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!

Elections on anvil for voters' will

Election on anvil
Drives political thrill
Snatches voters' will

With News-mill & Public-life-at-spill
Politicians relish a delicious kill
Without respite to electoral bill

Elections are on anvil.
Elections usually drive political mills that snatch voters' will.
Mushrooming News items drive people's businesses and boost marketing zeal.
It's an opportunity to spill public-life that provides politicians with a delicious kill.

One of the employees of a company I am associated with couldn't get renewal of license done. As a result the material that had governmental controls couldn't be available within desired time. It's operations got affected for over a month.

What is the loss and cost in the process?

Profitability of the suppliers affected.
Profitability of the supply-chain itself affected due to delayed supplies.
Inflation up due to enhanced demand-supply gap.
Reduced income to daily-waged labour.
Above all reduced income to national exchequer itself due to lost GDP numbers.

This is about corporate life that has impact on public-life as well in terms of inflation.

But what about direct hit to public-life due to absence of government staff in offices under the pretext of 'Election-Duty'.

Someone goes to rationing department and finds staff on 'Election-Duty'.
Someone goes to get domicile certificate and finds staff on 'Election-Duty'.
Someone goes to University department to find staff on 'Election-Duty'.
Someone goes to school to find even teaching staff on 'Election-Duty'.

Last year even exams got postponed around the vote-counting day. 

Under normal circumstances the machinery at least functions sometimes if you are ready to move your papers yourself from table to table for 'babu's signatures. Under circumstances such as 'Election-Duty', the machinery doesn't function even at snail's pace, that too officially. You may run from pillar to post. It'll all be in vain. 

All this at higher cost. Cost of wasted time. Cost of fuel and energy to run from pillar to post. Cost of overtime paid for Election-Duty. Cost of compensatory paid-holiday for Election-Duty. 

Not that staff loves Election-Duty for these benefits. In fact they don't. Because they have to report there in-time. Stay there full-time and do work: Search names, make slips, put stamps, take thumb impressions, tally the whole process, count votes, etc. etc. No 'escape' route. 

Anyway, why should public suffer at such extra cost? 

Isn't there a lot of scope for planning and organising? 

By the time we guess so, let's hope that the Voter-turnout improves and the voter votes for corruption-free governance, stability, growth and prosperity.

Here's a MaiKu© i. e. My-Haiku on elections.

Opposition in a nightmare
Over the glass that politicians share
Shaking hands on voter's care

In Marathi

घेउ तूला अन् मला
पण देउ नको त्याला
माथी राजकारणी खलबतं, हाती मद्दाचा प्याला

In Malvani (Konkani)

घेवया तूका आनि माका
पन घालू नको त्येका
दारूच्या गुत्तात राजकारणी सोडीना हेका

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

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

ABCD of India Shining

Do you know a Best-Career-Plan

Take your career in fast lane!

Succession-Plans In Fast Lane! 

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow

How To Make A Difference

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis

Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam!

Some Moron ! Some Great !!!

That's How Morons Work

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Customer or Custo-Mer? 

An Experience of Heart-and-Soul

Less With More And More Gets Sore

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow

Today, 26th January, is the Republic-Day of India. 

Republic according to dictionary means: A state where sovereignty rests with the people or their representatives, rather than with a monarch or emperor; a country with no monarchy. Sovereignty means: The liberty to decide (choose) one's thoughts and actions. The state of making laws and controlling resources without the coercion of other nations.

So if good laws are made and corresponding procedures are made simpler, leaner and easier to follow then good governance follows.

All like good governance. There are exceptions of a few whose 'living' itself depends on non-governance.

For good or desired governance, voters need to choose (vote-in) deserving and desired people in government who make laws and procedures for governance.

An article on the republic day eve yesterday (the national voters day in India), reported that more than 40% of young respondents between 18-29 years age were not registered yet as voters. Top reason: Process of registration is cumbersome!

