Difference between Ability, Capacity, Capability, Competency, & Excellence!

In business, we often take stock of materials and equipment meticulously but not that of the human skills with as much seriousness. We hear people say, I have able people but still don't get desired Performance.

Competency assessment and deployment is an important part of the job of leaders to get a desired level of Performance in a business setting. In order to do so, one must understand the difference between Ability, Capacity, Capability and the Competence.

As an example, one may say that, "I have the ability to write!"

But “How much can I write in what timeline?”

The ability (the skills) with a relevant measure to perform a given task or a process defines the capacity of a given person (just like that of an equipment) and in turn that of an entity. So one may say that my capacity to write is 50-words per minute (wpm) and I can keep writing for 1-hour at a stretch, say.

But “How much should I actually be able to write as per the demand of the situation?"

Say, the demand is to write 50-wpm for at least 2-hours at a stretch!

If I've the ability to improve to a level such that I can handle the gap between the demand and my current capacity level then I've the capability to perform at a raised level.

Can I win a competition of writing (speed & duration) though?

If I can challenge, compete & deliver the desired level of results (rather win the competition) in terms of quality and quantity successfully then "i am competent."

Accordingly, for Competency Assessment one may categorise employees as follows based on their competencies or the levels of their skills.

 

Five categories of employees based on their competency or skill levels to perform a job or a work are as follows.

 

1.  Novices! or Beginners! - Those who ‘don’t know’ How & Why of the job.

2.  Able! or Intermediates! - Those who ‘can do’ but ‘can’t deliver promises’.

3.  Capable! - Those who ‘can’ & improve ‘capacity level to deliver promises’.

4.  Competent! - Those who 'can troubleshoot & win' but ‘can’t transfer knowledge’.

5.  Experts! - Those who have ‘knowledge, can perform, troubleshoot, and coach others to make them competent'.

 

Table (from my book "TPM for Reliable and Just-In-Time Value Delivery to Customer") shows the evaluation criteria and corresponding training implications to graduate to a higher skill or competency level.

So how does one get performance!

The equation I've put in my book: "Ego + Ego: We Go! Behavior Modulation Techniques To Improve Kaizen Leadership, Performance & Negotiation Skills" is as follows.

With the understanding on the difference between Ability, Capacity, Capability and the Competence, I would like to revisit the above equation to get Performance as follows in order to get a Desired Level of Performance.

To get a Desired Level of Performance, it is the Capacity in place of Ability.

Now the equation looks like as follows:

Capacity + Motivation + Environmental nudges = Desired Performance

To get a Raised level of Performance, it is Capability in place of Capacity.

Now the equation looks like as follows:

Capability + Motivation + Environmental nudges = Raised level of Performance

To get a Benchmark level of Performance, it is Competence in place of Capability.

Now the equation looks like as follows:

Competence + Motivation + Environmental nudges = Benchmark levels of Performance

Believing in self to perform, planning meticulously and executing the plan to win is to lead one-self!

Helping and enabling others to do so & create more leaders is about the leadership without which the journey (as follows) to create 'benchmarks' and create 'excellent*' organisations could be a nightmare!

The Journey:

Beginner! (to) > Able! (to) > Capable! (to) > Competent! (to) > Excellent* Company!

(*10 out of 10 on a Radar* scale of 0-to-10)

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

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?

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

Can you do it like the likes of Suzuki and Toyota?

What is common between Maruti-Suzuki and your workplace?

A car every 12.5 seconds!
That’s what Maruti-Suzuki did in the year 2010!
There are plants around the world who may be making one every 1-second!!

What is important is answering the question, whether the corresponding plant are agile and flexible enough to adjust to the change in the rate of the demand from the market.

Yes companies like Suzuki and Toyota do it.
In their parlance this is called as running the plant by adjusting it to the tact time.

TACT is about ‘Time Allocated (by the customer) to Complete the Task’. During the process of fulfilling the customer demand, produce just-in-time (JIT) i.e. nothing more, nor less than what is desired by the customer. While doing so, their employees look for day-to-day problems as opportunities to improve and uproot the causes thereof to prevent their recurrence elsewhere as well.

