Boom-Barrier Boomed, Country-Doomed

The other day (28th December) Automatic-Boom-Barrier on toll-booth on Mumbai-Nashik highway near Igatpuri  'automatically' fell on our car. Nearly-missed the curse of 'broken-down' high-technology that could have resulted into fatalities. Luckily it didn't fall on windshield. We escaped crisis with a mere dent on top of the car. Whether we get compensated for the mechanical damage or not is a distant 'if-or-but' subject.

But the point worth highlighting is about the costs-of-poor-quality of work or wastes due to breakdowns.

Moving at snail's pace in the 'Toll-Queue' on that Sunday evening around 20.00 hours we ended up waiting in the queue for more than 10 minutes.

I think there were eight lanes with perhaps ten vehicles in each lane.

Couple of booths and hence the corresponding lanes were non-functional. Sitting in the vehicle, I couldn't ascertain whether they were broken-down or were reserved for 'VIP movement'? In India self-professed definition of VIP is anyone creatively sporting a magnetic 'Beacon-light-fixture' or a 'Stand for a color-flag with a black plastic-cover' and sometimes a vehicle carrying 'Bulky and/or Rowdy' personalities in 'Pure-white politician style attire'.

So while negotiating for the 'working'  lanes, some kept there engines ON. Some 'started' and 'stopped' until could finally manage to get through the toll-booth.

It's another subject whether the toll-tax should continue or not as per contractual agreement. But one thing is sure that a thesis is not needed if the road authorities choose to brainstorm answers to following questions.

What is the cost of fuel wasted?

What is the cost of delays to various stakeholders?

In order to save the above costs,
why can't the flow of vehicles be continuous by expediting 'Smart-Card-Reader' technology?: It shouldn't be difficult at all to do so across the country in less than a few weeks time considering that India is a leader in software-technologies.

Actually this example is just a representative one that can be extended to all delivery processes: Governance, Social or Business.

Unfortunately Indian leaders are leaders in playing dirty politics in decision making as well. They are 'smart' in record-breaking-speed on decisions related to vested-interests. Also they are 'leaders' in procrastinating (rather placing barriers in) issues of public interests so that the 'starving' public can be manipulated during elections. They are not bothered about such Booms banging over country's economy and dooming it.

By the time they realize importance of using their offices to speedily act on this,  can the thoughts in this post trigger each one of us to do something?

Surely yes. One may get some ideas by visiting 'Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation'.

Meanwhile keeping my activities On in this direction and keeping fingers crossed.

Looking forward to your suggestions and tips in the COMMENT-BOX below or a Tweet @Shyam Greets.

Digital technology http://care-is-cure.blogspot.in/2017/01/digital-corporate-yoga.html 

Technology in-place, security dis-placed http://care-is-cure.blogspot.com/2013/03/technology-in-place-security-dis-placed.html

Casuals Turn Serious, Shun Inaction

Leaders seriously enable casual's work
Turning serious, casuals shun inaction-n-quirk
Excellence springs in action of all men-at-work

The above Haiku is inspired by spirited action at  grass-root level on work-floor (Gemba) of a chemical complex in Western Gujarat.

I returned happy from there. Enthusiasm of faculty as well as of the management team was mirrored on shop-floor. It was genuine. 

Thanks to the 16-strong leadership team, the Director and the CEO for their whole-hearted participation at Gemba. They worked on the grass-root level concerns by removing Dirty-Danger-Difficult part in their work.

This is the way 'companies-on-excellence-journey' choose to give message of their 'seriousness' and their 'sense-of-urgency' to change-for-better. They work towards allaying fear of failure.

Unfortunately in many companies most managers, HR in particular, play Administration (HRA) role rather than  action-oriented HRD role. 

HR role is one of Developmental (HRD), necessary to build people for culture-change like the one demonstrated by leaders as above. Building people requires working with them hand-in-hand rather than mere instructions. It is to invest time (more than money) in making serious efforts in order to enhance their knowledge, skills and capability. 

Kaizen-Claps to all of them for doing so! Eagerly waiting to take them to next step en-route the TPM initiative in second week of the New-Year.

HAPPY-YEAR-Ahead to One-&-All!

MaiKu© Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes 

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

No Time? Micro-Meditate!  

ABCD of India Shining

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow

How To Make A Difference

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 !!

IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

Do You Ask Right Questions? 

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up? 
In-a-problem? No-problem! Dwell-a-while! 
I am afraid ! What do I do !! 
Take Habits For A Ride 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Are You Good If Others Are Bad?  
Want Need-Or-Want 
Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like?

