Tag: empowerment

To Strive For Operational Excellence

Analytics is key for any organization to be able to strive for operational excellence and succeed.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/operational-excellence-manifesto-joseph-paris

Came across this blog post on LinkedIn talking about operational excellence. The author provided 5 pieces in the flow of a continual cycle of operational excellence:

  1. Strategic Clarity – Clarify the business model and sources of competitive advantage for each business line
  2. Culture of Excellence – Instill a philosophy of relentless passion for operational improvement
  3. Advantaged Architecture & Process – Design operational architecture, processes and production system to create competitive advantage
  4. Well-Orchestrated Journey – Disaggregate journey into a sequence of digestible pieces driven by real change leaders
  5. Superior Alignment & Execution – Align organization with objectives and reinforce with superior execution

Looking at how we put these ideas into action, here is what I hope the DMAI team can do.

We can continue to look at each business line to make sure its running optimally. Often we focus our energy just on what’s broken, and rarely focus on what’s working. We lost track of the fact that just because its working, doesn’t mean it’s optimal.

We can demand more from people. Allowing mediocrity to become the norm is a sure sign we have lost our passion to improve ourselves and our business.

We can document more. We can share the documentation more. We can use the documentation as a living, evolving part of the business that will keep things innovative and forward looking.

We can set tactical goals. We can reward ourselves to celebrate these successes. And we can use these successes to springboard us to the next tactical goal as we string together success after success towards out ultimate strategic goal. Be the name brand in analytics here in the Philippines.

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We can constantly promote, motivate and empower each other to strive towards operational excellence and never accept operational mediocrity.

We can all get behind the core values of the company, behind our strategic vision and more in unison in our never ending pursuit of operational excellence.

Analytics is the application of using data and analysis to discover patterns in data. DMAIPH specializes in empowering and enabling leaders, managers, professionals and students with a mastery of analytics fundamentals. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to find out what we can do to help you acquire the analytics mastery you and your organization need to be successful in today’s data-driven global marketplace.

Upping Our Game When It Comes To Retention!

I have been putting a lot of thought into DMAI’s team member retention efforts lately. I came across a few articles on one of the HR blogs I follow, http://www.hrinasia.com

“Talent retention is part of the bigger ecosystem of talent management. To solve the challenge of talent management, it takes more than a one-sided solution, but a holistic approach. Hopefully, employers are enlightened to see the bigger picture, and realize the first step to solving talent management challenges begins with themselves.”

Here are some of the high points:

  1. You get three lifelines. Employee engagement, culture, and leadership are lifeline issues. The separation between healthy and successful companies and unhealthy and failing companies always come down to these lifeline issues.
  2. It’s A New World for HR. Human Resources as a function is at a crossroads and must reinvent itself. Technology has forever changed the way we recruit, hire, train, retain and reward our people.
  3. Data Doesn’t Lie. Data is now integral to all decisions HR must make. I can talk all day about the value of analytics in an organization.
  4. Brand Matters. Employees showing the strong link between good company image and talent retention – the better the company image and reputation, the more likely talent is retained.
  5. Remote workers are often happier and more productive. The benefits of having a remote team to the business healthy growth of a company cannot be underestimated. In fact, in majority of cases the advantages outweigh the disadvantages especially when it comes to engagement.

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With this in mind, we conducted a recent survey and found the feeling Valued and Appreciated were more important to more DMAI team members then being Paid Well.

This is not news to me, but it does validate what I thought to be true. We have a lot of work to do to up our game when it comes to retaining our people.

Leadership Lessons from Game of Thrones

5 Leadership Lessons You Can Learn From <i>Game of Thrones</i>

1. “The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.” — Eddard Stark.

Don’t shy away from making tough calls. And just as importantly, do the unpleasant work to follow through. As Ned reminds us, “He who hides behind executioners soon forgets what death is.” Leaders who spend time in the trenches, doing the tough work, will take making tough decisions more seriously. Asking someone to show you what they do, so you can understand it and see their job through their eyes are some examples of this. 

2. “A Lannister always pays his debts.” — Tyrion Lannister

In the workplace, the quickest way to lose respect, and power, is to promise things you can’t deliver. The surest way to get people to do things for you is for them to trust that you will do what you say you will in the future. Leaders follow through on their word. When they say they are going to do something, they do it. This is a big one for me, you have to be consistent in how you lay down the law or you will lose the ability to do so. 

3. “Any man who must say, I am the king, is no true king.” — Tywin Lannister

True power comes from where people believe it comes from. Not from where you say it comes from. The best leaders are followed based on the collective will, not because they say, “I am the boss.” Power and influence, often come from unexpected places. I rarely make a point of whose the boss unless I’m dealing with people who have developed a misguided sense of self worth and importance. 

4. “Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder.” — Littlefinger

Chaotic times reveal a leader’s strength. When times are good, it’s easy to be the leader. Only when chaos reigns, do many leaders rise. Effective leaders aren’t thwarted by challenges. They use challenges to foist them higher. As Littefinger, highlights: “Many who try to climb fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them.” Leaders are not broken. They continue to climb. I just wish more people would see the same way up, instead of worrying so much about falling down. 

5. “Winter is coming.” — House Stark

Leaders remain vigilant. The world is uncertain. The best leaders always innovate, stay strong, and plan for the future. Being prepared for the unexpected is essential. Embrace winter, especially when everyone else is distracted and basking in the sun. I prepare for war everyday, so when there is no battles to fight I can enjoy the peace. 

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Don’t Confuse Leadership with Management

One of the points I try constantly to re-enforce to my DMAI leadership team is that we need to be leaders and not managers.

Managers oversee employees using an old-fashioned, top-down approach to implementing business strategy and achieving production goals.

Leaders inspire and empower team members using educational moments, sharing information and encouraging the team to be accountable to each other.

Given that 90% of DMAI’s team members have experience in the extremely hierarchical BPO industry, it’s often the case where we find ourselves victims to thinking management and not leadership.

To be different, we need to think different. To attract and retain top talent we have to value innovation and out of the box thinking. We can’t let ourselves limit our choices and use gut feel over data-driven decision making.

We need to focus less on titles and more on job functions, we should think of the company leadership not as OM and TS and TL, but as people with names… Irene, Kams, Aren.

I know it is hard to break the culture handcuffs that limit us… but when I am called Boss and not Dan (if you have to, Sir Dan then… but not Boss)… we lose some of what makes DMAI special.   

So my challenge to DMAI, lets stop using management terms that limit us and start encouraging each other to use leadership terms that empower us.

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Empowerment Needs Structure

An Empowering environment is the goal of most companies, but few are able to fully realize it.

Empowerment happens when team members at all levels of the organization feel they have a say in things. Empowered employees feel they have authority to make decisions for the best interest of the customer and for each other.

Empowerment falls short when there is not enough structure in place to ensure that decisions are being made with direction and purpose.

I feel that we have built a pretty good environment that encourages empowerment, but we don’t always have enough structure in place to ensure the empowered decisions are what best for the team and for our customers.

We devoted a half day of training today to discussing ways to add structure to the business to enable more empowerment.

Let’s see how it works.

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