In fact, not only Suzuki but many other excellent companies run their business learning from the TOYOTA (Kaizen Management) Way!

You can do it too!
You can create similar benefits specific to your business, customers and in fact for all the stakeholders as done by Suzuki and Toyota!!

The Kaizen way¹ of running an organisation is implemented there in a structured way.

Like in Maruti-Suzuki, Kaizen has improved quality and productivity in many organisations like Mahindra, TATA, etc. Kaizen made their processes leaner and faster to deliver in response to the ever-changing and pressing customer demands. It improved efficiency of (man, machine, material and space) resources, pruned  their costs besides achieving near-zero break-down, near-zero defectives and thereby near-zero customer complaint levels. All this is achieved at improved safety levels, reduced pollution and improved employee morale, motivation & involvement.

The journey (be it in manufacturing or service industries, from pin-making to air-lines or from hospitals to hotels) involves three stages.

First, the companies have to benchmark themselves against their past performance.
Then, they have to benchmark themselves against the best practices and companies in the world.
Third, the companies themselves have to become benchmarks worthy of emulation by others.
To achieve such a transformation, what is needed is making a beginning by transforming thoughts that you too can!

Also read a few relevant¹ blog-posts² hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or consider sharing this post.

Footnote-¹
Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so? 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable
When Safety Becomes Sorry
How Many Times Do You Wash Hands
Judge If It's Paralysis-By-Analysis

Make checklists your friends 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-nation?
In-big-problem-wear-hats-to-solve-it 
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 

Footnote-² ... Other relevant blogposts
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 

Old-Problems, New-Reasons !

Ant Knocks Elephant Down 
Will It Work Here?
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 ! 
ABCD of India Shining 
Do You Ask Right Questions?
Am I 'Short-sighted' or 'Long-sighted'? 

Who Comes First: Consumer Or Customer ? 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Comprehensive-Strategic-Audits

Being Perfect!

Hearing about a debate on 'being perfect',  I was reminded of a joke that was circulated on social media.

The preacher said, "There's no such thing as a perfect woman. Anybody present who has ever known a perfect woman, stand up."

Nobody stood up.

"Those who have ever known a perfect man, stand up."

One elderly gentleman stood up.

"Are you honestly saying you knew an absolutely perfect man?" he asked, somewhat amazed.

"Well now, I didn't know him personally," replied the little old man, "but I have heard a great deal about him. He was my wife's first husband."

Just as a spouse looks for a perfect partner, people expect others to be perfect. A boss expects her subordinates to be perfect and vice versa. Some people try to be perfectionists themselves though.

Nothing wrong in trying but one needs to be realistic.

Perfection is a concept. It's a moving target.

If someone misses two darts out of a hundred attempts on a bull's eye, perfection level to her may mean not over two darts missing out of a thousand and so on. For someone else it may mean, not over  two darts missing out of a ten thousand attempts.

It's a continuous process of improvising (Kaizen as in Japanese industry) once own (skill sets) accuracy and precision in doing so. Precision is about hitting at the same place in each successive attempt within a certain defined and accepted range. Accuracy is about hitting at the right place.

It's no different than a football player hitting the ball at the right time with right force to get it into the goal post successfully with an improved strike rate.

It's about continuous improvisation in each experiment, meticulously learning from past mistakes or errors of self as well as others in order to minimize them with a stretch goal strategy in order to hit within a narrower range than the last time.

So rather than expecting others to 'Be Perfect', looking for the evidence of this approach of 'being precise but accurately as an on-going journey' can be called as the journey towards 'Being Perfect'.

Vince Lombardi Jr.rightly says, "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence!"

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

That's How Morons Work 
Kaizen to overcome procrastination! 
"Break All the Rules" but with care! 
Kaizen, even in air!  
Reward the Top or the Bottom  
Flirt behind dirt! 
Penny-Wise Pound-Wiser 
About my first book World-Of-Kaizen 

Why do strategies fail 

Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 

Old-Problems, New-Reasons !

Ant Knocks Elephant Down 
Will It Work Here?
Can-changing-thoughts-change-nation?
In-big-problem-wear-hats-to-solve-it 
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 ! 
ABCD of India Shining 
Do You Ask Right Questions?
Am I 'Short-sighted' or 'Long-sighted'? 

