Personal Touch is (still) a Thing!

A review to the USA2INDO services.
(Bahasa version, below)

I remember it clearly about that time when I had a new job, with better pay and all, and all of a sudden my lifestyle changed. Not that I started being prodigal, not at all. But my life shifted a bit to the digital side.

I started my first monthly internet subscription, my first websites – well, THAT, if you count blog sites a website – my first GMail, and of course, my first online shopping. But I was too late: Amazon stopped shipping to Indonesia.

Naturally, I started to find alternative ways to deliver goods from Amazon to Indonesia, so I started to ask my travelling friends to bring them for me. But it was so much of a hassle, due to their limited staying time in a hotel so that I have to calculate a precise time to place an order, so that didn’t work smoothly. I tried to find friends who actually live in the US, but they are all just acquaintances, so it’s kind of awkward to ask them for a favor, so I opted.

Then I learned from a friend that there are online services for that purpose. So I searched and found several options. LOTS of options. And, you guess it, too many options rendered me not choosing anything at all.

Then there I was, trying to find a place to have dinner in a shopping mall, and I stumbled upon a store with “USA2INDO” on the door. I got curious, and I found the website through a search engine. It was in Bahasa, quite humble, and straight to the point: They have an address in the US to receive deliveries from Amazon, ship it to Indonesia, and customers can pick them up at the store in the shopping mall; I vaguely remember it that they didn’t have a service to deliver it to an address, but it wasn’t much of a problem to me simply because I can simply walk up to the store and meet them in person. So I did: I visited the store – it wasn’t even a shipping company, it was a music store, selling music books, tablature, sheets and other music-related stuffs – and asked questions to the staff. They told me that they indeed provide forwarding services as stated in the website, because they regularly ship their stuffs from the US. They ship customers’ goods along with their shipping.

It was a unique experience, the staff was nice, and I immediately built a sense of trust, simply because I was dealing with them in person. Call me old-fashioned, but that’s all I need: As soon as I arrived home, I browsed Amazon, searched for accessories for my Nokia Lumia 910 (and 810 for my friend), send the links to USA2INDO, received their quotations, paid (excluding the shipping cost which amount was stated clearly on the website, because they advise me to pay it later when the goods arrived), and waited.

The communication was through e-mail, and I received personalized responses. I followed up, and received prompt responses, supposedly from the staff. Remember I mentioned humility? Their responses were straightforward, and I felt happy because I was dealing with real people. Real, HUMBLE people. And the goods arrived. I went to the store and picked up my goods, and that was it! I received the correct goods, still in their original packaging. I was so happy, I even promised them I’d soon order through them again.

So, yeah, first impression DOES matter. And they deliver it quite awesomely. And, of course, personal touch is still a thing now, even in the rise of e-commerce here in Indonesia. Now, USA2INDO has evolved to an impressively improved form of their services, and I could still feel the humility and hospitality.

Bahasa Version

Saya ingat saat saya memulai pekerjaan baru saya, pekerjaan dengan gaji yang lebih baik, benefit yang lebih menarik, dan tiba-tiba gaya hidup saya berubah. Bukan gaya hidup foya-foya, namun hidup saya sedikit bergeser ke sisi yang lebih digital.

Saya mulai berlangganan internet bulanan saya yang pertama, website pertama saya – tentunya bila anda menganggap blog adalah sebuah website juga – alamat GMail saya yang pertama, dan tentu saja, belanja online saya yang pertama. Namun saat itu saya sudah terlambat: Amazon tidak lagi melakukan pengiriman ke Indonesia.

Saya mulai mencari cara alternatif untuk mengirim barang dari Amazon ke Indonesia, dan saya mulai meminta tolong teman-teman saya yang gemar travelling untuk membawanya pulang untuk saya. Namun ternyata hal tersebut sangat merepotkan, karena durasi inap di hotel yang relatif singkat sehingga saya harus menghitung waktu yang tepat untuk melakukan pembelian, yang tentunya tidak berjalan dengan mulus. Lalu saya mulai mencari teman-teman saya yang memang tinggal di US, namun ternyata saya tidak mengenal mereka cukup dekat sehingga rasanya kurang sreg bila meminta bantuan mereka.

