Elfeiz Fadhil, Head of Governance & Audit (Platform Systems), understands that he does not just need to master technical knowhow, but also tackle challenges on a larger scale.
He sees teamwork as indispensable to fulfilling HTX’s mission as he supervises a team of four to sustain the agency’s marine systems capability.
By working together, we can produce optimal results.
“Each member has his distinct skillsets. By working together, we can produce optimal results,” he said. To him, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” This is the essence of synergy!
But to truly achieve synergy, people need to change their mindset. He said, “Instead of just focusing on their individual KPIs and working in silos, team members need to see themselves as contributing to the larger goals of the organisation.”
At the start of each fiscal year, Elfeiz takes pains to discuss the workplans of individual officers to ensure that these are well-aligned with the overarching goals of HTX. He also consults other relevant stakeholders in the process. Such an approach promotes coherent decision-making at the organisation level.
An engineer by training, Elfeiz believes that there is often more than one solution to every problem. To ensure his team is always ready for different possibilities, he encourages them to constantly improve themselves so that they can quickly adapt to new challenges.
He also wants to build a resilient team and wants to ensure that the team will continue to function seamlessly should a member take vacation or leave his post. So, he put in place a practice of familiarising each team member with one another’s work.
For instance, the team documents work processes religiously. “This is to preserve institutional knowledge and allow anyone new to the post to understand how policies have evolved and why certain practices are adopted,” he said. Indeed, this process not only facilitates learning and onboarding, but also shows that he has a ‘succession plan’ in mind!