The Art of Communication #02

A good example of the importance of proper communication (especially users):

When I was using the eBanking service from Hang Seng Bank last evening, I found the "transfer" service was not available with only a shocking message shown on the screen:

"This service is not available to your customer segment."

I first suspected that might be caused by client side (my browser). As an experienced savvy in the Internet, I tried the service again & agin using different browsers and separate login session. Then I confirmed the problem was at the server issue.

What happened to me? Was the bank changed their service T&C? Was my deposit classified as "cheap" customer or some hackers changed my account information causing the problem?

From shocking to worrying, I then called to the banking's customer service. After waiting for over 15 mins (twice: first call cut off automatically after 8 mins and second call waited for 7 mins), I finally connected to some human being (from IVRS, one of the stupid inventions in the world) and the customer service officer told me that the system was under maintenance and my service would be resumed to normal the next day.

What a drag! If the bank could use a proper notification message like "Our system is currently under maintenance and the service is temporarily unavailable. The service will be resumed at HH:MM. Sorry for any inconvenience caused!", the scenario would be very straightforward and lots of problems could be avoided.

The bank mistakenly used an improper notification message and it ended up with a series of troubles/complaints:

1. Users (customers) were mis-informed causing unnecessary suspicion/worry (hacking, change of bank's service condition....).
2. These induced a lot of phone queries to the customer service causing overloaded to the phone service.
3. Owing to the overloading calls, the service level of the phone service was seriously affected (I took 15 mins for the call).
4. Last but not least, those innocent customer service officers had to repeatly explain the issue to all angry customers and to stopplessly apologize for such mistake.
   

Needless to say. Proper communication is crucial!

Leadership #01 - Admitting Mistakes

While I was playing with the TV remote control (channel switching) this evening, I stopped at a channel showing the last segment of the movie "Crimson Tide" (where Gene Hackman & Denzel Washington were talking after the court trial). Washington expressed his appreciation to Hackman's support to his promotion and Gene replied "I was wrong".

The dialogue is very simple but it is indeed very difficult to say "I was wrong". Especially, when a person is in a senior position. (In the movie, Hackman is the caption of a submarine and Washington is the officer).

Being a true leader, one of the necessary characteristics is to admit mistakes. No matter how senior and how experience a person is, no one will not make mistake. The key to admitting mistakes is not about accountability (albeit it is) or blame, but to learn from mistakes for improvement.

Unfortunately, you can rarely see leaders who are willing to admit mistakes.

Loyalty vs. Betrayal

In last year's notorious "mutiny" of KCRC's management (where the management team requested the board of directors to fire the chairman), disregard the right or wrong consideration of individuals. It demonstrated a dilemma to many working people: if you find your boss/supervisor is the root cause of the problems, what should you do?

What I mean "root cause of the problems" is not personal. By default, all bosses/supervisors are not lovely as they are the one to assign tons of work to you.
What I really mean is if you identify (truly) the problems you/your team/your department/your business unit/your company are facing are caused by your boss or direct supervisor (for instance, lack of integrity, insufficient capability in terms of management, over commitment to the board and etc.).

In this case, what can we do?

1. Talk to him/her frankly with possible suggestion/solution and wish he/her realize the true for change.
2. Talk to the boss of him/her with possible suggestion/solution.
3. Keep accepting the reality in silence.
4. Quit and find a new job (or find a new job first and then quit)
   

Frankly, all four options are practical ways but they all have different pros and cons:

1. First one is a "loyal" way but requiring high level of communication skill and patience. The higher the seniority, the lower the tolerance to accept criticism. Bear in mind the fact: good management skill/knowledge/methodology is not something mysterious, but known to most people (including your boss/supervisor). So there must be more hidden issues behind causing such problems (This can be another huge topic to be discussed. See if I can talk about this later on).
2. Second one is a way of "betrayal". This is a "lose-lose" approach and is not recommended. In general, if I were the boss of the boss/supervisor, I would trust my direct subordinate (that's why I hired him/her) in the first place instead of the next level down. However, many people would like to use this approach (this was exactly the aforementioned case of KCRC) ending up with unrecoverable results.
3. This should be the approach adopted by the majority because of "earn-a-living" basis. The situation would not be changed until incident happened (though this would be too late like 1998 new Hong Kong Airport incident).
4. This should also be the practical approach. But bear in mind, finding a new job may just be the case of "going from one hell to another".
   

So when you experience problems with your works/company and you find the root causes of the problems are from your supervisor/boss. What will you do?

The Art of Communication

The more IT projects you handled, the more you find the key success factors (KSF) are mostly not about "technology", but "people".

"Communication" is definitely one of the highest priority KSF in the list. Interestingly, the communication problems I met in project management were not about inter-team or inter-department, but they were about fundamental verbal communication.

Can you believe two people speaking in the same mother tongue could not understand each other's saying after half-an-hour discussion? This is not a question, but my real experience.

There are lots of notations and languages (like UML, SSADM) for use in software engineering ensuring precise, umabiguous information can be communicated. However, I believe Computer Studies courses should also include a subject on "verbal communication" to ensure those IT talents equipped with proper communication skills other than programming.

Management Q&A: Procedures vs. Ownership

Recently, I have faced a dilemma in management: the pros and cons of "Procedures" vs. "Ownership".

In "procedures" driven approach, tasks/works/operations are based on predefined (hopefully, well-defined) procedures. The good side is a solid, reliable, people independent (not reliance on individuals) workflow in place. However, the drawback may be bureaucratic, inflexible, lack of accountability/liability (similar to a gov't operation where officials would be blamed for any fault) and etc.

One of the alternative is using "ownership" in which a particular task, project, service or area of operation will be "owned" by an assigned party (the owner). The owner will have full authority and control to manage his/her owned stuff. This can ensure full accountability and no missing gap in procedures. However, "ownership" may induce the problem of no control (workflow/process) and tasks/works may become people-dependent.

What do you think?