Although steering is in your hands

"Pothole kills woman; daughter booked for driving bike rashly"!

The news has been making news on media and the more powerful social media in last couple of days.

The hue and cry forced authorities to take cognisance of the Voice-of-Customer and get back to business of governance.

One of the responses was apprehensive of the (road) "contractors having political clout" which is why the contractors go scot free. "They all do! how else can they charge huge money and yet the roads develop potholes within weeks? govt/babus dont care how long the roads stand quality test as long as tenders are passed and money changes hands!" the response said.

No doubt that the steering is in our hands which should be able to save us ourselves off from the extrinsic hurdles like the one making news above.

But there is certainly some truth in the response that referred to the "contractors having political clout". Many of them do have! The system helps them to do it by design! 

It's an open secret that the steps on the corresponding ladder are as follows:

1/ Corrupt and powerful political leaders promote their 'trusted' lieutenants (party workers) as contractors in partnership. This is especially rampant in municipalites and is perhaps the lowest organized entry point for would-be political leaders.

2/ The nexus earns high margins by delivering shoddy work (if at all they do) hand-in-gloves with corrupt Babus.

3/ Both finance themselves handsomely to the next election. You may see gold chains weighing in kilos around necks on various hoardings as an evidence.

4/ Both become more powerful and the cycle continues back to step-1 until the next generation or their kith and kins take over elections. You may see all of them together on hoardings including their "new born ones" now a days.

(Caveat.. There are good politicians, party workers as well as good Babus but very few in millions.)

What do you do now?

The steering to vote them out is still in our hands but it needs to be steered with more force than 'theirs'. Hope we're able to do so soon!

Until then good job done social media for good cause!

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