Sponge! Shield!! or a Sword! !!

Are you a Sponge, a Shield or a Sword!

This was what I asked the audience when I was checking their homework.

During our assignments, we do PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) on the MOM (minutes of meeting) agreed upon with the target company.

It's but natural for anyone to get embarrassed if s/he gets a feeling of being 'checked'.

But coaching does warrant finding out if the things are going on as planned (studying rather than 'checking'). That's why PDCA cycle is sometimes called PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) cycle!

Course correction during the study cycle is the natural sequel.

How do people respond then!

Some try to defend why they couldn't do what they were supposed to do.

Some come out with swords to argue out how that what was agreed to itself was wrong.

Some others confess if they did not do it, while few of them ask for help having tried but 'failed'.

The last category is the real learners!

I call such a learner as a sponge. When someone comes with an attitude of absorbing new learning (a sponge), s/he ends up getting more of it (more of the better).

In the learning field, both the former categories, the shields that defend, and the swords that come out, are ultimately the losers. Because they think they are the best!

The sponges think that there are better ways than what they tried. There's no the best in their dictionary. Only better!

Because better is always better than the best!!

Former is a moving target heading towards excellence!

Because of complacency the latter may end up being stagnant!!

So it's upto us to be a Sponge, a Shield or a Sword!

Being Sponge is a More-Win-and-Less-Lose!

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

Being Perfect! 

Waste-to-eat Sea-to-drink

That's How Morons Work

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

How To Make A Difference

Old-Problems, New-Reasons !

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

Performance ... Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily

Kaizen, even in air!

Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?

Old-Problems, New-Reasons !

In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !!

In-big-problem? Wear-hats-to-solve-it!

Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like?

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up?

Need maintenance sense as well!

Many-injured-as-escalator-in-thane-moves-in-reverse-direction.

Eight-escalators-at-thane-station-to-undergo-check-this-week. This was supposed to be in May 2018.

Five-hurt-as-thane-station-escalator-stops-moves-in-reverse-gear.

And now at the end of July 2018 I read that, each of the escalators on each of the platforms at Thane railway station don't work almost every alternate day. That's what the loksatta daily reported in July. (See the picture.)

The above news items remind me of my earlier blogpost titled 'need-basic-civic-sense-to-use-technology'!

Don't you think apart from the 'civic-sense' the service providers need a 'maintenance sense' to handle technology! They need to be sensitive to the costs associated with the poor quality of service (CoPQ) such as above.

The recurrence of the problems as above makes it obvious that problem solving needs to be to uproot the root level causes rather than mere first aid treatments.

Users and proponents of technology need to appreciate that it is just an enabler.

By itself technology can't help if we can't help ourselves by an appropriate 'civic-sense' and 'maintenance sense'!

India won! But Indians lost!

Time to celebrate for Indian cricket team!

The team had completed a mission!!

India had won the 20:20 international series 2-1 against England!!!

The team had completed their tasks over-over-the-over, over-on-over I mean!

Forgetting their own assigned duties and tasks over-on-over, the restaurant staff however in a star hotel seemed to have got distracted by the over-on-over excellent performance of the Indian cricket team.

Most of them gathered around the TV watching the prize ceremony instead of being around customers, except a trainee female staff alone catering to a couple of tables.

Indifference of the manager and staff was strikingly noticeable especially when it was an a-la-carte day instead of a buffet dinner.

Couldn't they've been a little proactive each by a smiling eye-contact with customers! Hardly a  couple of tables were occupied though!

Looking at the TV screen following in the footsteps of her leader seniors, even the trainee staff was found to be filling water in the glass or picking up yet-to-be-finished plate without the consent of the customer! A Waste!!

Can you imagine the Cost-Of-Poor-Quality (COPQ) or rather the Cost-Of-Poor-Service (COPS) of such behaviour in the industry such as Hospitality where the behaviour itself is more important along with the hard quality of course!

Staff busy watching match

Customer fetching her own batch

No one around to catch

That's my Haiku poem dedicated to such Lose-Win behaviour where Indians lost while India won!

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Do You Force Customers To Quit
In-a-problem ? No-problem! Dwell-a-while!
Customer or Custo-Mer ?  
Experienced A Delightful Payment ! 
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul 
Do you keep curing your brand ?  
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality!  
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers 
Less With More And More Gets Sore 
Should one care for value ?  
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?  
The Business Of Businesses 
That's how some business partnerships work 
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 
Does recognition really matter 
That's How Morons Work
Simplicity Of Theory Of Relativity

Mission Zero-Plastic!

Are dustbin bags, sticky bags, half liter water bottle, etc. banned?

Political posters in flex material are not penalised! So does it mean flex material is exempt selectively? Or is political fraternity exempt from discipline?

Do you mean to say citizens should carry steel vessels to buy milk, meat, fish, etc. all the way to their workplaces so that they can shop on their way back home after a long day?

Don't you think exempting branded packaged goods and foods in plastic is discriminatory to small businesses?

Such and many other doubts began circulating on WhatsApp as the plastic ban was announced by the State of Maharashtra.

If such confusion was expected by design as a strategy then it's a good move by the administrators.

Good because such confusion forces people to think intentionally as it has happened already. As a result, people have at least begun thinking of alternatives out of fear of punishment though.

But targeting to achieve any (Zero-Plastic kind of) result measures without enabling the corresponding processes in place always have had serious implications with associated costs. Time and again this has got proven by itself.

In Nagpur, for instance, out of fear some people got rid of banned plastic bags by dumping them in rivulets.

If such confusion, however, is by chance then there's a bigger worry.

Bigger worry because it might mean, there's a lack of well-designed time-bound plan, also lack of the design to execute the ban itself holistically expecting it to aim Zero-Plastic target! In fact, adequate design learning from others (especially from countries successful in handling the plastic menace) is the first step in any such project. Bigger worry because lack of meticulousness in such initiatives usually leads to sub-optimisation harming the nobility of the purpose itself.

Unless every stakeholder gets mindfully engaged in averting the plastic-pollution-menace and the forthcoming disaster therefrom, the costs of the short term approaches towards it will get out of control. There's a need to take a relook at it in order to scrutinise the blanket-ban, if any, if not done so already.

Better also to be innovative on making the recycling more effective. Not only does the arrest of the plastic need to be at manufacturing level but also at desire-based or want-based consumption level. A pictorial do-don't will go a long way in preventing the confusion among the users and the administrators.

In any case the Zero-Plastic target is an arduous task at least in near future since for some applications cost effective substitute is yet to get invented.

Sustainability of the planet is the priority number-1 but the ban itself needs to be sustainable for that!

Here's my 140 character Tweet plan of action (POA) revolving around the Kaizen technique: *MISER!

Be a MISER stakeholder on Plastic!

MINDFUL of enabling process to evolve Zero-Plastic result!
INNOVATE packaging!
SCRUTINISE blanket-ban!
ELIMINATE production!
REDUCE, REUSE! Collect to RECYCLE!

(*MISER: Minimise. Improvise. Simplify. Eliminate. Reduce.)