JOB FIT

One of the best discussions we had in class is the Competency assessment. We had an assignment of knowing the competency needed in every department, we also had the final paper about it. I was really amazed on how detailed our professor is doing his work specially on assessing the employee / department of all the company he is handling, because on my case even our company now is starting to build list of competencies needed in every role. They are actually amazed because I already know it and they asked me why and who taught me.

Right now I am assigned to a project of HR System wherein we are automating our payroll system and our time logs. But because of this discussion I think this helped me determining my capstone which is aligning our HR system to HCM’s best practices which includes Competency assessment, aligning organizational structure, creating the best training for employees etc, because every employee wants to know what is their role, where do they belong and also their growth.

Competency assessment had also helped me assess what are my competencies within the organization and also if my competency as an individual connected to the organization / department I belong.

It is a tedious work, but is really helpful once completed, because this will help every individual in the organization know what is expected from them and if in case they do not have yet those skills they know what to improve on.  

You got skills!

There are skills that only I am the only one who knows. We had an assignment regarding the tacit to explicit, which is really challenging for me because I really do not know what are my tacit skills if I can claim it as only me has that skill and the next challenge is how do I convert it to explicit.

I have learned that it is important to document each employee’s skills because that is what the company is investing on, that is what they are paying for. But it is really hard to capture the knowledge of a person, that is why when they leave the company they also had brought with them their knowledge and skill.

Knowledge Management is really important to capture all the skills/knowledge of an employee but as said, KM lacks user involvement and most of the time it is treated as a separate system; which is why most of the time KM is not utilized well.

Until now, I haven’t done my assignment of Tacit to Explicit because I really do not know what Tacit knowledge do I have, but as I was writing this learning logs, I realized my tacit knowledge which I think is the Customer Engagement. Which I think is one of my strengths in the organization, because even though they change me in the organization the relationship I had with everyone will never be the same to the new one. The way I process all request is quite faster because I know all the people involved and knows how to handle them already. 

Good Heart

One of the topics I like is about the transactional analysis, Transactional Analysis is having an idea about person behaviour will also be the guide on how to handle the person.

Based on research what we experience when we were little especially the first 5 years of our life has an effect on who we are today. Understanding background of a person will be a guide on how you will talk or address a person.

They call me miss congeniality in the office because I know most of the employees in the organization, from the guard, janitor, elevator girl to executives, probably because every day I greet too many people in a day. It has become a habit of mine to greet people even on normal days, because a simple Hi or smile to a person in the morning will give effect on their mood for the whole day.

I had a hard time transferring to a new department because of the people I know in every department. It is easy to transfer files/ reports or documents but the relationship you had with other person can never be transferred. I always tell my friends in the office to be nice to all the departments, if you know them, greet them, you will never lose anything if you say Hi to someone because every person wants to be acknowledged. Knowing the person will help you know how to deal with them. For example, I have this friend who is really insensitive, for example there is a private meeting of our VP and a manager, she will be there listening and even commenting, which for us we will exit the room already if we know it is a private conversation right? Since we are friends I told her that it is wrong, but she told me that she is aware of that but because in their family they say what they want to say. Sometimes, she just don’t know when to stop, that’s why every time there are stuff she needs to not say / comment I tell her, we had that understanding until now.

As like what I always say which most of my teammates do not believe because they always say I am still young and haven’t met yet a person who is really bad and will take advantage of you, but I will always believe there is goodness to every person, all you have to do is find that light in their heart and start from there. Quiet corny, but I really believe in that., because no one is born as a BAD PERSON it is just because of their experiences in life that made scars in their heart and was covered with anger but all you have to do is remove that patch, open the wound because wounds heal faster when it isn’t covered 

Love your own!

Be loyal to your own practice and not on the management.

One of the best learning to live by, it is important to know be loyal to your organization by spreading positive inputs about the company. But as an individual, it is a test of character to stand firm about your practice, other people might say your pride is too high but if you really believe on your own practice why change, just because of peer pressure?

Same as what I have experience before in our organization, there will really come a time in every person that they will be put to a test in life. There was this time that I was asked to do a report and I was asked to just follow the format that my other teammate had done. So I checked my colleagues work and found out that some of the details are missing and some computations are exaggerated. Because it was an event post report, I notice that what my teammate did was she exaggerated the numbers to make the sales higher. I didn’t ask my boss about the details in the report because this might cause trouble for my teammate so what I did is I made the report to the way that I know that the report should be made. I did ask my teammate afterwards she said that she made it that way so that our boss will support again her events.

