Believe with what I am telling, said the cheater

Originally, R worked as clerical assistant in Samples Building Department.  Unfortunately, she could not work well with his immediate supervisor – T.  As a result, she was moved to Engineering Department.  Her performance is outstanding.  She is responsible for constructing Bills of Materials in the system and becomes key staff in the department as well as the operation of the factory.  Because of staff turnover, the Engineering supervisor is gone and T will become her supervisor again.  But T is new to BOM construction and the system architecture.  T knows the product thoroughly, he is confident to take up the new position within a period of 3 months.  However, the old manager is gone and succeeded by another newcomer – P.  R declared to quit when T is on board for the new position.

The situation is tough.  P does not like T so much because of T’s character.  He then proposes to abandon T’s new assignment and tell R that T is busy with the Sample Building Department, therefore, he would not move to Engineering department.  However, the engineering department needs a supervisor like T.  The final decision is that it is necessary to keep T moving to Engineering department while R will be moved to another department so that R will stay with the engineering department for a short period of time, at least, it can keep the department running.  After T becomes familiar, everything will be fine.

From the viewpoint of an outsider, the big problem is with P.  P did not discuss sufficiently with his staff about the capability of T while he just relied on his predisposition on T.  Will R & T trust P in the future?  Probably not.  Sometimes, we need to struggle if we are going to explain the dilemma in good faith.  According to my experience, usually some managers will try to find an untrue excuse instead of telling the truth.  They would think that this kind of explanation is more presentable!  However, staff in the operation level, in fact, would get more information than the one in management level.  When they find that the management is not trustworthy, they would start to mitigate of what they would tell the management and interpret what the management is telling in different way.

Human Weaknesses-IV(Optimism and Pessimism)

Superficially, there is logical error with this topic.  If Optimism and Pessimism are both human weaknesses, human beings has no strength at all.  If so, why are we there?  It is downright nonsense.

If we are granted a choice either optimism or pessimism, what would be your choice?

If optimism, we may overlook the contingency threat.  If pessimism, we may not be creative.  If indifference, it is not human.

Let me be cunning for a moment.

1. 90% optimistic while 10% pessimistic; or
2. 10% optimistic while 90% pessimistic; or
3. 50% optimistic while 50% pessimistic.

Which one is the most desirable?  I would say, it would never be 3 as it is nearly indifferent.  Then the question is either 1 or 2.  It is not a matter of how many %; indeed, it only tells which one should be predominant.  Which one predominates the other usually is governed by our preconscious.  The real issue is if there exist a group with unified preconscious, therefore, we may not have sufficient rational thinking before a decision is made.

Well, it should be my turn to tell my position.  When I am working as an accountant, I choose 2.  When I am working in Supply Chain/Operation, I choose 1.  But I always respect my counterpart when they have a different opinion against me.  This attitude can help rein a out-of-control running horse from falling into a cliff.

Human Weaknesses-III (Anxiety)

Anxiety is an innate instinct.  When human remains as an embryo, all the nutrition is supplied by mother automatically.  This is comfort zone.  Everything taken in is taken for granted.  However, when it becomes an infant, there is no automatic feeding.  Anxiety due to uncertainty about feeding is aroused.  The previous comfort zone is gone.  This is the origin of anxiety.  Only crying infants get fed.  When it becomes a norm, a smart baby can manipulate crying or creation of annoyance to get what he/she wants.  The more anxious he/she is, the lousy he/she will cry for.  The crying is not aware how noisy he/she is.  It will be thought as a give-and-take phenomena.  Crying(give) then leads to feeding (take).

The subject (the crying) needs to manage anxiety while the object (the annoyed) also needs to manage anxiety of the subject.  Anxiety generates energy of the subject to get relaxed or balanced(This is theory of ID & Ego from Sigmund Freud).  But the environment (including the objects) is the corresponding party which help set the norm of the course.

In an organization, who will get anxious first?  The less power or the subordinate.  Who would like to see the subordinate being anxious?  The power or the manager.  It is joyful for a manager to see the subordinate being anxious about her performance appraisal or her fate within the organization provided the manager can get control of the subordination.  But what I see graceful is if a manager can help lessen the anxiety of the subordinates, he is more respectful.  Lessening anxiety doesn’t mean that the manager always ensure security, rather, transparency, reasonableness and fairness.

Human weaknesses–II (Irrationality)

Human beings is not rational but rationalizing.  Why?  It is esteem(self-interest) and subjectivity.

No human is perfect.  We make mistake definitely and occasionally.  But we may not confess our fault to anybody anytime.  It was difficult for me to acknowledge my mistake in front of whom I feel they are inferior than me or whom I often stand in a highland to talk to.  For this reason, I rationalize my wrongdoing or unreasonable act.  The higher the land I am standing, the more difficult I can overcome to acknowledge wrongdoing.  Rationalization becomes the only way.

In power struggle, the confronting parties will only finger point the other, not themselves.  A wrongdoing in one party will result in losing credit by the wrongdoer and gaining credit with the stagnant party.  Only idiot will acknowledge wrongdoing.

Experience accumulation is essential to building up of reputation.  But it is also the stumbling block to take in novelty.  I often hear sophisticated-look senior consider creation as over-aggressive proposed by the junior while there is no solid ground with the criticism.

I recalled few years ago after I left a company, I talked to my successor whom I trained up and asked how the situation was.  He said it was running better than before since the managers were young and feeling free to express their opinion.  However, I already got more than 1 source that the quarrel among the managers was severe and there were no conclusion almost in every meeting.  Obviously, there was no fair and respectful referee (not a judge but referee) in the group.  Since then I thought there was problem with the youngster who was speaking to me.  Rationalization can ruin us.

