The Story of a LETTER (E-MAIL, SNAIL MAIL OR WHATNOTS)
the Boss (Part 1)
To:
jay_bon@generixcorp.com
From: samdol_li@generixcorp.com
Subject: Feedback
My Dear Great Boss and Guru and Mentor (The
other 2 titles are the ones you insisted that the employees call you),
It has been 5
years since I joined Generix as an Management Trainee and as you would probably
remember that I was posted, to the Operations division, immediately after the
induction and orientation training.
Coming to close
to four and a half years in the division, I have learned a lot from everyone in
the division and the company, and you particularly, in the different aspects of
the business, management, leadership, supervision, relationships and everything
else. I had ample, more than ample rather, experience in those areas and they
had been very enlightening, very enlivening and gosh if only my former
classmates know about these. Even the college, and my professors and all the education
did not prepare me for them, least of all the company induction.
As you probably
know, I attended the induction and orientation training during my initial few
months in the company, of which all trainees attended immediately upon joining
the company.
We were
introduced to the corporate mission and vision, shared values, Generix’s
aspirations, organizational structure, policies, rules and regulations
governing the company’s activities, the strategic direction of Generix. We were
also introduced to the quality systems, methodologies, and the various support
and business division managers welcomed and briefed us of their operations.
These created images in our mind of the challenges, experiences, learning, new
education and adventures that awaits us trainees. Being greenies fresh out of college we were
eager to go and give a good fight, bring forth our ideas and passion to the
workplace. The career counselor in college never told us most of what I had
experienced here.
We embarked on
on-the-job training and being rotated through the various divisions during the
induction to give us a better picture of what were in store before we had our
permanent postings.
And after
hearing and seeing and experiencing these for many months, we had out first
postings. All of us trainees, I spoke to my peers, were greatly inspired by the
vision, mission and aspirations as spoken and shared by our dear CEO. We
realized that living the corporate shared values would post many a great
challenge to many of us, especially being new graduates, but we know the values
are great and they would help us trainees and everyone else to function better.
The trainees
came to Generix full of ideas and energy to contribute, not just our physical
self, but mentally and spiritually too. We sensed that we had chosen the right
company to work for and we knew that it was the right decision to accept the
employment offer extended to us.
So here I am,
after 5 years. There were 30 of us trainees who came on board, and now there are
only 15 of us left. I guess some of my peers could not take the challenges thrown
to them; they don’t have the stamina and the guts and grit to stare these
challenges straight into the eyes and take the bull by its horns, so to speak.
Such softies! After all, they pledged their loyalty come what may, and at the
first glance of hardship they ditched Generix.
I would say that
it had been a very challenging period in the Operations and more so by being in the company. What more with the
changes in the market place, customers demands and needs, economic changes,
regulatory changes, political scenario, with more and more players coming into
the market place. I guess the greatest challenge is when we are competing
against competitors who have the political connections and that often made us
have our own political masters. Maybe that would make our clients’ administrators
to have a more favorable view of our business proposals, and be kind when we are facing our own challenges during the
implementation of our business projects.
My dear boss, I
truly appreciate those challenges that I had encountered and thrown to me
during these last many year, of which I would not have gotten if I had not opted
to join Generix. It had made me wiser, much wiser than the green horn of a
graduate I was five years ago. Whatever I had learned and going to learn, I
would want to accredit you and your peers for the insights and experiences.
Those things that I saw and observed, those were said and done by the Senior
Management, really and truly opened my eyes. Whatever that I had learned in
college did not prepare me for them. I really feel that the colleges need to
update the text books used to teach the students. The Senior Management really
set an example to all of us, and in fact I think it can become a standard for
all of us to emulate. I would suggest to everyone that these experiences to be
documented and taught to new inductees, as what I saw happening are the total
opposite to what were taught to us five years ago and every year to new
inductees. A new standard! Best practices and a new bar height to clear.
What I was asked
and told to do, also served as a platform for learning, particularly your
instructions and suggestions my dear boss, again an invaluable experience not
taught in school. Experiences that I never would have gained should I had
chosen to go elsewhere to start my career.
From that
beefing up of the expense claims, to the gifts that I was asked to buy for our
client’s executives, to the hiding and destroying of documents, those were new
experiences.
Don’t forget the
time when you told me to agree to the CEO’s ideas even though it was in total
contradiction to company policy and common sense. Thanks for the experience,
the CEO loved that moment.
I am taking a break now; I will continue writing in a
while.
