Institutionalism (4)

The issue of institutionalism needs to be examined seriously. In our anecdotal narrative, we made an effort to look beyond unseriousness with a bit of irony. As a matter of fact, we can do this more comfortably without being in a competent position as of now.

We have touched on customer righteousness, vision and leadership, and commercial risk in our previous articles. These topics can be expanded from different perspectives. We will close our article series on institutionalism with the section on success and understanding.

The following assessment made by a well-known and valued person who made a presentation on success in a speech is very interesting. When we look at companies that are not brands and leaders, three classes of managers are seen.

“Treasurers”
“Despite”
“The Mirrors”

Without going into too much detail, I will pass by saying that those who fall into the group of "imitators" are administrators who pretend to be dead.

Institutionalism is based on being successful in the work done and the sustainability of that success. Progress is necessary to succeed. Fear of failure is also a disease and indicates a lack of willpower. It is necessary to think carefully about whether "the thing that is feared" or "the fear itself" harms the Institution more. Unfortunately, the majority of managers are also afraid of success. Workload, change, additional cadres and, of course, concern for maintaining their office are common characteristics of those who are afraid to succeed.

Successful people usually have a high ego. Adequate ratio of ambition and ego is required, too much will sink the ship. This ratio should be adjusted well. Let me explain this with a good example;

Let's remember Muhammad Ali
Talks too much before the match
He threatens, he says I will destroy,
He openly said he would regret it.
He almost got the match psychologically before the match started,
He had a tremendous ego burst,
But it was Muhammad Ali,
Even if he spoke exaggerated and inappropriately, he was accepted and what he said was not strange,
In a way, because of his position, what he said was considered normal and applauded by the audience.

If the same attitude and behavior is done by someone who is not very well known, the result can be devastating for that person. The excessive ego to display creates oppressive and unhappy landscapes on the team. We can see this more in rulers who are more royalist than kings.

I was working as a Human Resources manager in one of the very influential semi-public companies I worked for. Due to the sensitivity, security and nature of the institution, it was necessary to consult with the group presidency personnel to whom we are affiliated. It is inevitable that these consultations will have a certain form and customs. However, from time to time, we were also dealing with calls and notifications that we needed to pay attention to. We weren't dealing with those who pretended to be more royalist than the king, who took the task out of more situations. I think the following example from my life illustrates this well;

A phone call came on a busy day. The person on the phone introduced himself as one of the Private Secretary of the Group Presidency to which we are affiliated. Since I don't have much to do with the Private Pen, I have never been in contact with the caller before. Naturally, I was being cautious.

Here's how I can help you
We sent you a list for the internship,
We want to get the latest status on him.
No such list was sent to us.
Both internship procedures have been closed, all candidates have been placed in the required places,
We did not receive a request for your unit,
We have conveyed our previous requests. This list has just been created. I want the same actions to be done.

As it turned out, he was requesting some action for an additional list. The time allocated for the transactions he wanted to be done was closed two weeks ago. He was making an extraordinary demand with the power of influence of his office. Apparently, he tried to get us to make the list he was talking about through another directorate he was dealing with. Since the time was running out, he wanted to take charge of the situation. Unfortunately, his tone was fait accompli and high pitched.

I guess you didn't understand where I'm calling from,
I am from the Group Presidency Private Secretary,
Rules are there for us to follow,
We make the rules. you depend on us
I'm not affiliated with anyone
If you have served in the military, you know.
Even if you are the superior of the person performing his duty, you cannot give orders,
The person in charge receives instructions only from his/her superior,
Therefore, it would be better if you send your request with a letter of the Agency with a wet signature or by e-mail, it would be better for us to share it with our supervisor.

In this way, the matter turned into an unpleasant situation. It was unsettling that a fait accompli was made over the name of the unit he worked for on the phone, without specifying his position and duty other than his name. It was not very professional for him to hurl reproaches and threatening orders, even though I told him that no action could be taken over the phone without an official document.

I was able to hang up the phone, albeit with difficulty, by reminding him that it would be inconvenient to take action outside the official channels without being sure in the institutions we work with, and that in this country, even the Prime Ministers received $ 500 thousand with a single phone call.

A few weeks later, the person I named in the Private Secretary to the Deputy Undersecretary, whom I interviewed for another job, 

I asked who it was.

Does such a name exist in the Private Pen?
He is the person who does the undersecretary's errands,
I shared the content of the event by lightening it,
For the sake of knowledge, I explained the subject without giving much detail,
Not important. We know that that person sometimes puts his own work in,
Good thing you mentioned. He can most likely complain. Do not worry.

This person, who had no other duty other than the bring-and-take operations, wanted to do his private job as if it were the job of the office. While even the head of the office where he worked did not make a similar request, this person played more royalist than the full king.

Of course, this should not be forgotten. Incompetent office holders do some of their dirty work through their footmen. It is also useful to look at such events as follows;

Let's consider a circle,
Let this be our circle of life,
Suppose there are intersecting lines going through this circle,
Let's call these death lines,
Suppose these lines cross each other irregularly and meaninglessly,
If we want to create a smooth and clean circle of life, it is necessary to get rid of these irregular lines,
Just as there is no rose without thorns, there is no life without obstacles.
In fact, when there are no obstacles in our lives, "death" means at our door,
The "moment" when there is nothing left to do in life is the moment when the final point is set,
There will always be obstacles to the survival of life.

Therefore, I made the following deductions for myself;

There will always be unexpected obstacles in my life,
The existence of obstacles means that death is far away!
It is healthier to aim forward instead of looking back,
To stay away from those who are more kingly than the king,
It is necessary not to deal with those who are arrogant and greedy.
The most dangerous are the sneaky and unsympathetic types.

