The achievement of Organizational Goals vis-a-vis to the Levels of Management

 

Organizations that capitalize on its Organizational Goals have a lot of positive things going for them. For one; Goals can influence increase of performance output in an organization's human resource. It can also increase human resource’s motivation. It also gives positive direction to the organization. 

There are three levels of management in an organization, the highest is the Top Level Management. In a corporate set up this is composed of the following: Board of Directors, Company President, Vice-President; Chief Executive Officer and so forth. Any organizational position that has a policy making power is included in the top level management. These company officers are in charge of the strategic goals of the organization.  

After the goals at the Top Management level have been set; it goes now to the next lower level that is the Middle Level Management. Each functional area or strategic unit of the organization is given their assigned goals that will contribute to the realization of the strategic goals. These officers are composed of the various department managers. Their main responsibility is to see to it that  goals are successfully implemented.  

The last organizational level that is involved in the achievement of goals is the First-Level Management these normally are the supervisors. Their task is to operationalize the strategic goals set by Top Level Management. Under them are the operational workers who make things happen for the organization. They are the foot soldiers so to speak.  

Regardless of their level; all of these organizational goals should always be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time bound. - Marino J. Dasmarinas

How do you assign work/task to your Work From Home (WFH) employees?

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic work from home arrangement is one of the ways being used by organizations today to continue its operation. But how are you going to assign task to your work from home employees when they are working in the comforts of their homes? When you cannot directly supervise them?  

The best course of action to take here is to remain with the status quo. Your WFH employees will have the same workload as they used to have when they were not yet under the WFH set up. Would this still be achievable? Yes of course! Considering that there’s no more travel time, less preparation to report to the office in the morning and the same applies in the afternoon when going home.   

WFH is the future of work set up and there is no turning back. Whether we like it or not we have to adapt to this new work environment which is very much favorable to the employees and to the organization also.  

The covid-19 pandemic and the availability of hi-tech modes of communications such as the internet has forced all organizations to take a closer look at this WFH set up. But WFH is not new this set up has been going on for quite some time already for some organizations. However this pandemic has forced all organization to harness the usability of WFH arraignments.  

Which they now find very useful, cost effective and practical. To address the many work challenges being presented at the door of all organizations. Primarily influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic and the availability of hi-tech modes of communications. – Marino J. Dasmarinas     

On promotion

 Are you expecting to be promoted? 

Every employee has this inner desire within themselves to be promoted and be ahead from their contemporaries in their organization. However not everyone who desires to be promoted wants to work hard for that coveted promotion they simply take it easy. Then when they are not chosen they sulk and blame anyone but themselves.  

Employees who want to be promoted must work for it; the best starting point is to work hard in their present job assignment. You work hard not because you’re expecting to be promoted you work hard because that is the right action to do. 

Every worker must work hard so that they could give equitable value to the salary that they receive from their organization. Promotion is simply a reward for a person who works hard. But there are also times that no matter how you work hard you are not chosen to be promoted. So what would you do? Will you sulk and be indifferent to your organization?  

The proper attitude to have is to continue on working with zeal even if you are not chosen for promoting. You will always have a good karma once you choose to continue on working with passion no matter what the outcome of your desire to be promoted. For example, the good karma would come in the guise of an unexpected promotion or a job offer from another company.  

Let us say that you continue to work with enthusiasm even if you were not promoted. Then it happened that there again was a window for promotion. So you aspired again and by this time you’re expecting that you will now bag the coveted promotion. However to your great dismay you were not chosen again even if you were the most qualified.  

So what would you do now?  

If you believe in yourself and you firmly believe in your competence, it’s high time for you to walk away from your present employment. Look for an organization that would value your hard work and competence! - Marino J. Dasmarinas

On handling a needy employee

How do you handle a needy employee? A needy employee is someone who often seeks your attention. Among many other reasons, he does this because he lacks confidence in doing his job. Where does his lack of confidence emanates? There are many behavioral reasons to this lack of confidence. If it emanates from his lack of knowledge on how to properly do his job. The solution available is to educate again the person on how to do his job properly.

