Managment Philosophy

Personal Management Philosophy – What I believe

My personal management philosophy is to be a leader who exemplifies Christ in every pursuit, public or private. I will build a reputation for leading teams to surpass goals established by my organization to become the best in the industry. I will set goals that are difficult to achieve which push everyone on my team to utilize their strengths to help the organization constantly improve process efficiency and innovation. I will live my life transparently so that those I interact with see the difference Christ's death, burial and resurrection have made in me.
I must ensure that my organization's strengths reflect customer needs. Concretely defined and prioritized, we must improve on those strengths until we distinguish ourselves from the competition. I must use financial reports and strategic planning objectives to set company wide goals. My job is to understand and clearly communicate this business direction and goals to those whom I supervise. I will strive to help them understand how their contributions directly effect company success or failure by implementing processes that reflect the importance of their work. I will follow a strategy of eliminating all types of waste in every aspect of the business. Other strategic decisions must be made while problem solving with imperfect information, using logic and contrary opinions. Those decisions should be held through completion or until further information proves it to be wrong and a better path chosen. Leading people requires serving them by finding their strengths, challenging them, expecting them to improve and removing obstacles to enable them to make the right decisions.
As a Christian in the role of manager, I will have many opportunities to ruin or promote my devotion to Christ and my testimony. In any leadership role we are placed in a spotlight, our superiors and those we supervise are watching intently; some cheering us on to success others hoping to witness failure. As Believers, that watchfulness is raised to the next level; it is not only business decisions that we are judged on, but personal and private ones as well. Peter tells me to “keep your behavior excellent among the [unbelieving], so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God...” (I Peter 2:12). I will share my faith openly while remembering that words without action are meaningless and perform my work with diligence and integrity. Depending on our own strength to accomplish this task is doomed to suboptimal performance, but Christ will always provide the strength needed to accomplish His will (Philippians 4:13).
My desire is to love doing whatever it is that God has me involved with. Ecclesiastes 3:22 says that finding satisfaction in your work is a blessing but ultimately, everything related to work will be lost (Ecclesiastes 2:17). Being successful according to God's standards makes me love what I do (Colossians 3:23), even when there is little recognition or even trials. I aim to inspire passion for the job and a drive for success in the people I work with, so that they love their work too.

Future Management Strategy – How to work it out

Customers- A business cannot exist without customers. In fact, even individual within a company has customers. A lawn maintenance person clearly understands that the yard owner is the customer, where as the assembly line worker's customer is the next person in the assembly process and ultimately the person who buys the product. I must understand how my work affects the customer as this is key to ensuring we are doing the best job possible for them. Knowing who our customer is, what is important to them, why they want our good or service and what value they place on it is critical to becoming great (Hartley, 2006). To fully understand this, I will place myself in the customers shoes, actually do the job or watch someone do it. If I fail to analyze these key aspects of our customer we will make decisions that negatively impact the product and ultimately the customer, giving them reason to go elsewhere.
Financial Impacts- Finances are the blood that makes a business operate, I must have money moving through an organization to make it work. Capital is needed for everything from paying salaries to investing in new technologies. Understanding the impact of cash-flows, profit and loss statements and other financial reports will enable me to make logical and well balanced business decisions. Return on Investment is an important tool I must use in decision making because if money is not returning to the company, it will go bankrupt. Other projects or endeavors may not prove profitable with this analysis but may be critical to making key strategies work. Strategic decisions are inherently more risky, but needed especially when markets change rapidly (McKenzie & Lee, 2006). I will avoid the trap of convincing myself that a choice was “strategic”, but in reality was only the path that sounded most interesting. I will take responsibility for decisions and use the best information available to move the company toward it's goals with risk minimized.
Integrity- Sometimes doing the “right” thing is hard, really hard; especially if it means losing significant amounts of money or admitting to mistakes that may ruin your reputation. There are numerous examples of companies and individuals taking the high road in the face of severe consequences (Lennick D. & Kiel F. PhD ,2007). Many of these ultimately befitted from their integrity by the customer placing more trust in them. I have experienced this personally with a recall situation where customers became more devoted to the company because of the way in which the issue was handled. I will look at any situation from the perspective of the customer; first understanding what the right action is and second how best to accomplish this from my company perspective.
Problem Solving- I love solving problems more than any other part of my job. Gathering information, asking the right questions and finding other, contradictory viewpoints are the most critical aspects of doing this well. Many problem solvers jump to the first apparent solution but typically do not fully resolve the issue. I will assess the situation, gather all available information and weigh solutions as quickly as possible. Looking at the problem first hand, in person is the most advantageous, then speaking with those immediately involved about probable solutions. I have learned to step back and find the reasoning behind the solutions that are counter intuitive; there may be some insight that was ignored by the first, seemingly adequate answer. Using this problem solving technique will yield better results than the typical “shoot from the hip” answers.
Prioritization- Time is the most precious resource any of us must utilize. Each one has a set number of days to live out life, so we must use each one to the fullest. Our priorities must be set by how we can most effectively contribute to the goals of the organization (Drucker, 1966). One of the most impacting ideas discussed by Drucker was that of removing old priorities that are no longer important. I will not continue defending the bad choices of the past, expending so much energy on that effort, that we make little or no progress toward those tasks that will most positively affect the organization. Not only is prioritization important, but I will work on one thing at a time making my time more effective in taking the organization closer to ideal state. Working on multiple projects simultaneously is not efficient. Not only will each project have lower quality, it will take longer to complete them, increasing the probability that they will become obsolete, thus a waste of time.
Servant Leadership- Is truly leading as Jesus led. It was obvious that Jesus was the leader of the band of disciples, but rarely do we see Jesus miss an opportunity to teach his men how to lead while removing doubt and any other obstacles that prevented their growth. This ideology forces management to the bottom of the organizational chart, depicting who their true customers are, those they supervise. This organizational structure almost forces each employee to see how their work effects the next one in line. As a manager, I must remove the barriers to my people becoming successful (Liker, 2004). Sometimes that means fighting battles for better tools, changing processes or moving people to another area where their strengths may be better utilized.
Processes- Every business, no matter how small, has a set of processes that dictate how certain tasks are to be done. For a one man company, those are probably only captured in thought, but as the company grows these get documented and trained on. Processes are the simplest tool to ensure smooth business management because they take the best methods learned and cause them to be utilized each time the task is done. When there is a process in place for a task it takes away much of the confusion and decision making. It enables the worker to accomplish the task that was once relegated to Managers (Drucker, 1966). It is widely believed that a majority of errors are to some extent process related or preventable if done properly. If this is true managers can focus their attention on any process that has problems, resolve them and implement the new “best method”.
Relentless Elimination of Waste- All business must be competitive to survive. There are many avenues to pursue staying competitive. One of them makes sense to do, no matter if you are number one or dead last in your industry; elimination of waste. Constantly reducing and eliminating waste from processes and business activities will reduce my cost to produce a product (Liker, 2004). The elimination of waste typically forces innovation which drives improvement in product, reputation and customer satisfaction. This activity will keep our organization improving even if we are number one. Sadly, many first in class organizations have lost to number two or three because they become complacent and depended on their old technology and strategy for too long while their competition passed them up.

