Internship-Productive Meeting
Do you have a productive meeting?The company where I work holds an off-site meeting twice a year, which we call Advance. It is not at all the so-called company recreational trip, the event that we have to give special and respectful consideration to our boss, or the party that we are forced to drink. It is productive and meaningful. I have never joined it, so I cannot explain how it looks like. However, I understand it has a clear goal of achieving better communications, working in a team, knowing ourselves, and getting good business results.
All trainers and staff had the off-site meeting at the end of last week, and today they explained to me what they did. It was interesting to know that they pointed out an individual good and bad point (Can you speak out your boss’s bad point face to face???) and played a team-building game to improve team performance using brain.
They are always learning.
They are always developing themselves.
They never stop doing it.
There are a lot of learning elements at my workplace. I can see some of them in the office, and I find others from trainers. There should be more that I still don’t know. I want to find those as much as possible until I have to leave the office.
P.S.
I just got a little surprise from the president tonight. He called me and said, “thank you for your work.” It was very kind of him to take his time to call me to say so. Do you know how much I was surprised to hear that? Do you know how much I felt happy to know that? It was a nice gift for me. I never imagine there is such a president who calls his employees to thank them. (I am even an intern!)
posted by Maffie @ 1:50 AM
4 Comments:
This is very, very interesting indeed. In our company, we have such off-sites (or time when we were taken out of our usual working context to recharge ourselves and get inspiration about work) as well, but we call them Retreats.
I have a feeling the term Retreat came from some religious source, if it does not already have a biblical connotation.
The purpose of the games is to build better relationships, encourage interaction, challenge personal assumptions and perhaps through such communication, inspire cooperation and ideas.
The newest culture of companies nowadays is the learning culture, where the employees constantly learn and improve themselves. And through that, with more informed and knowledgable employees, the companies improve.
It is good to encourage employees to speak up, even if it is to disagree with the boss, because the boss is not super human, the employees sometimes can contribute as well.
I am glad that Japanese firms are openning their minds to new ideas.
Although I have my doubts about having an American as the CEO of Sony....
Alvarny>
Thank you for your comment! So, you have that kind of activities as well. I like the idea. It is one of the good ways to improve ourselves. What kind of companies do you work for? Our office is located in Tokyo, but the president who leads a multi-national team of management trainers and staff is originally from America. So, I guess the idea comes from America or another country. I hope Japanese companies also accept it.
I work for a multi national company as well, and I have quite a few colleagues from Japan, who work extremely hard. I am always very impressed by them and I take them as my role models.
I am not sure if I am correct, but I am of the impression that Japanese companies are more quality driven and American companies are more profit driven.
I have read somewhere that there is a company that ranks customers first, employees next and stakeholders after that.
I think that statement fits Japanese firms better than American firms, which is why I said that the world has something to learn from them.
Alvarny>
Thank you for giving me your thoughtful comment. I have the same impression as you do: Japanese companies are more quality driven and American companies are more profit driven, although I suppose it should not fit every case. If I describe job-hunting, I think American companies consider student’s background and hire those who are ready to work, on the other hand, Japanese companies give students job training for which companies spend lots of time. If so, what American companies seek may be profits.
I agree with that Japanese companies are based on customer-oriented strategy. Since I got used to Japanese services, I am surprised by knowing how people are served in other countries. Companies, stakeholders, and customers are all related, so it should be worthwhile thinking about the relationship.
I also have role models. I cannot be the one; however, I can change myself in a good way by imaging them.
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