Willing to face my problems

I lived with my problems so long. They were accompanying me. That,s how I was dealing with my problems. 

I was so negative  and brainless and tied hand person who doesn't face or address or solve his problem.

My way was simply ignore the problem and pretend that it is not existing.

Subconscious was the key driver in dealing with my problems.

My problems were long lived and even grow in my negative fertile soil.

Someday which I don,t exactly remember I decided to change that.

Nothing is better than facing the problem. No matter how the underlying truth is ugly but the illusion and its consequences are ugly and painful.

Since then, I decided to address my problem instead of turning my face away and pretending that they are not there or they are worthless to be addressed or they are unsolvable.

If I had a health problem I wouldn't solve it. The same for the academic problems, relationship problems, social, name it. 

Problem was only addressed subconsciously.

When I decided to change my way in dealing with the problem, I decided to face bravely the problems.

I decided to think deeply about the problem. I decided to ask for help and learn how to solve it.

I decided to educate myself and to gain the knowledge and the skills to deal with the problem.

Problem means a challenge , and each challenge means that you have to equip with knowledge and skills to be able to address it.

riding my bicycle

I accomplished new resolution today. I decided in the new year yo dedicate time got yew cycling sport. The goal was pending till last week when I bought the bicycle. Today I started my first cycling activity after probably 15 years of ny last cycling . I have determination to continue it as a habit from now to onward. The health and mental value will be great. Seeing the goal city from the cycling is totally different. I had the chance to see and learn more about the city. Cycling is a really great sport where it can develop fitness and mind. I am proud today of achieving my little goal as I am so excited about this sport.

Confusion and the revolution

There is a major confusion dominating a lot of people in Egypt about the consequences of the revolution so far.
Some people are mentally and emotionally so challenged and shocked from the disturbing news everyday which exceeded their capacity to assess and comprehend the situation.
Some of them started to wonder about the value of what's going on and if that what they really wanted.
I consider that all that expected and predicted mental and emotional shock which could happen to many persons if they lost the concentration on the long term objectives.
WE shouldn't let all the short term consequences to affect our morale and believing in the revolution.
We should continue the road to the end to gain the fruits and to reward the painful sacrifices of hundreds of martyrs.
I met some people who are questioning things which were supposed to be a common sense and written on the wall conclusions like the sins of Mubarak and if he really deserves what happened or no and worthy of the martyrs and even if the people are ready for the self-ruling and the democracy.
We must focus on the long term objectives.
We must continue in the painful but rewarding road to the end to gain eventually the fruits.
Fruits which were irrigated with our blood and tears.

Kuwait and Indonesia and the common sin

I received my assignment in Kuwait after three wonderful years in Indonesia. The first notice I've observed was the shear amount of SUV's for a small country.
The justification was stated simply everywhere that they need powerful car A/C's so that's why they have SUV's and of course the very cheap gas.
Gas here is cheaper than water!!
What a justification for consuming a finite resources.

In spite of the so many differences between Kuwait and Indonesia, they certainly share this sin, the wasting of their hydrocarbon resources.

Timeboxing

I'm using the "timeboxing" method to manage my time since two months now. The impact on my productivity was good and it is improving by the time.
I was always suffering from the distractions coming from the surrounding workplace which was giving me a negative feeling of the passing non-productive time.
The timeboxing has managed to control that.

