In A Big-Problem?: Wear Hats To Solve It !!

Life is about tackling gaps! Gaps among:

1/ what we 'want' (i.e. what we desire to have),
2/ what we 'need' (i.e. what we need to survive) and
3/ what we 'have' (i.e. our current situation).

These gaps are referred to as problems in day to day language. Gaps may be in terms of physical, mental, financial, social or spiritual health, both at individual & societal level.

So life is about overcoming various hurdles or problem-situations in order to bridge gaps at individual & societal level. In positive sense, life is about opportunities to add value to self & society while tackling problematic situations.

This post is an extension of my blog-post titled In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !! In that post, I dwelled upon the fact that 'dwelling' provides 'adult-in-you' to 'respect' others like 'adults'. It provides an opportunity to look at a given problematic situation in totality. It allows asking 'what-when-where-who-why-how' questions to it's components without a bias.

This ability is particularly important in order to solve chronic problems as well as crises and larger issues.

Sometimes acknowledging a problem as a problem itself is a problem as in P.J. (Poor Joke) in punchline of this blog where Mr Foolhardy falls again-and-again at same place! Like Foolhardy, some do 'love falling' and getting 'cured again-n-again' rather than taking preventive 'care'. Some hardly go beyond first-aid attitude during entire lifetime. 

Why is this so? What should the case really be?

One reason may be lack of respecting discipline: the undesirable habit nurtured by both, one's own parent-ego and child-ego. Other one may be lack of training  the adult-ego to solve complicated problems.

One way to overcome the former reason is instituting strict disciplinary measures as a stick on undesired behavior of parent-and-child-ego. The other way may be to install measures for attitudinal change so that adult-ego takes active charge of the situation to steer it to a desired one.

This blog-post is about tackling the latter i.e. training mind (the adult-ego) on importance of 'dwelling meaningfully' in order to improve effectiveness of problem solving.

Problem Solving Steps

Problems can be categorized in four quadrants based on combination of:

1/ ease or difficulty level of identifying them and/or their causes and
2/ ease or difficulty in finding and/or implementing countermeasures on them.

Difficult-Difficult-type problems in particular need to be resolved step-by-step by breaking them down into smaller stones so that prioritized one can be taken one at a time. It's like breaking a mountain over a period of time in steps of blasts in a typical mine and thereafter hammering the larger (post-blast) rocks into smaller stones with an objective of making them worthy of utility.

Need for undertaking logical steps with equanimity gets enhanced with rising level of difficulty to identify the problems and/or to resolve them.

 7-steps in the Plan-Do-Check-Act Improvement (Kaizen) Cycle are:

Plan Step-1: Define a problem or a goal to create an innovative utility-value

Plan Step-2: Observe gaps in the current situation with reference to the goal (This is done after the first-aid solution is put in place)

Plan Step-3: Analyse and find root-causes of the gaps

Plan Step-4: Plan countermeasures to prevent occurrence and recurrence of causes

Do Step-5: Implement countermeasures

Check Step-6: Study effect of the countermeasures 

Act Step-7: 7a/ Standardize so that favorable effects are sustained 

Step-7b: Rotate the above steps: 1/ until favorable effects are achieved in case of unfavorable effects, 2/ to attain higher levels in case of favorable effects, 3/ to take a new improvement goal

''Dwelling'' on a predefined agenda in each problem-solving-step allows flow of unbiased creative thoughts useful for complicated problem solving. It allows 'brain-writing' those. It involves 'speaking-to-self' by asking 'why-why & what-where-who-when-why-how' kind of questions and 'writing' the evolved thoughts. 

This is contrary to 'speaking-to-others' as in brain-storming. Such a 'don't-speak' rule wearing a pink-hat virtually to represent that the problem-solver is in 'dwelling-mode' allows flow of 'wild-thoughts' that otherwise may get killed as in brain-storming.

I have added the Pink-Hat as the 7th-Hat to Edward De Bono's idea of 6-Hats: White, Red, Green, Black, Yellow And Blue, each with a purpose.