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ant Knocks Elephant Down

Ant knocks elephant down

Fishing trawler hits warship, sinks it's crown

Phishing stinks, makes Naval-vigilance frown

Above MaiKu© is inspired by the News "Fishing trawler sinks after colliding with Naval warship".

It highlights the importance of powerful vigilance using 7-Senses. 

It tells you to keep one eye on long-range vision and the other on shorter-range planning and actions else crisis might strike unannounced.

It tells you to keep one eye on strategy, the other on tactics.

It tells you to keep one eye on telescope, the other on microscope.

©MaiKu Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Also read a few relevant blog-posts hereunder: 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Old-Problems, New-Reasons ! 
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 
Why do strategies fail
Comprehensive-Strategic-Audits
Will It Work Here?
Can-changing-thoughts-change-nation?
In-big-problem-wear-hats-to-solve-it
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important
Talent-Is-Latent: Enable It!
Judge If It's Paralysis-By-Analysis
Will It Work Here?
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Does recognition really matter
Who Comes First: Consumer Or Customer ?
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
ABCD of India Shining
Do You Ask Right Questions?
Am I 'Short-sighted' or 'Long-sighted'?

Encroachers o(w)n open land

Encroachers o(w)n open land

Top statesmen Number-One to offend

Make it difficult for Defence to defend

Inspired by the article...
Maharashtra leads in encroachment of defence land

© MaiKu Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Power-fool Become Powerless

Power-fool become powerless

Likely to harm everything while not-in-power

Didn't do anything while-in-power

Above Haiku is inspired by poll results of 2013.

© MaiKu Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Listen To The Iceberg Beyond Tip

If you want to solve a problem accurately then first step is to define it accurately.

In order to define it accurately you need to listen to various versions of the problem. 

If we don't listen we'll end up learning only tip of the iceberg. Listening is "hearing what isn't said" as Peter Drucker emphasises about "The most important thing in communication".

We don't learn new things because we don't listen. Before even hearing completely, we silently get busy in strategising to speak out our disagreement with other's ideas.

Even in dictionary there's a difference between the two. Listening is 'to pay attention'. Hearing is to be able to 'perceive' sounds that fall on ear.

Most often we get distracted by the speaker's inability to communicate. In a given situation, rather than grabbing her real feelings and the content s/he tries to present we lose most of the information, inadvertently at times. 

Many a time thoughts presented to us get sensored by the presenter depending upon her hidden agenda. It could be dangerous if one gets influenced by presentation-quality of the presenter under such circumstances, be it a customer, a supplier or an employee. Better the presentation better is the impression likely to be and vice versa. 

But after all an impression need not be a reality. As a result we end up 'perceiving' depending upon our impressions and what we hear.

Listening is 'to pay attention' to the deeper content and feelings scratching beyond the surface. In other words, to put it more accurately, we need to actively-listen.

Active-listening is like the way a mother 'listens' to her child. Even an illiterate mother is able to do so to her new-born one. She has her own way to find out what the child tries to communicate through her crying 'speak'. She 'throws' various options at the child and does a quick 'mix-n-match' of the 'contents' to find out near-perfect need of the child. She creates easy channels of communication and keeps them open through her judgemental PDCA¹ cycles in real time until the problem is captured and solved in totality.

This is an important skill to improve behavior of people and to improve relationships with an aim to resolve conflicts between two people or among groups of people.

Intent of the listener should be unbiased though. 

In case of a fight between two children, for instance, a matured mother would listen to content (complete facts) and sense negative or positive intent if any of both the sides with a positive intent of resolving conflict for common-good.

Extending this analogy of lack of positive intent by the big brother further one would be able to find out roots of why and how 'gossipers', 'informers' and 'frenemies' (enemies who 'act' like friends) get born in various settings and walks of life. 

So if you don't want to get disappointed later it's important to focus more on content and the intent of the speaker (the need to be a good listener) rather than fluency and beauty of communication (the want of a bad listener). Better to focus more on substance rather than style.

That way not only presence of a person is more likely to get recognised and respected but also iceberg of the problem is likely to be acknowledged and captured more accurately. 

Correct definition is like reaching half the solution to the problem. Rest half gets addressed with continued active-listening.

A MaiKu© poem on the subject:

Rains out-of-season

Child cries at 3 A.M. for no reason

Miss the bus on most occasion

MaiKu© Is My-Haiku

Footnote-1 ¹PDCA cycle of improvement as in Kaizen: Plan or Assess. Do or pilot-implementation as per preliminary assessment. Check or Validate the pilot-implementation before full implementation. Act or Improve by next cycle of assessment.

Bust-wants, Boom-needs

Inspired by Voters-Verdict

Bust-wants, Boom-needs
BROOM corruption, appeasement and greeds 
BRING governance, performance, jobs.. Not subsidy-feeds

© MaiKu Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save!