When things get difficult¹ to perform, people generally avoid doing the desired. Similarly, unless the process of voter registration is made simpler, prospective voters won't come out to register.

Apart from this, agent's businesses thrive on such difficult processes. Enemies of democracy proliferate. Their premium goes up. Authorities earn 'speed-money' to speed up 'difficult' processes. In the process of speeding up their side income, rules get a passé. 

Although at a premium, infiltrators fighting for their survival and to get a foothold in a foreign country go out of their way to foot the bill. Danger of dirty (read corrupt) candidates getting elected gets more likely. Governance getting a miss becomes more probable.

What's the solution?

People-in-power need to make processes and procedures simpler², leaner and easier. But they might take their sweet time to do so.

Meanwhile in their own interest, voters need to take that extra pain to register themselves. And then come out; walk that extra mile to:

Vote For Governance !

Rest Will Follow. In absence of that extra pain, the enemy within and the enemy outside both are sure to gain.

So on this Republic-Day, let's use that sovereign liberty and our choice in order to (as my MaiKu© poem on the subject goes):

Make It³ Simpler² n Leaner!
Rest Will Get Easier !!
Life Will Become Merrier !!!

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

Footnote

1: 3D: Dirty-Danger-Difficult work is avoided by people. A fire-fighter, for instance, won't willingly jump to fight a fire if he isn't protected by appropriate gears. Unless danger to his life is mitigated, he will not go out of his way to get people out of danger.
2: MISER: Minimize, Improvise, Simplify, Eliminate, Reduce
3: Things under our control

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
Take Habits For A Ride
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 !
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 
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
Are You Good If Others Are Bad? 
In-big-problem? Wear-hats-to-solve-it!
Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like?
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully 
Do You Ask Right Questions? 

Boom-Barrier Boomed, Country-Doomed

The other day (28th December) Automatic-Boom-Barrier on toll-booth on Mumbai-Nashik highway near Igatpuri  'automatically' fell on our car. Nearly-missed the curse of 'broken-down' high-technology that could have resulted into fatalities. Luckily it didn't fall on windshield. We escaped crisis with a mere dent on top of the car. Whether we get compensated for the mechanical damage or not is a distant 'if-or-but' subject.

But the point worth highlighting is about the costs-of-poor-quality of work or wastes due to breakdowns.

Moving at snail's pace in the 'Toll-Queue' on that Sunday evening around 20.00 hours we ended up waiting in the queue for more than 10 minutes.

I think there were eight lanes with perhaps ten vehicles in each lane.

Couple of booths and hence the corresponding lanes were non-functional. Sitting in the vehicle, I couldn't ascertain whether they were broken-down or were reserved for 'VIP movement'? In India self-professed definition of VIP is anyone creatively sporting a magnetic 'Beacon-light-fixture' or a 'Stand for a color-flag with a black plastic-cover' and sometimes a vehicle carrying 'Bulky and/or Rowdy' personalities in 'Pure-white politician style attire'.

So while negotiating for the 'working'  lanes, some kept there engines ON. Some 'started' and 'stopped' until could finally manage to get through the toll-booth.

It's another subject whether the toll-tax should continue or not as per contractual agreement. But one thing is sure that a thesis is not needed if the road authorities choose to brainstorm answers to following questions.

What is the cost of fuel wasted?

What is the cost of delays to various stakeholders?

In order to save the above costs,
why can't the flow of vehicles be continuous by expediting 'Smart-Card-Reader' technology?: It shouldn't be difficult at all to do so across the country in less than a few weeks time considering that India is a leader in software-technologies.

Actually this example is just a representative one that can be extended to all delivery processes: Governance, Social or Business.

Unfortunately Indian leaders are leaders in playing dirty politics in decision making as well. They are 'smart' in record-breaking-speed on decisions related to vested-interests. Also they are 'leaders' in procrastinating (rather placing barriers in) issues of public interests so that the 'starving' public can be manipulated during elections. They are not bothered about such Booms banging over country's economy and dooming it.

