Laziness or Lack of motivation?

Have we hired the right staff?  If not, why not dismiss him after giving chance again and again?

If yes, why do they become lazy when they have been working a few months after being on board?

Should a manager/leader spend time in pushing people to finish job?  I doubt.

It is tragic and disastrous for a company to use > 18 months to prove an incompetent staff under the condition that only his manager does not know his incompetence.  How many 18 months can a company have?

Paradox of quick action always take effect: because of insufficient time, everything are pushed in hurry with no consideration of motivation and resources, as a result, the situation becomes even worst.

First things not first if there are >1, or even 10, things first.

The above scenarios are lessons in elementary management course but they happen quite common in many companies.  Maybe the managers, who made the mistakes, are lazy in learning and practicing.  Maybe the managers also lack the motivation either.

Journal of the seminar (Apr 2010) – Costing by Excel

I just finished the 2-days seminar on Costing by Excel on Apr 23/24 in Hong Kong Productivity Council.  I thought it is worth recording a journal for it.

I found that somebody share the same advocate with me – Eddy.  Being accountants, we need robust tool – Excel & VBA.  But for the 2-days seminar, he was absent on Apr 24.  We missed the chance to further exchange our idea and experience!

I opened my blog and beg the attendants to visit my blog so as to increase the hit rate.  Needless to say, I have to show the value of reading it.  I share my conviction of working – Detail + Logic enable Flexibility.  Unfortunately, I did not get positive feedback explicitly that the majority agreed with me though I explained the vicious cycle of long working hours.  My advocate: to invest time in getting proficiency with Excel so that we can shorten the working hours, be the troop of 5:30pm or 6:00pm (leave sharply after office hour) and we can have more leisure time for continuous learning so that we can grow continuously.  Maybe they are all too senior to work hands-on.

Most of the attendants have difficulty in mastering the formula construction.  I need to introspect if I did not organize the pace well or I may use too complicated formulas.

I explain the meaning of “Stones from other hills may serve to polish jade”.  The major function of the seminar is to help attendants understand MRP and the advanced skill of Excel, not just on applying the skill to do MRP.

Originally, the enrolment is 21, only 18 came on Apr 23, and 15 remained on Apr 23! (Last time, I had 24)

The next re-run will be on Jun in Shenzhen.  I still believe that the course has the value but I will take the lesson learnt this time definitely.

Last but not least, there is no disproof to my conviction – I am always a junior manager and I am sharing the techniques of working as a junior manager…..

Stones from other hills may serve to polish jade

他山之石, 可以攻玉

I heard this term many, many years ago but I never tried to understand what that mean.  Until a day when I read one anthropology article written by Wang, Mingming. To know more ourselves, we can either study our activities, or study others and make the comparison.  By the same token, to know more management or leadership, we can either study the dedicated discipline or discipline of human beings and society, in other words, sociology, psychology and anthropology.  Some terms and theory I can only know from the above 3 disciplines – socialization, enculturation, instinctoid, social exchange, actors & etc.  They widens my eyesight and help me realize the limitation of myself.

I have ever learnt a concept as follows:

Economics can help utilize the resources of a society but politics can help create it.  Interesting!  I thought once I can squeeze some time from my self-learning, I would definitely try to study it.

The culture of others

The study of anthropology offers me the concept of lens.  The argumentation of ethnography is something on the position – we look at others, the culture of others(他者文化).  The author, in the past coming from western countries, is regarding the place he came from is high degree of civilization while the placed being studied is uncivilized but would move to civilization like their home country.  There is no modernity, innovation and civilization.  Their religion is something like superstition, unlike the Christianity in western countries which rationality is the basis.  By using such lens, we definitely would miss the objective of studying.  Of course, it is bias as argued by some anthropologists.  One could think about how the “others” look at “me”.  The author’s countries could be something ridiculous in the eyes of the “others”.

There is a different lens on looking at others.  It is very interesting though to certain extent, it is boring & abstract.  But I can assure you that you definitely can see the fun in anthropology.

In the business society, is it so absolute that the acquired company is inferior while the acquiring is the superior?  Can we deny everything of the acquired?  Definitely not, at least, it needs to do the transition.  There must be something good & bad in the “me” culture and the “others” culture.  Provided we know we are using the lens to look at thing, there can be another lens to use.  For sure, it takes time to wear and change different lens.  It also takes time to change or enculture (the right leaders are critical too) and after all settle down to a new norm.

Knowing oneself – Ch. 33, Lao Tzu

One who knows others is smart
One who knows thyself is wise

One who conquers others has power of muscles;
One who conquers thyself is strong

(知人者智，自知者明。勝人者有力，自勝者強)

Will you tell others your weaknesses?  Will you tell others the reasons of your success?

Yes, I do.  I want others help me in order to avoid any failure due to my weakness in a teamwork endeavor.

Yes, I do.  I understand that any current success does not mean any success in the future.  Only if there is no more secret of my current success do I continue looking for more recipe of future success.