What is timeboxing?
It is simply a method to assign time for each single tasks and to focus only on the task in hand till you finish it and block any other distractions. Do one task per time.
Secondly you need to record the time of each task.
Since the majority of my work is front of my Computer, I used Excel for the timeboxing. I used (NOW) function in two adjacent for each task. When I start the task I copy the value of (NOW) to set the start time and leave the other. The difference between both will measure the consumed duration. When I finish I paste the value of the finish time and this gives me the duration of this task and the start and finish time.
Sometimes I set a planned time for the task to compare between it and the actual consumed time.
This has improved my focus on the task in hand and improved my productivity and most importantly the quality of what I'm doing.
The another value was the precise logging of my tasks along the business day.
The sense and awareness of time is fully awaken as well.
It was near to perfect way to control the time and block the distractions and it has given me the sense of achievement.
What I'm doing now in the Excel spreadsheet, is writing a note of what could be done to speed up the productivity of the process in the next time. Next time I refer to this note to shorten the consumed time in the same process.
For instance, I found that thinking during the morning commuting about my business emails is saving a lot of time.
I emphasized and stressed the practice of this way to shorten the time of my business emails writing. And son on for the other tasks by getting some ideas after doing them to improve the quality and reduce the consumed time.
I found also based on the observation of my timeboxing that the thinking beforehand about my business day and the required decisions and actions should be taken is reducing significantly the hesitation and the further discussions and reducing my spontaneous actions and decisions to more planned and well calculated.

Effective mentoring

No doubts that mentoring could have a profound impact on the business if it would be implemented effectively.
I noticed that mentoring is poorly practiced in my company. It takes a long time to streamline the new hires fully into the business.
Definitely there is a better practices of implementing the effective mentoring which can speed up the streamlining and the full engagement of the new hires and the mid-careers into the business.
Mentoring should be an essential responsibility for each experienced employee and he should be fully committed to it and shouldn't be handled as a sideline tasks which can be compromised.
Whenever we implement the mentoring, it becomes totally subjective process which is up to the level of commitment of the individual and it is not following a systematic and standard approach to ensure its effectiveness.

My manager was complaining from the poor knowledge and reliability of the local staff. I told him that happened basically because of the poor mentoring you have in this business unit. They can't work independently and they should be closely mentored and gradually delegated in the different assignment. Specific development objectives and Training and development plan should be in place.

Effective Mentoring should be well rewarded and appreciated to encourage the experienced employees to contribute and invest their effort and time in this process.

For instance, if the objective of the employee X to work as independent team lead after two years then the mentor should ensure that he is following the appropriate career and development path to achieve this goal and the employee should be informed about this midterm objective to fully adopt it and consent to it.

What we are doing is simply throwing the new hires into the ocean and who will swim will continue and who will sink will be abandoned. This is definitely the worst way of developing the people and the organization. Learning through the very hard and most stupid and primitive way.

As a process it should be continuously improved by the measuring of its success criteria like the time span and the progress and the number of mentee.

Distance learning and web conferencing and captured expertise could speed up the process and free it from the constraint of the number of experienced mentors in many locations.

Mentoring should be core process in each organization and business unit as it was always for the small workshops where the carpenter was mentoring the new green hire and gradually delegating to him the different assignments and that how was the knowledge transferred from generation to another.

Outsourcing and a window of hope

As a corporate employee, I have to, as thousands in the company, to prepare my expense reports whether they are business, medical or benefits expenses. Last time I did that, I had to collect all my receipts and stick them to be scanned and sent to our financial auditors. I had to record them in the website with their corresponding costs.
This process has taken a full business day. Multiply this time and effort by tens of times per year and thousands of employees and you will figure out the humongous time wasted in non business productive time.
Following that, I thought - as usual - about alternatives to ease this bottleneck.
I always believe that the bottlenecks in the business environment should be addressed seriously by intelligent solution to maximize the productivity and the revenue per head.
The simple question pop-up in my head, was simply why shouldn't we outsource this simple mechanical task to any contract clerk to do it and he or she will not mind to take peanuts to do that to have a job instead of nothing. Isn't better than wasting a full power employee with this non productive tasks and time.
No doubts that expense reporting is an essential procedure for any organization to monitor its reimbursables, however it is definitely not productive process and it doesn't contribute to the production.
Two solutions could address this bottleneck in the productivity, the business intelligence and the outsourcing.
I will elaborate more on that in the next blog.