HRM. Personal development

An individual always needs change; the desire ‘to change something’ comes to many of us on a rather frequent basis. After a period of self-observation, I concluded that my yearning for change springs from the fact that either I don’t know what I want to do at a particular moment, or, should I be in a position to answer this question, I move consciously in that very direction which I have chosen for myself. This longing for change is one of the reasons why extremely capable employees leave their jobs. As a rule, the cause for their departure sounds like this: “I’m bored, something needs to change”. If you allow the situation to take its course, the person is likely to leave and the company loses an important intangible asset.

My method of working with members of staff in this situation is as follows: I simply ask them to have a think and then in the first instance answer for themselves the question “Why do I want to leave?”. People rarely ask themselves this question and try to find something deeper than this in their motives. Once this question has been answered, (in 90% of cases it transpires that the person is simply bored with their current role), I put forward several options and observe the person’s reaction; depending on this, I then propose a feasible alternative to their current position for the next few years. It is important to change a person’s routine rhythm and actions' procedure, so that they again feel that occasional twinge of something new even in old routine things; this can be new projects, or a change of business area within the company.

In itself, the answer to the question “What do I want to do now?” generates a lot of fresh energy and vigour, adding the self-confidence that an individual will stop “being bored”’ at work and that a field of them being able to realise their own potential has now opened up before them. If the employee is able to add their own personal ideas for development to this, a particular skillset, for example, as a result of working on a new business activity, then they will be able to carry on working in their old capacity for a considerable period to come.

If the atmosphere in the company is work-oriented and comfortable, the employee will focus on new things more readily, than going to a new unknown environment where prospects are uncertain. In this instance, staff training plays a significant role in the employment process and requires a sincere approach from both staff and managers alike. The company should take an active interest in the employee and in their personal development, so that the cooperation process is mutually beneficial. In this case, where the employee requires advice or assistance, then they should be provided, and for this it makes sense to heed the advice of any manager. In this regard there is no point in acting like a nanny: an individual must develop independently.

It is also important that the employee is aware of their objectives and how they correspond to the goals and objectives of the company or department, where they work. If there is no meeting of interests, then it would really be better to find another place to work. If there is sincere interest and motivation, however, then this can act as a tangible impetus to developing and achieving the desired goals and objectives. And there is not much sense in changing one place of work for another to achieve this.

Corporate culture. Communication

Communication

What we say and how we say it is a reflection of our thoughts and feelings. Often this is our reaction to what is happening to us expressed in the form of spoken or written words. Sometimes words fly out of our mouths unchecked and inflict unpleasant wounds on those with whom we are speaking. I have always been interested in the issue of how to speak concisely and to the point and communicate just the right amount of emotion for a specific situation. Through self-observation and an enormous number of bumps and bruises incurred in my ever-continuing quest, I have managed to formulate a few principles of communication. I purposefully avoid separating business communication from social/personal communication as I believe that ultimately they both come down to the same principles. 

Should I react? 

Opening one’s mouth and saying something is one of the most simple and widespread reactions in human communication. It is a means to express emotions such as excitement, happiness, annoyance, anger etc. 

More often than not, a reaction occurs instantaneously. Slightly less often, people keep their impressions about an event to themselves and talk about it sometime later. Even less often, an event excites a person to such an extent that he/she continues to speak about it for several days, weeks or months. In this regard, I find instantaneous reactions the most troubling. At times, we regret such reactions, and, afterwards, we realize that they were ineffectual, excessive, hasty, and influenced by our emotions. 

I have formulated the following principle for myself: do not react right now. 

This does not mean setting an issue aside and reacting later. Storing up emotions inside (especially negative ones) is a pointless and tiresome exercise. You simply have to give your brain an opportunity to process new information. As a rule, people base their reactions on impressions formed through sensory information (sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste). It might also be noted that so-called “first impressions” sometimes differ greatly from second or third impressions. Moreover, they can contrast even more sharply with your intuitional perception of a situation by simply not giving it time to be “heard.” 

A simple example of this is a situation in which someone steps on your toe. Reactions vary: some people become quite indignant knitting their brows in discontent. They try to smile graciously and say, “don’t worry about it,” but if you step on their toe a second time, every trace of their gracious smiles will disappear. 

If you are attentive and remain aware of what is happening with and around you: 

a) you may avoid being bumped into. 

b) you will know the reason why a person may have simply lost his/her balance and stepped on your toe without meaning to do so. 

c) you will understand that you are the only person responsible for your reactions and the consequences that follow. 

This principle works the same way in more complex situations such as problem resolution in the workplace, personnel management, or negotiations. A response to an issue, emotion, or a particular objection, whether in regard to form or substance, may be substituted for a reaction. This will give your intellect, cognition and intuition an opportunity to coalesce and, only then, either verbalize a response or simply conclude that there is really no need to say anything in a given situation. 

A response will be entirely different from an automatic reaction to an irritating factor. 

Additionally, any reaction wastes time that could be better spent, in part, observing and collecting more information about a situation. 

Remember your goal. 

