Are you a good manager?

I came across the following quiz over the net that tests your managerial skills.

Source: http://as01.ucis.dal.ca/hrd/hrd_2592_1605.html

by Bob Nelsonwww.ivillage.com

1. Do you personally thank employees for doing a good job - one on one, in writing, or both?
2. Are you willing to take time to meet with and listen to your employees?
3. Do you provide specific feedback about your employees’ performance?
4. Do you strive to create a work environment that is open, trusting and fun?
5. Do you provide your employees with information on the upcoming products and strategies, how the company makes and loses money and how each employee fits in to the overall plan?
6. Do you involve employees in decisions, especially decisions that affect them?
7. Do you encourage employees to have a sense of ownership in their work and their work environment?
8. Do you create partnerships with your employees by giving them a chance to grow and learn new skills?
9. Do you celebrate the successes of the company, the department and the individuals in it?
10. Do you use performance as the basis for recognizing, rewarding and promoting your employees?

After you answer all the questions above scroll down to know how good you are.....


DO NOT CHEAT













If you answer "No" to more than 3 questions, then you are not a good manager. You have to improve the way you work with and manage your employees.

CIB Customer Support - Should I laugh or cry or ....?

I mentioned customer support before and today I have an example of the worst customer support ever that I went through myself. My father had an account at the CIB Bank; the university opened it for him to transfer his salary. After he died and we had "2e3lam al weratha" (the document that we use to prove that we are the heirs and that we can collect the money and close the account) ready, I went to the bank and gave them a copy of the death certificate and 2e3lam al weratha and they informed me that they will start their procedures and the money should be ready within one to two weeks. They said they will call when they are ready.
After one week passed and no one called, my mother went to the bank to check out what happened so far. To our astonishment, they kept searching for our papers until they found them. And then they discovered that they have not done anything and that the papers were put aside and no one took care of the matter. On that day mom revived the issue again and they promised us another date to come to collect the money. When we arrived on the day they said everything will be ready, we stayed there for an hour and a half waiting for them to finish their paperwork. After all this waiting the customer support representative went to the branch manager and came back to tell us, sorry we can not issue the money for you. WHY? --- The funny part is coming --- They have to check with the university because the money was transferred to the account after my father's death and they are afraid that the university might have transferred the money by mistake and that they might come back and request from the bank to return the money!!!!!
What is really frustrating is they had more than two weeks to finish their procedures and paperwork, why didn't they do all the checks they need? Why did they wait until we came to tell us this frustrating piece of news? And even if the university is stupid enough to transfer money by mistake, legally they can not ask to get it back because it is already in our account and legally it became our money.
I do not want to comment now because I am furious; I'll wait until I calm down :)

Work Ethics

Have you ever felt pressured to compromise your values in order to succeed? Have you ever lost your job because you refused to do something against your values and beliefs?

I have, I did not lose my job but I faced a lot of problems because I never agree to compromise my values. I always stand to what I believe in, which often makes me the dull person around the office. Everything has changed what is right became wrong and what is wrong became right. The following became the trends:
1- Employees come very late to work.
2- Employees spend a lot of time chatting and socializing.
3- Employees spend a lot of time talking over the mobile phone.
4- Employees spend a lot of time over the MSN messenger, facebook,…or whatever other distraction.
5- The rest of the time is spent in pretence; employees fake the busy appearance to seem that they are working very hard although they are doing anything else.
6- Go around the office talk about how hard you work and that without your efforts this company would have been a mess.
7- Take credit for other people's work
8- Feed his/her boss's ego and spend a lot of time in his office praising him and his work. And of course agree to whatever he says even if it is a stupid thing.
9- Try to go up the hierarchy on other employee's shoulders. Try to cause trouble to their colleagues to get an undeserved promotion.

The result is they get promoted and their work is praised.

On the other hand if you work hard and do not do any of the points above you are not liked. Your boss thinks you are dull. Your colleagues can easily make your boss think that you hate him or that you are criticizing him behind his back (even if you don't) and you will not get promoted although you are the one who deserves the promotion. You might even be put in the situation where your boss envies your intelligence and success and tries to get rid of you in order not to reveal his weakness.

Do you think there is hope that the workplace will get clean again? Do you think that one day we will see qualified people only in their deserved posts? I hope so!!!!

Business Writing for Results

I read a book once titled “Business Writing for Results”. I liked it because it summarizes what you can learn in months or even for some people years of hard work. A lot of people write emails, reports, offers, proposals,…. But a few think of how to write it to make your audience respond in exactly the way you want.

How to make sure that people respond to your writings the way you want. How to make them read what you wrote to start with? This is not an easy task and requires great care while you are writing.

The following lines summarize what the book said:

Divide your task into the following three steps:
1-Get Your thoughts in order:
a. Answer the question: “What do I want my readers to do as a result of reading this?”
b. Analyze your audience by considering their personality and how they would react to your writing.
c. Be persuasive.

2- Create a Draft (on the computer or on paper)
a. Organize your thoughts.
b. Put your thoughts on paper and then select your beginning and ending paragraphs. (Those two paragraphs have great effect on whether your readers will read and respond or not so write them with care)
c. Generate a complete first draft.

3- Revise for Clarity
a. Revise to create a second draft.
b. Check if you need to add index, appendix, attachments,…
c. Revise to make sure your writing is specific, clear, concise and positive.
d. Select the best words and rephrase whenever necessary.
e. Check your spelling, grammar, punctuation and capitalization.
f. Make the draft visually appealing.
g. Read the entire draft again to produce the final version.