We have all heard of the adage that the camel is a horse designed by the committee. Well recently, I have faced some minor disagreements with one of my existing project group. And that's where a faction comes into play. I have a sudden urge to Blog on this topic, upon seeing, one my team mates' word of the day: Faction. It's definition according to the Cambridge Dictionary is a group within a larger group, especially one with slightly different ideas from the main group. The main concern you see, is whether the existence of a faction, has a detrimental effect on the group's working capabilities. In Dodge & Cox, a global professional investment management firm, their executives regard disagreements as fine. In fact they considered it as a strength. However they felt that operating with a different investment philosophy isn't. This is how I feel the evaluation of the disagreements within my group on whether it is a strength or fracture to our team cohesiveness should be based on- working philosophies.
Okay, so let me start with one disagreement within my group. Now as a description of myself, and I offer no biasness on it since, it is how a friend of mine describes myself- I am a very opinionated person. But that is entirely different from being self-opinionated, the difference being a self-opinionated person believes his/her ideas are the only correct ones. I often disagree on many things, but not without sound logic or giving an explanation and I always adopt an open mind to the opinions of others. I'll give an example on this. When working on my Glo-bus project, Shanice and Ling commented on the strategy I was recommending and both expressed their concern on the price I was recommending for the cameras. At that point, I understood their concerns since I had similar ones. I had on hand, however, many reasons why I felt that the strategy was the best course of action and I make it an effort to explain to them. If they still disagree on it, than I request for a counter explanation on why it is so and a recommendation of an alternative strategy. Without that, it is just a speculation based on emotions, a no go.
That is the principles I work on which I know many find it hard to accept. So now let me discuss on my working philosophies and whether it is running parallel to my group's. Firstly, I believe that a team, should operate as a team. Toyota has one of the best organization structure globally. Their decision making process is:
1. Decide and announce
2. Seek Individual input, then decide and announce
3. Seek Group input, then decide and announce
4. Group Consensus, and approval
5. Group consensus, with full authority.
If consensus is not achieved go back to stage 4 or 3
I advocate this method of decision making and find it hard to accept at least wholeheartedly when a major decision is made concerning the group without a general consent or at least, prior acknowledgement. One of this instances occurred for our Sales Communication Project, in which we had to choose a product and work on it. It is a major decision because the whole report, revolves around on the selection of it. It so happened that we had chosen on a particular line of phone as a first choice, and security system as an alternative, should the first choice prove unfavourable. It so happened that while we were working on it, Eugene and Daniel decided that it was not such a good option because of the price and so, they emailed everyone on the change but not without consultation input with our leader, Ling. To add verisimilitude to my account, here was the copy of the email I received in verbatim, :
This is the product we be doin for Sales Strategy
Cisco Voice and Unified Communications 7691 G
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5945/index.html
List Price is USD$445 (plus USD$200 license) for 7961G.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/index.html
Note: This is NOT a VOIP phone, instead it is a Unified Communication
System. Meaning it uses company's broadband to transmit and recieve calls.
This phone is being used by many MNCs.
As starters, I have no objection to the new product. I just disagree with how the decision is made since when I reached school on Monday morning, I realized that 2 of our other members were unaware of the change of plans. That in effect, is skipping step 2 and 3 of the decision making process. I'd like to believe that respect is something you earn, that respect, the more you give, the more you will receive which was apparently missing at this point. What really ticked me off is that both Eugene and Daniel had finished their individual parts already and therefore there was simply no point in discussing further on the viability of the product choice, since I was fine with it from the beginning although it did inconvenience me and Charmaine a little.
Secondly, with regard to how the workload is distributed, I am a guy who believes in team efficiency. So when I come to a junction whereby I am facing two possible choices, I will opt for the better one as I have already described in the post before. Now I have no objections with working with Charmaine. In fact, I feel that she's a great member to have- that I swear with the bottom of my heart. But what I honestly felt was that, when it comes to the work I was assigned, I work better alone or at least with Shanice, since she compliments the areas I am weak at, market research. Thus I made a suggestion to Eugene to split me and Charmaine up and had to convince Eugene that there was no problem(conflict) between me and Charmaine. It's just the style that works best on me. This is where the displeasure sets in, because the team could have been redesigned easily without Charmaine getting the feeling that something was "wrong."
