2nd post.. :)
Hey guys, hope you all having a great week. Hong Kong has been hit with a typhoon last night and this morning. The wind and rain was quite strong last night and I could not have a good sleep. I was also worrying about my factory as the town was on the predict path of the typhoon. China does not have a typhoon protocol for business, only for school. So I need to find out if the environment is safe enough for our colleagues to come work. My HR manager, Jun has called me last night to discuss the arrangement if the situation is bad. We came up with a few options and asked him to let me know again at 6am to make our final decision. For my factory, we have 50/50 for colleagues who live on and off site. And since we have not had typhoon comes this close before, we are dealing this the first time. So I was up till 1am and woke up at 6am to see the weather. It was brutal in Hong Kong but I asked my HR manager who lives in the factory, he says it’s not that bad over there. As apparently the typhoon has changed its course away from its predicted path. So work resumes and live goes on, I went back to bed and didn’t get up till 10am. After I woke up, I started thinking if we have a protocol, he doesn’t need to call me and I don’t need to wake up at 6. We follow the protocol to act accordingly. For start-ups, SME, as they grow I think it is important to have a set of working instructions for different functions. So colleagues could follow it to complete the task. The working instructions should be easy to read and understand too. It takes resources to design and write a well thought out WI but it is an important foundation for a company to keep growing. It works as a manual and could help resolve conflicts. In my factory, we don’t have one for extreme weather. And we should have one.
For the past week, I spend time to finish up the book “Winning without losing”. It is a great book. I would like to share the take away I got after reading this book. There are 6 key points. Let’s start right away then. So the first one is to come up with a list of tasks you would like to do that day, and that day only. As I tell from my own experience, there’s a forever list of things to do. And I would often feel bad if I complete most of the tasks by the end of the day. So by making a today list, I could concentrate with the tasks for the day and feel good about it when complete them all or making good progress. I would also be able to focus on my family to spend quality time with them when I got home.
Next one is “Don’t send that email”, it means don’t send emails that contains emotion or when you are emotional. The author explains that email is a good tool to send summary, meets minutes, and reports. But it’s never good to send emails containing personal emotions as the recipient will always misunderstand. And the sender needs to spend more time to explain to the recipient which would make the whole process counterproductive. It is always better to discuss these matter through phone or face to face which is even better.
Next up is “Follow your energy”, I learn from the book that to ask myself frequently what do I want to do at that moment. To do the task I answer myself always seem to be more easy and efficient. You guys should try it too, to flow with your energy.
I learn the term WIGs, which stands for “Widely Important Goals” from the book. The author suggest is to focus on things those really matter. Don’t get lost in tasks those don’t make such a difference. I have that habit to tackle the hard stuff later, which I find very unproductive and stalling myself to do the next big thing. So i have think through the WIGs for my company and whatever I do, it should help moving towards that goal.
“Don’t delay tough decision”, this is similar to the previous. The difference is if there’s something you know you got to do, you should do it now and not later. The later you do, the more negative impact it brought to the company. Moreover, we should all have fun through work.
Work is part of life, and we should all be having fun when doing it. It would not be a good life if we spend 8hrs doing things that we don’t love. Traditional Chinese has a tendency to OT, to stay in work late in order to show others or their boss that they are hardworking. I don’t buy that. I believe a balanced life. I don’t think spending more time equals to better work. Efficiency and quality of work is more important than staying a 1 place doing god knows what. There are priorities besides work and I encourage colleagues to acknowledge and rethink. It takes time and lots of training for them to change the mentality. We perform better in life or work when we experience, seeing more and having fun.
That’s it for this week, hope you guys enjoy it.
Onward