Any task that I undertake has an goal, and communication is only one of the tools I use to reach this goal. The goal always remains paramount and cannot be compromised because communication issues or reactions. Therefore, the next principle is understanding the goal. When we react, we often forget why we began a discussion on a project or problem in the first place. What value does this goal have if we forget it so easily? Isn’t there at least some small element of personal responsibility in this? 

Hear and listen. 

Hearing is simply a physiological function and capability, whereas the ability to listen is an important skill which is extraordinarily beneficial in communication. If you truly listen to your partner in conversation, in that moment, you will have no outside thoughts in your head as you are directing your attention to what that person is saying. Hearing is a momentary phenomenon whereas listening is a process involving your intellect, emotions and feelings. This is a different level of reading your interlocutor which allows you to gain much more information and give accurate responses. The inability to listen is a global communication problem. Listening becomes impossible, in part, because of split-second emotional or spoken reactions. 

Simply try to differentiate between each sound a person is saying in conversation, and you will hear and remember many more important “trivial matters” which will, in turn, form your understanding of a situation.

Error Correction

If something goes wrong...

Everyone knows that mistakes occur during the execution phase of practically any project due to incorrect task descriptions, failure to understand the goal or desired outcomes, lack of attention to details etc. It is all very well if errors are caught and corrected before project completion. However, in some cases, the product that clients receive is quite different than expected. They become angry, rightly so, and still want to receive the promised result. 

How to remedy a situation by turning it in a positive direction? 

Rule number one: do not make new mistakes. 

Despite the fact that any overdue project is stressful for both the client and the service provider, you must try to say “Stop!” and evaluate the situation carefully. 

There is no sense in wasting time on a detailed analysis of the project as a whole. If a deadline has been broken, the client is on edge and time is ticking. 

- It is essential to identify the key points which require immediate action. 

- Compile a short basic to-do list with a clear description of your objective and follow the steps identified. 

- Do not jump from task to task. Divide the problem up into several parts and complete each task step-by-step. You may start a new step if the previous step requires time to process, but under no circumstances should you jumble everything together at one time. Time overlaps are permissible, but there should always be a clear delineation between tasks in your head. 

- If a problem cannot be resolved immediately or within a day, be prepared to make adjustments and offer your client flexible solutions. A “flexible solution” is a solution designed to fit a situation at a particular moment in time. If changes arise in an emergency situation, the solution may change as well. 

- If necessary, find an assistant to carry out simple tasks which do not require your personal involvement, but never give full responsibility for a project to your assistant. As a manager, you must be in charge of any emergency situation and rectifying any mistakes. 

- Try to turn off all emotions. This may be difficult, but it is often the only way to overcome a situation in which a step-by-step process must be executed with precision and accuracy. 

- Remember your intuition. The most correct and expeditious solution is almost always in plain sight. You can hear your intuition when you are level-headed and calm. 

Rule number two: keep the client informed. 

Uncertainty is more upsetting than anything else. If a mistake has been made which cannot be corrected within five minutes, call the client. Talk to him/her. Explain the situation and show him/her that you are not indifferent to what has happened. 

What if you have absolutely no time to call? In this case, simply write a short email to show that you are working on the problem. It is important that your email reflect your personal attitude toward the problem and your personal interest in its resolution. Standard phrases such as, “Thank you, we have received your message and are working on the problem,” are nothing more than a formal and impersonal version of the run-around and can only reassure the client for a very short time, if at all. 

Error correction 

Do not even attempt to address the issue of error correction if you do not care about applying it in the future. It would be better for you to look for a more interesting pursuit in life. 

However, if you do find it interesting, then it would be a good idea to do the following after you have successfully corrected the errors in your current project: 

- It is very useful to sit down and “rewind,” remembering the entire history of the project from the present back to the beginning. Ninety-nine percent of all errors are in plain sight and are caused by very simple factors. 

- Play out a logical project development scenario along with possible risks and tentative solutions in your head or write them down on paper. This will give you a birds-eye view of the many possible alternatives for the progression of events and provide valuable experience for future projects. 

- Speak with the vendors and service providers. Figure out what caused setbacks on their end. It is possible that these negotiations will lead you to understand that you need to replace a vendor. Do not be afraid to do this if you have no other option. Otherwise, you will face the problem again. 

- Review the tasks that you complete during the course of a project. You might be able to free up some time for important matters by finding tasks that could be delegated to assistants without relinquishing supervisory control over the project. 

- Use your mistakes for self-improvement. You should not linger in one place for long if your work becomes routine. This destroys your individuality and decreases opportunities for you to achieve your potential. Constantly search for new challenges. This will also provide a reprieve from the inherent routines of management.

Understanding of Goal

There are lots of varying definitions and perceptions about what is a Goal. I wanted to share my understanding not so much about the perception of the word itself, but of my feeling for it. Experience has demonstrated that this feeling has shaped my life a great deal. 

 

A goal is a conscious definition of the subject or state that I’m striving to achieve. For me, the most useful example to draw is as the horizon (the border between earth and sky), to which you’re going along the road. It’s there constantly in the field of vision, distinct objects peel off it and constantly approach me. If I don’t see something beyond the horizon then the visualisation of this object or idea plays a major role here. In this manner the goal possesses properties that are defined and complemented by details by moving towards it. More often than not one goal creates another as a result of received experience or feelings. 

In daily work the goal always determines the result. The quality of the result depends on how precisely I define the desired object or actions. Consequently the first question that I ask myself at the beginning of any new project is: “What do you think the result will look like?” or “What does my client expect?” Subsequently I started to delve more deeply in the details and visualise all the key process and points which await along the road. It has been known that I sometimes lose the thread. Completely “unforeseen” things then happen, the reason for which in actual fact can be attributed to a lack of understanding and visualisation at one stage or another. It is very similar to a dream state – when I’m asleep I am not aware of what is happening. 

The understanding of goals is similar to creating a to-do list. It’s impossible to create something without a foundation, basis and starting point from which everything begins. This point is man himself, as the total sum of skills, knowledge and faculties. In order to formulate the goal correctly all one needs is to simply think about it. A person’s thoughts are extremely flighty and are easily replaced by others suddenly. This formulization also includes emotional sensations and visualisation. For example, you can think about a beautiful sunset – this is simply a thought, but you can really feel it and have a real impression. 

If reaching a goal requires a significant amount of time it makes sense to record and utter it. Sound and vision provide the brain with a lot of useful information and is a very good form of support which is worth making use of. Bearing the horizon in mind I always try to start acting on formulization, transforming it into a living process. Even results and their flavour that are insignificant in comparison with the goal as a whole are capable of really helping you to see the next steps. 

Accordingly when understanding goals one should rely on real opportunities and features not restricted just to mental perceptions, including feelings, as well as not forgetting that formulization is like the goal itself a process in time, and not a statistical image in your head.

My Motivation

Things that give me strength and energy to work

- Process

- Impressions

- Goal

- Feedback

When I take up a new assignment, I have no idea what the outcome will be like – it is almost always a challenge. Some people can spend years upon years managing the same projects – something that would get me bored senseless. Nothing does more to kill my capacity for work than invariable routine operations. They are on the other extreme of what's interesting. When you have an interest in a job, the process never fails to give you pleasure and you find yourself living the process. While still not creativity in its pure form, it is no longer an exercise in routine milling of work time into a spate of products and services.

Along with interest come impressions created by the results of work. This is a very powerful element of self-motivation. If you invest your energy, it will eventually come back to you. The greater your understanding and personal contribution to the process, the greater the payback.

The goal is constantly in motion, like the horizon that you are moving toward. I dislike static goals that get closer with each passing day. What I see as a goal at the outset becomes merely a stage when I am halfway through; once this stage has been completed, it reveals the next goal. This constant motion is very motivational; otherwise, if I stop I get bored.

Life is a constant flow and an evolutionary process that does not tolerate long stopovers. I find it extremely difficult to be self-sufficient in all respects; nor do I consider such all-encompassing self-sufficiency to be necessary. The herartfelt interest that I take in the results of my work never fails to earn feedback from people for whom I do this work. If a job evokes no interest in me, I prefer not to take it. There are too many interesting things in this life to sell oneself short by doing something that gives no pleasure. Having the possibility to choose is very important.

Corporate culture. Training

Training as part of work

I accept working in an office as an intrinsic part of life. The more time it takes during the course of a day, month, year, then the more use should be drawn from this process. In the other case this is an empty waste of time. 

In my first post dedicated to corporate culture I mention the necessity for comfortable personal space to become oneself. Today I want to write about training, i.e. to go further and expand my principle and understanding of the working process as it is for me and others who set themselves the aim of a conscious approach to one’s activities in life. 

According to the principle of development, people gain experience from any activity and each of us can make this process more active and dynamic if there is an aim – to seek something new. I have often noticed the peculiarity in myself that if I don’t apply effort in the completion of some task or other I often get bored of it and want to switch over to something “more interesting.” In a certain sense this trick is my own laziness and unwillingness to develop what had already been begun. It can be explained very simply: until that point when I reached my imaginary ‘ceiling’ – my knowledge, capabilities and skills were adequate for the job – everything was going swimmingly. But at the moment I hit ‘the wall’ I needed to initiate something. In this case the way to make a step forward would be to do something (every task has its own precise step at this moment) that would lead me to a new level of understanding and open new possibilities. 

It is amusing that this principle of development is reflected most widely in computer games, but most people prefer to keep on playing. 

In this way I can glance through the ‘wall’ and surmount it. If you don’t do this, then it is pointless completing the job and activity will naturally grind to a halt. The sense of this same aim to seek for something new in whatever you are engaged in comes down to searching inside, within the borders of your current activity, and even afterwards, if the quest has dried up, to start looking from the outside selecting a new or accompanying direction. In my work under a pseudonym I apply the word training as the most understood and illustrative description of the search process. If you need to climb over ‘the wall’ and learn, if you choose that activity or direction, where you really don’t want to go but you know deep down inside yourself that it’s useful. This state of mind is a true sign of which point you need to apply your effort. I use a similar principle when working with colleagues – some of them often get those tasks which enable them to spend their working time usefully, some should test to their heart’s content the fullness of their current activity in order to understand where they want to go next, while some can simply carry out a clearly defined set of tasks well – these are all important stages of individual training for each of them.

