Who's Just, Who's Unjust

Just read about a journalist releasing news sitting over shoulders of a flood-affected villager. He was dismissed from service by the media company as soon as the news broke out. Perhaps the quick action was to tackle public pressure or was to pre-empt competition from enhancing their own TRP by over-publicizing it.

While I am not justifying his 'misdeed', some other questions do remain unanswered in my mind. I tried to capture them in the form of a poem in the end.

Could the journalist have covered the news in the 'depth' that he wished to, by any other means? Perhaps yes as one might tend to think so from the video. 

But then were other means available to him there? Video tells only part of the story. Under what circumstances and with what facilities was the journalist operating there in order to collect total news in 'depth'?

Anyway having done so, was he 'sitting over shoulders' with an intention of atrocity? And if at all it's a mistake, in retrospect one may find number off them at one's own personal level. 

Let's look at it the other way round. 

If there was an opportunity for the flood-affected villager to earn his bread for that day by helping carry the journalist over his  shoulders, what right do others (be it public, a corporate house or government) get to snatch it from him? Have there not been Human-Rickshaws in Kolkatta earning their livelihood for so long on similar lines?  It has been a socioeconomic need!

If at all one finds the journalist atrocious then there have been many more so far in not providing alternative job opportunities to needy forcing them to resort to inhuman jobs such as Human-Rickshaw pullers.

Likewise if we shift our attention to in-discipline in other disciplines and fields, one might find many such atrocities.

If someone dies in an accident while negotiating a road full of pot-holes that s/he couldn't spot due to non-functional street-lights, are the concerned authorities considered atrocious? Do the concerned authorities such as municipality or electricity-boards, etc. get sued and convicted for dirty-danger-difficult conditions on road?

If a city like Mumbai goes under water due to illegal constructions and hutments in and around nullahs blocking water-flow resulting in colossal loss to lives and properties, are the concerned authorities, goons and politicians supporting them considered as atrocious?

These are realities not 'ifs-and-buts' stories. If one deep-dives into crises or near-miss cases or studies fatalities she reads about each day, 'atrocities' might be found in abundance. 

Who will decide then 'what's right' and 'what's wrong', 'what's an atrocity and what's not one'?

Who will decide 'who's right' and 'who's wrong' in cases such as above?

If the journalist's act was wrong and atrocious then the sense-of-urgency demonstrated by the concerned is commendable. In that case, can decision-makers in other disciplines and fields such as above demonstrate similar sense-of-urgency in awarding justice in case of bigger and criminal atrocities?

Hope to receive your comments on tips covered in here and on the poem titled:

Who's Just Who's Unjust (कोण न्यायी कोण अन्यायी)

कोण न्यायी कोण अन्यायी
अन्यायी जाहले बेलगाम मुक्त
न्यायी मात्र कडेकोटात बंदिस्त

कोण न्यायी कोण अन्यायी
सुस्त बेशिस्त अविचारी स्वधुंदीत स्व:त्वात जे मस्त
की जे विश्वात्मक शिस्तीचे वक्तशीर भक्त

कोण न्यायी कोण अन्यायी
ते, जयांचे शील जाहले स्वस्त
की जे विचारी-परोपकार-करी निवांत

कोण न्यायी कोण अन्यायी
जे अन्यायान्याय सही, परी ना करी व्यक्त
की जे अन्याया-वरी जात्या कृति-शील-शिस्तवान साधूसंत

कोण न्यायी कोण अन्यायी
अन्यायी जाहले बेलगाम मुक्त
न्यायी मात्र कडेकोटात बंदिस्त

Await English version of the poem soon.

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

'Exercise your choice' they say. Remembering it, sometimes I 'choose' to read emails in part to suit my convenience.

Actually there are infinite 'choices in life' if you 'exercise your choice' to think so. Some 'exercise choice meaningfully'. Some do so 'meanly'.

In my understanding, a choice is 'meaningful' if intention ... (CLICK HERE to read more & to read complete TEXT)

Here in the picture is a poem that evolved for Swara-Sampada music group as a result of exercising choice.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or sharing this post.

No Time? Micro-Meditate!  

