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Today one of my team members comes to me and tell me that the report we are sending by email to our users starting from this month is not stable. The figures are bullshit and users complained about it. In deed I checked myself this morning (actually a user contacted me to tell me that) and I could see a gap of 10% between the figures in the report and the figures in our Point Of Sales system. The figures in the POS systems are the right one.

It took me 2 hours to convince him that he was completely wrong, but I did it. Maybe I’m the one who’s wrong, but he didn’t convinced me of the contrary. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that, here in Japan or at least in my organization, in front of any bug or defect, the usual reaction is to stop the operations or projects, until… until forever.

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The main change during 2009 in my professional situation has been the decrease of motivation. More that a decrease, it was a collapse. Of course I have been given objectives, but for the first time, I was not motivated to exceed them. Last year at the same period, I would describe myself as workaholic. I loved that so much! Too much! I spent twice as much time as now working and was doing three time as much beside, for myself. Not only I was super-active at work but also outside. Going to ski several time a year, hiking, traveling…

Today, I almost don’t do anything beside work. I almost stopped cooking even if I love this, I don’t practice a bit for my guitar lessons, I don’t go out, watch movies, invite friends at home, go on holiday (except a trip to Cambodia organized by 2 friends. I just joined) and I postponed my proposal to Asako (better late than never).

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During the last big project I was leading, finished few weeks ago, this question has been haunting me for about one year. I had to change systematically the planning’s and the action plan’s document formats to keep people using those.

Even though all the actions were done, not always on track, not always the way wanted, they were all done. The reason for changing the document’s format was to usually attract some members’ attention on a specific deadline or task. Every time I was just thinking “Hey, I’m just changing the format of the same old document, with same content ! How come this guys doesn’t like this one? Last time it was the other guy who made me change the document before he accepts to read it!”

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For the last 3 years, I’ve been doing project management. Many projects, many people. Some have been very difficult some so smooth you feel disappointed the project is over.

I’ve just finished the biggest project I’ve been working on for the last 13 months and I started to list down all the mistakes I’ve done as a project manager. Although the project is a success and the objectives were achieved and exceeded, mistakes have been done. By me, I mean! I won’t get into the detail. I just feel like I have to right down the biggest one to make sure I won’t ever do it again !

I’ve been upset, showed it, and blamed people several times.

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(According to Asako)

The good one: he will break you up in front of you and congratulate you in your back (in front of others). People will come to congratulate you. You’ll understand that the criticism or judgement were objective and that finally what is done well is considered too.

The bad manager: he will congratulate you in front of you but break you in your back: the echo you’ll get from people will be in contradiction with what he told you and will question all the past evaluations. That’s a mess.

June 1st is the good time for a One-to-one meeting with my n+1. It’s a Monday which means we also have a Team meeting. After the team meeting we start the One-to-One one.

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Everyone doesn’t see the same thing the same way! The boss blames his or her subordinates for not understanding or not knowing something. The subordinates blame their boss for not understanding the details or difficulties of operations. Everyone is supposed to do his best to follow the (officially known) strategy of the company but is the strategy is properly translated for each level’s operations? Are the priorities reviewed for each level in order to comply with the strategy efficiently? Easier said than done!
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In daily basis, I have no communication with my boss. We only have the Weekly team meeting that last about one hour and that can be shortened to 20 minutes if there is no question. Personally, I’m fine with this. I don’t need her that much. At the beginning of the year, I was asking her some stuff like making sure that people or the other one in another team does his or her job, but I realized soon that she was not even listening. Today, I don’t even get into the detail of my tasks during the weekly team meeting. I already know that high level information is already a lot to digest for someone not involved. The cool thing is that she’s not asking for more.

From March we agreed to have a monthly “one-to-one meeting” with a very simple agenda: “What did I do right? What did I do wrong i.e. what should I improve?” 2 simple questions to be answered respectively!

Since we are not having any communication for weeks now, I didn’t imagine we were continuing these meetings, but she suggested the one for April. OK
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How to feel about someone who is talking about people behind their back… in front of you? Isn’t this someone talking about you in front of others, behind your back?

How to work with the person, specially when he or she is your boss?

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On January 2nd I wrote a post for my 2009 resolutions that I never posted for several fake reasons. Actually I just forgot. I wrote about 10 other posts that I didn’t posted either because I didn’t had the time (somehow). The main reason was that I needed a new blog (that I have now) to post all, but after a month and a half, there is no meaning anymore to post them.

Anyway, here were my resolutions:

• Sport every morning.
• Lunch with my friends at least once a week (meaning not colleagues)
• Have coffee at least once a week with a colleague to not talk business
• Write the minutes of meetings during the meeting even if I have to make people wait a little bit
• Work my Japanese at work on the fly (every time I receive a mail) instead of waiting to arrive home to have the time to do it.

The objective of the year is to “Do, the necessary things, well the first time”
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