Diary of a CEO

today is a busy day, arrived at the office, my morning itinerary is vacant -- it suppose to be a free morning for me, when editing my speech outline for next week, H knock on my door and said she would like to report one thing, I send her in and she burst out crying, said she will resign from current job and returning to HK by end of Dec. I am not shocked or surprised, as the over-qualified project leader and system designer, coordination and communicate are her major task to perform, she feel frustrated , tired and upset; I listened carefully and try to balance her emotions at the right moment; company issues for me is not a hardship job to handle, when it come to a mix issue such as getting marries and return to hometown with family, I can really exercise; I emphasis on how important she is in the organization and tell her the improvement she make lays significant remarks for entire operation, since there's no records and measurement for this function, so , her contribution wasn't easy to identify, I also tell her to raise the overall company quality will neither be a one man show, nor a over night magic, it takes time, and collective effort to drive the company, to give up now is half way down, for me, this is not the issue of retain her or not, but to let her know people like us should not surrender at the challenge moment; the support was not granted by us, or we overlooked trivial but important thing around us, then, we will deploy our resource and well craft the company.
I favor her point and to show my empathy when conduct the conversation, but I worried about her leaving will cause the " who should be blamed " question and raise unnecessary change of organization behaviors.
after the conversation with her, COO come to my office and mentions to me instead of H, her direct supervisor and the other manager will resign to support her ( this is my interpretation ), so, we had a crisis, me and COO sit down and talk how to minimize this risk, what we can't agree with is her supervisor's resign and demonstrate the unbalance power again us, this is a wrong message to us, executive shall be 2 layer above his or her position and balance the company best interest, not to support in a corner and put the top management in difficulty, I urged COO to talk with other manager and retain H , then figure out how to handle the director, but before action on the risk management, we shall deliver a strong message of how we value the quality control process and serious about the wrongfully dispute company resource ( time, man power ), the instruction must conduct in a arranged time for serious announcing. COO will do it follow my idea.

Lunch time is good time, old old friend Hustler Wu come to see me, we haven’t met for 10 more years, we were best buddy in the institution days. that's the break between high school and university, when you fail in the entry examination, you get the second chance to attend the test follow year, the window is where the institution business grows, almost all the high school graduate who fail in the university exam will enroll in this one year transaction study, for boy, this is the last chance before calling for military services, Wu and I met there and became the best friend. his career follows a marketing trace, launch a few successful campaign but retire from the job market 5 years ago and running his own ideal kindergarten, now he is back to the job market and re-entry the marketing field, he is helping one of the oldest ice-cream producer re-shape it's business, the interested idea from him is to move the current manufacture / factory and remodel / renovate to a " ICE City ", I told him this is pretty much like the Hershey Chocolate town's story, we exchange some marketing idea such as the street of local favor special and the street of nostalgia product, and the idea of how to build a clean / decent recreation spot in southern Taiwan.

Henry called to arrange conference call to Shanghai, schedule in today, but postpone to tomorrow. he tried to borrow some money from me, this is something unusual, even for pocket money, I can smell that he is in financial crisis, I will lent him 10,000 from my own saving , but carefully observe his business operation, no matter how genius a person is, short of capital, all the great idea will in vain. Tomorrow, I will like to check it out.

Cheer magazine did a follow up photo shooting for " elite of tomorrow ", I thought this is a joke, but it carry out this assignment, at lease common wealth is rated " Good " in the periodicals, I dress up for my virgin show as the product endorsement person - for Monk Blanc , I am curious about how it looks when it turn to a printing ad. Just wait and see.

Call up Fang on my way home, she was surprise about I am not calling for help, Oh, my impression to her is someone always calling for assistant, not calling for greeting, I shall refresh on this miss-led impression.

posted by Roger @ 8/21/2003 12:14:00 上午