By the time they realize importance of using their offices to speedily act on this,  can the thoughts in this post trigger each one of us to do something?

Surely yes. One may get some ideas by visiting 'Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation'.

Meanwhile keeping my activities On in this direction and keeping fingers crossed.

Looking forward to your suggestions and tips in the COMMENT-BOX below or a Tweet @Shyam Greets.

Digital technology http://care-is-cure.blogspot.in/2017/01/digital-corporate-yoga.html 

Technology in-place, security dis-placed http://care-is-cure.blogspot.com/2013/03/technology-in-place-security-dis-placed.html

Bust-wants, Boom-needs

Inspired by Voters-Verdict

Bust-wants, Boom-needs
BROOM corruption, appeasement and greeds 
BRING governance, performance, jobs.. Not subsidy-feeds

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

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save!

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

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

Should one care for value? 

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

What You See Isn't What's Made

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 

Less With More And More Gets Sore 

How To Make A Difference 

Some Moron ! Some Great !!! 

That's How Morons Work

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 !! 

Poverty-to-Power of Poetry

Soon-waste-to-eat, Sea-to-drink !

Installed Capacity Stalled

Installed Capacity Of Electricity Stalled!
That's the way governance in India shines!!

कडाडली विजेवर वीज, 
पॉलिसीची, परफॉर्मन्सची,
सरकारी-सबसीडीची की वीज-चोरीची?

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

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

How do you behave when you come across security-guard of your housing society? Do you address him "Hey Watchman"?

In what manner do you speak to your driver or that of a taxi or for that matter a persuasive roadside salesman or a typical 'have-not', even a beggar?

Or, how do you behave with your subordinates for instance?

In very first encounter with them in the morning, do you nod as in expressing salutation to them? Or do you ignore their salutation if they give one?

If you've done the former, you have not-taken-them-for-granted. You have behaved as-desired like often done with external customers. Behaving other way round is like being indifferent. It's like disrespecting their self-esteem.

Indifferent behavior hurts ego and thereby breaks relationships. On the contrary a genuine smile recognizes their presence. It flashes back to you as good behavioral reflection of theirs too. It's like an adult-to-adult behavior that maintains self-esteem of both the parties as in BMT or TA language of behavior modulation.

How do you behave if others don't keep promises and instead misbehave with you repeatedly?

In spite of being in power, do you stay considerate enough say to bring facts of their misbehavior and indiscipline to their attention in a respectful manner? Do you play your role in providing justified resources if any to enable their promised performance level? 

If yes, then you have not taken them as well as yourself for granted. In inevitable cases you might have even reprimanded them for their undesirable repetitions though.

Former is like 'selling' instead of 'yelling' at them for their undesired behavior while the latter being 'telling'.

If you are not in power what do you do to reprimand their repeated misbehavior?

Such people may not be worthy of attention. Nor are they worthy of your fellowship except that to get job done with Krishna-tactics. Until the first opportunity comes your way to exit relationship it might be a good idea to make a little compromise while keeping them at arm's length. Having got one if it's not availed of then you do deserve to be taken-for-granted.

Aren't the same rules applicable back home?

Yes very much but with an extra care else you may not get food.

Recognition, review, resources, reward and reprimand (5-R) rules are applicable at home as well as at work. Wisdom will help you evolve which ones with what mix and how much dose to administer, when and where.

Those who don't apply a judicious mix of 5-R rules with wisdom (with weightage primarily in the corresponding order) do deservedly get taken-for-granted repeatedly be it at home or outside at work. In Indian scriptures this is advised as Sama-Daama-Dandaa-Bheda technique to get the needed done!

Footnotes :
BMT: Behavior Modulation Technique
TA: Transactional Analysis

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-1) 
Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-2) 
Discrimination Cremated! But How Long? 
A Ride To Hell
Make checklists your friends 
Drove To Hell ... Almost !
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam!
Will It Work Here? 
Some Moron ! Some Great !!!
That's How Morons Work ... WASTES
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
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
Beware Of Political-Presentations
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings
How Many Times Do You Wash Hands

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis

Would you like your purse to be transparent?

