Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy! Why?

Have you ever thought why suggestions  usually don't get 'bought' even if they are good? Even the ones given by bosses to subordinates get implemented half-heartedly, if at all.

The cause of this dilemma can be sourced at the top.

On 'hearing' about world class companies "topping the number of suggestions" with over "6 million" in Matsushita in so and so year or "over 53 suggestions implemented per employee in one single year" in Toyota (in 1987), typically the decision makers hastily installed 'suggestion-schemes'.

While number of suggestions in such excellent companies gradually increased, in 'hasty' companies the total system flopped. Blame was put on the 'prevailing bad culture here' while crediting the 'opposite there'. They even forgot 'which wall' their own 'suggestion-box' was hung. Some of them 'hung' another one during a new crisis.

Actually the real cause is that the 'hasty' managers didn't understand 'keys to success' of 'suggestion-systems' in such excellent companies and that they are much more than merely a 'box'.

Many didn't know that 'suggestion schemes' are called as Kaizen-TEIAN in Japanese companies. They got 'imported' with half knowledge. Naturally with their ill-effects they turned out to be a big flop as expected.

The way they were installed, rules themselves were 'killers of more ideas' than very few that were 'accepted': often a fraction of the total. The ones 'accepted' got disproportionately rewarded. At times the awardees were found to be same people year after year. In some companies these people even 'budgeted' their earnings. They knew when to 'create a crisis' and when to 'solve' it by their 'so-called suggestions'.

Kaizen-TEIAN system is exactly the opposite. In fact it means an 'implemented suggestion' or as a Kaizen as the world knows now. If generating suggestions or ideas is one side of the coin then implementing it is the other side. So a coin itself is a Kaizen or a Kaizen-TEIAN.

Role of the bosses or the idea-collectors is to involve subordinates in generating innumerable suggestions by training/retraining them on appropriate methods and then enabling them to implement all of those with resource verification as their own primary responsibility. In fact one of the performance criteria (KRA¹) of bosses is to 'make everyone a hero' by helping everyone contribute an idea and help him implement it.

There is no question of 'someone putting suggestions in a box' and then 'someone else assessing them' to 'accept' or 'reject' as was done by non-Japanese 'suggestion schemes' that revolved primarily around economic benefits and degree of it's creativity rather than 'motivation' of the Suggester.

Initial enthusiasm due to 'novelty' of such 'boxes' might attract novices to put an idea or two in it. But would you not be indifferent if yours get repeatedly 'rejected' due to it's 'smallness' or due to someone else's 'bigness'?

Or would it not be demotivating if it gets handled the way it does in a typical housing society where office bearers typically react saying: "talking is easy" or say: "you" do it rather than "let's do it together". Most often their body language not only 'repels' an idea but they see to it that it doesn't get implemented.

Under such circumstances leaving 'common-good' to it's destiny, people keep their brains under 'lock-and-key' while behaving in common places. After all it's 'your rule' not 'my idea': that's exactly the human psychology Kaizen-TEIAN system pre-empts.

In Kaizen-TEIAN there is no question of slapping or punishing a failure. It's about handholding subordinate to 'open  umbrella during rain' (an improvement action to tackle a problem) while giving credit of doing so to him.

This is where the journey of 'doing a Kaizen and reporting it with due credit and recognition to others' begins. With sustained and concerted efforts it accumulates into a 'million Kaizens'.

Without clarity and alignment on such key differences of Kaizen-TEIAN as above, fate of 'suggestion-schemes' will continue to stay doubtful.

Footnote-1, ¹KRA is Key-Result-Area

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Big-Be Or Bug-Be !

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? 

Dead-ends Pluck, Innovators Plant

The company had continued to make losses in succession for a couple of financial years. Top team was mulling over ways and means to communicate austerity measures for the coming year.

The company that was used to flaunting bashes and liberal appreciations in spite of losses was finding it difficult to communicate the U-turn it wished to take that too in the annual function.

Among many ways suggested during a brainstorming session one idea was to stop giving and taking bouquet.

Someone objected saying how could they carry out recognition of 'achievers' without bouquet.

The debate went on and finally President of the company agreed to an innovative alternative of giving a sapling in place of bouquet. Not that the idea was new but for the company it was: a paradigm shift.

The idea was if you love the planet 'don't despoil it'. Instead 'conserve it's beauty'. If you love flowers 'don't pluck then'. 'Plant one tree' instead.

It was thought to be an effective way to give message so that people transfer such positive attitude in more such behaviors in society, at home and in turn at work.