Kemudian saya memperoleh informasi dari teman saya bahwa ternyata ada banyak jasa online yang memberikan layanan pengiriman tersebut. Maka mulailah saya mencarinya di internet, dan saya memperoleh sangat banyak pilihan. Dan ternyata banyaknya pilihan malah justru membuat saya menjadi bingung dan akhirnya urung menggunakan jasa tersebut.

Lalu suatu hari, saat saya sedang mencari tempat untuk makan malam di sebuah mall, saya melihat sebuah toko dengan tulisan “USA2INDO” di pintu kacanya. Rasa ingin tahu membawa saya pada sebuah website berbahasa Indonesia. USA2INDO.com yang tampak begitu bersahaja, dan cukup lugas: Mereka mempunyai alamat di US untuk menerima pengiriman dari Amazon, mereka mengirimkannya ke Indonesia, dan pelanggan dapat mengambil barang pesanan mereka di toko mereka; saya ingat, saat itu mereka masih belum memiliki layanan antar ke alamat tertentu. Namun itu tidak menjadi penghalang bagi saya, karena saya pikir saya bisa dengan mudahnya mengunjungi toko mereka dan langsung menemui mereka. Dan itulah yang saya lakukan: Saya mengunjungi toko tersebut – ternyata toko tersebut malah bukan toko perusahaan shipping, namun toko musik yang menjual buku-buku musik, tablatur dan hal-hal lain yang berhubungan dengan musik – dan berbicara dengan petugas toko yang ada di sana. Mereka menjelaskan kepada saya bahwa memang betul mereka menyediakan layanan pengiriman barang dari Amazon seperti yang disebutkan di website mereka, karena mereka melakukan pengiriman barang-barang mereka sendiri secara rutin dari US, jadi mereka mengirim barang-barang pelanggan bersama-sama dengan barang-barang mereka tersebut.

Saya mengalami pengalaman yang betul-betul menarik, staff toko yang ramah, sehingga dengan mudahnya timbul rasa percaya dalam diri saya karena saya berhadapan langsung dengan mereka. Anda boleh menilai saya sebagai orang yang kolot, yang masih membutuhkan relasi fisik dengan orang lain, namun itulah yang terpenting bagi saya: Sesampainya saya di rumah malam itu, saya langsung menjelajahi Amazon, mencari aksesoris ponsel untuk Nokia Lumia 910 saya (dan Lumia 810 untuk teman saya), mengirimkan link barang-barang tersebut ke USA2INDO, menerima kembali penawaran dari mereka, melakukan pembayaran (di luar biaya pengiriman, mereka menyarankan saya untuk membayarnya belakangan saat barang sudah sampai; tentunya saya sudah tahu berapa biaya pengiriman per kilogramnya, sesuai dengan keterangan di website)…dan kemudian menunggu datangnya barang-barang tersebut.

Komunikasi yang saya lakukan dengan mereka adalah melalui e-mail, dan saya memperoleh respons yang personal, yang tentunya dari staff USA2INDO sendiri. Ingat bahwa tadi saya menyebutkan kebersahajaan saat saya mengunjungi website mereka? Saya memperoleh respons yang tidak neko-neko, dan tentunya membuat saya merasa senang karena saya berhubungan langsung dengan orang biasa, sama seperti saya.

Dan barang-barang pesanan saya dating. Saya langsung datang ke toko mereka, mengambil barang-barang saya, dan begitulah! Saya menerima barang sesuai pesanan, masih dalam packaging aslinya. Saya betul-betul merasa senang, malah sampai saya berjanji akan berbelanja melalui mereka lagi.

Jadi, begitulah, kesan pertama memang betul-betul memberi dampak yang sangat kuat. Dan mereka betul-betul memberikan kesan pertama yang sangat positif. Dan, tentunya, sentuhan personal masih sangat berpengaruh, bahkan kini, saat e-commerce sedang maraknya menjamur dan menguasai pasar di Indonesia. Dan sekarang, saat layanan USA2INDO telah betul-betul berkembang menjadi jauh lebih baik, saya masih dapat merasakan kerendahan hati dan keramahan layanan jasanya.

Perception : Headlamps

I had a heated debate with a friend, today, about the silliest thing in the world.

No, really.