The last displeasure that I face is that, the project in it's current state, is in a great mess since many us are confused as to what to include inside the project and what to cut. This problem really irritates me, since it could have been avoided easily to begin with. The group is really inefficient and often we have to do pointless double work (like the change in product mentioned before). Last weekend I was actually assigned to work on some Keegan Model which was to be completed by Friday. Since I had to finish up this model within a deadline, I decided to complete it early and "redo" my part concerning the analysis of Taiwan's consumer market which I left to Friday to complete. Okay, I admit that's a fair distribution of work, yes I like doing models and don't have complaints on that. I even did it up early and emailed it to the team. Come Monday (yesterday), Eugene apologized to me for not taking a look at what I've done because he had been really busy. Okay, apology accepted for not looking through what I've done up because of a tight schedule. Yeah right. It's more like bad time management on his part. Last Friday night he went to MOS to party, while I was at home working on my part of the project (that reminds me of a scene in Harold and Kuma go to White Castle where Harold was arrowed work by his colleagues while they went to party with the girls) . Ok go party all night, I don't really care whether you look at it by Friday. But at least inform me that you would not be needing it in advance so I can make changes to my schedule.
Shanice mentioned to me today about the book "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" in lecture today. In the book, the acoustic boy often disagreed with his teacher on the things his teacher taught. However in all instances, he was right (he was a math genious). Shanice mentioned that the boy annoys her since he was so stubborn and always insisted he was right. I disagreed with Shanice on that and opined that the stubborn person was actually teacher since he was unable to accept the logic behinds the boy's disagreements (because of personal ego). Shanice than explained that the boy was annoying since he was unable to understand the feelings of others- His teacher was often irritated because of the boy's disagreements, that is true. However, logically, it should have been the boy who should have been irritated since he got his facts were right. But in any case, disagreements based on emotions are very different with those based on logical reasoning and Shanice's disagreement with me did not fall within context on the situation.
Back to the working environment created by Dodge and Cox. Dodge and Cox believes in having a leaderless and power-sharing committee. Sitting in a conference room, the team discusses and asks questions - how are executives incentivized? What would boost margins? - and the, going around the table each member voices an opinion. "It's not a strict vote. Just because five agree and four disagree don't doesn't mean an idea will go through." says Roger Kuo an analyst who covers media companies and sits on the policy committee for international stocks. Four strong objections and five moderately enthusiastic supporters will probably nix an idea. As will the rare situation when disagreements turns into polarization. "The process," says Kuo, "is like taking the temperature of the room."
Likewise, this is exactly what we are also missing, besides gathering general consensus in regard to Toyota's decision making processes. Constructive disagreements are fine but when it boils down to those of my group's, it leaves me largely disheartened. I miss my previous working group last semester. Everything had a place under the sun, and a season for everything. Maybe a faction exists within my present group, yes, but not within a good reasons of different working philosophies. We can only be a horse, only if we choose to be one. Afterall, what's the point in designing a camel, when the horse keeps winning the race?
Okay, so let me start with one disagreement within my group. Now as a description of myself, and I offer no biasness on it since, it is how a friend of mine describes myself- I am a very opinionated person. But that is entirely different from being self-opinionated, the difference being a self-opinionated person believes his/her ideas are the only correct ones. I often disagree on many things, but not without sound logic or giving an explanation and I always adopt an open mind to the opinions of others. I'll give an example on this. When working on my Glo-bus project, Shanice and Ling commented on the strategy I was recommending and both expressed their concern on the price I was recommending for the cameras. At that point, I understood their concerns since I had similar ones. I had on hand, however, many reasons why I felt that the strategy was the best course of action and I make it an effort to explain to them. If they still disagree on it, than I request for a counter explanation on why it is so and a recommendation of an alternative strategy. Without that, it is just a speculation based on emotions, a no go.
That is the principles I work on which I know many find it hard to accept. So now let me discuss on my working philosophies and whether it is running parallel to my group's. Firstly, I believe that a team, should operate as a team. Toyota has one of the best organization structure globally. Their decision making process is:
1. Decide and announce
2. Seek Individual input, then decide and announce
3. Seek Group input, then decide and announce
4. Group Consensus, and approval
5. Group consensus, with full authority.
If consensus is not achieved go back to stage 4 or 3
I advocate this method of decision making and find it hard to accept at least wholeheartedly when a major decision is made concerning the group without a general consent or at least, prior acknowledgement. One of this instances occurred for our Sales Communication Project, in which we had to choose a product and work on it. It is a major decision because the whole report, revolves around on the selection of it. It so happened that we had chosen on a particular line of phone as a first choice, and security system as an alternative, should the first choice prove unfavourable. It so happened that while we were working on it, Eugene and Daniel decided that it was not such a good option because of the price and so, they emailed everyone on the change but not without consultation input with our leader, Ling. To add verisimilitude to my account, here was the copy of the email I received in verbatim, :
This is the product we be doin for Sales Strategy
Cisco Voice and Unified Communications 7691 G
http://www.cisco.com/en/US
List Price is USD$445 (plus USD$200 license) for 7961G.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US
Note: This is NOT a VOIP phone, instead it is a Unified Communication
System. Meaning it uses company's broadband to transmit and recieve calls.
