Is the Free cheap?

It was TIMES (of India sponsored) SANSKRUTI time!

Thane loves anything to do with cultural (Sanskruti for Culture in Sanskrit and most other Indian local languages) activities.

Since a last couple of years, the year had been beginning in Thane with a big bang of cultural programmes representing art from across India... be it 'Kesariya' song from Rajasthan in West to Manipuri dance from the far East and Kashmiri culinary art from the North to the Katthakali dance from deep South.

Among many other programmes to choose from, the celebrity stage was to present the pop-queen of India 'Padma Shri' Usha Utthup on the last day.

I was left with a coupe of tickets extra since my friend couldn't join due to his last minute commitment.

So I offered the tickets to someone standing near the entry gate eagerly trying to catch a glimpse of the stage: I've got this extra. Do you want it? Free!

He looked at me with suspicion about the 'Free' and turned his head away.

Then I walked a little. Asked a middle aged couple if they were interested. It's Free I said. They shrugged as if I was asking for some favour.

Finally I found two young (college going) boys: I've got this extra. Do you want it? This time I asked without saying it's Free. My intention was not to make it appear Free.

Momentary reply was No cash sir!

Then I explained to them (why) it's Free.

They grabbed it. I'm sure they must have enjoyed their grandma like Usha Utthup sporting her trademark Bindi on the forehead with a look of a lady in her 30s, with a soulful but melodious and powerful voice none less than that of a 17 year young girl.

Hats off to the talented 'Padma Shri' Usha Utthup for her lovely-n-lively presentation to a jam-packed 10,000 strong audience at the age of 70 with the same enthusiasm and passion that of (her own) 1970's.

The questions that brushed my mind were:

Although it may be inconsequential to the first couple of pairs to whom I asked, they lost the 'Free' opportunity that came walking over to them just because they didn't hear attentively to what I offered. Poor communication (perhaps from me)! Perhaps I asked wrong questions!

Often people tend to perceive before even they hear completely! 

People hardly listen actively!!

People have no value for the things they get free and get them without any efforts!

People choose to think Free is (always) Cheap!

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

Listen To The Iceberg Beyond Tip

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? 

Take your career in fast lane!

Talent-Is-Latent: Enable It! 

Crying? It's time to kick-it-off! 

Is Your Job Boring!

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up? 
Eternally Happy! 
Take Habits For A Ride 
Are You Good If Others Are Bad?  
Want Need-Or-Want 
Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like?

Digitally Lean, Physically Fat

Just heard from a marketer about Digital-Lean! that he was trying to sell. No wonder there's a pull of  IOT (internet-of-things) all around now.

Seems to be a new jargon though, like Lean-Six-Sigma that evolved while maturing the Six-Sigma initiative of Motorola, GE, et all.

Such jargons that evolve, rather 'revolve' at regular intervals confuse the practitioners.
That was a point of my contention in one of my books 'Stay Lean, Make Planet Green".

Proponents of various management techniques (under jargons) such as BPR, TOC, 6-Sigma, etc. in past advocated hardly anything different than the original JIT thinking itself of Toyota to attain Lean. Nothing is wrong with these approaches except a major difference that the same proponents tried to catch up with either under different jargons or under a few augmented versions.

Most of these approaches focused on working top-down on obviously visible problems (as the links of a steel chain, say, that had already given way) that had reached a crisis stage. Naturally such crises problems demand radical changes. JIT philosophy instead, as a preventive culture, exposes potentially weak (but so far ‘invisible’) links before they actually turn weak and before they give way.  

Apart from the above, the 'people' aspect of problem solving (the Hitozukuri) also got ignored in the former approaches in their enthusiasm to invent newer mathematical models, tools and jargons.

Behavioral part of JIT instead builds and nurtures an army of soldiers capable of exposing and fighting potential weak links. Thereby it preempts failure of the process of making and delivering (the Monozukuri) of the offering.

So, the Fad-of-the-day, Tool-focus is the culprit of confusion, if any.  

Only when it was realized that the 'Toyota approach' is 'much more proactive' and ‘heart-full’ than what met the eyes and gray cells of a few fly-by-night consultants on a study mission to Japan, that the ‘augmented’ versions of their management tools appeared on the horizon of  the management world.

After the Re-engineering as a tool; to BPR; to Re-engineering of Management, etc.; the latest example is the re-christening of highly digitized statistical '6-Sigma'! It was jargonised as 'Lean-6-Sigma' having realized that '6-Sigma' as a measurement was already in use at Toyota. 

Exactly on similar lines, Toyota already had its very own invented SIS, strategic information systems technology in the 1960s. Toyota did the IOT (internet of things) in its own way then. It had its own towers in order to telegraphically release management information so that they could respond to market needs just-in-time, JIT.