There's a sign on the freeway, right on top of the entrance of a long underpass tunnel, that instructs car drivers to turn on the headlamps while inside the tunnel. The argument started when I commented on another car with hazard lamps instead of the headlamps. Of course I turned on my headlamp first to avoid a 'touche' moment. I said, "Those fools, they are supposed to turn on the headlamps!" Of course it was with a sense of humor, it wasn't really a rant. But my friend may have taken it seriously, and said, "what's wrong with it? You're the one who's supposed to follow them. That was a stupid sign, anyway, why would you have to turn on your headlamps in broad daylight? You can see it doesn't even have any effect whether or not you turn on your headlamps. See?" She pointed at the front of the car.

I then explained it to her that the purpose of turning on the headlamps in that particular tunnel is to give light to the driver IN FRONT of us, to make them aware of our presence behind them, not to provide light for ourselves. It's to improve safety, that when a driver wants to switch to the fast lane, the driver can see whether or not there's a car already in the fast lane. "so, you see, it's not that we need light in that dark, long tunnel, it's for the driver in front of us to see us on his tail".

Then the debate extended to some kind of a newly-approved international regulation about having a system to blink / roll the cars tail lamps to increase drivers' awareness of the vehicle in front of them . . . which I obviously never heard of, because I responded with a softened "bullshit", and the debate continued. It's resolved with an apology and a coffee session at the Starbucks. No damage done.

Maybe she snapped because she also turns on the hazard lamps whenever she enters the tunnel when driving. But my point is, we were having a problem caused by different perspectives, which in this case, the function of the headlamps. To me, the car's headlamps are not merely used to provide light to ourselves so that we can see what's going on in front of us. The other use of the headlamps is demonstrated in that long, dark tunnel, through the instructions on the sign above the tunnel's entrance. On the other hand, my friend only knew the first - and primary - use of the headlamps. I'm a bit ashamed, knowing that I should have known better, that not everyone thinks like me. In fact, we ALL have our own unique ways in understanding something. What I can do better is to propose an idea about the function of the headlamps in the tunnel. She might also not accept it right away, but this way my chance in explaining it further to her is bigger, not to mention avoiding a pointless debate that may cause our friendship to suffer.

At work, we may encounter the same case with different perspectives. As a manager - or superior - we might possess a broader point of view compared to our subordinates. We as superiors sometimes whine about how ignorant our subordinates are, because they won't understand what we tell them about cutting cost in purchasing material that may be the cause of a harder handling and making the goods. Subordinates sometimes also whine about how ignorant the superiors are because they just won't listen to their ideas about the current situation on the production floor that may make their work easier and give more benefits, though need a little more budget.

Difference in perspectives can be reconciled with a simple two-ways communication. One might want to refrain from saying something as fact, and try to submit an idea which ends with an open question. Showing openness may stimulate others' curiosity, willingness to share more ideas, and may lead to a situation where people can enrich others with each others' ideas. Of course this is not easy, it needs practice and willingness from both sides. But, as long as we base it on goodwill, do it.

IT Implementation Failure

I've been around for quite some time throughout my career as a management consultant, and I've been involved with companies and organizations that implemented IT systems to support their operations.

And I've seen them fail miserably.

Just think about it : An organization spent hundred thousands of dollars to purchase and install a high-tech IT system to improve their manufacturing and supply chain operations. But in the end they suffer, generally from being unable to utilize it as they expected it in the beginning of the project.

See, this is the main problem of IT implementation : A radical change of mindset, work systems and management control systems is mandatory, which needs a thorough change management program to lead all the people towards the desired change of behaviors . . . and this is what IT implementors don't have in their protocols and methodologies. At least here in Indonesia.

What IT implementors need is to integrate people development programs in their methodologies, which involves - among others - change management. We cannot simply install a new system and setup training sessions to teach people HOW to use it, we also need to lead the people to WANT to use it appropriately. We need a plan to make people LOVE to use the system, which then lead them to utilize it and improve it.

We need to change people's mindset so that they FULLY TRUST the system.

