RULE 75 - Let The Company See You Are On Its Side

“One of the basic causes for all the trouble in the world today is that people talk too much and think too little. They act impulsively without thinking. I always try to think before I talk.”

Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman elected to both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate

To let the company see you are on its side you need to do some concrete things. Such as:

- Buy some shares
- Read the company newsletter – better still, edit the damn thing
- Support company functions
- Show an interest
- Ask questions
- Have your interest in the company noticed and recorded in some way
- Focus on what you contribute to the company, not on what you get out of it
- Use the company’s products or services
- Rehearse saying what you think is good about the company – have a ready answer to hand if asked
- Know the company’s mission statement and philosophy
- Know the company’s products and/or services inside and out
- Know the company history – its formation, its mergers and acquisitions etc., it long-term goals and its key personnel (founder etc.)
- Know the company’s social standing and what it does for the community.

What you do not do – ever – is bad-mouth the company, under any circumstances.

‘But, but, but’, I hear you say, ‘Won’t this make me out to be an OIK, a toady, a yes-person, a lackey, a company mouthpiece?’ Nope. Not if you do it right. If you mouth platitudes and seem insincere people will know it is an act and that you are a company pawn. But if you are strong about it people will take your lead and follow suit. Set an example. Be outspoken in your praise for the company. It is such an unfashionable thing to do you will make your mark, but you do have to be sincere and bold.

‘But what if I don’t feel so good about the company?’ Then get out. It’s a two-way process. They employ you. You work for them. You give and they give. You take and they take. If you’re unhappy about this relationship, then get out, get a divorce, find another lover. You have to love your company and see it as a relationship. If you’re in a bad one, what are you going to do about it? Put up and shut up? I do hope not.

Book Title: The Rules of Management

Author: Richard Templar,
Prentice Hall Business

Source: Rule 75 – Let The Company See You Are On Its Side
* Notes: This Rule 75 was extracted from one of the chapters from the book titled “The Rules Of Management” written by, Richard Templar, Prentice Hall Business

Attitude Is The Key To Success

We all want success in life. We want success in our home life, business life, and in our relationships with others. The most important single factor that guarantees our success in every aspect of our lives is having a positive attitude. Without a positive attitude success is not possible. Earl Nightingale call attitude "the magic word."

You will never attract positive things into your life if all of your thoughts are negative. Just as a magnet attracts anything metal our minds attract the things we think about most. Your mind will always seek to turn the things you think about most into physical reality. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "A man becomes what he thinks about, most of the time."

Every one of us has two different minds, the conscious and the subconscious. The conscious mind is our thinking, which uses logic, deduction, reason, and sound judgment to make its decisions. Your choices in life are made by the conscious mind.

The subconscious mind lies outside your conscious mind. It has access to data, information, and ideas outside your own experience. Your subconscious mind works 24 hours a day and it is the source of all examples of pure creativity, problem solving, and goal achievement. It is a magical part of your mind. This is a part of your mind where genius lies.

Our subconscious mind is not able to distinguish between positive and negative thoughts. So, if you tell yourself something often enough your subconscious will eventually come to believe it. If you repeat something often enough whether it be positive or negative it will become your reality. This is because your subconscious mind constantly strives to attract the material equivalent of your most frequent and prominent thoughts.

It is impossible for a negative mind to attract positive things. If you're thinking about problems constantly you will find them. Is it possible to overcome negative and pessimistic thinking with positive thoughts? You bet it is! And it's something, which can be easily learned.

It's all a matter of conditioning. You can train your mind to think positive thoughts the same way you can learn anything else. The way to do this, is to remove any negative thoughts one at a time until there are none left.

And for each negative thought that you remove, you then plant a new and positive thought in its place. You then nurture those positive thoughts until there is no room for any negative thoughts to grow. Then, make a habit of stopping a negative thought any time it appears and replacing it with a positive thought. For example, replace, "I can't do it" with "I can do it" and you'll find your attitude and your life will greatly improve.

Positive thoughts will lead you to financial success and it will help you find the true riches of life for yourself and your family. So whatever it is in life that you want, you must begin today to become a "positive thinker." Once you do this, your future success will be unlimited.


This article extracted from journal published from the e-zine articles written by, Joe Love

Four Powerful Little Words that Make Life Worthwhile

Over the years as I've sought out ideas, principles and strategies to life's challenges, I've come across four simple words that can make living worthwhile.

