Today's Issue
- Editor's Take
- SME Special Report: SME Toolkit Road Show previews in UP-Diliman
- Events: The Search Engine Marketing Conference (SEMCON08) (Tuesday 9 and Wednesday 10 September); Supervisory Effectiveness for Improved Quality and Productivity (Wednesday 10 to Friday 12 September); Creative Dreams Seminar: Overcome Your Fears, Achieve Your Creative Dreams (Friday 12 and Friday 19 September); Advanced MS Excel (Thursday 11 and Friday 12 September); Corporate Culture: Filipino Values in the Workplace (Friday 12 September); How to Start a Business (Friday 12 September); Filipino Seafarers Expo (Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 September); Basic MS Excel (Wednesday 17 September); Advanced MS Powerpoint (Wednesday 17 September); and Print Philippines (Wednesday 17 to Friday 19 September)
- Tax Calendar
SME Toolkit Road Show previews in UP-Diliman
On Saturday, August 23, the SME Toolkit Road Show team headed by Adonis C. Yap, SME.com.ph president had an hour preview of its monthly event at a Personal Entrepreneurial Development (PED) class handled by Angela Cielo at University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU). Yap spoke to a combined audience of 37, which were students of PED and of New Enterprise Planning (NEP) headed by Engr. Meynard Ricarte at the Multi-Media Room, 3rd floor of National Computer Center Building on Carlos P. Garcia Avenue, UP Diliman, Quezon City.
PED as a course aims to build success-oriented motivations, attitudes, competencies, behavioral characteristics and other qualities that will give individuals an edge when starting and managing their own ventures. The course program expects that the student should be able to discuss various theories of entrepreneurship and the role of entrepreneurship in economic development; identify the personal motivations, attitudes, qualities, competencies and characteristics usually associated with successful entrepreneurs; and develop planning and power-oriented entrepreneurial competencies.
The class gets to meet face-to-face once a month and the rest of the lesson are conducted via its MOODLE's virtual classroom. Assignments and class activities are also usually done online.
SME.com.ph, an affiliate of Planters Development Bank and being a champion of bringing topnotch business solutions to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country provided a 'better deal' for entrepreneur students of these programs to be competitive not just in the local scene, but in the global arena by creating their own company websites that 'really' sell.
To read full article, click here!
Tax Calendar
Wednesday 10 September - e-Filing and e-Payment of 1600 together w/ the Monthly Alphalist of Payees (MAP) for the month of August 2008
Thursday 11 September - e-Filing of 1601C & 1602 L & SNL Taxpayers (Group E) and 1601E & 1601F together w/ the Monthly Alphalist of Payees (MAP) L & SNL Taxpayers (Group E) for the month of August 2008
Friday 12 September - e-Filing of 1601C & 1602 L & SNL Taxpayers (Group D) and 1601E & 1601F together w/ the Monthly Alphalist of Payees (MAP) L & SNL Taxpayers (Group D) for the month of August 2008
Source: Bureau of Internal Revenue
Editor's Take
How do you handle a situation where the same problems keep recurring in your business?
Mistakes in business are like wounds. Left untreated, they pose a danger to the body. Like an untreated wound, bungled customer transactions or defective products that find their way into the market spell disaster for your SMEs.
Do you address the issue indirectly because you fear hurting that person’s feelings? Do you single out a culprit, draw lines around the person and create the impression that you are ‘always right’ and the employee is ‘always’ at fault?
Alternatively, do you meet the employee or the team in private, point out the mistakes, take a second look at processes and system, and involve everyone in ensuring quality is maintained future?
Doing all these efforts is indeed an extra mile but remember when will you do something to correct a mistake? Would you only correct a mistake when everything goes off-hand?
Peter M. Senge in his book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization mentioned that, “True proactivity comes from seeing how we contribute to our own problems."
You might consider looking into these Laws of System Thinking that Senge’s highlighted:
1. Today’s problems came from yesterday’s “solutions.”
2. In organizations, the harder you push, the harder the system pushes back. Called “compensating feedback,” well-intentioned interventions result in responses from the system that offset the benefit of the intervention.
3. Behavior grows better before it grows worse.
4. Errantly, leaders apply familiar solutions to problems, “sticking to what we know best,” which ultimately leads to the same results.
5. The cure can be worse than the disease. Ultimately leading to the demise of the company.
6. Faster is slower. All natural systems, from ecosystems to animals to organizations have intrinsically optimal rates of growth. This optimal rate is far less than the fastest possible growth. To artificially supercede the optimal growth itself creates inhibitors to growth.
7. Leaders must realize that cause and effect are not closely related in time and space. This is a major fallacy leading to wrong decision-making.
8. Small changes can produce big results, but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious.
9. Some of the knottiest dilemmas, when seen from the systems point of view, aren’t dilemmas at all. They are artifacts of “snapshot” rather than “process” thinking, and appear in a whole new light once you think consciously of change over time.
10. It is important to realize that systems have integrity. Their character depends on the whole.
11. There must be a culture that avoids blame, and scape-goating, capabilities for the fundamental solution may atrophy or become disabled, leading to an even greater reliance on the symptomatic solution. The management principal is to focus on the fundamental solution. If a symptomatic solution is imperative, use it only to by time while working on the fundamental solution.
It is like saying, stop pointing fingers on anyone, but look into thyself if what have you contributed to worsen a particular situation. Ask yourself, “Did I rub the wound or scrub it off so it would finally see its healing process?”
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