NU12 #10, What pisses you off in the office? - Camille A. Dela Cruz

Ateneo Innovation and Entrepreneurship "New ideas create more and better new products and services; create more wealth."

ENTREP S20

Mr. Jorge Saguinsin

NU 12 Week 9 - What pisses you off in the office?

Camille A. Dela Cruz

Kimbelry-Clark hasn’t been doing very well in the past three years and it has dampened the spirits and motivation of the employees. In addition, there has been an extreme air of negativity within the organization. This negativity has definitely pissed me off because it affects me in so many ways. First, the negativity is so contagious that I actually feel negative towards the company, the employees and my job as well. Second, like the others, I have the urge to also look for other opportunities which has distracted me from my focus and work goals.

I believe that the negativity or demotivation is not a secret in the office. In my opinion, the HR department together with the management team should do something about it and not watch things to further collapse. Since the negativity, there have been a lot of great, result-oriented and hardworking people who have resigned from the company. If the company doesn’t do anything about it, KC will absolutely lose all the great employees and further destroy itself.

I found out that one of the reasons for the negativity is that the management team is not transparent to the current

situation of the company and what are the steps needed to be done to put KC into a better position. The management team does have goals, plans and strategies to execute to achieve a better situation for KC Philippines however they did not inform or get the whole company involve. This eventually led to the birth of a distant and hostile relationship between the employees and the management team. What must be done is that the management team should cascade its three year road map to the employees. The cascade will give employees the assurance, security and a goal to work on as a team. It will also be a venue for the employees to rally and motivate each other to work as team to achieve one goal. 3

NU12 #7, Serendipity walk - Camille A. Dela Cruz

Ateneo Innovation and Entrepreneurship "New ideas create more and better new products and services; create more wealth."

ENTREP S20

Mr. Jorge Saguinsin

NU 12 Week 7 - Serendipity Walk

Camille A. Dela Cruz

My choice of a busy street is the Merville business center. Merville is where I live in and is quite a nice and quiet village located in Paranaque City.

Available businesses in the area:

1. Small grocery

2. Monterey Meat Shop

3. Laundry Shop

4. Clinic

5. Drugstore

Below is a list of business opportunities the street needs.

1. A bank that has an ATM

2. A bookstore that sells office and school supplies

3. A money transfer establishment

4. A salon/ barber shop

5. A bbq/ fish ball stand

6. A hardware store

7. An auto shop

8. A car wash place

9. A diner/coffee shop

10. A gym

11. A dance studio

12. An internet shop that provides services like printing and fax

13. A veterinarian clinic

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  chose the following businesses because these are the businesses I believe are the necessities in a community and would definitely attract food traffic.

NU12 #6, New business idea - Camille A. Dela Cruz

Ateneo Innovation and Entrepreneurship "New ideas create more and better new products and services; create more wealth."

ENTREP S20

Mr. Jorge Saguinsin

NU 12 Week 6 - New business idea

Camille A. Dela Cruz

As everyone knows, I work as a National Key Accounts Executive under the Consumer Sales Division in Kimberly-Clark Philippines; in short I’m a salesman. If one works for the sales function, he/she is not required to stay in the office but is encourage to work outside the office. So given this scenario, we are forced to look for places where we can work, other than our own homes, after field works. Most of the time, coffee shops are the first choice however not all coffee shops provide sockets where people can charge their laptops, some don’t have wifi which is crucial requirement for us to have our work done and some just don’t allow us to stay the whole day.  Given this huge hindrance, I came up with an idea to provide a place wherein it is very friendly and welcoming for people who are mobile and don’t have offices but their homes.

The idea of the place is like a quaint library/coffee shop where people are allowed to work and eat delicious food at the same time. The place will have all the amenities of a person working in an office. The place will provide amenities and services that include, sockets, books that people can borrow or aid them of their work, magazines and newspapers for people to read, a printer, a fax machine and the most importantly delicious food and drinks. This place will definitely address a need of a growing market of people who are required to work at home but wants to work outside their homes and who are required to work outside the office. Now they have a place where they are comfortable to work in. < a business center> 4

NU12 #4, New Process at work/study - Camille A. Dela Cruz

Ateneo Innovation and Entrepreneurship "New ideas create more and better new products and services; create more wealth."

ENTREP S20

Mr. Jorge Saguinsin

NU 12 Week 4 - New Process at work/study

Camille A. Dela Cruz

In this particular NU, I will be talking about a new process about studying which is perfect since I did some time to reflect and identify a new studying technique that will aid me during the midterm’s week. It’s definitely difficult to be a student and a professional at the same time. Taking up MBA while working will inevitably invite stress and pressure in a person’s life and the feeling of this pressure and stress increases during the midterm’s and finals’ week. To reduce such feeling, I decided to reflect on what would be the best studying technique to help me remember everything with such an extremely limited time.

The reflection starts with first identifying the kind of person you are and from there everything follows through. It’s much easier to adapt a technique if it’s related to who you are or if it fits your personality or character perfectly. Pushing a technique to a person that doesn’t fit him/her just makes everything harder or complicated. There are three kinds of ways to remember past experiences, lectures, actions and readings - there is the auditory, the visual and the doer. These techniques were learned during Kimberly-Clark’s national sales convention last February 2013. The auditory type of people are those who remember things through hearing, the visual type of people are those who remember things through pictures and different kinds of visuals and finally the doer type of people are those who remember by doing it themselves. From all the types I realized that I was the visual type of person. I remember things, experiences, lectures and readings through picturing those past things in my mind.

