Sunday, August 10, 2014

What I'm into Lately?

I don't have the liberty of time to write about something when an idea comes to mind. What I do is put the title of that idea to this blog the soonest possible time. Then, save it to draft.

Today as I open this account, I see few titles without anything written inside the post. Some I could no longer remember what those are about - these include the title "What I'm into lately?" 

The twist, this post comes with two photos. 



1. I supposed to start my reading two weeks ago. Assuming I have seriously started my daily workout through Men's Health "Coach" and self-refresher course in statistics, I am supposed to be at the thick of fitness regimen and review of statistics. Well, I'm not.

Getting a set of abs is still my lifelong dream. 

I'm not a math person so it's such a wonder I now fell into career in statistics - okay, data gathering, which the first step. I teach in a college. Every start of the semester, when we are allowed to borrow books, I would have numbers of them. Even not the subject that I teach. I would have English Communication, Technical Writing and Statistics.

At the end of the semester, I'll be returning them as clearance for the last salary - untouched.  


2. My set of dumbbell is with me for around 7 years. It came from a compliment.  I just don't know if it really serves its purpose. Just when I was very into it, someone would borrow it from me. I have them at home right now but I'm waiting for the right motivation.

These are the things I was into two weeks ago.  


Wednesday, August 6, 2014

“GUNG HO”: A Reaction

For once, everyone experienced writing a film review or reaction paper to a movie. Another file saved on my email is a school requirement about associating business concepts with the film Gungho. The email dates back March 23, 2005. I can't remember what my grade was for this reaction. Anyways, I passed the subject.

***


"GUNG HO": A Reaction 

INTRODUCTION

Hunt Stevenson has stopped believing that his purpose of coming to Japan would be realized. He found himself networking friends who could find him a new job. Soon enough, Hadleyville, is holding a warm welcome – with red carpet treatment, to Japanese entourage that will lead the rebirth of the town’s livelihood. Assan Motors, a Japanese car-manufacturing firm will be in operation employing Hadleyville residents.

Two worlds apart, the task of having American and Japanese way of making car is as chaotic as imagined. Assan Motors Company, with a vague organizational structure is in a cross-cultural dimension. Both parties are convicted with their own interest, the Americans, to make a living for their family; and the Japanese to maintain quality and precision. Neither of the groups expected a major clash that may arise in the differences in each culture – value of quality, perception of time, and family’s worth. They have different cultures, and that’s what the film shows.

DISCUSSION

The risk in having two nationalities in one organization was taken on the principle that a whole town will be given source of income. The town’s condition is fast declining in terms of economics and industry. One hope that the residents have is for the factory to be in operation again. As they hope, when its revival happened that’s when the residents faced a bigger challenge; that is to deal with the Japanese way.

We must build a spirit. We must be a team, one -with only one purpose. Everyone (would be) thinking only of the company. As to commence operation of the company, the premise is to do everything for the company and nothing but for the company. This spells Japanese way of doing things, car for this matter. For the Japanese, quality is what matters. On the job, there are principles that come up that set distinction between them.

Zero defects. Japanese are particular with defects. Anything under quality of doing the job is intolerable. It was said the film that, when Japanese did a defective job they’re very ashamed of themselves and they won’t go home unless it was corrected. With the price the goes with the product, there should have no defects – whether hidden or seen. In one instance, Hunt said that in products there might be hidden defects, something that’s intolerable to the Japanese.

Concentrate at work. There are certain conditions that a person may be comfortable working at. There are points that the film showed them. Working with music playing, may be productive to Americans, however, Japanese discards this idea. They prohibit music when working because they think it makes the workers less concentrated in the job; and lessen productivity. Americans encourage workers to read to sharpen knowledge, which Japanese negates as barriers to attention with the works.

Set aside personal matters. One worker whose child will be taken to the hospital was forbidden to leave the workplace on the premise that if he did, it would be taken against him. There are also scenes in the part of the Japanese character, Kazihoro when he neglects his children in favor of his job. One time, when his wife goes home with a bicycle to be assembled for their child, he could not set eyes on it because his working. There are times that he was seen irritated by the sight of his children because he needs silence.

Battle for Power

There was battle for power; on who should be followed and what way should things be done in the organization. The Japanese wants to impose authority since they are the ones who created jobs for the particular place in America. On the other hand, Americans do not want to diverge from what they are – or what they think they are, superior to any nationality.

However, Americans with families to feed, have to think of survival. They turned their motivation to rewards as to achieve the raise in salaries and guaranteed employment. As Vroom’s theory denote, efforts lead to performance and performance leads to rewards, the workers are motivated to work well. Though they were just aiming for the half-raise through 13,000 units of car, it is still one good example of motivation. More, when they were motivated to finish 15,000 units of car is one best example of reward power. Reward power is one type of power wherein the employee is influenced to work better if achievement of rewards is expected.