The Pink-Hat as a common one represents 'brain-writing' activity as above in each of the 7-steps that I have connected to an appropriate hat each. Pink-Hat is used in combination with each of Bono's 6- hats primary to a corresponding step. Each hat forces adult-ego to focus primarily on the agenda predefined for that particular hat and that particular step.

In step-1, Pink-Hat begins with taking ('brain-writing') inventory of problems. Then a priority problem is picked up to solve. As stated earlier, Pink-Hat is used in each step in combination with corresponding hat of that step to 'brain-write'.

In step-2, White-Hat is used to find factual gaps in an unbiased manner.

In step-3, Red-Hat is used to find root-causes of the gaps without keeping any emotional attachment to the problem. 

In step-4, Green-Hat is used to find alternative ideas (innovative countermeasures) to arrest root-causes.

In step-5, Black-Hat is used to critically assess risk while innovatively implementing ideas (countermeasures) .

In step-6, Yellow-Hat is used to assess benefits of the countermeasures taken.

In step-7, Blue-Hat is used to take an overview in an unbiased manner.

Going back to the earlier blog-post, the problem therein that of locked-door not opening was Easy-Easy-type. However applying structured steps as above could have yielded additional opportunities as follows over and above the first-aid solution that 'clicked' then:

1/ Create a 'how-to' operating-procedure for odd-season working of equipment,
2/ Create a 'checklist' to prevent abnormal behavior of equipment in odd-season,
3/ Create an innovative-design or material for the door and lock capable of handling abnormal conditions.

So one can imagine the potential and impact of application of hats in structured steps in case of  Easy-Difficult-type, Difficult-Easy-type and in particular that of Difficult-Difficult-type chronic and complicated crises situations.

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?
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 ! 
Do You Ask Right Questions?
Am I 'Short-sighted' or 'Long-sighted'? 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Comprehensive-Strategic-Audits

Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
When Safety Becomes Sorry 
Drove To Hell ... Almost !  
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !!
Part-1
In-big-problem? Wear-hats-to-solve-it! Part-2
How To Make A Difference
Big-Be Or Bug-Be !
Make checklists your friends
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
That's How Morons Work
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable
Waste-to-eat-sea-to-drink

Success Or Failure: What Do You Like?

This blog-post is a standalone extenson of my blog-post titled In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !! When the door-lock referred in there failed to open 's/he' (character in the blogpost) overcame the initial panic by 'dwelling-a-while' in a smile (on self)!

In the 'relaxed' moments thereafter, s/he didn't 'worry' about the situation as a problem although appeared concerned' about it. S/he considered it as a passing-phase. The adult-ego part of her mind as in Transactional-Analysis (TA) considered the problem as a stepping-stone! Problems as opportunities in work-clothes' as Henri Kaiser says. S/he crossed the 'stone' with care.

Most often rather than end-result itself, it is 'worry' in the interim (before and after an event fueled by Murphy's-law as they say) that intimidates & affects activities in the present. It consummates us in the process. It pushes even the bravest of the braves towards undesired results as its ill-effects.

Why does this happen?

There is a thin line between 'worry' and 'concern'! 

From the perspective of Transactional-Analysis, former is the prerogative of child-ego or parent-ego. Latter is that of the adult-ego. While day-dreaming about unpleasant things of past or future, the worry-struck person forces herself into inaction. S/he pushes herself into a vicious cycle of negative thoughts as happened in the case of the locked-situation referred above.

When 'care' was taken with 'positive-attitude' (rather with 'meditative-attitude' of 'concern') locked-equipment did behave favorably. It has scientific-explanation to it though. 

Perhaps an equipment 'behaves' the way the concerned operator/mechanic behaves or causes it to behave. May be behavior of machines around us is often the 'reflection' of the 'behavior' of the concerned operator.

Although a little difficult to get convinced, rather than the situation itself it's the meditative-positive 'attitude' in the interim towards a situation that is likely to help. Meditative-positive-attitude reminds one's adult-ego to revolve her thinking around what one really 'needs'. Mere positive-attitude instead may unnecessarily 'push' one's child-ego or parent-ego in the rat-race of what others 'want' of you.

So after training the mind to calm down by  'forcibly dwelling' in pleasurable moments imaginary though as above, as a natural sequel the next aim should be 'equanimity'.