First, life is worthwhile if you LEARN. What you don't know WILL hurt you. You have to have learning to exist, let alone succeed. Life is worthwhile if you learn from your own experiences - negative or positive. We learn to do it right by first sometimes doing it wrong. We call that a positive negative. We also learn from other people's experiences, both positive and negative. I've always said that it is too bad failures don't give seminars. Obviously, we don't want to pay them so they aren’t usually touring around giving seminars. But that information would be very valuable – we would learn how someone who had it all then messed it up. Learning from other people's experiences and mistakes is valuable information because we can learn what not to do without the pain of having tried and failed ourselves.We learn by what we see so pay attention. We learn by what we hear so be a good listener. Now I do suggest that you should be a selective listener, don't just let anybody dump into your mental factory. We learn from what we read so learn from every source; learn from lectures; learn from songs; learn from sermons; learn from conversations with people who care. Always keep learning.

Second, life is worthwhile if you TRY. You can't just learn; now you have to try something to see if you can do it. Try to make a difference, try to make some progress, try to learn a new skill, try to learn a new sport. It doesn't mean you can do everything, but there are a lot of things you can do, if you just try. Try your best. Give it every effort. Why not go all out?

Third, life is worthwhile if you STAY. You have to stay from spring until harvest. If you have signed up for the day or for the game or for the project - see it through. Sometimes calamity comes and then it is worth wrapping it up. And that's the end, but just don't end in the middle. Maybe on the next project you pass, but on this one, if you signed up, see it through.

And lastly, life is worthwhile if you CARE. If you care at all you will get some results, if you care enough you can get incredible results. Care enough to make a difference. Care enough to turn somebody around. Care enough to start a new enterprise. Care enough to change it all. Care enough to be the highest producer. Care enough to set some records. Care enough to win.

Four powerful little words: learn, try, stay and care. What difference can you make in your life today by putting these words to work?

To Your Success,Jim Rohn

This Article was written by Mr. Jim Rohn, and was extracted from the web page: http://www.burrese.com/Personal_&_Professional_Achievement/Articles/Rohn/Four_Words_That_Make_Life_Worthwhile.htm

The Ultimate Expectation

Dear Employee:

You’ve been hired to handle some pressing needs we have. If we could have gotten by in not hiring you, we would have. But we’ve determined that we needed someone with your skills and experience and that you were the best person to help us with our needs. We have offered you the position and you’ve accepted. Thanks

During the course of your employment, you will be asked to do many things: general responsibilities, specific assignments, group and individual projects. You will have many chances to excel and to confirm that we made a good choice in hiring you.

However, there is one foremost responsibility that may never be specifically requested of you but that you need to always keep in mind through the duration of your employment. This is The Ultimate Expectation, and it is as follows:

ALWAYS DO WHAT MOST NEEDS TO BE DONE WITHOUT AWAITING TO BE ASKED

We’ve hired you to do a job, yes, but more important, we’ve hired you to think, use your judgment and act in the best interests of the organization at all times.

If we never say again, don’t take it as an indication that it’s no longer important or that we’ve changed our priorities. We are likely to get caught up the daily press of business, the never-ending changes of the operation, and the ongoing rush of activities. Our day-to-day practices may make it look like this principle no longer applies. Don’t be deceived by this.

Please don’t ever forget The Ultimate Expectation. Strive to have it always be a guiding principle in your employment with us, a philosophy that is always with you, one that is constantly driving your thoughts and actions.

As long as you are employed with us, you have our permission to act in our mutual best interests.

If at any time you do not feel we are doing the right thing – the thing you most believe would help us all – please say so. You have our permission to speak up when necessary to state up when necessary to state what is unstated, to make a suggestion, or to question an action or decision.

This doesn’t mean we will always agree with you, nor that we will necessarily change what we are doing; but we always want to hear what you most believe would help us better achieve our goals and purpose and to create a mutually successful experience in the process.

You will need to seek to understand how (and why) things are done the way they are done before you seek to change existing work processes. Try to work with the systems that are in place first, but tell us if you think those systems need to be changed.

Discuss what is presented here with others and me in the organization so that we might all become better at applying The Ultimate Expectations.

Sincerely,

Your Manager

P.S.:

Like much sound advice, The Ultimate Expectation seems like common sense. Don’t confuse what sounds simple with what is easy to do. Take this message to heart and become skilled at applying it to your own job and circumstances. Once you learn the Ultimate Expectation, you must apply it on daily basis to your work. Accepting this challenge is paramount to your success with us, in your career, and in your life.

* Notes: This letter was extracted from one of the chapters from the book written by, Bob Nelson with Foreword by Ken Blanchard

Quality Management is: Don’t just do what you are told, do what needs to be done, and adopt Plan Do Check and Action (PDCA) cycle!

When a project is awarded, the project manager will be tasked with putting together a project team to complete the project on time and within budget. For a project to be done well, the project manager must always bear in mind an issue not always considered to be important: quality management.

