Talent-Is-Latent: Enable It!

Business of the company that I went to assess was driven by research and development (R&D), high obsolescence of products and uniquely varying needs of customers.

High customisation was the order of the day. That in turn called for high level of customer contact and listening skills in order to capture voice of customer (VOC) precisely. This obviously calls for leadership skills to get it made in-house and get delivered before competition could do.

The need may appear unique to the company. But this in fact is the order of the day for most suppliers given the ever dynamic market place characterised by VUCA¹ and high level of competition.

While CEO of the company was keen to improve business processes to help retain their position externally, simultaneous concern was about 'attrition' he had been facing. Recently 'bought' talent also left, he complained.

Won't the training go waste under such circumstances, he feared.

Between the trained people leaving and untrained ones living (with you) for ever with their errors to annoy you, what is better?

Education, training and coaching builds people. Between 'Building' relevant skills captively versus installing 'Bought' skills as a foreign particle, what is preferable?

Companies need to understand that building pipelines of people is no less important alongside building the pipelines of products. In fact the former should be their prime agenda.

Why do people quit?
Especially those with high aspirations definitely do.

In fact, those without aspirations too move in absence of a conducive environment to hold them back. One of the major reasons of the other party leaving is indifferent treatment be it to people in general or to a customer in particular. 

So one of the most important portfolios of the CEO is not to leave HRD² to HR-D (HR-Department). Instead, creating culture that 'compels' people to stay back should be her hands-on agenda driven personally.

One can't ignore the fact that even seemingly dumb people have intelligence, so-called average though. It usually stays latent or dormant until challenged.

Leaving aside their own ego, superiors just need to facilitate unleashing it by making them feel confident and help them to realise their self-worth. They just need to be given an opportunity and a platform to shine. This can be done by encouraging them to express their thoughts, experiment corresponding changes in their work area without fear-of-failure.

It's a process of enabling³ people.

Once done, latent talent can be seen flowering and flowing-in smoothly. The pipeline of HRD can be seen getting 'built' that not only ensures employee retention but also creates a pull.

How to enable³ people?

First of all collect (Not Buy!) people who have fire-in-their-belly although with not-very-high aspirations and high-qualifications. Then enable³ them step-by-step. 

Step-1. Establish your credibility by demonstrating your actions on what you speak.

Step-2. Explain your expectations from them. Communicate your urgency and seriousness through complimentary evidences.

Step-3. Educate, train and coach them.

Education is to help them acquire goal specific knowledge.
Training is to help them acquire goal specific and industry-relevant, organisation-specific skills.
Coaching is to help them on 'Do-Why' and 'Do-How' in order to apply the knowledge and skills to enthusiastically achieve the goals of common good.

Step-4. Encourage, inspire & motivate to keep them engaged in the process. Give them a platform to showcase their talent and to shine.

Step-5. Empower them: Give them freedom-within-a-framework to experiment without fear of failures.

Step-6. Ennoble, means dignify them with high respect. Recognize & reward their achievements by actively listening to their efforts.

Step-7. Repeat the enablement cycle to take up higher challenges.

'Building' people rather than 'Buying' them is in a true sense creating a learning organisation as companies like Toyota do. It's their company level strategy driven by the top rather than merely a HRD² strategy left to the HR-D.

Footnotes:
1. VUCA: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous. A term of military origin that represents warfare environment.
2. HRD: Human Resource Development.
3. Model 7-E© from Book "How To Enable A Change Process? Start-From-Self". Author: Shyam Talawadekar.

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

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily
Does recognition really matter
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Do you know a Best-Career-Plan
Take your career in fast lane!
Succession-Plans In Fast Lane! 
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?
Make checklists your friends 
Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow
How To Make A Difference
Big-Be Or Bug-Be !
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality!
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers

Simplicity Of Theory Of Relativity

My google map was not responding.
Public transport was not in sight.

How far is Hill road, I asked at the roadside stall. 
"15 minutes", the stall-owner replied.

Just to reconfirm I asked same question to a person parking car nearby. It's hardly 2 minutes: He replied.

I was a bit confused. 15 minutes or 2 minutes?

After a couple of minutes walk, I asked same question to a lady waiting to cross the road.
She replied: It's about 30 minutes.

More confusion: 30 minutes after 5 minutes walk?