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up? 
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully 
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important? 
Eternally Happy! 
In-a-problem? No-problem! Dwell-a-while! 
I am afraid ! What do I do !! 
Fearful-Of-Death-of-Birth
Take Habits For A Ride 
Happy-Birthday-to-Youooo
Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam! 
Are You Good If Others Are Bad?  
Want Need-Or-Want 
How To Make A Difference 
Love is Care.. Care is Love !  
Deity is in the eyes of the beholder 
Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like?
Ball-Basin-Team Combine !  Maketh The Smile Divine !! 

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?

Recently I came across a spiritual article on Tolerance that referred to UNESCO's definition: "Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. It is fostered by knowledge, openness, communication, and freedom of thought, conscience and belief. Tolerance is harmony in difference."

Sometimes it appears difficult to practice some spiritual prescriptions such as above. Such sane characteristics typical of epic-character 'Rama' become impractical especially while dealing with insane 'Kaansaa's kind black behaviors. So I dug into UNESCO's definition further knowing very well that I am too small a fly in front of spiritual Gurus and UNESCO's definition as well that went on to say that, "Tolerance is the responsibility that upholds human rights, pluralism (including cultural pluralism), democracy and the rule of law."

On seeing reference to "the rule of law" in the definition, I was a bit relieved.

How long does one tolerate a given abnormal situation or an abnormal behavior, be it that of self or that of others?

Once, Twice, Thrice? How many times? Everyone faces this dilemma some time or the other.

Epic character Rama in you may tolerate abnormal behaviors limitlessly. However another epic character Krishna 'directed me' to devise my own method to make a judgement.

In any given situation there may be an involvement of man, machine (equipment), material, method (a standard, a process or a procedure to perform act/s) in a typical work environment.

Anything going wrong in any one of these ingredients individually or collectively may create an undesired or a mistakeful outcome that one refers to  as an abnormal situation. It's like an undesired, out-of-tune, out-of-beat, noise instead music getting produced in an orchestra.

The undesired outcome may be due to a collection of mistakes. Role of 'music director' of the situation is to track and trace such mistakes in order to  'orchestrate' prevention of those for producing desired effect in future.

So as a student of Kaizen-school-of-thoughts, in order to prevent making wrong judgement while studying an undesired situation, I identified three categories of mistakes.

1/ Inadvertent mistakes
2/ Careless mistakes
3/ Criminal mistakes

An inadvertent mistake is unintentional. It's not done on purpose. It might just  happen as a result of missing consciousness of one's own mistake or that of others. It is like falling in a given pit or a pot-hole on road for the first time. The cause may be inattention while talking on cell phone. Or it may be that  someone else being on wrong side forced the victim on right (correct) side to suffer.

A careless mistake happens due to missing concern or worry about consequences of a mistake. It might occur as a result of not giving sufficient attention or thought, especially concerning it's avoidance or harm therefrom. It is like falling in a pit second time while talking on cell phone. Mostly fools fall in this category.

A criminal mistake is the one that recurs due to recurring carelessness. It's criminal since there is a resistance to learn from past mistakes. It's criminal if it's done intentionally. In most cases, the criminal himself may not fall but surely makes fellow-beings fall and, if not arrested, repeatedly so. In fact, he ends up pushing them and at times pushing community itself into crises.

Inadvertent and careless mistakes are relatively easy to tackle. But criminal mistakes are the most difficult ones to tackle because they are more to do with wrong intentions and criminal mindsets deployed by-design.

So coming back to the question, "How long does one tolerate a given abnormal behavior?" is like asking "How long does one tolerate mistakes of self or of others? How many times: Once, Twice, Thrice?"

My method is:

1/ Tolerate a mistake one-time while it's Inadvertent. Invest in training and putting Kaizen efforts on errors thus revealed in order to make the process mistake-proof. Establish complimentary SOPs (standard-operating-procedures), rules and regulations to prevent deterioration of the mistake-proof level attained.

2/ May tolerate a mistake second time while it's at Careless-stage. Put in training, Kaizen efforts and complimentary rules & regulations by revisiting the mistakes in order to make the process mistake-proof.

This way the chances are that inadvertent and careless mistakes may get prevented from getting matured into criminal ones especially that concerned with safety, dignity and rightful rights at personal level as also concerned with rightful common goals.

3/ So having given opportunity for structured learning and that of tolerating mistakes once or twice, tolerating it the third-time is being criminal on the part of the tolerates or the orchestrator himself apart from tolerating the so-called criminal making mistake. Because in that case it's the orchestrator who allows a small-mistake to grow into a crime or a crisis or a disaster.

