People Focus

inspired by one of my mentors, Thomas Ewe.



People.

We are in the people business. We may be software, consulting, and services vendor, but make no mistake; we are in the 'people' business. People make our world tick. We group people in two: External and Internal. While outsiders are very important to us, insiders are EVERYONE among and EVERYTHING to us. How we treat those on the outside is the subject of another philosophy.

In the definition of ourselves, we are interested only in people on the inside (employees, consultants, vendor partners) and it can be summed up in one sentence; "we take care of our own." For us to succeed, it takes all to make it happen. And therefore, we arrive at the fundamental concept of teamwork. What one person can accomplish is limited. But when all of us pull together in one focused direction, the result of our combined efforts will be multiplied. Suddenly it takes less to accomplish more.

As a team, we cover and make up for each others weaknesses. And when we come together; we expose none of them to outsiders. We compete against outsiders, never among ourselves. So to those on the outside, all they will feel is the brunt of one combined, focused blow.

As blood is to the body; 'information' is to the 'team.' So, information should flow freely and shared freely. It should be written up and cataloged for future reference, so that we don't reinvent the wheel again and again. Any work that we do or are about to do, we must think of how others can leverage and build on top of it; and then structure it just that way. Facilitate. And don't underestimate the power of hard work. The little additional time you spend now; reap enormous rewards even if your work is only reused once in future; and the rewards snowball as it is reused more than once.

Faith. We trust and love our people beyond religious beliefs. We respect humanity, while appreciating and honoring our individual decisions to come-together and work-together. Even though our love is secular; it is nonetheless applied with absolute conviction. Just as the army leaves no wounded behind; we strive to be inclusive, supportive, fair and appreciative. So we stand faced in one direction; and walk towards one destination.

"The automobile capital of the world is not Detroit; it's Toyota City; where everyone considers himself a brother of the other."

Competition

inspired by one of my mentors, Thomas Ewe.

Competition; in the truest sense of that word, we have finite. But if we extend the definition of that word, to include anything or anyone that has the ability to stop us; then we have a ton; (i.e. Challenges.)

And so, for each that is identified; through discovery or retrospection; we will need a strategy to either mitigate or eliminate. And to do that effectively; we need ‘Clarity’ of our goals and the flexibility to ‘Change’; in essence; to learn.

Only by having ‘Clarity’ can we act decisively. And only by embracing ‘Change’ can we act purely to achieve our goals and not tinted by anything in the past.

‘Change’ can be painful; but it is the only way to get us from here to where we are going. So we embrace it. With that in place, we can pursue the course of continuous improvement. It works like this: We look into the past to see what didn’t work, identify how we want it to work, change and move forward to apply. Central tenet.

But this is a ‘Reactive’ in nature. Moving forward, we will need to move in ‘Proactive’ mode.

What does that mean? ‘Clarity’ and ‘Change’ still feature prominently, but instead of ‘Looking back to see what didn’t work’; we ‘look forward to see what we can do better’.

Taking the ‘Competition’ concept one-step further; we compete against ourselves!

To implement, think like a competitor. “If I were a competitor of myself today; what would I do?” How can I out-compete myself today? Is it faster implementation? Is it better service? Is it closer relationship with customers? How do I get better sales result, better communication; better credibility? How can we make my services obsolete in 6 months?

Then it is those we implement. We will ruthlessly compete against ourselves (not among ourselves!!) but ourselves as a team, a company. And since we embrace change; risk taking comes naturally. First have ‘Clarity’; then take the risk, take the responsibility and execute.

The above seem logical and simplistic, even commonsensical; but few truly live by it; hampered by their inability to see that ‘Change’ is such an important factor.

‘Change’ we embrace; 'Clarity' we pursue; improvement, continuous.