I continued walking down.
After 10 minutes walk, I asked someone for a landmark for the place I had reached. I thought someone could pick me up from there in order to reach me to my destination.

The person couldn't tell me one. She kept looking at the cow instead I was standing next to. Luckily she didn't tell me the cow as the landmark. Otherwise I would've ended up looking at 'google-guy' (snail) instead of google map. (Cow is pronounced as Guy in vernacular.)

The point I am driving home is it's all relative!
Long ago Einstein brought the concept of relativity. 
Perhaps by car it was 2 minutes.
By walk it was 15 minutes.
And by the walking speed of the lady it was 30 minutes.
Probably the lady was right. She was pregnant.

The only thing wrong was I didn't confirm the mode of travel. Nor did they specify.
Actually I was wrong not to ask right question.

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

Do You Ask Right Questions? 
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully
Make checklists your friends
Love is Care.. Care is Love ! 
Take Habits For A Ride
Are You Good If Others Are Bad? 
Bust-wants, Boom-needs
Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture
I am afraid ! What do I do !!
Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order
Success Or Failure: What Do You Like?
Fearful Death-Of-Birth !
Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell Me Hey Raam!

Beware Of Political-Presentations

At the time of elections they do two things.

One, political leaders make new promises without timeline to their election manifesto. Their tenure is supposed to be presumed as timeline without any commitment from the politicians. Tenure for National and
State level is five years.

Two, they show their performance as 'achieved' without making any reference to measures of the last manifesto: Measures such as what was promised, how much, of what specifications, within what timeline.

It's but natural that fake statements make up for their speeches. They manage the 'show' by 'show'ing sundries such as facades of rail-station's entries, an escalator here, a footover bridge there, etc. They put their 'best foot forward'. No reference to whether that was a priority nor whether it was in the corresponding election manifesto.

Sometimes the projects 'show'n as complete happen to be the ones that were begun during a couple of tenures before the current election. The one that was supposed to have been completed in the first tenure itself, got delayed until the third or fourth tenure and hence became eligible to be 'show'n.

It's like a local train that was supposed to reach destination within a couple of hours but eventually reached after a couple of days. Smart voters do not turn blind eye to that.

However the current politician does take advantage of marketing it as his own achievement. Credit grabbing! Funny part is sometimes out of their enthusiasm they even end up showing pictures of a rail-line of a railway station as 'achievement'. That had anyway been existing their for ages.

Although this might appear to be a bit of an exaggeration that's the way Indian political presentations are; aesthetic than functional. Look at newspaper advertisements and publicity material during election-time if you don't believe this.

What a good presentation be like?

A good presentation should be a no-presentation at all. 

Real work doesn't need 'presentation'. The surroundings, the workplace (Gemba) itself and each real-element of the process (Gembutsu) 'speaks' the 'dynamism' of the change in realtime (Genjitsu).

If for instance a presentation is needed for commercial reasons, as a checklist it should contain business like dimensions such as before-after pictures of improvements and achievements till-date, period-to-date (PTD), year-to-date (YTD), month-to-date (MTD), week-to-date (WTD), etc. 

Not only it should contain recognition and review of planned versus actual 'results' but also a log of the 'roles performed' and efforts taken during the 'means to the results'. The achievements be compared with promises in terms of productivity and quality-of-life measures, timelines vis-a-vis promises made with corresponding priorities.

I think even a hundredth of candidates won't be able to contest elections if they do so. That's why they don't do so. Rather they make it a 'political-show'.

Story in some corporate houses is no different. Sometimes their 'presentations' are 'better' than politician's ones especially during appraisal times.

Beware: Take a close look at the 'other foot' as well since the 'best foot forward' can be deceptively attractive! A way to do it is believing your eyes than ears. Make deep diving at the real-site (Gemba) 'to see changes' as primary rather than 'hear' presentations away from Gemba. 

Create awareness to compare 'what-was-planned', 'what-it-was' with the improved 'what-it-is-now' and 'what-it-could-be' next. And then present it with their timelines and multi-dimensional (holistic) measures.

Bring out vividly 'what-changes' were driven at root-cause level in order to make the change sustainable.

It does motivate, recognise and reinforce desired behavior of the people who matter if one measures achievements with correct reference lines. 

Otherwise it's sure to promote fire-fighters while demotivating the fire-preventers: A culture of promoting fire-fighting rather than fire-prevention! 