Mistakes in Management

If you want something done the way it was thought up – participate in all its stages. 

Today I would like to refer to widespread mistakes in managing projects. I don’t want to focus my attention on precise methodologies, rules and procedures that have been elaborated in hundreds of books. These is all instrumentation, but the key factor in management is not the instrument, but in the person who is holding it in their hands. So, for example, you can learn to say the right thing or smile nicely in conversation, train yourself psychologically, have a to-do list, study how to do something in a certain scenario... the human brain is capable of learning or copying these simple tools very quickly, without requiring much input from your personality. 

What’s more important is that which lies deeper than learnt knowledge. It is your own participation and experience of a situation on an emotional level and the sensations in your body, your direct engagement with the process. 

90% of the successes of those things I take on and complete depend solely on my approach and relation to it, my understanding and feeling of the aim, time and place. The remaining 10% is my inattention, fear, over-evaluation of my strengths and capabilities... So, I come to the main mistakes: 

Lack of a manager 

‘The Manager’ is the most important, who’s always in fashion, to whom the ‘ends’ of any project are attached, on whom lies the whole responsibility for the company’s outcome. In most cases he’s just absent because very few people understand what personal responsibility is and where its borders are. So, for example, to formulate the mission, issue it to an executive and to then simply wait for the result is not the role of a manager or project manager – this is the role of a ‘porter’ who carries boxes from one place to another. In this instance the technical design of a project, your idea or an assignment act as boxes... 
A good manager in the literal sense takes on the project from the ideas stage to the stage of its full completion in the form of definite goods or services provided, every detail should interest them, including the client’s reaction when the project is completed. The Manager is like the conductor of an orchestra. The conductor’s baton is his precise intent, aimed accurately at a definite executive at the required moment in time. And also, until that time that the concert is over and the satisfied public head for home. In order to understand this you have to feel yourself like a conductor of a simple matter like tidying a flat...you have to know how to ‘conduct’ yourself. 

Lack of the executives necessary 

If you don’t have a manager or you have trust in the people chosen for your project by people who don't understand its aims and objectives, then you won’t have good executives capable of carrying out the task assigned to them adequately. If this somehow happens, then this is the Will of Fate. Every employee should work in their place, otherwise it is a useless waste of time, effort and your money. In addition this does not add to the respect for you, or for the manager, from those who sit waiting for work or carry out their work without experiencing interest in it. 
Therefore when choosing project participants it is essential from the beginning you should have a clear understanding for yourself of their roles and areas of responsibility, and then enter the roles of the proposed pretenders and look to see if they are suitable. It’s not worth giving client correspondence to a creative designer, it’s senseless to ask the secretary to keep track on project progress etc. The role should match the executive’s skills. 
Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ and replace a worker if it’s clearly now working out – this provides a chance to avoid additional expenses at later stages of the project. But if you see that someone can learn and develop, then you should give them that chance. The best employees are those who have learnt from the very start. 
A genuine result is only possible with genuine engagement of all its participants. 

Lack of information and the correct approach to it 

This widespread mistake is about instrumentation – those instructions, methodologies and documents that are called for to help workers answer simple questions connected with managing a project. Ease and simplicity is the key to the understanding of and optimum access to the information you want to communicate. Once in possession of an understanding you can communicate the information further, because it’s important to try as best as possible to understand the basics, share and clearly document the essential details, appoint those who can share the information best, be in the loop of what’s going on, constantly collecting and processing new data. 
Information, like a structure, is not something static, it changes constantly throughout the process. Therefore I am opposed to the thoughtless use of tables dictating certain actions. The choice of what action to take depends on the current moment and place, it is not a table, it is an adequate reaction to what is happening at a certain moment in time. Knowledge can help when taking a decision, but responsibility for the decision belongs above all to the person making it, not to a prescribed table.

Corporate culture. Personal space

Personal space

Over the years I’ve visited the offices of dozens of clients, suppliers and competitors. It should be said that in ten years little has changed – people work as before in a right-angled space of straight lines and corners with a window to the middle. The back of the chair could also be part of these fixed contours, as well as the bends in the toilet bowl and the sink in the washroom... With the appearance of A-Class and higher business centres there is more light in these boxes and something resembling space, although I find it hard to imagine spending a happy 8-9 hours of one’s life a day in this enclosed space. I have the impression that this a miraculous relic from some sort of terrible past which should after all suddenly pass away. If you get tired at your place of work then it means it’s just not for you, and it makes sense to look for something new. No, I don’t necessarily mean another place of work, but somewhere you’ll be comfortable. I am convinced that the understanding of ‘comfort’ only appeared because people began to confine themselves for space. For example when I manage to work for a long time outside the office I don’t remember this as an issue. What’s even more important is that comfort should be reached beforehand inside a person, this is the inherent acquisition of interest, motivation and efficiency. Everyone has enormous latent potential, which they can’t even guess at, but can be extracted simply by creating a comfortable place to work. I really admire the attitude of some company leaders (who can be counted on one hand) who create ‘chill-out’ areas, play-rooms and work-zones in their offices and organise office space in such a way that employees can find a place where it’s pleasant to spend more than an hour at a time working on any project.