Fun remaining in mouth is not fun but tease!

It is funny to hear a manager talking to her subordinate like “don’t work so late tonight but please place the report on my desk for my review tomorrow morning”.

As a third party, we feel funny with the manager.  But if you were the subordinate, you would definitely feel downplayed by the manager because you may have been tired of working for the deadline, and you were being joked by the manager.

Several years ago, I read the book “Mavericks at work”, there is a saying – “keep it fun”.  Then, I heard a few versions of such saying, “Have fun”, “Be funny”, “Do what you love to” & etc….  But how if the environment or the platform is not nurturing any fun?

Is it telling me to tease thyself in order to keep it fun?

The source of fun is the work itself as well as the working environment, not a fun day or an outing.  The history has shown that only requesting 2 hostile countries to sign peaceful agreement would not help cease the war.  The key is to resolve the conflict.  It is nothing complicated.  It is funny if the mediator only believes something just on the paper!

Learning from any corner and any time

Recently, I did some interviews, being both the interviewer and the interviewee.  It is interesting!

Being the interviewer, I raised a question to the interviewee (a finance position in PRC),

Q.    If there is imported purchase & local purchase, what is the decision factor for the shift if possible?
A.    The local purchase price must be at least 30% lower than the imported purchase price.

Q.    Why?  What justify such a 30%?
A.    PRC quality is inferior, more rejection, unreliable delivery; so 30% is required.

Q.    Actually, what guidelines should we provide to the decision maker as an accounting professional in this area apart from qualitative comment since quality/supply chain issues are not our expertise, rather, a quantitative analysis is desirable with qualitative consideration as a remark?
A.    Still 30%, as it is the practice.

Q.    Is non-refundable VAT (PRC specifics) a consideration?
A.    No idea.

Q.    Do you know the operation of the factory you work for?
A.    Not so much since the factory management is sensitive to finance participation in this area. (!!)

(A good practice of 5-why)
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Being the interviewee, I had the following conversation after 15 minutes of introduction(the interviewer is the agent which is a local audit firm, odd enough!):

Q.    What was your major duties in your previous company?
A.    I am the head of finance, supply chain, customer service, IT, HR and all other functions except QA, Engineering & Production but I also participate in production planning.  Before that, I was the financial controller.  (I also explained what I did in supply chain and why?  It is mainly for promoting the business operation efficiency and effectiveness)

Q.    It is too operational!  Did you do treasury and SOX compliance?
A.    Not so much on treasury (actually, loan facility/hedging was controlled by US corporate; A/R, A/P, cashflow, inventory control are within my scope.  I am proud of doing a good job).  For SOX, I am more specialized in 404 (internal control).

Q.   We need a financial controller supervising the whole finance function (she seemed to say that I was not fit for it though I re-state that I worked as financial controller for years and re-focus on business operation)
A.    We may come from different background that is why you seem not understand what I am presenting.

Q.   The client is a US listed company and need independent finance professional heading its PRC manufacturing subsidiary.
A.    I have been working in Fortune 500 companies for almost 10 years and I know the norm. (unfortunately, the interviewer seems not understand what fortune 500 means!)

I answer every question in a confident manner and firm tone but the whole conversation only last for around 30 mintues.  Actually, I thought I was talking to a layman to modern business operation – no concern of collaboration, no knowledge of SOX404, only concern the published account without any concern to internal operation).
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Honestly speaking, I am not going to change job; but I regard that interview can help me know something different.  This time, I got 2 different stories but something fundamentally common in principles – what an accounting professional should do?

I am not to say I am a good accounting professional but I know I need to create value to business operation, not just keeping the figure and checking out mistakes of others.  I am happy that I have done something to make myself feeling comfortable at least.

Law of unintended consequence

It is advocated by F.A. Hayek in the book “The road to serfdom” – it is not possible to centrally plan for the mass, because each brain has its own objective, own way as well as its own deliberation.  As a result, something would happen out of expectation.  This is the unintended consequence.  Besides, the other face of planning(menace management) – push and force cannot trigger creativity and initiative.  Agree?

It is no conflict to budgeting in business organization.  Budgeting is to set target, lay out resources allocation plan and motivation.  If only push & force to drive, only idiot would believe it work, let alone innovation in cost, sourcing and product design.

A scenario: an accountable R&D manager who did over-design in the past is willing to correct the mistake made (actually, it was not mistake as the previous management only need the design, no need to concern about the cost).  He knows the whole architecture and the process.  He is in the best position to do any change.  However, if his superior only push and drive (sometimes blame), no support at all, the initiative to correction only come from the R&D manager himself.  It will not last for long.  Human is complicated being.  We have 2 sides in subconscious.  The overt side intentionally supports the corrective work but the covert side is subconsciously consuming the physiological body when the superior does not provide any support in terms of resource and empathy.  One day, the R&D manager may appear that he has made some improvement but could no longer continue due to healthy consideration!  This is only a fictitious story.  Don’t take it serious!