Let me give an example : In one of the Productivity Improvement Projects that I'm involved in, there was this organization that installed a hundred-thousand-dollar Supply Chain Management software that was supposed to simplify access to up-to-date data, like, it should help a manager to find out today's production output from a specific production line at specific time and location. But in reality, they still need to go down and check it on the production floor where the WIP was placed. The problem lies on the admin at the production floor who was too lazy to make the input 30 minutes before the shift ends. Oh, the admin DID input the data into the system, but he didn't seem to see the benefit of the system. The organization had tried many ways to make the admin do his job at the designated time, but failed every time. Or maybe they succeeded and the admin DID do his job at the designated time, but the manager still can't believe it and keep checking it on the production floor, or through a manual report generated and sent by the supervisor.

The problem is that they didn't involve change management in their IT implementation, that is, to shape the people's ways of thinking to make them see the benefit of the new system. And that's just one among many things that need to be changed in order to make people want to use the system, like changing people's behavior from doing their paperwork manually to doing it through a computerized system, make people committed to follow the new instructions that's not there before, etc.

It's people we are dealing with. You can simply install softwares to our PCs and expect them to work as expected, given that all compatibility checklist is all green. But with people, it's a whole different story.

The Apple's Antennagate

Everybody should know about the woe around Apple's iPhone 4 antenna. Now that Steve Jobs held a press conference explaining about this, it means that the problem is real and they are taking serious effort to correct it.

There are some things from the conference that interest me. First of all, Jobs said it himself : "Apple isn't perfect". And the next best thing, he indirectly said that iPhone is not perfect just like other smartphones.

It always baffles me that many Apple products users seem to believe that Apple products are flawless, perfect and superior to other products of its peers. And some of them even condescend and look down to other products, even to the extent of treating non-Apple users with disdain. There's even a saying "Apple and non-Apple products".

Putting Apple aside, there's a good lesson we can learn from this case. You see, I've seen many superiors, or hear stories about superiors who see himself as someone who deserves the position. They feel that they are always right, people should look up to him, or worse, he look down to other people, specially to their subordinates. This is also the case in seniority. And being superior or senior, they have the power to behave that way.

These people tend to protect the image, and become perfectionist. They don't allow themselves to make mistakes or look "weak". When they make mistake, they try to look for a scapegoat to blame, or make it so that it's something normal and not a big deal. Oh, BTW, Jobs showed similar signal-drop case on OTHER smartphones and platforms.

Silly, isn't it?

What I'm saying, I remember I posted something similar, higher position does not give us power to do anything freely as we like. Higher position gives us opportunity to do MORE good things and good deeds. When we continuously make condescending remarks to others - or subordinates, or look down to them, people would love to look for our flaws. And when they DO find one tiny flaw on us, they will make it so big, it matters. And we will end up trying our best to look for justifications, which might make us look even sillier.

So, again, we may be a superior, be it a supervisor, manager, president director or anything. Even a teacher or a senior trainer. We may even be a smart guy who deserve our position. But that's not a reason to behave in such a way that we look down to others. Learn to be a good leader, and make your team a good team.

The Two Glass Bowls

I created this illustration on one of my management training in Medan.

I presented two glass bowls to the audience, and told them to think of a way to move the bowls two meters on the floor, but they are not allowed to move themselves.

One volunteer tried to slide the glass bowls on the floor to reach the desired distance, and succeeded. Another one tried to roll it, but found that the bowls, being only half a ball, rolled to the left and bumped the wall. Good thing it didn't break.

When the audience were out of ideas, then I proposed another way involving duct tape : I put the lids together to form a kind of glass ball - not a perfect ball, but at least it's close to a round tire - and bound it with the duct tape. Then, I rolled it on the floor, made it reach the two meters target, and roll beyond the line.

At work, people consist of two, completely different sides : Technical and tactical. People can be taught and trained about technical things, like - for example - good soldering methods, sewing techniques, SAP implementation, etc. People develop skills from years of experience doing his work, enabling him to do nice acrobatics through it, like, a mechanical engineer who can manipulate and modify the mechanisms of broken and malfunctioning machineries, or a machine operator who's able to make temporal adjustment to his workstation to keep it productive while waiting for the mechanics to come, etc. All that are the technical side of human being : There's no limit to what we can develop from people, thus we can keep filling the glass with knowledge forever.

The second part is the tactical part : Feelings, motives, courage, creativity, etc. People DO need to be encouraged. People DO need something to drive them to do their work.

