Professionalism Series - 5.2: On the road to silos

I will try to brief on this one.

Unethical people will always only be trying to protect themselves in the company.

They always spend an exorbitant amount of effort in making sure that their own bases are covered, and that their image and presentation to their boss is perfect.

This might be OK, but it becomes a crime when:

• A person does this at the concious expense of his/her coworkers (even ‘not giving credit where it is due’ fits into this category)
• A person does this without thinking about the company as a whole.

This type of behaviour can result in ‘evil’ (for lack of more technical terms) silos within your organization.

I said evil because even good departments can become silos (and I may write about that at another time).

So what is the opposite (i.e. ethical) behaviour to adopt? Well, simply think about the greater good of the company as a whole, rather than about yourself as an individual.

If all the employees from all the departments were just one big team, think about how all of you together are making the claims they are to customers, and how they are delivering on those claims, and how they are protecting themselves along the way.

The key question to ask is: Is it worth making sure your bases are covered (just so no one can justify laying you off)? Is it still worth it if — by focusing so much on liability to yourself — you overlook a certain clause for the company in an agreement that causes a $MM lawsuit to the company and effectively runs it into the ground?

In that case, does it matter how, or when, or why you were covering your own bases if the company (and hence your job) just ceases to exist?

Professionalism Series - 5.1: Take policies seriously… please!

It is both amusing and sad that I need to write this out so explicitly.

I think if I counted the number of young professionals I have met who do not take policies, processes, and professional ethics seriously, I would be surprised myself.

 

A company can have the best IT tools to help streamline sales, CRM, Supply Planning, project management etc. but they fail the second no one uses it.

You can create the most efficient processes that minimizes waste but it falls apart the second people choose not to care about them.

 

 

The trouble that I have seen is not that people find using those things too difficult — it is more that they do not understand how important it is in the company for everyone to structure their actions systematically.

 

There are many, many examples of the types of policy violations that can occur — gossip in the office about coworkers actually violates ethical policies of ‘not evaluating coworker performances publically and without due diligence’;  If the company has certain documentation requirements (that are part of quality processes like ISO) then choosing to NOT document because it ‘makes work faster’ is actually a violation of a company process.

Please remember: What can seem like a ’shortcut’ today can have serious implications to the company down the road. What if the company has signed a lengthy partnership agreement with another company, and someone overlooks one sentence in that agreement?

Is that just one sentence on some document that ‘you will get to when you have some free time’, or is it a breach of a legal contract that can result in a liability claim to the company? Was it worth being ‘faster’ in your day by choosing to not give enough importance to that one sentence?

 

I hope the following perspectives can help align your priorities around policies (I am just shooting these perspectives as ideas):

• Always think about the bigger picture – Your company’s health before yours. If you can figure out a way for the entire company to be ‘faster’, then by all means lets implement that. However, focusing only on making yourself faster isnt always the right choice
• Cover all bases for the company — I might write more on this later, but again cover bases for the company rather than for yourself. You can do this by ensuring that the company will not face a $MM lawsuit because the smallest of your activities and actions.
• Take the policies as you take your religious book; your constitution; your law; the advice of your grand-parents; etc. – I.e. they are the absolute most important part of your work life, and they are larger than life. If you take none of those real-world things to heart either, then surely there is something you take seriously : advice from Simon from American Idol? Bill Gates’ vision for the next few years of software?
• Read every word. — Every single word of every policy and process is typically carefully planned, deliberated, analysed, consulted upon with lawyers etc. Wouldn’t it be a waste if no one tries to understand them? That is all I ask, just try to make sure that your interpretation of the words is the same as the company’s intended interpretation. [Note: If your company does not give due diligence to potential HR or internal policies and processes, please stop working for them because that can only be bad for your professional career]

My Ideal Employee Series - 3 : Ambition

Here is another term whose improtance is often misunderstood.

There is a mile of distance between someone who wants to go farther in his profession, and someone who is focused only on the money he can make today.

A person who wants the company to give him more opportunities over time is someone who will also be the most persceptive of his environment.

He will absorb the best traits from the best people around him. He will ask the right questions, take the right challenges, understand the company a lot better.

From my perspective, I can start to hope that they can be good ambassadors of my company, and take it to the places that we want. I can trust them to understand where structure is needed in the firm, and also why chaos will be a necessary part of another. I can always get a fresh and constructive perspective of our work from them. I can communicate with them in a rich way.

Over time, such a person will prove himself ready to be an integral part of the company’s management, development, technology or operational growth.

I have had the priveledge of working with a number of such individuals and have really enjoyed working with them and mentoring them wherever possible. It makes me happy when their existing companies give them ‘employee of the year’ awards, or other accolades, or when they achieve greater success in their worlds.

Professionalism series- 5: The importance of ethics

In some schools of thought, representing yourself in a company requires you to bring out the best of your character to the table.

While defining ethics is almost an art, realizing the importance of making good ethics a part of your professional character is important.

Since problems and situations in companies are not as clearly defined as problems on tests, you will often be faced with trade-offs. Often these trade-offs involve ethical right-vs-wrong choices.

Rather than go into details here, just remember a few simple guidelines to point you towards a better direction.

1. Rather than how I want to make the choice, how would the ‘company’, as a whole, make this choice? What is the nobility, sense of ethics, and character of the company?
2. What would be the most honorable of the two options?
3. Which, of the two options, gives me a chance to go back or correct it if it turns out to be the wrong choice?