After reeducating the person again the expectation of the manager is the neediness behavior would be cured or eliminated. But more often than not an employee’s neediness doesn’t only emanate from the lack of proper knowledge about the job. Sometimes it’s much deeper than what we think it is. And when this is so, the manager should sit-down and have a heart-to-heart talk with the needy employee to properly address the symptom of his neediness.   

One of the results of the heart-to-heart talk could be lack of freedom on the job. For the simple reason that the manager is micro-managing his direct report. The solution here is to loosen the grip and give the direct report freedom in doing his job. This freedom that is given is of course not absolute it should still be within the ambit of the rules and regulation of the organization. Lack of self-confidence of the direct report can be solved also by telling the employee that you would always be there to help if needed.

Needy employees exist. And an effective and good manager can easily address this human behavior issue by having a heart-to-heart talk with the concerned employee.  – Marino J. Dasmarinas

When there’s resistance to change

The story is told about an organization that was planning to institute change in its working hours. From the usual 8:00 am-5:00 pm it would be changed to 6:00 am-3:00 pm. For the past thirty years it had always been 8:00-5:00 and the employees were used to that already. So the employees union resisted and told the management that they would not agree.

What are you going to do when there’s resistance to change?   The first action to do when there’s resistance to change is to call for a meeting among the parties involved. In this case the employees union and the management. In that meeting the fuzzy issues should be threshed out. Employees resist change because they have no clear understanding yet why is there a need for that change.   

Therefore the component of listening and flexibility are very important here. Management and the employees union should listen to each other’s viewpoints and be flexible if need be. There would naturally be initial disagreement about the change that is to be put in place. But there are also some valid points that both parties could agree.

For this reason, focus first on the points of agreements after that focus now on the issues of disagreement. Why is this so? Because when both parties focus first on the issues that they could agree it immediately creates an environment of calm. Which is very conducive as a starting point to begin threshing out the issues of disagreement.

The thorny part when an organization wants to implement change are the issues of disagreement. Therefore, management must not push its weight around it should extend its patience to the limit. This means that meetings and dialogues about the change that is to be implemented should continue until the nitty-gritty details of that change are ironed out.  

It’s not easy to implement organizational change however change is needed for an organization to evolve, upgrade and grow. Therefore change must be implemented for nothing is permanent in this world except change. – Marino J. Dasmarinas  

Can a job be transformed into a vocation?

Danilo is a tech-savvy young professional who applied for a middle-level managerial job in a technology driven organization. He applied there because of the high salary that it pays. After going through a battery of examinations he was eventually hired. However, after a year he resigned; when he was asked by his superior why he is resigning, he said, “I don’t’ find my purpose in this employment.” 

Do you know the purpose of your employment? Many of us think that the purpose of our employment is to earn a living. This is partly true but to earn a living is not the sole purpose of our employment. Otherwise there would be no resignation of high-salaried employees and executives.

The purpose of our employment is to find meaning and connection in that employment. This simply tells us that we need to look at our jobs as a vocation and not simply a means of livelihood to sustain us everyday. If we treat our jobs as a vocation we surely would find meaning and purpose in that job that we hold or occupy. 

However, this is not the reality on the ground, many of us treat or look at our jobs simply as a means to sustain our everyday needs and that’s it. How can we have the mindset so that we would look at our jobs as a vocation and not simply as a means of livelihood?

The brunt of responsibility rest upon the executives of the organization. How would they craft an idea or a method so that the job would also be a vocation? A job is simply a job its an activity in an organization in exchange for payment. A vocation is very different, this is something that we do because we love to do it: this is a calling and a career. 

So, how would organizational executives transform an ordinary job to a vocation? They have to create a meaningful reason for the employees to do that job. They have to create a deeper connection between the employees and the job that they do.

When the organizational executives are able to discover that meaning and connection. Then and only then would the job morph into a vocation. A vocation that will not only benefit the organization but the employees as well. – Marino J. Dasmarinas

How do you modernize without upsetting your employees?

