Difference between revisions of "Objectives 2018"

Latest revision as of 07:26, 23 March 2018

Since Officience changed organizational model, Officience doesn't have top-down annual Objectives anymore. Personal objectives is more the norm to understand where we are going as an organization.
Of course, personal objectives and suggestions from most influential members of the tribe are interesting to look at.

Duc HA DUONG's propositions 2018 ?

Here is post by Duc HA DUONG posted on 11 Jan 2018 :

OMG, 2018 already !

Did someone played with a time machine ? This year flew so fast ! But still, we had time for cool achievements :-)

Of course in the future, 2017 will be remembered as the year we left our NDC office and garden, and opened Offiplex. It was a big financial burden but I feel it was money well spent, even if it's a bit early to make definitive conclusions : the impact of this new working environment will take years to materialize. It takes time to find and invite co-workers that are so much into our Causes that we are happy to host them for free. We don't want freeriders abusing of it, we want people genuinely committed to at least 2 of our Causes. And even then, it will take time for them to feel so included in our Tribe that they start to feel "at home" with us and contribute actively. In our Officaire space in Paris, it's been very progressive too and I would say it took 4 years to become really significant. But now we have projects flowing in (Marmelade, u2guide, CCO, Quizflip ...) and also direct cash flowing in through privatisation, paid visits of our space, and speaking assignments :-)
I remember majority of PDL team had voted to stay in PDL, but still I feel a bit uncomfortable when I compare the two working environments. I hope in 2018 we allocate some budget either to move of to upgrade working environment for people in PDL. Maybe a second Offiplex, why not ;-) ?

It's been now more than 3 years that I have surrendered my power to our Handbook. I'm still unsure if everyone has read it, but it seems we managed to find a way forward at least for salary raises :-). Now, that is only a fraction of career management, in 2018 I hope conversation with your influencers will intensify around other topics such as training, attending conferences, working conditions (laptop, chairs, teleworking...), picking projects, discovering yourself ... Let's use the freedom we have to raise the bar ever higher !
As a natural consequence, use of Google+ should intensify too as it is be the natural place where conclusion ends. I like that because it makes me feel closer to you :-)

We're still having a bit of a hard time to kill the word "Process" and replace it with "Practice". We still think that before any move, we need to write hard, cold laws first to govern our life, where most of the time just practicing it 1, 2, 3, 4 times creates enough history to refer to. But I think it's coming and 2018 we should see more and more practices be documented, and this should be liberating (changing our culture from "I can't do nothing because there is no policy giving me permission" to more of "this has never been done, I'll share my intent and give it a try, and let's see what happens. At least we'll learn something on the way").

There is another word swap that I found rather successful : "Advice" and "Intention". Early 2017, I still had a few people coming to me asking for my "advice", but really looking for my command. I sensed that they either had no opinion (or hid it, not ready to stand behind it) and just wanted to hear my voice to do as I said. Self-disempowerment :-(. Changing the advice process to an intention process had the benefit to leave the full ownership of the true decision owner. And that is good :-)

I think we made a profit in 2017. Most of it went, unfortunately, to repay our debts for last year (120k to NDC landlord in particular) which was not a very good year. But now that it's paid for, we should be more comfortable and I'm really looking forward to change all these red plastic chairs, I can't stand them anymore ! Same for the blue stackable chairs, I hope in 2018 we get a beautiful (but ecodesigned) coffee-style design for the frontstage area where people can comfortably work. It will surely also motivate more people to switch to laptop !

Another thing we will have to do with the money is reimburse our investor (+Yanai Zaicik Offy) , and start taking seriously care of our investor relations. I was not very comfortable until now because my own level of visibility is quite low, but I think we can fix that in 2018 without beign a burden to everyone.

I have seen also emerging a strong desire to do business development from various people. I feel a bit guilty that I can't train enough myself. Maybe we should hire an external expertise to develop our product marketing and selling skill ? Or revive OTOD ? I'm not sure but I think in 2018 we have a chance to accelerate our go-to-market firepower without hiring a 100% dedicated salesperson (but maybe we should ?).

I also hope in 2018 that we can develop more products like OffyApp, Freemous, Dinh, Influencer graph, Ben Bot ... Many other companies are inspired by us and when I show them these tools they are jealous, they want them, but we're not mature enough to sell those. With Amane doing more UX I think we have a great change to better improve our product mindset and that will be a great value add for all our customers.

Last but not least, on recruitment and onboarding I don't have a great visibility but I don't see a large crowd of raving fans of the Causes surrounding us, cooperating with us on voluntary projects that support them, or bringing us punctually their expertise as freelancers, or simply waiting the right opportunity to appear to jump onboard. I still have the feeling that we have to “pull” people to recruit them, i.e. find perfect strangers and initiate directly the conversation about a position we have to fill quickly, rather than having a friendly and relaxed discussion about what makes us run. I dream that by the end of 2018 we have more people looking forward to work with us, than we can hire, and that the limits defining Officience get more and more blurry as we have all sorts of scenarios developing : people working remotely, people working on unpaid projects, people working part time, people working as freelancer, people working for free (!), people coming back, people changing roles internally…

Now, i can’t conclude without reminding about the ultimate goal of all this : making ourselves happy ! Procuring to each of us financial, material comfort (the 2 merchant flows), but also enough learning experience, developing healthy relationships, and having fun (the 3 non-merchant flows : https://medium.com/@duchaduong/the-5-flows-of-human-connections-4e51fad4f04b)

So my biggest wish for 2018 is that all Offies have the chance feel good where they stand, while having at the same time a lot of opportunities to move into the right direction, knowing yourself better inside, and spending more and more happy, meaningful moments, with the ones you love the most.

I love you all ! Duc

PS : I have a resolution for 2018 : every weekday I will wake up at 6AM, one hour before Alexandra and the kids wake up, and I will spend that quiet hour on Hangout, chatting with every Offi who wants to talk to me. So pick me as your influencer, you won't regret it;-) !

In summary

• making ourselves happy
• More "practices", less "Processes" & more "intentions, less "advices"
• Pay back debts, continue to improve the working environment with more laptops
• Invest in Engagement (product marketing, selling skills, training)
• Product development/mindset
• Recruitment and on-boarding

Reference

• OMG, 2018 already ! (posted by Duc HA DUONG, on 11 Jan 2018)