Strategy: Confidence building

There are products and services, which exude confidence of reliability. This is backed by sustained efforts by the company to be consistent in offering what they are perceived to offer.

   The collapse of Enron, Lehman Brothers, Barings Bank and the tricksters revealed in the functioning of Satyam, IPL and likes, have left us to wonder whether the definition of ‘business’ has been revisited to mean ‘making money and money’ alone. No body believes in business any more. It is not strange to understand this change, which has been witnessed in almost all professions, including the medical – where the doctors are expected to govern themselves by the ‘Hippocratic Oath’ and the noble profession of teaching -where schools are supposed to be temples of learning and not for extortion of money from students. We shall save the reading by omitting the much touted politicians, bureaucrats and self professed god men etc.

    If a business strategy has the spirit of ‘sustainability’, it must work to command the confidence of its customers and public at large. The business must be seen to be coming from a good and responsible corporate citizen. This is a continuous process and should be exhibited both in words and action and perceived the same by all the people, i.e., the employees, the customers and the persons affected by the operations of the company, overtly or covertly.

   If you feel that your company should be reckoned with the trusted brand equity, you can start by

·        Treating people with utmost humane approach

·        Bringing transparency in your dealings

·        Being bold enough to accept responsibility, correct yourself and move on

·        Taking the feedback as an opportunity to improve and not as criticism

·        Learning to give more value for money through R&D, innovations, and ‘Benchmarking’ etc., and

·        Ensuring that the environmental balance is not disturbed.

   You can do it. The time to start is now.

To Worship the workplace and ‘My machine’

We often hear the advice “work is worship” in the form of a gospel. This, I feel, is told more as a metaphor than as a practical guide. The possible reason being, that both work and worship are intangibles.

Getting to tangibles, I have observed people worshipping their workplaces. They bow and touch the floor at the office entrance, revere before their desks/ workstations and some people pray for a while. Many of them dust the desk/ desktop etc., themselves, as well, before starting the day. The performing artists are generally seen to bow and touch the floor before entering the arena. These small gestures give back positive feelings to the workers/ employees, and it instills a sense of ownership in them. This sense of ownership leads the employee to work with dedication and commitment. The employee is then ready with the basic desire to lead a nice day. It is now up to the work environment to get best out of the employee.

In the above paragraph, the pivotal point is the feeling of ownership of the workplace by the employee, which adds value to the environment.

Taking the ownership factor further, recently I came across the concept of ‘My Machine’ at a plant. This concept can do wonders in improving the performance of the machines. In plants, where a worker or set of workers is assigned to work and operate on a particular machine, its ownership can be assigned to them. The owner’s name(s) can be displayed near the machine. They refer to the machine as ’my machine’. These virtual owners are expected to-

- Keep the machine neat and clean at all times (as a concerned housewife who keeps on cleaning the kitchen platform whenever there is some spillage or mess).
- Display the work status of the machine (e.g., under maintenance, under repair, no plan, no operator or the product being manufactured etc.)
- Also display the details of the work loaded on the machine and the quality checks that are to be performed.
- Suggest measures to improve the performance of the machine, like minor modification and technological improvement etc.
- Suggest improvements in the working environment of the machine.
- Keep periodical record of the improvements made in its performance and report ‘then’ and ‘now’, as a matter of learning.
- Ensure its timely preventive maintenance.

The best way to demonstrate the benefits of ownership are to let a vital (may be complex) machine to be owned by the Chief of Production.

The good practice should start from the top. Try this.