Leni is a newly assigned production manager in a manufacturing organization. During the first week of her assumption of office she noticed the need to upgrade and computerize the manufacturing department’s equipment and machines. But she was in a dilemma because the upgrade and computerization would require the displacement of half of the current manufacturing employees. She was asking herself: “How would I go about this?”

Leni’s dilemma is not her own only. In this age of modernization and hi-technological advancement. Many organizational leaders and managers are also in the same boat as Leni. How would they modernize without antagonizing their employees?     

Organizational modernization is like a force of nature that no one of us can avoid. If an organization wants to survive its journey toward the 21^st century it must embrace modernization otherwise it would be left behind. But the sad part of modernization is the need for organizations to shed a sizeable number of its employees.   

The Catch-22 filled question now is, how would a leader/manager go about it without upsetting the employees? Since the need to modernize is inevitable, the leader/manager must not do it abruptly so as not to antagonize its employees.

Why? For the simple reason that the leader/manager is inviting trouble to come in when she/he antagonize the employees.  Therefore, a good and effective leader/manager must do it in such a way that modernization should proceed as smooth as possible.

This smooth transition to modernity should be done slowly but surely. Therefore, employees should not be kept in the dark regarding this matter. This transition should be done with utmost transparency and openness. And the employees who would be affected by the modernization shall be properly informed and compensated.

In hindsight, this should also the method that ought to be followed. When a certain organizational department/division decides to embrace change to enter the door of modernization. It should transition slowly but surely so as not to immediately upset the current organizational set-up of its employees.   

As the saying goes, haste make waste. Same goes when an organization decides to hastily enter the door of modernization. Therefore, organizational leaders and managers must carefully balance the pros and cons of their decision. Vis-a-vis the most important resource of an organization which is its employees or human resource. – Marino J. Dasmarinas

On sustaining the gains of an off-site team building

A few months ago I assisted in the conduct of a two days team building session. Seeing the organization break the barriers of communication and alienation was very fulfilling to say the least. Before we ended the top executives of the organization imparted their views on how they appreciate the improved functional and cross-functional relationships among them.

They said that, the invisible walls which formerly isolated individuals and departments were broken. And they now have a one team one vision mentality.  However, as I was listening to them, I asked myself this question: “Would they be able to sustain the gains of the team building session and who will lead it?”

Who will lead the program and how will she/he keep the fire of the team spirit burning? The driver of course is the CEO/Manager. He should see to it that the gains of the team building session is sustained to the hilt. Until the next off-site team building session comes along.

To be able to sustain the team spirit gained in the off-site team building session managers/leaders may want take a look at these two guidelines:

       1. Encourage communication and openness in the organization – What makes an off-site team building exercise/game successful? It’s communication the team that communicates effectively is the team that wins the activity/game. The team that does not effectively communicates doesn’t win. Therefore, managers should see to it that this culture of effective communication is brought and harnessed inside the organization. Communication is like an oil being poured into a rusted bicycle chain. It eliminates rust which creates cranking sound, it strengthens the chain and it exposes the weak links in the chain so that can be replaced or repaired. This is also what communications does to an organization.    

         2. Make the hierarchical organizational structure invisible as the need arises – One of the effects of organizational hierarchy is it creates unintended division. Notice during lunch breaks, who normally are present on a table for lunch? It’s the employees who are in the level of the same organizational hierarchy. For example, lower level managers cluster themselves on a table during lunch time. Same case with the middle level, top level managers and the ordinary employees. They create their own clusters which is divisive and sometimes elitist.

It’s very rare to see lunch tables with cluster of employees from different hierarchies. But truth be told, its during this instance that the organizational hierarchy should be made invisible. Why?  To continue to promote cross-functional team spirit and openness inside the organization.

What do you think? – Marino J. Dasmarinas 

The silo mindset in your organization and how to cure it

During the cold war era (1947-1991) between the United States of America (USA) and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The united states built many missiles armed with nuclear warheads. They individually hid these missiles inside underground silos to conceal it from detection by the USSR. These missile silos were independent from each other and it can launch a nuclear armed missile by itself.

