So I’m trying to cut down my Social Media Use. I think like everyone, this is a struggle and a source of much wasted mental energy.
How else can I connect with People outside my own Family? I dont know, thats the thing – the family business is kinda eating away my life the way it has eaten away my parents life. Connections and Friends that are not related to Work become very rare and we lose the capacity or the emotional availability to have or make friends.
It creates a Zone of Amicable Associations, with very limited Transactions. I try not to invest too much because i really dont have the future time to re-invest or set expectations of ongoing relationships. This is particularly regarding work.
Updates and Challenges
Studies and Writing
So my studies are slowly focusing more on Chinese. I’m exhausting much of my Studies regarding Processes, Management, Quality, Operations, and Industry. There are few avenues left, particularly detailing the Processes that Need detailing like – Quantity Surveying/ Cost and Activity Estimating / Scope of Works (aka Tasks Lists or Standardized Activities).
There are two major Projects that are lined up for Me when I finished my current set of challenges: Taking on a Project and Setting the Pace of Project Management and Building our new Enterprise Accounting Systems. This is somewhere in 2020 if we are still relevant lolz.
I need to write more and this is because this is how I process things.
Task Lists – Scrum and GTD
Next Action, Owner, and Time/Schedule is pretty much the Mental Muscle I need to Train a lot in. Its such a simple feat but to have the mental awareness to Do this in Everything is so hard. Being consistent makes anything Simple Complex. While it is a very simple skill it opens up the more complicated Skill Trees of Planning and Prediction. Without it we cannot see a Pattern in Work, and without Seeing a Pattern in Work we cannot begin to Predict and Standardize It.
Tragedy of Operations
This is the Tragedy of Operations vs QA. QA can think and examine – their WORK is analysis. They’re paid by the hour to write those reports and investigate. Operations is to Conduct the Work – but not Review it or improve it. Operations has no time to- Study and Improve its work. It is just magically expected to happen – without the Reality that Experimentation, Attempts, Failures, Writing things down, and Defining a process all take up time – Operations does not have.
Transformation of Work
It sounds like Marketing when I have to always Frame Training as = We Want to Change how you do something – same amount of time and effort but more achieved, or same objectives but less time and effort. It needs to be framed this way – because everyone is scared of training, experimentation, and addressing the un-even distribution of skills and knowledge.
My Controls
My Rank is supposed to be Director, but in a Developed world Company I’m actually still a Project manager with very little Functional Authority. I don’t mind it, ranks still affect people, even if there is very little behind it. But I’ve Identified my Controls as merely or only Training and Problem Solving. I have the basic problem solving, expected by a Computer Literate generation, and pretty much the Emotional capacity to Listen lolz.
I can’t approve spending because there is no Budget System currently per Department and Division. So all such decisions are delegated to the Top, every time it goes up a level it adds delays and dis-empowers everyone. But to be fair we have no Budget and to have a Budgetting System – for Projects and Departments – is what is needed prior to giving us empowerment.
Before the budget – there are A TON of things that need to be Monitored Efficiently and Easily Audited – Manpower, Skills, Processes, Equipment, Overhead and all Plans and Monitoring that changes any of these elements. My job as more of a Project Manager and Trainer is to cascade the skill to Handle and Juggle the Multitude of Tasks IN A WAY that they can be studied and standardized – aka teach them SCRUM/GTD/PMI-PM documentation.
There are really just Few Controls per person in the Company:
1) Their TIME, where they spend their time and apply their effort and skills.
2) Their Skills and Processes
What Control they are missing are the following:
3) Authority and Accountability over their Work. this is complicated because it needs to have an Efficent means of measuring and reviewing their work. Right now we dont have a way to check – because if we did – our Next Ranked Superiors should be spending their time being a FORCE MULTIPLIER because they’re making the quality of the team they are in-charge of better in quality and output. The company has not learned how to apply Superiors as Force Multipliers and insist on everyone working. They fail to understand that a Team Leader improving the quality of his Team by double (Halves the mistakes) takes away HALF LOST WORK.
3) Authority and Accountability over their Work. this is complicated because it needs to have an Efficent means of measuring and reviewing their work. Right now we dont have a way to check – because if we did – our Next Ranked Superiors should be spending their time being a FORCE MULTIPLIER because they’re making the quality of the team they are in-charge of better in quality and output. The company has not learned how to apply Superiors as Force Multipliers and insist on everyone working. They fail to understand that a Team Leader improving the quality of his Team by double (Halves the mistakes) takes away HALF LOST WORK.
This is a management concept that is covered in MBA, BPM, QA, etc… which we dont really have.
You will be shocked by How much I hear that a Supervisor or Team Leader is considered NOT WORKING if he is not doing the same task as his people – Instead of IMPROVING the output of his people.
The Idea of the Company that Improving his team is being the MVP (most valuable player) and not raising the Output of the TEAM lolz. sigh….
4) Control over Resources greater than the individual. Ever wonder how a Fighter Pilot can be made incharge of $5-100M Jet? How does a gov’t make the Pilot accountable over such an Asset? Thats pretty much the mystery we have in our company. I understand how it works – how a Pilot can be in charge of Such a Large Asset, or a Director incharge of a Departments Budget, but we are FAR FROM THAT. and We are not going come close to that until 400mh (2 years assuming 5mh a week of study, 40weeks a year, 12 weeks lost to SL,VL, Holidays).
That concept transcends equipment and company assets, to BUDGET and Company manhours.
We are a Developing World Company
That means we got here because of Luck and maybe some skill. We’re what you can say 1st Wave companies, 1st Generation. Out of the batch of FIRST WAVE/GEN companies they become big enough that they now struggle against each other – some will win by luck, others will attempt to have some Skill as a Factor.
Many Second Gen Chinese Companies have a generation who studied MBAs abroad. MY family being classic filipino, dreamed of a Life in the US where we can be skilled working or middle class – not business owners or Capitalists. We made no such accommodation and still do not value it – that rejection of Knowledge and Skill can be most tangible in how much time we seek knowledge vs business relationship. We believe business relationship trumps skill – and pretty much they are right – skill has the lowest contributor for success of a business BUT it is the OPTION an INDIVIDUAL has the most control over. I consider Business Relationships seeking 关系 = performing rituals for Good fortune and Luck.
2nd Generation business Failure is mostly the failure to employ the Capital in a Skilled Manner. 3rd generation is typically Institutionalizing its Knowledge and Skills – so that its knowledge sustainable.
I’m the Idiot that who Chose art when the company needed a General lolz.
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