Job update #1
by Shang Lee
It has been a tiring first week. I’ve been leaving the office around 8pm. It’s a far cry from my 9 to 5 job previously. My wife is complaining about the lack of wife time. I’ve been struggling to understand what exactly is it i’m trying to do in the office. I seem to be busy all day, and yet I don’t feel i’m achieving very much. My actual work starts before 9am and after 6pm. Between those times, i spent most of my time fighting fire erupting at various time of the day – meetings, knowing people, making sure we are able to meet our deadlines… Plus, I forgot about an outlet that is blogging.
So what’s all this fire i’m suppose to fight? If the fire occurs that often, maybe I should just leave it and let it burn down the whole establishment so that we can start afresh. If the fire occurs that often, there must be something fundamentally wrong, right? But no one seems to care about solving them. I guess fire fighting is easier than preventing the fire in the first place. Maybe allowing it to burn and spread until it dies may not be such a far fetch idea after all! Because from ashes, we can then start to build fire resistant walls…
Maybe you can help me out here. Is there a way to actually empower people to fight the small fire themselves so that it doesn’t become a large scale deforestation? The existing top down approach is not helping everyone to help themselves. Task list set up are decided from the top and being distributed as the top sees fit. You can imagine why there’s no motivation to actually kill the fire in front of you, because oil will just come pouring down from above. A carrot and stick approach will not work either, because the top is too stingy with the carrot, but they are very liberal with the stick. So liberal that most of the time spent is waving the stick in front of everyone.
One word – demoralising.
I believe this is inherent in a lot of companies, be it big or small. The magnitude might be different, but the underlying problems are the same. To add salt to the wound, they use words like “be positive”, “empowerment”, “it’s all about you”, which are totally inconsistent with the actions taken.
So, have you come across this in your work place? Have you come across a workable solution? Please do share.
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welcome to the corporate world!!! apply taiji principles in workplace. don’t fight the system. feel, listen, comprehend, return the force. go through resistance. not every battle must be fought. the strategist fights battles that can be won. losing a few is no big deal as long as the war is won. end of day, switch off and hide in the Dark Cell……..
For me, it was all about GTD (Getting Things Done book by David Allen) that really helped out. While I’m not a fan of firefighting, having a trusted system has helped to try and stay in control during the chaos.
As for how to motivate folks, if you’re doing all the firefighting and not letting it slip down to your subordinates, they have no real motivation or intention to be proactive as you’re taking all the heat. Spread the hose around, let others take part and once completed, ask them for a root cause analysis to try and take a proactive approach.
However, most of all, think of the mayonaise (spelling??) jar story, it’s all about the pebbles and rocks. Gotta define and make sure the rocks are addressed first.
Good luck!
Moral of the story, there’s always room for beer.
thanks for all the wonderful advice. beer seems to be the order of the day. maybe i should try that.
btw, it’s the whole department that’s doing fire fighting, that’s what i’m frustrated about. everyone is trying to douse the fire in front of them, while the big picture is just lost somewhere in the fog…
I can tell you right now, I’m doing everything else except but my job scope in the office.
See, I can’t even type right :p