What is Equanimity? 

Usually human nature or rather (the child-ego or parent-ego part of) the mind is programmed to rejoice successes and to cry-out failures. 

An equanimous behavior is: - not to (overly) worry about result/s per-se, - nor about the undesired effect of a cause or of multiple causes together as also - not to (overly) rejoice even if desired effects are achieved. 

First of all, both the desired as also the undesired effects may not last for ever. Moreover, indulging into rejoice or getting worried as the case may be hinders the learning process in either of the cases. 

An equanimous mind tends to study both the situations. 

And in work-life in particular, it studies corresponding processes in order to find out causes and their complex interrelationships that result into effects. The objective as the Robust-design fame Taguchi San says is to learn and act upon them in future in such a way that the desired causes  recur and undesired causes get prevented from recurring or occurring.

In this context, a saint's advice "Theviley-Anantey-Taisechi-Raahave" that loosely means "Live and enjoy God's design for you" largely seems to be misunderstood. For me, it means 'Live-with-equanimity' while making genuine efforts to design a future for your own-self.

Years ago, I was standing the whole day under the scorching Sun in a queue to seek admission in Sydenham college. The college was considered to be the 'top' in commerce-stream then in Mumbai. I couldn't get admitted. 

Next day I found myself wandering around Ruparel college about eight kilometers away. And funnily I got admitted in science-stream. The then Vice Principal Dr. Shinde personally helped me to fill in the form in spite of no acquaintance with me whatsoever. 

Goal-less, aim-less and clue-less, overnight my thoughts and actions got a swing like a pendulum from considering apprenticeship in an industrial trade to the commerce stream and then swinging from the commerce to the science stream. Being from vernacular medium, I struggled making sense of science subjects & biology terms in particular in the first year. But finally I landed (the right course although) 'off' (the original) course.

Looking back, funnily I am happy. 

Repeating 'funnily' is about another story for  another blog-post some other time.

While writing this, I was dwelling upon whether the so-called 'happiness' as above was an absolute one or relative one! Holding on to the handle of the 'see-saw' tight-n-tough (see picture) I tried to recall that. 

Eventually tough situations in past did not last for me forever particularly whenever 'I' stayed tough (in mind, spirit and actions) in the interim. 

Locks did open for me when caused with efforts. Walls did turn into windows and the windows turned into doors.

So it all depends on how you interpret the See-Saw. It depends upon whether you stay confident in the interim. It's a great idea to dwell upon such questions with relaxed mind in order to find your own answers:

Is it really failing? 

Or is it actually a stepping-stone towards success?

If at all trapped in so-called 'failed' situation, is it worth wasting time 'staying-put' in 'fallen' condition! 

Or Is it worth 'standing-up to an act' with more zeal!  

Isn't it worth taking concrete actions without 'overly worrying' about undesired results! 

Isn't it worth acting upon the learning from the desired ones instead of emoting out 'rejoice'!

Taking concrete actions is what tough people do consciously. They put in extra efforts. And they do it a little longer than others. They learn from both the, so-called failed or successful situations. 

Whatever happens thereafter happens for the good, as the saints say. 

That's equanimity for me!

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?
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 ! 
Do You Ask Right Questions?
Am I 'Short-sighted' or 'Long-sighted'? 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Comprehensive-Strategic-Audits

Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
When Safety Becomes Sorry 
Drove To Hell ... Almost !  
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !!
Part-1
In-big-problem? Wear-hats-to-solve-it! Part-2
How To Make A Difference
Big-Be Or Bug-Be !
Make checklists your friends
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
That's How Morons Work
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable
Waste-to-eat-sea-to-drink

Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green

My Mad-ness.. Bad-ness.. Goodness ... !

5000 km long queue of trucks full of solid-waste everyday by cities alone?

Wonder how much got added to the normal daily-garbage during a typical Diwali festival-day in India?: The crackers, the aesthetic components of primary & secondary wrappers of chocolates, sweetmeats, etc. gone into garbage!

How much does such madness of generating waste cost?

In 2010, it costed equivalent of Pakistan's GDP i.e. it costed $ 205 billion to deal with just the solid-waste world-over!