............

According to the rumor, the appointment procedure of the CEO of General Dynamics, which is the manufacturer of the F-16 aircraft, is interesting. As it is said, this CEO only allocates one day in 2 weeks to outside meeting or protocol type jobs. Hosting only 1 day in 14 days, opening, signing ceremony etc. the company is allocating it to jobs that are not directly related to its business. His assistants were often involved in such work, helping him focus on his core business. He dedicates 13 days of 14 days to his employees and projects.

Based on my experience and experience, I can easily say that I have observed that this determination is correct.

The most common and practical way to slow down a senior executive's work is to keep him busy with openings, hospitality, visits, travels, and meetings.

It is not right to be sad and hopeless about what has been said so far. I would like to give credit to the real leaders and managers and leaders with far-sighted vision around us. Such leaders attract attention with their sympathetic and fatherly demeanor. Their most important characteristic is their modesty. If these can be reached, you can tell your problem and project. Reaching top executives is difficult. Reaching by surpassing those around you is sometimes a miracle.

It is not a right of the employees to question every decision taken by the senior management, to seek justification and to expect detailed explanations. We can see the decisions made as laws. There are laws that we do not like, but we are obliged to abide by these laws until they change. Explaining the reason for the decisions taken is not always a useful approach. It may not be necessary to explain some of the decisions taken under the compulsion of the circumstances.

Strategy, tactics, foresight is important. Most importantly, there is always information that not everyone knows. With the support of this unknown information that everyone does not need to know, the management can rightfully take decisions on behalf of the employees and the company. Management may sometimes have to sign off on unpleasant decisions in order to be prepared for possible unexpected situations. The top manager can easily and accurately solve some issues that we cannot solve, in line with the powers and knowledge he currently has.

At an electronics company I work for, I was tasked with purchasing a PBX system to replace our telephone network. In this project, we were working together as 5 project managers. There were 5 companies in the world that would provide this product. Erickson, Siemens, Motorola, Alcatel and a Canadian company. Our interlocutors were the managers of these companies. We worked with their regional representatives on the requirements and analyzes for 3 months. We met with the CEO of our company to assess the situation.

“How are the negotiations going?” the CEO asked.
We presented the report we prepared,
He asked which company's product we should choose,
Technically, all of them were meeting our needs,
We have only one problem,
The list price is 5 million USD and they don't give any discounts,
We shared the information that by giving up some small options, the last time could be 4.5 million USD,
I'm not asking you about money,
Which of the companies you researched would be the most technically beneficial for us?
We named the most appropriate company,
The CEO said the meeting was over and left,
5 each other as project managers 

We looked at us and couldn't make much sense,
A few days later, we received the information that the PBX exchange we wanted was received,
It was also bought for 1 million USD,
We could not understand how the company, which did not go down a penny from 5 million USD, gave it to 1 million USD.

Curiosity, I was stuck on this issue. How could the power plant that we couldn't buy for 4.5 million was bought for 1 million? Since it was my first managerial time, I was curious to understand everything. I wanted to gather my courage and ask the CEO, whom I talked to about another issue, about this subject I was curious about.

Sir, if you'll excuse me, I want to ask you something.
I couldn't quite understand the power plant issue in our last project,
We tried so hard and failed. I couldn't understand the number you got,
You don't have to know everything
Some things may not be monetary,
Or you may not have enough data to bargain,
Thinking you didn't like my question, I thanked him and stood up to leave,
I arrived at the door when he called after me,
He said, "Come sit down."
You will wonder again because you did not get an answer to the question you asked,
sit down and let me tell you
You don't have the information I have,
Our contract for an electronic part worth 150 million USD per year ends with the company we work with after 3 months,
You do not know this information,
After the meeting, I called the CEO of the company whose product you recommended to me,
I talked about this electronic part we bought,
I agreed to buy this product cheaper,
During the conversation, we will need a power plant, the price is not important, but we added 1 million USD to our bargain and said, "Let's deal with it," and closed the deal,
Actually, we did not buy a power plant,
While purchasing a main chip related to our field, something like a promotion happened at the switchboard,
That's why I said then, you don't have to know everything,
Actually this is an administrative solution and is not your responsibility,
I asked you to identify the product that will meet our technical requirements,
According to him, I decided for myself with whom I would bargain.
I left with thanks.

As it is seen, it may not be possible to make sound decisions in areas where our powers are limited. It may not be necessary for the management to always share with everyone what to get and how.

In the solution of institutionalism or any issue, first of all, understanding that issue comes first. Half of solving a problem is understanding it. Language is the most effective element in understanding or explaining the subjects. There are many problems to be solved if there is no language to tell. If we give a simple example without going into the language issue;

If we say how much vocabulary we need to speak fluent Turkish and give an example to think about;

Eye                 : Eye
Glasses         : Eyeglasses
Optician        : Eyeglasses-wear
Watcman       : Watcher
Observation   : Observation
Surveillance  : Göz-et-im

Whether our topic is Institutionalism or something else, the basic principle is; “It is necessary to set the scale correctly.” The measure is existence-none, world-afterlife, believing-not believing, body-spirit relationship. We have to think a lot. To think is to dive into the ocean and extract the deepest ore, to find the Truth in the ore you extract and to solve your problem when you find it.

Fire ants cannot swim alone, but by holding on to each other, they float in the water forming a raft.

In institutions, too, we should be ants clinging to each other instead of just one ant.