Biography – Who am I

I am the Engineering Manager for a small design and manufacturing company with responsibility over R&D, manufacturing engineering and applications engineering. Utilizing best practices from the manufacturing floor, I have established stable processes for even the most abstract and creative aspects of design and development. These processes have increased efficiency in resource utilization and time to market.
I graduated from Oregon State University with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, specializing in machine design. I am currently pursuing a Masters of Business Administration from Corban College & Graduate School in Salem, Oregon. I intend to continue working as Engineering Manager in the engineering field to eventually be Vice President of Engineering for a large manufacturing company. I plan to utilize my administration skills working in a mission organization or my local church as an international mission organizer if God presents the opportunity.
My engineering bent drew me toward manufacturing where I have been for the last eight years. I started out in a high volume concrete block plant, learning about quality control and machine maintenance. For the last five years I have been designing windshield wiper systems for specialty vehicles like boats, trains, buses and agricultural equipment around the world. I have developed a keen ability to read customers and find solutions to their problems. Working in a small company has given me a broad experience base from marketing to accounting to production.
I worked in the service industry for the previous seven years. I started with taking over a yard care business for several years where I learned to anticipate customer needs. Next, I worked in a seed cleaning warehouse where I developed an appreciation for mechanical equipment. While attending engineering school, I worked in a deli and grocery store. This is where customer interaction was developed as well as an appreciation for inventory control.
I was born and raised in the Northwest to be a hard worker no matter the task. Growing up in a Christian home gave me a great foundation to be a leader in business and an active part of the Christian community. In my home Church, my wife and I with our two children, volunteer in children's ministries and I lead a small group Bible study.

Resources-- Impacting literature

Drucker, P. (1966). The effective executive. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.
Hartley, R. (2006). Marketing mistakes & successes, e10. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ,Hoboken, NJ.
Heath, C. & Heath, D. (2007). Made to stick: Why some ideas survive and others die. New York: Random House.
Hunter, James C. (1998). The servant: a simple story about the true essence of leadership. New York: Crown Business.
Lennick D. & Kiel F. PhD (2007). Moral intelligence: Enhancing business performance & leadership success. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton School Publishing.
Liker, J. (2004). Toyota Way. New York: McGraw Hill Professional.
McKenzie & Lee (2006). Microeconomics for MBA's: the economic way of thinking for managers. New York: Cambridge University Press.