Answer from some people may be a Big-NO with exceptions of course. Reason is obvious if you look at the picture.

Anyway, transparent containers are usually preferred to opaque ones. Like for instance transparent glass bottles  usually used in a typical kitchen. They are also used in some industries like processed-foods, pharmaceuticals, etc.

Why do people prefer transparent containers?

Obviously because contents therein can  be easily seen even from a distance just by a single look. You may call this as a step towards look-free²-engineering in order to reduce number of glances or looks (as required in ergonomics) thereby reducing search-time.

In fact, making or rather more appropriately 'designing' a workplace¹ to be transparent (alongwith systematic arrangement of equipment therein) is a principle practised in Seiton-pillar of Five-S. It makes the workplace¹ search-free² as well. Five-S is a Kaizen-tool to make improvements proactively.

Is it so important?

Apart from making the workplace¹ look-free², search-free², etc. there is also a 'not-so-obvious' reason behind the practice of 'transparency' principle. 

Transparency makes abnormalities, if any, obvious and visible. Look at the purse again if you don't believe this. Had it been opaque, you couldn't have noticed 'defects' inside: Be it chaotic (lack of systematic) arrangement or a sharp object inside it causing injury to  finger or a leaky-pen messing up other items.

An opaque container on the other hand hides defects behind it. Imagine a stock-out situation resulting due to invisibility of say grain-stock attacked by pests inside it. Or imagine a situation when a  pendrive containing  important information couldn't be fetched just-in-time (JIT) when 'need'ed in spite of it being in the purse. 

Or imagine a loose connection inside an opaque computer-cabinet or in an opaque (closed) electrical control room the spark of which resulted in a devastating fire. Realizing this, leading businesses have already begun marketing transparent-cases of their offerings as a differentiating proposition.

So the later one i.e. to make 'defects visible' is more important subtle-reason of designing a workplace to be 'transparent' than the former one i.e. to improve 'visibility-of-contents' itself.

Ways-and-means to make a Gemba transparent

Ways-and-means could be many. Some are as follows.

1/ Use of a transparent glass or plastic (for a container or for a cabin partition or as an enclosure of a product).
2/ A simple daily-cleanup (of a desk or a house) like done in Seiri-pillar of Five-S by getting rid of items unused (lying idle) over a given time period.
3/ An advanced daily-cleanup like a mother bathing a child or a workplace practising Seiso-pillar of Five-S that exposes cracks, crevices, etc. as defects.
4/ Seiton-pillar of Five-S: A systematic arrangement of routinely used items, consumables, tools, tackles, etc. using space vertically (rather than spreading the items horizontally) so that more can be stored close to point-of-use in an arm's reach.
5/ A system-based method such as an RTI-Act to make governance visibly transparent and thereby to unearth corruption as 'defect' in governance

What is the learning?

Taking it a little ahead, making a Gemba transparent is the desired result. Choice of ways-and-means to do so lies with the user. However, there is 'no-choice' at all not-to-do-it.

Otherwise ensuing crises as a result of not doing it do force one to do it reactively though. History has enough proof of this and costly at that. Causes pushed under the carpet do boomerang (raise their heads) in the form of crises exactly when we don't want them! 

Look at the forced-cleanups as in (rape-fame Shakti-mills compound) picture that had to be undertaken reactively after experiencing costly-consequences.

"History never really says gogoodbye. History says, 'See you later'", as Eduard, Galeano, Uruguyan writer and historian, says unless of course you work on root causes. 

So better to 'Cleanup-Before-Crisis'! Better to be proactive!!

Footnote-1, Workplace is called as Gemba in Japanese language in the context of doing Gemba-Kaizen for workplace improvement-management.

Footnote-2, These are Free-Engineering concepts to make a workplace free of, say, a non-value-activity (waste) like searching or looking or unscrewing, walking, etc.

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?