Dear boss, maybe
what I can do is to share with you a few highlights of the 5 years in Generix,
some of those moments that molded me into the person I am today. Those moments
that I bet had been experienced by many of the Senior Managers, your peers,
which made them the successful people they are today. The same moments that
almost everyone went through in Generix, and made Generix the company it is
today.
What comes to
mind almost immediately was the performance appraisal at the end of each year. At
the beginning of every year, the company announced the annual targets. You, as
our beloved leader would also announce, sometimes, of our divisional targets.
And what occasionally happened was that, you would assign our Key Performance
Indicators (we sometimes call it KPI), of which we were supposed to achieve
during the year and used to measure our performances. I find that the KPI were
refreshing, and clear in the sense that it provided me with what I must focus
on and achieve and how I can measure my own performance without having to be told
about it. In fact I can say all the times the KPIs handed down to us was
without consultation and discussions with us, how we felt empowered by them,
how we became so passionate, even energized by those KPIs because we sensed
that you knew what we were capable of
During the
respective years when the KPIs were announced, most of the times I realised
that we departed from them, diverting our attention and resources from what we
initially agreed upon. I believed that it was a necessity, you as the Head of division
would know better, that you envisioned the KPIs need to be changed because of
the economic and political climate changing. Sometimes it changed several times
in a year, but the documented, agreed upon KPI never changed. Many times, they
changed because you felt that the strategic directive set by the CEO was not
correct and somehow not aligned to your views. Many times the KPIs changed
simply because you did not like them. How I am glad and appreciate the fact
that I have a smart and visionary Boss.
During the
performance appraisal itself, when I brought my KPI document for your appraisal
against my achievements and performance, I realized that there were some
criteria that I did not understand or fulfilled. Take example, in the first
year I was with the division when you appraised me. You mentioned that I had
all but achieved everything that was stated in the KPI. But unfortunately you could
not rate me the rating that I deserved because, as you put it, “You are being a
friend to a person I don’t like.” So you correctly rated me as underperforming.
I admit that it was a mistake on my part for not really understanding and seeking
clarification on my KPI.
Sometimes, in
the following years, you would highlight things like “I don’t like the way you
do your work,” “You did not check with me before you started,” “I had done this
many times, so I should know better,” “I should know better because I am the
boss,” “Because you did not agree with me during the meeting,” and some other
remarks as reasons for not rating me as I performed against the KPI. I guess I
need to learn how to anticipate your unspoken rules, to gauge how you feel, and
to always agree with you—being the unspoken part of the KPI for me to comply. I
extend my apologies for not understanding your standard requirements.
Another major
learning experience was office politics. Being the person I was, I always
thought that politics was part of the system to choose our government, the
ruling party, and also in the campus when we voted to select the representative
to the student bodies. I had voted in the general election twice in my
lifetime. And I always voted the candidate who had said the many things that he
would do to improve our lives. It was similar when I was in college, the
candidates promised us lots of things. I wonder whether all those things promised
did get done or not, what with everyone being busy in parliament and simply had
no time to implement them. They were being busy playing politics. What I didn’t
know was that politics can also be played in the office.
But it was tough
initially because I expected us to cast votes, but thanks to you I now know
that it is not like that to play office politics. How ignorant of me. From what
I observed, everyone is expected to do what are the most popular things as
opposed to the rightful things to be done. If we were popular enough the
decision making process would be simpler. For example in the many meetings that
I attended, I saw that the more popular action items or plans would get the
most support, what more when the ideas were mooted by those who were popular.
If you remember
the instance during the management meeting that I attended with you, the issue
of tardiness needed to be addressed. Amongst the proposed ideas were to issue
warning letters and take disciplinary actions onto the tardy persons, another
idea mooted was to implement flexible working hours to accommodate those who
need to be in the office later, another idea was to give incentives to those
who are on time. Finally the idea adopted was to let them be, because as said
by one of the Senior Managers was that, “We are also late most of the time, so
it take action that would include us.” So a decision was made based on
safeguarding the needs of the few, who included the senior managers, and these
seemed to be popular.
Another incident
with regards to the office politics, was when people decided to support the
idea of the CEO even though fundamentally it was wrong, illegal and immoral and
against one of the Core Values of Generix i.e. Integrity, like paying for the
expenses of a client’s decision maker’s overseas vacation trip with his family.
Nobody in the senior management spoke against the idea, for not wanting to be
on the bad side of the CEO.
I guess the
learning point here is that, as junior officers we need to be on the good side
of our bosses, otherwise it would jeopardize our livelihood, salary increments,
bonuses, and career advancements. It’s also about doing the popular things with
the people in the company, otherwise the staff would not like you and you would
have affected the 360o appraisal.