They knew that information systems with speed is an integral part in order to be a leaner company. So wherever possible and needed, it was a necessity to get over the bottleneck speed of  physical systems by installing digital systems in order to exchange information in real time as far as possible.

So to that extent, to the extent of available soft technology then, the lean journey at Toyota was already digital.

Today when I heard about Digital-Lean! I thought of cautioning the practitioners not to confuse themselves with it as a jargon. If they do, then the fate could be that the Digital! may get installed but the Lean! may still stay flat and Fat! or rather Fatter! to the extent of the investments made in going  Digital! without correspondingly justified returns (or benefits) over it.

Know that digital was always existing. It's its continual improvement and its development that the today's developed level of Digital! needs to be looked at. It is an integral part of the lean journey anyway.

For instance, going digital in today's context may call for aiding the physical Kanban by E-Kanban wherever possible in support of the physical Kanban (rather than to replace it). The E-Kanban is about the electronic information system about 'when and where to deliver what and how much, etc.' It was earlier existing anyway in terms of a physical card, physical stock management fixtures of needed material and corresponding visuals, etc. Both are supposed to prevent excessive stocks & the resulting wastes!

Another example of going digital in today's context is about the use of RFID tags to sense movements of physical resources during their flow across the supply chain or the value chain.

Or it's about digitally monitoring of the conditions and status of the resources like done using sensors to monitor equipment conditions on-line and using them for decision making (using advanced analytics and statistical analysis of big data) in real time.

But of what use the borrowed 'digital' brain (the digital analytics of data in soft form) is when the real brain 'walks over' (ignores) the real hard data: The data or the hard facts about the probable abnormalities in their seed stage that could be seen, heard, felt, tested (and also tasted) and sensitized in real time?

That's exactly where the caution is.    

                  

                    'Smile-day’ The October 2^nd: Smile!

That's where there's scope for the Digital! to get decimated to be a 'Fad' or 'Flavor of the month', 'Flavor of the week' or 'Flavor of the day', etc. It's much like celebrating such ‘fad-days’ as jargons if people celebrate going Digital! but in reality stay Fat! with problems surrounding them!

Rather than advocating 'fads', a good coach called Sensei in Japanese would handhold, guide and steer the learner to clear off anything that's unsustainable.

So let Digital Lean! evolve and get installed as a matter of strategic need rather than it getting installed to appear modern.

Otherwise it might get easier to digitally smile (as a typical robot would do) while in real world it might still be a physical frown. 

It happened once while I was flying on an airlines! The choice of seat with it's features was a 'window-seat', perfect as it was shown on the computer screen while booking the ticket. But in reality the seat did not have a window at all! 

The last seats normally don't have a window!!

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

Kaizen, even in air!

Digital Corporate Yoga

In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !! 
Soon... Waste-to-Eat ! Sea-to-Drink !!
About my first book World-Of-Kaizen

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality! 
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers
Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow 
How To Make A Difference 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
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 
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?
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

Judge If It's Paralysis-By-Analysis

A mother instructs her child not to run too fast, not to run outside the given track in the garden, not to run without sports shoes, etc. etc.

She'd seen the child injuring herself earlier in absence of observing the discipline of 'not-to' such as above.

Another mother sitting next to her appeared appreciative. She didn't hesitate to share her experience of how her non-observant son had damaged his hamstring muscles irreversibly. She was concerned that her son had been living with the pain since years.

The pathological and clinical tests, investigations, analysis and treatments are now companion for the lifetime, she said.

Question is, is the former approach, the 'nagging' one, correct?

Obviously, but not so obviously!

Former approach can be called as judgemental based on seed-stage deviations that probably were thought to lead to major deviations or crises if not kept under check. It's about commonsensical risk management.

Latter one, the one that involved accidents and treatments, is an analytical approach that reactively analyses major deviations already occurred.

Former one is based on real-time (genjitsu) observations of real-facts-and-conditions of things and people (gembutsu) at the real-place of happening (gemba).

Latter one usually needs extensive analysis. At times it leads to 'paralysis-by-analysis' that necessitates intervention of judgement in order to unlock the tie and move ahead.

Former approach is easy, fast and proactive although seems to appear like 'nagging'. Of course it is expected to incorporate factual learnings from past.

The latter is difficult, time-consuming and reactive one. It's usually a post-mortem that often necessitates involvement of specialist agencies. Most often it results into repentance of irreversible damage and costs.