Having established that a mistake falls in criminal-category, it should be dealt with with a sense-of-urgency.

Apart from enforcing rules & regulations used to deal with criminals while 'dealing with criminal mistakes', great leaders deal with 'causes of such intentional behaviors'. Like wrong intentioned poor leaders they don't corner the people making mistakes. That's a separate topic to be dealt with some other time on investing time and efforts in 'behavior-modulation' of the people concerned.

I am afraid ! What do I do !!

I am afraid ! What do I do ?: Flex Muscles !!

In spite of being among top-10 percentile, he wasn't able to get through top companies in campus placement. He was preparing for third round of interviews.

Gripped by fear he was anxious about whether he will get through.

As a first-aid mechanism to tackle the situation, I reminded him to be coffee-bean like by gaining strength from his own achievements against difficult conditions in past. A coffee-bean adopts to tough conditions of boiling-water by getting assimilated in it along-with it's own color and taste, unlike a carrot in it that gives-in it's toughness.

It's like arousing self-confidence by meditating on actionable-facts from one's own successful encounters or that of a role model instead of day-dreaming on imaginary fears. Although sounding like 'flexing muscles' deceptively to scare a dog away, it's useful.

Like in an eu-stress kind of situation that pumps in adrenaline to create positive pressure for productivity, one does gain energy by a couple of de...ee...ep breaths followed by 'flexing' and imagining positive outcome.
It's important however to be prepared to accept failures, if any, gracefully.

Finally he did get through, more because of his own commitment to 'flex-n-fight' rather than 'flight' away.

In hindsight, the latter job did turn out to be better in terms of both the profile and the package than the first two that gave him a miss.

What do we fear about?

As per REBT research, one tends to expect for herself the following. 

1/ A positive outcome in each situation, 

2/ Good treatment from everyone, 

3/ Fairness and ease in life. 

And then s/he begins fearing imaginary 'gap's vis-a-vis expectations as above.  S/he fears accepting reality and facts as challenges. 

For instance, had the so-called failure allowed anxiety and fear to take berth in place of faith and confidence, the interviewee might have missed berth in the latter job as well.

I remember a song in Marathi language 'Athshey-khidkya-navshey-daarey' meaning '800-windows-900-doors'. Life offers many opportunities except for those who choose to see and fear dead-walls in place of 'windows-&-doors'.

A caution: First-aid kind of flash-in-pan mental games such as above can't substitute being prepared for a given situation.

In 1980s, I had used a practical mechanism to be prepared to tackle fear of interviews. On most holidays during my first job I used to appear for various interviews. I was conscious to not be arrogant nor over-confident of course although I didn't need a corresponding job. 

In fact, I was confident since I had nothing to lose. It was like experiencing 'windows-&-doors' before even needing those.

Preparedness in general is like having a passport in terms of
- trained-mind in place to stay positive even in an unfavorable outcome,
- intrinsic knowledge of a given situation.
- alternative plans as well as risk management plans as a part of corrective mechanism

Preparedness helps steadfastly moving ahead with calculated risks of adverse consequences, if any.Thereby it helps mitigate fear  Being prepared to what all might happen in the 'interim' and as an 'end' while sailing makes one take steps consciously and confidently. It enhances chances of success. In fact, thereby it breeds enhanced-confidence in each subsequent situation.

It's prudent to take inner-view in light of the above before and while tackling a tough situation be it an interview or otherwise.


What's the learning? 

There is a structure in the above process.

In fear there is a negative structure that one climbs down a dark valley. 

In 'being prepared' there is a positive structure. One gets luxury of time that brings in patience. With patience comes poise that helps one climb up a mountain towards Sunrise. 

Which structure to use is about exercising choice.

So relax and train mind on these powerful thoughts.

Be prepared.

Gain positive energy by a couple of de...ee...ep breaths followed by 'flexing' and imagining positive outcome.

And then fight the situation out.

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

"What happened? Why are you so nervous?", I asked one of my singer friends during our monthly singing meeting. "We have a lovely theme of singing 'monsoon songs' with a lively setting of heavy rains in the background!"

My friend is usually well-prepared for our singing meet up every third Sunday. We all professionals from various fields with a common interest enjoy theme-based singing.