But unfortunately, many organizations treat their people like robots, that is, only focus on the technical side. Companies arrange tight and intensive training program on how to operate the production machineries, upgrade their knowledge on new specifications and features of the company's products, or invite experienced and professional gurus to conduct a series of courses and training sessions, etc., while putting aside the fact that they also need to persuade and encourage the people to correctly and appropriately implement the knowledge in their daily activities. Not to mention to keep them loyal and implement their newly-acquired knowledge to the benefit of the company.

Treating people like robots is like sliding one bowl on the floor. While the bowl would eventually develop scratches, people will eventually develop stress and demotivation. Can people achieve when they are treated like robots? The answer is YES. Of course highly-trained people can achieve their goals. For example, a woman with countless hours of experience in sewing and spent many sessions on sewing methods training, will undoubtedly reach the pieces per day targets assigned to her. Or, a supervisor who just came back from his 3 months ISO training in the US would flawlessly know how to learn and implement the local company's standard operation procedures and management control systems. But it's people we are talking about, here. People may be able to keep their ideals high and do their work flawlessly after they walk out of the training room. But people will eventually face problems and obstacles in their everyday activities. Even an easily predictable problems can bring down people's courage.

And at time like this we need to help people back on their feet. Some problems are work-related, and some others are non-work-related. Even a brief argument with the spouse in the morning can cause a whole day of bad mood and unnecessary mistakes. Thus, it needs a good leader to come up with ways to tackle this kind of problems and bring him back to work.

So this is what duct-taping the bowls means : While we keep our employees technically updated, we also need to keep their spirit and morale up. Keep doing this, we will find ourselves see productivity improves with relatively smaller effort. We would start to see them exceed their targets because they want to give more. Remember the story about the two employees in the Toyota factory? Both guys have the same, simple job description : Pulling levers to mechanically and manually continue a small part of the assembly process. When asked about what they are doing in the booth, one guy said plainly, "I'm here only to pull these levers", while the other guy answers "I'm making Toyota!". I'm sure that the first guy never get encouragement and positive feedbacks from his supervisor, while the other guy keep getting positive inputs and encouragement from his superior.

So you see, it's all a matter of treating people as a complete human being. Hard? Yes. But it's learnable.

I don't want my people to do their best. I want my people to WANT to do their best.

Allegiance

During a Productivity Improvement Project, I asked this question to my trainees of managers : Do you want your people to do their work? As in, doing it properly, according to the system and the rules, following the do’s and avoiding the don’ts? They answered enthusiastically, “YES!” Well, of course we want our people to do their work correctly, mistake-free and flawless. We want professionals who know what they are doing and do it right.

Then, I startled them that if I were them, I DON’T want my people to do their job. Of course, some of them frowned and asked “why?”, to which I responded with a single sentence that made their frown even uglier : “I want my people to WANT to do their work”. Well anyway, it’s a strategy to give an opening for explanation . . . it keeps people focused.

I believe I explained it somewhere in my previous posts, that modern people are smarter and more critical. Instead of fully dependant on their muscles and physical traits, they use their brains and mental powers to improve themselves and make use of them to their benefit in everyday activities. Thus, it’s one of the reasons behind the term “work smart, don’t work hard”.

With all the skills and knowledge, people tend to think “why should I give more? It’s not worth my salary”. Well, this salary thing is so common. The company doesn’t want to pay more, but the employee thinks that his skills and hard work deserve better compensation. But it’s interesting to find that one guy feels comfortable with his salary and willing to give more, while the other guy keeps complaining and demanding more salary, although they are doing a relatively same job. I’ve seen courageous and motivated employee in one company, and depressed, complaining employee in other organization with the same job description.

So what’s wrong?

Later on, I’ll write something more detail about the 8 Effective Leader’s Behaviors, but now all I’m saying is that it’s people we are dealing with here. We don’t just want them to do their work correctly, but we want them to actually own and develop a sense to do their work right. We want them to – say – automatically do things right and flawlessly. Of course, we would want to implement control systems like Pokayoke, ISO, 5S etc. to improve our organization in a more systematic way, but again, it’s all about how eager our people want to make use it in their everyday life. Or, we might want to push them, squeeze them or bully them to use their skills and knowledge to the benefit of the company, but it would only make them robots who will only move on command, they will not start the initiatives to work and improve.

What should we do?

