My Expectations As A Boss

I am a reasonable man when it comes to personnel management. And surely, like most managers, I have my set of expectations for my staffs.

Complete your assigned report on time. And be on 100 different committees.

Spend more time at your desk to complete your task. And don't forget to represent the department in meetings at 8.00am, 12:00pm, 4:00pm and a dozen more between them.

Be humane. The company is your #1 priority.

Think about the management. Be humane. Don't steal the company time and assets. And please leave your family at home where they belong. Don't even think about them.

Don't be late in the morning. Don't be punctual in the evening.

Punctuality is an essence of a good leader. Always come in sharp in the morning. Flexibility is an essence of a good leader. Don't go back sharp in the evening.

Always work overtime. Don't claim overtime.

Due to the slash in HR budget, we expect you do more work, so please double your effort, work overtime. And due to the slash in HR budget, we don't encourage you to claim your overtimes.

Credits to Accounting Manager.

Don't take your annual leave. Don't accumulate your annual leave.

Don't expect to take a break, we work on a tight schedule. Don't accumulate your annual leave, finish it up before they pile up in the year-end.

Be disciplined. Scrap the bureaucracy.

We don't want problems. Please follow the company rules. We want speedy work. Please break the rules and the red-tape.

Take care of your health. Work.

We need healthy workforce, physically and mentally. Exercise and have fun. And remember, it's 'work' 'force', so work! work! work!

*****

I've made my expectations clear. So there's no reason not to fulfill it. If you want to take a new challenge, we'll arrange an interview. But hey, it doesn't make any difference anyway. To you.

This is Gap 1, part of "Your Work is Full of Gaps!" series.

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How To Talk About Your Competitors

One of my regular cases in dealing with my clients involves shielding their business from competitors.


When it comes to competitive threat, obviously your customer base is at stake.

In a way they can think that your competitor is driving out your margin, and you're facing an imminent doom. Which is a solid case for them to shift to your competitors.

Therefore you must uphold their confidence to secure them. Here's some PR lines for your shout-outs to the public during your press releases or your 'impromptu interviews'.

Deny similarities

"Don't compare us like apple to apple"

"We exist for different purposes"

"I don't think it's fair to compare us directly to them, we're both very different in some ways"

This is a very good start to avoid telling the public how antiquated your product features are compared to your competitor's, and how helpless you're feeling right now.

When they don't have to compare you, obviously you're their only choice. Regardless of the black-ringed eyes from your lack of sleep.



Emphasize complimentary nature

"We're both here to provide better value to the consumers"

"I can see we're helping to develop the industry further"

"They're leveraging on the vacuum that we don't fill, which is a nice motive for us to co-exist"

So now you're telling the public that your competitors are 'good for us'. You can emphasize the spill-effect from this competitive edge to the industry as a whole, and how the mass public will be the winner.

This will solidify their support for your company, which is, best of all, corresponds directly with the number and strength of your competitors. Poor customers.


Get personal

"The CEO is a good friend of mine"

"I know their chairman, he's a decent person"

"I highly regarded Mr.....[CEO name] as a very capable visionaire"

Demonstrating the personal, social aspect of your competitiveness tells the public that you're well connected, well-versed with your competitor's Commander-in-Chief, that you know his strategic decisions like the back of your hand.

Which of course making the public believes that you've predicted each of your competitor's move, and prepared your company for them. A fake light at the end of the tunnel nevertheless, because all you're preparing is a petition for liquidation.

****

So, in lieu of competiton , these lines are your saviour. Because obviously your product isn't.

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Your Work Is Full of Gaps!

Let's admit there's no way you can have a successful corporate life by being perfectly pious.

Because frankly, you're not perfect (read: you're a crap).

And, sadly, so does people around you. Your co-workers, your boss, the directors, and yes, even the tea-lady.

It's the genetic legacy we human carry, and because of our collective imbecility produces cumulative mediocrity, we are caught in the fundamental barrier to career success:

"To Err is Human"

And that explains why you don't get the promotion you deserved. And why frustration is your daily dose. And why early retirement is your forbidden fruit.

And the saying goes with "To Forgive is Divine". How true. And weak as well. Don't merely forgive lest we'll miss some hidden opportunities. Therefore, I'm going to replace it with:

"To Exploit Is Divine"

And for that reason, I would like to introduce a modified theory based on the infamous Conceptual Model of Service Quality And...(read it yourself, attached down below).

My version of the theory is called:

Something wrong with blogger this chart should be larger.

The Process

Here’s how your daily cookie cutting works.

YOU

1-interpret your boss’s expectations.

2-then set certain objectives to fulfil those expectations.

3-work hard and deliver your performance.

YOUR BOSS

4-measures your performance.

5-decides whether you perform as expected.

The Gaps

But, as the above chart explains, things are much more complicated than it seems.

*Your interpretation of your boss's expectation isn't always true (Gap 1),

*What you intend to deliver doesn't always correspond those interpretations (Gap 2),

* What you actually deliver doesn't always equal what you intend to deliver (Gap 3),

and well,

*as you can see, your boss doesn't always see what you actually deliver (Gap 4 & 5).

Had these gaps didn't exist, I'm sure your face is beaming with smiles on your way to work every morning. But that's not the case.

"There's no point being pious, when human are full of flaws."

We'll explore more of these gaps in the upcoming posts. Yawn. I sounded more like a lecturer. Question anyone?

A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and its Implication for Future Research. - Upload a doc

Read this doc on Scribd: A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and its Implication for Future Research.

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Observe The Labor Day

Today is labor day.

For most of you corporate employees, you're taking a day off. You rejuvenate. You regenerate. But you don't celebrate. Because you don't even know the story behind labor day.

It doesn't matter really. You don't have any reason whatsoever to do that.

Because yesterday, like every other day, you reached home the same time burglars used to break into one.

Sadly, the starting point of the labor day is because they were fighting for 8 hour working day. (read more) Yes. Meaning if you come in at 8, you'll get to go back at 5, with 1 hour break. It was the success of their protest that landed us this holiday.

Which is meaningless.

Today we measure the productivity of a company by merely looking at their total number of office floors lit after 8:00pm.

And today's career advancement policy:

"We believe in hard work"

which means "You work until midnight everyday and NO, it's not a shift". And

"We believe in committed individuals"

which means "You have to work. After working, you can get back to work.".

With 3 quarter salary gone to financial lenders, employees have no choice but to comply. Furthermore, the jump to entrepreneurship is too risky.

And no, they can't jump companies. Because all they will see in interviews is:

Today, overtime "claim" becomes a benefit.

Maybe companies are getting bigger and bigger, and there's too many of them, so the chance of survival is only by buying other companies, or risk being bought over and laid-off.

So, survival needs lots of money, and because HR spends a lot, it's a no-brainer (literally) decision.

"We're buying our competitor. We need more money. Minimize the number of people. Minimize the pay. Discourage them from using their benefit. Tie everything according to their performance and benefits usage."

And that's when multi-tasking became compulsory. Just short of "Must be able to perform Liquidity Risk Assessment and growing a Hydrangea", but I suspect we'll get there soon.

Today, it's a known fact that today's corporate success must be achieved at the expense of your family.

"Daddy is a hardworking employee, he always come back late from work".

With such a great example to follow, imagine what will happen to those children when they grow up. I think, they'll be happily married- to their work desk.

Change it now.

Uphold the Labor Day. Let's cherish the 8 hour work-days. Fight greedy shareholders. Be back home on time. Save your family.

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