Importance of structured analysis however can't be undermined particularly if it's for exploratory or descriptive research in order to study cause-effect relationship of an hypothesis on an observed phenomenon in real-time (genjitsu) or for future innovations.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

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
Take Habits For A Ride
How Many Times Do You Wash Hands
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 !
A Ride To Hell
Make checklists your friends
Nauseous Communication Gaps
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam!
Will It Work Here? 
That's How Morons Work
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass 
Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save! 
Waste-to-eat-sea-to-drink
Don't Save Water on Holi-day
Be Shame-less Or Water-less

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

Be Bug-Be Or Big-Be ?

Overcome The Tyranny Of Small Minds 

While reading the above spiritual article, it occurred to me that there could be four kinds of people in the corresponding context.

1/ Big people with small mind: Bugger-Be !
2/ Big people with big mind: Bigger-Be !
3/ Small people with small mind: Bug-Be !
4/ Small people with big mind: Big-Be !

First category of people (read the corresponding blogpost on the link) is the one that is powerful enough but doesn't bother about other's presence. Bugger-Be doesn't make contribution to other's rightful needs nor to the societal ones.

Last category of people (the so-called small people with big mind: Big-Be !) is the one that is not powerful at all. But it empowers itself in order to bother about other's presence. It also makes diffrence to the small world around them by contributing to other's rightful needs. Through their value adding actions, it makes others think and act!

It's actually the Big-people (the first and the third category) that can make significant diffrence to others and to the socio-economic needs.

Wheel-of-Worldly activity, however, is somehow getting managed because of presence of the last category of ('small') people. The wheel might run faster (and in a better fashion) if the quadrant of the first category of people reduces and the size of second category of people (Bigger-Be With Big-Mind) increases.

Easiest way for the Bugger-Be to turn into a Bigger-Be in this context is to copy actions of the last category: That of the Big-Be !

Big-people do have power to influence bigger circles of people at a bigger scale!!

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

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? 

Andon For Visibility Before 'Andolan'

It was a huge protest (Andolan!) after the infamous Delhi gang-rape in a moving bus and another one in Mumbai. As a reactive fallout, one of the actions was strict adherence to the rule: Windows of all vehicles should be transparent.

This action is to bring out visibility, failure of which might result into crises such as above. Focus of this blogpost is to bring out it's importance generically.

Imagine there's no timetable, be it of a train or an exam or of a training classroom. And one is forced to keep guessing time of arrival/departure of a train or keep shuttling around notice boards that are usually difficult to locate/access if at all they exist at corresponding venues. 

Imagine seat numbers not marked inside an outstation train compartment or a theater.

Imagine a speed-breaker is not painted and you bump into it at 40 kilometres per hour.

Above situations may be rare in some cases. Visual systems in above cases in particular might have got more or less matured due to fear of resultant chaos. You are lucky if bogie of a train arrives at a designated location-mark on the platform. Now-a-days (inside a local train as well) they announce arrival of stations. You are lucky if 'sometimes it functions'.

In organised workplaces such Visual Systems are known as Andon: A visual communication management innovation perfected by Toyota. An example closer to you might be a display of token number in a bank alongwith an announcement and hooter sound to attract attention.

But why aren't versions on similar lines practised in other professions and places? There's a tremendous scope for bringing out visibility in order to make work predictable, prevention oriented and simpler in many other situations. The productivity benefits to customers thereby outweigh the costs of doing so in geometric progression.

A medical professional, for instance, might be able to impress upon a patient about speedy recovery if he hands over a Do-Don't instruction to be adhered to (featuring a sketch on how they work).

An electrician could display some sketches of the Do-Don'ts in case of a trouble that he shoots at. An accident may get preempted or a breakdown may get attended to faster with such Do-Don't lessons.

A computer mechanic could display, say, a sketch indicating where frequently possible loose connections can be mended autonomously.

A 'customer service' window could have 'steps' displayed with necessary sketches in case of actions to be taken during 'what-if' situations. Their office inside has signboards, labels on racks, files, etc. instead of a mess. Corresponding delays may get eliminated thereby.

An organisation, for instance, could make it's career-plan-ladder self-explanatorily 'visual'. Attrition may get reduced as a result.

Absence of practices such as above are examples of poor visibility prevalent in typically complacent organisations.

Sometimes lack of visibility is inadvertent. Sometimes it's intentional in order to protect vested interests.

Poor visibility breeds abnormalities such as defects, delays, corruption,etc. Ultimately it leads to less optimised performance as well as spoiled relationships.

That's why excellent workplaces promote visibility in innovative ways by using graphs, pictures, radiant colors, blinking lights, hooters, etc. as done in Seiton practice of Five-S's. 

They know that Andon For Visibility is better than resultant Andolan due to lack of it. They know that it's as dangerous as driving on a heavily raining day with a very very poor visibility as low as a couple of meters.