RECOMMENDATIONS


Communicating Cultural Differences
To be able have a better relationship with people with other culture, as the film exhibited, it has to be understood that communication varies according to culture.

Written communication has different connotations in business practice as culture varies. American way of meeting at one idea is that proposals are made through written forms. It is one formal way of suggesting to come up with decisions. With the Japanese way, documentation is only done when everything has been agreed upon. Written communication serves as a final decision.

Meetings. Almost similar to how written communication is treated, meetings are conducted formally with the Americans to discuss a project, to resolve an issue, and propose ventures. Meeting as a team also serves as a discussion to balance pros and cons of the subject until the team has come to an agreement on what option to take. In contrast, the Japanese sets aside discussions at formal meetings. Deliberations and other processes to come up with decisions are done through informal talks. By the time the team holds a meeting, a consensus has been reached.

It is to be cited there are instances in the movie that agreements were not done in formal meetings. It was in a dinner when ladies have to be excused to discuss important matters. In that dinner, Hunt was supposed to be fired had he not been given a second chance. One major point of the movie, the main proposal to raise wages had 15,000 units achieved, was agreed upon on a lake when they were bathing.

Non-verbal communication also set diversity in different cultures. Americans observe eye contact in interacting to any person to denote sincerity and truthfulness. On the other hand Asian, including the Japanese find it rude to look at the other person all throughout the discussion. The Japanese may feel about Hunts gestures to be improper when he talks, when it is just practically how Americans act. In the same manner that Hunt thought that the proposal he had in Japan was nixed because they were silent in his presentation. Japanese could just be that silence when proposals are made.

Teamwork

As film gears toward conclusion, it is apparent that principle of teamwork is necessitated. On this inference, there has to be ground rules, which would serve as a basic agreement with how team works and how things will be done.

Work norms. The organization should determine what normal condition is like. Any deviation from it would be a case to work on. There has to be explanations with how the unlikely things came about, and how should they be given solutions. Norms is one basic issue that resulted as a problem in the movie. Americans think that American way – carefree attitude is the norm; and that’s what should prevail.

Facilitate norms. With the organization working at norms, the operation should then be handled and maintained at certain level. There is a need for the norms to be controlled to be able to determine at what intensity the unit/members should be working at. In the film, norms are facilitated in the point of view of the Hunt (for Americans) and Kazihoro (for Japanese). The two characters preserve what their culture is and as well respect the other. It is in the both characters that find equity in situation.

Communicate norms. Team members need to be informed with what these norms are. There are several means to communicate them. Members should be in knowledge to where the communication would be channeled to have smooth flow of information. It was seen in the film that employees have a meeting in a large crowd where everyone can hear their concerns in term of employment.

Quality Management as Professed by Japanese

Assan Motors, enforces quality and accuracy. With what prevails in reality and as the movie conveys, Japanese way of doing things is synonymous to quality. This feature is attributed to various factors; one of them is by these three names in the field on quality management – W. Edwards Deming, Joseph M. Juran and Kaoru Ishikawa.

With these three gurus mentioned and later to be discussed, in some ways where the film might be inspired. The gurus mentioned experienced cross-cultural diversity dealt in the workplace –either by working with the Japanese (Deming and Juran) or by being Japanese (Ishikawa) himself working with Americans. The principles hereunder could be recommended as prescriptions to quality management.

Deming, statistics professor at New York University in the 1940’s went to Japan after world war to assist the Japanese in Including quality and productivity. To his credit, Deming’s 14 points is now used as prescription needed to achieve quality in an organization. The key elements of Deming’s points are constancy of purpose, continual improvement and profound knowledge.

  • Constancy of purpose. He stressed that poor quality comes from the system itself, not with the employees. The system should have a constant purpose by which employees are aware of. This is where the employee behavior and perspective in the organization and working habits would come from. If the purpose were constant the employees would not be confused with what the organization stands for. For sure, any purpose that the organization has is geared toward the promotion of efficiency and productivity.

  • Continual improvement. Adapt new philosophy that comes with time. It is not enough to launch changes, see to it that entails more benefit than not doing anything. There are parameters available in the industry, improvement is not only beating one performance, it can also be measured with how it fairs in comparison to others of the same industry. Continual improvement denotes being at par with others, if not getting ahead of them.

·         Profound knowledge. First step to achieve profound knowledge is for every unit of the organization to know what the company wants; and it is to achieve optimization through quality management. A company who has everyone, wanting to attain optimal benefits, is the most likely to achieve quality. Another key element is to reduce variation. There are numerous variations available for grabs, yet organizations need not to deviate with what quality set. Had there be diverse move to be done, the whole standard should be reset.  Lastly, psychology needs to be given attention. Employees are the prime movers of the company; therefore understanding of behavior is important. When the company knows what the employees want, it follows that there has something to be done to satisfy it.