Be a good leader. Yeah, it may sound naive to you, but I’ve seen people willing to die for their manager, and dedicate their lives to serve under their superiors. It’s all about good leadership, maintaining good work environment and open communication. Win-win solution, involvement in problem-solving, mutual respect and two-way communication are a few among others in order to create a good relationship with our employees, which leads to courageous and creative employees who are willing to “die” for us. They are willing to give more to the company, they are willing to dedicate their skills and knowledge to the benefit of the organization. They might not become super employees, but they have enough sense of belonging to improve themselves, helping the organization and the company to improve itself.

So, back to the statement above : I don’t want my people to do their work, but I want my people to WANT to do their work. I want my people to have the will to work correctly, I want my people to follow the rules and implement well-laid system without me being depressed and stressed-out to make them do it, and I want my people to have the initiatives to improve themselves. I want my people to have allegiance to the company.

It is a cheaper way to improve the company. In a good way, that is . . .

Ghost Squad Show-Off

This is from my notes on Facebook, now I decided to post this on my public blog.

Well, that day I saw someone made fool of himself. I was playing Ghost Squad, and due to the broken slot, I can't use my IC Card. Well, it's not really broken actually, it was just a little bit hard to insert the card, and I don't want to lose the data the same way again. So there I was, only with a standard weapon with my regular single-shots.

So came this guy out of nowhere, without even a glance or smile, inserted his IC Card, and played along. A bit reckless, though, shooting CONTINUOUS bursts on the hapless enemies using the TR14. I managed to get most of Quick Shots, though.

This is TR14. Good penetration, good fire rate, low recoil, gives higher accuracy in fully automatic mode. This is the feature he abused a LOT. Slow reload thime is the drawback I don’t like.

Continuing to Stage 2, he set the game to level 16!!! Oh, crap . . . me with a standard weapon against level 16 enemies. Even with a full-piercing SPR11 I'm having quite a difficult time on level 16. But again, I managed to survive, this time stealing head shots between his bursts. And he died FAR BEFORE the stage ended. And, yes, I finished the level 16 Stage 2. I was already in the yellow on the Life Bar.

SPR11. Sniper rifle, superior penetration, reloads instantaneously. Its major drag is the small 10-shots clip, and limited only to 3-shots burst, no fully automatic mode.

So at the end of the Stage 2 I took out my IC Card, and asked him for another round. I took a bullet at the beginning of Stage 3 for an instant death . . . hey, it's SOOO difficult playing alone with a standard weapon on a level 16 Stage 3, you know. Later, I forced the card in, and the machine successfully loaded the data when it's in. And now I'm happy, with my favorite weapon, the CPG7.

CPG7. Same penetration power as TR14. Slower fire rate, high recoil that gives lower accuracy in fully automatic mode. But hey, I use single-shots, so these things have tiny effects on my performance.

Faster reload time = Faster recovery to continue ass-kickeries.

Set the stages 1 and 2 to level 16, I played quite a smooth one with two shots or head shots to kill the red ones and single shots on the rest of them. He was still with continuous bursts, by the way, and the score was not even half of mine. Oh, I didn't set the Stage 3 to level 16 out of concern that he was already red on his Life Bar. I only set it to level 10, a level where I find it fun to play the game.

At the end of Stage 3, I noticed that he was just promoted to LEVEL 6 . . . lucky I didn't set it to level 16, it'd be a hell playing it with someone who never pass stage level 5.

Two things I missed : His FACE when he found that I'm a Marshall with a Gold Suit at the beginning of the game, and his FACE again when I noticed that he's still at level 71, compared to my level 99, at the end of the game.

The Gold Suit, obtained at the character level 99.

He started the game all over again, and I noticed that he has level 16 for Stages 1 and 2, and level 6 for Stage 3 . . . you're welcome, dude B)

The moral of the story : Never barge in, AND show off, when you don't know the other guy . . . you don't know what the other guy is capable of. Even if you KNOW the guy, or have the SKILLS, show off is quite annoying. And I believe this applies to other aspects of life . . . never look down to others, respect each other.

Same thing when you just joined with a new company. You may have a good experience, you may also a summa cum-laude graduate from a top, well-known college. But that’s not a reason to look down to others.

(Pictures courtesy of http://www.sega-ghostsquad.com)