Management Dynamics - Leadership

Management Dynamics

Assignment

LEADERSHIP

(1)

One of the successful leaders in the country that I admire is Tony Tan Caktiong.  He is the founder and current Chairman and CEO of Philippine fast food chain Jollibee. Tony graduated from the University of Santo Tomas with a degree in chemical engineering. Caktiong had initially planned an ice cream parlor when he founded Jollibee, then subsequently added additional dishes such as hamburgers, French fries, and fried chicken.

A chemical engineering graduate of the University of Santo Tomas, Tony has the distinction of being the only Philippine tycoon to have won the prestigious international “Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award” in 2004 in Monte Carlo. Tan also won Management Man of the Year Award by the Management Association of the Philippines in 2002 and the Agora Award for Outstanding Marketing Achievement from the Philippine Marketing Association in 1986.

Tony’s source of power I think is his personal knowledge, which is also called expert power.  While growing up in Davao in Southern Mindanao Philippines, he and his brothers worked in their family restaurant where their father was also the chef. From his parents, they learned two basic ingredients that led to the Jollibee phenomenon — good food and humility.

I characterize Tony Tan as an authentic leader.  As stated by the book, authentic leader pursues their purpose with passion and also established connected relationships.  At the age of 22, inspired by a visit to an ice cream plant, he set out to gain his own foothold in the restaurant business: relying on family savings, he seized a franchising opportunity with Magnolia Dairy Ice Cream and opened two ice cream parlors.  He soon gone to hamburgers as suggested by his loyal customers looking for some hot products as well.  Due to the demand on this new products, he then changed his ice cream parlor into a hamburger house.  Tony credits his parents for cultivating his entrepreneurial spirit and instilling in him the values of respect and humility, which are now ingrained in the corporate culture of Jollibee.  Everyone in Jollibee — from the CEO to a store’s kitchen crew — respectfully address each other as “Sir” or “Ma’am.”  As he simply puts, “If you take care of your people, they will take care of you,”.

Tony Tan is also a visionary and a transformational leader.  When asked what’s the secret of Jollibee’s success, Tony says: “If you have to ask, the secret of Jollibee’s success is sharing. We share our success with people; we give good compensation; we share any honor that comes our way. Actually, this idea of sharing didn’t come from me. It came from a friend. He said: You know why you’re successful? You know how to share. A lot of people do not share, but in Jollibee you share a lot with your people.”  Tony believed that this is the reason why they dominate the market today.  They do their sharing best through the Jollibee Foundation he started in 2005.

One of the most traits that Tony has that I think can help our organization is his good relationship to his people as explained above.

(2)

Let me discuss one of our leaders in our organization that really appreciate.  He is John Joseph Donovan also known as JD.  JD is a Director in Service Assurance, a part of Verizon Enterprise Solutions.  He is an outgoing Director of Operations support from our facility in Manila (Alabang).  A new director will be assigned in Manila NOC as part of Verizon’s continuous organizational development plan.  The facility in Manila provides support for Global Managed and Unmanaged customers. The support roles include the Inbound Call Group, Service Desk, Incident Management, Network Operations and Advanced Support.

JD has been with the company for 19 years.  Before taking over in Manila, he worked for 7 years in the Cary, North Carolina facility where he supported some of the largest Managed Network Services (MNS) outsourcing contracts.  Some of the largest contracts included ABN AMRO, Johnson & Johnson, Morgan Stanley, Capital One and Kaiser Permanente. Johns client base encompassed the full scope of Verizon products including, LAN, WAN, Voice, Application, Security and Machine-to-Machine technologies.  He has managed staff and networks operations centers in the United States, Sao Paulo, London, Dortmund, Prague, Sydney, Singapore and Manila.

In addition to the managed services NOCs, JD has also managed our Application Software Group, the Integrated Service Desk (ISD), the Cary Security Operations Center(CSOC) and helped build and deploy new products like Health Care Information Exchange (HIE), Wireless ATM and MS Lync.  Prior to joining Verizon, JD worked for 14 years at the NASDAQ Stock Market in Trumbull, CT and then another 8 years at NASDAQ after NASDAQ outsourced their network management to MCI.

JD is a strong advocate from ISO, ITIL with on ongoing focus on CSI (Constant Service Improvement). He has a passion for positive change, the Credo and Verizon's 4 priorities as well as meeting new people and new challenges.  I still remember 2 years ago, when JD conducted his first Town Hall Meeting in Alabang, the first thing he said to us is “I believe in you”.  JD made sure to provide time to talk to all of us engineers in Alabang.  He is a charismatic leader with a vision to make the Alabang Center the number one Operations Center of Verizon.  During the first 3 years, Alabang center always follows what other centers are doing, but during his term, he made us the leading and the one to be followed.  His source of power is expert power.

One thing that I would really remember about JD is his unwavering trust to us.  He empowered everyone by creating programs that will let him hear what we want.  JD is a type of leader that you would like to follow not because of his power, but because of what he can do.

(3)

I consider myself as a Visionary and Transactional leader.  I want my subordinates’ roles and task clearly defined.  As a leader, I also want my people to feel that they are empowered.  I always believe in people’s personal potential to contribute to a better future of the organization.  My leadership has been influenced and developed by playing team sports particularly basketball.  When playing, I have seen the importance of trusting your teammates.  As a team, you all want to be in one page so that you can execute your plays.  To this you need a leader outside and inside the court.  A leader that will create opportunities for you to score and put you in the best position to do so.