It is important to know what is good or bad in every situation, but what you believed in might not be the same as what others think. It is okay to be open to new learning but what you believe in or what you are practicing must not be judged by others even the management.

Let your yes be a yes!

Based on the discussion there are 4C’s of leadership

·         Character

·         Competence

·         Concern

·         Communication

I can relate this to my experience at work, I had a boss who lacks the Concern, imagine we are only asked for 8 hours of work, but this boss will never require you just 8, if you are about to go home she will tell you DO NOT go home yet, well as for me it is okay if it really is work, but most of the time she just doesn’t want you to go home, because she doesn’t want to go home yet the reason is she is having chikka with other people. The saddest part is that she lives near our house even if she asked you to stay late like until 9-10pm she doesn’t even offer you for a ride home. The positive point with her is that she really excels in Communication. She is approachable, knows how to build coalitions and interactive and once you are her subordinate she will back you up in case other department is pointing you.

Now I have my new boss, she is tactless to others but when it comes to her team she is very supportive. I cannot help but compare both of them most people are asking me how my new boss is, because she is known as one of the tactless person in the office. She’s the niece of the President, others think that maybe it is because of that which is why she is tactless. But ones you know her she is different. Even if everyone knows that she’s the niece, she never use it to be powerful over others. She has competence, concern, character and knows how to communicate which will even inspire her team because of her wit.

Politics is everywhere but the leaders are the one who brings in politics in the organization, if the leader doesn’t believe in politics then I guess there will no longer be politics in the team or organization, decisions will be justified.

Being a leader is applicable to everyone, not just because you are the VP, the Manager or CEO because there will come a time that someone has to step up and lead a team, it may not be in the office, at home or even in the mall depending on the circumstance. The challenge is you must know how to lead the team and be able to remember the 4Cs to have an effective leadership. 

Not just different, UNIQUE!

The class had a discussion about Susie Wong, which in reality is common in every organization. But, in order to solve such cases, companies must be able to set the right criteria and be transparent in showing this measure, so that promotion of employees in the organization will be justified. It is easier to train a person low on technical skills than the behavioural.

Every individual is unique!  It is important for companies to know the need of its employees, so that this need will be the motivational point of the person. This will be helpful in making employees productive. Every individual has a different need depending on the circumstances that they are in.

Aldefer’s ERG theory will be helpful in motivating an employee because I believe every person goes through this theory. Organizations must know if the individual’s need is Existence which is usually the basic need (food, shelter, clothing), next is the Relatedness or the sense of belongingness or feeling good about themselves based on what others think about them; and finally Growth, or the personal growth and development of a person by doing meaningful work.

It is best to know the need of your team for you to know how to motivate them to work and help achieve the goal of the company. Because every individual is an investment of the company and that being said Human is part of the Capital of the organization because of their skills and abilities, which needs to be taken care of for it to be fully utilized. 

Chapter 2

After three weeks in class it is now the end of the term. The topic I liked the most is CSF or the Critical Success Factor. CSF is one of the most essential part in supporting objective. In doing my final paper, I really had a hard time pinpointing on the CSF since my objective is about growth. 

My company's first objective 1) build 100 stores in 3 years and 2) acquire brands 

at first I thought of CSF that in order to know that the built stores is a success then the store must attract people and customers. Come to think of it, that might be correct right? So I asked opinion from my mom (hehe) if it is correct, so I was told that it was not so she gave me this scenario: 

• So you've built buildings, and you said that the CSF was to attract customers, what if yes you've attracted customers, but all of them, let's say 100 customers are only buying a "pin" for their bag which let's say cost 50 pesos? So will that be enough to say that the stores you've built is a success? 

So that made ​​me think! So I changed my objective. CSF is really important because what if I focused on attracting customers and yet it does not have profit!  That is why I liked this topic a lot, because this really makes you think twice. CSF in definition is just a factor that will define your organization's success but when you are about to write it down it is really hard! but the good part about it is when you've finally discovered all your CSF the  TO DO  part becomes easier to fill in because the answer to the IT needs already lies between your CSF! 

