Tuesday, September 19th, 2006
If you’ve visited the site before I hope you like the additions of the new articles.
I feel much more positive about it now and it also makes the blog (I think) a little bit more interesting. I still have things to add but I am trying not to throw everything at it at once.
It is also working well with keeping my distance from my husband while he concentrates on money earning. I still think he should be flattered that I like to see him so often! I have heard of women who can’t stand their husbands being in the house during the day with them.
However, I am still getting a lunchtime cuppa out of him so I’m not complaining.
I have started looking around for other blogs to link to, but not found any suitable ones yet. In fairness I only spent half an hour the other night.
Tonight I haven’t done much as I have been out with my friends for a meal, which always makes me feel really relaxed and now sleepy.
So on that positive and tired note I am off to bed.
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Tuesday, September 19th, 2006
It’s true that (as people) we are our own worst enemies. We start off as innocent beings when born and slowly as we learn about life we become cynical, brow beaten and dissatisfied with the way of the world. The trouble with this is that behaviour breeds behaviour and we can unwittingly pass on our negative feelings.
What has this to do with companies you may ask? Well if you are talking about people, then it has everything to do with it, as in management speak people are a companies main asset. (Okay the cynical side is saying yeah right. See what I mean?)
Many companies start off with the right intentions when if comes to expanding and employing people. The ‘want’ to be seen as a nice employer can sometimes give a different impression to how the company operates in reality. After all when it comes to interviewing people for jobs, it is not only the prospective employee that is out to make an impression. If you have the ideal candidate sitting in front of you, then you want to impress that person also.
When you consider how much of our life is spent within the working environment it is so important to be working for the right type of company. As employees all our needs are different and this can sometimes be the cause for problems arising especially within the circle of people we work with. An employer these days is under so much obligation in terms of political correctness and doing the right thing by everybody that it can take over the actual reason for running the company.
For me good communication is the key. Openness and honesty are also key values, but these should be integral within the communication process.
I once worked for an organisation that when it was really small (less than 6 people) it was a joy to go to work. I loved the people I worked with, I enjoyed the work, the environment was good, not far from home and being one of the first in I was given many opportunities to develop myself. I was instrumental in setting up systems that were still in use 10 years later and indeed praised by external organisations. So what happened?
We started to expand and take on new people for newly created positions. Shouldn’t be a problem, but in reality it is only natural that as you take people on the dynamics start to change. Groups start to form and empires start to be built.
In creating new positions you are ultimately creating a chance for someone to prove themselves. This is natural and if people succeed within the confines of what the company is trying to achieve then brilliant. It becomes a problem when this new role requires further support and in the blink of an eye the new role has expanded into a department.
This is when you start getting what I term ‘the tug of war’ approach to dealing with problems. As a small concern everything is out in the open and it’s quite quick and easy to make decisions. When you have departments, you start having to deal with small groups of people (this could be just two or three people) who while wanting to solve issues, will also be thinking how it will best benefit their department.
Again this is a natural ‘animal instinct’, in fact it would probably be more appropriate to call departments ‘packs’. It also slows the decision making process down and often the final decision isn’t always the best one for the company.
In the case of where I worked this was exacerbated further by the company splitting into divisions. The dynamics really altered then as you had departments within divisions. Now what do you do?
It still could have worked really well, but insecurities and jealousies started coming into the equation. Add in also that one of the Directors was friends outside of work with the head of one of the divisions, so now you have favouritism thrown into the mix. And finally the addition of a Finance Director within the group. Once finance started dictating the terms of the company, then realism seemed to go out of the window.
At the base of all of this was communication or lack of it. From being a very open company encouraging people to share their views it turned into a place where you were asked not to rock the boat. This was disheartening especially after several rounds of redundancy it really cried out for improved communication and working together.
The reasons why the company were set up in the first place got lost in the journey to succeed. With the rapid expansion of the company and more business ideas being thrown into the melting pot, the real reason for the company being in existence just got overlooked.
The moral. Obviously a company always needs to look ahead and progress but don’t forget why and how it was set up. It may be because the owners didn’t like how they were managed in a previous company, or they were fed up of receiving bad customer service so wanted to change how things were done. Maybe they worked in environments where information was kept so close to people’s chests that it stopped the company from moving forward.
Sometimes stopping and looking back at this can realign and focus the mind. You can also bring in any amount of ‘management initiatives’ but if you can’t even follow the basic rules of communication then it’s a waste of time.
A really good example was highlighted to me during a course I attended. Within a company one department (Department A) used to regularly send another department (Department B) a large financial report. Department B basically used to bin it as it was of no use to them and this had been happening for months.
It wasn’t until representatives of these two departments both attended the same course that they actually spoke to each other for the first time. Department B told Department A that they found the report of no use and it wasn’t until Department A asked the important question ‘what do you want?’ that they found a solution and a chance for Department A to stop wasting time producing an invalid report.
Simple really, but when a company gets larger sometimes the basic communications get lost or it’s a case of ‘we’ve always done it this way’. It’s too easy to moan about something instead of picking up a phone and dealing directly with each other. It can also be hard taking advice from someone outside of your own department and yet, an objective view can be a good one.
And doesn’t this also come down to respecting other people in the work place?
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