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Elections on anvil for voters' will

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

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

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-1) 

Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-2) 

Discrimination Cremated! But How Long? 

How To Make A Difference

Big-Be Or Bug-Be !

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

That's how some business partnerships work

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !

Talk In Order To Listen! 

What You See Isn't What's Made

ABCD of India Shining

Do You Ask Right Questions?

Questioning is an art!
Questions decide answers!
Right questions may get right answers!
Wrong questions may get wrong answers!

Questions decide desired outcomes and at times cause them too!
Questions make or break relationships! 
Right questions build relationships! Wrong ones break them!!

Other day we decided to take an earlier show of newly released film "Krrishh-3". Our maid was late to work. Wishing to reorganise her work my wife called her up to ensure that she arrives early enough before we depart for the show.

Which one of the following questions would have been right to choose from? Reason it out why?

1/ What time are you reaching? Or,
2/ Are you coming to work?

You will be benefited if you stretch your intellect before answering.

Think it out before reading next paragraph.

Taking her master for granted the second question gives maid an undesired option to say NO.
The only option first question gives her perhaps is to confirm the rescheduled time she would be reaching to work. Here there is no option for her to manipulate an undesired option to say NO.

Final outcome of course depends on prevailing demand-and-supply conditions. But by choosing the right question to ask you stand in a better position to influence the outcome in your favor.

1/ First question is of open-ended type. It could have had more than one answers of her choice such as 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 6 p.m. etc.
2/ Second question is of close-ended type because it has primarily limited replies: YES or NO.
3a/ First question is also a combination of leading-type and open-endeded type. Because it has a 'lead' built into it that presumes the maid is already on-way to work.
3b/ If first question's contents are modified to say "You are reaching by 2 p.m. right? it becomes a leading close-endeded type because it limits replies to YES or NO. But still it's an undesired option because she may choose NO.

In case of the situation under consideration, the open-ended question might trigger desirable answers if the contents are modified to say: I am leaving at 2 p.m. What time are you reaching?

What is the learning

It's important to know which type of question to use when?
How to frame contents of questions?
How many questions to use in what permutations and combinations thereof?

As done in Behavior Modulation Technique (BMT) or TA, answers to above questions depend upon what outcome you wish or want to articulate, not to manipulate though. At times you may have to use a checklist of questions to choose from for a given situation. Number of questions should be less (not more than a couple of them) although complicated situations may warrant more of them.

Difficult problem situations may need a judicious mix of choosing other type of questions as well alongwith the open-ended and close-ended ones. I will deal with them in other blogposts. They could be:

4/ Probing-type,
5/ Reflective-type, 
6/ Hypothetical type and even
7/ Stupid-questions (at times)

First two types, open-ended and close-ended ones, are usually useful in most situations: Be it Personal, Social or Business situations including in negotiations and also while handling customer grievances.

Primary purpose of open-ended questions is to extract information.
Primary purpose of close-ended questions is to limit alternatives.

So, think before you ask! Think of contents before you talk!!

If you don't ask right questions you do deserve a wrong or an undesired outcome!!!

Footnote
TA: Transactional Analysis

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

In A Big-Problem?: Wear Hats To Solve It !!

Life is about tackling gaps! Gaps among:

1/ what we 'want' (i.e. what we desire to have),
2/ what we 'need' (i.e. what we need to survive) and
3/ what we 'have' (i.e. our current situation).

These gaps are referred to as problems in day to day language. Gaps may be in terms of physical, mental, financial, social or spiritual health, both at individual & societal level.

So life is about overcoming various hurdles or problem-situations in order to bridge gaps at individual & societal level. In positive sense, life is about opportunities to add value to self & society while tackling problematic situations.

This post is an extension of my blog-post titled In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !! In that post, I dwelled upon the fact that 'dwelling' provides 'adult-in-you' to 'respect' others like 'adults'. It provides an opportunity to look at a given problematic situation in totality. It allows asking 'what-when-where-who-why-how' questions to it's components without a bias.

This ability is particularly important in order to solve chronic problems as well as crises and larger issues.

Sometimes acknowledging a problem as a problem itself is a problem as in P.J. (Poor Joke) in punchline of this blog where Mr Foolhardy falls again-and-again at same place! Like Foolhardy, some do 'love falling' and getting 'cured again-n-again' rather than taking preventive 'care'. Some hardly go beyond first-aid attitude during entire lifetime. 