Another
experience that I want to relate was about when we were hit with a decline in
performance over the last 3 financial years. In the annual kick-off earlier
this year that held in a hotel, instead of our building courtyard (I thought we
had to be prudent in our spending, but it’s a popular decision anyway), the CEO
in his kick-off speech laid out all the targets and strategies for us to
achieve and act on. Towards the end of the event the CEO mentioned that the
decline in business was solely because we did not execute of projects and
served our clients well. This caused withdrawal of client’s confidence and
affecting our business relationships.
Finally the CEO stated
that the staff was solely responsible for the cause of the decline. The senior
management was in no part a party to the decline as the day to day interaction
with the clients were by us the line managers.
By the end of
the 1st hour of the speech many of us were worried and fretting
about the jobs that need to be attended to. By 2nd hour many of us
are in dire need for a break, biological, nicotine breaks and the likes. On 3rd
hour of the speech many of us were already hungry. I wonder how many of us
actually paid any attention to the raving and ranting that lasted for 4 hours.
But I guess that we were just not sophisticated enough.
The strategies
were not executed well by the staff, after being articulated by the management.
The staff somehow or other were fools for not understanding the strategies
enough to translate them into execution. I guess that we the stars, as was
mentioned during the inductions, were just not smart enough to understand the
strategies enough to execute them. Somehow these stars had become fools over
their tenure of service. I humbly regret for our non performance.
The staff also
failed to execute on the goals after all the trainings and mentoring done by
the respective managers. They failed to execute after the total and absolute
empowerment by their managers, the managers totally let the staff on their own
to decide on things and do the things they need to do.
And when advice
and counsel were sought, the empowering managers just said to the staff, “You
are empowered, so do the needed.” However after the deeds were done, the
managers come back to the staff questioning the decisions made, turn around the
decisions made and implemented. I guess as staff we do not receive empowerment
well. Somehow the word I am looking for is not empowerment but abandonment that
was how I felt anyway. But who cares about how I feel.
Another effect
of the business downturn, and as announced by the CEO during the kick-off was
that we, the staff, will not be accorded any salary increments and bonuses.
Should there be any promotions; these would be without any salary increments or
adjustments. Things will be reinstated once things are back to normal or
better.
I guess when
times are bad; we need to make the necessary sacrifices. But what I liked best
was, a few days prior to kick-off the CEO and the President took delivery of
new company cars, Mercedes S Class. I guess each would cost more than RM 980,000
(approx. US$ 1 = RM 3.60) each, although I bet the CEO’s Merc would be more
expensive given his position. I guess in bad times, there is always a bit more
money to squeeze to reward the managers for all the hard work they put to strategize
and lead the company. It was us who failed to translate those strategies. Thus,
new company cars as rewards for the effort to strategize, and us not rewarded
for failure to execute. Anyway after spending for the new cars, where is the
money for anything else anyway.
Another best
part of my learning experience was about our corporate vision, mission, and
core values. I attended a training workshop about leadership roles and
effectiveness, on your suggestion. As you indicated that I need some leadership
and effectiveness training, to be an effective leader and effective in my
people management. I remembered the statement made by the trainer that an effective
organization would harness the energy of its people by the passion and desire
of the people around the corporate vision and mission. When they are clear and
aligned to them, and work towards the vision and mission as different
individuals in a whole organization. And in their day to day behaviors and in
their dealings with all the stakeholders and towards each other, they would
behave in the winning behavior as indicated and demanded by the corporate
values.
I saw an
entirely different behavior and entirely different focus compared to the
corporate values and vision and mission. People particularly the managers
behaved in ways that are breaking the corporate values. These values as I
understand them were mooted by the management in your management retreat and
then endorsed and implemented. I listened and heard you and the other senior
managers demanding the staff to behave as described by the values. At the same
time, it seemed that the senior management are excluded from them. I guess by
now I should already understand that the rules were made to make us staff toe
the line, we had not been performing as demanded of us. I guess that after all
the hard work to come up with the values, you all deserve the break from toeing
the values. By the way, I don’t understand the meaning of the word “integrity”
as stated in our corporate values. Maybe one day when you have the time and
inclination you can explain the values to us, instead of just telling us to
check the meaning in the dictionaries.
The other thing is
about corporate vision and mission. When I came in Generix, we had about 500
people and now after 5 years we have close to 1,000 people, double the
population over the 5 years. I thought the population growth has got to do with
business growth but again I am just a fool. The other day I met a staff from
the Corporate Planning division, who happened to be the CEO’s nephew.
