Description
Achieving organisation goals and objectives are the core of many organisations. Different books focus on different aspects to help the organisations to achieve their goals. There is no doubt that the knowledge and skills presented in various books and experts contribute to the betterment of organisation productivity. However, we observe that the role of individual values, cognitive psychology and organisational behaviour where as we always believe that “human” contributes the most. In order to enable employees to put their hearts and souls to the organisation, the concept of corporate entrepreneurship is used as the fundamental principle in this book.
For many years, in the public and private sectors, we found similar challenges faced by the organisation that hinder them to move forward. These challenges can be categorised into 4-main categories respectively ; organisational culture, work procedure and operation, people management and the relationship between the individuals in the organisation.
From all these categories, the core challenge remain on the people issues – the employees’ values. In theory, if a person have served a longer period in the organisation, the loyalty and commitment to the organisation would generally be better. Unfortunately, this theory is not always true. When employees joined an organisation, they would undergo orientation. During orientation, they would be exposed to corporate values and learn to immerse themselves into the organisation culture. Down the road, the employees would perceive the corporate values in different ways due to several factors such as personal perception, peers influence, previous work experience and even organisational strategies. The deviation of values captured our interest to start searching for possible solutions to overcome these issues.
In addition, we feel curious as to why many employees fail to practise accountability and taking up responsibility even they are high-level officers. For instance, many heads of department would push responsibility to the human resource department when any issues related to their own department staffs. To illustrate, we would like to share this example. The head of marketing would like to transfer some employees to another department due to low performance. The head of marketing informs the human resource department to proceed with the transfer process. When the selected employee received the letter of transfer, they confronted the head of marketing department and the the head of the marketing department replies, “I don’t know, please ask HR department. You can see that the letter is signed by the HR department, right?” What can you learn from this example? The head of marketing played with “Tai-Chi” and pushed all the responsibility to the human resource department.
Another interesting scenario that triggers our interest to write this book – Escaping From the Dungeon when we analyse employee behaviour in both public and private sectors. During normal working days, the immediate superior does not provide feedback to the employees. On the employees’ perspective, they would assume everything was alright. However, during the performance appraisal, the immediate superior gives low appraisal points to the employee. As a result, the bonus of the employee got affected. When the employee confronts the immediate superior, the immediate superior replied, “I do not know, it is all from the HR department!”. Sound familiar?
In some organisation, it is common for the employees to answer, “I do not know how to do it, boss!” as an excuse for non performance. At the same time, we found that some management staff would write on the memo, “Please follow instruction” without further explaining to their subordinates what to do with the memo. As a result, the subordinates would follow the same management style to pass down the message. At the end, the lower supporting staffs are not be able to perform the task.
All these examples we encountered had enable us to investigate the methodologies to these issues. In our mind, if the employees would treat the organisation as their own business, definitely they would put priority and be more compassionate in running their daily activities and task. This concept – “Corporate Entrepreneurship” is the concept that is shared in this book. In this book, we would justify the essence of corporate entrepreneurship that is far beyond the corporate governance.
The book, “Escaping From Dungeon” aims to enlighten the reader with a methodology to understand intrinsic values of the employees and the corporate culture. At the same time, this book helps the readers to enhance their understanding of values within the individual and organisation spectrum. In addition, it is essential to instil sustainable values within the organisation in order for them to set the same direction as if it was set by the organisation. Lastly, we hope to help the organisation to create a suitable value among employees.
There is a total of eight chapters in this book. We start the book by introducing the concept of change within the organisation. In this topic, the readers would have an understanding towards the importance of change and the impact of the change in the organisation. Change through self-realisation would be initiated from the heart to help “human” to be proactive. It is important to set a self-reminder during the change process. Chapter two focuses on the personal values and the work values. The reader would be exposed to the needs to set a clear understanding and reminder of Corporate Values. The reader would understand the needs to identify what the differences between personal and organisation work values are. As a result, employees also need to find out factors that contribute to the values gap.
Chapter Three, “Values Harmonisation: Together, We are One!” discuss the methods on how to identify the values gap between employee values and the organisation values. We share the concept of 7 Level of Consciousness on how to create equilibrium within the employees. By understanding the 7 Level of Consciousness, the readers would learn secret how to remove internal conflicts between the employees. We hope by the end of this chapter, employees would be able to remove obstacles within each other and they are able to interact with each other using their hearts. After removing the paradox values, chapter four would focus on instilling new values – the compassion. The roles of the human beings as the Khalifa to serve the organisation is reminded. A different action plan that contributes to the organisation growth up to the micro-unit level – Individual.
In chapter five, it would focus on mindset, values and objectives set for organisational growth. In the previous chapter, an example of organisation action plan is focused. This chapter helps leaders to equip their employees, both physically and mentally. In fact, many projects fail because the employees’ motivation is short term and they are not determined to complete the project. This chapter focuses on the methodology to create long-lasting and convincing values and objectives to be achieved. This chapter also focuses on ways to prepare the employees with the right mindset.
Chapter six focuses on the concept of flexibility and smart trust in people management. In order to succeed in the organisation, leaders and employees need to be flexible and sensitive towards human being. Applying creativity and flexibility (when dealing with people) help us to excel and succeed in the organisation. Smart trust, authority, accountability and responsibility focused on this chapter as a tool to equip ourselves with flexibility during work interaction with others. In the next chapter, the concept of corporate entrepreneurship is shared. Application on how to apply corporate entrepreneurship is shared in this chapter.
In the last chapter, we bring the readers to understand the concept that “Everything Happens For a Reason”. We are reminded to be mindful of the actions that we have done in the organisation. In addition, readers are reminded that the individual actions may contribute great impact to the organisation. Each action do not only affect ourselves but it gives impact to the whole organisation. The concept of chain reaction of what goes around comes around are stressed in this topic. We must be able to understand the decisions and actions taken by anyone in the company that might guide you to move forward. In addition, we are reminded again to have responsibility and accountability for our actions.
Ambrin Buang
Leow Chee Seng