Why does this matter? 

The world around us is a dynamic, changing structure that is evolving all the time. There are lots of simple and smooth things in nature. In order to develop a person needs dynamism, a change of scene, good impressions, which are expressed in the simplest of things beginning with what’s around them. Try and lock yourself in for a day in an empty square two by two metres room sitting on your office chair, and then try and do the same in the open air where you can sit, lie down, play football for an hour or go on a bike ride – you’ll notice the difference. The efficiency of your work and number of tasks completed will be different. I described two extremes. It’s completely unnecessary to drive people outside for them to work better. It’s enough to create a simple and comfortable work area where they can work, communicate and move. This is far more inspiring than any motivation and developmental training held in stuffy, square meeting rooms.

Sincere Interest

Why I enjoy working

For me life is a search. I cannot settle on just one thing and spend a lot of time on it without development. From time to time, once every eighteen months or even more often, I need to “shake” myself, give myself a kick up the backside. In the introduction to my blog I referred to interest in the result – now I would like to write about this in a little more detail. 
In every person’s life there are a huge number of external factors which constantly direct us. Surely we have all experienced a situation in life when they completed something and hit the ‘ceiling,’ as if seemingly nothing more can be done and it’s time to change something. Many people, under the influence of external factors, collapse at this crossroads and choose a new activity, a new partner in life, change work, take up sport, friends, etc. Meanwhile at each of these crossroads there is the possibility of a choice – to make an effort or to give up. In this context ‘effort’ will be the transition to a new level – it is as if you reach the next level without collapsing or leaving the building and don’t set off on the quest for something new. As a rule, people start convincing themselves that it’s necessary, that they are sick of the old, that they can’t be bothered to anything extra, when it is already clear... This happens, but more often than not this is a trick of our mind. In order to understand it, you have to try and think of all the events in your life which have been done without the influence of other people or unexpected events. It’s great if you find a partnership, the rest will simply be the convergence of circumstance.

I am quoting a couple of examples to make it simpler: 

- You’re just about to buy something, a new sofa for example. You go into the shop, haven’t chatted to the shop assistants and chosen the one that’s most  ”for you”  when at the last moment someone comes to you by chance and says that this sofa is not so good, the springs are flimsy and bla-bla-bla... Certainly you have nearly been ”tricked,” you start to doubt and buy another one so at least it will be a proper sofa and not a rollaway bed. 

- or, you’re driving a car, and you think about a beloved girlfriend on the new sofa..., when suddenly a boy-racer cuts you up... Nine out of ten people react to this with an attack of indignation and offence and will probably forget about the sofa and the girlfriend instantly. 

The situations described are mere trifles that happen every day in real life.

Interest - is something more constant, something on which we focus our attention and maintain it for a long time. Attention is the tool that feeds our interest. The result is the end of the road, our visualisation of what we aim to achieve. The effort that needs to be applied at the crossroads, which I wrote about earlier, is the act of attention focused on a result. If this act doesn’t happen, external factors bear down from above and we can forget about the aims, results and reasons that convinced us to start one thing or another. It has often been the cast that people close to me, friends and other ‘chance’ acquaintances have turned me onto the wrong course. I consider these things a big success and a valuable lesson. 
So why is work interesting for me? 
Work is the process of searching for those same perspectives from which I can make a step forward in development. Unfortunately I never use the opportunities presented by life to the maximum. I never pay enough attention. Nevertheless, when this happens somehow or other, it is an extremely stimulating and motivating therapy which provides a lot of new experience and opportunity.

To-do list

A ‘to-do’ list is quite a useful thing. I acknowledge myself that I carry one when all tasks accumulate, but this is a lot. Аnd beside, it is one of the things that helps our brain complete planned tasks at the necessary time and in the right order. 

Why does this happen? 

Practically any idea that appears in my head begins from a thought which gradually, if I retain in my memory, becomes overgrown with new similar thoughts like a snowball into an idea, complemented by different shapes and pictures from reality. But all this is still sitting in my head, i.e. it is guarded by an internal keeper of information – my memory. This same memory is constantly bombarded with new information from within, by our new thoughts, but more often than not from outside – by other thoughts, impressions, as well as by other ‘rubbish’ that we imbibe with our eyes and ears everyday on the way to work, watching TV, listening to the radio and so on. Therefore, if your don’t focus your attention on certain important thoughts or ideas they risk being submerged under a heap of ‘rubbish’ or sent to a hidden compartment because of its purported lack of importance. 

However it is worth not forgetting that the brain also receives information from external sources. So, things that you have seen or heard can serve as confirmation or supplementation to the information stored in our memory in the form of an idea. If I can’t find a supporting confirmation of one idea or other right away I can at least write about what I have thought. As a rule, this is a simple selection of theses, this same ‘to-do list,’ but it is sufficient for different, deeper levels of memory to act. 

The next stage is going through the list and replenishing it with new information. Once I have done something I start getting impressions from the actions (or emotional experiences). That is how I complete and renew my to-do list. 