This term I've met new friends! And the most fun part is that Elia and Ricky unexpectedly became my teammates! because we are all absent during the first meeting. (hehe)  We seldom meet, we usually email each other but when it comes to group work presentation we did pretty good (CEB PAC and PAL) Maybe because we are allowed to express all our thoughts without hesitations to the team and Kuya Ricky is really a good team leader he really listens to our suggestions, I think maybe that's the trick that's why we usually give good report. He also gives us time to participate and report! and the most fun part there is that I felt less stressed doing the group work! because no one is really into grades but into learning. It's like being in a coffee shop having an intellectual / crazy conversation with friends, exchanging thoughts and then POOF! there is the best idea and work made. :) 

Yellow Path

Our professor had discussed strategic analysis to us, as said Strategic Planning has four elements:

• The What (what the organization does and what they want to achieve)
• The Present (current state of the organization)
• The Future (Is what you want to be)
• The How (how you would achieve it)

In addition, there is a so called "Earl's Three pronged Approach" which will help address the organization's problem.

1. Inside Out
2. Bottom-Up
3. Top-Down

As part of the discussion what I liked most is the topic about critical success factor (CSF), because like in the Wizard of Oz, this is the yellow path, which will be the organization's guide on which one should be the focus of the organization this will help on how the objectives of the organization must be done. CSF is different from our office in the KRA, KRA CSF and help the organization focus on the important areas that must be done well in order to achieve the objective of the organization. CSF helps the members of the organization perform their work in the right context and pull everyone towards the same overall goals.

Books of Learning

The class where given the task assigned to provide 5 books relating to strategy and based on the discussions given by the class most of my classmates had presented about teamwork and leadership. In line with this, I have concluded that a best strategy will not work unless :

·         The organization as a whole is committed

·         The organization is guided by the right leader

·         And of course, must be aligned with the team / organization's objective.

For me, teamwork is one of the most important parts of the company but each member must clearly know what you goal is. Like what Mike discussed about 5 dysfunction of a team:

To these different levels may bring chaos to the team and eventually may result to poor performance and will affect business.  Communication is the key to build relationships within team members and this will ensure success in any goal of the organization 

With this activity that we have done in class, really liked it, because it had added learning and inspires me to read books again. Also, the frameworks shared to us will also help in our decision making throughout our organization. I hope we have this kind of activity again to keep us updated.

Battlefield

Giving a scenario, you are about to be sent into a battlefield, what do you check first? Isn't it you first check your weapon? Check if your weapon has bullet / arrow / is sharp? Then you check the threats within the area and check where the best place you will probably survive? Just like in a business when you are entering a business / industry you need to first check your own business to know if you are really ready, then check the threats that may harm your business and for your business to move ahead than your competitors. I have learned through this topic weaknesses that must be addressed immediately especially if these weaknesses is a great factor for the threats that may harm your business.

The opportunities and threats are external factors of the business which includes analyzing your competitors and the environmental factors that may hinder your business to progress. Just like the scenario after you've analyzed your position is and where you are entering this battlefield will lead you to strategize and know your game plan.

But in business as I learned during the discussions your strength is not a strength if your competitor is also the same. SWOT analysis gives you a map or guide that prepares you on what may come and if you are prepared to face those trials.

In business what you have today may have been outdated or will have no effect on your future thus, swot analysis must be a continuous activity that should be done by the company. 

Life Cycle

Product Life Cycle

Similar to a human life cycle, humans started as infant wherein a person is still learning its way to the world. In this phase, a person is still collecting all its knowledge about life. Then here comes the teen stage, wherein some learning gained is put to use. Then adolescence stage, that mostly we have achieved maybe not all but most of the experiences and there are two options, either we stop on what we already have then eventually retire, or venture into new learning / experiences.

All things come to an end, but the ending will depend on the choices we want to be the ending. So we either stop or we continue to improve / move forward. Like what we had during our presentation Cebu Pacific vs. Philippine Airlines, when you're strategy is the niche market it does not need to directly compete with your competitors but you can instead focus on your strategy and improve it. Though sometimes when you're in a market focus it gives you smaller room to improve.

Green Apple

As discussed in class, competitive advantage is an advantage over competitors by offering either lower price point of by providing product / services with greater benefits that will justify the price of the product.