Who Comes First: Consumer Or Customer ? 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Comprehensive-Strategic-Audits

"Break All the Rules" but with care!

I have some comments to offer on the six leadership lessons that Goler, the Facebook's HR chief, recommends from the book "First, Break All the Rules". I'm sure, the book is valuable though.

But before I begin, here's a MaiKu© (my Haiku) on it that I dare..

Rules broken without care

Cure is the nightmare

Crisis that all dare

The first lesson she talks about is "Personal relationships are crucial for success".

She talks about the 12-questions that the authors Buckingham and Coffer write to "capture everything you need to know about the workplace." Four of which she says are as follows that employees should respond positively to.

1. "Do I know what is expected of me at work?"
2. "Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?"
3. "At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?"
4. "In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?"

That's about empowering your employees. And I completely agree with it.

Lesson two she says, "Great managers do not follow the Golden Rule", which states that you must treat others as you would like to be treated, is one of the most common pitfalls of management, argue the authors.

This lesson is acceptable as long as the person has right intentions for the common good. Otherwise, a 'Kaans' who gets a 'Raama' treatment (i.e. gets forgiven for intentional mistakes, as per his own expectations) may get reinforced to continue his wrong acts if he is not awarded a 'Krishna' treatment at the right time in right proportion. Hardly anyone expects to be treated with punishment right?

Lesson three she says is "Employees should primarily be hired for talent". Good that the authors Buckingham and Coffman define talent as "a recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied.

I would always hire a person for talent as well her attitudes towards work and towards the people at workplace. In fact, I would value her attitude more than the talent and her knowledge itself. Because the latter can get diminished in absence of the former.

Lesson four she says, "Employees should be guided by outcomes, not steps". This does help to accommodate for individual approaches to work as also to unearth some innovative ones.

But if employees are given unguided freedom to find their own paths to achieve the agreed upon results, at times it may result into some damages in the form of prohibitively extra costs in terms of damages to customer, other stakeholders, or to the property itself due to abuse of certain procedures, norms on safety and change in specifications of the offerings.

Lesson five she says, "Buckingham and Coffman write that it seems intuitive that managers should spend more time with struggling employees than with top performers, but that their research shows the opposite is true, because top performers are responsible for the work that moves a company forward."

Struggling employees are as much important as the top performers, because else they may get demotivated if they feel ignored.

An abnormality, while in its seed stage, ignored by 'ignored people' may grow into a big problem that even the top performers may not be able to solve.

Remember, generally top performers are fewer than the number of struggling employees in an organisation. The time may not be enough for the top performers to catch up with the growing number of grown problems ignored by the struggling employees inadvertently though.

Lesson six, she says, (Buckingham and Coffman recommend that in order) to have a thriving organization, a company must offer several developmental paths, creating "heroes" in each primary function, so that an employee is actually rewarded with more freedom to excel.

I do appreciate this one provided the "heroes" are created and recognized from among the struggling employees as well, in fact from all around the company. The freedom to them should of course be guided and with a protection from fear of failure, if any. The resultant will be a lot of improvements (Kaizen innovations) across the company even from the so called struggling employees... A win-win for the struggling employees as well as for the top performers and ultimately a win-win for the company.

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

Forgive Or Don't?  
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily

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

How To Make A Difference

What do you do when a dog barks at you? 

IQ, EQ or SQ: What is more important

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

Success Or Failure: What Do You Like?

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?

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

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

Nauseous Communication Gaps 

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

Succession-Plans In Fast Lane!

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? 
 

Talk in-order-to Listen!

I came across an old Argnetine proverb: 'He who speaks, sows; he who listens, reaps.'

A couple of days later, on whatsapp received a picture of Swami Vivekananda that says, "talk to yourself once a day... ."

Do these statements convey different meanings?

First one emphasises listening more than speaking: Listening to others! We are given two ears and one mouth as the rhetoric goes. I often tend to forget this though. Of course at times you need to speak on behalf of the speaker herself to validate that you have understood. This is active listening.

The second statement too emphasises listening but; Listening to self!

Once the art of 'listening to self' is mastered 'listening to others' gets easier.