In the final analysis the composite of impressions, intellectual knowledge and physical sensations form practical experience for which under certain circumstances it doubtless counts as “knowledge.”

Human Resource Management

By virtue of the specifics of my work I often have the chance to talk to different people. First of all, I just like to talk. Any socialising is always very emotional and gives you the chance to get a feeling about the person. The telephone and social networks lack this part of live communication, they do not have this taste for looking into someone’s eyes when you can understand in three seconds what you can’t write in even ten offers. Communication is priceless experience. 

Secondly, I always personally choose the people who’ll end up working with me. This is really important because the department, team and working group should be on the same wavelength as me. Of course they can disagree with me and should have their own opinions, but the wave should flow as one. 

I must confess that I don’t have a single approach for choosing workers or employees, each project and situation varies, but there a number of criteria which I pay attention to and consider important when recruiting. A person should: 

• Know what they want in life even roughly. A candidate who replies “I’m interested in everything, I’m a fascinating personality, I’m prepared to work for you even as a porter” immediately sends the CV in the direction of the bin. • I can smile during conversation and hold a gaze for more than three seconds. 

• Have some memories or emotions, connected to the current place of work, i.e. something that engaged/heartened/attracted them. This in particular says that they’re not just doing their job but applying a part of themselves to it. In this instance impressions are simply unavoidable. 

• They should define precisely why they want to change workplace. Simply saying “I have had enough” or “I want to change jobs” without additional explanation is clear evidence that this person is tired, need to be sacked so that they can spend a couple of months alone in a warm country and get their head together. Only then can they change jobs. 

• Have a desire for work, and understand why they are doing it and their responsibility. 

• Possess the required level of knowledge. Although I value practical experience above theoretical the latter is the base for future development. 

• Have a clear idea about what they want to work as in this company precisely. This demonstrates that they have at least looked at the company’s website and read what they’d be doing. It is also useful to have an idea of how exactly they would be invaluable to the company, how their knowledge and experience could come in handy. 

• Have a dream and an ability to describe it. 

• Have an external appearance that correlates to their character. I accept people into the team for their character above all, not the sweaty body covered by a suit and wearing an expensive watch. People should be themselves. They may not get round to shaving in the morning but this doesn’t make them lose their confidence and beauty. 

• Be able to talk openly about their faults and qualities, about what they do and don’t like at work. 

• Be able to express their thoughts coherently. A person should talk simply and easily, without being well-read, but the harmony of their words talks about their simplicity of thought.

Love to work

In my previous two posts I formulated the first two principles of whole-hearted management which I adhere to in my work. They are connected with the impressions that clients receive, and with my responsibilities. Today, I would like to share a third principle. In just two words they are – ease and simplicity. 

Whatever we refer to our work is reflected in its execution. I’m not just talking about “quality” here as a measure of client satisfaction and correlation to their expectations. In my view this is the shell or cover of what lies deeper. For me quality has another slightly different meaning. It’s how I relate to the task that I’m doing. The more I’m submerged in it, then the more I can offer and the more interested I become that my knowledge and experience are accessible and expressed to their full in the result. For example, you can have excellent sales skills, can generate interest, convince and find an approach to suit the client thanks to your personal qualities, but without precise knowledge about what you’re selling or teaching it is impossible to offer the client easily and sincerely something that they can’t refuse because in this instance you have a chance to sell him a dream, not just a pretty picture or idea. That said you don’t have to be a miracle mechanic and know a machine inside out, for example, to sell it, but you have to love driving... This is the same in any business, including management. 

Ease comes about when there’s an understanding of “how”, “why” and “what for.” When you live and breathe what you’re doing then it brings joy in the process as much as the result.

Simplicity – this is the shortest route from idea to result. An analogy with breathing always comes into my head – what can be easier than breathing? Any process, project or action has its shortest route and it is very important to find it. And this path always passes through the person themselves. I, for example, am frequently worried by thoughts, doubts and questions but when something finally happens it is like breathing-in. 
In order to reach this end path one should be interested not just in the final aim, but in the processing of achieving it – in the answer to the question, in solving the problem, in setting the task... This also relates to how you communicate. Here directness is simplest and most understood. You often forget about this when trying to say it nicely... But the simplest answer is a straight answer.

Treat the Client, as if it were You

It has always happened to me that, in any activity, whether it’s personal life, work or relaxation, that there is a time and place when I can see myself from the sidelines. It happens that I can feel myself in a crowd of people or in discussion, or simply just walking down the road, I start hearing my own words and almost feel outside my body, as if inside me there’s another person in charge.

These moments can be very useful, e.g. they enable me to see and hear what is frequently concealed by the succession of events that follow one after the other throughout the day. They enable me to step aside from the habitual style of work developed over the years, stop at some moment and say to yourself: ”Stop! Now you can do it a different way.”
One would ask how is this connected to management and working with clients?
In particular, this helped me to make a number of useful observations.