When I found out what type I was, I decided to make a reviewer for my Financial Management midterm exam. The reviewer was composed of pictures, tables and charts of important details from my Financial Management class. After making the reviewer, I realized how I found it so easy for me to study. Every time I would want to remember something, I would just try to remember the visuals I did, and true enough I would remember it. Moreover, I became more enthusiastic to study and learn the things I needed to learn in class. It wasn’t dragging or a hassle for me to study and I became more open and surprisingly even enjoyed studying! The key here is to find out the type of person you are so that you can find a technique that best suits you. We part-time students have so much enough in our plate, juggling so many priorities, it’s important that we become strategist and find ways to make our lives easier.  3

NU12 #3, New Professionalism - Camille A. Dela Cruz

Ateneo Innovation and Entrepreneurship "New ideas create more and better new products and services; create more wealth."

ENTREP S20

Mr. Jorge Saguinsin

NU 12 Week 3 – Professionalism

Camille A. Dela Cruz

Just before the Christmas vacation, my boss and I discussed my Individual Development Plan in Kimberly-Clark. The Individual Development Plan (IDP) is an activity wherein a subordinate discusses his/her career plans which includes short and long term goals to his/her superior. One of the important things discussed during the session is how I can further improve or develop myself to become a Key Accounts Team Manager in a year or so. She mentioned that Kimberly-Clark recognizes how much I’ve given and contributed to the betterment of the company and they are seeing potential in me to become a Key Accounts Team Manager, wherein I’ll be leading a small team. However, promoting to the position involves preparing myself for the role. My boss then told me to start acting like a Key Accounts Team Manager which entails I have to breathe and live like it. After the IDP, I decided to research about leadership and read books about it.

One of the key takeaways from my reading and research is that bosses/superiors should always put their people first because happy employees eventually lead to better results. Putting employees first requires taking care of employees, ensuring they have the perfect working environment and looking out for their best interest. I then realized the reason why my boss puts much weight and prioritization to us (her team) rather than focusing on the specifics of each of our roles. Given the way she manages actually resulted to a more bonded and focused team compared to other sales teams in the company.  Entering the New Year, I decided to practice and demonstrate what I’ve learned from the discussion with my boss and all the readings and researched I have done about leadership. I acted more like a leader rather than a boss to my coordinators by changing a few things on how I treat them. For example, when cascading a certain activity, before I would just tell them what to do, now I would tell them the reason why we are doing such activity and gave them more information and reason to it. I realized that this helps them feel more involve and make them feel that what they’re doing has a greater purpose. I also asked them to create monthly reports of their key learning and how else they can better improve themselves. This forms a learning environment for them.

The biggest learning here is really treating subordinates like human beings who have emotions and a life to live and not like robots who will do anything what you say. Second, is that becoming a leader is a huge responsibility and that it should not be taken lightly but rather with great attention and value. 4

Fw: NU12 #2, New spending habits/routine - Camille A. Dela Cruz

Ateneo Innovation and Entrepreneurship "New ideas create more and better new products and services; create more wealth."

ENTREP S20

Mr. Jorge Saguinsin

NU 12 Week 2 – New Spending Habits/ Routine

Camille A. Dela Cruz

Looking over which NU topic to write about, I was delighted that the next topic– New Spending Habits/ Routine was the topic for week 2.  I was enthusiastic and excited because this was the topic that I greatly relate too. I’ve been experiencing financial difficulty recently due to my undisciplined spending habits, which is unacceptable and needed immediate improvement and change.

In my family, I was known to be the most “kuripot” person. I would rather save my money than spend it on anything. One weekend in 2001, my mom was quite surprised to see bundled money in a square rusty tin can (hehe.. apparently that was piggy bank at that time). She confronted me when I got home and asked me where the money came from; she was astonish to find out that I’ve been saving 100% of my allowance and not spending a single cent. Growing up till college, I had that strong discipline on spending, however, it all changed when I started to earn my own money. I was spending lavishly to the point I was consuming beyond my means. There were several reasons behind this irresponsible action: 1. I had no control 2. I wasn’t aware of my priorities yet 3. I was enjoying too much. All of these wrong perceptions led me to a path of destruction. I ended up having a huge amount of debt on credit and no savings at all.  

Before the year 2011 ended, I had to talk and push myself to fix the financial side of my life. During the course of this self-reflection, I came up with a 2-year road map, a vision on where I want to see my financial matters 2 years from now and what strategies will I do to reach this objective. A part of the strategies is identifying what my monthly expenses are. I realized that I wasn’t aware anymore how much money I bring out. These expenditures are the essential things I need to spend on, like medicines and personal toiletries, and exclude those unnecessary like clothes, eating out, watching movies, etc. At first, I wrote everything down and kept the receipts but it was so tedious and there were several times I would lose the receipt or forget to log my expenses. Since technology is sort of man’s best friend, I used the available apps that would help me log all my expenses and see everything instantly. I know this isn’t new for everybody but it was definitely new for me! I never knew that technology could be of a big help to my dilemma. Every time I would spend, I would just log it into the app and then it will automatically add up and instantly show how much money I have left. So after using the app, I became more aware of my monthly expenses. This awareness gave me the ability to know and control after. Just the opportunity to know made me really happy.3

I believe the importance of all of this, is that when the moment comes when an aspect of your life is turning to be uncontrollable or in a bad light, one must STOP, be aware that there is something wrong, find out the reasons behind it and take action to address such before its too late. I always believe that people are responsible for their own lives and they should not blame anybody but themselves. In this experience, I learned to take things in my own hands and change the course of my life and lead it to a better path.