In addition, a competitive advantage must be something that is hard to be copied or will require money / high investment and also take time for it to be done - so it will be considered as a competitive advantage.

Based with KISSmetrics, there are certain guidelines in differentiating your company from competitors, these are:

•      Partnerships - partnerships or alliances is one of a great competitive advantage because this will help a company a greater reach to their market / consumers and at the same time not only the products but also the partnership itself must be competitive.      
• .      Make sure the differentiating quality is something people want. - Make sure what you're investing on is what people need / wants. Hence, this will require the need of knowing your market / end-consumers.
•     Focus - Focus not only on the product but focus on one specific area in your product, collect inputs from team and little by little this will end up giving better results.

Knowing your competitive advantage must be done in the beginning before a company enters into a market. A company must know who their competitors are and why consumers should choose you over the other.

In knowing your edge over competitors is easier for a company to fight in a battle, so you'd know which factor / characteristic you must focus on.

Differentiation is linked with innovation.

Finale

It's been a great experience being at APC, best experience so far. The class is great! Each one has their unique talent and the professors were funny and were like our mentors. Bonding with everyone is a learning experience for me because of their thoughts and experiences in the IT world is a totally different thing from what I am doing right now, and it inspires me to be in the same field as they all are. 

But as said by one of our professor "Just enjoy and learn from the journey" I believe that the journey is as important as my destination. So often, I was focused on the finish line that I should be able to graduate no matter what and sometimes I already forgot that I should also be enjoying. Though, sometimes enjoying is hard when you know you really can’t cope up.

I guess the best learning that I have gained that no books can offer is to know the importance of experiences versus things written from the book. Book can offer all the terminologies the scenarios. But it is always different when someone you know told you their own experience.

Like Kuya Mike, talked to their boss about their proposal and forced everyone to listen because of the frameworks he had learned from the class and had proven that it was true. No books can tell that Kuya Riki is good at encoding and that we is the administrator of ‘”boycarr” app in the appstore. Little things I have learned but great things to be treasured. I guess for now it is not a goodbye for APC, but a see you soon.

I wanted to be of great help with the class same as Kuya Gem, Roger, Rolan, Mike1 and Mike2, giving also experiences they have gained. One thing I have learned is being ready first before entering a battle. J I guess, today is not yet the right time, I have to gain more experience so I will be able to grasp all the learning taught in class. Next time, I promise to be of great contribution to everyone and be able to understand all the sharing in class. J

Life is about building experiences, that’s why for now I will build first my experiences and also be of great help to everyone and be able to share also my experiences.

The new wealth of the organization, understanding the organization, customer satisfaction and all the best practices those things I will keep. Especially the social media tools which I can really use for now at my current job.

I THANK you for all the learning and the sharing of each and every ones experience.  

Technology is Changing - Reports

Part of the course is picking the best practices used by the organization, and I was assigned to Distribution Channel’s best practices. Honestly, I thought it is an easy topic but it isn’t, it is different from the distribution channel that I’ve learned way back in college. So I first thought distribution channel is more of the value chain or process in delivering the product or service to the consumer. But this time, the topic isn’t about the value chain but more on the IT value chain, which is different more technical for me.

In research of the report I’ve learned about EDI or the Electronic Data Interchange it is an automated data interchange with other companies, these help the departments within the organization and also the end consumer track down the status of its product/document. This also gives view to the consumer about their request.

Because of the vast improvement on the technology today, it gives consumers and organizations quicker response to the consumer needs, but because of this also, consumer is becoming more demanding and for some organization it a higher threat for the switching of the consumers to the competitors. Since, most of the systems nowadays are through online it lack the face-to-face and eye contact which is one of the huge nonverbal reminders that may be meaningful for the organization, which is why I believe it would be better to combined the traditional system to the high-tech solution used nowadays.

In addition to the report I did was that today systems are being executed to machines hence, producing robots to ease the process and efficiency of the worker. Like what is now being used by Amazon in storing their products they use KIVA Systems, a machine that is built to organize and deliver the products to the worker and be able to make workers be efficient/multi-task.