Many organizations today have a literal silo existence among its departments. For example, the four functional areas of an organization: human resource, accounting, marketing and manufacturing departments. These four functional areas/departments function independently from each other. Inside these four major organizational departments are layers of many more  departments with the same behavior.

These departments if not carefully watched could imbibe a silo mindset. This means that there is a possibility that they could function independently from each other. Which obviously is counter productive in the life of an organization.

So, how do we cure this silo mindset? And how can we transform this independent departments to become interdependent departments? How can we break the attitude of competition and selfishness among these departments?

The person that will lead the curing of the silo mentality is the top gun of the organization. It’s the CEO or company president for big corporations and the managers for small organizations. What they have to do is to organize a permanent grouping of employees who will represent the different departments.

Their extra task is to see to it that the department where they belong is still in harmony with the overall objective of the organization. The moment these members observe that their department is slowly veering away from the objective of the organization. It is their responsibility to re-align again the department which they represent to the overall organizational objective. 

Together with the organization’s top gun, these members will serve as the catalyst in curing this dangerous silo mindset. How would they do it? 

The following are my humble suggestions: 1. Emphasize the need to align with the overall organizational Vision/Mission 2. Use face to face communication once in a while rather than always using electronic communication 3. Encourage unity instead of diversity 4. Break existing behavioral arrogance, closemindedness and egotism then replace it with humility, openness and the willingness to listen. – Marino J. Dasmarinas   

The folly of shock and awe mentality

Jonathan, a newly retired general was invited by his friend to become the Chief Executive Officer of his business conglomerate. John accepted the offer with the thought in mind that he will use the shock and awe strategy in running the organization. So that he could immediately dominate his subordinates and impose his will upon them.

He therefore immediately buckled down to work. His first act was to call for a meeting among the managers of the business conglomerate. During the meeting John immediately emphasized his authority by dominating the meeting. And not allowing the anyone to question his pronouncements. The meeting ended with the managers feeling threatened and paralyzed by their new Chief Executive Officer.     

Shock and awe strategy is useful as a military tactic when you want to immediately conquer and decimate your enemy. This require rapid and swift dominance by the attacking force to immediately destroy the will to fight and morale of the enemy.

However, in a civilian/private organizational setting this shock and awe mindset will never work. Why?  Because in a private organizational setting there’s no human enemy to conquer. What is to be conquered is the flawed behaviors of the human resource. The flawed system and processes of the organization. And no C.E.O can conquer a flawed behavior, system and processes by using this shock and awe strategy.  

A leader/manager who would use this shock and awe strategy is an egocentric and autocratic leader/manager. And this kind of manager/leader has no place in our modern and technologically driven organizations today.

Organizations today thrive in dialogue, communication and democracy. The same with our leaders and managers today. They also are successful when they are open to dialogue, communication and democracy. – Marino J. Dasmarinas  

Social media and your millennial employees

Darla is a nineteen years old effective supervisor in a call company. She complained to her manager about their organization’s denial of social media access whenever they are already inside their organization’s premises. Her manager told her to simply focus on her work and not complain about access on social media. After a month, citing their organziation’s restrictive social media access darla resigned.

How are you managing a millennial employee such as darla? A millennial or generation Y employee is someone who was born between 1980-2000. They have a strong desire for work life balance which means that it’s not all work when an employee is already within the organization’s premises. While official work time is not yet starting employees such as darla should be given some leeway on matters of access to social media.

 Organizations today can effectively motivate and manage their millennial employees if they would allow them social media access.  Given the modernity of our time right now it’s very wise for employers to allow social media access for its employees. Why? For the simple reason that social media access is already part and parcel of employees need for work-life balance. Therefore, it would be more prudent for organizations to give their millennial employees free access to social media subject to limitations of course.

Majority if not all millennial employees are extroverted by social media. They wish to be connected with as many people as possible because this is already part of the millennial work life culture right now.

In fact, the desire to be connected and to have social media access is not only limited to the millennials. Social media access is also very much desired by generation X employees or the baby boomers they are those who were born in the early 1960s up to the late 1970s.