I am always a junior manager.  There is no need for me to rationalize as I do not feel embarrassed to acknowledge a wrongdoing.  (Of course, the self-esteem will drive me to double consider upon every step I make.)  Indeed, the low standing enables me to see many funny people & funny things!  The antidote to rationalization and irrationality is humility.

Human weaknesses – I: Hard feeling of losing vested interest

Sonzi wrote: Knowing thyself and others assure winning in every war; Knowing thyself assure 50% of winning; Neither knowing thyself nor others will lead to fiasco definitely.  I like to exploit thyself since it is the most feasible way to do so.

Back to 1998, when I was working in the food processing company, I have developed a job costing system using MS Access/VBA.  I had a talented assistant who also know VBA very well.  He is no inferior in this area.  But I was the Finance Manager and he was just an assistant accountant.  He is gifted in programming and did something I could not do.  He tried to move to Visual Basic, discarding VBA.  I disagreed and roared at him.  The real reason was that VB required a different skill set which I would lose influence – Hard feeling of losing vested interest!  But interestingly, my job is on finance/accounting, not system.  My then manager did not help me to have a good attitude/vision on it.

Before 2005, I usually hired people whom could not surpass me in every aspect.  When I found somebody outperform me, I usually could found something to blame as long as I was the power holder.  In turn, it really hurt his morale and led to more wrongdoing.

Another story: P is well versed with the product structure.  His contribution to the system is no question.  That is why he got significant increment when the system was being developed.  However, once it was done, he needed to show off something to justify his increased pay.  Unfortunately, he did not.  And the system issue has moved to application/implementation, not on design.  He was forced to leave ultimately but he thought he was not treated well and he did something bad to the company.

The problem comes to how to deal with vested interest.  It is a matter of values.  Vested interest always emerges when time passes by.  The vested interest feels the threat whenever they feel uncertain about the future due to their insufficiency.  It is the responsibility of the management to provide them with right platform and tools to perform their job/new job so as to increase their adaptability.  This should be ahead of any change.

When one is losing one interest, he will be fine if there is new interest to compensate for it provided it is not difficult to do so.  The earlier the plan is, the less hard feeling it will lead to.

Reciprocal Induction

Recently, I am self-studying Industrial Psychology.  I come across with a term – Reciprocal Induction.

According to Ivan Petrovich,

Reciprocal Induction: Having formed conditioned inhibition by differentia

tion we can see that such an inhibition is active rather than indifferent, because a positive stimulus used immediately after the inhibitory is without effect, showing the existence of an inhibitory state.  This may be a constant or, in the case of a delayed reflex, temporary, saving the cortex from useless work.  The inhibition may spread (irritation) or become concentrated, or evoke the opposite process – excitation.

Inhibition: A protective mechanism.  When the conditioned stimuli became too strong that the result produced would exceed the capacity of the given nervous system… excitation became replaced by inhibition, thus protecting the weak cortical cells from excessive excitation.

The other citation is as follows (which is easier to understand):

Concentration vs. Differentiation.  The interrelations between these two processes governed by reciprocal induction, i.e. if a cortical center is  in a state of excitation, adjacent and even remote centres are inhibited by negative induction, and vice versa.  Induction can also occur in one and the same nervous centre; that is, after strong excitation, inhibition will set in, and conversely.  …. As a result of which the whole cortex becomes reduced to a huge mosaic of points of excitation and inhibition closely intermingled.  This mosaic is formed and reinforced partly by the reciprocal crowding in of the opposed processes of excitation and of inhibition, directly evoked by the corresponding external agents; partly, however, by internal relations, in particular by reciprocal induction, which one process leads to the strengthening of the other.

In short, when we feel tired of thinking an issue without being resolved, excessive excitation in a certain cortical center, inhibition sets in.  We need to be distracted by taking rest or doing other subject, it will help release the inhibition of the other cortical center.

Challenge the dogma-IV (The leader should be the one working in lines, not sitting in office)

1. Who can collect the material usage, scrap, labor hours and report in the Profit & Loss?
2. Who can record the waiting time and stoppage?
3. Who can do the performance evaluation of production?
4. Who can switch on the Andon, follow the instruction of CAR (corrective action report) and do the quality?
5. Who can contribute to the bottom line once the selling price is fixed by controlling the cost?
6. Who can uncover any risk of production in the frontline?
7. Who are the problems of the existing production?
8. Who can execute any kaizen proposal?
9. Who can operate the ERP?

The conventional wisdom may provide different answers to different questions.  But the challenge is there is only 1 answer.  It is the line leader.  Usually, we deem that the leader is only secondarily educated.  They cannot handle all these stuffs with their limited intelligence.  Right, as long as they are not trained, they cannot.  Every dog has its own day.  But do we steal the day of the people working in shop floor.

When I am working with my friend’s factory as part-time consultant, I met a lot of less educated people.  They possess the power to work and to dream, the strength to struggle and to learn.  What matters is their experience will radiate to their peers.

As a manager, we always focus on how to manage the work getting done.  We seldom manage to train the the operators and the leader to step up the role.

When it comes to the time of fighting for labor supply, what we should offer is not just pay/food/shelter/recreation, it should be the future perceived by the throng.

When we try to hire the trainees from technical school to the production lines to resolve the labor shortage issue, do we realize our promise of providing training which could transfer knowledge the people could not learn from their school?