Organization and Management Self-Assessment

1. "Vision/Mission is a paradox to new economy." – ALWAYS FALSE

Mission explains why the organization exists – its overall purpose. The mission statement also states what the organization does right now, in the most general sense. In this way, the mission also sets parameters for what the organization, through omission, does not do.

Vision articulates the future of the organization and the community that it serves. It implies the work still needs to be accomplished. In this way, it lends credibility and motivation to the mission statement.

IBM’s Mission and Vision

Mission: “At IBM, we strive to lead in the invention, development and manufacture of the industry's most advanced information technologies, including computer systems, software, storage systems and microelectronics. We translate these advanced technologies into value for our customers through our professional solutions, services and consulting businesses worldwide."

Vision: “Solutions for a smarter planet”.

2. "“Customer is King” is a paradox to new economy." – ALWAYS FALSE

“Customer is King” is the new age for marketing mantra. This means while planning the product or service, designing the same, and in producing, marketing, distributing and selling we should possess one central focus at the core of all decision making, “THE CUSTOMER”.

Customers are important in IBM. The company will not exist without them. That’s why one of our IBM values is “Dedication to every client’s success.”

3. "Cross Functional Team are effective and represent good form of organizational structure." – MOSTLY FALSE

I think IBM will disagree on this statement. So far, based from my observation, there’s no such cross-functional team that exist in IBM. Every team has its own individual expertise. Every team has its own function to achieve a common goal. If you’re an expert in IT, you should be in the IT Team. If not, you may consider your expertise with the other team, may be in Finance, Admin/Logistics, etc.

Cross-functional team is less unidirectional, needs greater scope of information, greater depth of information, greater range of users, and fewer goals are dominated.

4. "Workers are more interested in remuneration than challenging function." – MOSTLY TRUE

Employees are more interested in high remuneration because of high cost of living, especially here in the Philippines. They don’t care what type of work they are doing, whether challenging or non-challenging job. Although some employees prefer challenging work as well, because they want to practice their profession and knowledge in their chosen career.

I conducted a survey within the IT team, and I found out that most of them are in favored of high remuneration. Out of 30 people, I got 25 votes; and this will support my answer in this statement.

5. "Management should discourage informal group of workers in an organization." – MOSTLY FALSE

Informal groups are evolving constantly, grass roots, dynamic and responsive, excellent at motivation, requires insider knowledge to be seen, treats people as individuals, flat and fluid, cohered by trust and reciprocity, difficult to pin down, and essential for situations that change quickly or are not yet fully understood.

The negative aspect of informal groups is that they are resistant to change. Whether new company policies, new members forced on the group or current group members moving on, the group instinctively finds change menacing. Most people want to belong and will conform to group desires. The informal group structure controls its members and protects them from the enemy, which for workers is usually perceived as management.

6.  "IT leaders should spend more time with colleagues, partners, and customers than with IT staff, and vendors." – MOSTLY TRUE

IT leaders are mostly in a client-facing role wherein they are always communicating with their colleagues, partners, and customers. Colleagues – for IT Projects, and decision making. Partners – for IT solutions, and expertise. Customers – dealing with client’s need and concerns.

Although they spent time with clients, they should not forget to spend time also with their IT Staff. Their IT Staff is working in the background to satisfy the needs and wants of the customers.

7.  "IT leaders should have a voice at the executive table which key business decisions are made." - ALWAYS TRUE

All business transactions, decisions, plans and IT Staff concerns are raised in upper management. This will promote transparency and credibility in a company.

8. "Leaders are more effective if they are more concerned about people than task." – ALWAYS TRUE

Leaders should know the capacity and capability of their people before they will assign a task/job. They should also be sensitive about the feelings, opinions, and concerns of their staff.

9. "Leaders are more effective if they focus their efforts on improving external-facing processes than business functional processes." – MOSTLY TRUE

Leaders being the top-level personnel will definitely be more effective when they focus their efforts in external-facing processes. As leaders, they are not expected to get into the details of the business-functional (technical aspects) processes because it is usually the mid-level personnel who are adept in these processes.

Leaders will be much more effective if they also know the operations and business functional processes. Being an effective leader tend to have technical expertise in the business.

10. "Organizations are better off if CIO’s reports to CFO’s." – MOSTLY TRUE

Typically the IT department is seen as a cost center and as such they tend to report to the CFO. In such situation, the main focus is to make IT more effective and efficient by reducing operational costs.

If the CIO is to add business value by integrating the needed technology to the business processes, then they need to have the power to make board decisions along with the CEO, CFO and COO.

The CIO must be effective in "translating" IT technical terms/jargons to business-speak and thus I would argue that the CIO do not necessarily need to be from an IT background. The trust must be there from the other COs' that the CIO "gets" the business.

The CIO needs to understand finance, business process, marketing, customer management, sales and communications.

11. "IT-enabled innovations should be the primordial concern of management." – MOSTLY TRUE

In IBM, IT-enabled innovations are the primary concern of management. This supports one of our IBM values which states “Innovation that matters, for our company and for the world”.

We use Lotus Notes and Sametime as collaboration tools. For data access, we have a W3 website which contains the entire employee’s needed information about the company. IBM has a standard templates and automatic work flows. The company has ways to connect other functions to the innovative processes.

Companies aiming for the global market or mainstream economy must have their eyes set to IT-enabled innovations. It will definitely give the company edge over its competitors to have services and products which are out of the traditional solutions.

12. "Organization could careless in understanding business complexities and processes than developing technology innovation and strategy." – ALWAYS FALSE

According to a recent IBM survey of 1,500 business leaders, complexity was cited as the most significant issue facing leaders today. Traditional tools and methodologies have provided a platform for our continued learning and understanding of business and economic systems, but are no longer sufficient to address today's business challenges and opportunities. Understanding the organization and the economy as a complex and fluid system is one of the most important competencies for effective leaders today.

13. "Organizational initiative successes are dependent on technology." – MOSTLY FALSE

For me, not all organizational initiatives are dependent on technology. Technology may assist and be a tool for success, but it’s not a mandatory aspect.

Most organizational initiatives can be successful without the use of technology.

14. "Communications and relationships building skills are more important than technology skills." – ALWAYS TRUE

In the world of work, “hard skills” are technical or administrative procedures related to an organization’s core business.  These skills are typically easy to observe, quantify and measure. By contrast, “soft skills” (also called “people skills”) are typically hard to observe, quantify and measure. People skills are needed for everyday life as much as they’re needed for work.

That’s why in IBM, we have a lot of soft skill trainings than hard skill trainings. Some of the soft skills trainings that I attended are Creativity and Innovation, Effective Presentation Skills, Time Management, and Effective Business Writing.

15. "Service level agreements are measures of inter-department performance and should be treated separately with the goals and objectives of the organization." – ALWAYS FALSE

A service-level agreement (SLA) is a part of a service contract where the level of service is formally defined. In practice, the term SLA is sometimes used to refer to the contracted delivery time (of the service) or performance. SLAs commonly include segments to address: a definition of services, performance measurement, problem management, customer duties, warranties, disaster recovery, and termination of agreement.

SLA is one of the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) which reflects the Organizational Goals.  Key Performance Indicator is quantifiable. That’s why SLA should not be treated separately with the goals and objectives of the organization.

16. "Measures should be established across organization and to all departments to facilitate organizational effectiveness and productivity." – ALWAYS TRUE

Key Performance Measures are FACTS about the business which allows the Company to:

o Focus efforts towards meeting company’s goals

o Assess quality of the core processes

o Close gaps through corrective actions

o Track progress towards company’s strategic plan

o Support accountability and communication to the organization