The poet John Donne said: “No man is an island.” This means that nobody is self-sufficient, we need each other to survive and thrive in this world. This quote from John Donne still rings true today in the social media driven organizational life of an employee.

In order for millennial employees to have work life balance. And for them to be more motivated in their work they certainly need fast and accessible social media access.  This access is of course subject to the discipline of the organization. – Marino J. Dasmarinas  

On arguments in the workplace

Donald, Nancy and Chuck are line managers in an organization. Their departments function are connected with each other. Therefore, every now and then they would exchange their views and these exchanges of views sometimes turns into arguments.

One morning, there was a meeting among line managers of their organization. After the meeting the trio of Donald, Nancy and Charles were at it again exchanging their views while walking in the hallway. The exchange of view became heated and it morphed into arguments.

No one among the three would give in, they wanted their views and ideas to be heard first. So, they were cutting each other’s voice because nobody wants to be upstaged. Before they knew it, they were already being watched by their subordinates, colleagues and superiors. Their disagreement and lack of decorum were in full view.

Arguments and exchange of views are part and parcel of organizational life. This is for the reason that it is in these exchanges of views and arguments that problems are threshed out and misunderstanding ironed out. However, there must be civility and respect during these arguments, there must be no cutting of each other’s voice.

There must be no shouting but only calm and civil exposition of ideas. We must let the person who is taking be heard first before we talk for it’s a sign of respect, decorum and education. There must always be an observance of respect and decorum during exchange of ideas and arguments.

For how can we command respect if we don’t know how to observe respect? – Marino J. Dasmarinas      

Do not limit your motivational instrument with reward and punishment

Do you still use the traditional method of motivation called reward and punishment? Reward and punishment or the carrot and stick method of motivation goes this way: Rewards are given to an employee to sustain a positive behavior. For example: promotion, monetary incentive, recognition and the like.  The punishment is administered to force an employee to correct an errant behavior or to push an employee to correct an errant behavior. This has been the traditional motivation approach.

Is this kind of motivation technique still effective in this modern time and with millennial human resource around? Not anymore, the human resource one hundred to fifty years ago is very much different from the human resource today. The human resource then, did not have the luxury of technological modernity. So different from the present-day human resource where they can navigate the world anytime using their smart phones.

Therefore, there should be additional upgrades when motivating the millennial human resource today. The number one upgrade is to insert social relevance to the work that they are doing. For example, a call center agent should not only be told to sell products or solicit clients.

They must be informed of the relevance of what they are doing in relation to his family and his personal wellbeing. If the organization could inject this idea in the mindset of its human resource. It would serve as a point of motivation for them not only to work hard but to put more value into their assigned work.

The organization could also make the work environment homey and environmental friendly.  This could be done by creating a relaxed and plant friendly atmosphere. If the organization would innovate this way, this would certainly serve as a new motivational tool for its human resource. Who would not be motivated to work in this kind of atmosphere?   

The organization should also encourage participation of its human resource in decision making most especially in their work area. Gone are the days wherein management would always force its ideas on their workers. And the workers would have no other choice but to simply accept the decisions of management whether they like it or not.  

As technology evolves and upgrades motivational approaches of organizations toward its modern-day human resource must also evolve and upgrade. Otherwise they would be left behind and be extinct eventually. – Marino J. Dasmarinas

Effective Planning: The vehicle for the achievement of your Goal/s

Effective Planning is a very important component in the achievement of organizational goals. We cannot speak of successful goals without carefully assessing the plans on how to best achieve it.

A goal is a time bound future target that we all wish to accomplish. However, how come that there are goals that are not achieved? The answer lies with ineffective planning. We would not be able to speak of successfully achieved goals without planning effectively to achieve it.

Effective planning is the vehicle that would bring us to the realization of our goals since without it there would be no realization of goals. Planning is a management function that involves setting goals and effectively using every means available on how best to achieve them.

