Organizational Philosophy Statements

Ford Motor Company: “Quality is job 1!”

L. L. Bean: “Sell good merchandise at a reasonable profit, treat your customers like human beings, and they’ll always come back for more.”

Metropolitan Life Insurance Company: “Quality is the key to our future success.”

Xerox: “Leadership through quality.”

Federal Express: “People—Service—Profit.”

Ritz Carleton: “Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.”

Citicorp Savings of California: “To consistently deliver a differential level of service so exceptional and so unexpected that it becomes a vehicle for the acquisition of profitable new relationships as well as the retention and growth of existing ones.”

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

People-Oriented Management

Business executives must strive to maintain a people-oriented philosophy of management. The daily press of commercial activity often makes it easier to deal with numbers, organization charts, inter-office memos, and administrative procedures. But industry is not the only segment of society that should pay greater attention to people. The federal and provincial governments have been under attack for treating people as “files” instead of as human beings. Insensitivity to human needs is a critical problem in nearly all organizations; yet, a humanistic approach to management is always good business, regardless of the industry.

The special needs of some people have been neglected. The physically handicapped have had to overcome some managerial barriers in order to achieve occupational dignity. Individuals who have served time in jails need jobs that will keep them from returning to criminal activity.

These situations reflect dissatisfaction on the part of people involved in or affected by business organizations. Such people argue that business has been too concerned about short-run profitability, machinery, evaluation, and control of corporate personnel and not concerned enough about the people involved. One of the aims of social responsibility is the achievement of a new concept of management that will take into account people oriented concerns.

Workers are more productive when they have a sense of participation in the decisions affecting them. Human resource development has thus become a major organizational objective for many businesses. People-oriented management requires a careful balance between productivity and profitability objectives on the one hand and employee desires on the other.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Prioritization of Activities

One of the main aspects of time management is prioritizing activities. It has four quadrants. The activities are placed in each of the quadrants depending upon the importance and the urgency of the activity. Most urgent and most important activities fall in quadrant1. Least urgent but most important activities are in quadrant 11. The quadrant 111 has activities which are least important but most urgent. The least important and least urgent activities fall under quadrant 1V. it is needless to say that prioritizing should be done in the same order.

As the different activities are carried out, it is also important not to get bogged down with quadrant 1 activities. No doubt that these activities have to be finished because they are very urgent and important too. This leads to fire fighting. It has to be understood that activities have come to quadrant 1 because the quadrant 11 activities have not been done at the right time. The ideal situation will be to do the jobs at the right time so that the important activities are completed while being in quadrant 11. In such situations there will not be any activity in quadrant 1. That means no fire fighting and the situation will be cool and calm.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Letters Dealing with Orders

Most ordering today is done on standardized order forms, purchase forms, and requisition forms, and is handled by means of standardized procedures. Together with telephone ordering, which has surged to new highs in recent years, forms have eliminated most individual letters about orders. As long as there are human beings ordering and filling orders, there will be errors, exceptions, special requests, and problems to write about.

 

If you are ordering without a form (the form is missing from the catalog, you are responding to magazine ad), include the description of the desired item, the quantity, the size, the color, personalization/monogram, and the price. Include your own name, address, postal code, and state your method of payment. If you are paying by bank card, include its number, expiration date, and your signature. If you are buying from a company in your home state, add sales tax to the total. Also include any stated handling charges. Specify shipping directions or any special considerations.

 

When responding to orders received, it is helpful to have an all-purpose form for problem orders. After saying something like, “Thank you for your order. We are unable to ship your merchandise at once because . . . “ list a series of possible problems so that one or more can be circled, underlined, or checked off. Some suggestions: Payment has not been received. We no longer fill C.O.D. orders—please send a check or money order. We do not have a complete shipping address; a description of the enclosed merchandise; a copy of the sales slip, invoice, or shipping label; an explanation of why you’re returning it; your request for a refund, credit to your account, or replacement merchandise, an expression of appreciation. If returning the merchandise is difficult (in the case of a large appliance, for example), write first and ask how it should be returned. Always ask for (although you may not always get) reimbursement for your shipping costs.

 

When you are canceling a prepaid order or when asking for a refund, give all possible information: order/invoice/reference number, date of order, description of merchandise. Specify whether your payment should be returned to you as cash or check, as a credit to your account or your bank card (if you charged it), or as a credit to your company’s account.

 

Arrange your order on the page so that it can be deciphered at a glance. Instead of phrasing an order as a long sentence, arrange the information in columns. Set off data so as to be quickly read—there will be a similar chance of error in your order.

 

If you need merchandise or supplies by a certain date, state it clearly. By making explicit in your letter the importance of the delivery date, you will in most instances be able to cancel the order without forfeiture if you fail to receive it in time; the letter can serve as an informal contract.

 

If your first order should go astray and you send in a second, emphasize that it is a duplicate order. Too often, the first order eventually turns up and is also filled.

 

Orders were made for forms, and vice versa. Although no two order forms are precisely alike, a few items are standard: customer’s name, business name or title, address, postal code, and telephone number with area code; customer’s account number; description of merchandise, page where it appears in catalog (optional), quantity wanted, size, color, type; monogram or personalization; price per unit; total price for each item; shipping and handling chart; sales tax information; amount enclosed; shipping information (options available plus approximate length of shipping time); space for bank card number, expiration date; and signature; spaces for signatures from purchasing department or other authorization.

 

Individualized letters dealing with orders are generally typed on letterhead or memo stationery.

 

If writing about a personal order from your home, a handwritten note is acceptable if clearly written.

 

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight