- Plan: Detailed or informal outline of things to do, here we should also set milestones and control points if necessary.
- Control: Set control points in which we can check if the work is on time, taking preventive actions when we see something could slip up, or corrective actions if something is already going 'not so well'.
- Review: Here we see how the plan was executed, see metrics of success or failure and identify lessons learned.
So far this is pretty obvious, but I found out the hard way, that in Asia sometimes things work differently, and things don't get done as they did in the previous chapters of my life. Looking in retrospective, it was kinda my fault things didn't get done.
Now I will speak about the language and language structure in general. I've got to warn you, I'm not a linguistic expert or read much about it, all I will say here is based in my own personal observations and experiences.
In the Western world most languages come from 2 main sources, Latin (Also called Romance languages) and Germanic/Anglo-saxon, these 2 sources gave origin to languages such as Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, etc (Latin) and German, English, Dutch, etc (Germanic) - I know this is all very boring, but I'm talking about it because I've got a point to make - these 2 sources or roots are quite different, but also because of centuries of invasions, cross-breeding and other events, all these languages share common things, ergo, Westerners share many things as well, and language structure is one of them, molding our behavior and thinking processes. In the same way in which Arabic and Chinese roots, structure the language and the way of thinking of Asian people. We're different, our brains are wired differently and that's a fact, but it's also a fact that our brains are as flexible and malleable as play-dough. That's how our old brain can learn new languages and behaviors, creating synaptic connections which make our brains more agile and in general sharper (it may not be my case, since I still haven't learnt more Thai than just enough for taking a taxi or ordering food :P). This is what I will call, the first big PLUS of managing in Asia (or vice versa, for an Asian learning about us).
After that long intro, I will finally make my point. Because our languages are so different and our brains are wired so differently, we need to be careful in the way we communicate with each other when we ask for things, I think the best way of explaining this, is tell you about my failures in this area and how I avoided them, after I understood what I did wrong. This was a conversation I had when I called one of my new staff to my brand new office with view to the golf course:
Me: What are you working on right now?
Him: Testing some stuff to release on the next code release cycle
Me: Is that important? When is the next release?
Him: Not so important, it's all mostly done and the code release is in 6-8 weeks
Me: Excellent, do you think you can do a small module for the e-procurement site?
Him: Yes
Me: This is what I need done (showed him the specs and my plan without dates), how long do you think this would take you?
Him: 6-7 days
Me: OK, that's pretty good, I will write down 10 days just in case. Thanks a lot!
After this I updated my plan with dates, setting the first review milestone a week after.
Can you see from that dialog what I did wrong? If you're like me back then, you probably don't, I will explain you why I didn't get what I was expecting a couple of weeks after this conversation happened and why it was MY fault, not his.
Even though his schedule was very relax and he could easily accomodate this piece of software in the middle, I asked him if he could do it, and after he replied yes, I assumed he was going to do it... BIG mistake, he replied correctly, he CAN do it and he could do it in about 6-7 days, he never said he was going to do it, and I never told him he had to do it right away or instead of what he was doing now, so who's fault it was? well, it was mine!
What I should have done was:
- Tell him the task I was going to assign to him was important and took precedence to the one he was doing
- Ask if he could stop his task without causing too much disruption when he had to re-take the task later, if the answer was yes it would be make it hard to re-take the task later then, I should have asked how much longer he needed to minimize the disruption or assign the task to someone else
- Once the previous was settled, I should have told him when to start and share my plan/Gantt chart with him and maybe even review it with him if it needed adjustment
As you can see there are many differences from how I used to do it before, in the past I would have just assumed that talking with a person, he/she would have informed me of the problems regarding doing a task right now (sometimes bitching a bit too much about switching tasks) and tell me when they could start, I'd have also assumed that they understood they had to start the task ASAP. Looking back, that's bad management as well, now I know, from many bad experiences, including Westerners, I should NEVER assume, as my friend John would say, assume - makes a ASS of U and ME (reads 'assume' if you didn't get it)
So the pointers of today's post:
- Never, ever assume
- Be as clear as possible, you can never be TOO clear
- Confirm verbally or in written form that you have mutual understanding (written is always better)
- When starting in a new job, always schedule shorter checkpoints to avoid misunderstanding and steep deviations to your original plan
- Communicate as often as possible, not just about the plan, but sometimes just stand from your desk and walk to your staff just to see how they're doing or if they need help with anything
- A pointer for Asians; some foreigners will complain about everything when they're taken outside their comfort zone or you ask them to switch tasks, the best way of dealing with that is 'sell not tell', that means, get them to agree to do something, do not 'tell them' to do something, this works best for both Asians and not Asians, but Westerners tend to bitch about things more - I will dedicate a whole post to 'Sell, not tell later on' and why it works much better than just telling someone what to do
In my next post I will talk about body language and social interactions, hope so far I'm not boring you too much and if I am, at least you can use this in your daily work.
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