 For example, a sales manager whose goal is to increase his sales output by ten percent (10%) for the next quarter. She/he must see to it that there is a carefully laid out plan that would effectively support the realization of her/his goal. Perhaps, she/he can educate his sales staff on how to discover untapped markets. She/he can also use motivational methods on his sales staff or close monitoring of their outputs and so forth.

An effective Manager/Leader is someone who always see to it that whenever there are Organizational Goals to be achieved. There are also complementary Plans that would effectively support the achievement of said organizations Goal/s. - Marino J. Dasmarinas 

Does your organization have a viable Vision?

What is organizational vision? Organizational vision gives an organization a reason for its existence. It keeps an organization going and moving and it’s the lifeblood and future of an organization.

We cannot understate the importance of Vision in an organization. In fact an organization without a viable Vision is like a headless chicken that runs around without any direction whatsoever. 

After spinning for a few seconds or minutes the headless chicken dies. This is the same with an organization without a viable Vision. It would exist for a period of time, it may even earn profit but at a definite point in its life it will cease to exist simply because it has no viable Vision.

In the Bible it says: “Without prophecy the people become demoralized (Proverbs 29:18).” Relating this with an organizational setup. This simply says that a person who works for an organization that has no viable vision would eventually loss its trust on the organization. This loss of trust would eventually lead to his/her resignation.

A viable vision creates a sense direction for an organization and its human resource. Therefore to achieve success, every organization must firmly hinge its plans for the future on its Vision. This same viable Vision also would convince its human resource to stay put and spend the rest of their working lives in that organization.

Does your present organization have a viable Vision? - Marino J. Dasmarinas

What is the Culture of your Organization?

Are you aware of the current culture of your organization?

Organization culture is the soul of an organization, it is unseen but you can easily perceive it. For example, how the employees behave (shared values), their esprit de corps, their organizational beliefs and ideai.  

Those in charge of implementing this culture are the top management. Their main responsibility is to see to it that the culture that they want to implement is cascaded down to the lowest level member of the organization.

Let us take for example Apple Inc. if someone is asked about its organization’s culture what comes to mind is its continuous culture of innovation that is why it is always ahead of its competitors.

Positive culture in organization is implemented by means of effective communication using the method of trainings and workshops. Then the application or implementation of the learned methods, there shall also be specific time frames to measure its effectiveness.

The main agenda of Organization Culture is to create a collective and positive identity inside as well as outside of the organization. This is the reason why when a certain organization is mentioned. We immediately have an idea about its positive image and competitive culture. This is for the reason that it is the collective identity that it has successfully conveyed into the minds of those who know the organization.

Looking at your own organization where you presently belong. What is its present culture  right now? - Marino J. Dasmarinas

Positive work values, work attitudes and values formation

What are positive work values, work attitudes and values formation? Positive work values and attitudes are internalized positive ideas, feelings and attitudes towards our work.

There are workers who always work hard to achieve their designated task. They do this even without the prodding or close supervision of their superiors. Where does this positive work attitude comes from? It comes from their positive family environment. If we get to know their family we would find out that they also have a good and healthy family environment.

But this is not always the situation, oftentimes we would see workers who simply work because they need to earn their keep and it stops there. No initiative and no extra effort to work beyond their assigned task.

There are even worst situations such as workers short-changing their organization by doing actions detrimental to their organization. For example, they corrupt money, bring home office supplies, cheat on their time for work, not working properly when there’s no superior to watch over them. We can go on and on and the list is endless. This damaging behavior is commonplace in many organizations.

Workers value formation starts in their formative years, it consists of their environment.  That is the place where they grew-up and those people that surrounded them. If they have a healthy family background which means a family that communicates freely and help each other. Chances are that they would be able to carry over this healthy attitude through their eventual work place.

Friends and education are also a determining factor in workers value formation. If they have upright friends and good education it's a cinch that this would influence them to make positive and upright choices in life and work.

The last value formation but certainly not the least that shapes us is the Church. We would enormously benefit from the church if we always go to Sunday Mass for Catholics or worship service for other religions.