Another guy in
the Gen Extreme project team so happened to be the son of the President’s
friend, and he made no secret of that fact. I was a business meeting with a
subsidiary company, whose CEO is the son-in-law of one of our directors. One of
our senior managers has his wife work in one of the project teams. I also know
the fact that some other people are the village folks of the CEO and other
senior managers. With all the family members and friends I would hazard a guess
getting people to align themselves towards the vision, mission and values would
be much easier given the fact that they have close ties. I think being a public
listed company does allow us to run our business just like a private enterprise.
Oh I digressed! I wanted to talk the values just now. We, at Generix have core
values. Other companies have them. We are as great as a company as the other
great companies. We have vision and mission and core values and so do them.
The other day,
the Organizational Change Management (OCM) team embarked on, what else,
organizational change initiatives. All of us staff we required to attend a half
day briefing on the change initiatives that Generix is embarking on. One of the
initiatives was on organizational core values, and one of the core values that
I liked pretty much was this thing called ‘Openness.’
The Leader of
the OCM indicated that Openness is expected from everyone. This is a form of
getting ideas on how to improve, to get staff involvement and buy-in, and to garner
feedback to create better relationships amongst all the people in Generix. So
he explained what constitute an open communication, which everyone can
generally talk about anything, pass comment and ideas and suggestions, to
everyone as long as we are not attacking and being able to be sensitive. So a
staff can advise his or her boss on what can be right or wrong or proper,
provide opinion or ideas upwards, we can communicate directly to the CEO and
give our comments besides the traditional top-down communication.
And many of us
did just that, giving our opinion and being candid in our communication, as
defined as being opened. But what as surprise to many of us, as when we were
being candid, many of our bosses, you included, had said that our feedback were
not welcomed, not relevant, not made with proper analysis, not with the right
kind of experience and lots more. But then again, just like I said earlier, we
juniors are not as smart as you guys. Some of my friends were even ‘black
listed’ by their bosses, which I think was the right thing to do. They were
just not smart enough to keep their mouth shut. So therefore now the ‘Openness’
thing is still alive and well, from the boss to the staff, top-down.
Boss, I know
that my e-mail is very lengthy, but what the heck I got a lot to talk about, I
have the time anyway, about the wonderful times and experiences those 5 years
can give one person. About being wiser and becoming a better staff.
Another thing I
want to talk about is about the purchasing of our projects’ equipment. The
procurement procedures, based on the quality management system endorsed by the
Quality Council, had approved of the creation of the ‘Approved Vendors List’
(AVL). The purpose of the AVL, among others was to ensure that purchases
were/are made through vendors who are qualified to be in AVL, by meeting the
technical standards/criteria set by the various technical groups. This would
ensure that the vendors not only are qualified to supply us with goods that of
assured quality but they would also be qualified to provide us with the
necessary technical services.
The AVL was to
provide us with the comfort of knowing that the vendors and suppliers are readily
compliant to our standards and thus ensuring our projects and initiatives would
run smoothly barring glitches other than the technical ones. Recently the
Generix Techno project submitted a request to purchase several sets of Gizmo Kna
Tpu-2, which as indicated by the AVL were provided by Alley Barba Inc, Bore
Hong Sdn. Berhad, and Gully Lore Bang Berhad. The project manager submitted the
request to the procurement department for the said hard ware to be purchased
from anyone of the qualified vendors. Several days later a vendor from Mare
Mang Tuck De Inc, delivered the required quantity of Gizmo MMG Tpu-1. First of
all the, Gizmo MMG Tpu-1 is an older model of the Tpu-2, it does not fully meet
the required technical requirement as specified and needed by the Generix
Techno project.
Based on the
performance standard it functioned at best at less than 50% the speed of and
40% accuracy compared to the Tpu-2. Mare Mang Tuck De Inc, is not listed in the
AVL, they were once in the AVL but was de-listed due to several severe breaches
of rules and standards and providing sub-standard after-sales service. I spoke
to the procurement officer concerned about this and was told that he was
directed by ‘someone upstairs’ to proceed with the procuring of the Gizmo from
Mare Mang Tuck De. What the heck the technical team did not know their stuff
until it required the intervention of someone upstairs to move along.
Dear boss, I
will end my letter now but I want to continue later with these items below,
among others.
·
Training
·
Empowerment
·
Time management
So have a great
day.
Samdol Li
Senior Deputy
Assistant II Manager
visit me at scribd.com - rutz.zainal