How does one 'listen to self'?

At subtler level, an intelligent but difficult way is to meditate!

At gross level a simple way is to write a diary; daily if possible!

Some do write a diary but conventionally it tends to be a chronology of events and problems. 

To go any closer to what Swami Vivekananda says, the diary should be about drawing lessons from the events and from one's own behavior.

Then the diary turns out to be 'listening to self' in real sense.
Thoughts and your response to situations change thereafter.
The lessons learnt from mistakes, if any, help improve one's self.
Journey from reaction to pro-action (proactive action) begins.
A step taken towards excellence!

Someday a day dawns with an appointment of a beautiful, handsome, strong and excellent person: The Self: The one that Swami Vivekananda had in mind!

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

How To Make A Difference

Big-Be Or Bug-Be !

Nauseous Communication Gaps 

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?

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

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

Eternally Happy!

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

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

Do You Ask Right Questions? 

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

No Time? Micro-Meditate! 

Succession-Plans In Fast Lane!

How Much Can We Better Our Recruitment Processes?

In Order To Improve Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes, How Much To Add To Training Budgets That Are Already Heavy?

How Much To Better Our Succession-Plans?

These are some of the worries that keep haunting HR professionals. One reason is, increasing inventory of disgruntled employees. Employees disengaged due to job dis-satisfaction in particular in spite of having good systems in place. Other reason is attrition.

How to overcome this?
What is the solution to this dilemma?
How to reduce or prevent attrition?

Sometimes the causes might be aptitudinal. Sometimes it may be due to gaps in matchmaking at recruitment stage itself due to misleading presentations by either of the stakeholders.

It ultimately results into recruiting people and then figuring out how to fit square peg into round hole in order to accommodate them. Failure to do so results into branding them as defocused if they stay disengaged or as not-trust-worthy job-hopper if they quit jobs.

Hereunder might be a simple way to find out whether passions and aspirations of prospective recruits match that of a company's needs. HR professionals and companies might like to drive following steps to ease their worries.

Step-1: Prospects, both the recruiters and recruitees, need to look for matchmaking of mutual passions. Read blogpost that answers How To Take your career in fast lane!

Step-2: Prospective recruitees write their comprehension about thoughts expressed in the blogpost in maximum 50-words!

Step-3: Prospects write briefly about their own passions: Maximum 50-words!

Step-4: HR professional (assessor and selector) from recruiting company studies above 100-words in order to draw parallels. Based on the parallels s/he draws her conclusion on matchcmaking of passions and aspirations between the prospects and the company.

The findings might be given an appropriate weightage alongwith that of various other available criteria for recruitment.

In support of the above process, the recruiting company might like to design a few prompting questions that the recruitee answers.

Better the matchcmaking of passions and aspirations, better will be the mutual choices of recruits and companies, lesser will be the disengagement and better will be the Succession-Plans!

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Take your career in fast lane!

Do You Ask Right Questions? 

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

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

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

Do you know a Best-Career-Plan 

Don't Forget: Stir-Coffee-Well !

Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily

Listen To The Iceberg, Not The Tip 

Nauseous Communication Gaps

An Experience of Heart-and-Soul

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

Be Bug-Be Or Big-Be ?

How To Make A Difference

Beware Of Political-Presentations

Casuals Turn Serious, Shun Inaction

Leaders seriously enable casual's work
Turning serious, casuals shun inaction-n-quirk
Excellence springs in action of all men-at-work

The above Haiku is inspired by spirited action at  grass-root level on work-floor (Gemba) of a chemical complex in Western Gujarat.

I returned happy from there. Enthusiasm of faculty as well as of the management team was mirrored on shop-floor. It was genuine. 

Thanks to the 16-strong leadership team, the Director and the CEO for their whole-hearted participation at Gemba. They worked on the grass-root level concerns by removing Dirty-Danger-Difficult part in their work.

This is the way 'companies-on-excellence-journey' choose to give message of their 'seriousness' and their 'sense-of-urgency' to change-for-better. They work towards allaying fear of failure.

Unfortunately in many companies most managers, HR in particular, play Administration (HRA) role rather than  action-oriented HRD role. 