The very first thing to understand about quality management is that quality management does not determine the quality of the product. The product quality is determined by the client. In our business, the product is the building or the infrastructure works. Ultimately the project team must deliver a product to the quality expected by the client. This can be issued through quality management.

I would say that to deliver quality product the project team’s approach should be ”Don’t just do what you are told, do what needs to be done, plan to get it done right and focus on how it is to be carried out.” Why? This is because the task to get the project done is similar to “being told what to do by the client”.

The project manager cannot simply assume that he knows all his client’s requirements as that written in the contract document. There are many other areas that need to be done which are not explicitly written in the contract. Therefore, there is a lot more for him to find out and to learn from his client about “what needs to be done” to his satisfaction through formal meetings or several informal discussions. In fact a quality product is all about meeting the client’s requirements and even exceeding their expectation if possible.

Sometimes there is also a tendency to think that 'quality' means the best material, the best equipment and absolutely zero defects. However, in most cases, the client does not expect, and even cannot afford a perfect product. On the other hand, a flawlessly designed, defect-free drawing that does not meet the client's needs is also not considered a quality product. Therefore, the purpose of quality management is to first understand and manage the expectations of the client in terms of quality, and then put a proactive plan and process in place to meet or even exceed those expectations.

What you are told? … It may not be right…

In many instances, the project manager is being told to do something or everything at one go without knowing what needs to be done first, and how to do it right. The consequence of this is that a wrong move is made if there is no proper planning, which may also result in rework. Likewise this could be one of the most common project management mistakes; problems of quality always show up in a number of areas during or at the end of the project. For instance:

Rework. This is the primary problem caused by poor quality work during the construction. Rework means that you have to do the same work because the original effort was not satisfactory. This is the work required because the original construction and testing process was not thorough and defects still exist in the handing over period.

Higher maintenance and support costs. If defects are caught within the design development process, there is also a cost associated with this rework. However, many times quality problems surface during or after the project completion. This situation just hands the problem off to the maintenance department. High maintenance costs from a poor quality product can be a sign that the project team willingly handed over a less than acceptable product, or else they did not realize the poor quality because of their lack of supervision or testing and the inspection processes were also inadequate.

Client dissatisfaction. If a product that is delivered is of poor quality, the client will not be happy. This unhappiness may be transferred to the maintenance department and subsequently to our company itself. However, if this particular client has a choice, he may not want our service in the future.

Missed deadlines and budget. In many cases, most of the projects that do not manage quality well end up with a lot of rework, which in turn leads them to miss the deadlines and exceed the budget. This can cause the overall project progress to be delayed, or it may change the financial cost of the entire project.

Poor morale. No one likes to work for a company that has poor processes or produces poor quality products. No one likes to work on projects that are missing their deadlines because of rework. People tend to find excitement and challenge in building a quality product. However, their motivation level goes down when they have to continually repair and rework on those defects that don’t work correctly. In addition to poor morale in general, specific costs can include increased absenteeism, higher turnover and less productivity from the staff.

What needs to be done? …Need to adopt a proper PDCA cycle…

Quality management is not an event that we consider once in a while. Quality management is an ongoing process that the team needs to focus on throughout the project. When the project begins, the project manager should prepare an overall Project Quality Plan (PQP) containing but not only limited to these three major components:

Completeness and correctness criteria. Remember that the client determines the quality and not the project manager. This might make the project manager uneasy, since he may not be sure of the client's expectations. That is where completeness and correctness of the criteria come in. The project team and client then have to have a common expectation of what is required for each deliverable item to be accepted as all these criteria may be stated clearly in the inspection test plan (ITP).
Quality control process. Quality control (QC) refers to the ongoing activities that the project team will perform to ensure that the products are of high quality. This can include all incoming inspections, ongoing inspection, and walkthrough with client representatives, testing and commissioning of all major components, come with the completeness of checklists and records, and etc.

Quality assurance process. Quality assurance (QA) processes are the activities designed to ensure that the overall processes used to create the products are of high quality. These types of activities include third party audits, internal quality audits, checklists to ensure that all parts of a process were completed, sample submissions, method statements an other deliverable approvals, etc.

Everyone on the project team needs to have a quality mindset to ensure that work is completed with a minimum amount of defects – the first time. The project manager and team members need to understand that the first goal of quality management is to deliver products with least defects. The second goal is to correct any remaining defects as early as possible.

In most cases, quality problems usually tend to show up late in the project or during the testing process. Nevertheless, if we have a good quality process in place, our testing should confirm that everything is working correctly. Then we can quickly work toward final approval. In conclusion, always REMEMBER: Our client is also our customer. Don’t just do what you are told, do what needs to be done, adopt Plan Do Check and Action (PDCA) cycle, keep the level of our customer satisfaction high and aim for continual improvement.