Push your subordinate to the limit

I was talking to one of my colleagues that I can trust on. He was giving me tons of advise in the work. I admired his experiences being in the different project in different countries. Our conversation was about how I felt that I had a subordinate that some of his works are done by me and I was complaining a little about it.

My friend told me that it was my fault. I created a work environment that making my subordinate comfortable with his current tasks. Any additional tasks that are given to him would result into complaints. And all of these were my fault. My friend added that it is a human nature that are reluctant to a change. He gave an example that during weekend without plan, he will fell tired and just want to stay at home. If all of the sudden, your son or spouse ask you to do something, you will be reluctant to do it. This applies as in work environment.

In summary, my fried told me to impose additional tasks to my subordinates with proper planning. Adding the task step by step with proper planning will result into less resistance. And the additional tasks will become his daily routine that he will be comfortable with. My friend added "If your sub-ordinate complains, just disregard it and push him to the limit. Tell who the boss is!".

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Spaghetti Wiring

I was visiting my friend's office who are in charge of checking PocketPC (Hand Held Unit) before distributing them to respective reading center to be used by readers. When I saw the PocketPC chargers in his office is very un-organized, he defensively said "Sorry for the spaghetti wiring, It is just temporary. I will organize them later".

Well, I was thinking in my head. Why he did not organize it in the first place before using them to charge PocketPCs. I am sure that the time he will spend now to organize the spaghetti wiring will be longer. Hmmmm... anyway, it is his work space. I dont have a right to tell a person how to work. If he is comfortable with the way he works and as long as it is not affecting my work, why should I care?

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Just put 3 things in your ppt slide

When you are doing a presentation, try to make only 3 ideas per slide. And just put the main points. I have seen in the presentation that presenters put tons of information in the slides. I know that he/she wants to put it there so that when the slides are printed and given as a hand out, it will contain all the information in the slides. BUT it is not a good way to do presentation.

Remember that the presentation is all about showing some slides to help you maintain the flow of discussion and give better pictures of your explanations. All the details should be kept away from the slides. It could be in your notes and you can give away your notes after the presentation finish. It is important not to give your detailed notes before the presentation otherwise your audience will be busy reading your notes (well... maybe only some of them read it).

The slides should contain limited ideas and could be helpful if chart or images are shown regarding the main points. If you are presenting about the sales, you could just put in your slides regarding the progress of your sales in terms of charts. Use bold colors to emphasize the progress or decline. It will catch your audience attention and trigger them to want to know better your content of your presentation.

I hope this simple tips could help you doing better presentation.

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Creating an effective report

I have been creating many reports for my work. Either daily, weekly or monthly reports. I realize that because of the repetitions, the reports are often being ignored by my boss. For example in this weekly report, I stated that we have problem in the progress because of lacking of 1 human resources. By the time this problem appears in every weekly report, the problem becomes unnoticable.

Recent conversatio with my friend, he was giving me some inputes on how to make effective reports that gets attention on upper management to do action. I can summarize what my friend said to me into several points below:
1. Start with the problem. He said that it is more effective to start the report showing all the negative sides. After that, we can show all the positives sides. In the end, what takes attention of bosses are the beginning of the report.
2. Rephrase all the problem in every report (if not yet solved). Repetition is a good technique to remind upper management or other parties about the points that we want to convey. In addition, rephasing it in every report can greatly catch the attention when somebody reads the report.
3. Show problems in organized ways. Try to group by maximum of 3 points. Reader of the report could easily grasp the information if the information is groupped into smaller piece.

I hope this little conversation with my friend could help you in creating reports that catch the attention of the reader to do action.

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