This phone is being used by many MNCs.
As starters, I have no objection to the new product. I just disagree with how the decision is made since when I reached school on Monday morning, I realized that 2 of our other members were unaware of the change of plans. That in effect, is skipping step 2 and 3 of the decision making process. I'd like to believe that respect is something you earn, that respect, the more you give, the more you will receive which was apparently missing at this point. What really ticked me off is that both Eugene and Daniel had finished their individual parts already and therefore there was simply no point in discussing further on the viability of the product choice, since I was fine with it from the beginning although it did inconvenience me and Charmaine a little.
Secondly, with regard to how the workload is distributed, I am a guy who believes in team efficiency. So when I come to a junction whereby I am facing two possible choices, I will opt for the better one as I have already described in the post before. Now I have no objections with working with Charmaine. In fact, I feel that she's a great member to have- that I swear with the bottom of my heart. But what I honestly felt was that, when it comes to the work I was assigned, I work better alone or at least with Shanice, since she compliments the areas I am weak at, market research. Thus I made a suggestion to Eugene to split me and Charmaine up and had to convince Eugene that there was no problem(conflict) between me and Charmaine. It's just the style that works best on me. This is where the displeasure sets in, because the team could have been redesigned easily without Charmaine getting the feeling that something was "wrong."
The last displeasure that I face is that, the project in it's current state, is in a great mess since many us are confused as to what to include inside the project and what to cut. This problem really irritates me, since it could have been avoided easily to begin with. The group is really inefficient and often we have to do pointless double work (like the change in product mentioned before). Last weekend I was actually assigned to work on some Keegan Model which was to be completed by Friday. Since I had to finish up this model within a deadline, I decided to complete it early and "redo" my part concerning the analysis of Taiwan's consumer market which I left to Friday to complete. Okay, I admit that's a fair distribution of work, yes I like doing models and don't have complaints on that. I even did it up early and emailed it to the team. Come Monday (yesterday), Eugene apologized to me for not taking a look at what I've done because he had been really busy. Okay, apology accepted for not looking through what I've done up because of a tight schedule. Yeah right. It's more like bad time management on his part. Last Friday night he went to MOS to party, while I was at home working on my part of the project (that reminds me of a scene in Harold and Kuma go to White Castle where Harold was arrowed work by his colleagues while they went to party with the girls) . Ok go party all night, I don't really care whether you look at it by Friday. But at least inform me that you would not be needing it in advance so I can make changes to my schedule.
Shanice mentioned to me today about the book "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" in lecture today. In the book, the acoustic boy often disagreed with his teacher on the things his teacher taught. However in all instances, he was right (he was a math genious). Shanice mentioned that the boy annoys her since he was so stubborn and always insisted he was right. I disagreed with Shanice on that and opined that the stubborn person was actually teacher since he was unable to accept the logic behinds the boy's disagreements (because of personal ego). Shanice than explained that the boy was annoying since he was unable to understand the feelings of others- His teacher was often irritated because of the boy's disagreements, that is true. However, logically, it should have been the boy who should have been irritated since he got his facts were right. But in any case, disagreements based on emotions are very different with those based on logical reasoning and Shanice's disagreement with me did not fall within context on the situation.
Back to the working environment created by Dodge and Cox. Dodge and Cox believes in having a leaderless and power-sharing committee. Sitting in a conference room, the team discusses and asks questions - how are executives incentivized? What would boost margins? - and the, going around the table each member voices an opinion. "It's not a strict vote. Just because five agree and four disagree don't doesn't mean an idea will go through." says Roger Kuo an analyst who covers media companies and sits on the policy committee for international stocks. Four strong objections and five moderately enthusiastic supporters will probably nix an idea. As will the rare situation when disagreements turns into polarization. "The process," says Kuo, "is like taking the temperature of the room."
Likewise, this is exactly what we are also missing, besides gathering general consensus in regard to Toyota's decision making processes. Constructive disagreements are fine but when it boils down to those of my group's, it leaves me largely disheartened. I miss my previous working group last semester. Everything had a place under the sun, and a season for everything. Maybe a faction exists within my present group, yes, but not within a good reasons of different working philosophies. We can only be a horse, only if we choose to be one. Afterall, what's the point in designing a camel, when the horse keeps winning the race?
No comments:
Post a Comment