Not that the latter could happen overnight. But it's sure to succeed if corresponding leadership's efforts didn't fail.

Leaders such as the suggester and the facilitating president usually lead changes with tremendous faith and confidence in themselves. They don't overly bother about followers. Nor do they get influenced by critics. They 'make' changes happen while the conformists 'watch' and the critics 'wonder'.

May be funny for others but I fold my daily-used pullover bedsheet as in the left picture instead of an established practice as in middle picture. It just takes a couple of seconds to do so. Functionally it perfectly works for me. For a very rare aesthetic 'want' though I might do it as in the middle picture. But surely not as in the extreme right picture.

Do try such innovations faithfully. They will save a lot of time and conserve resources for you and others too daily. Be an innovator. Let others keep 'watching', 'wondering' and 'wandering'.

Want Need-Or-Want

Some want money for desires, others for needs

Desires create debt-traps, Needs: rosy tracks

Some want to be social on media for the sake of it, others for heck of it

For some it becomes a friendship boom, for others a deadly doom

Some want alcohol for fun, others need it as medicine 

For some it becomes a deadly gun, For others a beautiful scene

Some want stocks to hoard, Others need on social board

For some it becomes a major misfit, Others a big benefit

Some want wedding on cool air-bed; Need is just a shade 

When the paraphernalia turns into death-bed; Shade appears a rose-bed

Some 'live' for their greed, some for livelihood need

Happiness turns out to be temporary 'Peace', for others a permanent Bliss

Such behaviors triggered a couple of ©MaiKu poems as follows.

©MaiKu-1

Need was to marry
Some wanted it airy
For the couple, cause turned fatally scary

©MaiKu-2

Confusion of Needs-with-Wants
Ceremony full of self-destructive flaunts
Forever the effect haunts

Footnote

©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
Bust-wants, Boom-needs

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 

Should one care for value?  

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

Bird that just chirped

Soon-waste-to-eat, Sea-to-drink !

Don't Save Water on Holi-day

A Ride To Hell

Front-n-back a ride-to-hell

Left-to-right like-a Swinging Bell

A sure death-knell if you don't spell

That was the ¹©MaiKu ringing in my ears while a bus took me for a ride. 

Last couple of occasions while returning from Dahej, taxi that I booked couldn't reach to pick me up at Borivali station due to traffic jams. While I resorted to BEST buses as an alternative mode between 9-10.30 pm I experienced hell-like driving by the drivers.

1/ At curves it was really dangerous particularly at blind-corners while at times the driver tried to negotiate brushing passes at the dividers. He was driving as if he was in a race.

Like a pendulum the passengers were literally made to swing 60-to-90 degree. Imagine the plight of senior citizens with ailments such as backache or vertigo etc. as also that of standing passengers.

In case of travel on the 7th, a few passengers including me did try to suggest to the driver to drive safely with reduced speeds. But the conductor advised me "not to advise the driver" and that "they have that expertise".

This is a typical case of not being proactive  to prevent fatal accidents. I later wrote to the authorities about accidents due to similar causes in past on the same road. One can see the logical linkage of Cause-n-Effect relationship of accidents due to unsafe practices in general and unsafe driving (behavior) in particular.

2/ In case of travel on the 21st, I had a heavy bag with me. I was sitting near rear door. I told the conductor that I want to get down at Luis-wadi stop. Conductor kept telling me to walk to the front door in running bus. I expressed my inability to do so with a heavy bag in hand. I had requested him for a 'Stop-Bell' so that driver takes a patient 'stop'. The conductor kept telling me that driver won't stop unless he 'sees' me near the front door. That was a funny behavior particularly when I wasn't able to walk in a speedily 'jolt-fully' running bus.

Finally driver did what he wanted to do ignoring justified patient-stop request of the customer. I had a 'good swing' between the two doors and a 'jolt' between the front door and the road while finally 'managing to negotiate' to get down.

What Next?

1/ I requested the authorities to escalate this matter for appropriate action.

2/ Also as a commitment to the SAFETY-cause, I offered to help them to systematically bring in change in such unsafe and reactive behavior of their staff and managers. Merely 'telling' them to 'drive safely' or 'slow down at turns' or 'don't exceed speed limits', etc. with corresponding 'signboards' won't be of much use. 

What's the learning

You get what you deserve if you don't play your role to bring about change.

Staying indifferent is like supporting the undesired. I registered a suggestion-cum-grievance rather than merely a customer complaint to both the deliverer of service on-the-spot as well as to their management with a probable solution. I also made an offer of my help to make a difference.

