk. Not more fairweather friends hanging around and all the once-good team players seem to do disappearing acts.

No doubt, tough times test passion. These are times where you keep going on as a team. And the best people to work with are those who argue with you for the sake of the cause. Embrace these people because they keep your from getting too one-sided. I know that all too well because I have been fortunate to work with two of the most intelligent and fiercely passionate team members, and much more importantly friends, in the past year who backed me up in my blindspots of finance and relations. I deem their advice is priceless and their friendship even more so.

I'm thankful to have had the chance to work with a wonderful team of great people. It's never easy when the going gets rough and there are times you can't help but question the value of what you do. But what keeps you going is to be able to look around yoursefl and find the folks who are fighting alongside because they believe too believe in the common vision.

That is indeed the beauty.

Organizational Friendly Fire

In war, the last thing any army wants to see happening is friendly fire taking casualties on its forces. The reason is simple -- if your own folks are shooting at themselves, you lose a bullet, a soldier and make the opposition laugh.

Why then, do organizations continue to live with internal "friendly fire", playing the blame game and politics within firms, forming alliances and trying to outdo each other internally?

Sometimes, these may be due to the numerous, lengthy processes and amount of stakeholders involved in different projects. Human error is inevitable when they do occur now and then, they serve as catalysts for inter-personal conflicts which may escalate into "in-fighting". Other times, poor leadership / management that fails to see the larger goal of the organization contribute to such situations.

Needless to say, all this is extremely non-productive and damaging to any organization.

What I feel is needed is basically good communications on the ground as well as leaders who are able to look on situations from a bigger perspective and to direct the crosshairs of his/her followers to point externally.

If soldiers try to do that consciously to stay alive, shouldn't all individuals in any organization be doing the same?

Planning : Too Much, Too Little or Just Right?

Its pretty often that I heard of people I know wanting to start up a company to call their own. To escape from the corporate machine, gain financial independence, etc ...

First Step? Normally this would be the analysis or planning phase where the good ol' business plans are written, surveys are done, market analysis ... etc. Now, point of this post isn't to ramble about the types of foundation work that needs to be laid down prior to starting up (though that could be another post in the future). My aim is just to briefly bring focus to the dangers of both under-planning and over-planning.

Under-Planning : I guess if you find yourself asking "what now?" too often then it may be a sign of udner-planning. Without doing the proper homework before starting up, one may easily find that there wasn't any demand for the product/service in the first place. Or worst, to plunk down hard capital into a business only to discover that there already is a competitor doing the exact same thing but faster, better and cheaper than you ever can.

Over-Planning : All good things come in moderation and so does planning. The problem may arise when one goes into "lets check out all parts of the plan again, just to be sure. Then we'll just stick to the plan and things will be nice and dandy". Tough luck but that's not the way the world works. Some factors in the business is bound to change sooner or later so having a static plan is not going to be a good idea. A rough idea of where one is heading would suffice. The only thing worst that could happen is known as "analysis-paralysis" where you try to make sure your plan fits all textbook theories. In which case, one can mostly forget about starting up at all.

Conclusion: Aim for just enough information backed with a rough plan which would allow you to get down to work without being either too unaware of actual circumstances or becoming too obsessed with details.

(PS: A good read : 5 Ways to Start a Company (Without Quitting Your Day Job) )

Organisation-Self Alignment Model

Ok, not going profess to be an expert on this subject but let me just try to explain what this whole MBA-ish matrix is about. Its based on personal experience gathered from 2-3 years by being in various different organisations ranging from a military organisation to private for-profit organisation to a voluntary student organisation.

On the whole, this is what I summarise from observing people working in different organisations and what motivates them. It's also a kind of guide for anyone who wants to lead to understand what kind of people he/she may be expected to face and what to do about it. Basically, the x-axis represents benefit/detriment to the organisation and the y-axis represent benefit/detriment to the person. Hence, the 4 quadrants represent win-lose type of scenarios for people working in an organisation.

Thus, the four quadrants in detail represent:

1. Self-Interest (Personal self benefit at the expense of organisation) -- This is quite a common occurrence and I've observed it most in student organisations. In some sense, this is a result of a lot of students' need for immediate gratification for their efforts and in the cases that they do not see results fast enough, these people will cease their efforts for the organisation or worse still, do things which harm the organisation.
2. Alignment (Win-win for person as well as organisation) -- This is the optimal case where there is a synergy between what the person is doing for the organisation and how that helps to improve him/her. This stems from an alignment between the person and organisational vision and is the only substainable way for both to grow.
3. Conflict (Clash between qualities of person and organisation) -- This is rarer than having people in the Self Interest Quadrant but still may occur from a total mismatch between the person and organisation due to perhaps flawed or hasty selection process.
4. Self Sacrifice (Organisational benefit at expense of self) -- To some extent, this can be viewed as an individual with such strong personal conviction to a cause that he/she takes the proverbial hit for the greater good. It is great for organisations to find such dedication but may not be substainable in long run as people can burn out in such a manner.

Now, these are the actions which I feel leaders can take after they have identified who fits where:

1. Remove - People in the conflict quadrant are cancerous to both themselves and the organisation. It may not necessarily be a personality issue, merely a mismatch of interests so it would be best for these folks to be advised to find greener pastures.
2. Realign - Majority of people may fall in the Self Interest or Self Sacrifice quadrants. For those in the organisation for Self Interest, attempts can be made for them to see the importance of working with the organisation to achieve the common goal. This would move them to the Alignment quadrant, else they may have to leave before they create team morale issues. For those in the Self Sacrifice quadrant, leaders should help them to help themselves also in the line of their work and find self-betterment from what they do. This would prevent them from wearing out in the long run. These people are much easier to move into Alignment.
3. Reaffirm - If your organisation already has folks in the Alignment quadrant, good for you! But still, leaders have to make sure that these people are continuously advancing both themselves and the organisation. These are the best people to also start to guide and motivate others and should be groomed into future leaders.
   

Hope that I've managed to share something with all of you out there and drop me a note if you have (or not!).

Have fun over the weekend!

(PS: Can't seem to place a large enough image of the graph here but you can click on the graph to enlarge if you need to.)