Friday Reflections

"I Make the Difference" Happy Administrative Assistants Day

Remember the people who are instrumental in your and your organization’s success. A sincere and timely appreciation goes a long way. 

POINT TO PONDER

Arnold Bennett, the British novelist, had a publisher who boasted about the extraordinary efficiency of his secretary. One day while visiting the publisher's office, Bennett asked her: "Your boss claims you're extremely efficient. What's your secret?" 

"It's not my secret," said the secretary, "it's his." Each time she did something for him, no matter how insignificant, she explained, he never failed to acknowledge and appreciate it. Because of this, she took infinite pains with her work.

STORY LINE: I MAKE THE DIFFERENCE

In the early 1990s, while looking for a source of supply for our new design, I visited a potential supplier in Mountain View, California. As I entered the lobby and went to the receptionist to announce my arrival and register for entry inside the building, something on her desk caught my eye. It was a plaque that stated, “I make the difference.”

Soon after, when our host escorted us into the building, I noticed again that the secretary of a CEO also had the plaque on her desk stating, “I make the difference.” Somehow, I could not get those images out of my mind and spent the drive back thinking, “Do they really make the difference?”

Secretaries, receptionists and many other administrative employees are the first line of defense or offense, whichever way one wants to call it, when external people call or visit your company. In many cases, they create the first impression about your company, your organization and your team.

Administrative assistants keep office logistics in order and keep things organized. This allows other people to focus on their core jobs without interruptions.

I remembered what one great leader had told me in my early age, “They are the backbones of your organization. Having a good administrative assistant is having a big asset in your portfolio.” 
 

So remember these people behind the scene. What they do makes the big difference.

REFLECTION
 

In the first year in Industry in 1983, during one emergency need, my boss asked me to hand carry a purchase order all the way through management ranks for signatures. That was my first exposure to the hierarchy of organizations.

My curious nature caught on to two interesting learnings through that expedition…. The higher up I went in the chain, I noticed that the offices looked very organized. Further research revealed that the higher-ups had very good administrative assistants and they relied, or in other words, depended, heavily on them to manage daily office logistics. Yes, they do make the difference.

What Do You See?

POINT TO PONDER

If the doors to perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. 

                                - William Blake

STORY LINE by Rajiv Shah

I'm currently reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven J. Covey. The early chapters outline a test that was conducted involving the picture below that I found interesting:

The chosen subjects were asked what they saw. Half argued that they saw an old woman in her last days. Asked if they saw anything else, their response was overwhelming "no."

Much in the same way the other half of the group concluded that they saw a beautiful young lady, possibly a cabaret performer in the prime of her life. Asked again if they could see anything besides the young lady, their response was also a resolute "no." 

Both sides were sure as to what they saw in the picture and believed there was nothing else to the drawing. Which group was right? 

In fact, if you look closely, both groups are correct. An old woman and young lady both do exist in the same image. 

REFLECTION

How many times do we look at a problem or situation in life and accept our view as the only one? Perhaps there is often more than one answer? And maybe we can find that there is more than one point of view that is correct. 

What was the question the CEO was really trying to ask?*

 

In 1987, I attended a workshop on Statistical Process Control (SPC).  Gene Meieran, the keynote speaker gave a speech about SPC applications in VLSI technology.  In a very humorous way and using many stories, Gene explained the key ingredients for successful implementation of not only SPC, but any new idea.  He explained that one of those important ingredients is management commitment.

He told a very humorous story to make his point. Here it is:

Mr Burns, a consultant in Southern California, provides consulting on the management of change to senior executives. He had to go to the CEO of a very big company and talk to him about how he was going to manage a big change in terms of automation.

Burns pulled out his little laptop computer when he went to the CEO, whose monitoring office was overlooking the factory floor. The first thing Burns thinks about is, “how much am I going to get paid?”, so he pulls out his trusty laptop computer and sticks in his little word-processing disk.

He opens a big contract document which says, “you will pay me so many dollars for so many hours of my time.” As he is scrolling through the document, the CEO is staring at him. There is an unmistakable sound that a chief executive makes when he wants to ask a question. Burns says, “How can I help you?” The chief executive points at the screen and he says, “Where do the words go?”

This is a deadly question. Burns is thinking, “What kind of a fool is this? Clearly it is a stupid question.” “They disappear” might be an answer. No, that’s not the way he wants to answer the CEO. How could the CEO possibly be that stupid? Maybe the CEO is asking the question in a metaphysical sense. Where do the words go? Do they enter into some cosmic consciousness? No, the CEO cannot be that stupid, either.

Burns finally said that there is a little mechanical scroll in the computer that winds up all these words in the word processor. Which, of course, was the right answer for the CEO. It was the right answer because of the question the CEO was really trying to ask:

“Do you and I have communication? Can I, CEO, ask you stupid questions without being made to look like a fool because I am trying to learn something I do not understand? If you laugh at me, or if you are sarcastic to me, or if you deliberately misinterpret what I am trying to ask, or if you make little of my questions, we don’t have communication.” This is what the CEO was trying to ask.

Source: 1987 Workshop Keynote: SPC applications in VLSI technology by Gene Meieran

*Republished from Friday Reflections (01/28/2010)