That is why, with all these reports given, if these system can track your products or services, the next will be tracking down the consumer: “What will now happen to the privacy of us consumers and to the security of our information”

Customer First

Case Studies are fun! It really challenges our thinking and also reasoning skills, I guess it will be better if the subject has more of that to be able to contribute ideas with the class. I learned that there are a lot of different practices that companies make. Sometimes, these practices evolve to something better because of the challenges that the company or organization faces. But as said, there are no such thing as BEST practice, because when everybody is already doing the practice then I guess that is no longer the best but instead it becomes a standard, having the best practice depends on the organization on how they will develop/innovate the standard practice in order to make it more efficient.

The challenge on my part is that I am still part of the rank-and-file unlike some of the people in class they are already on top level which most of the time differs our reasoning. When you are already at the top level you are more of the tactical unlike the lower management you are more into the operational side of things, which is sometimes do not link with the company’s objective because I view things differently. I’ve read in a book before, “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” While discussing with the team on our case study, our opinion depends on what we are now, like the experiences, the knowledge you’ve already gained and sometimes the position you are already in affects our reasoning.

But to summarize, all of our case studies are about customers and giving them satisfaction. Customers are the bloodline of a business, without customers the organization would not exist. During my college days we are taught that it is not enough to meet what the customer wants but to always surpass their expectation. But when you are working, in a business world surpassing customer expectation is costly for the business and sometimes you need to assess first the cost of services versus the return to the business. I think it is true to that we should give total customer experience but not always, sometimes it is better to give customer the element of surprise, because the nature of a person is that they are never contented and they will only expect more from your company, rather than giving it to them from time to time. Just like a friend of mine said. You shouldn’t give flowers to girls every time you have a monthsary/anniversary because once you missed one occasion that’ll be war for the two parties. J

Measure in Business

“If you cannot measure you cannot improve, you can only make mistake once, twice is stupidity” – a line given by Sir Jerald 

Which is really striking. With that, I believe everything can be measured either qualitative or quantitative, it only depends on the criteria you are giving. For example, the happiness of a customer, that can be measured depending on what kind of happiness of his you want to measure happiness on the service or product? Happiness as an individual?  Happiness in the family? That is why you give criteria or set your objectives so you would know what to improve on and measure what matters to your company. If for example, you want to know if the customer is happy with your service, will you give him questions “is the weather nice today?”of course not, instead you will ask questions that matter to you and answers you expects like “are the sales associates hospitable/friendly?” “would you want the sales associate to be friendly?”I believe, it is just a matter of knowing what criteria to make in order to assess the qualitative aspects and I believe that sometimes it is better to combined the two in order to get a more in depth data.

I’ve read in an article that Measurement is the religion in the business world, because we all love to measure things, because it makes us feel that we are really doing something. Sometimes these measurements are what we use to show people on the top management the performance / effect of what we are doing.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2014/02/10/if-you-cant-measure-it-you-cant-manage-it-is-bs/

There’s nothing wrong in measuring, because for me it is assuring that you are able to meet your objectives and giving you idea/s on what to improve on. 

First Day at APC

BACK TO SCHOOL AGAIN?

It’s the first day of class and I liked it. On my observation, the class is a younger than I expected, before I entered the class I really thought that most of my classmates were a lot older than me. Though, when we had a get-to-know each other part, I felt a little pressured because most of my classmates were really graduates of Information Technology and all are working on the IT industry. But, I already know that the course will require me a lot of effort to grasp all the terminologies that we will be discussing.

An assignment was given to us, which is like a test of our belief. The funny part is that, some of the terms are new to me that is why I need to google it first before knowing what it really is. Sometimes I already know the word but I still googled the term to check if it is really correct. But after discussing the assignment, I learned that some ideas cannot be “googled” because sometimes terminologies are different to the reality, which is why some of our answers are wrong.

There was this question that really gave me that “AHH!” and that was the question “Should CIO report to CFO” and I analyze it literally and thought the word report was only about telling or discussing but latter knew it was about being under or being a subordinate. With that I knew that there are a lot I really need to work on, since I am a marketing graduate and not working in an IT field and that is a really big challenge for me and experiences really differs when you analyze situations.

The positive outcome is that I am learning a lot from my professor and classmates; like the nature of their work, the stuff that they do and their experiences which I really think is fun and is something new. It helps me build friends and at the same time gain learning through their experiences. The subject organizational management is not actually more on the bookish side but you will actually learn on the experiences shared by everyone, which I think is more realistic and effective than what is written in the book.