Without a clear vision strongly supported by management, change is very difficult. Leadership is key…

(Just my thoughts)

I completely agree with you that “value exists within the services that those technology components support”.

RIM is a great company but I think, their core audience are Business Units (corporates, organizations and etc…), not a public. As Business Units, they more interested in enterprise level solutions and services and less in new phone models or designs. This is where the main focus should be. Having in hands manufacturing facilities, engineering and IT departments, RIM certainly can provide these services by enhancing both hardware and software.

At the same time, one of major focuses should be Integration (software/hardware level). For example: As a corporate, I would like to have a solution/service that will allow me to securely work from my device with other systems (finance, document management systems and etc.) that already installed within an organization or, as another example, use the device as a single sign-on point when I need it…

These are just examples. I don’t know all RIM’s corporate products, and they already might have something like this, but I strongly believe that RIM’s niche is corporate level services and solutions.

Great leaders appreciate people who ask the right questions and push back when appropriate. Unfortunately there are many in leadership positions who are not leaders at all, and do not appreciate any degree of push back. Likewise there are people that push back tediously at each and every step of insignificant detail. The trick is to know when to push back and what is not worth pushing back on.

From what I know of you, you will make a great leader. You’ve made some good points.

I completely agree that you should ask questions and you should show your point of view if it’s different or if you know better practice of doing something. The question is will your question change the process? I think, it’s really depends on the size of organization (large organizations are more conservative to changes, comparing to small/medium organizations) and the motivation of the person who actually can approve and introduce these changes (some people just don’t like any change, even they understand the benefits). But this is from my experience. I glad to hear that I am wrong and most likely asking questions can change something. This is good!

my 50 cents to the meeting discussion: I believe the best practice to handle meetings output is to create and track “meeting minutes”. This document contains information who was and wasn’t participated on the meeting, the meeting agenda, list of questions and discussions for each topic, list of open/parked items with person name accountable for this item and deadlines when the item must be resolved. Next meeting should start from reviewing “meeting minutes” from the previous meeting and updating the results. In most cases you need to have a dedicated person who will sit at the meeting and will keep meeting log, but this will pay you back providing history of discussions and helping to analyze and understand value/results of each meeting.

In terms of a meeting agenda, “we will discuss” is nothing compared to “these decisions will be made.”

I somewhat disagree with the statement though that
“in MOST cases you are FORCED to do something…”

There are a minority of situations that applies to but in my experience, some people are afraid to question, but others may not realize that they can question and should. The trick is knowing when and how to go about it. Some times it is more appropriate to question in private. The way you ask is also important “help me understand this better”, or “if I could suggest ways to save time or provide better results, would you be interested, or should I just do X as you have asked?”

I fully agree with your comment on believing in what you are doing. That’s exactly why I say that during my time working for a hospital in the 80’s “my job was to save lives.”

I agree with Wayne’s suggestions but would like to add that in most cases you forced to do something (for example reports or participate useless meetings) because of the environment or processes applied within an organization. As a staff member you don’t have a choice to change it. You can propose or suggest but the rest will be depend on your boss and how good he is willing to take changes or listen to you.

As for me, you MUST believe in what you are doing. This is the only motivation which will move you forward, keep you interested in your field and finally shows you a real way of how to work smarter.

You cannot benefit from using the best practices or appling latest technologies if you don’t beleive in what your doing and don’t understand why you doing this. Take 10 musicians and ask them to play the same melody, give them a script. Each of them will play it diffrently, in spite of there are just 7 notes and the same script. This is because of some of them believe and like what they are doing and some not.

Believe in what you are doing or don’t do it!

Keep me in mind if your organization needs assistance applying what you have learned.