Treat the Client, as if it were You

The first observation is that my level of communication, the efforts I apply to completing a business task, my haste in solving problems, completely reflects my internal state and relation to myself. I cannot be more than the person I am at that moment. The people I work with can definitely sense this. This can be put into a simple formula: Treat the Client as if it were You.. If you just use this like a teaching formula nothing will happen, what matters is personal engagement and interest in the process. In my opinion in this case interest is some sort of intuitive emotional experience which is experienced from genuine contact with someone else. It’s intuitive because I absolutely know exactly that I am behaving correctly, but emotion is like food - a shot of energy. It doesn’t matter if I write someone a letter, have a chat with him or talk on the phone. I offer him the same solution, product or service that I would use myself, and I’m not indifferent how the client takes it, which impressions and emotions cause the result.

The Client is Always Right

The second observation is how I relate to someone’s reaction to an event. If I’m not interested in something I usually don’t pay it any attention, but it could work both ways. Meaning this: if I’ve paid attention, it could be interesting. Interest assumes engagement in a situation, problem, search for a solution – whatever. I take enormous pleasure, for example, when I can offer the person I’m talking to what they need. There is even more pleasure when I can see several steps ahead and can work out the situation in my head, and when I try to think about it I feel as if I wasn’t capable of this. Its about the chance to listen and personal experience to the past. Then the expression “The Client is always Right” acquires a very precise and clear meaning. The Client is actually always right because he’s expressing his opinion, his vision, his perception even if it doesn’t agree with mine, but at this moment in time presents his view of the world. It’s very important. In this situation I have an opportunity to offer the Client what he needs if I listen to him thoroughly. If I don’t hear the client and only listen to myself then nothing will happen. Paying attention is the key to this. It should be paid in two directions – to the other person and your inner self.

Cards on the Table

Today the third observation I want to write about is openness. Nothing else quite forces someone to extricate themselves from difficult circumstances in the future than often unfounded attempts to avoid some proposed problems in the past. The most correct decisions are often concealed in simple things. The source of a problem at the end of a project can be traced back to something that was done at the planning stage. This is all “Common Sense” about which much has already been written about and said. It seems something else is important here. An open approach is equally important, as is the sense to say no when necessary and agree at that very moment when you feel that it’s right to advise the Client, to advise of issues when they arise, and offer a solution when inside you’re saying “Yes, yes, this is the moment! Go on, do it!” Yet another essential thing is being able to recognise mistakes. This is also directly linked with openness and sincerity. A mistake, in essence, is a simple event, like success or right choice. If I recognise success I also have a chance to recognise a mistake. There’s no difference between these two things.

Principal of Development

Each and every one of us who undertakes any activity in life, when beginning a process gives it a start at a certain point in time and gradually reaches its conclusion. The simplest example in management could be job presentation as the beginning of the process and the Result as its completion phase. 

There are also some even more long-term processes, like, for example, the strategic development of a company or state over a long period of time. Simple and complicated, short and long processes have something in common and that is the people who are engaged in them. And if you want to be even more precise then any process development depends on the personal participation of each person in it. The nature of most processes is dying away. Development presupposes an investment of effort (energy) in any human activity without which it is doomed to fail. The only thing that we can acquire as a replacement is experience in the field of expertise (intellect), impression (emotion) and the aggregate of functional skills (body). The observation of periodically repeated processes, arising from people, myself included, forced me to start thinking about the efficiency of getting this worthless experience. The experience has most value is one that includes the three components – intellect, emotion and the body. When a selection of mistakes are examined in some project or other attention is usually paid to the external, intellectual component process. The emotional and functional part is left untouched but an awful lot of useful information is hidden inside. So, when we receive some sort of intellectual instruction “from now on, do it like this” we set off to carry it out. This in turn determines the level of service we carry out as a result as well as those impressions left with our colleague, client, or interlocutor about working with you. The human’s brain is highly adaptable. It enables us to store and apply information not just on an intellectual level, therefore it’s a completely different thing is we can feel the experience emotionally. 

The most wide-spread advice in this regard, which you will hear quire frequently is “put yourself in the client’s place,” but this is an intellectual approach. It can be useful, but the most valuable experience is when you actually put yourself in the client’s shoes, for example, when talking to your supplier. At this moment the important thing is not to lose the opportunity and to observe how you feel (I don’t just mean physically, but rather your perception) react to the situation – it is only in this instance that you can really understand your client by putting yourself in their shoes. 

In some instances this enables us to change our perceptions, opening up other, previously hidden, limits to what is going on. This is very important, in my opinion, Principal of Development, which consists of the fact that in any process someone must strive to extract experience as much as possible, not restricting it to one or other of its components. Experience broadens our opportunities significantly. In particular, emotional experience allows us to relate to the client’s problems differently if we approach the situation sincerely and understand our responsibilities.

Responsibility to...

This term is loved by many when it comes to decision-making, choice of supplier or worker, when “blame-storming” a project, evaluating the work of employees and so on.