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-1)

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-2)
Functional-Aesthetics

Should one care for value? 

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

What You See Isn't What's Made

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 

Less With More And More Gets Sore 

How To Make A Difference 

Some Moron ! Some Great !!! 

That's How Morons Work

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? 

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 

Poverty-to-Power of Poetry

Soon-waste-to-eat, Sea-to-drink !

Installed Capacity Stalled

Installed Capacity Of Electricity Stalled!
That's the way governance in India shines!!

कडाडली विजेवर वीज, 
पॉलिसीची, परफॉर्मन्सची,
सरकारी-सबसीडीची की वीज-चोरीची?

© MaiKu Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Doesn't Matter Who Wins As Long As Customer Wins

There are n-number of comparisons in the market between Apple and Samsung fighting neck-to-neck for market-leadership position. Recently I came across one that addressed who-will-win between them. It had good comparison parameters in terms of innovation management, management leadership, brand, design, ecosystem compatibility, user experience, customer needs, profitability, growth, etc. 

For a customer whoever wins is OK as long as the customer herself wins. Knowing this winning companies win customers by making them win. In order to be in the league, suppliers have to speak to more of their own customers as well as that of the competition. They have to do this more often because hardly four percent (4%) of dissatisfied customers speak. Even loyalists don't speak at times. Hence to make all of them speak they have to articulate transactions with them more assertively without hurting them.

Here is an example of how much more the suppliers need to do by finding their own ways and means to capture such voice-of-customer (VOC). 

The solution wasn't there both in Apple as well as in Samsung device at least until the time I went to e-press to publish this post. Assuming that my search for the one on Google was inadequate, what I am surprised is why should it take so long to copy-paste such a simple feature that existed in Motorola sometime in 1997. I still have that model in my museum. 

Someone may say customer may have so many funny VOCs and behaviors. It's difficult to capture all of them especially the maverick wants in final offerings.

That's exactly the point I wished to express through this blogpost, the often repeated cliche: It's difficult but not impossible. And it can't be so difficult for it to take decades as in case of above example. 

There are many such funny VOCs floating around that can be accommodated without much costs. Easy ones everyone can do. The one who does so with difficult ones also and does so speedily without adding costs to the customer is the one who wins.

Looking forward to my above need in future models of one of these companies. In case you come across such one in future please do inform me through the comment box hereunder. 

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass

I am a miser!
Fool for others but unconventionally miser or a maverick for myself!!

Who is an unconventional-miser?: The one who follows principles of MISER: Minimize-Improvise-Simplify-Eliminate or Reduce waste. 

In fact my family members have borrowed MISER philosophy from me like a cuckoo brought up in a crow's nest would do. 

In order to REDUCE WASTE, the other day my wife got broken-strap-set of her slipper replaced instead of throwing it away. Actually only left-side-strap from the pair was broken. So she wanted to bring the right-side one back for future use as a backup and thereby REDUCE WASTE further on.

But the over-smart cobbler didn't give her any chance to implement her good intention. May be he wished to protect national pride from her 'miser' attitude. Before even she could complete her request, he chopped off both-side straps in split-second saying it would have otherwise damaged slot in the slipper had he tried to pull it off.

If he could insert new strap in the slot he could have easily removed the old one from it. Naturally because it was a rubber slipper with rubber-strap made of flexible material. Upto my engineering studies I couldn't afford any other footwear than a low-end slipper. So having done similar excercise not less than 100-times, I could have done what the cobbler was supposed to do perhaps more skillfully. 

What is the learning?

This is a case of breaking window-glass and then suggesting to replace it without bothering costs of it to the country's economy. Some businesses do use such a strategy of local-optimization. They take things and people for granted including the country. 

This is no different than staff of an inefficient municipality not bothering about quality of roads that forces wasteful activities such as that of rubbing (puncturing) tyres of vehicles and breaking backs of travellers. In fact, the cobbler behaved indifferently to a complaint made to him later on having realized that he had put two different sizes of straps (number '7' and '8' as can be seen in picture): A quality defect. 

This is what happens in a high-mistrust society where moron suppliers thrive upon number games instead of global-optimization for the larger good.

This is what happens where people-in-power (leaders themselves) discard things as 'old' although they are in good form and fit (aesthetically and functionlly). There 'pride'and 'ego' doesn't allow them to use things 'used' by their predecessors. 

Anyway, that's about what others can do. As a lesson learnt, I have decided to choose (rather bank upon) my childhood skills next time. In generic terms: To do mistake-proofing instead of trusting non-trustworthy morons to get near-perfect service.

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

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