Just like any church going family the church positively shapes our value formation.  it teaches us the right morals, conduct and how to live our lives worthy in the eyes of God and men. - Marino J. Dasmarinas

Failure is an option in your organizational life

Janice is a supervisor in a pharmaceutical company. She is always conscious of not failing for the simple reason that she is afraid that her boss would reprimand her or issue her a memo.

Are you afraid to fail? Many managers, leaders and organizational workers are afraid to fail. They would not risk failing because they want to have a good reputation in their organization. Aside from that they don’t want to be labeled as somebody who failed.

But how would you learn if you’re afraid to fail and how would you achieve success if you are afraid to fail? How would you discover new things and ideas if you are afraid to fail? Many great and useful inventions came into being because of many failures.

Thomas Alva Edison, one of the greatest inventor if the not the greatest inventor the world has ever known had 1,000 unsuccessful attempts before he successfully invented the light bulb.

Steve Jobs the greatest inventor of the 21^st century was fired by Apple, the company that he founded. After he was fired he said that he was a failure but Steve Jobs did not give up. He persisted until he again achieved success and was rehired by Apple.  

 Denis Waitley a motivational speaker has this to say about failure: “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” 

Therefore, in your organizational life failure is an option for the simple reason that you will not achieve success without tasting failure first. You will not learn without failing and you wouldn’t be able to discover things that would help your organization grow without running into failure first.  

  

Thus, failure is an option in your organizational life and in your personal life as well. – Marino J. Dasmarinas 

Email or face to face communication?

Santiago is a millennial manager and he is the typical millennial who is well versed on modern communication. And he loves to maximize the usefulness of this modern vehicle of communication. He therefore sent out a memo to his staff mandating them to use email as the primary method of official communication. So that they could maximize and have full utilization of office time.  

They immediately adopted the instruction to use email as primary instrument of communication. However, after one month Santiago noticed disharmony amongst his subordinates, there were walls that divides them and team spirit was non-existent in the function of his people. 

Using email as a vehicle for office communication is helpful. However, it should not be utilized as the only method of official office communication. Why? For the simple reason that it would eventually create division, chaos and disagreement amongst the people working in the organization.

For example, when you only use email as the primary mode of communication it limits clear understanding on the issues being discussed. It hinders immediate actions, feedbacks and reactions. It will eventually promote disunity instead of unity and it will hasten the buildup of walls as a replacement for bridges of communication.  

Hard to believe? Simply imagine a family which is by the way a micro form of organization. The parents represent the managers/leaders and the children are the subordinates. Let us visualize them as using emails as their primary vehicle of communication.

This micro organization called family would soon have a very restrictive mode of communication. For the simple reason that email communication will not help in clearly clarifying family issues most especially sensitive family issues. It would sooner or later promote disunity, ambiguity and friction inside the family. Pretty soon there would be a broken family and wayward and misguided children.

Same goes for a real life organization when it uses email as the primary vehicle of communication instead of partnering it with face to face interactions. – Marino J. Dasmarinas    

An Effective and good Manager/Leader is a good Listener

There is story about a father who was so focused on his responsibility to provide for his family. He would go to work early and go back home late. And his reason is he simply wants to provide the best that he could provide to his family that’s why he works doubly hard.

But in the process of working hard he was slowly but surely detaching himself from his wife and his children. There was limited personal interactions with them. Why? For the simple reason that he has no more time to listen to them. 

In an organizational setup a manager/leader should also be a good listener. What does this mean? This means that the leader/manager should allocate a portion of his time to listen to his subordinates to matter how busy he is.

The reason behind is through listening you will know the soul of your subordinates. Through listening you would also know the unseen events that happens in your organization which could have implication upon your leadership.

What would happen when you listen to your subordinates? They will look up to you and respect you more; they will see in you a mother or a father figure. Whom they can run into for support when something is bothering their minds.

What is the reward of this on your part as a leader/manager?  Your further cement your image as a good and effective manager/leader: A manager who listens and empathize to the plight of your subordinates.

Through listening you also make your job easier because your will gain the respect, loyalty and cooperation that any leader/manager would want from his subordinates. – Marino J. Dasmarinas