Operations, Processes, and Decisions

One of the mistakes that happen, sometimes, in workplace, research and in life is asking the wrong question and spending time to solve it. What does that mean? Read the following examples:

• The solution of a certain problem is not known. Then someone suggests a model that is very difficult to solve. Then researchers spend years trying to suggest a solution to that model. But we forget to find another model that can be easily solved
• Someone suggests an IT system then the IT people of the company are busy trying to decide how to build the system and whether it should be built in-house or outsourced. But the important question “do we really need this system?” is not asked
• A manager is happy with the results of his subordinates but he never asks if he was using the right measures or performance
• A quality manager is very proud of the quality of the company’s products or services but he forgets to ensure that this quality improvement is perceived by customers
• A manger says that he does not need to apply any new management practices because he was doing the same work for decades and it has been successful. But he forgot for decades to ask himself “How are we doing compared with others?”
• A training manager and a CEO are celebrating the company’s successful training activities. But they forgot to ask are those training activities improving the performance and are we training people on what they need
• A manager asks for a presentation everyday but he never asks “do we need a presentation?”
• A CEO visits a company that applies JIT then he decides to apply JIT. Then he gets to hear about Lean so he decides to apply “Lean”. Then he attends a seminar about six sigma so he decides to apply six sigma. Then someone tells him about Kaizen so he decides to apply Kaizen. But he never asks “Do we really need this initiative? Is it applicable for us? Is it different from what we have?”
• People tend to try to achieve what others like to achieve. So, someone will kill himself working for decades to end up as a CEO. But he forgets to ask “Is that what makes me happy?”. The other works very hard to have millions of dollars but he forgets to ask “do I need more to be happier?”

When taking managerial decision don’t forget to ask yourself: Is this the right question? Do we need this? Are we eliminating the results of the problem and not asking about the root? Are these activities really improving our performance?

Many people or most people think that what they do will affect them only, however; what you do or say leads to a long list of actions. Think about this example:

someone lies….he may get what he does not deserve…since he lied once, it is easy for him to lie again….since he can lie and he knows that lying is very bad, then he can do other bad things….other people know that he was lying….Some of them may disrespect him…some of them will have less negative reaction to lying since it is becoming more common…some of them will start lying….someone will lie to you…he may get from you what he does not deserve…since he lied to you, you are more willing to lie…you may hate him…we lose trust…we don’t want to cooperate..we don’t want to interact…we don’t want to invest together….job opportunities are less…more people are willing to lie to get job opportunity…people lose trust in the CV…it becomes easy for people to do bad things becasue when asked about it they can lie………it becomes terrible and ugly

Another example
Someone says: “I know this is bad but given the circumstances…and …then for me it may not be so bad to do…”….Since he did it once then it easy for him to make any argument to make anything that is very bad seems right….he loses the limits between bad and good….other people follow the same behavior…the bad things become very common…the evil arguments that changes bad to good become very common….New arguments that changes good to bad appears….right and wrong lose their meanings……..it becomes very terrible and ugly

Another example
some companies give false promises to customers while doing marketing research….other companies follow the same behavior…people become reluctant to participate in marketing research….compnaies do not know the real customers’ needs….products does not suit customers…business go down…lack of job opportunities…more umemployed people…social problems…umenployed people having difficulty starting new projects because they cannot contact customers……..

Doing a bad thing is not a single action but it may lead to a long chain of bad actions. We should not accept bad behavior or try to imitate it because it will result in a terrible world. On the other hand, you may do a good thing that leads to a long chain of good things.

Some organizations try to improve part of this service dramatically but they forget to make sure that other parts of the service are good enough.

• Recently a company announced in the major newspaper in Egypt about a certain service. The ad was one page of this daily newspaper for several days. I decided to call them one day and I heard a recorded message that tells me that no one is available to answer my call. I repeated the trial on the same day and in the next day and everytime I got the same reply. I was not even told to wait until someone is available. You may think I called after the working hour but I actually called during the hours they mentioned in their ad. They spent on the ad and did not spend on their sales persons? If the company cannot answer to your call when your are asking about their services, how will they respond to you after your purchase the service

• A big store, that I visited several times, has high quality products, very good offers, and very bad customer service. The customer associates does not know how to deal with customer professionally, and the management of the store does not know how to train or motivate them. The result is that I hate that store

 High Quality is not measured with what you did or what you spent. If the customer is not satisfied then you have low quality. To improve the customer perception about your service then you need the customer to be satisfied with everything in your service. It is not enough to have very high quality goods, it is not enough to have a store in very good location, it is not enough to spend millions in ads. You need to have a good service which means you need  to have trained employees, short waiting time, quick response, good service environment, good after sales service besides the high quality goods. 

While most countries share similar CV (resume) writing styles, there are some differences. In the USA and Canada, you are supposed not to write any personal information except name, address, e-mail. In other countries such as New Zealand, it is optional to write your birth date. In the UK, you write date of birth but you may not write marital status and you should not write your gender and religion. In other countries such as France, Japan, Russia, Poland, Egypt, KSA, and UAE, the CV must contain these personal information. In France and Japan, in most cases you have to include a photo while in the USA it is not included.

In the USA, you are supposed to write an objective at the top of the CV. The objective describes your career objectives in one sentence. In the UK, you are supposed to write your profile instead of the objective. The profile is a short paragraph that describes  your skills and capabilities. In many other parts of the world, you write neither objective nor profile.

In the USA, the cover letter is very important and should explain why this applicant is a good choice for this position. In France, the cover letter should be handwritten and your handwriting may be analyzed. In Egypt, the cover letter purpose is to show the position the applicant is applying for and it is usually short.

Below are some sites that gives some guidance for writing CV in certain countries

Finland   France   UK    UK   Japan   Russia   New Zealand    New Zealand   USA   USA

Two years ago Lally school of RPI made radical changes to the core courses of the MBA program. Instead of studying 10 separate courses in the first years, students now are studying 5 courses – called streams of knowledge. Each of the five courses discusses several basic MBA classes in a business case context. So, instead of studying finance class, marketing class, operations class,…etc, students study how to establish a new company, how to design and introduce new products.

Few years ago, I attended this program. At that time, the curriculum was similar to other schools except one course which included: Marketing, Operations, Accounting, Industrial Design, New product development. At the beginning, I didn't understand the idea of this class but as we went through the 2nd semester, I started enjoying the experience. The main activity in this class was a big project of designing a new product, preparing business plan of the company that will produce that product and introducing the product to market. The course and the project were supervised by 5 professors. The good point in such a project is that you put the students in, almost, a real business environment where they have to make good product, good marketing while keeping in mind the financial statements. When designing the product we were considering the customer needs and the cost of material and manufacturing. We had to make the good matching between the manufacturing, marketing, design and accounting.

It is early to expect whether this approach will be a new trend in the MBA programs. From my experience, I think it is very useful way of teaching but it needs qualified cooperative faculty and very good design of the courses. I wonder if the same approach can be used in teaching science or engineering.