HR role is one of Developmental (HRD), necessary to build people for culture-change like the one demonstrated by leaders as above. Building people requires working with them hand-in-hand rather than mere instructions. It is to invest time (more than money) in making serious efforts in order to enhance their knowledge, skills and capability. 

Kaizen-Claps to all of them for doing so! Eagerly waiting to take them to next step en-route the TPM initiative in second week of the New-Year.

HAPPY-YEAR-Ahead to One-&-All!

MaiKu© Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes 

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

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? 

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up? 
In-a-problem? No-problem! Dwell-a-while! 
I am afraid ! What do I do !! 
Take Habits For A Ride 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Are You Good If Others Are Bad?  
Want Need-Or-Want 
Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like?

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Winning 2-Minutes To Customer

Just read in Loksatta about one Mr Chitale receiving compensation of Rupees 7250 directly transferred to his bank account y British Airways for wheel of his bag getting damaged in handling. Airlines' response was smooth and speedy he said. Airlines had tried to repair the bag through their supply-chain partner but in vain.

In 1997, I was in NewYork on a group-study-exchange mission organised by Rotary International. While traveling from NewYork to Orlando, inadvertently my bag reached to Chicago. I complained to the airlines office at the airport. They promptly sanctioned 100 Dollars to me against the bills for essentials like overnight clothes, toothpaste, etc. Being around Disneyland I was happy to buy a couple Mickey-Mouse brand clothes at the airport.

Next day morning I got a 'good-morning' call from reception desk saying my bag was already in the hotel lobby safe and sound. Not much trouble for me although the airlines did have an opportunity to eliminate the error in baggage handling.

In a stark contrast to such delightful experiences, in 1981 I had to run from pillar to post knocking doors and windows in vain for a broken bag and its damaged contents due to erroneous handling by Air-India. Since then I avoid flying on it: a customer-quit as they say.

I remember that painful experience even after decades.

What is the learning?

There might be some chance of a person forgetting a good experience but hardly any chance of a customer forgetting bad experience from a supplier.

In case of one airline it was about 'sensitivity' to customer complaint while dealing it with a 'sense-of-urgency'. In case of other airline it was about 'indifference' to customer.

Now a days the sensitivity has acquired some strategy and structure to respond to customer complaints as a part of excellence-journey of companies. 

A Structure To Respond To Customer

I had introduced a 2-2-2-2©structure in terms of a model to respond to any stakeholder in general and to customer in particular. It was first introduced in a Cummins group company: Fleetguard Filters Limited Pune.

It was later on institutionalised in Cummins group worldwide.

In the context of a customer complaint, the 2-2-2-2© model might mean 2-Minutes, 2-Hours, 2-Days, 2-Weeks time-bound response to  customer for a given level of performance strived for. The response is supposed to eliminate root cause/s of the abnormality within 2-Weeks rather than stopping at first-aid treatment that anyway must be given within 2-Minutes. A powerful review mechanism driven by CEO (with an escalation matrix that an aggrieved customer can access in case of non-compliance) is an integral part of the structured process in order to ensure the timeline and quality of it's compliance. 

In the context of various other business situations, the timeline may be different and must evolve. For instance for an emergency/crisis having high impact, it could mean 2-Seconds, 2-Minutes, 2-Hours, 2-Days.

There is an empowerment mechanism built into the structure. Timeline-based visible dimensions as above are the generic ones. Company specific visible dimensions may be some sanction limits such as 100 Dollars compensation or a freedom to handover gift for the hassles or the efforts taken by the customer to complain and so on.

More important are the invisible dimensions that result into the culture reflected in terms of the spirit, the body-language, the humbleness, the humility such as that I had experienced while the airline employees responded to the complaint in making it hassle-free and speedy. 

There is tremendous scope and choice for innovations in both in order to delight customer with differentiation. The invisible ones in particular are difficult to emulate. That's where lies the competitive advantage.

If such a structure is implemented effectively, the customer becomes supplier's advocate and it's rewarding in long run as well as in terms of short term sales and numbers. Such an advocate is much more effective than even a highly paid marketing manager.

A prospective customer is likely to believe and act more often if recommendation comes from the horse's mouth: The Word-Of-Mouth!