I didn't bother about success or failure of their buy-in while making the offer. Now it's their choice.

Footnote:1. ¹©MaiKu Is My-Haiku

Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes

Any objective topic it chimes

Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings

Recently, once again, the Honorable Mumbai High Court pushed Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) to remove hoardings.

Contempt of such court orders has been shamelessly going on for past so many years. Both the BMC as well as so-called 'leaders' creatively ignore court orders.

Now a days even school going children appear on the hoardings. The day is not far when family tree of a few generations appear on the hoardings alongwith 'sonography' pictures of their 'expected' children as well.

According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, every human being has a mental need to get recognised.

In case of Hoarders-of-filth it has become a mental disease. For such people such a need seems to have become a desire ('want') since they don't have anything that public will willingly recognise. Perhaps that's why they put hoardings of their birthdays, publicity of work that they have not done, and for many more in-explainably creative reasons. They don't even bother that apart from defacing the town, at some places such hoardings create blind-spots or distractions prone to accidents as also create fire hazards: Typically 3D: Dirty-Danger-Difficult like situations.

So good that the court has initiated various actions on inaction of local municipalities.

I think in order to make such actions sustainable by making municipalities more accountable they should be asked to create a portal where the public can upload pictures of hoardings. Corresponding municipality should statutorily be made to submit a monthly-return accounting for actions taken against the number of such pictures uploaded. This will be a sort of measure of performance for their accountability.

The actions reported in the Return should go beyond the first-aid that of bringing down such hoardings within say 48 hours of uploading the pictures (by the public). The cost/consequences/punishment to the concerned officials should necessarily be preventive in nature.

One-Is-Better for JIT

In response to an interview on style-tricks, an actress said: Focus on just one body part and show it off.

Whatever may be the message she expected her readers to carry home, to me it was a reminder to complete this long pending blogpost One-Is-Better!

Today when I read news "set up a biz with just one form" it further got reinforced.

In Five-S technique of Kaizen to improve productivity and performance there is a pillar titled Seiri. One-Is-Better¹ is one of the themes or campaigns driven under it.

1-is-better campaign is a means of streamlining operations. It also facilitates 1-piece flow as required to make a quick or JIT: Just-In-Time delivery. 

Take nail-cutting activity for instance. It involves cutting followed by polishing off burrs on nail. Imagine cutting nails of all the 10 fingers at once followed by polishing all 10 at once. You will be free to attend to any other interruption only at the end of 10 minutes if each nail takes 1 minute each for both cutting and polishing. Instead you could get ready to attend to next interruption at the end of every minute if the cutting of one nail at a time is immediately followed by polishing the same. 

It's like freeing up or 'delighting' 1-customer every-minute instead of processing a batch of 10. The latter forces all the 10 customers to wait until the full batch of 10 gets processed. Such batch practice thereby 'delays' the delivery. The latter forces one to work with more stocks than optimum that the former (that is the JIT) advocates as also makes it possible. Not only the former speed up delivery but also it reduces the cost of poor quality (COPQ) part of the cost of quality (COQ). 

Basically, 1-is-better thought is a way to eliminate redundancy. It strips away the un-needed (be it the activity steps or the material resources for activities). Imagine just a single key or 1-key (as pioneered by Japanese auto makers like Toyota, Honda, etc.) that opens a car-door as well as dickey and the fuel-lock. 

A 2-in-1-paper-weight cum penholder, a 4-in-1-color pen, a multi-function printer, a pen-pencil combo, a One-Point-Lesson (OPL), etc. are few other examples. Such 1-is-better ideas in action facilitate lean work culture and eliminate clutter (the visual noise) as well. Thereby they enable focussing on the task at hand. 

In general, the 1-is-better concept helps one to do more with less resources and less efforts and finish the work faster.

So isn't the Narendra Modi government's single form (administrative process) to incorporate business a most welcome step. In fact more the use of such One-Is-Better! themes better it is.

The 'easing' thereby reduces a lot of Waste as a result of eliminating 3D: Dirty-Danger-Difficult activities. In fact it improves performance also. India ranked 142 among 189 economies by the World Bank in 2015 is expected to improve its position to 50th in two years if such 'Ease of Doing Business' continues.

So let's be innovative to find more and more One-Is-Better! opportunities to improve whatever, whenever and wherever we can.

Footnotes:
1: Examples from the book "Visual Management through Five-S A Japanese Tool Of Kaizen" Author: Shyam Talawadekar

Also read a few relevant blog-posts hereunder: Please do consider sharing this post or sharing your initiatives on above lines in comment box.

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