Why is this so? What should the case really be?

One reason may be lack of respecting discipline: the undesirable habit nurtured by both, one's own parent-ego and child-ego. Other one may be lack of training  the adult-ego to solve complicated problems.

One way to overcome the former reason is instituting strict disciplinary measures as a stick on undesired behavior of parent-and-child-ego. The other way may be to install measures for attitudinal change so that adult-ego takes active charge of the situation to steer it to a desired one.

This blog-post is about tackling the latter i.e. training mind (the adult-ego) on importance of 'dwelling meaningfully' in order to improve effectiveness of problem solving.

Problem Solving Steps

Problems can be categorized in four quadrants based on combination of:

1/ ease or difficulty level of identifying them and/or their causes and
2/ ease or difficulty in finding and/or implementing countermeasures on them.

Difficult-Difficult-type problems in particular need to be resolved step-by-step by breaking them down into smaller stones so that prioritized one can be taken one at a time. It's like breaking a mountain over a period of time in steps of blasts in a typical mine and thereafter hammering the larger (post-blast) rocks into smaller stones with an objective of making them worthy of utility.

Need for undertaking logical steps with equanimity gets enhanced with rising level of difficulty to identify the problems and/or to resolve them.

 7-steps in the Plan-Do-Check-Act Improvement (Kaizen) Cycle are:

Plan Step-1: Define a problem or a goal to create an innovative utility-value

Plan Step-2: Observe gaps in the current situation with reference to the goal (This is done after the first-aid solution is put in place)

Plan Step-3: Analyse and find root-causes of the gaps

Plan Step-4: Plan countermeasures to prevent occurrence and recurrence of causes

Do Step-5: Implement countermeasures

Check Step-6: Study effect of the countermeasures 

Act Step-7: 7a/ Standardize so that favorable effects are sustained 

Step-7b: Rotate the above steps: 1/ until favorable effects are achieved in case of unfavorable effects, 2/ to attain higher levels in case of favorable effects, 3/ to take a new improvement goal

''Dwelling'' on a predefined agenda in each problem-solving-step allows flow of unbiased creative thoughts useful for complicated problem solving. It allows 'brain-writing' those. It involves 'speaking-to-self' by asking 'why-why & what-where-who-when-why-how' kind of questions and 'writing' the evolved thoughts. 

This is contrary to 'speaking-to-others' as in brain-storming. Such a 'don't-speak' rule wearing a pink-hat virtually to represent that the problem-solver is in 'dwelling-mode' allows flow of 'wild-thoughts' that otherwise may get killed as in brain-storming.

I have added the Pink-Hat as the 7th-Hat to Edward De Bono's idea of 6-Hats: White, Red, Green, Black, Yellow And Blue, each with a purpose.

The Pink-Hat as a common one represents 'brain-writing' activity as above in each of the 7-steps that I have connected to an appropriate hat each. Pink-Hat is used in combination with each of Bono's 6- hats primary to a corresponding step. Each hat forces adult-ego to focus primarily on the agenda predefined for that particular hat and that particular step.

In step-1, Pink-Hat begins with taking ('brain-writing') inventory of problems. Then a priority problem is picked up to solve. As stated earlier, Pink-Hat is used in each step in combination with corresponding hat of that step to 'brain-write'.

In step-2, White-Hat is used to find factual gaps in an unbiased manner.

In step-3, Red-Hat is used to find root-causes of the gaps without keeping any emotional attachment to the problem. 

In step-4, Green-Hat is used to find alternative ideas (innovative countermeasures) to arrest root-causes.

In step-5, Black-Hat is used to critically assess risk while innovatively implementing ideas (countermeasures) .

In step-6, Yellow-Hat is used to assess benefits of the countermeasures taken.

In step-7, Blue-Hat is used to take an overview in an unbiased manner.

Going back to the earlier blog-post, the problem therein that of locked-door not opening was Easy-Easy-type. However applying structured steps as above could have yielded additional opportunities as follows over and above the first-aid solution that 'clicked' then:

1/ Create a 'how-to' operating-procedure for odd-season working of equipment,
2/ Create a 'checklist' to prevent abnormal behavior of equipment in odd-season,
3/ Create an innovative-design or material for the door and lock capable of handling abnormal conditions.

So one can imagine the potential and impact of application of hats in structured steps in case of  Easy-Difficult-type, Difficult-Easy-type and in particular that of Difficult-Difficult-type chronic and complicated crises situations.

