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

Mosquito to teach patience

Say, you are busy reading a long pending novel.

A mosquito sits on your left hand.

No sooner you shove it off, another one troubles you.

You get upset. You try to hit it hard.
It escapes leaving a mark on your hand.
The cup of coffee by your side spills over you and over the book as well.

Nothing happens to the mosquito.
You get more angry.
If at all, everything that's wrong happens to you.

You hurt yourself physically.
You mess it up around.
You lose balance of mind as well thinking that everything wrong happens to you and you alone.
That enhances the chances of more reactions rather than a rational response.

Reactions generally tend to be wrong.
You invariably hurt your own-self more.

That's exactly is the result of getting angry.

Not that I'm free from it.
The learning that, however, I draw from it is that there's no point in getting angry.

Reactions tend to damage you your own-self more.
Instead, better to stay in control.
It's better to act (as well as proact) rather than re-act while enjoying the process of tackling the difficulties at hand.

Mosquito is perhaps the reason designed for you to learn patience and to learn to come out as a more composed personality.

If a mosquito can

You too can

Make a difference man

That's my Haiku inspired by the quote of Dalai Lama: "If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito."

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

No Time? Micro-Meditate!  
What do you do when a dog barks at you?
How To Make A Difference 
Conscious Of Self-Esteem
Catch a Butterfly

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up? 
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully 
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important? 
Eternally Happy! 
In-a-problem? No-problem! Dwell-a-while! 
I am afraid ! What do I do !! 
Fearful-Of-Death-of-Birth
Take Habits For A Ride 
Happy-Birthday-to-Youooo
Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam! 
Are You Good If Others Are Bad?  
Want Need-Or-Want 
Love is Care.. Care is Love !  
Deity is in the eyes of the beholder 
Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like?
Ball-Basin-Team Combine !  Maketh The Smile Divine !! 

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Kaizen to overcome procrastination!

Caught a Kaizen
Delayed procrastination

Shunned hallucination

My above Haiku reminded me of the following quote....

Hallucinations are always evidence of cerebral derangement and are common phenomena of insanity. - W. A. Hammond

That's what the state of mind I used to experience whenever I used to step into my office-cum-library. My library is full of books, some bound photocopies, some box-files full of scribbled newspaper cuttings, and some full of case-studies, some manuscripts (including of my own), etc. spread all over the office in various pockets.

Let alone the sight of it, mere thought of visiting it, used to put my mind in disorder. It used to remind me of the pending work, literary in particular, and drive me insane. And then the shortcut used to be to procrastinate!

One day I thought of an instant solution... that of committing to apply Kaizen techniques to become leaner that I taught to others.

Few years ago, on this decision, the first thing I did was to make the office itself redundant over a few years.

In the first year, I forced myself to reduce it to ¹/3rd its original size and rent out the balance.
I did it by being ruthless on some documents that I hardly touched over a few years.
I got the rest of them all closer to each other to accommodate in half of the ¹/3rd space leaving the rest ¹/2 for sitting (and for packing our publications for onward dispatch).
That means so far I was wasting space utilization by almost 67 percent.

Next year onwards I stopped going to the office as a typical office goer.
In any case half my time involves travel in field. Technology made it possible for me to work rest of the month from wherever I was even from under a tree.
That means I was wasting time in logistics.

What did I do to my writing work...... The series of books that were in pipeline! My blogs! Tweets! Facebook, G+ and LinkedIn postings, Haiku, etc. etc.

That's what it was for which were all the funny collections in my library.

First thing I did was to remove all the etc. etc.
I decided 'to be' only on a couple of platforms in social media.

And of course to be Theme-based on that.

That helped me to prioritize the things that I 'must and need to do' rather than that I would 'want to do'. That gave me some time to allocate for writing the pending books.
Here's also an answer to why I 'hide' myself and avoid some non value calls on me.

I broke the writing work into a few palatable pieces. I compiled corresponding papers from the library into smaller files and brought them home. Scanned some for some focused writing that I could do anywhere during travel as well. Mission 'Zero laptop and desktop use' allowed me to use EVERNOTE app innovatively for the 'office under a tree' concept.

After completing the writing work (including publishing some blogposts) the papers and files were discarded.

In short, I applied 5-S on physical as well as on mental processes.
I learnt to 'Switch-On' and 'Switch-Off' at will.

I split work into small pieces that could be accomplished in bits and pieces each day, if not each hour, enjoying booster doses of small accomplishments at regular intervals.

Some tweets and Haiku poems that I could write instantly got converted into blogposts. Both together got converted into Facebook and G+ postings with relevant pictures that I took during travel. Some blogposts got compiled into chapters for the pending books.

In fact I started enjoying living in terms small bites of a few minutes together in order to 'just do it now and here' instead of being bogged down under the pressure of a large project of writing a book over a longer period of a few years say.

I didn't worry too much about mistakes and grammatical errors.
Kaizen approach created multiple chances for me to improve in next PDCA cycle. I could for instance always revise my tweets as well as blogposts.

The process is still ON until I make my remaining ¹/3rd office also redundant!
No doubt it was with some failures.
Although initially I feared failures, I learnt to get over them by working on their causes and committing to work upon failure modes adequately next time.
The PDCA cycle of Kaizen allowed me to forgive myself in the process!

In short,

Be leaner. 
Apply 5-S.
Use technology.
Focus on priorities.
Break work into a few palatable pieces.
Take and complete one piece at a time.
Don't fear mistakes and failures.
Revisit... Be a learner.

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

Kaizen, even in air!
In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !! 
Forgive Or Don't? 
Soon... Waste-to-Eat ! Sea-to-Drink !!
About my first book World-Of-Kaizen
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers 

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

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

"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!

Flirt behind dirt!

Maid was running behind the dirt rolling away until I intervened.

"Close the windows. It's windy today (my friend)".

She closed the door instead and tried to collect the garbage locally in each room.

The dusty part of the dirt continued to escape from gaps under the door. I'd to once again remind her to "close the windows".

Actually so was the standing instruction to be observed while sweeping. But she had to be reminded each time although she herself could see the dust-dirt flying away.

We do find such approach ar workplaces as well.

Sweeping of problems is fine but it's nothing more than a reactive first-aid. 

Until the problem is tackled at its root causes at reasonable level it will keep on recurring like the dust that only finds a new place to resettle else where.

"Closing the windows" was a root-cause at reasonable level of hierarchy because that was what's possible if the room itself is considered as the system in one's own control.

Next level may be is in the control of the municipality if the city itself is considered as the system. 

Towards that end it is a proactive measure with reference to preventing the dust from arising and thereby preventing it from entering the house.

Figure 10.3A: Reduce Dust at source

(Reference:  Visual Management through Five-S: A Japanese Tool of Kaizen by Shyam Talawadekar)

So isn't it's time to go beyond the dirty-run behind the dirt!

Here's my Haiku over it...

Dirty-run behind dirt!
Of no use is flirt!
It'll only hurt!

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

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