"Are you not prepared today?", I continued.

"That's not the case", he murmured. "I am worried about my business dear. It has become a noise while I am on a song".

He owned a mid-sized business. In spite of reasonable compensation he had a problem of attrition affecting business performance year-on-year. It was their innovative product that had been somehow helping them sail through. In fact, their 'somehow'-management techniques consisted of 'pushing' people (including a major chunk of attrition-substitute freshers) for production, 'shouting' at them for mistakes, etc. This had been resulting in a 'snow-ball effect' of managing rejections, delayed deliveries, and so on.

In effect, sagging morale of people had been posing a perpetual challenge of keeping both the old brigade as also the new breed engaged homogeneously. Anxiety of future, that was evident on his face, seemed to take toll on him. Actually he had been voicing this concern at regular intervals in past.

What was the solution to engage people? 

There was no point in him worrying about attrition in particular. Even big and successful companies could't prevent that. Finding ways and means to get both the old and new engaged speedily and sustainably was the only answer. More the engagement, lower the performance issues, easier and faster the familiarization to processes, higher the affinity to workplace, lower the possibility of attrition.

Getting that done was a challenge particularly on a fear-struck workplace that on the other hand was full of challenges on quality, cost and delivery front.

In a fear-struck workplace if leader himself behaves like a maniac, it adds fuel to the fire. "What if I change the process" kind of 'What-if' questions haunt people under-fear especially if they are freshers.

Fear of unknown haunts just as a child gets scared of entering a dark room.

What will boss say if I make mistakes?
Will I be able to do this neatly or adequately?
Will I be able to complete it (Compliance)?
Will I fail?
Will I be able to communicate my stand?
Will my colleagues ridicule me?
Will they criticize me?

Such aesthetic fears promote staying put in status-quo.

While on one hand people under the grip of fear wish that everything should go right, on the other hand they imagine everything undesired happening. They begin worrying and get excessively anxious. This results into several mental, emotional and physical symptoms including demotivation, loss of self-esteem and self-confidence, etc. In other words generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) takes their charge resulting into negative 'snow-ball effect' around. 

Apart from demotivating work-environment, causes of such worrisome behavior could be a mix of biological, psychological, social and cultural ones that may include: lack of preparedness for the occasion, personality inhibitions, shyness or learned behaviour of habitually worrying or anxiety (as a trait) inherited from their family environment, etc.

In personal setting the affected people may get conventional advice that of resorting to self-help strategies such as to "have self-confidence even if others don't have it in you" or to "look at your own self positively and get set & act" or to "relax, deep-breathe and meditate" while in mess, and "to "approach solving a problem one-step at a time", etc.

Yes, it's always good to make your own-self robust than trying to change outside world to accommodate your weaknesses. But only one's own family members with their captive homogeneity and serious interest may afford to spend that kind of time and efforts on helping one individually.

But in a typical dead-line based corporate setting that employs 100s and 1000s of people with multiple diversities at personal and professional level, spending that kind of time and efforts on helping everyone individually may become prohibitively expensive and difficult in spite of employing a fleet HRD managers and their initiatives. 

So what is the alternative solution for businesses such as that of my friend?

How to instill self-confidence in each and every member of the corporate family? How to align them with speed matching that required to perform and deliver time-bound goals of the organisation?

One pioneered by Toyota among various methods was about creating various listening platforms in order to preserve "respect for people" and to preserve their "individuality" in terms of individual creativity as well as speed of participation without affecting speedy demands on the organisation.

Toyota did this by providing

1/ empowered environment to make changes in work under an individual's direct control,

2/ structured platforms to declare and get recognised for the efforts put in suffering or making those changes with rules that would pre-empt all the fears including that of failed changes, if any.

This is where structured problem solving methods such as Gemba-Kaizen, One-step instant Kaizens, Seven-step Kaizens, Quality-Circles, Kaizen-Teian, etc. were born that helped them mint millions and billions of improvements. Most important common thread among them all was listening to the changes made by people with employee empowerment rules such as following as the essence among other support structures for creating Kaizen-culture as they say in one-word at Toyota. 

1/ The Kaizenee (an employee willing to make an improvement) is the boss to decide, make and declare small-changes within a pre-decided area with pre-decided conditions viz. 'go-zone' that won't disturb safety standards and customers. He is given full help by a Kaizen Engineering Team (KET) to experiment changes. (P. S. There are methods elsewhere in my blogs that help 'pull' all employees into willingness to do Kaizens).