How much does other kind of waste cost?: 
I don't know the answer.

How much does land quality get deteriorated?:
I don't know the answer.

How much does such waste impact other environmental aspects such as contamination of drinking water, air, depletion of energy resources used to dispose the waste, etc?:
I don't know the answer.

How much does it cost and will it cost in terms of health issues in future?:
I don't know the answer.

Many such questions rise like smoke!

It may be easier to find answers if the questions are like 'smoke of a fire in seed-stage' kind problems. Unfortunately the smoke is of 'the fire that is already a wildly raging one' that has reached beyond human control. 

Google search may help find the answers. But the answers so far have been inadequate and incomplete! Research had been unable to keep pace with pace of problems rising due to consumerism! Queue of the garbage trucks otherwise wouldn't have been so long equivalent of covering aerial distance between London and NewYork.

By the time Newtons and Einsteins of the world perform difficult part of finding well-researched inventive-solutions, the only proven 'Zero-Garbage' action everyone can easily participate in to prevent waste is to make their celebrations innovatively Green!

Let's celebrate and recognize each such person who celebrates Green, each such day and each such moment that is celebrated Green!

Here's a MaiKu© poem while on the subject:

Rain Goddess lost destination
It's all raining perspiration
Cause lack of Green Celebration

©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
Bust-wants, Boom-needs

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 

Should one care for value?  

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

Bird that just chirped

Soon-waste-to-eat, Sea-to-drink !

Don't Save Water on Holi-day

Take your career in fast lane!

You might have read news items such as "More than 5-lakh appear for entrance tests competing for 50-60 IAS-seats" or "competing for 500-600 IIM-seats" or "IIT-seats", etc. 

IAS is Indian Administrative Services, IIM is Indian Institute of Management, and IIT is Indian Institute of Technology. Their global counterparts could be premier institutes such as HBS (Harvard Business School), INSEAD, etc.

Looking at such kind of news items many join the bandwagon without even caring to check suitability of corresponding professions in longer run. Some with plush jobs in campus placement thereafter find themselves landed into terrible trouble. In the midst of their careers they begin finding their jobs boring and wish to switch careers.

Why do jobs get boring?

During bouts of self-talk over a period of time, the so-called 'successful' careerists find 'something missing' in their 'plush' jobs in spite of a lot of money in it. They begin feeling underemployed although not underpaid. 

This happens because many a time careers get chosen on face-value of their 'lucrativeness' perceived from media's noise. Very few careers get chosen for the 'profile' that revolves around passion. Most get chosen for the 'pay-packet' without bothering about whether the job might turn out to be an enjoyment or a pain later. 

^ How should one choose a career?
^ Should one choose to be a politician, for instance, just because it appears lucrative?

^ Aren't there dimensions other than lucrativeness and 'pay-packet' that should be considered before shortlisting a typical career?

What are the relevant dimensions?

Every individual has some subtle individuality. It may be in terms of a melodiously timbered vocal chord, or an aptitude to mathematics or to orator-ship or passion to some form of art or a combination thereof.

Lucky are those who explore, exploit and enjoy while building their careers revolving around such individualities rather around their passions. Lucky are those who understand that lack of admissions in engineering, management, medicine, and corresponding premier institutes are not an end of the story. There are endless choices that go beyond such conventional narrow career-lanes.

A simple way to find a balance between passions and careers is to first of all find out what one is passionate about. Liking music or taking to it's thrilling beats for instance is different than being passionate about it. 

Passion is likely to be "what you 'love' doing" rather than what you 'like' doing. Eventually if 'what you like' does turn out to be a passion one must possess or be ready to develop proficiencies in the complimentary faculties to make a related career out of it. A passionate fellow about music should critically examine whether s/he is 'already good at' or is ready to put in the necessary hard-work (with smart-work of course) on cultivating her listening faculty or a melodious voice, etc. whatever may be her god-given 'possessions', into a required proficiency (developing & nurturing abilities or skills) to be a music-critic or a singer as a career respectively.

Even if the choice based on faculties does go wrong if at all, being passion-based, the extra efforts needed to convert those into capabilities and capacities might not be much boring. Passion is more likely to make the choice appear as a 'play' rather than as a 'work' or a 'job' (drudgery). Does anyone hesitate putting in heart-felt efforts on 'play-ground', for instance!

However much euphoric beginning it may be, a lucrative-career might wane over a period of time if the job is not passion-based. It may appear lucrative because of market-demand "what the world wants". It gets boring because it's not in-demand rather "not-loved" by self. So after a certain spell in the career, extra efforts called for by the market-demand appear like slogging. 

That's also may be a reason why human resource development (HRD) professionals find it difficult to motivate and align employees, howsoever they may try with the best-of-best pay-packets ("what the world is willing to pay you for"), towards the organisation's own passionate mission.

A couple of poetic lines ('Sher') by me on this in my mother tongue Marathi:
(One from you in English, Hindi or in a language of your choice is welcome)

असे ध्यास तर नसे तासनतास कामाचाही त्रास 

नसे ध्यास तर विषापरि असे अमृताचाही घास

A simple way to find out one's own passion/s is to engage in self-talk in order to zero-in on the activities that one enjoys;

- enjoys doing the most in spite of adversities and lack of appreciation from others,
- enjoys doing even at the cost of forgetting friends, family and food at times,
- enjoys continuously learning therefrom rather than getting bogged down by interim failures, if any, 
- enjoys performing them in newer ways while raising bar for one's own self,
- enjoys while finding ways-&-means to support them even if short of the required resources.

Knowing these dimensions, what steps does one take in order to make her job worthy and thereby shape her own career?

Steps to make 'work' worthy of 'play'ing

Step-1, Make commitment to choose career closely revolving around passion: "what you 'love' doing". Sometimes it may not be late to even switch the past so-called "liked" careers to the ones "you always loved" (and the ones that "the world 'wanted' and is willing to pay you for") particularly after the financial needs at that particular stage of life have been reasonably fulfilled. Be prepared to do so, even if some compromises are called for, both on your ego as well as on your current pay-packet at times.

Step-2, Zero-in on a couple of passions by a conscious self-talk. Key is in zeroing-in on them early enough. Psychometric tests may be useful in analysing your interests. Passions might be so subtle at times that only your parents, close friends, teachers and relatives might be in a better position to discover those. Unfortunately sometimes they tend to 'kill' those by 'advising' through smoke-glasses of their own successful or failed pasts or through (at times the 'self-taught') parental-conventions.

Step-3, Find out whether a couple of faculties complimentary to the short-listed passions pre-exist within. Are those faculties convertible into proficiencies, skills or Goal-abilities (my term for goal-oriented abilities) and thereby the corresponding passions convertible into careers?

Step-4, Without commensurate preparation passion has no destination. 

Put in the required hard-work and smart-work on cultivating the inherent faculties ("what you need to be good at" to do "what you love doing" in order to satisfy the "needs & wants of the world") into the Goal-abilities. Acquire additionally needed-ones if feasible. You may have to work over-time to do so. It's actually a fun-play working-out to heighten your abilities to suit the higher-level of your passion-oriented goals. While at the same time it's frustrating although may be easy to 'work' for the non-passion oriented lower-level goals.

Do SWOT analysis while nurturing with joy the chosen ones as above.

- Identity and polish your own corresponding strengths (S) if already possessed.
- Identity and overcome corresponding weaknesses (W), if any. It's important to allocate more energy on utilizing strengths rather than on overcoming weaknesses. The former is easier than the latter.
- Anticipate and tackle corresponding threats (T), if any.
- Anticipate and make use of every available opportunity (O) complementing the above process and in fact by being conscious to create some opportunities. 

If you are already employed, it might help greatly if you tune up above steps staying there itself in the same job until "the day" to do "what you love" with full throttle. There, in the current workplace, it may be easier to find out possible intersecting points between your interests and that of the current employer's. In that case, perhaps it might be easy for both you and your HRD to convert your current job into the one that you passionately loved and hence badly wanted. Instead, doing this by leaving the 'bird-in-hand' job might put you in tension ultimately resulting in loss of self confidence. Moreover, in the new job not only you may have to invest a lot of time establishing yourself with new "faces" but also you might get taken for granted there.

Step-5, Take an on-going review. Undertake a self-audit in order to check whether the chosen career is getting shaped as desired. Accordingly take corrective actions by going back to step-4 or step-1 as appropriate. 

A caveat: Being objective in deliverables might be more useful rather than merely being passionate and losing sight of the goals. 

Now-a-days people have been talking about IKIGAI as well, the Japanese concept (that means "a reason for being" or the very purpose of life), while planning careers. It may be practised in a structured manner with the steps and tips as elaborated above so as to take your career in right lane as well as to take it forward at a faster speed. 

Hope the tips help to attain the 'need-based' holistic satisfaction rather than mere 'want-based' monitory satisfaction. Former is long-term. Latter is short-term.

Footnotes:
Goal-abilities: Term coined by me for goal-oriented abilities. 

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

No Time? Micro-Meditate!  

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 
How To Make A Difference 
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

कधीतरी सापडेल का शोधता-शोधता ?

This one is about evolution of life on the planet with greedy human being around !

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say.
But what happens if desires become necessities? 

Truly-desired-inventions will surely lag behind the inventions-for-desires. And then man will get what he deserves of his own making... The Global-Warming !

Within 35-years, even lowest monthly temperature will be hotter than we experienced so far !! And then it might be too late a realisation !!!

कधीतरी सापडेल का शोधता-शोधता ?

माकडांचाच सीनियर-वानर आदिमानव तो भिरभिरता
भूकेला कोंडा, निजेला धोंडा तर लाजेला होता झाडपत्ता
गाय, बैल, मांजर, पोपट; बायकोसह सारे आले पहाता-पहाता
सिक्युरीटीला त्यांच्या गॉडी-कुत्रीचा, डॉगी-कुत्रा पण भुंकता

सुखासाठी बायकोच्या, तंगडतोड भटकता-भटकता
दिसला कापूस एकदा त्याला जंगलतोड करता-सारवता
बनवली लगेच गादी त्याने, तिच्या ऐषो-आरामाकरता
नवनवीन स्वप्ने पडती स्वत:च त्यावर क्षणभर पडता
मग काय, लागती शोधावर-शोध तनिकसे त्यावर लेटता
कोंडा-गोंडा-धोंडा झाले, रोटी-कपडा-मकान बघता-बघता

नॅचरल कापसाचा बेड आता नरमा-गरम पॉलियुरेथीनचा
कपडा चिकचिकीत करणा-या चकचकीत सिंथेटीकचा
दाल-रोटी जागी हाती फास्ट-फूड-पिझ्झा कॉन्स्टिपेटींग मैद्याचा
गादी बैठकीजागी सोफा-कम-बेडवर हाती पेला मद्याचा

बार्लीची-बीअर, बाईचा-बार, शेत-जमिनीचा एफ्एस्आय्.. सारेच हु..र्रे
कोणी-अरे, कोणी-कारे, हाणती एकमेका आई-बा काढता कारे?
"आता पूरे..!" भेदून-ओझोन येता येता उपसले अंती सूर्यानेच सरसर सूरे
मग काय?.. "आटताच पाण्याचे झरे, चमकले कारे दिवसाढवळ्याच तारे?"
जीव कासावीस झालारे, गुदमरला भातारे, भिरभिरलं डोकंरे, अरेरे-अरेरे !
उपयोग काय वाटून आता, रोटी-कपडा-मकानच होते बरेरे !
कोंडा-गोंडा-धोंडाही मिळेना कायरे? लेट झालाय हेच खरेरे !

समस्यांचा मॉडर्न डायनॉसॉरच समोर, ठाकला उभा-आडवा होता
माकडांचाही माकड होउनी राहीला होता आता तो तर पूरता
वाढताच गुंत्याचाही गुंता, स्व:शी झालाच तो एकदाचा बोलता
" ... थकलोरे ! वाटच लागली नव्या शोधांची वाट पहाता-पहाता,
स्वप्नच काय, नाकी नऊ येती झोपही आता येता-येता
कळुन चुकले मला, गरज आहे स्व-शोधाचीच खरं तर पहाता आता ... "

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?