Juran being on of the forces of Japan’s quality, advocate that quality as fitness for use. He thinks that achieving quality is not as technical as Deming’s statistical approach. What he believes is that quality is controllable by the management, with the responsibility that defects be managed.

Ishikawa, though influenced by Deming and Juran, has his own set of quality management. Business practitioners find the fishbone diagram to be very useful in analyzing events and cases organization – an ishikawa’s idea. Quality can be managed through study on relationship of cause and effect. 

RESOLUTION

The progress of the film does not leave issues unresolved there’s much about the differences that has come to agreements.

Zero defects. In the process, the American understood the need to come up with quality product. Coming up with quality product is synonymous to eradicating defects. Rewards served as an important motivator in this realization. Japanese may be given credit for imposing quality, yet it is as well to be commended that Americans realized them on the right way and not because it was enforced.

Concentrate at work. Concentration was also realized through motivating factors that are available in the situation. What works is that Japanese learned to respect such habit since the realize that music has no adverse effect in work habit.

Set aside personal matters. With the orientation that company first before everything, Japanese are still human. They can still feel for their families. It just that these feelings are suppressed because of the training that they had. Towards the end of the film, Kazihoro brought out this issue because he felt that his family is more important. He realized it because of what he sees in Americans who care for their family, besides their dedication at work.

The main resolution happens when, towards the end of the film, when everyone, Americans and Japanese work as a team to see to it that 15,000 units are achieve. Aside from the literal working together of two nationalities as a team, it also served as a metaphor that cultures –in terms of work habit, values and belief, come to terms and unity to attain goals.


CONCLUSION


Americans always feel that they are special. They don’t like to be part of a team.

This particular statement is one of the most striking points of the film. Japanese said that every man’s love is job and that they should work as a team. In the first part of the film, the scenario is that Americans do not want to be under the Japanese system. They insist to have it their way, which the Japanese think that is wrong, when that the reason why the previous factory closed down in the first place. Being superior and special, did the Americans discard the principle? Not in any way.

One of the motivations that Hunt did is for Americans not to settle for the second best. If Japanese were able to manufacture 15,000 units of car, in the name of this premise and the rewards they were expected, they should.  

When Mr. Sakamoto commended to Kazihoro “You have a good team”, he replied, “I have good men”. Besides with the purpose and quality that Japanese have, there’s still human in them that feel; and that’s what Kazihoro personified in the film.

 Sure, good team is composed of good men, provided that good men work for one purpose –that is to achieve optimum results. This leads to a result to a whole that is greater than the sum, i.e. Gung Ho.


Annex:
Main characters:
  • Hunt Stevenson – is the hero of his town when his proposal with the Japanese worked. He was hired in the company and in the process; and blamed to be cause of almost-shutdown had he not redeemed himself and the situation in the end.
  • Mr. Kazihoro – is the Japanese executive who listens to American, and is willing to compromise had he not fear to be reprimanded by his superior.
  • Mr. Sakamoto – is the chief of Assan Motor, who’s feared by all the Japanese by being strict in sticking with what Japanese are.
  • Buster – is the obese friend of Hunt. His moment in the film is when he slammed against one of the Japanese executive during the softball game. He was eventually reassigned as a utility worker for that.

References:
Lori Breslow – Sloan Communication Program, 1997
William J. Stevenson – Operations Management, 2005.


A reaction paper presented to
Jose Benjamin P. Sabido


Submitted by:

Richard T. Guevara


MMBM

Co Workster

I have a co-employee who has a sister in college. She is in-charge of her sister's assignments to get actual business letters and reports. I am, on the other hand, in charge of providing these assignments.

The last one was a business plan. I work in the government which explains that I don't have any file for that. My last resort was to look for my emails during the time I was taking my Master's. I don't remember making one because I had a groupmate who took charge of that. All he asked was for me provide for the sliding folder. 

Upon checking my emails, I was able to run through my sent items of works and assignment circa 2004-2006 (around the time I was supposedly engrossed in writing business/ human resource related compositions - pa-intellectual lang hehe). This is one of what I found. It was my contribution to my former office's newsletter. I did not have the copy of the publication but I was able to save the email when I submitted the article to the editor in chief. The title of my column was "co workster" of the friendster fame - very 2006!.