2/ Mistakes and failures, if any, are pardoned. However they should be recorded as opportunities for improvement.

3/ There is no question of quantum of adequacy and compliance and that of size of savings as long as the deviations are recorded so that they don't go unnoticed and undergo next improvement (PDCA) cycle followed by standardization (SDCA) cycle.

4/ The Kaizenee's style and method of communication is considered least important as long as efforts in making changes are demonstrated personally or evidenced with before-after pictures. Anyone found ridiculing or criticizing a Kaizenee or her style and her sincere efforts is dealt with strictly.

5/ Moment an abnormality is noticed, anyone can stop the entire running line at a touch of a switch of an Andon that blinks or hoots placed at strategic locations.

6/ All help and attention is provided to a Kaizenee by a designated team if s/he brings forward any abnormalities in compliance to above rules. 

With such empowering rules, where is the question of fear now. Isn't this kind of empowerment enough to 'manufacture' self-esteem, confidence, teamwork in order to make the workplace self-managed.

It was difficult for my friend to believe this kind of maverick approach. In fact, his reaction was "with such rules 'they' will force 'us' to close down the shutters". Short of efforts to act he was stuck in his own set of paradigms. 

He may finally end up believing the maverick Kaizen-way on visiting some case-studies though. But I have serious doubts whether he will create one of his own because it's about 'believing-by-doing' which is very difficult for people who believe in 'talking-than-doing'.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: 

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow 
How To Make A Difference 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
Nauseous Communication Gaps 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam! 
Will It Work Here?  
Some Moron ! Some Great !!! 
That's How Morons Work 
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable 
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass  
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 
That's how some business partnerships work 
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
Technology in-place, security dis-placed
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Do you know a Best-Career-Plan 
Customer or Custo-Mer?  
Experienced A Delightful Payment ! 
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul 
Less With More And More Gets Sore 
Should one care for value?  
ABCD of India Shining
Beware Of Political-Presentations 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings

Chocolate ad that makes you feel sticky

How would you feel if.. an adult like me sitting on your sofa opens a chocolate bar with unwashed hands.. paws fingers exploring deep into the brown colored mass of the chocolate.. manages to push (with a little struggle) two fingers coated with chocolate into mouth while the rest touching cheeks all over.. and then look somewhat like a 'licking' birthday boy forced into your eyeballs?

More likely that you may (although actually not) pick such an adult up with a tong in order to flush her down the gutter so that there is no question of letting such a fool in your home ever again, forget eyeballs.

Would the feeling be different then on viewing such a chocolate-advertisement on TV?

Unlikely!

Feelings of the viewers may not be different but actions may be since the chocolate-clad models surely don't look as bad as me.

Anyway, is it necessary to show such acts in advertisements so much away from reality that they get difficult to comprehend: Like typically an otherwise well-mannered looking adult behaving childish.

Intention of the ad may be to project a person behaving child-like and happier on getting 'that' particular chocolate brand in hand. But there is a thin line between being childish and being child-like.

Being child-like may be acceptable but many may not subscribe to the thought of looking like a 'licking' dirty-child.

Internet is full of "10 Tips for creating effective ads" and "5 Most effective tips to connect with target", etc.

They are all good and practical tips as long as advertisers be consciously careful not to take their target-viewers-customers for granted. They might be doing so inadvertently though in their enthusiasm to grab attention of eye-balls within 'max-3-seconds-140-characters' kind of 'fast-marketing-communication-era'. 

I would like to add this tip to checklists if it's not already-there in the treasure on net. 

A powerful test-marketing of the ad itself in this context might prove helpful in making advertisements more effective.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: 
Please do consider leaving a comment or sharing this post via social media.

Want Need-Or-Want 

How Many Times Do You Wash Hands 

Soon... Waste-to-Eat ! Sea-to-Drink !!  

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow
How To Make A Difference 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
Nauseous Communication Gaps 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Will It Work Here?  
Some Moron ! Some Great !!! 
That's How Morons Work 
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable 
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass  
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 
That's how some business partnerships work 
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Customer or Custo-Mer?  
Less With More And More Gets Sore 
Should one care for value?  
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings