Waste generates waste!

Ting tong!

Security guard on the door: "The sweeper hasn't come today. Take your garbage cans inside."

Ok.

Ting tong! again after an hour.

This time the security guard comes with a casual (temporary) sweeper. I fetched the garbage cans to get them emptied.

(After a while) Ting tong! again the third time.

I rush out from the wash room.
This time the regular sweeper arrives and goes back empty handed.

I call back the security guard to check what's happening.
Why the bell is rung so many times in the morning rush hours?

The guard responds there was a communication gap.
The regular sweeper reported late on duty.

Can you see how the waste gets generated vis-a-vis the normal routine that should have happened in a flow without interruptions to anyone! You may compute the waste by measuring the impact of each activity that had to be performed extra (non value activity NVA that doesn't add value to the basic need) over and above the desired one.

The desired was also that the regular sweeper should've informed about autonomous change in his schedule.

Now you know why thefts happen in absence of the guard who's supposed to be on his regular duty rather than engaging himself in a NVA prompted by NVA of someone else. The theft and related activities also are a waste!

The sweeper changing his own schedule without prior intimation is not observing a SOP. You getting delayed to work with corresponding tension due to extra activities (NVA) such as opening the door three times is a waste too!

Well such things can happen!

But important is - not to repeat them by making relevant improvements (or Kaizens as they say) and - even to prevent such problems in similar situations at other places.

Can you think of some to suit your own circumstances so that not the guard, nor you get interrupted even if the sweeper doesn't report on duty for one day!

Can you also spot some waste to do Kaizens upon in your daily work (Nichijo-Kanri) that you inadvertently or unknowingly consider (rather take for granted) as a routine!

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

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?

How important is a strategic plan for business?

Everyone out there is to sell something to someone. That's called as business in business language.

In today's VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world the sellers seem to outnumber the buyers. If yet not, then they will eventually do. Because, Everyone out there is to sell something to someone.

Naturally, it's important to answer a few questions before setting out to do business without bankruptcy.

How to do business with limited access to resources?

That's where comes the role of strategy.

In order to evolve strategy you need to probe into yourself as also into your business environment. It'll help you to do PEST and SWOT analysis as they say and do in business. PEST and SWOT you need to do both at personal as well as business level.

You need to know Where you want to go?
With what (offering) and how?

In order to do this adequately, you should've heard and read the VOC Voice-of-Customer.

Strategies derived earlier will help you to translate the VOC into delivery of the delightful offering to customer duly differentiated from competition and of course with cost leadership. Unless, of course, you want to drive volume leadership at calculated loss by design.

Now you need a daily control over the strategy to stay ahead of competition and stay successful sustainably.

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

Macro-Micro Syndrome

"You are too much into detailing."

Many might have heard this, mostly from bosses. Sometimes same bosses are heard saying, "you lack meticulous execution."

They tend to use former one if and when their macro vision is reasonably in control. They use the latter if macro vision goes out of gear. That's exactly isn't desirable: Choosing one over the other as a matter of convenience.

Generally for any success to be sustainable, both the macro and the micro are supposed to be complementary to each other. It's difficult for one to stand the test of time without support of the other.

It's difficult to reach a desired destination within a desired time with optimum efforts in absence of having a plan and a design in the first place. Nor is it easy to reach there without taking each step meticulously.

"When batting, I was only focused on the next ball — not on the scorecard", said cricketer Rohit Sharma on notching up the highest-ever individual score in one-day international cricket hitting a breathtaking 264 runs against Sri Lanka in Kolkata’s Eden Gardens.

The late JRD Tata had made commitment to make improvements even on cups and saucers used on his own airlines while on flight number 109 in 1955. 

Does it mean JRD and Rohit were too much into detailing: the micros? 

Does it mean they weren't focused on macros: their goal, target or performance level? 

They very much were!

In fact every successful person always has clarity on her vision and goal before setting out to execute it. It's just that thereafter they meticulously plan for resources and execute each step each day (Nichijo-Kanri as they say in Japanese Management parlance) inching towards their goal rather than bothering about the goal itself at each and every step.

Without detailed checking of condition and level of oil and water, condition of stepney, etc. setting out in a vehicle to reach a destination is not only foolish but is risky as well. Former is about setting the process right to get the result. The latter is about expecting result without putting in adequate efforts.

Former, the micro detailing, is about calculating and safeguarding against the probable risk factors in order to reduce their impact and the risk of failure, if any, while enabling to achieve the macro goals.

Hope meticulous execution doesn't conveniently get ridiculed for it's so-called 'detailing' nor does a typical macro visioning strategy get ridiculed for it's powerful imagination as "Daydreaming".

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

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

Why do strategies fail

Sometimes we get so obsessed with formulation of long-term strategy that we fail to see dangers closing-in around in immediate term.

Sometimes we fail to take course-corrective actions, PEST & SWOT analysis as they say, demanded by changes in the environment in VUCA¹ business-world.

Obsession of long-term thoughts prevents us from engaging into immediate-term actions although they are a must-do actions. We engage ourselves into good-to-do or want-to-do actions. Sometimes out of enthusiasm, sometimes inadvertently though.

Must-do actions are about giving first-aid in order to get immediate relief from a problem as well as preventing recurrence of it.

One can prevent recurrence by keeping a daily vigil on the lessons learnt.

Good-to-do actions are about preventing ocurrence itself of an undesired situation.

Want-to-do actions are about all those sundry ones of least or no consequence to the goal at all.

Secret of successful implementation of strategy lies not only in not allowing thought processes to get de-focused but also in balancing the Must-do, Good-to-do and Want-to-do actions in right proportions thereof.

It's about keeping one eye on long-range vision and the other on shorter-range planning and actions.
It's about keeping one eye on strategy, the other on tactics.
It's about keeping one eye on telescope, the other on microscope.

Footnote-1: VUCA is a Military term that characterises Volatilie Uncertain Complex Ambiguous environment in a war situation.

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

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-itRidiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-cultureWOW Work-Culture: By Telling or SellingIQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-importantTalent-Is-Latent: Enable It!Judge If It's Paralysis-By-AnalysisWill It Work Here?Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-BuyDoes recognition really matterWho Comes First: Consumer Or Customer ?Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !ABCD of India ShiningDo 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

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

Do You Force Customers To Quit

Insurance policy of both my car and scooter was about to expire.

I'd sold off the scooter. So when my insurance agent called me to renew it's policy, I ignored it saying the new owner will take care of it.

After a couple of weeks, when my car went for road tax payment I realised that it's insurance policy had expired. Actually my insurance agent did call me to renew car's policy but I'd inadvertently ignored his reminder thinking it was for the 'sold scooter'.

Red-tape that followed was inevitable. The procedure explained to me by the insurance agent was:

Take the scooter to the insurance company.
They'll inspect it before issuing the policy
They'll charge fine for 'discontinuation'.

Making the job 3D: Dirty-Danger-Difficult for the customer. 

While the insurance agent refused to followup with the company, the road tax agent came to my rescue saying "don't worry". May be the former was lacking motivation due to 'smallness' of business while the latter was interested in acquiring a new customer: Market development strategy as the jargon goes in management world! Theory of relativity!

The road tax agent got the insurance done from another company. Everything home delivered at just ten percent charge of the total official receipt amount.

In fact the policy issued by the competitor was priced at almost thirty percent discount.

The indifferent procedure of the previous insurance company and the behavior of it's agent (the first touch-point as it's brand ambassador) to take the customer for granted costed them business.

The Cost-Of-Poor-Quality (COPQ) to them was not only the loss of business but also a permanent loss of customers. I said loss of customers because bad-mouth publicity by every dissatisfied customer takes away more than one potential ones.

What's the learning?

More than the hard quality itself of your offering, it's the lack of soft quality, your indifference, that forces customers to call it a Quit!

So better to be-aware of behavior!!

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

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

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

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

Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily

Lot of time and efforts get spent on strategy planning. 

Strategy sessions usually get organised away from workplace (Gemba). They often get glorified with team events, water sports, outdoor games around campfire, treasure hunts and so on. They give stylish titles to it. "Off-site", some say proudly after attending it.

Thinking that the 'so-motivated' lot might willingly accept appraisals, they try to manage by objectives (MBO). HRD managers (read 'people' managers) incorporate numbers into periodic (most often 'annual') performance appraisal systems. Some slogans complimentary to the initiative get hung on wall.

Only after failing miserably they realize that execution of strategy is much more than quarter-on-quarter (qoq) or year-on-year (yoy) appraisals or reviews. It goes beyond dusting the displayed-slogans periodically.

It's about eating-drinking-breathing the strategy announcements and talks in terms of actions. It's not merely about dreaming the distant vision. It's about living the dreams daily. 

Going beyond the "bird's-eye view" it's also about "worm's-eye view" at grass-root level (as Mohamaad Yunus creator of the Grameen Bank says about microfinance).

It's about management-OF-strategy, management-OF-objectives (MOO) or rather strategy deployment (Hoshin-Kanri) process. 

If MBO is equivalent to throwing (goal) balls over blind-walls among layers (hierarchies) and functions then MOO is equivalent to coaching to manufacture the balls (i. e. evolve goals) as also helping to catch them daily at tactical levels. 

MOO is like giving as much importance to single runs as much, say, a cricket match gives to a 'Six' on the first ball of the first over. It's about daily (Nichijo) management (Kanri) of strategy or of the policy (Hoshin-Kanri) with a sense of urgency. 

It's about recognizing heroes for their improvement efforts to overcome daily hurdles while playing for mini-goals as a subset of the strategic goals. It's about the culture of looking for as well as creating such heroes daily across the customer-supplier chain. 

Post such recognition, studying¹ of 'what went right' or 'what went wrong' as the case may be rather than mere review of the 'runs' taken for goal-making process itself is a daily affair. It's an on-going 'study' and enablement by corresponding on-going adjustments to the allocation of resources as per dynamic needs of business environment rather than doing it as 'qoq' or 'yoy' performance reviews. 

If formulating strategy is important then formulating strategy-to-execute it is more important characteristic of the MOO approach. 

Like winning a match; sales, other numbers, growth goals, etc. then get achieved as a bye-product resultant of leading and managing the above process intelligently!

¹ Called as hansei: a critical step in any process: the “check” phase of the famous “Plan-Do-Check-Act” cycle that Japanese business people use to govern any activity.

Also read a few relevant blog-posts hereunder: 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Comprehensive-Strategic-Audits
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'?

Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell Me Hey Raam!

The other day someone asked me how should s/he behave with a funny, unpredictable, sham character that always played games at workplace?

I told him to study the difference between epic characters RAAM and KRISHNA-Shyam in order to pick up a few cues and learn therefrom.

Both RAAM and KRISHNA (Shyam is his one of the famous names mostly used in songs and films) are epic characters to be learnt from while sailing through real life.

Both had good intentions!

RAAM always believed that - people always have good intentions, - people always do good. So RAAM always behaved 'good' with all people meaning he applied Saama (साम) strategies. He mostly left people, things and their given situations to themselves, open-ended in order for them to happen and evolve on their own.

Sometimes things did happen as 'good' because as in the epic called Ramayana those times were good as well as people were generally good.

KRISHNA (the character from epic called Mahabharata) also got good intentions delivered from others. But to get measurable delivery in a time-bound and desired manner, he had to keep changing tactics and strategies. He applied Saam (साम) strategies with Raama-like good people but applied guerrilla tactics and strategies (Daamaa-Dandaa-Bhedaa: दाम-दंड-भेद) with bad characters like KANSA.

KRISHNA kept modifying his strategies to suit a given situation because he had to achieve common-good while generally operating in bad times (Kalliyug: कलियुग). In Kalliyug one must face situations fearlessly and courageously.

One must read Bhagwad-Gita to understand Krishna philosophy. As Swami Vivekananda says, in order to understand it better, play football before reading it. You need to be strong physically and mentally to understand it's power.

What's the learning?

While leading our role in achieving a goal for common-good: Be RAAM-like with RAAM-like behavior of people.

But be KRISHNA-like with KANSA-like behavior of people.

A ©MaiKu Poem that the question inspired:

Whenever's a situation sham
Like Saama-Daamaa-Dandaa-Bhedaa' of KRISHNA-Shyam
Not 'Saama' like RAAM

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

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

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 !! 

Ant Knocks Elephant Down

Ant knocks elephant down

Fishing trawler hits warship, sinks it's crown

Phishing stinks, makes Naval-vigilance frown

Above MaiKu© is inspired by the News "Fishing trawler sinks after colliding with Naval warship".

It highlights the importance of powerful vigilance using 7-Senses. 

It tells you to keep one eye on long-range vision and the other on shorter-range planning and actions else crisis might strike unannounced.

It tells you to keep one eye on strategy, the other on tactics.

It tells you to keep one eye on telescope, the other on microscope.

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

Also read a few relevant blog-posts hereunder: 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Old-Problems, New-Reasons ! 
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 
Why do strategies fail
Comprehensive-Strategic-Audits
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'?