***
HARD WORK + WAITING LINES = THE CHEESY-ACCOMPLISHED YOU

Heard about tale of the two mice and a cat? The two mice saw a piece of cheese. However, such was placed near the mouth of a cat, which is arguably, dead or sleeping. The first mouse thinks that it is dead. While the other one believes that the cat is actually sleeping, should he attempt to get the cheese, it will certainly be awaken.[1]

Queuing theory is the mathematical approach to the analysis of waiting lines.
Equation: Wq = Lq / λ
Where:
            Wq  - the average time customers wait in line
            Lq  - the average number of customers in the system (waiting and being served)
            λ  - customer arrival rate

Waiting lines may seem to be a very complex subject to discuss. In a simple scenario, filing for a Multi-Purpose Loan may only take 1-3 minutes to complete such transaction. A client may go to the STL-front desk and may be served for that short period of time. The problem is that, if there are 50 other clients who arrived before him. The client has to wait for early clients to finish before he may be served – that period of time is called waiting line.

In essence, not only the clients are in that line, the contractual employees themselves are in a more serious waiting line. Like the mice that are waiting for the cheese, contractual employees are likewise faced with enemies –uncertain whether they’re real, virtual, or apparent. Unconsciously, one may realize that the enemy is actually oneself.

Contractuals vs. Personal endeavors. With the delay of the promotion process, personal matters have also taken backseats. How can one raise a family with minimum wage as income? In this world and age, good parenting requires that the largest portion for responsibility is to provide. Each person aspires not only to become effective and efficient employees, but to become good parent as well.

Contractuals vs. expectancy. An employee in such situation never loses hope that promotion into permanent position might come soon. It would be resentful that such would materialize as one leaves the organization. Any opportunity outside the organization would be very hard to consider when one is conditioned with what he wants. The situation is very true especially to those who have been in the organization for more than 8 years. They’ve waited for that much, why not for another year or so?

Contractuals vs. Private employment. Be reminded that every year hundred-of-thousands graduate and would apparently belong to applicants. These multitudes of fresh people are now competitors to wherever one wishes to be hired in. With years added to one’s age, being on late-twenties/early-thirties wouldn’t be an advantage especially when one was stuck as clerk for several years.

Contractuals vs. peers. The idea of reunions or simple gathering with old friends and peers now may not ring a bell. The possibility of being asked “regular ka na?” is as certain as the peso devaluation or that another sales promotion might be launched by mobile-phone-communications company the next day

Contractuals vs. oneself. With such situation, one knows what he is into, and why he’s stuck on it. Here lies the question whether each person has a choice or not. Contractual employment binds the person to rules and policies that the contracting agency has, but it does not preclude him to take choices and consider other options. He may be bound by corporate guidelines, but he certainly is not imprisoned by this condition. What trapped him with the situation is the fear to confront these enemies – expected rewards, what’s beyond his comfort zone, and self worth?

Ask. “What would I do, if I weren’t afraid?”[2]

Where does hard work step in? There should never be a moment when an employee stops being at his best – and to be the best is not to be better than others, but to outdo the best that oneself has gone. Waiting is not just being able to bear the time that passes; it is to continuously strive to define the worth of every second that lapses.

For now, the contractual employees should wish to determine each factor and to finally solve the above equation. Then, they might find out that waiting is not the only way to an “accomplished-you”. Who knows, to reasonably move on, to look for another cheese would be a good option?

What happened with the two mice?

The first mouse grabbed the cheese thinking that the cat was dead. The cat, still, is not awake. The problem is that there was a mousetrap before the cheese.

The second mouse may not be aggressive as the first one. He was not killed by the mousetrap. However, afraid of the cat, he just waited for that cheese no matter what it takes. He eventually died too - out of hunger.

Whether the cat was asleep or dead? No one knows…






[1] taken from Chinese film, Time and Tide. 
[2] phrase taken from Who moved my cheese?

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Eidul Fitr 2014 - How did I Spend my Holiday?

I am a catholic first and foremost. Eidul Fitr is something I look forward every year because holiday break. The same thing how people of other sect/religion look forward to Christmas season.

These are the three things I was able to squeeze in a one-day off to work.

1. I did my laundry. I usually bring my clothes to laundry services and pick them up four to five days after. Such routine takes away around P200 to P300 of the bi-weekly budget. So on this free day, I decided to wash them - I mean hand wash. I don't have a washing machine since I brought it the my other household a year ago.

While preparing my clothes, I was very delighted to get P16 from my uniform's wallet. Around 2PM when I'm almost done, It was then I realized that wala akong sampayan. So I had make it.  



2. Took a photo of the banana tree. I leave early in the morning and come home in the evening. I just have to take a photo of the first fruit of my banana tree in broad daylight. July 29 is my one best opportunity.


3. Shoot for the "farm video". It is very seldom that I chat with my kuya in FB. He was excited to know that I was at home. He right away asked me to open my skype - which I beg I can not since my gadget does not have built in mic. I thought we're going to have brotherly bonding moments. I learned that he just wanted to see his fighting cocks in our backyard farm. I compromised to take videos and upload them to youtube.



Time passed so fast. Before I knew it, I was back to the office the day after.