High Tech and High Touch

Last week, a friend of mine dropped me an email tagged with a subject of “why to move”. He attached a long quote and a (seemed-to-be) book review on why that people leave a company. The guy, was before working with me, seems to be a little bit at the cross road of his career – or his current job to be precise.

One of the books mentioned caught my attention. First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, working for the Gallup Organization, published first in 1999 (?). The book is the culmination of over 80,000 interviews conducted by Gallup during the past 25 years. It definitely provides quite a solid reference. “What do the most talented employees need from their workplace?” Gallup surveyed over a million employees from a broad range of companies, industries, and countries. The most powerful discovery was this: Talented employees need great managers. The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.

I replied to my friend that it seems to be true. He responded back that it’s very true, not just seems to be true. OK, well noted. As it goes on saying, people resigns to leave the manager, not the company. Ironically, good guys most frequently end up with having bad bosses. A quoted survey from Fortune revealed that 75% of employees are suffering from difficult bosses.

In a war for talent, companies compete to find and keep the best employees. It goes beyond just monetary benefits. I realized that even having a good coach is not enough, although it’s quite a foundation before anything else. Years ago, I had a technically bright talented guy working for us. He resigned because of the job was mostly doing “technical housekeeping” dealing with old technologies. He wanted to pursue something more exciting in touch with “tomorrow technologies” as not to make his skill obsolete. Nowadays, with a new generation of bright young people coming from the market and schools, having been “living through daily routines with fancy technologies around”, it would becoming more apparent that technology-friendly workplace is a necessity to keep them stay and productive. A CEO once I was working for required me to ensure that all engineers, and virtually all employees, in the company get access to the Internet and just keep on monitoring its proper use. In contrast, in some other different environments of equal financially strong companies, the Internet is open only to those with very strong justifications.

Turning employees’ talent into lasting performance is still a big challenge for leaders. Numbers, targets, and bottom lines do communicate, but not enough to capture the heart as to get people moved to passionately work for excellence. A very long ago, as a manager I was drafting a memo for my Vice President to address some important issues to all VPs in the company. Once finished and OKed, I asked my boss as to who should broadcast the email distribution from, as I supposed that it would be issued from him to all VPs. He simply said that let it be issued from and by you, adding with a smile that “you are already at the same level with them”. It might be just a little from his part, yet had a psychologically profound positive impact to me considering his sincerity. In contrast, there was a case whereby a big boss drafted a memo ready for his manager to sign and issue. He might intend to help. But to a talented, senior people, it was discouraging.

The driving force behind great corporate performance is talented people working with passion for excellence with an engaged heart. Quoting Dr. Jim Harris in Getting Employees to Fall in Love with Your Company, today’s great managers capture the hearts of their employees thru focusing on three strategies: Live a compelling vision, Balance work and family, Celebrate and have fun.

High tech and high touch. A I-have-a-dream motivation meets with a platinum technology exposure.

The World of Prejudice

A friend of mine forwarded an email attached with 9 cartoon pictures of a bit sarcastic (?) jokes. The picture illustrates a monk sitting with an osario, as trying to depict a wise-man addressing his preach or words of wisdom. While the jokes can end our day with a smile, tagging it with Dalai Lama as mentioned in the email (not the cartoon, though) might become a concern in light of what's happening in Tibet-China nowdays. I am cautioning my friend as to observe a sort of diversity and culutral sensitivity as not to possibly insult any religious figure.

I don't know if I am thinking too much. It might just be a good joke and, as my friend responded back, needs to be read 'wisely'. I seemed to be a bit cautious, learning from a world-wide news coverage, concerns and uproar with regard to a 15-minute Fitna movie created and posted by Geert Wilders in the Internet (LiveLeak). Having briefly seen it, I would say that it's quite outrageous and too much out of proportion. Ducth Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkanende, was within the context as wisely noted that we believe it serves no other purpose than to cause offense. He continued as to remind that feeling offended must never be used as an excuse for aggression and threats.

Violence, let alone act of terror in any form, is out of question and shall not be tolerated at all. Sadly enough, the iceberg is sometimes rooted deep in the prejudice that people might not be aware of. As the dictionary goes on saying, it is an adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the fact. The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgements or convictions. Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion. We can find it anywhere. From the extreme one that could cause serious consequences to the light one that probably becoming a food of thought. Obama dressed in a Kenyan tribe clothing during a visit to Africa was a target of "issue". Finding that the biological father of Apple CEO Steve Jobs is a Syrian Abdulfattah Jandali "inspired" many with a lot of discussions that some ended up with a "what-if prejudice analysis".

Now and then. It travels fast with technology and media. In the World Debate on media hosted and broadcasted by BBC in the face of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Monterey, California (March 2008), Andrew Mwneda, a journalist from Uganda (?), complained that mainstream media in the west tend to convey prejudice instead of info. He was referering to news coverage about Africa that are always associated with disease, war, charity, disaster, and despair. The East-West different interpretation is apparent as Queen Noor of Jordania reminding about Iraq War in light of distortion, successful manipulation of information that the media was also taking part. However, Sergey Brin (Google co-founder), indicated that with Internet or Google people can see news they way the want to see it. And information is abundantly available, a more complete picture as not to cause any prejudice. People put a comment as a response in real time, unlike in the old media that would take a week or a month for a response to a news to be published.

Well, the advance of Internet technology and information access, global business operation and social interaction shall bring people of the world getting closer and closer. Physically and virtually, yes. Mutual understanding and respects are keeping on improving. Yet, it might not be at the speed and scale we all are expecting for the peace of mind. To make the world a much better place to live in. As such, inter-faith dialogue, socio-cultutal engagement, and embracing diversity are something of significant importance to be encouraged. It shall be based on pluralism and tolerance. It's not the game of blame, as one of the cartoons mentioned above "preaching" to err is human, to blame someone else for your problem, is strategic. Or my cab driver here in Jakarta that quickly slammed "It's CIA" referring to a poltical figure here, a former presidential candidate that often made statements that difficult for the grass roots to understand and digest. Anything bad or dirty work or things incomprehensible, people seems to prejudicely stamp or label it with CIA.

It shall be a conspiracy of kindness offered to all stakeholders of the blue planet. Respect and dignity, in one-go with freedom of expression. And be wise to see any act of individual as opposed to a state's policy or action as not to draw excessive repsonses that would trigger a further negative chain of reactions. As Sir Paul McCartney conveys a meesage in Ebony & Ivory --- There is good and bad in everyone. We learn to live, we learn to give each other what we need to survive, together alive.

A perfect harmony. Sound like a utopia?