I have myself witnessed on more than one occasion situations when someone has been entrusted a task for which he had barely had an idea how to complete, who had the necessary management skills and internal potential for completing the task handed to him. He had been “conferred with responsibility” and he should carry it triumphantly barely understanding with what exactly he had been entrusted. Everyone’s head is filled with ideas about how one should conduct oneself so it looks responsible without a distinct understanding of what it is in actual fact.
Examples can be found every day. If something didn’t happen for someone, the deadline expired, poor work was submitted, was rude to a colleague... what are they most likely to do? They’ll say that “it happens”, “they pushed me,” “they didn’t do this and that for me,” “and why did he behave like that?” In this context responsibility is represented as a form of duty to answer for carrying out an action or not. But what does “to answer for” mean? In my opinion the answer is a conscious evaluation of one’s capabilities and perceived choice. It’s important to replace the illusion of “responsibility for something” to responsibility to oneself.
It’s a unique look inside. At this moment a wide field of my capabilities opens up, from which I can formulate a strategy for future actions. By manipulating my capabilities alone I cannot say that someone forced me or pushed me to take one step or another, the consequences of which I would be responsible. For me this understanding is another boundary for sincerity to oneself, there’s no chance to lie to yourself or blame someone for failing.
This very principle will also work when delegating responsibility to someone else. It’s important not to simply issue a task and forget about it. In this sense everything will be subject to the will of Fate. If the person doing it turns out to be good, the task will be completed, but if not then you have to constantly interfere with a badly-working mechanism, directing and correcting its course. You have to feel this and have an intuitive feeling of a conscious choice when delegating, which exists in an understanding of your own responsibility to yourself. After this it should be enough to just follow the process from time to time without interfering in it and allowing it an opportunity to develop along its nominated path. So you can formulate the following principle of whole-hearted management. It can be regarded as the approach to carrying out tasks from the position of responsibility to yourself.

Good impressions

Impressions – are a food for human awareness, for our feelings and emotions. Impressions have immediate effect on our emotional perceptions that are linked with a desire to achieve a Result from some activity or other. To put it simply – a “bad impression” is one that doesn’t fit our perceptions while a “good” or “surprisingly pleasant” impression is one that meets or exceeds our expectations leading to positive feelings. Positive feelings strengthen us, while on the other hand negative emotions drain it, therefore people instinctively look for good impressions and return to the place where they can get them again. For this reason the first principle of sincere management which I set-up for myself was to Offer a good impression to my clients.
In particular this means justifying or exceeding expectations that have been vested in you. And if you dig deeper, I must myself be the source of positive emotions and intentions for this to work. In equal measure this can be related to my relations with suppliers. Every person in their own way is a receiver and transmitter of different emotions, and any management is a constant form of communication. It is important to remember about one’s responsibility, what emotion you transmitted and what impression your colleague, client or interlocutor received. Therefore it doesn’t matter whether it’s a chat or business correspondence. Our emotions depend on our mood, intentions, interests, responsibilities, that we apply to a concrete thing and anyone, even if they can’t see it in your eyes or in the letter, has to consciously feel it.
Genuine understanding of this fact inside yourself is very important.

Some words before...

It so happened, that having been working for over 8 years providing localisation services and providing support to marketing companies, that one glorious day I realised that I had acquired the baggage of practical knowledge and experience, and I wanted to share it! As they say, there’s no smoke without fire, but it didn’t just happen like that, but thanks to the influence of a number of factors peculiar to the Russian market in this and other areas.

Money

Everyone really wants it, as well as receiving more and spending less. In the overwhelming majority of cases money is the main argument for decision making, is the key factor in any Russian tender, the sharpest item in the  financial report, the most sought-after bonus, which you want to receive together with recognition of your human value. This is nothing to be surprised about – it’s always been like that and will be for a long time to come.

The Result

Everyone needs it, everyone talks about it, and even more think about it in the context of receiving the same money that engenders many well-conceived, thoughtless and sometimes senseless projects. At times the method of achieving this result is very cloudy, and the methods applied are not always suited to the situation. This all blocks the road to the Holy Grail in something resembling a Brownian motion.

Management

In the majority of cases this results in the transfer of responsibility from one performer to another. As a result of their joint efforts something is created that only barely resembles what was planned in the beginning. Furthermore this is proudly named The Result and, they say, just like it was conceived and is good that it turned out just like that and not worse. For all of this there is a huge number of project management and personnel management methods, a vast array of books and articles have been penned about management structures. Just a few of these emphasise the internal development of ‘the manager.‘

Interests

“And when will I be paid?”

Pay day is everyone’s favourite day of the month. This completes the circle – beginning with money, everything comes down to just that.

When I first convinced myself of just how stable this model is, in which to a known degree everything is posited from head to toe, and embedded in contemporary business practice, it seemed to me that I could use this as an excellent opportunity for developing and offering my clients management and services of a level quite different to those that they were accustomed to receiving.

I needed to turn the page with the heading Interest in the Result. With due effort interest generates responsibility in a person, forcing them to seek a solution and forming the required expertise for independent management.  In this instance money is not an end to itself, but an entirely natural reward and the result of applied effort. In this manner I had the chance to sell not just goods and services for a certain monetary amount, but a whole process or my own type of management culture, whose result is the very same product or service, but of an incomparably different character.  The difference is, above all, in the impressions and feelings, that the client has from the Result. 

It’s about just these very experiences, management culture and personal responsibility that I wanted to write about in this blog.