Some Things Never Change
Ah the joys of being back to work …. while 2010 is certainly a new year and will have new challenges – some things never change. Some people will always be late with their work … or supply poor quality work … or create unreasonable deadlines. I guess the challenge for me is to maintain my perspective and continue to help people grow, learn, develop. Its not always easy – but that is what I get paid to do.
Over the last couple of days, I have caught three absolutely critical mistakes from our Planners – thankfully, just in time before we embarrassed ourselves. The mistakes were avoidable had 1) the Planners carefully read instructions, and 2) the Planners followed instructions and rejected bad data given to them. Its hard to teach people to be ’strong’ or to say ‘no’ or to reject bad data and insist on correct data. For Indonesians, it is even more culturally difficult. Notwithstanding the difficulty, though, I must instill in our Planners a sense of ownership and custodianship. It isn’t just my job to catch all the errors and work all the issues. They must do their part.
By way as another example – we are waiting for information from an individual. It hasn’t come in yet, but when I challenged the Planners, they 1) hadn’t given that person a deadline, and 2) hadn’t checked to see if the person was in or out of the office (say, still on vacation). BUT, they expected me to intervene and to expedite getting the data. I told the Planners that they were fully capable of checking on whether or not the person was in the office, sending a reminder, and including a deadline.
Regardless of the above kinds of challenges, I feel like I am contributing much more to the corporation and society by being here in Indonesia. There is much I can do to help. If I were to go back to Houston, not only would I earn considerably less money but the type of job I would likely have would not be as rewarding as what I am doing overseas. I can never be comfortable simply “pushing papers”. I need and thrive on a job with challenges, issues, deadlines, and relevance.
Other than the above New Year thoughts …. all is progressing step by step here. One new item is that we have been told (hope hope hope) we are approaching the final stages of Decy’s dental work. By approx 20-Feb, Decy’s implant work should be complete, braces off, and retainer on. Decy is VERY excited about this … and so am I.
Well, I need to work on some financial items. Take care. Ciao Ciao. GBU.