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

Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 

Old-Problems, New-Reasons !

Ant Knocks Elephant Down 
Will It Work Here?
Can-changing-thoughts-change-nation?
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 ! 
Do You Ask Right Questions?
Am I 'Short-sighted' or 'Long-sighted'? 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Comprehensive-Strategic-Audits

Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
When Safety Becomes Sorry 
Drove To Hell ... Almost !  
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !!
Part-1
In-big-problem? Wear-hats-to-solve-it! Part-2
How To Make A Difference
Big-Be Or Bug-Be !
Make checklists your friends
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
That's How Morons Work
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable
Waste-to-eat-sea-to-drink

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

Make checklists your friends

For some reason I wanted to close savings account operated by three-joint-holders; me,  my wife and my son based more than 500 kilometers away from us.

Bank officer checked our account and advised that all the three holders must sign an account-closing form. Accordingly, my son collected a blank form locally and couriered it to me. We signed it and went to submit it to the bank.

The bank officer says: You should have closed the fixed deposits linked with the account before closing the savings account.

How can you expect customer to know this technical procedure?

"I am sorry madam, but I should have told you about this", apologizes the officer.

Damage is already done: rework, delay, etc.
Real apology could have been the officer going beyond first-aid that of giving additional form in above case.

Why can't people use simple checklists associated with a given step in a process or a procedure such as (titled) 'Checklist items to check before closing a savings account' in above case.

But yes! This is what happened in a leading private sector bank in India. In fact, the technology they already had with them could have been harnessed to create a mistake-proof pop-up (as a Pokayoke Kaizen as in Japanese-Management or rather The Toyota-Way to work). It should have reminded the user to 'check' the items in-lieu of the manual 'checklist' as above.

Why do people over-depend on their memory? Why can't they reserve it as a ram (in computer) for processing rather than to memorize?

Same was the case in a leading telephone company. The customer attendant asked me to wait because he didn't know exact details of the 'plan on offer'.

After 10-minutes waiting, a spiky-hair-styled man walked in, 'smelling' cigarette as he explained the plan without even looking at computer or a paper. "Leaflet stock-out" was the reply when asked.

He was touted as a 'memory-freak'. Perhaps he too seemed to enjoy it taking it as a pride.
A false pride seemed to got nurtured by himself or by people surrounding him at home or at work.

While writing this blogpost, a service mechanic from the above telephone company enters my home with 'smelling socks'. Had the smell been little stronger, I would have vomited if not fainted.

An excellent company would keep and train their visiting staff on a 'Do-Don't Checklist such as follows:

Before entering Indian homes 

Don't gate-crash. Take appointment and be on time (not in-time). 
Press door bell just once. Don't keep it pressed too long. 
Gently knock the door if bell is non-functional. Don't hammer it impatiently (treating it like a nail). 
Wear identity card and show it. 

Remove shoes. Remove smelling socks. 

Greet before entering.
Don't keep your bags, tools, etc. on furniture.
Take permission before sitting on sofa.

Actively and completely listen to customer complaints. 
Check if job is completed to the customer's satisfaction.

I would like to add visual-aids in support of checklists wherever possible & in particular in support of the last point above.

Visual-aids such as in picture depict certain principles that can be practised to benefit in various situations. A typical visual-aid might contain a sketch sequencing a job to be done in order to prevent forgetfulness or might color-code wires to be connected in order to prevent wrong connections or might provide PEEP slots in a frequent-travelers bag, etc.

When there is a Place-(SLOT)-for-Everything and if Everything-is-(NOT)-in-Place (PEEP), the empty SLOT, if any, reminds user of the 'missing things'. This idea is a part of Five-S (Seiton) practice for continual improvement.

At individual level, a person with a passion to excel (and wishing not to regret the result of forgetfulness later) would keep an individualized 'Do-Don't Checklist & visual-aids' on him as and when needed, be it while going to the market or while going to work or play. He does this although others may consider this as an idiosyncratic practice.

At individual level, a person with a passion to excel (and wishing not to regret the result of forgetfulness later) would keep an individualized 'Do-Don't Checklist on him as and when needed, be it while going to the market or while going to work or play.

Like an enemy, memory behaves funny exactly when you are in need 

Like a friend-in-need, checklists make you productive indeed

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

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