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2015-01-27

Business Examples of Internal Goals that have more value to External Goals

In this world, having a business, it is easy to focus on external goals instead of internal goals. Take for instance of which environment is the best for productivity or which process will capitalize the most profit. Unless on a sector that is run with little to no competition, this method is not effective if there is no allocation of some of the resources within aligning and keeping the customers loyal to the company before they find another rival that can fulfill their expectations. This is how some companies can get a lot of customer base with little marketing costs compared to other companies that look only on the numbers. On the other hand, although focusing on customers will capitalize the business, are you doing a good will to society within the big picture of the world? Think the sacrifice that will ensue to the ones that get affected. Sometimes , its the internal employees that suffer, where ironically the services rendered are not used within the employee itself. Think of the content you provide. Are the employees really interested on the content or the service they provide. Why so? Give reasons that compared to other things to do, this is one of the top 100 priority reasons a world should have this service to make the world a better place. Can you justify that? That is kind of important, as after all, you cannot have a real character if you believe there is another important thing that is completely ignored these days. And many entrepreneurs realize that and that is one of the key disruption society needs to do in order to be more whole to itself. If you don't believe this is the top priority this business should do, can you think of the reasons why you stay there? Maybe you can transform the company itself or its a learning exercise or experience that you can transfer them to another job later on that provides more meaning to life that you think of as. After that, can you think this service whether its focused very narrowly minded? Our focus is on our clients, but our clients is not our whole world, some are our enemies, and some are our victims. How can we mitigate the problems of the ones that are not within the scope of our stakeholders? But history hundred years ago told us that the "invisible hand" will really do its thing alone with the flux of currency moving on. But what is currency? Is currency really earned by doing good deeds for the world? And as long as we work on "any" particular job with "any" particular role, we have the notion we earned the currency respectively just because we filled the requirements of the customers? The problem is not the external currency that is required for this capitalism system to work, but the internal problem of people doing wrong decisions. We the people have the purchasing power to make decisions which parties to involve in and which items to buy. A lot of people do not voice their opinions and we fulfill needs that stray for the real expectations people actually want. Whether you are able to live in the world of a matrix for unlimited years, adding value unethically will always hurt no matter what compared to adding value at your best means after thinking all possibilities. This is where instead of only being driven by maximizing value out of  our clients, we also give solutions to affected non-stakeholders to facilitate their transition in a positive way. Of course, why would you do positive internal decisions when other parties do negative internal decisions to gain a competitive advantage over you externally? Internal decisions like that should be done based on a contractual agreement that incorporates some alliance and non-competitive advantage nature over to each other. Capitalistic world thrived with the help of globalization and unified infrastructure and the only way it worked is by containing peace instead of war. We are a species that have moved thought out of the bonobos and chimpanzees where we do not look only on external positive experiences, but able to think out of the box, identify theories and patterns, even conceptualize ourselves to a deeper level. From biology to the brain, we are able to know our limitations and our possibilities. And besides our biology, our culture or internal software to say, has evolved over the years, having that the most profound impact than our hardware of our body. What I am saying is basically is this:
  • Always ask yourself what is the most important priority and demand in the world now?
  • Do not narrow your goals only to the customer segment (i.e. clients). Since when was your real goal on that? All businesses live or die or have a different personality 50 years later that you cannot recognize that business was yours. What matters in the end what good deeds this business did in overall instead of only its clients. We can be bias that some companies do a lot of good contributions, but go 200 years later, and history may give us not a positive face about it.
So here are just some brief examples of positive internal goals. I am going to point 2 examples as I am running out of time:

1. What you say, really mean it and do it.
I think many people say very decisive stuff when they are irrational or angry. That is bad. However, sometimes, we say decisive stuff that we really mean it after a lot of analysis and observation. We could say "I will meet you next week on that" but you never do that in the end. If you are not confident enough that you won't do it, its better to not say it at all. Do not give wrong expectations to people. Always schedule those stuff in your digital calendar and remind them the night before about the scheduled date of that agreement. If its a milestone instead, do it. If dates are not realistic, do not put a date at all or keep updated if any of the dates will change. You can see how people react when a video game gets delayed by surprise or a kick starter project never delivers what it promises, so expect that reaction to happen anywhere. When you mean something and then you want to change it later on, understand that what you said is what they really understood, and they may have booked plans ahead of it. I see people get really upset about others when people take their words seriously (when it should or else we do not meet real expectations) or forgot what they said that they think others are already violating the rules (when they are not). Albeit there should be some flexibility with people, the feelings of the one who made forgot their promise is in a "tragic irony" in some sense. And I have seen that several times in many occasions from the days of my first job up to today that I feel a little pity about this observation, yet do not want to micro manage these occasions that each of us should be responsible and be aware of instead. I can elaborate this a lot. But to put it simply, its okay to do this mistake a lot of times, as long not to over do it and be aware and conscious about it if you forgot promises or people do not got your message clear (try others to paraphrase what you said and listen to them and see if they underestimate or overestimate your promise or decision). Irrelevant, but putting wrong expectations is the major lead of depression that can cause parkinson disease. I am also an advocate that you should be honest, transparent and same role in both your private and public life. To not split your work environment from your private life in any form. Then and only then your whole life is more complete without making your job a scheme to only print money to spend on your free time.
2. Talk effectively
How do you define creating value within the organization? One of the thing I do not like is to talk more than you think. I don't mind the content of the talk. I mind the length of the time we spend on the talk (along as long as what you say you really mean it). Thinking needs isolated time to use its own creativity, but in order for thinking to be effective, it needs to get as little information as possible, extract it, and digest it. Sometimes, I read some articles dozen of times on a specific excerpt and each time I read it I get some different output on my head because I haven't thought other possibilities this concept could fall on. In terms of my software development, use cases of refactoring, better designs, implementations and comprehension of concepts are more done effectively within looking at them at your own context than a specialist tells you how it is done. Can you compare the difference of a teacher telling you the symptoms of a disease versus the experience of getting the disease? At the other hand, feedback is important. But it is constantly abused with too much talking, that in certain occasions, we believe what others say, especially people who do not provide concrete proof decisive evidence about it. The other thing is many talk a lot because they put a lot of responsibilities to themselves. And this can be stressful. This is what happened on my previous job when management is stressed and is under pressure with many responsibilities. In such sense, you cannot do the best decisions. In that sense, you have to put some of those discussions on the backlog and decide them only when you have a clear mind and decisive evidence supporting them. If the backlog is too much, then management of those tasks should be distributed accordingly or prioritize in different sectors. Talking too much is not a thing higher management should do. They should focus on the main concepts or keys that are the most important to talk while at the same time have a lot of time to think, articulate, and be a good example others to follow. I am also an advocate that writing compliments more in speaking in several other ways . And if you talk a lot, try to avoid the pitfalls of on blind faith.

Either way, the process we use to do our normal operations of the business may be the most expensive cost or the most lucrative investment for the growth of a company. A cultural change can make a company be from the brink to the top. But a word of advice: we should be sensitive to define the goal of success, as a company that comes to the top may not be the real purchasing powers those customers intended long term wise to attain to.