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

That's How Morons Work
Functional-Aesthetics
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
Take Habits For A Ride
Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow
How To Make A Difference
A Ride To Hell
Make checklists your friends 
Drove To Hell ... Almost !
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
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Technology in-place, security dis-placed
Succession-Plans In Fast Lane! 
Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?
How Many Times Do You Wash Hands
What You See Isn't What's Made
Am I 'Short-sighted' or 'Long-sighted'? 
Beware Of Political-Presentations
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings
Are You Good If Others Are Bad? 
 

Are You Good If Others Are Bad?

Last week just before conducting an audit for Continual Improvement Culture (CIC) in one of the companies in Western India, I asked the audience to self-assess and give a score for CIC at their workplace.

Few participants gave a score of 10%. Few others rated themselves on higher side with a score of 40% although they had just begun attempting the CIC initiative.

I proposed claps for those who rated themselves on lower side. Why? Because their score wasn't to underestimate themselves but it intended to show further scope for improvement.

A headline in Loksatta newspaper reminded me of this incidence. The news reported a minister (in a conference on Change) challenging Gujarat state touted as being ahead of Maharashtra.

How do you think progress of an individual or an entity be measured? What should be the measures of performance to decide who's ahead of whom?

Is it the result or the means to it or a combination of both? The means inter alia may include attitude, continuity and consistency of approach to help achieve the desired results.

If it was results alone then it's the Hare that would always get declared as winner. If it was the latter then it's the Tortoise that would always get declared as winner.

Actually it should be a combination of both. In addition it should include the rate of efforts applied while trying for enhanced rate of improvement. Outcome sometimes may be failures (to learn from) rather than expected improvements per-se though.

If you think this approach to measurement is right then the challenge reported in above headline seems confusing.

If the claim therein were to be right then:
1/ The rate of improvement of infrastructure in Maharashtra should have outpaced the rate of urbanization that of 50% as quoted by one of the economists during the same conference.
2/ The industry scions wouldn't have 'complained' of poor infrastructure and poor assistance by government as reported in the same conference.

Anyway, the point of contention is: isn't it in your own interest to compete with your ownself than with others. Its not necessary to show others down to show ownself up.

If at all one wishes to compare with others it should be with an intention to stretch own benchmarks. It should be to find out how far and how fast one needs to go in comparison and by what approach.

In short, it's good to think and take positive steps rather than otherwise.

It's good to aim at 'sky' as your template of destination. It's better than looking down upon other's garden to show your's to be better and bigger.

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

Nauseous Communication Gaps

Put internet ON, she said.
Rushing to the WI-FI switch he replied: It is already ON.
Put it ON on the tablet I mean, she said
You should have said so specifically, he said while enabling WI-FI on tablet.

After a while accessing the tablet she asked: Why isn't the browser ON?

You told me to put the WI-FI ON on the tablet, he exclaimed.

Oh My God, you can't even do these simple things, she murmured. My reply to the email is already delayed by half an hour!

She appeared to exclaim at his weak IQ on jargons. Actually she wanted the Chrome browser ON. Due to lack of alignment on 'what to call what?' he went around doing rework (work to repair defect).

Often such communication gaps make work difficult in daily life. Not only do defective communications bring down expected performance levels but they also hurt egos being taken for granted. 

In fact, most problems in this world crop up due to communication gaps. Sometimes though gaps might have to be created strategically for common good as a Krishna tactic.

What's the solution?

Good to have a clear, concise and common understanding on terminology people use at a given workplace in particular. Say, 'WI-FI' for WI-FI switch, 'Internet' to enable WI-FI on tablet and Browser by its name 'Chrome', 'Dolphin', etc. as was needed in the above case. There should have been a common understanding on 'what to call what?' without diluting or mingling them.

In case of a workplace, terminology such as above might need complimentary labeling of a given equipment. Creative signboards might be needed for various spaces going beyond the conventional ones such as say a 'toilet', or a 'washroom', etc. They should visibly bring out differences among them with the help of icons or pictures or sketches.

Labeling, Signboards, etc. are a Seiton practice done in Five-S tool of Kaizen in order to remove ambiguities. They bring in uniqueness in communication. Defence services in particular use such uniqueness  very powerfully in order to prevent crisis from emerging in absence of that or in order to execute orders in split-seconds without defects in communication.

Bringing in common understanding such as above with a corresponding procedure in manual for work standards is actually a part of creating highly standardized workplace.

It's a must to reduce communication gaps at work. It's a must at home also in order to improve work although while doing so one might appear as an unreasonable, idiosyncratic fellow.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

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

Kaizen-on-Crisis-Situations

Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !

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

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 

Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam!

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

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

Discrimination Cremated! But How Long? 

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow

How To Make A Difference

A Ride To Hell

That's How Morons Work

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?

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

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis

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

Do You Ask Right Questions? 

How Many Times Do You Wash Hands

Make checklists your friends

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?